>>5061777
But your real concern is over the needle-dagger. This is one of the three anti-Witch weapons that the Moevia Chapterhouse owns, and while it is the smallest of the set, it is the one that gets taken out the most, considering its concealability. Currently, it is nestled inside the red sash that you are wearing around your waist, which is going to make it even harder than normal to draw. The issue is getting the blade free and clear without hitting the release on the inside of the basket hilt prematurely. Unless the needle that runs the length of the needle-dagger’s blade bites solidly into the flesh of a Stranger or some magical being, discharging would just be wasting Witchbane. Then again, as expensive as Witchbane might be to make, it at least still can be made. The same cannot be said for needle-blades. The hollow steel needle, with an orifice only a hairsbreadth or so wide is well beyond the capabilities of mundane metallurgy and milling. These weapons, designed specifically to fight magic users, ironically enough could only be made by magically augmented machines. And unfortunately enough, all of the known needle-mills that were built to make these needles were laid down before the first appearance of the Strangeness, which means that they were designed without any consideration for stability or shielding. So when the Strangeness appeared, the magical pieces of these forge-constructs started to dump obscene amounts of the Strangeness into the non-magical components of these constructs. By the time that someone had the idea to go looking for these machines to outfit some of the first pogroms, they had all been ruined – even the magical components had been adversely affected, which gives an idea of just how much Strangeness was running through those machines.

Supposedly an effort had been made to rebuild one, but clearly, nothing must have come from it because nearly two hundred years later, needle-blades are as dear as ever, and Abbots will send Brothers, Half and Full, to certain death or exposure with a wave of a hand, but they will agonize over equipping a Full Brother with a needle-blade. Chapterhouses that are lucky enough to possess these relic weapons have specialist Needle Armorers and Needle Master-at-Arms (informally called the Needlers-at-Arms). You have seen the impossibly delicate work that goes into maintaining this relic, and you have practiced with this very blade before, but you had not expected to be given it today. Partially because from what you had heard about this assignment, you did not think it to be warranted, and partially because, as much as the old goat seems to like you, you did not think that the Abbot would trust you with it. To be entirely honest, even after all of the training, you are not sure if you trust you with it. But you were not asked, and you are not going to throw a chance to prove yourself like this away, so you held your tongue. You hope that was wise.

>>5061779
Continuing on your way, you recount the details of the assignment. A new arrival in the city had purchased three short tons of low-purity lead. While that is not illegal, as lead is not considered a ‘controlled substance’, you have to wonder just why someone without a manufactory would need so much. It is possible that this new arrival is a front for a Witch, maybe even a Coven, purchasing bulk lead to be used in magical constructs for shielding, or to contain and eliminate the Strangeness produce by their witchery. Many of the highest-ranked in the chapterhouse seemed to be convinced of it. You, on the other hand … you are not sure. You would be completely behind that theory if the man was a merchant passing through, on his way to parts unknown, but the fact that neither he nor the lead has left Moevia, that he is laying down roots and making no effort to hide, it makes you think that there possibly could be a legitimate explanation for all of this. As for what that would be, you have no idea.

Maybe you are just deluding yourself, because you do not want to face the prospect of knocking on the front door of a Coven. Ha! Honestly, you are not too worried. This is not the first time you have conducted an investigation in a potentially hostile setting. So far, they have all been false alarms. There are Strangers, yeah, and you deal with them, but Witches? Constructs? No. You were still a Half-Acolyte when the last magical object was found in the city, and you were not even born yet when the last Witch was taken by the Moevia Chapterhouse. The graybeards and the whitebeards are so starved for action that they are jumping at shadows. You have got this.

And you have a good team backing you up – actually, you have three of them. The nine men of ‘Alpha’ are stationed across the street from the target residence, spread across three rented rooms, ready to bullrush the front door. The six men of ‘Beta’ have snuck their way on top of the tenement building that shares a wall with the target residence, disguised as roofers, on standby to breach into the fourth floor and work their way down. ‘Omega’ is a score of Half Brothers located across the street – the other street, the target residence is on a street corner – just inside the perimeter wall of a graveyard. They are in place to establish a perimeter, and if necessary, reinforce ‘Alpha’. From the minute that you cross over the threshold of that house, you have two hours. If you do not come out or give an extension signal in those two hours, or if you give a distress signal, then they will move to extract you. And woe to anything and anyone that gets in their way, Strange or otherwise. Though, with any luck, the most difficult thing that the lot of them will have to do today is exfiltrate. That will be tricky, especially for the boys in ‘Omega’. But if they could not do it, then they never would have been assigned.

>>5061780
Those three teams, as well as a number of Lamp-and-Flags keeping watch from a distance are all waiting on you … well, actually, they are all waiting on the Prime Lamp-and-Flag to start the count, but he is waiting on you. You widen your strides, and as you make your way down the street, pinching the brim of your hat between thumb and forefinger to prevent it from falling off, you get your first in-person look at the place. It looks nice … much nicer than you imagined actually. The corner lot that it was built on was noticeably smaller than the others around it, so the builders built up instead of out. It is four stories to the neighboring buildings three, and while the other houses and tenements up and down the street were build piecemeal – an addition here, a new floor overhanging the street there – this one was built deliberately, all in one go. Been taken care of too. As you draw closer, you can hear some members of ‘Beta’ intermittently working on the roof. You make a point of not looking at them, nor in the direction of ‘Alpha’, ‘Omega’ or where the Prime Lamp-and-Flag is situated. Your eyes are only on the door.

Mounting the front steps, you allow yourself time for one deep breath before using the knocker. You wait a moment or two, and are about to rap it again when you hear movement inside. The door opens, and the first thing you notice is that the vestibule within in not particularly well lit – the windows on the first floor all have their curtains drawn down. The second thing you notice is the maid. Wow. You take off your ridiculous hat to give yourself a second to gather your thoughts … but you just spend the time admiring her.

Her expression and frock are the epitome of demure, but there is something in her stance that keeps her from looking matronly. It has to be her height – she comes up to your chin, which is higher than a lot of men ever get – that, and her build. While she certainly has curves, there is a tightness, a leanness to her, and what little skin the dress she wears reveals around her neck is pretty well toned – for a woman, of course. That skin might be a pallid, almost sickly white in the dim light of the doorway, but it pairs well with her dark eyes and her straight black hair. In fact, the only thing about her that is not conventionally beautiful is her lips; they are thin, and almost bloodless. But the expectant smile she has them done up in as she waits for you introduce yourself seems warm and genuine enough that you know you could never bring yourself to consider them a flaw.

“Uh ... well met today. My name is Antono, I’m a Journeyman Glasser, and I have just received permission to work my trade here in Moevia from my Guild. But when I went to my approved lead supplier here, he told me your master had bought out all of the grade that I need. I was hoping that I could convince him to sell some to me, so I can get to work.”

>>5061781
“I’ll see.”

She softly closes the door and retreats inside. Hopefully, her master lets you in, though the investigation would not necessarily be a complete bust if he did not. You would walk back to the chapterhouse, but the teams would simply remain in place and monitor the building, to see if you stirred anything up. If you did, then they would play it by ear as best they could. If you did not set anything into motion (or if you did, but they could not see it) then it would be up to the Abbot and his inner circle to figure out what to do next about this situation. Whatever it was, you probably would not be involved, considering that you would be known to these people as ‘Antono’. Oh well. If you get nothing else out of this, you met an absolute vision of a woman today. Of course, it is not like anything could ever come of it. You spend the next minute feeling sorry for yourself, but you perk up when you hear footsteps approaching once more. The door opens again, this time wide enough to pass through.

“The master is more than willing to work out some arrangement. Please, come in.”

You follow her in. The vestibule and the foyer that it opens into is still fairly devoid of furnishings, but presumably the master of the house will purchase more furniture after he is finished settling in. The maid, whose name you definitely should ask for soon, takes your cloak and that damned hat, and after seeing them stored away, explains that her master is in the sitting room up on the fourth floor, and leads you up the staircase, situated against one of the outer walls of the building. You follow behind her, eyes riveted on her swaying hips as she takes the steps. Whatever she is wearing underneath that dress of hers, it does not offer a lot of padding, leaving very little of her figure to the imagination. On the third and final flight of stairs, you notice that there are little windows running in tandem with the steps – and only because she mentioned that she would like the view better if it overlooked a plaza instead of a graveyard.

Embarrassed that you have been so derelict in your duties, you finally take your eyes off of her to look. The small square window does actually provide a pretty good vantage point over the burying ground, but thankfully you cannot see ‘Omega’. Even if she does not care for it, honestly, you do not mind it. What you like the most is …

>>5061783
>Please choose ONE of the following:
> … how high you are. For as long as you can remember, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. Sometimes you were levitating. Sometimes you sprouted feathers or even full wings. But your favorites were the ones where you found a dragon, or a gryphon or a flying Herald and made it your mount. When you were younger and awoke from one of these dreams, you would go climb something tall, just to sit there and recapture the feeling. [Father’s Focus: Dragonbuilder]
> … how quiet everything looks down there. Despite prevailing opinions on the matter, you have always found graveyards to be quiet, serene places. In fact, there was that one time during your youth when you had run away from home that you actually slept in one, overnight. You had an odd waking dream, where under the stars, you felt as if you could feel as if your mind was reaching out, reaching into the ground … [Father’s Focus: Resurrection]
> … how perfect the statues that flank the main of the burying ground look. There are smaller ones scattered through the rest of the ground, and all together they sort of evoke the old stories that you have heard of automatons, servants and war machines knit together from flesh and steel and who knows what else. Immaculately obedient, something completely trustworthy. Considering your upbringing, is it any wonder why you admired them? [Father’s Focus: Puppeteer]

So, a little explanation of how this works. You, as in Chlotsuintha, have your father’s notes with you, though as they are in a cypher, you cannot read them at the moment. This vote determines what exactly your father is working on, which in turn determines what is in those notes. Later, when you have the time and ability to decipher them, you will be able to study the notes, and learn about one of these three specific area of focus; building pseudo-dragon constructs, resurrections, or large scale production of automatons. This is not to say that once you pick one, Chlotsuintha is not going to be able to learn about the others, it just means that if she wants to learn about one of the choices that does not get picked here, she is just going to have to find materials written about them, which is going to be difficult but not impossible.

Anyway, I hope to manage a post a day, and here is the link for the archive: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Graverobber%27s%20Daughter

>>5061786
Welcome back! Our first glimpse of Chlot's parents. You may be pleased or distressed to know, Trash, that I am basing my most recent D&D character off of Chlotsuintha. I greatly enjoy your writing, your setting, and her as a character.
>> … how high you are. For as long as you can remember, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. Sometimes you were levitating. Sometimes you sprouted feathers or even full wings. But your favorites were the ones where you found a dragon, or a gryphon or a flying Herald and made it your mount. When you were younger and awoke from one of these dreams, you would go climb something tall, just to sit there and recapture the feeling. [Father’s Focus: Dragonbuilder]
Dragons are cool. Although they are probably quite loud.

I'm imagining that Resurrection notes would mean Chlot's inheritance would teach her more medical things and Puppeteer would teach her more material science, and such.

>>5061786
>> … how high you are. For as long as you can remember, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. Sometimes you were levitating. Sometimes you sprouted feathers or even full wings. But your favorites were the ones where you found a dragon, or a gryphon or a flying Herald and made it your mount. When you were younger and awoke from one of these dreams, you would go climb something tall, just to sit there and recapture the feeling. [Father’s Focus: Dragonbuilder]
Most rad choice. Welcome back Trash!

>>5061869
>You may be pleased or distressed to know, Trash, that I am basing my most recent D&D character off of Chlotsuintha. I greatly enjoy your writing, your setting, and her as a character.
Pleased, definitely pleased. Let me know how the campaign goes, alright?

>I'm imagining that Resurrection notes would mean Chlot's inheritance would teach her more medical things and Puppeteer would teach her more material science, and such.
I don't want to just come out and say what each would give exactly, but you are sort of on the right track. All three will teach 'medical' magic or Life-Weaving. Dragonbuilder has some high level Life-Weaving magic, specifically stuff that you would need to know to build a completely independent pseudo-dragon construct. Necromancer has some medium level Life-Weaving magic, and introductory level 'Mountaineering' magic, which allows you to resuscitate souls back into the bodies they left behind, and slave them to your will. (The fact that the school is called Mountaineering is a horrendously blasphemous joke in-setting, but I can't explain it completely without spoiling some future story beats). Puppeteer has some medium level Life-Weaving magic and a touch of medium level Fetish magic, but it is designed for batch production (instead of just making one, make a half a dozen or more at the same time)

>>5061907
Glad to be back!

Anyway, I need to get some sleep. I'll check on this first thing tomorrow.

>>5061786
>> … how perfect the statues that flank the main of the burying ground look. There are smaller ones scattered through the rest of the ground, and all together they sort of evoke the old stories that you have heard of automatons, servants and war machines knit together from flesh and steel and who knows what else. Immaculately obedient, something completely trustworthy. Considering your upbringing, is it any wonder why you admired them? [Father’s Focus: Puppeteer]
Get in the robot Chlotsuintha

>>5061786
>> … how perfect the statues that flank the main of the burying ground look. There are smaller ones scattered through the rest of the ground, and all together they sort of evoke the old stories that you have heard of automatons, servants and war machines knit together from flesh and steel and who knows what else. Immaculately obedient, something completely trustworthy. Considering your upbringing, is it any wonder why you admired them? [Father’s Focus: Puppeteer]

>>5061786
>> … how perfect the statues that flank the main of the burying ground look. There are smaller ones scattered through the rest of the ground, and all together they sort of evoke the old stories that you have heard of automatons, servants and war machines knit together from flesh and steel and who knows what else. Immaculately obedient, something completely trustworthy. Considering your upbringing, is it any wonder why you admired them? [Father’s Focus: Puppeteer]
Welcome back

Just think anons! imagine how cute and horriblea pseudo-dragon will act, like a firebreathing angry cat! How amazing would that be?

>>5061786
I'm going to need a some time to decide, as all have their merits. Dragonbuilder sounds wicked, Puppeteer useful, and Resurrection more in tune with the theme and name of this quest. I'll think it over while I work.

>>5061786
>> … how perfect the statues that flank the main of the burying ground look. There are smaller ones scattered through the rest of the ground, and all together they sort of evoke the old stories that you have heard of automatons, servants and war machines knit together from flesh and steel and who knows what else. Immaculately obedient, something completely trustworthy. Considering your upbringing, is it any wonder why you admired them? [Father’s Focus: Puppeteer]

>>5061786
> … how high you are. For as long as you can remember, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. Sometimes you were levitating. Sometimes you sprouted feathers or even full wings. But your favorites were the ones where you found a dragon, or a gryphon or a flying Herald and made it your mount. When you were younger and awoke from one of these dreams, you would go climb something tall, just to sit there and recapture the feeling. [Father’s Focus: Dragonbuilder]

>>5061777
Hey man you ever gonna run Collapsing again?

>>5062375
Yes, I intend to. I just don't want to lose the momentum I have with going with The Graverobber's Daughter. Between classes and this Quest, I have not had the time that I would like to do some plotting for Collapsing, or actually deliver on all of the little things I have promised. Come Hell or high water, I intend to return to Debouche, just, I'm not sure when.

>>5061869 Dragonbuilder 1
>>5061907 Dragonbulider 2
>>5062063 Dragonbuilder 2 Puppeteer 1
>>5062083 Dragonbuilder 2 Puppeteer 2
>>5062093 Dragonbuilder 2 Puppeteer 3
>>5062341 Dragonbuilder 3 Puppeteer 3
>>5062369 Dragonbuilder 3 Puppeteer 4

>>5062230
Before I close the vote, I want to check, did you get a chance to vote anon? I'm not ready to write just yet, so I am going leave this up until 8pm Eastern Standard Time.

>>5062430
I am extremely torn but I'll tie the vote and leave it to either the dice or that Anon.
> … how high you are. For as long as you can remember, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. Sometimes you were levitating. Sometimes you sprouted feathers or even full wings. But your favorites were the ones where you found a dragon, or a gryphon or a flying Herald and made it your mount. When you were younger and awoke from one of these dreams, you would go climb something tall, just to sit there and recapture the feeling. [Father’s Focus: Dragonbuilder]

>>5062430
Ok man good to know, I'll keep an eye out

Damn, just checked an hour too late. Glad to see this is back.

>>5061786
Wait, actually, if the vote is tied and I can still vote, then I vote for...
> … how perfect the statues that flank the main of the burying ground look. There are smaller ones scattered through the rest of the ground, and all together they sort of evoke the old stories that you have heard of automatons, servants and war machines knit together from flesh and steel and who knows what else. Immaculately obedient, something completely trustworthy. Considering your upbringing, is it any wonder why you admired them? [Father’s Focus: Puppeteer]

While having eventually learning to have a very high Life-Weaving core skill sounds very useful and interesting, and being able to make a pseudo-dragon construct sounds amazing, I think we'd be constrained in actually using such a creature except in emergencies and it would honestly be more useful for if we fled into the deep woods than going into the countryside. Whereas automaton servants can help us in the safety of our home, making further magical process more smooth and faster and we can make more of them allowing them to be in more places at once and further speeding production, they may even be able to be disguised as normal creatures or statues, giving them some use in more normal situations possibly. A shame, I'm actually a bit more interested in the other two, but I personally think this is the best.

>>5062430
Actually, I've been busy all day and hadn't the time to sit down and read. In all honesty, I think dragons are rad and having Father's work being something that has an element of his childhood wonder in it really won me over.

>Dragonbuilder

Sorry for creating another tie, this anon >>5062485 makes a good point on Puppeteering being more useful in general, and I was torn between the two.

>>5062443 Dragonbuilder 4 Puppeteer 4
>>5062485 Dragonbuilder 4 Puppeteer 5
>>5062507 Dragonbuilder 5 Puppeteer 5

Well, I think this might be the most participation I have ever had in a vote. Rather then roll for something like this, I am going to make post in the general right now.

>>5062517
> … how high you are. For as long as you can remember, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. Sometimes you were levitating. Sometimes you sprouted feathers or even full wings. But your favorites were the ones where you found a dragon, or a gryphon or a flying Herald and made it your mount. When you were younger and awoke from one of these dreams, you would go climb something tall, just to sit there and recapture the feeling. [Father’s Focus: Dragonbuilder]

>>5062533
Alright, there we go. Consider this vote closed. I am writing right now.

… how high up you are. While they are not as frequent as they once were, you have always had vivid dreams about flying. There were the ones where you would levitate as if you were some sort of Witch. Then there were the dreams where you were a young child once more, and you were trying to run away from home again, but this time there was this unseen pursuer chasing after you – you did not know who they were or why they were after you, you just knew that you were terrified of them – and just when your legs were about to give out from underneath you, you would suddenly sprout wings and take to the skies. Up there, in those dreams, you were able to run away. From the pursuer and from your home. The best flying dreams though were the ones where you would stumble across some creature; like a dragon, or a gryphon, or a Herald, and even though these were all fearsome beasts you would make friends with them and then take to the skies on their backs. Those dreams always ended much too soon.

When you were younger, and did not have the responsibilities you have now, whenever you would awake from a flying dream, you would always go and climb the tallest thing nearby, just so you could sit there up in the sky, and try to recapture the feeling. You cannot help but sigh, but it is a happy sigh. Feeling somewhat fortified by the memories, you return your focus to the task at hand – the investigation, but as the maid opens the door to the sitting room and gestures you inside, you cannot help but smile at her as you pass her by.

Back in the present, in Scrimshaw Mount:

Your name is Chlotsuintha, and as you make your back to the Midden, you are noticeably more sluggish. Everything you have done in the past twenty-four hours, especially the spellcasting, is starting to wear on you. You would like nothing more than to be able to go home and get a good night’s sleep. Of course, that is simply not possible. You have so much to do, and ever time you turn around it seems that there is something else that –

“Animal Control!”

What? You turn around to see some well-fed housewife lumbering towards you. You wonder just why on earth she is thinking, until you realize with a start that you are still wearing the red scarf that Ossavian gave to you – she must think that it is the sash that Animal Control Lepers are required to wear. You are about to explain her mistake, but before you can get a word out, she just starts talking over you.

“There’s some damned gull that’s stuck in my chimney – it sounds sick, and I just had the thing swept a week ago. You come and take care of it.”

A gull? A Hook Gull? From what you read of Ossavian’s note, whatever the Inquisition recovered from the investigation was affecting gulls. Now, maybe the bird in the chimney here is just sick, but … maybe it has gone Strange, or is still under some sort of spell, though you cannot imagine what kind of spell causes birds to fly themselves into chimneys.

File: Hook Gulls.webm (2.95 MB, 960x540)

2.95 MB WEBM

>>5062685
Wait a minute. Should you even be thinking about this? It is already only a matter of time before the Inquisition exhumes the coffin of Aldoin. When they do not find the magical graven ball that presumably killed him, it is going to be obvious that you were the one that has it, as you were the only one alone with the coffin after it left the Morgue. And because the body is not as Strange as it once was, and the coffin is not Strange at all anymore, it is also going to be obvious that you are a Witchlet who magically mitigated and remediated them. As it is, you already have one foot inside of a Lead Maiden. If you get caught up in this, who knows what will happen.

On the other hand, after receiving some information from the Master Abbot, you feel almost certain that that whatever was happening in that apartment was somehow related to your father. It is certainly possible that this bird could provide some clue – and not to mention, if the damned thing is Strange, then you could be saving this family from a painful, potentially crippling or even fatal ‘curative custody’ in the local chapterhouse.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.
>You simply cannot afford to overlook this. Besides, if the damned thing was Strange, and the Inquisition came for her and her family, you would … well, you would not like that. Especially because you could have prevented it.

>>5062687
>You simply cannot afford to overlook this. Besides, if the damned thing was Strange, and the Inquisition came for her and her family, you would … well, you would not like that. Especially because you could have prevented it.

To be blunt, I would not choose this without the OOC knowledge that because we just chose the Dragonbuilder choice, this may have something to do with it. Though it may be entirely unrelated.

On the other hand, there was some talk in the previous thread about how we were getting sidetracked over and over again, perhaps it is best to ignore this. Or perhaps we could bait a conversation with one of the Inquisition folks about "some damn woman kept pestering me about Hook Gulls on the way home" so they can take care of it before the Strangeness spreads. I dunno.

We should have time, if I remember correctly on our first evening we had time to talk to some people, still get dinner, and pick up food and supplies for the following days despite doing multiple things or wasting some time, though I may not be recalling correctly.

>>5062687
>>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.
Get Chlot some clothes! Information is all well and good but she does still have to escape.

>>5062687
>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.

>>5062687
>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.
no more distractions

>>5062687
>>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.

>>5062687
>You simply cannot afford to overlook this. Besides, if the damned thing was Strange, and the Inquisition came for her and her family, you would … well, you would not like that. Especially because you could have prevented it.

The more the Inquisition is focused on the Hook Gulls, the less attention they'll pay to other Strange sources, with any luck mistaking the Gulls as the source of the Strangeness instead whoever shot the corpse. Plus, I'd rather we play Chlot as a bleeding heart instead of cold and callous.

>>5062696
We should still be able to get to the dressmakers in time. Besides, I was hoping to visit Smil's home soon so we ain't blindsided by his friends and associates when they start investigating his disappearance.

>>5062687
>You simply cannot afford to overlook this. Besides, if the damned thing was Strange, and the Inquisition came for her and her family, you would … well, you would not like that. Especially because you could have prevented it.

>>5062687
>>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.

>>5062687
>>You simply cannot afford to get involved here. Besides, if you did, you would be risking missing out on placing an order at the dressmakers today. Hopefully they will be alright on their own.

>>5062696 Check out 1
>>5062706 Check out 1 Clock out 1
>>5062751 Check out 1 Clock out 2
>>5062772 Check out 1 Clock out 3
>>5062815 Check out 1 Clock out 4
>>5062824 Check out 2 Clock out 4
>>5062858 Check out 3 Clock out 4
>>5062926 Check out 3 Clock out 5
>>5062994 Check out 3 Clock out 6

Alright, closed and writing. Also, my ID will have changed.

Just caught up on this, compelling stuff Trash!

File: Your Eyes.jpg (22 KB, 500x333)

22 KB JPG

Perhaps you should … no. No, you simply cannot afford to get involved here. If this gull does happen to be one of the Hook Gulls that was exposed to just whatever was going on up in that apartment, and this somehow got back to the Inquisition, how the Hell would that look, especially after just weaseling your way out of suspicion? It is a big, a huge risk – all for a baseless hope that there would be a clue on the bird itself. And unless that clue was a forwarding address, you doubt that you would be able to make anything of it with the time you have left in the city anyway. You do feel more than a little guilty turning your back on this woman and her family, but at this point … well, it is possible that the Hook Gull is only Strange in the first degree, unable to spread the Strangeness, and if that was the case, even if the Inquisition found them, then even they would probably have a hard time justifying throwing them into curative custody. As long as they do not touch the poor damned bird, they should be alright. And you are going to tell her as much. In fact, that gives you an idea on how to extricate yourself from this …

“As you say, ma’am. But I will need to go get my equipment. If you would wait for me on your front steps to let me in, I should be back ten minutes or so. Just, stay away from the bird – and the chimney too. Foul humors.”

Without another word, you turn around, and head back the way you came. The housewife, perhaps a little miffed that a Leper was giving her terms, and not the other way around, remains rooted for a moment or two, but soon you can hear her plodding even over the bustle of the street. Once you are convinced that you are lost to her sight, you duck down a desolate side alley, and detour around the woman. As you hustle along, you undo Ossavian’s neckerchief, to make sure this misunderstanding does not happen again. Knowing that even with his seemingly casual disregard for spiritual cleanliness, he would never want the thing back, you actually consider tossing it, but before you can come to a decision, the sound of approaching footsteps ahead makes up your mind for you, at least for now. You quickly but not carelessly stuff the cloth in the pocket opposite to the one that holds the mitigated remains of the graven ball.

Now – on the to the Midden, and then to find a dressmaker. You have never been to a dressmaker before, but you have a general idea of what to expect. Undressing for measurements, which means you are going to have to activate Hide-Eyes, you are not going to be able to bring weapons … and you are going to have to pray that they have a measuring thread on hand long enough for you. Beyond that, you really are not sure how exactly this is going to work. Would the payment be up front, or just half up front? Well, you could bring enough that it would not matter, but then that introduces another issue.

>>5064174
Your current dress is a bit rough around the edges, figuratively, and physically for the sleeves that you had to extend and the hood you made yourself. Walking in and trying to commission something dressed like that would raise a lot of eyebrows, and that is not even considering that there is a description of the pirate who robbed the captain of the Euthyphro – what was it, an uncommonly tall cross-dresser, or an unnaturally tall and strong woman? Wearing a ‘ragged dress’? Who has a reward on their head equivalent to at least six years’ worth of wages for a common laborer? Now, if anything came up, you might be able to lie your way out of this. But, if you were willing to take a little bit more time, and buy a pen and paper and ink, you could write down your lies, which now would make them a lot more believable – you could say you were a maid, and your mistress realized that this was the only dress you owned beside your uniform, and she was so overcome with noblesse oblige that she sent you to get something custom made. You even have the money on your right now – the four-talent that the Master Abbot gave you (which you were planning on giving to Vaclav, but no matter, you have a pillowcase full of bullion, you will just give him another coin). The only reason why you are still thinking about it is that hardware stores, like the one you went to yesterday do not sell pens and paper and ink. That would be the purview of a specialty store, which you would need to find, and even then, there would be no guarantee that they would sell you anything. And worst of all – you would be remembered. Now, hardware stores must have accounting books, so perhaps you could try to convince a proprietor to sell you one, but then they would remember you too – and if they named a preposterous price, and you met it, then they would remember you even more. Maybe … maybe you could steal writing supplies from somewhere? But then that is another pot of worms entirely.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>You will go to the dressmakers without a note.
>You will attempt to buy writing supplies from a specialty store.
>You will attempt to steal writing supplies from a specialty store, dressed as a Leper.
>You will attempt to steal writing supplies from a specialty store, dressed in your street clothes.
>You will attempt to buy writing supplies from a hardware.
>You will attempt to steal writing supplies from a hardware, dressed as a Leper.
>You will attempt to steal writing supplies from a hardware, dressed in your street clothes.

Sorry it took so long to get this one out, but if we get enough votes in quick enough, I should be able to get a second update in today.

>>5064178
> You will attempt to steal writing supplies from a specialty store, dressed as a Leper.

>>5064178
>You will attempt to steal writing supplies from a specialty store, dressed in your street clothes.

>>5064178
>You will go to the dressmakers without a note.

>>5064178
really nothing sufficient at home, huh? I guess any notes would be on scraps and rough bark-paper, rather than fine smooth white nice stuff
>>5064178
>>You will go to the dressmakers without a note.
I think a written lie just complicates things. if there's a mistress then that mistress will have a name, and she'll need to live somewhere, and the dressmaker might want to talk to her...no, better not. and Chlot has few of the graces of a maid, domestics are expected to act and look a certain way and she is quite too noticeable for that.

>>5064438
>>5064244
>>5064193
>>5064189
Okay, closed and writing.

>>5064438
I think a written lie would lead them in the wrong direction, and there wouldn't be any issues in regards to our height, tattered dress, and the amount of money that we have. You just put a big bullseye on our back, and we'll be walking into a trap just to get our damned dress, assuming they even make one and don't sell us out. A written lie is way better than waltzing in without a note under suspicious circumstances.

Unable to immediately make up your mind, you keep walking. Without realizing, you shorten your stride for a few blocks, though once you finally realize, you pick up again. However, you are going to have to make up your mind soon, because right now, you are on the second lowest of the terraces in the Chip. If you keep going, you will find yourself in Stickport, with the hardwares there fewer and further between than in the Chip – and there are not any stores that sell writing supplies, at least that you know of. Pattern’s Perdition, you are wasting time! Are you going to use a false note, or are you not?

Well … you know for an absolute fact that stealing the supplies for the note carries the risk that you are caught, or at least spotted red handed. Just as buying the supplies for the note carries a smaller risk, that you are recognized as someone with a bounty on your head, or ‘made’ as a man of the Thief-Taker’s Guild might say. Of course, there is also a risk that you are ‘made’ in the dressmakers, but the description the criers are giving of the pirate that cleaned out the Euthyphro’s strong box focuses on two things – their height, which you are not going to be able to do anything about, obviously, and their dress. So, you have no choice here, you absolutely must go to a dressmaker. But you do not absolutely need to take the risk of buying or stealing the writing supplies, do you? And how much risk are you avoiding by going to the dressmakers as a maid with a note from her mistress anyway? What if they start asking you questions? Specific questions? What if people like your fictitious mistress are expected to have accounts at dressmakers, instead of paying up front, and they make a stink about it?

Your mind is far from being made up, but your gut is leaning towards doing it without a note. No props, no sob story. Just show up with the money – in small denomination coins, of course – and if they press you, just say that you have been saving up. You lengthen your stride once more and make good time on your way back to the Midden. The palisade gates are open, and as you approach the main entrance from the perimeter road, you can hear dinner being served in the main plaza on the other side of the wall. Intermittently you can hear grocers calling out their wares, though you know that there will not be as many as there were yesterday for payday, so the prices will not be as competitive. But as you draw within six feet of the gate, to your shock, Strange-Staining actives.

Four sets of shifting monochrome stains. All of them lead straight into the Midden, but only two of them are still recognizable as footprints. The other two are slowly growing amorphous blobs vaguely in the shape of footprints. The fact that the stains are still growing means that the two amorphous sets of footprints could be Strange in the second degree, meaning that if you were to step on it, you would turn your own boots Strange.

>>5065019
If that was the case, then that would mean that the boots that made those two sets of prints would have to be Strange in the third degree. And you do not even want to think what that means for the two damned souls who were wearing those boots. But wh – oh, those fraying Coroners! Those absolutely frayed Coroners! If they, or anything they are wearing is Strange in the third degree, or higher, then if they were left unchecked, they could contaminate the whole Midden, and everyone in it. But only if they or their clothes were Strange in the third degree, or higher. If they were just – just! – Strange in the second degree, then their doom would be their own.

Is it possible that the footprints are Strange in the second degree – or higher? The only surefire way to find out is to step on one. But if you were to do that, and it was, then what? If you wanted to stop this, then you would have to track down at least two Coroners, maybe all four, and then steal their clothes to remediate them. And if any of them where Strange in the third degree or higher themselves, then all of that would be wasted effort because the minute they put the clothes back on they would recontaminate them, and then the clothes would go back to contaminating everything they came into contact with. So why would you even think of wasting time like this?

…

Because even if you are about to leave and never return, this is your home, dammit. And even though you have been keeping them all at arm’s length, you do not want to see your fellow Lepers hurt like this if you could help it. And there is a chance that you could. It will mean not going to the dressmakers tonight, and unlike the rest of the Mount, everyone here knows who you are, so sneaking around will be much harder. But if you do not, and Strangeness spreads unchecked, then … well, being held by the Inquisition in curative custody can be fatal even to those with sound bodies. You do not want to think how many Lepers will succumb.

So, just how selfless are you going to be tonight?

>Please choose ONE of the following.
>Continue with your plans to go to the dressmaker, and hope for the best.
>Abandon the plans to go to the dressmaker tonight, and try to track down the Strange Coroners.

>>5065020
From the previous thread, an explanation of 'degrees of Strangeness'.
>A rough (and dangerous) way to quantify the Strangeness is by communicability. The more communicable the Strangeness is, the Stranger something is. If something is Strange, but it is not Strange enough to be able to spread the Strangeness, then by this methodology, it is referred to as being Strange ‘in the first degree’. If something is Strange enough to spread the Strangeness, it is referred to as being Strange ‘in the second degree’. If something is Strange enough to spread the Strangeness – and the things that it spreads the Strangeness to are Strange enough to spread the Strangeness on their own, then the original object is referred to as being Strange ‘in the third’ degree.

So, this is a big character vote. When Chlotsuintha decided to let the captain of the Euthyphro live, even though it would seriously complicate her escape, and mean that she would have a bounty hanging over her for the rest of her natural life, I took that to mean that she has an strong inclination towards selflessness, even under duress. Which is why I am even offering this as a choice. Had she murked the captain, she would have seen the footprints, realized what it meant, felt bad about it, but then gone on with her plan.

Now this vote will determine just how strong that inclination is, and will also determine what choices are available when faced future dilemmas.

oh no
morals...my first enemy
>>5065020
>>Continue with your plans to go to the dressmaker, and hope for the best.
I am seriously conflicted on this vote, but given that Chlot's plan to fix this on her own is to steal the CLOTHES off of MULTIPLE people's backs, perform risky and difficult magic that puts herself at further risk of Strangeness and of damaging the items in question, and then put them BACK and hope that she gets away with it, it is just absolutely absurd for her to try her plan.

>>5065048
For clarification, all she would be doing right now is finding them in the crowd, and make sure that she can deal with the level of Strangeness and that they are not so far gone that they present an immediate threat to the rest of the Midden. If an opportunity presented itself to steal some of their clothes, she would certainly be able to take it, but she is planning on doing most of the stealing once they head to bed, and change out of their clothes. They could be doing that right now, they could be doing that in several hours. With everything else she needs to do tonight, she just has to do it as soon as possible to make sure she can fit in everything else, which is why this choice is between trying to save the Midden and going to the dressmakers tonight.

>>5065020
>Continue with your plans to go to the dressmaker, and hope for the best.

No, no, no, NO! We already knew this would be an issue, of all the ones to ignore this would be it. It will take too much time, be complicated as hell, will tire us out and will require us to act suspiciously, throwing copious amounts of salt everywhere, may require us stealing their clothes, and not-even-finally they themselves are probably strange.

We tried to be good by sparing that Captain's life, but not murdering someone in cold-blood for money is one thing, not going through hell to fix every little thing and help everyone we know is another. We were already exhausted from remediating things, our Strangeness is probably still high even if it didn't show up on the Dosimeter, and we've just got so much to do and not much time to do it in. Many more things will probably pop up, lets not get bogged down.

Besides, if anyone deserved to fucking suffer some consequences it is those damn coroners, even if the people they are harming by not turning themselves in don't.

We'll just have to accept that while this WAS our home, it'll soon be just one transient stop in a long line of places we happen to stay in our life. Don't get sentimental. I'm not saying we ought never do selfless things again, but we cannot do this.

Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty compelling choice. I just think that is a step too far, losing out on being on schedule and seeing the dressmaker. I've typically been one to follow these digressions much to the chagrin of other anons, but I've come to agree that we need to be more focused at the moment, we've got a lot on our plate.

I also don't really want to lock Chlot's character into being selfless all the time, I want the option to be selfish when the going gets tough. Being pulled between doing what's right and the convenience that selfishness offers is very compelling, and has been for the entire quest for me, but I personally want a balance between doing whats right despite the consequences and being selfish in order to make a game over less likely.

>>5065020
>Continue with your plans to go to the dressmaker, and hope for the best.

>>5065020
> Continue with your plans to go to the dressmaker, and hope for the best.

I'm sad we are corrupting the poor girl over time but the pragmatist in me wins out.

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Okay, that is four votes.You are going to head to your room in the Not-Temple, scarf something down quick to eat, grab enough money to afford a dress or two and sneak out of the Midden going through the dried up well, as usual. For sneaking out, I am going to need some rolls. 3x1d100, to be precise. As I should have mentioned in the opening post, this quest uses a slightly modified version of Forgotten's 3x1d100 system for rolls, except for spells, which are 1x1d100, as we usually cast a bunch of them in one sitting, and waiting for three rolls for each of them would be a horrendous slog.

>DC 33: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Sneakthief, making a basic Stealth Test like this [Easy]
> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Known in the Midden
> + DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Hard to Miss, given her size
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is carrying a purse full of clinky coins
> + DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in broad daylight.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has Complete Knowledge of the Midden
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in an area with some concealment
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in a poorly trafficked area
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth while potential onlookers have an active distraction (dinner in main plaza)
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has successfully manged this stealth test recently

>DC 27: Anything lower is a failure. [No re-rolls. No hostile re-rolls]

>No Passes: Someone sees you climbing into the well, and the have a lot of questions for you. You will have a choice, to try to talk yourself out of it, or to run away.
>One Pass: Someone sees you sneaking towards the well, and they have some questions for you. You will have a choice, to try to talk yourself out of it, or to run away.
>Two Passes: Someone hears something big moving down the well, but they cannot see you. Depending on how crazy things get tonight, they might mention this to someone - or not.
>Three Passes: If anyone is even there, they are oblivious to your creeping. No matter how the night goes, no one will have any suspicions about this random, dried up well...

>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2), then you automatically fail this test by being seen and identified as you climb into the well. You will have a choice, to try to talk yourself out of it, or to run away.
>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99), then you automatically pass this test, and you find a lucky tenth-talent down here, which gives you a single-use re roll.
>A Critical Failure overrides a Critical Success and a Near-Critical Success, but a Critical Success overrides a Near-Critical Failure.
>You are STRONGLY encouraged to roll again after fifteen minutes if more rolls are needed, to keep the quest moving.

May your luck run white!

Rolled 17 (1d100)

>>5065157

May fate see me through.

>>5065163
If you are still here, and you feel up to it, you may roll again.

Rolled 4 (1d100)

>>5065193
Do it shall be

>>5065196
* Sorry, should be "so", Thanksgiving and quarts of grey goose involved.

Rolled 8 (1d100)

>>5065157
Still need dice boss?

The patternmaker is punishing us for abandoning the lepers.

Rolled 7 (1d100)

>>5065157

Rolled 53 (1d100)

>>5065241
Should we just see how many rolls below 20 we can do?

>>5065241
>>5065227
>>5065196
>>5065163
there's like a 6% chance for this shit. That's divine retribution if I've ever seen it.

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Well, well well. Aren't we in a pickle now? Considering this is an extension of the roll, you get the choices right now instead of after I write up the narrative.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Even if this nosy bastard recognizes you as one of the 'two bats', you just need to hope that you and your father's reputation for bizarre behavior is enough to explain this. So long as no one investigates the well and finds your exit, then you should be safe enough using this one. Just run off, and hope for the best.
>You are going to need to explain yourself. And you are going to need to explain yourself in someway that does not make this whobody Leper consider investigating the well. That is probably going to be difficult.
>You are going to need to explain yourself. Make up some story that involves someone acting suspicious around the well. That means someone will investigate the well eventually, possibly tonight, and find the exit. Once it it has been found, it will be sealed off, and guards - and Lepers - will be paying much closer attention to exits (and you). That said, having a sensible excuse for climbing into a well means that you will have an easier time selling the lie.
>You have never done something like this before, but maybe you could try to pay him off. You have the four-talent, that works out to be a weeks worth of wages. Just tell him it is worth his while to keep his mouth shut. Tell him you can pay him more. Don't offer any explanation.
>You have never done something like this before, but maybe you could try to pay him off. 'Come clean' about the tunnel down the well, say that you are using it to smuggle stuff into the Midden for sale. Offer the four-talent, a weeks worth of wages. Make sure he understands that it is worth his while to keep his mouth shut. Offering an explanation like this might make it easier for him to swallow and go along with it. Or it could raise additional questions.
>This is not like the thing with the Euthyphro's captain. This luckless soul can identify you, he can point guards directly to the belfry, which has a dead body lying in your room, and some magically hidden magical equipment upstairs. Father frequently said that a witness that can call the authorities is just as dangerous as the authorities themselves ... and that they should be dealt with in the same way. You never liked hearing that, and you would always tell yourself that it was wrong and that you would never ... but everything has been slipping out of your control. If things get anymore complicated, you might not be able to escape with the clothes on your back, let alone with father's equipment. This is ... not a risk you are going to take. There are two pin-stiletteos in your boots. And there are loose rocks around the well itself, that would fit comfortably in your hand. For that matter, there is the well itself.

>>5065261
>>This is not like the thing with the Euthyphro's captain. This luckless soul can identify you, he can point guards directly to the belfry, which has a dead body lying in your room, and some magically hidden magical equipment upstairs. Father frequently said that a witness that can call the authorities is just as dangerous as the authorities themselves ... and that they should be dealt with in the same way. You never liked hearing that, and you would always tell yourself that it was wrong and that you would never ... but everything has been slipping out of your control. If things get anymore complicated, you might not be able to escape with the clothes on your back, let alone with father's equipment. This is ... not a risk you are going to take. There are two pin-stiletteos in your boots. And there are loose rocks around the well itself, that would fit comfortably in your hand. For that matter, there is the well itself.
Pray no one will miss this guy

>>5065261
you kinda lost me trash. What is happening? What are we voting for?

>>5065261
>This is not like the thing with the Euthyphro's captain. This luckless soul can identify you, he can point guards directly to the belfry, which has a dead body lying in your room, and some magically hidden magical equipment upstairs. Father frequently said that a witness that can call the authorities is just as dangerous as the authorities themselves ... and that they should be dealt with in the same way. You never liked hearing that, and you would always tell yourself that it was wrong and that you would never ... but everything has been slipping out of your control. If things get anymore complicated, you might not be able to escape with the clothes on your back, let alone with father's equipment. This is ... not a risk you are going to take. There are two pin-stiletteos in your boots. And there are loose rocks around the well itself, that would fit comfortably in your hand. For that matter, there is the well itself.

>>5065287
Someone saw us. Decide how you want to deal with him.

>>5065296
Got it, thank you.
>>5065261
>You have never done something like this before, but maybe you could try to pay him off. 'Come clean' about the tunnel down the well, say that you are using it to smuggle stuff into the Midden for sale. Offer the four-talent, a weeks worth of wages. Make sure he understands that it is worth his while to keep his mouth shut. Offering an explanation like this might make it easier for him to swallow and go along with it. Or it could raise additional questions.

we can at least try to bribe the guy can still off him if that fails.

Wait, wait, wait. Catching up.

>>5065261
>Even if this nosy bastard recognizes you as one of the 'two bats', you just need to hope that you and your father's reputation for bizarre behavior is enough to explain this. So long as no one investigates the well and finds your exit, then you should be safe enough using this one. Just run off, and hope for the best.

I am absolutely against killing this guy even if this guy is more dangerous to us than the captain. The point of not killing the captain despite the danger to us is that we are willing to bear the burden of inconvenience or even pursuit by the law or injury or death by bounty hunters in order to do the right thing. We may steal and we may kill in "self defense" but we should be willing to risk severe risk in order to take the high road when lives are on the line like this. It is better than staining our immortal soul.

I am also against bribery, after all, if this guy is motivated by money, then claiming our bounty which we fit the description of will be worth a lot more than us paying this guy the mere convenience of a weeks wages with more to come. For all this guy knows he may never have the chance to claim his additional bribes if he comes to the belief that we are the ship-thief because we'd obviously leave the city with the heat on us and a load of valuables. It is also just more suspicious.

Lying is possible, and there are probably other sneaky thoroughfares we could use if it is closed, but I'd rather not risk the hard lie with our luck even if we are a good liar. The easier lie is fine, but inconvenient. And considering that we seem to require a full 3 successes to fully succeed versus Forgotten's more forgiving "2 successes is a full success, 3 is usually something even better" I'd rather avoid having to roll at all.

Just being recognized and sneaking off anyways doesn't reveal anything an attentive watcher of this well wouldn't already know, we are a weirdo and that is good enough explanation, this guy gains no additional information that prompts him to fetch other interested persons.

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sometimes we fail even the most simple routine tasks
>>5065261
Chlot has never murdered before and has gone to quite a lot of trouble to avoid doing so or to avoid inflicting danger on others, so the simplest option is not available IMO
I agree that bribery is not feasible as motivation, and raises the additional question of 'where did a Leper get so much money as to casually toss it around?' so this guy will just get more interested in Chlot. I also don't really trust Chlot to pull off the acting
>>Even if this nosy bastard recognizes you as one of the 'two bats', you just need to hope that you and your father's reputation for bizarre behavior is enough to explain this. So long as no one investigates the well and finds your exit, then you should be safe enough using this one. Just run off, and hope for the best.
Nothing good ever comes of attempting a roll and all the other complications are not worth it. The most likely scenario in this case in my mind is that the drug smugglers that are around also realize that the well is an exit, and our pathway gains just a bit more traffic. It's not like the Lepers WANT to snitch to the guards about everything unusual they see

>>5065261
The two anons before me make a convincing case.
>Even if this nosy bastard recognizes you as one of the 'two bats', you just need to hope that you and your father's reputation for bizarre behavior is enough to explain this. So long as no one investigates the well and finds your exit, then you should be safe enough using this one. Just run off, and hope for the best.

>You are going to need to explain yourself. And you are going to need to explain yourself in someway that does not make this whobody Leper consider investigating the well. That is probably going to be difficult.

>"I can't believe he did that. Just because he's jealous. I've known him for years and just because another boy gave it to me to wear he went and snatched it off of me and threw it in.

>What? A red hankerchief. Oh Maker, I've already said too much. If my Father finds out there's a boy, he'll kill me! Please don't tell anybody. PLEASE?"

Okay, lets see the score.

>>5065269 Lethal 1
>>5065296 Lethal 2
>>5065350 Lethal 2 Bribe w/burn 1
>>5065417 Lethal 2 Bribe w/burn 1 Run 1
>>5065427 Lethal 2 Bribe w/burn 1 Run 2
>>5065442 Lethal 2 Bribe w/burn 1 Run 3
>>5065462 Lethal 2 Bribe w/burn 1 Run 3 Excuse w/o burn 1

I will let this sit for another hour or so while I get something to eat, then I will close the vote. I'm also going to post this in the general.

>>5065261
>You are going to need to explain yourself. And you are going to need to explain yourself in someway that does not make this whobody Leper consider investigating the well. That is probably going to be difficult.

I don’t buy anon’s optimism that nothing’s going to happen. The well will be investigated and one of our exits closed. We must find try however unlikely it may be to find some excuse to throw off the scent. And if it still doesn’t work extreme measures might have to be taken.

So, with everything tallied, running away carries the vote.

Closed and writing.

>>5065516
We can just use another exit if this one is closed. Taking "extreme measures" may end up with us losing a fight and being injured or killed, or force us to deal with a dead body. While we could throw the body down the well, that just ties any sightings of us to this dead body if the well is ever compromised later down the line. Plus, y'know, we'd be killing a man just for seeing us sneaking around, are we gonna do this every time someone sees us acting suspicious?

You notice that the guard at the palisade gate is looking at your somewhat oddly, and you realize with a little bit of a start that you stopped dead in your tracks without even realizing it. Not wanting to draw anymore attention to yourself today, you force yourself to move, staying clear of the Strangeness and making a point to offer the guard a deferential nod of the head. Breathing deep, you follow the shifting stains for a while, unsure of what to do – unsure of what you should do. There is a small flicker of relief when you see that the amorphous stains have not created any new stains, meaning that they are definitively second degree or lower, but when you see those footprints lead straight into the packed crowd around the serving tables, once again you are stopped dead in your tracks without realizing it.

Standing there, grasping at straws, you recall a saying that father was – fraying firmament! IS. Father IS fond of! You … you …

A half-strangled sob escapes your lips.

You cannot do this. Not in the sense that this is an impossible task, but in the sense that you cannot bring yourself to do it. You just … you call your self a woman, you tell yourself that you think like a man, but at the end of the day, you are just a girl. A girl who barely remembers her own mother, who might have lost her father forever, who is forced to regularly commit capital crimes just to survive. No matter how tall or strong you will grow or how much magic you master, deep down, that is all you will ever be. Small. Small and scared and weak.

There never was a good knife made of bad steel. That is the saying, father’s favorite saying, and you were going to ask yourself – just how good is your steel? But before you could, you already had your answer. Your steel is shit. You are shit. You are too scared to lift a finger to help these people – your people, even if have been held at arm’s length. You are going to condemn them to those zealots. You try to offer up a silent prayer for the denizens of the Midden, but after abandoning them as you have, it feels insincere, and you stop. Besides, if prayer alone was enough to protect them, they never would have been forced into the Spotted Cloak in the first place. You advert your eyes – easy enough to do under the mask – and you flee to the belfry. The way up is noticeably more difficult with that deep cut on your left arm, but you force your way through, making sure to stop at the half-way point and then the three-quarters mark to rest.

As has become custom, upon your arrival in the belfry, you check to see if your father had been in. Once you determined that he had not, you return to your room, to unload your pockets. You carefully place the mitigated graven ball on to your bedroll as you chuck the soiled gauze on top of the bloating corpse in the corner of the room. The small purses of salt, Ossavian’s scarf, and the two stilettos join the flakey steel ball on the bedroll.

>>5065703
You decide to hold on to your flask of water – it is pretty solidly built, so in a pinch, you could use it as a weapon. Besides that, after thinking it over, you return both of the stilettos to your boots. Taking several deep pulls from the flask, you head back into the kitchen where you left the pillowcase and the pocket-jerkin, and you withdraw more than enough small denomination bullion to buy a dozen dresses. Before you leave, you refill the flask. You are just about to start your decent, when you realize that after all of this, you almost forgot your street clothes. Collecting them up off of the floor where you dropped them earlier this morning, you tuck and fold the ragged thing into your cloak.

As you are marginally more encumbered on your way down, your arm hurts all the more, and you actually need to take three stops instead of the usual two. Thankfully, you know this tower like the back of your hand, as your are on the inside, you are shielded from the elements, and you are able to choose your own pace, so in the end, you could not consider this climb a challenge – just more inconvenient than usual. That being said, if you had to climb something new, under more adverse conditions, that probably would constitute a challenge for you, at least until your arm healed up.

Back on the ground, you immediately head to the shell of the old villa by the palisade wall, where the well that connects to the buried basements is located. After checking to make sure that the few Lepers that live in this area are still all at dinner, you begin your circuitous approach around the interior plaza of the villa, moving in concealment as much as you possibly can. Once you are as close to the well as you can get, you break cover and make a beeline for it. You reach it, and you put your right arm down on the crumbling lip, vaulting yourself inside –

“Just what in the Heights of Hell are ya doing?”

Equal parts alarmed by the unexpected intruder, you accidentally let your right arm go limp, and not all of your body clears the upright remains of the well. You basically trip into it, face first – and hard enough that it knocked stones loose on the inside. The wind is knocked out of you, but thankfully, you are simply too tall to just fall into this well – instead, you end up awkwardly lying across the mouth of it at an oblique angle for a moment. Scrambling to get up, you knock more stones down, and as you roll off of the well, you can hear those stones clattering as they fall down.

You cannot believe this. The coast was clear. Completely clear! There is no way anyone could have just made their way into this plaza without you noticing … right? Oh – oh no. Is it possible that you were being Tried, and this is Retribution?

>>5065705
Magic is a blessing from the Patternmaker, one that magic and non-magic users were expected to be humble and wary of. The Strangeness was brought into this world because this blessing was being taken too lightly, and those who employed it were not offering up sufficient obeisance. Strangeness is the Great Trial of the Third Age, and nearly all faithful assume that it means that the Patternmaker wants magic curtailed almost into oblivion, if not completely destroyed. You, on the other hand, believe that this means that your Trials – extreme tests of character, ability, and faith that you will face throughout your life – are all directly tied to the Great Trial. And what did you do? You failed! No, even worse, you did not even try! This Leper has to have been moved here as some sort of Retribution for your miserable performance … but at least your Red Thread is still winding. This Retribution is not total – you are still alive, so you can still atone! And surely there will be other Trials – you must have another chance to prove yourself, you must! Just … just stay alive long enough to atone, and maybe to pass a Trial, and it will be like this never happened.

But should you go back to remediate the clothes of the Coroners? No, no, you have already failed. Going back and doing it after being punished for not doing it would be pointless at best or insulting at worst. You will have to think of something else. For so now, get the Hell out of here!

You scamper off, ignoring genuinely concerned sounding questions of the Leper, leaving the shell of the villa well behind you. The weight Pattern falls heavy around that well – returning there immediately after Retribution was sent there would be unwise. So if you want to leave the Midden, that leaves you two – no, three other options. There is the tunnel that ends up in the storage room of the guardhouse just outside the palisade, which is obviously going to be trickier than the well would have been, and there is the route through the sewer. That way is about as difficult as the well, but it comes with the additional complication of smelling really bad, which might keep you out of dressmakers, unless you could get to a public bath. Then there is simply climbing over the palisade, which depending on where the guards are in their rotation could be the safest option, or it could be hardest.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Try the guardhouse route (DC is +3 to +7 to the DC for the well)
>Try the sewer route (DC is -3 to +3 to the DC for the well), introduces new issue
>Try going over the damned fence (DC is -22 to +13 to the DC for the well)

>>5065706
>Try going over the damned fence (DC is -22 to +13 to the DC for the well)

>>5065706
>>5065716
Oh, and to be clear, the difference in DC will be rolled for.

>>5065718
By you or us?

>>5065721
You or another player can, once the vote is closed.

>>5065706
>>Try going over the damned fence (DC is -22 to +13 to the DC for the well)
Assuming the difficulty relative to the well is distributed evenly, this is on average easier than the well
but it is just kind of...visible lol

>>5065706
>Try the guardhouse route (DC is +3 to +7 to the DC for the well)

Our arm is injured from the dosimeter or something else, remember? Hell, the QM's story post literally points out that we are gonna have trouble climbing something new.

The guardhouse route is probably easier taking that into consideration. Plus, the variance in the difficulty is high enough that it could end up being a pretty severe penalty, climbing the fence that is.

>>5065706
>Try going over the damned fence (DC is -22 to +13 to the DC for the well)

>>5065706
>Try going over the damned fence (DC is -22 to +13 to the DC for the well)

Okay, over the fence it is. Can I get someone to roll 1d36? A roll of 36 is -22, and a roll of 1 is +13.

May your luck start running white once again!

>>5065974
Please be better than the last two.

Rolled 30 (1d36)

>>5065998

>>5065999
Okay, so that is the bonus. Here we go again!

>DC 33: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Sneakthief, making a basic Stealth Test like this [Easy]
> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Known in the Midden
> + DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Hard to Miss, given her size
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is carrying a purse full of clinky coins
> + DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in broad daylight.
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has Complete Knowledge of the Midden
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in an area with some concealment
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in a poorly trafficked area
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth while potential onlookers have an active distraction (dinner in main plaza)
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has successfully manged this stealth test recently
> - DC 16 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has found a much safer alternate route by trial and error [BUT AT WHAT COST?]

> DC 11: Anything lower is a failure. [No re-rolls. No hostile re-rolls]

>No Passes: A guard sees you physically climbing on the palisade, and the have a lot of serious questions for you. You will have a choice, to try to talk yourself out of it, or to run away.
>One Pass: A Leper sees you physically climbing on the palisade, and they have some questions for you. You will have a choice, to try to talk yourself out of it, or to run away.
>Two Passes: A Leper sees you on the other side of the palisade, and they think you might have just climbed over it. Depending on how crazy things get tonight, they might mention this to someone - or not.
>Three Passes: If anyone is even there, they are oblivious to your creeping. No matter how the night goes, no one will have any suspicions about this random spot of fence...

>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2), then you automatically fail this test by being seen and identified as you climb into the well. You will have a choice, to try to talk yourself out of it, or to run away.
>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99), then you automatically pass this test, and you find a lucky tenth-talent down here, which gives you a single-use re roll.
>A Critical Failure overrides a Critical Success and a Near-Critical Success, but a Critical Success overrides a Near-Critical Failure.
>You are STRONGLY encouraged to roll again after fifteen minutes if more rolls are needed, to keep the quest moving.

Rolled 43 (1d100)

>>5066004
Live by the dice, die by the dice

Rolled 13 (1d100)

>>5066004
>leave for Thanksgiving
>come back to anons not trying to help out and fucking us over

I'm not a happy camper with our previous choice lads.

Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>5066004
Rolling once more to finish this

>>5066012
>>5066015
>>5066034
Ignoring the confused but well-intentioned Leper who sort of saw you attempting to jump into the well, you have managed to leave the Midden without incident. After finding a secluded spot to switch out of the Spotted Cloak and into your ragged street clothes, it is time to go shopping! Dressmakers, as well as most shops in general, will start to close around the eighteenth hour - and because you were left out early today, you might have time to stand for two different fittings, if you wanted to place orders at two different stores. Otherwise, you could use the remaining daylight to case the Refineries off of the Lower Boardwalk, and maybe find something that you did not see this morning.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>You will place two rush orders at two different dressmakers. One that makes hard-wearing work outfits, and one that makes understated domestic clothes (something a laborer's housewife or a common servant would wear)
>You will place two rush orders at two different dressmakers. One that makes hard-wearing work outfits, and one that makes sophisticated domestic clothes (something a skilled laborer's housewife or a lady-in-waiting would wear)
>You will place two rush orders at two different dressmakers. One that makes understated domestic clothes, and one that makes sophisticated domestic clothes
>You will place one rush order at a dressmaker. One that makes hard-wearing work outfits, and spend the remaining daylight casing the Refineries.
>You will place one rush order at a dressmaker. One that makes understated domestic clothes, and spend the remaining daylight casing the Refineries.
>You will place one rush order at a dressmaker. One that makes sophisticated domestic clothes. and spend the remaining daylight casing the Refineries.

>>5066046
>You will place one rush order at a dressmaker. One that makes understated domestic clothes, and spend the remaining daylight casing the Refineries.

>>5066046
>>You will place two rush orders at two different dressmakers. One that makes understated domestic clothes, and one that makes sophisticated domestic clothes

>>5066046
>>You will place two rush orders at two different dressmakers. One that makes hard-wearing work outfits, and one that makes understated domestic clothes (something a laborer's housewife or a common servant would wear)

>>5066046
>You will place one rush order at a dressmaker. One that makes sophisticated domestic clothes. and spend the remaining daylight casing the Refineries.

I think we wanted clothing suitable for someone in possession in the amount of wealth we possess. It'd ease any suspicions some store owner might have once we leave the city if we look the part of someone who would have the amount of money we have. We can order more clothes almost anywhere once we leave the city, clothing is a necessity everywhere, literally every village is going to have men and women making clothing of varying qualities and that won't change until factories come along and even then it won't change for a while.

I also think anything we can do to ease future rolls is worth doing.

I do understand the desire to place orders at two different dressmakers in case there are complications with the rush order or one dressmaker gets suspicious or something, but I simply think the oil and being able to move our magical equipment is more important than the clothing or worrying about not being able to pick up said clothing.

>>5066349
Counter argument 1: rich people in general stand out of a crowd, more sophisticated clothing is more memorable. Also it will be harder to explain why we need it and have the coin for it, with us literally wearing rags.

Counter argument 2: Clot has spend all her life either on the run with her crazy dad or amongst the literal dregs of society so she would not know how to behave like a proper lady, which in turn would attract suspicion.

So I really think farmer's brown "old reliable" gown is the way to go here.

>>5066046
>You will place two rush orders at two different dressmakers. One that makes understated domestic clothes, and one that makes sophisticated domestic clothes

>>5066367
We aren't obligated to wear it all the time, nor are we required to wear it to the next dressmaker we happen to stop by to buy more dresses. At the end of the day, money is money, the dressmaker isn't going to refuse us service, though there is the potential problem of them trying to go after our bounty.

Furthermore, getting the fancy dress is supposed to mitigate the problem of us showing up at any particular shop and purchasing expensive items or a large volume of stuff, because it'd be odd for a lowly domestic or person in rags to have a lot of money.

Chlot is natural liar, and I doubt the culture or airs of a lady are so different that merely ordering a dress or saying a sentence or two to ward off people we don't want to talk to would drive anyone into being ultra suspicious. That is not to say that over the course of a brief conversation we COULDN'T come off as suspicious, but we only really need it to explain us making large purchases or to make us having a large amount of wealth tolerable. Again, we don't have to wear it constantly, we have our old dress and can purchase other ones later, we don't have to wear it everytime we go out into the streets.

>You will place one rush order at a dressmaker. One that makes hard-wearing work outfits, and spend the remaining daylight casing the Refineries.

The nice dress would be good for escaping BUT in our current garb would look super wierd to order.

Okay, the vote has been open for more than twelve hours now, lets do the tally.

>>5066094 UD and R 1
>>5066109 UD and R 1 UD and SD 1
>>5066295 UD and R 1 UD and SD 1 HW and UD 1
>>5066349 UD and R 1 UD and SD 1 HW and UD 1 SD and R 1
>>5066403 UD and R 1 UD and SD 2 HW and UD 1 SD and R 1
>>5066472 UD and R 1 UD and SD 2 HW and UD 1 SD and R 1 HW and R 1

So you will be placing two orders, for both understated and sophisticated dresses. I will get to writing.

You still have plenty of time before shops start to close at the eighteenth hour, even after the Retribution at the well, but with everything on your plate at the moment, you just want to finish something – to be done with it, and as soon as possible. So you decide to climb over the palisade, as it is the quickest and simplest of the options available. However, it is not necessarily the safest. Building within ten feet of the fence has been prohibited outside of the Midden, and inside, any ruin that was within ten feet of the fence was torn down. And while there are ways to screen yourself as you get into position, the fact remains is that you are going to be completely exposed on the final approach and during the actual climb. Worse than that, you are not just going to be dealing with Lepers milling around – once you are on the other side of the wooden wall, you are going to be dealing with Guards on patrol around the perimeter, as well as Lepers on their way to dinner in the Midden. If you get caught on the wall by a guard, you might not be able to talk your way out of that.

But even so, going over the palisade is your best bet to avoid guards, at least without subjecting yourself to raw sewage and possible even industrial waste. Having committed yourself, you spend several minutes to find a stretch of fence in a desolate corner of the Midden that you are comfortable that you can climb. After you find one, you spend another minute or so, straining your ears, trying to listen for the sound of approaching guards on the other side. Once you are satisfied on that front, and you are as certain as you possibly can be that there are no Lepers to see you on this side of the wall, you finally make your move.

The climb up the palisade was everything that you expected it to be – namely, easy, to the point where you probably did not need to take off your gloves, though you did, out of habit. Climbing down proved to be a bit trickier than you expected. With your mask on, your vision is limited to the point where you were not able to actually look for footholds, you had to search for them blindly. Thankfully, you are so tall that you only needed to find two before your feet were close enough to the ground that you could just let yourself drop. Outside of the Midden once more, you find to your relief that the clearing around the palisade and the adjoining streets, though that relief is short lived, when you realize that you are probably not going to be able to climb the palisade carrying gallons of Lifting Oil in a massive glass jug. Trying not to get too frustrated at this latest complication, you make yourself look as unassuming as possible, and head off along the Upper Boardwalk, looking for a secluded spot somewhere to change out of the Spotted Cloak.

>>5067019
It probably takes you ten minutes before you find somewhere suitable; a completely derelict three-story residence, well off of the main streets of the Upper Boardwalk. Even though there are signs of fire-damage throughout the building, surprisingly, most of it appears to be structurally sound – though you would not be a good judge of that. Once you make your way inside through a half boarded up hole, you notice that there are signs that vagrants have been here recently – you can see rubbish and cast offs, as well as an area that looks like it was cleared for sleeping, and while you cannot see it from here, you can also smell stale shit somewhere on the first floor, presumably human. You draw the fancier of your two pin-stilettoes and keep it at the ready as you look around, checking upstairs and then in the basement, you wonder why the house was left like this. If it could be rebuilt, it should have been. If it could not have, then it should have been torn down. Perhaps there was some legal issue – maybe the deed had been destroyed in the fire and ownership of the land underneath the house was now being contested, or perhaps it had something to do with the building’s binder-holder not paying out – well, whatever it was, it is certainly fortunate for you right now. In fact, so long as the resident defecator does not show up again, this place could make for a pretty good hiding spot, if you needed one for the remaining two days that you are going to spend in the Mount.

Comfortable as you possibly could be under your current circumstances, you start to undress, starting with your mask. Once you get it off, you notice that your face feels a little funny, and you realize that it must be because it was in direct contact with the lead-lining of your mask. Typically, you have gauze between your face and the mask, but after a particularly abortive attempt at a spell earlier, most of your gauze was ruined by a magically induced nosebleed. You unwrap the remaining gauze around your eyes, and as you do, you also activate your Hide-Eyes glyph. Immediately, your sight gets blurry, just like it does with Strange-Staining, but with this spell the blurriness last noticeably longer. Not to mention that there is actual eyestrain too – something about how your vision needs to adjust to seeing through the glamor as it is constructed. While all of this is happening, you can feel the scarification glyph warm up, just a little bit, and the muscle around the subcutaneously etched spell gets noticeably tender. By the time you have changed into your ragged dress, the strain in your eyes, as well as the blurriness has faded. You check your reflection in a stiletto blade, and confirm that you have two normal brown eyes. After taking a minute or so to tuck your flask and coin purse into the belt of your dress, and stash your Spotted Cloak, you depart from the burnt building, and make your way to Spinster’s Street all the way over in Cleanport.

>>5067020
You have decided that you are going to go to look for two different kinds of dressmakers. One that makes clothes that a maid might wear, and one that makes clothes that a lady in waiting might wear. Nothing too fancy, expensive, or attention grabbing – though considering just how tall you are dressing plainly is not going to do you much good in that regard. When you get to Spinster’s Street, the sun is hanging low in the horizon. You probably could have made better time, but you took a lot of side streets and alleys on your way here; after all there is a description of you wearing this dress. Looking to get out of the street, you scan up and down the storefronts before settling on an establishment with several rather neat but plain looking dresses painted on hanging shingles. The door is open, and after a second of hesitation, you walk through it, into a small lobby. The wooden floor underneath groans and creaks loudly, and from down a dark hallway, someone calls out to you, to tell you that they will be with you in a moment. You awkwardly stand in the middle of the room, fighting an urge to fidget as you listen to the distant sounds of what you assume to be dressmaking. Nearly half a minute later, you hear movement, and a fussy looking middle-aged woman comes wandering in. She sort of stops short when she sees you, and for a second, her mouth gapes ever so slightly as she cranes her head up to look at you. To her credit, she recovers quickly.

“Can I help you, dear?”

“Aye, I’d like to know if you do one-day rush orders.”

“We do, but you should know that it trebles the cost.”

“That shouldn’t be an issue.”

You cannot help but notice that she glances at your ragged dress as you say that. You suppose you could not blame her. If you were in her position, and someone dressed as you are told you that money was no object, you probably would have a hard time believing them too. Trying to sound undaunted, you continue.

“I’d like to place an order for three dresses. One in gray and one black. Just … standard dresses for a domestic servant.”

“Hmm …”

Hmm? What in the Heights of Hell is there hmm about, woman? Oh, Pattern’s Perdition, this was supposed to be the easy one –

“Well, we can do that, it is just that the household typically provides uniforms for their maids.”

You are about to say something, you are not even sure what, but the dressmaker keeps talking.

“Do you know your measurements?”

“Six feet, four inches. But I don’t know any specifics beyond that.”

“Six feet, four inches.”

>>5067022
There was more than a hint of incredulity at that. She just stares at you for a moment, before snapping out of it again, and instructing you to follow her. She introduces herself as Hortingea, and leads you out of the lobby, down the hallway and into a private room, where before departing, she instructs you to undress. You do, though you leave your boots on, as they are where you are hiding your stilettos. She returns quickly with a slip of paper and a pen. This time she is in the company of another middle-aged woman, carrying a wooden box of measuring threads, and who does not say a single word to you, but is quite plainly looking at you as if you were some sort of freak in a menagerie. Between your nudity and her thoroughly unwelcome attention, you are already blushing, but when Hortingea asks if you were not wearing any underwear, you can physically feel the heat radiating off of your face.

The rest of the fitting or the sizing or whatever the Hell it is called passes in silence, save for Hortingea jotting down the measurements that the other woman takes. But as you stand there, you notice that your face is not the only thing that is uncomfortably warm. Hide-Eyes scarification glyph is really heating up, to the point where you are worried that if either of these two were to brush up against it, they might notice. The glyph is old – almost as old as you are – and you have not used it recently, so some additional strain is expected … but something feels off. Is it possible the glyph has degraded? Things like that can happen. It might just be a situational performance issue – you are under a lot of stress after all, you have eaten almost nothing, and you barely slept last night.

I am still working on the rest of the update, but I wanted to post what I have at the moment.

uh oh

>>5067023
By the time the two dressmakers are done fussing over you, the strain from Hide-Eyes has gotten marginally better, possibly because you have gotten marginally more comfortable. Even so, the prospect of glyph degradation and failure is now on your mind. Degraded glyphs can be dangerous, and failed glyphs almost always are. It is possible to repair or resuscitate glyphs, but scrivening has never been a strong suit of yours. That being said, you can take an educated guess as to what language father etched the glyph in, and if you are right, you think you might have the vocabulary and a strong enough grasp of the syntax and grammar to touch up the glyph, if it does turn out to be failing. The issue is the fact that this is a scarification glyph, so you would need to flay about an half-inch square of skin off of your back, etch whatever new clauses the glyph needed, and then patch yourself up on the Life-Loom, which is not something that should be done lightly. In fact, you really –

“Is this your first time buying clothes for yourself?”

You are startled by the sudden rejoinder of conversation, and even more startled that the question was not from Hortingea, but rather the other dressmaker, the one who has been starting at you as if you were in a festival sideshow.

“I … yes, I suppose it is.”

Once the words are out of your mouth, you immediately start to worry that they were unwise. They probably think you are older than you actually are, eighteen or maybe even twenty – and would it not be suspicious for someone that old to have never purchased clothes for themselves before? As you fret, Hortingea leaves the room with your measurements in hand, and you wonder if you should ask for a copy of the slip before you realize that doing so would be tacitly admitting that you can read. Between the lack of food, the lack of sleep, and that Retribution, you are off of your game here, and you are worried that it is only going to get worse.

“And is this your first time working as a maid?”

What the Hell is with all these questions all of a sudden? You give yourself a moment or two to think by taking this time to retrieve your dress and pull it over your head. By the time you get it lying smooth on you – or at least as smoothed as it can – you have decided on an answer.

“Yes.”

“Does this family have other servants?”

Okay, now you are starting to get worried. Where is this woman going with all of this? Is … is this a trap? Is she just buying time for Hortingea to go call a Thief-Taker? Oh, Pattern’s Perdition, it would explain why she was staring at you like that – she knew! She –

“The only reason I ask, is that it is common practice for the family to provide the clothes the servants wear. If this family hasn’t had any servants before, they might not know how things are done.”

>>5068072
… Maybe you were jumping to conclusions. But either way, you should give this dressmaker an answer. Hoping that the South Sexton’s household is fairly typical, you decide that your fictious employers should also have a cook.

“No, there is a – I mean, yes, they have a cook.”

“Oh good. I wasn’t sure if I should say anything that could impugn your new master and mistress, but whenever you hear horror stories about servants being mistreated or criminally overworked, it is usually a newly monied, newly patented family that has never had a servant before. Or the family only had slaves. My second cousin married the Cod Factor for Deadlight Port, and they had two or three Cimmaroonies looking after them. And they weren’t the least bit idle, or insolent or tricksy like most of the imports you get from the interior, because he knew how to handle them! But when he retired and moved to the Mount, he had to sell them, because there is some law against having slaves here –

“The Codes of Coffle and Chain.”

“Yes, that’s the one! Anyway, he had to sell them and hire servants, but at the start, he was treating them like they were slaves. These weren’t wild women, these were good Imperial girls, so they didn’t need that kind of firm, civilizing hand – and they resented it! A lot of them quit on him – like a half a dozen of them – until he realized that unless he wanted to do his own laundry, he would have to change his ways before he developed a reputation.”

Sainted Spool, you cannot tell any more. Is she just idly chatting, or is she actually trying to stall with this nonsense? Meanwhile, your eyes are starting to get a little dry – and while it most likely has nothing to do with Hide-Eyes, you have to consciously keep yourself from rubbing them, as that would dispel the glamor.

“We do get a lot of maids through here, you know, and I tell all of them this: reputation is important. Your reputation, and your master’s reputation. Because if your master has a reputation, then people might start to wonder about you.”

“Wonder about me?”

“Oh yes. Men can have … lapses.”

Lapses?

“They will make … promises that they shouldn’t.”

Promises?

“And when it comes out, and the truth always comes out, the promises they’ve made with their wives will always win out over whatever they promised you. Then you will be out on the street, probably after being worked over by the wife, and you’ll have a reputation of your own. And you will not be able to find any honest work, nor marry any decent man.”

>>5068140
Oh … that is what she is getting at. From your studies, you have a biological understanding of reproduction, but the language she was using was so damned vague that it actually took you a minute to put two and two together. Still, you suppose for anyone who did not have a father that killed two cats for noisily having relations, then cut them open to show them how the reproductive system works when they were six, this talk could have been worthwhile. Probably saved more than a few girls’ virtue with this spiel or hers.

“And you will need to be extra cautious. Even good men might have lapses around you.”

She has lost you again. But before you can puzzle that one out, Hortingea comes back into the room, carrying something white folded in her arms. She passes it to you, and you let it fall open.

“It is a chemise. The shoulders and arms are adjustable, so you should be able to wear it. Won’t be long enough, of course, but I will not let it be said that I let poor young girls go running off without underwear.”

“Oh … thanks. How –”

“No charge. And I am not letting you leave without them.”

Under normal circumstances, you know better than to question charity like this. But these are not normal circumstances. You are almost certain that you have just failed a Trial, and that a bunch of Lepers are probably going to go through the wringer of curative custody – which can be crippling or even lethal for those in good health. With everything weighing down on you, his might be the worst possible time to develop a sense of pride, but you just cannot bear to accept charity, not now. So, you try again.

“Please, at least let me pay something.”

“The Pattern Tries us all. Some of us harder than others. Within reason, it is the responsibility of those with lighter burdens to help those who are deserving of help. Someday, you will find yourself in a situation where you and only you can help some poor desperate soul. When you save them, that is when you will have paid me.”

The room around you spins. Another act of Retribution! This has to be! But it is so damned blatant! Is the Patternmaker Himself eyeing your Red Thread? It is as if He is taunting you for your failure. You feel sick to your stomach, to the point that suddenly you are glad that you have barely eaten anything. Your breathing, having gone raggedy makes it hard for you to choke out a scared sounding thanks to Hortingea. As you do, you start to cry.

And without thinking, you wipe your eyes.

>>5068172
You recognize your mistake as soon as you can feel the glamor discharging across your fingers. Thankfully, you have the presence of mind to use the arm of the hand you broke the spell with to cover both of your eyes, as you lamely hold on to the chemise. For several moments, you are stuck at a horrendously dangerous impasse. You cannot move your arm to reveal your eyes, but you cannot activate Hide-Eyes again with your arm in the way. All you can do is just stand there, and raggedly sob. The sound of one of the women moving towards you – presumably to give you a hug, which had the circumstances been different you would have gladly accepted – snaps you out of it.

“T-the … uh – the privy? I – I need-d to …”

One of the women, you are not even sure who, gives you the directions and you flee, your arm still covering your eyes. When you arrive in front of the door, you push through without knocking, and once you work up the strength to lower your arm just a hair, you realize with a rush of dread that this is not the privy, this is another fraying fitting room. Choking down a shriek, you go one down, and repeat the process. Blessedly, this one is the privy, though the moment you look down at the chamber pot, you end up vomiting up the Emmerloaf from earlier. Once you are sure nothing else is coming up, and you have stopped crying, you undress to put the chemise on, and then once you have it and your ragged dress back on, you reactive Hide-Eyes. You wait a full two minutes before confirming the glamor is active once more by using the reflection off of one of your pin-stiletto blades. You were so close to being revealed as a Witchlet! You realize now, truly just how much of a blessing wearing that lead lined mask was. How did father manage to do this for years? You cannot even imagine – it has not even been a full day yet, and twice, you have almost blown it.

You compose yourself, and return to the fitting room where you were measured, to find it empty. Figuring that they must have gone to the front of the store, you make your way there, down the narrow hallways. Noticeably, you cannot hear the sound of dressmakers working anymore – clearly, it is beginning to get late. Hortingea and the other woman, whose name you still do not know, are waiting there.

“I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh, you have done nothing to be sorry about.”

Hearing that turns your insides to ice once more, but you force yourself to maintain some semblance of decorum this time. As you fully enter the room, the two women offer you the hugs that you ran out on, and you graciously accept them. They are so soft, and warm and sweet smelling – oh, you hope they cannot smell the vomit on you. Or the sweat or dirt.

Rolled 3 (1d100)

>>5068224
>Burn or otherwise destroy your current dress

This thing has connotations we are best severed from, I think

Also, that section was masterful. I really felt for the poor girl.

Rolled 82 (1d100)

>>5068224
>Keep your current dress for work clothes
depending on where we go only having a single set of clothes is potentially a red flag.

>>5068228
Well, one, that is great praise, thank you! And two, do you realize, that if you rolled any lower, we would have automatically failed this test?

>>5068235
Yeah I do. Between this and forgotten's quests my rolling is cursed.

Rolled 66 (1d100)

>>5068224

>>5068224
>Burn or otherwise destroy your current dress
We will have 2 different sets. That’s more than enough.

>>5068224
>Burn or otherwise destroy your current dress
Looks like we won’t get in. Can we still find another dressmaker of the same calibre?

>>5068260
You can have one more chance, at DC 23 instead of DC 25, if you want it. I'll put it to a vote right now.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Try to find another dressmaker of the same caliber
>Call it for the day, and spend the remaining daylight poking around the Refineries before deciding on your next move
>Call it for the day, and return to the Midden, to get receive Ablution, get something to eat, and possibly take a nap

>>5068260
As it is clear that there are some places we cannot go to in broad daylight without a more refined look.

>>5068265
>Try to find another dressmaker of the same caliber

>>5068265
And to be clear, the vote in >>5068224 over burning or keeping the dress is still open. Vote if you haven't.

>>5068265
>>Try to find another dressmaker of the same caliber

I fancy our chances

>>5068224
>Burn or otherwise destroy your current dress

We can buy new work clothes someplace else after we are out of this city.

>>5068265
>Call it for the day, and spend the remaining daylight poking around the Refineries before deciding on your next move

Really adore that scene. Chlot really is just a lost and confused girl without much place in the world.
>>5068224
>>Keep your current dress for work clothes
Fabric and textiles are some of the most valuable items in a pre-industrial society. This isn't quite pre-industrial, but we are on the fringes of that industry's reach and are only going to go further out.
Burning would be the worst option. Destroy it for bandages at the very least...
>>5068265
>>Call it for the day, and return to the Midden, to get receive Ablution, get something to eat, and possibly take a nap
I do not fancy our chances. The odds of rolling three successes at DC 25 are only 42%, anons, and at DC23 it's still only 45% (.75^3 and .77^3 respectively). Chlot needs rest, and she can't afford running on fumes in the last critical moments of her escape.

>>5068224
>>5068265
Actually, I'll change my votes to...
>Destroy our dress for cloth scraps, strips and bandages.
>Call it for the day, and return to the Midden, to get receive Ablution, get something to eat, and possibly take a nap

I don't know why we would burn our old dress, my mind went to weird places with thinking things like "what if our place is searched and they find the dress we wore while committing a crime", forgetting in the moment that it was dark and there are probably thousands of women wearing similarly ratty dresses and that there are many far more incriminating things in our home.

And >>5068417 is right, cloths are valuable no matter what, the labour time spent on spinning yarn alone would take up literally every spare moment of time of a women's day for every day of her life just to make sure her family would have the minimum amount of cloths they would need. That, and we probably need the rest, there have been several references to us being tired and us being in adequate shape to perform is probably more important than reconnaissance.

Okay, lets see the tally here.

On the vote to burn/cut the ragged dress up into rags or to keep it:

>>5068228 Destroy 1
>>5068233 Destroy 1 Keep 1
>>5068253 Destroy 2 Keep 1
>>5068260 Destroy 3 Keep 1
>>5068359 Destroy 4 Keep 1
>>5068417 Destroy 4 Keep 2
>>5068584 Destroy 4 Keep 2 (changed the specifics of vote)

Destroying the dress has the most votes - if there are no objects, Chlotsuintha can just cut it up for rags when she gets a minute.

On the vote to go to try again at a higher caliber dressmaker after the first rejection:

>>5068267 Try Again 1
>>5068291 Try Again 2
>>5068364 Try Again 2 Case Refinery 1
>>5068417 Try Again 2 Case Refinery 1 Return to Midden 1
>>5068584 Try Again 2 Return to Midden 2

We still need a tiebreaker for this (>>5068265) vote.

I will start writing up the scene, and hopefully, by the time I am done, someone will have cast the deciding vote.

>>5068265
>Try to find another dressmaker of the same caliber
Just once more

Rolled 39 (1d100)

>>5068902

Rolled 78 (1d100)

>>5068902
roll 2

Rolled 72 (1d100)

>>5068902

Whew, looks like our luck was white!

Also, "gently bred"? Are we considered attractive or something?

>>5069105
>Also, "gently bred"? Are we considered attractive or something?
given the comment about how Chlot might tempt even good men to cheat on their wives, yes. she's a young, inexperienced/vulnerable-looking girl with good looks (courtesy of mom, whose appearance was attractive enough to seriously distract Chlot's dad while he was on the job)
also, phew! I'm glad Chlot managed to schmooze her way in.

File: so hot right now.jpg (88 KB, 575x1024)

88 KB JPG

>>5068902
When we get confused for a hipster with our shredded dress.

>>5069105
Some glamor work better than others

>>5069492
wtf is the guy on the right wearing?

>>5069519
A plastic bag

File: The Doorman of Filene's F(...).jpg (1 MB, 2694x4079)

1 MB JPG

As you head further up the street, to where the higher end dressmakers are scattered here and there between other shops and residences, you notice that once again, your Hide-Eyes glyph is noticeably heating up. You suppress a sigh – setting aside your prospects of fixing that glyph, you are not looking forward to having to use the Life-Loom on yourself to heal yourself after you do the touch-up work. One of the first lessons that you learned about the Life-Loom is that it best suited to make new life, not to fix or modify life that already exists. Part failure, or worse, Rejection, is always a possibility, and it is made worse by the ubiquitous problem of internal strain, which is dangerous enough to dissuade all but the most desperate weavers from trying the same operation in succession, or immediately undoing an operation if it failed. Further thoughts on this matter, however, are sidelined, when you find what looks to be exactly what you are looking for. This establishment is smaller than the other one, but the building is in much, much better shape, the windows behind the shutters are glassed, and most importantly, the name of the establishment – Filene’s Fabricians – is actually written down on the shingles and signage, which indicates that most of the clientele for this store is literate. All in all, it is a much higher class of establishment than Hortingea’s (assuming that she was the proprietor and not just an employee).

As you make your way over, you put the finishing touches on your new story – obviously, a newly hired maid would not be able to afford a dress from a place like this, and even if by some blessing she could, she would never wear it as work clothes. Instead, you are going claim that your father is getting remarried, and his fiancé has finally relented and allowed you to be present at the ceremony – so for that, you are going to need an appropriate dress as soon as possible. There is an implication in there that you are a natural daughter, a bastard, but the line about getting remarried confuses the issue just enough that someone charitable enough might entertain the thought that you were a legitimate daughter of a previous marriage who had been made to live as if they were a servant – just like in the stories. It is a pretty ridiculous cover story, but in the end, the idea of someone dressed as you are commissioning a dress at a store like this – and a rush order, no less – is also pretty ridiculous. So in that regard, it sort of makes sense. You hope.

But just as you get to the front door, a doorman walks out, and upon seeing you, bars your way. He is big – more than a head shorter than you are, but slightly broader and much, much thicker. As appropriate for a dressmaker’s guard, he is clothed in the flamboyant style of the mountain mercenary companies for the Old Hinterland, back in the Empire, where both of your parents were from.

>>5070121
His face does not have the Old Hinterland look though, and for that matter, he is not armed – at least not visibly, though you know better than most how easy it is to conceal things in large, bulky clothes.

“Oh-ho! And where do ya think ya goin’, ya straw-stuffed scarecrow? No burlap is sold here!”

The overdressed doorstop laughs hard at his own joke, but to his credit, he never takes his eyes off of you – not for a second. And in the face of his laughter, once more, your cheeks become as warm as back. He is just being an ass - your dress cannot look that bad, surely?

“W-would you please step aside? I want –”

“Oh, nay. Ya would scare off all the custom.”

In spite of yourself, you are getting a little frustrated, and you sort of snap at him.

“I didn’t realize they sold to crows here. I –”.

This time, his laughter is hard enough to interrupt you, and you are just about to stamp your foot in frustration when he finally manages to regain himself explain himself to you.

“Now see here, lass, dressed as you are, I know that even if ya have the money for this place, ya earned it on ya back – and that’s if ya earned it at all. Not to mention, whether they is crows or not, the sight of ya is likely to scare off all the genteel ladies. Now git, before I put ya back on a pole.”

Alarmed by his comment about you having earned your money at all, and not sure how literal or euphemistic he is being about the pole, you turn on your heel and quickly depart in silence, while he laughs to himself about his wit – all half of it. Still blushing, your feet carry you along Spinster’s Street, but soon you realize that there are no more dressmakers, just some weavers, mixed in with other stores and residences. For a moment, you seriously consider calling it a day – if you keep pushing yourself, you are going to be in no shape to knock over a Refinery tonight. But in the end, you decide to give it one more try. You turn around, and head back down the street, looking for another sophisticated establishment – but one that does not have a doorman.

You were just starting to wonder if pressing on with this madness was the right decision, when you finally clap your eyes on to a storefront almost identical to Filene’s – this one is called Festive Fabricians – and looking through the windows, you can see that there is no doorman lurking in wait, just a young-looking dressmaker sitting behind a counter, idly reading a book. Even so, you are a bundle of nerves as you enter the shop, until you see the title of the book that she was reading; The Rose of True Love Has No Thorns. Suddenly, you feel a little better about your prospects – if she passes her time reading sappy nonsense like that, then maybe, just maybe, she will buy your story. Making a point of using much more refined language than you normally would, you address the dressmaker, who still has not looked up from her book.

>>5070212
“Excuse me, I’d like to commission a dress.”

The dressmaker lazily looks up from her reading, but when she catches sight of you, her eyes go wide, and she very nearly drops the book. She opens her mouth to speak, but for the moment, it seems that words have failed her. As you wonder if you should just keep talking, or wait for her to regain her composure, you hear footsteps coming out of a side room, and to your dismay, a well-dressed man walks in. At first, you are not sure if his is a doorman or the owner, but when he stays silent and waits to take his lead from the dressmaker, you know for a surety that this must be the too-conveniently absent doorman. Sensing that your chance here is slipping away, you keep talking.

“It would have to be a rush commission – I’ll need it tomorrow, as my father is getting remarried on Titheday. I can pay it all up front.”

You take your purse off of your belt, palm the slip that Hortingea gave you and show her the monies you have left. Her eyes manage to get even wider, but when she stands up behind the counter, and sort of manages to compose herself, you know that you have a hook in her.

“Well, that could be enough for … something suitable, even once rush pricing is factored in. But to make a dress in one day? It simply is not done – not for the quality of dresses that you get here.”

“Truly? The only way I was able to convince father and his bride-to-be to let me attend the ceremony is because I said I would be wearing a proper dress. If I can’t g – oh. Oh, is this their way of keeping me away without telling me no?”

You hang your head and sniffle loudly, hoping that this will be enough. You have never had to cry on command before, so you are not sure if you could do it now.

“Oh … oh, alright. I’ll take the commission. But I will need to the end of the day tomorrow. Fool that I am, I’ll probably need to work on my own time to finish this.”

And like that, you are through. The doorman wanders away, and after some fussing around with a dusty ledger, the dressmaker leads you off to a fitting room. You feel a lot more confident during this second fitting, probably as confident as someone could be in front of a whobody wearing nothing but their boots. That being said, your Hide-Eyes glyph is still overly warm, and for the entire time, you are careful to make sure that the dressmaker never gets near that spot on your back. Hoping to distract her somewhat, you ask her if she would recommend the book that was reading, feeding her a tall tale about how your fictitious father kept all of fictitious mother’s books after she died, and one of them was The Rose of True Love Has No Thorns.

>>5070355
Pleasantly surprised by both your interest and ability to read, she gives a conditional recommendation – apparently, the book is written in the epistolary style, and at one point the heroine is barring a door with her body and writing a letter at the same time, while her erstwhile love interest is trying to knock the door down. The dressmaker, named Bronwen, says if you can suspend disbelief for stuff like that, the book is decent enough read.

The fitting concludes, and you dress yourself, thinking that you are done here, but before you can leave the room, Bronwen stops you – she has several questions about the dress. You feel more than a little out of your depth with these questions, but you try your best to answer them as confidently as you can. You want gray, storm cloud gray. And big sleeves, so you can hide things in there (though obviously, you do not mention the last bit). You also tell her to make it a riding dress – you have only been on horseback once in your life, and you were not even riding, you were slung over the saddle, but you figure that if you cannot tell her to make a dress that you can run and climb in, then a riding dress would probably be the next best thing.

Now that you actually are done here, Bronwen leads you back to the counter, where after consulting the same dusty ledger from before, she quotes you a price, which as expected, damn near cleans out your purse. Still, this is pocket change compared to what you have stashed away in your room, and even if it was not, you would still be happy to pay it, if it meant that you would be weasel your way into the company of your betters. After being told once more that the dress will only be ready at the end of the day, you earnestly thank Bronwen and depart. Even with everything else baring down on you, having somehow accomplished everything you set out to do here – with only the minor hiccup at Filene’s – you feel as if a great weight has been taken off of your shoulders.

Unfortunately, your relief does not last. When you finally make your way to the burnt, derelict house where you stashed your Spotted Cloak, you can hear someone moving around on the first floor, which is where you left your clothes, tucked away in a mildewy cabinet. As you stand on the boardwalk, casting fearful glances all around, wonder just what the Hell you are supposed to do now, Giotto and his baby brothers ring in the eighteenth hour.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Attempt to sneak into the derelict house and retrieve your Spotted Cloak unseen
>Attempt to scare off the interloper with your pin-stilettoes (could instigate a fight)
>Attempt to scare off the interloper by threatening to call the guards (could backfire if interloper has legitimate reason to be there)
>Come back for the Spotted Cloak later – get back to the Midden before it gets any later

>>5069519
Art. He is wearing art.

>>5070388
>>Attempt to sneak into the derelict house and retrieve your Spotted Cloak unseen
Coming back later introduces more rolls to get back here, a fight introduces more rolls, scaring them off is too risky and introduces more and more possibility of Chlot being recognized or seen - the more witnesses the worse off she is - and sneaking is more rolls...
I can't really imagine what legitimate reason there could be. But I think Chlot's skills and goals are best aligned with sneaking.

>Write In: Knock politely and if neccessary call out politely.

>>5070388
>Attempt to sneak into the derelict house and retrieve your Spotted Cloak unseen

Nah my dude, he looks like he is a trashbag sithlord.

>>5070388
>Attempt to sneak into the derelict house and retrieve your Spotted Cloak unseen

>>5070413
>trashbag sithlord.
When it comes to artistic high fashion models, that's a distinction without a difference

>>5070388
>Attempt to sneak into the derelict house and retrieve your Spotted Cloak unseen

>>5070388
>>Attempt to sneak into the derelict house and retrieve your Spotted Cloak unseen

File: Square Dice.jpg (786 KB, 3104x2076)

786 KB JPG

Sneaking it is! 3x1d100, please!

> DC 33: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Sneakthief, making a basic Stealth Test like this [Easy]
> + DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Hard to Miss, given her size
> + DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is carrying a purse with some clinky coins
> + DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in an adequately lit location.
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Next to Unknown in the Upper Boardwalk (would be Unknown if not for the bounty on her head)
> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired, and is not thinking as quickly as she should
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Hungered, and is slightly more sluggish than usual
> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has Knowledge of the Derelict House
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in an area with some concealment
> - DC 10 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in an isolated area
> - DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently wearing underwear
> - DC 5 [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] is currently inebriated
> - DC 5 [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] has a bad left eye
> - DC 10 [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] is half - deaf

>DC 22: Anything lower is a failure. [No re-rolls. No hostile re-rolls]

>No Passes: Not only does [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] see you, he has already found the Spotted Cloak, and he manages to put two and two together.
>One Pass: [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] sees you, but he does not know what to make of you, having not found your Spotted Cloak in the cabinet
>Two Passes: [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] hears something, and sees a tall shadow moving from around a corner. He does not do anything, but if he is somehow found by anyone who is looking for you, he will tell them what he saw, and when he saw it.
>Three Passes: [RANK UNKNOWN][NAME UNKNOWN] hears and sees nothing. If anyone were to ask, he would have nothing to tell.

>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2), then you automatically fail this test, and step on a rusty nail, seriously injuring your foot.
>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99), then you automatically pass this test, and you find a lucky tenth-talent in the cabinet that you somehow missed.
>A Critical Failure overrides a Critical Success and a Near-Critical Success, but a Critical Success overrides a Near-Critical Failure.
>You are STRONGLY encouraged to roll again after fifteen minutes if more rolls are needed, to keep the quest moving.

May your luck run white!

Rolled 55 (1d100)

>>5070740

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5070740
number 2

Rolled 92 (1d100)

>>5070740
number 3

File: Laudanum Vial.jpg (77 KB, 750x750)

77 KB JPG

>>5070818
>>5070803
>>5070774
Good rolls!

Now, to get back into the Midden.

> DC 33: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Sneakthief, making a basic Stealth Test like this [Easy]
> + DC 7 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Hard to Miss, given her size
> + DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is carrying a purse with some clinky coins
> + DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in broad daylight
> + DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is Known in the Midden
> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired, and is not thinking as quickly as she should
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Hungered, and is slightly more sluggish than usual
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has Complete Knowledge of the Midden
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in an area with some concealment
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth in a poorly trafficked area
> - DC 15 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is attempting Stealth while potential onlookers have an active distraction (something big happening in the plaza)
> - DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently wearing underwear
> - DC 5 Witchlet Chlotsuintha has successfully manged this stealth test recently

> DC 20: Anything lower is a failure. [No re-rolls. As the guards are on high alert for some reason, they have one hostile re-roll]

>No Passes: Been nice knowing (You): A guard sees you physically climbing on the palisade, which now that curfew is in effect for you, is a capital crime. They are going to want to take you to the guardhouse, and hold you there to await execution. This is not a [GAME OVER], but things are about to get hard.
>One Pass: "A real shame you've gone blind, isn't it?" A Leper sees you physically climbing on the palisade, which now that curfew is in effect for you, is a capital crime. You might be able to talk and bribe your way out of this - or maybe a more permanent solution is called for.
>Two Passes: "Am I being detained?". A Leper sees you walking away from the palisade. It is not a crime, but it is suspicious, and they will remember it. You might want to talk to them, to try and bribe them - or maybe just ignore it and hope for the best.
>Three Passes: To the Penthouse or to the Plaza. No one sees you at any point in your climb, and you have a choice to go see what the commotion is, or return to your belfry.

>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2), then you automatically fail this test, and you sprain your ankle as you drop into the Midden.
>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99), then you automatically pass this test, and in the process, stumble across a new way in and out of the Midden.
>A Critical Failure overrides a Critical Success and a Near-Critical Success, but a Critical Success overrides a Near-Critical Failure.
>You are STRONGLY encouraged to roll again after fifteen minutes if more rolls are needed, to keep the quest moving.

Rolled 57 (1d100)

>>5070907
1st roll.

Rolled 82 (1d100)

>>5070907
roll 2

This may have been brought up before, but what horrible method of execution awaits Clot if she ever gets caught?

Rolled 44 (1d100)

>>5070907
3rd roll.

It looks like our luck did indeed run white, we'll have to do right in the future to pay for this run of good luck and to cleanse the stain our moral failings left on our soul.

Rolled 22 (1d100)

>>5070924
In the Mount, for all capital crimes, except removing the Spotted Cloak outside of the Midden, the doomed Leper is executed publicly in a wheeled crematorium unit that the guards call the Cooker. The nominal reason behind this is that there are some concerns about the bodies of the Lepers spreading disease, if executed traditionally on a winch-gallows or some other method. To ensure that an appropriate example is made, there is air tube inside the unit for the condemned, so that do not die prematurely from smoke inhalation, and the witnesses do not miss out on hearing the screams. Unclean workers in other cities or towns or villages accused of capital crimes are also typically executed by some form of immolation. This is considered extreme, and death by immolation as a punishment is reserved only to unclean workers (though male slaves are commonly given as oblations at Temples, to be burnt in the Temples' Eternal Starlight, that is not a punishment. There is another exception - captives belonging in part or whole to any of the races declared as 'Strange' in the Codes of Coffle and Chain, but we can get into that later).

But for removing the Spotted Cloak, which they might accuse her of if they find the dressmakers slips in her purse:
>...the fate that awaits as a Leper who tried to change out of their spots is not quicker than mitigation, and at points could be as painful. There is no doubt some official name for this punishment, but all of the denizens of the Midden call it ‘death by donation’. The bastards at the Chirurgeon’s Guild will occasionally request convicted criminals or Lepers to be sent to their guild house or the University’s Medical School, so that they can be practiced or experimented on … but those that have been requested are expected to be returned in good working order, or at the very least, in condition comparable to how they were when they were sent in. And while there is always a chance that someone who was requested is not going to be coming back, or that they will come back all frayed up, those are exceptions – if not rare, then at least very, very uncommon. Of course, those conditions only apply to those that have been requested. For Lepers and others convicted of capital crimes who have been sentenced to death by donation, they are never going to be returned or released. Which means that the vultures can be much more … vigorous with their experiments, not to mention that and that they can deliberately inflict injuries or induce illnesses to practice healing and treating. Father occasional has some dealings with members of the Chirurgeon’s Guild and with their representatives in the University’s Medical School, and he told you a couple of horror stories about what they get up to. And as they do not get too many ‘donations’ they make a point of keeping them alive for as long as possible – months, years even, strapped to a bed, hopefully drugged out of your mind.

>>5071014
Damn it. I always forget that italicizing voids the greentext. Well, anyway, the hostile re-roll did not cause you to fail a test, congratulations!. Which means you now have a new vote - to head back to the belfry to eat and maybe take a nap, or head to the plaza, and see what has got the guards so agitated (you saw and heard some of them in the distance as you climbed over the palisade, but they did not notice you)

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Do not get involved. Instead, go get dinner!
> ... You suppose you should check this out.

>>5071023
>Do not get involved. Instead, go get dinner!

Honestly, the poor girl must be running on fumes by now. Get her some food.

>>5071023
I hope this isn't father being executed or something, still, we need to prepare for tonight. And if it is something traumatizing, then all the better we prevent Chlot from seeing it, the result is the same anyways, we'll be leaving the city.

>Do not get involved. Instead, go get dinner!

>>5071023
>> ... You suppose you should check this out.
Might regret this but my curiosity must be sated.

>>5071023
>Do not get involved. Instead, go get dinner!

You breathe in deeply to calm yourself and focus on the derelict house. Just on the house. There is no way around it, you need to get your Spotted Cloak before whoever is in there finds it. Considering that you are a stone’s throw away from the Midden, you cannot afford to draw attention to yourself – in fact, you cannot afford to draw any attention to this house, or anything else. Especially after the Retribution at the well. You do not want to give anyone any dots that they might be able to connect back later … well, anymore dots, considering it is a forgone conclusion that the Inquisition is eventually going to figure out that you are Witchlet when they go to exhume Aldoin’s coffin to mitigate it, and they find that it has already been magically mitigated, and the unstable relic that caused all of the trouble is not where the Coroner’s left it. They will be coming after you like shot out of a cannonade – you can only hope that you have put enough distance between you and the Mount by the time they put it all together that your trail will have run cold.

After stifling a yawn, you make up your mind – you will take your chances and attempt to sneak in, grab your gear, and sneak out. You look around the alley once more, to make sure that there is no one on hand to witness you, and then you prowl towards the hole in the wall. Before poking your head in, you take a long hard look at the remains of the floor, and decide that for the sake of stealth, you are going to have to go without your boots. As you unlace them, you listen to whoever is moving around in one of the other rooms on the first floor – they seem to be drunkenly humming some tune intermittently. You leave your boots outside of the house, but you take the stilettoes with you, shoving the fancier looking one in your belt, and keeping the chipped one in your off hand. Just a precaution.

You take one last dubious look at the floor, then boost yourself up and slip through the hole into the house. Judging by the humming, the other houseguest seems to be staying in one place, which is fortunate. As you were taught, you keep the exit straight behind you for as long as possible – if something goes wrong, you want to be able to run away before anyone else can react. And as you continue to pick your way slowly and steadily towards the cabinet by the stairs, you reflect on some of the other advice that father gave you on sneakthievery. What he wanted to drive into you the most is that is not something that should be done blind. The more you know, the easier and the safer it is. That sounds like common sense, but then you hear about thieves that try to break into and knock over places without properly staking them out, basically doing the job sight unseen. Most of the time, you hear about them after they have been caught, too. So apparently, this is actually something that needed to be said.

>>5071392
You make it all the way to the stairs, when the on and off humming stops. You keep moving, knowing that freezing up in the middle of a room is not going to work, but you are straining your ears and praying that he does not come any closer. When you finally do hear the other houseguest again, you are equal parts relieved and disgusted – judging from the sounds, he is pissing in a corner. You get to the cabinet by the stairs, ease open the door and pull out your still folded cloak, with your mask wrapped up inside of it. You carefully secure it under your arm, and you are equally careful to make sure that when you close the door of the cabinet that it stays closed. Alternating between looking over your shoulder and at your feet, you cautiously retrace your steps out of the house. And just like that, you are free and clear.

You find another secluded spot a little further up the street to change, and once you are back in the Spotted Cloak, you head towards the palisade. After you wait just long enough to make sure that there are not any perimeter patrols coming, you bolt for the fence and climb as if your life depends on it – which it does. As you mount the top of the palisade, you notice in the distance that you can see and even hear guards moving around inside of the Midden, which is odd, as they typically stick to the doors and the outside perimeter once the curfew goes into effect. Most of the fuss seems to be around the plaza, which is also odd, as the guards usually stay away when Ablutions are being performed. However, while you are curious as to what could be going on, you are also quite hungry – all you have had today was water from your flask and the Emmerloaf that you vomited back up. There is some mackerel waiting for you back in the belfry, and as you walk your way to the Not-Temple, you are trying to figure out how much you should eat tonight.

But when you get to the Not-Temple, you are surprised and alarmed to see a guard standing in front it, throwing rocks at the bell tower, and calling for you.
>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Approach the guard, and ask him just what exactly he is doing.
>Sneak around the guard, and get inside before anything else happens.

>>5071393
>Sneak around the guard, and get inside before anything else happens.
Calling for us? Shit

>>5071393
>Approach the guard, and ask him just what exactly he is doing.

If it is just one guard I doubt he means to arrest us. Plus, I'd rather be outside than trapped in the belfry if they are here to take us, because being trapped in the belfry when the guard gets tired of throwing rocks and decides to get more guards to surround the place sounds like a bad time.

It probably just has to do with the dead guy or one of the inquisitors. Either they are looking for him and want to ask us routine questions because we knew the guy if it is indeed our fellow gravedigger that is the body, or one of the inquisitors want to deliver us instructions. That, or it could be the guy who saw us hop into the well, again probably routine "was that you" questions.

>>5071393
>Sneak around the guard, and get inside before anything else happens.

Well shit.

>>5071393
>Approach the guard, and ask him just what exactly he is doing.
Nothing should stop us from dropping our stuff off and coming back.

Father is "sick" after all.

>>5071393
>>Approach the guard, and ask him just what exactly he is doing.
I don’t believe he’s here to apprehend us but it could be suspicious that we are outside right now.

>>5071629
Would it? Wouldn't we normally be buying dinner and groceries right about now? At least if our first day was what a normal day looked like.

>>5071639
Opportunities for grocery shopping today are pretty limited, as today is the day that Lepers can receive Ablution. (In fact, it is pretty limited everyday outside of payday, which was yesterday). To clarify, as far as Chlotsuintha knows, there is no reason why she could not or should not be outside right now, but clearly something has the guards agitated.

I'm going to leave this vote up for a little longer, in case this changes anyone's mind.

>>5071393
>Approach the guard, and ask him just what exactly he is doing.
sneaking around will not get rid of him. This is not a videogame where guards just give up and leave after three minutes, he might call for backup and they might come up. Let's approach this while it is only one guy. I think this might become our first kill.

>>5071828
>I think this might become our first kill.
easy there anon, murder should be considered more tentatively. Let's see what this is about first before we go there.

>>5071828
I don't want Chlot to be a killer if I can help it, anon. I don't think she'd take to it well, morals aside.

>>5071393
>>Approach the guard, and ask him just what exactly he is doing.
Something to do with Smil, perhaps. Or the Leper who saw us said we were acting strange, but I doubt that would cause a general agitation of the guard or ruckus in the Plaza.

Standing stock still, half hidden behind a corner, you stare at the guard’s broad back, as he shouts up at the Belfry.

“Oy! I swear, if I hafta climb up there, I’ll make ya regret it! Come down here!”

You had assumed that all of the commotion in the plaza was the Ablution, but after having seen the guards this deep in the Midden this late in the day, you know that it has to be something else. For a moment of blind panic, you wonder if they caught your father and are about to execute him in front of everyone, but then you realize that father would never allow himself to be taken alive – and even if he was, the guards do not just immediately execute convicted Lepers. In the eight years you have lived in the Midden, there have been just three public executions – one for a murder, one for breaking curfew, and one for spitting on a guard – and they were all announced days in advance. There have several cases, actually, more than several cases of Lepers who were accused and convicted of “changing out of their spots”, but they were just hauled away without any sort of announcement, just like the others who were sent into the members of the Chirurgeon’s Guild to be practiced on.

So, if it is not that, then … it would have to be something to do with Smil. Vaclav no doubt went to check on him after finally getting back from the South Burying Ground, and when he no doubt found that he was not there, he reported it. And when the guards could not turn him up either, they went into a state of alert – and probably called a general muster in the big plaza. And when you and your father did not show up, the sergeant on duty sent this guard wassailing to the Belfry to bring the two of you over.

All well and good, except that your father is in the Belfry. He might not even be in the Mount. For all you know, he might not even be alive. You know that you are going to have to talk your way out of this, but you are not sure what is the best play here. To try to convince the guard that your father is up there, just bedbound, and then go wherever the guard leads you, which might be a hard sell, or to try to get tricky, and use the corpse you have in your room as a stand in for your father and bring him to the window to show the guard. That might be easier to swallow, but if that deception fails, and he realizes that not only is your father not up there, but that you have body up there, you would be really fraying frayed.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>You will attempt to talk explain your father’s absence without use of any “props”.
>It is an odd time to start practicing mummery and puppeteering, but it seems like your best bet right now.

>>5071892
>You will attempt to talk explain your father’s absence without use of any “props”.

The other option seems doomed to becoming a grim farce, imo

>>5071892
>You will attempt to talk explain your father’s absence without use of any “props”.

He'll just have to take our word for it, if he wants our "bedridden" father to climb down here while immobile and ill he can fuck off.

He has no good reason not to just hear our reason and accept it, this is seemingly just an accounting of all persons, we'll show up and that'll be that.

For real though, I'm probably overstating how easy it is for us to spin a convincing lie to this guard and how much authority we have to say "he's bedridden, if you want him down here than you can piss off" considering guards probably have free reign to be as tyrannical as they want to lepers.

Or perhaps not, who knows.

I guess I'd just be frustrated if this was a hard lie to spin or if we were so low status as to not be able to just tell a guard "well, too bad". I'm not even sure why some leper missing warrants mustering every other leper to account for them all, seems like a waste of time and manpower for the guards.

>>5071892
>>You will attempt to talk explain your father’s absence without use of any “props”.

>>5071892
>You will attempt to talk explain your father’s absence without use of any “props”.

>You will attempt to talk explain your father’s absence without use of any “props”.

Magic is the solution to some problems, here we just need to play it cool and stick to the story.

Alright, a completely unanimous vote. I will get to writing.

Wait ... we need to roll first. God, it is too early to be QMing. Anyway, 3x1d100 please.

> DC 10: Witchlet Chlotsuintha is a Born and Bred Liar, making an Easy Deception Test like this [Easy]
> + DC 2 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is slightly suspicious, having just been out wandering during a general muster.
> + DC 3 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is now Tired, and is not thinking as quickly as she should
> + DC 2 Guardsman [NAME UNKNOWN] is on guard but is not particularly diligent or capable
> - DC 1 Witchlet Chlotsuintha is currently wearing underwear
> - DC 5 Guardsman [NAME UNKNOWN] will not want to go near a sick Leper to verify your father's presence.
> - DC 3 Guardsman [NAME UNKNOWN] will not want to climb up into the Belfry to verify your father's presence.

>DC 8: Anything lower is a failure. [No re-rolls. As the guards are on high alert for some reason, Guardsman [NAME UNKNOWN] has one hostile re-roll]

>No Passes: He has his orders. Despite whatever reservations he may have, he has been told to at the very least, see your father to count him as present. You will need to do something else.
>One Pass: The mercurial guardsman. While he may have had orders to verify your father's presence, you have convinced him that father is still up there. He will count your father as present. But if he is asked, then this guard will admit that he did not actually see your father.
>Two Passes: No more a-wassailing today. While he may have had orders to verify your father's presence, you have convinced him that father is still up there. He will count your father as present. But if pressed, this guard will admit that he did not actually see your father.
>Three Passes: One bat, two bats. While he may have had orders to verify your father's presence, you have convinced him that father is still up there. He will count your father as present.If pressed on this, this guard will lie and say that he saw your father, even when pressed, just to protect his skin.

>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Failure (Roll of 1 or 2), then you automatically fail this test, and Guardsman [NAME UNKNOWN] becomes very suspicious of you.
>If ONE of the THREE rolls comes up as a Critical or Near-Critical Success (Roll of 100 or 99), then you automatically pass this test, and Guardsman [NAME UNKNOWN] will vouch for you with other guards.
>A Critical Failure overrides a Critical Success and a Near-Critical Success, but a Critical Success overrides a Near-Critical Failure.
>You are STRONGLY encouraged to roll again after fifteen minutes if more rolls are needed, to keep the quest moving.

Oh, and another thing. I was looking at the rules about critical rolls (see above), and I was wondering if re-rolls should count for crits or not. Under the current rules, I would say they would not (ONE of the THREE, with the re-roll being the fourth). So, should the rules be amended?
>Change rules to allow crits on re-rolls
>Keep rules the same

Rolled 64 (1d100)

>>5072405
>Change rules to allow crits on re-rolls

Rolled 93 (1d100)

>>5072405
>Keep rules the same

Rolled 81 (1d100)

>>5072405
>Change rules to allow crits on re-rolls
I thought they already did.

Rolled 77 (1d100)

>>5072419
Hostile re-roll.

I'll get the post up later today, maybe tonight. If you have not voted already, please throw your hat in the ring on:

>Change rules to allow crits on re-rolls
>Keep rules the same

>>5072502
>Change rules to allow crits on re-rolls

>>5072502
> Change rules to allow crits on re-rolls

>>5072405
>>Keep rules the same
Crits on rerolls are not in Chlot's favor, since CFailures override both Near- and CSuccesses, while CSes only override NCFs.
Is this a mercenary way to vote? Yes. But rolls are already very difficult to get out of without (sometimes major, sometimes minor) complications.

>>5072502
>>Keep rules the same
The anon above convinced me. I know it’s gamey but Chlot doesn’t get as many rerolls and opportunities as her opponents.

I just got back up to date with this quest. Not to be a downer, I enjoy your writing and think this is one of the best quests in /qst/, but I find reading these recent updates to be quite stressful, and thus a bit unenjoyable. Now, I understand we're up shit creek without a fucking boat and you wanna play that straight, but I come to /qst/ to try and unstress my day, not tie my gut up into a knot over whether the fucking dressmaker will put 2 and 2 together and call the authorities on our ass, let alone the other important shit we have to do (and the knowledge that the Inquisition will eventually hunt us down because we unknowingly tried to do some good and prevent Strangeness from speading really hit me hard personally). Now, I can do some mental gymnastics and find some enjoyment with helping others out even in high risk/stress situations, but anons don't have the appetite to do good or save lives, and I partially think that it's because they're overwhelmed as well. While I understand the need to focus on ourselves and our problems, I cannot ignore us ignoring the plight of others, especially when we have the power and ability to actually make a difference and help out significantly, even if it does cost us precious time in this lit powder keg. I'm not saying we should be totally selfless, but I do think helping prevent a crisis for a large community is worth risk and the time expenditure, especially when live are on the line. I don't want to play as a coward that lets people die though inaction anons, and I hope we can try and be a better person later on in this thread, because I can't justify our selfish actions in the face of a full blown crisis.

I just thought I'd let my thoughts be known before I start participating again.

>>5072502
Frankly, I don't know what would be better for Chlot, and I think it's irresponsible for me to vote on shit that I don't know about and may make things worse for us.

After thinking about it for more than a second, you realize just how many ways using the dead body as a stand-in for your father could go wrong. You should be able to pull this off without resorting to something that desperate anyway, because odds are this guard simply wants to be done with his task, and if he was told that the one of the Lepers that he was sent after was sick – or rather, sicker – he probably would be perfectly fine with keeping his distance. In fact, you would say that the odds favor it. If this guard was diligent, then he would be trying to figure a way up into the Belfry right now, instead of standing outside of it and shouting impotently. You breathe deeply, and straighten yourself up, but then you realize that it would probably serve to be as unimposing and unassuming as possible, so you slouch instead. Having composed yourself mentally and now physically, you approach the still shouting guard, who is starting to sound a little bit hoarse.

“Sir guardsman, is everything alright?”

You might have well as stuck him with a red-hot fire poker because he jumps more than a foot off of the ground – impressive, considering that he is wearing a cuirass. However, he does manage to keep ahold of his pike, and as he composes himself, he grips it with both hands. It is not pointed at you, but he is certainly keeping it ‘at the ready’. Still breathing a little bit heavily, he finally speaks.

“Pray-fraying-tell, where in the Heights were you?”

“I’m sorry, I … just went for a walk, that’s all. Has something happened?”

“Yeah, a general muster. Is your father up there, or is he going to jump out at me too?”

The guard says that without a hint of irony, and when he actually looks over his shoulder to check, you smile under your mask in spite of yourself.

“No, he’s up in the Belfry. But he’s stuck abed – sick. Coughing … coughing up blood.”

You can see whatever enthusiasm he had for his orders physically leave his body. His stance relaxes as he rests his pike against his shoulder, freeing up a hand for him to rub across his mouth. You know you have him when he takes a long and noticeably fearful look up at the Belfry.

“Blood?”

“Aye. Blood.”

“Well … we don’t want no one else getting sick. Alright then, you come with me to the plaza, and we’ll mark the two of ya accounted for.”

Part of you does not want to go to the plaza at all, but you are worried that even if you could talk him out of taking you, were he to return to his superiors completely empty handed, they might send him back for the two of you. And you would also like to know just what exactly is happening. General musters are fairly common, there is a couple every year – but they are always in the morning, done before the start of day’s work. Not to mention the guards, especially this one, are noticeably on edge – more so than you would expect them to be if this was just about an escape.

>>5072502
>Keep rules the same

>>5072929
Walking well in front of the guard, the two of you make your way to the plaza, where to your surprise just about every Leper in the Mount are milling around or just sitting on the ground. There are no priests, no Ablution being offered, even though it is still pretty early … and even odder, the workers of the cafeteria are nowhere to be seen, but they have left their pots ands vats behind. The guard takes you to the center of the plaza, where the Sergeant of the Middenguard, Plotinus, is consulting some ledgers with two harried looking clerks. It takes you a moment, but eventually you recognize the ledger as the Roll Call – the record of all Lepers in the Midden. The guard that you are with announced his arrival and manages a pretty clean looking salute. The sergeant looks at the two of you for a moment, frowns, and then makes his way over. His hand is on his belt. Not quite on his sword, but far too close.

“Where is the other one?”

“Accounted for, but sick, sir. Bedbound and coughing up blood.”

“Bedbound?”

“Yessir.”

Plotinus narrows his eyes, and your escort shrivels up a little.

“You climbed up into the belfry of the Not-Temple?”

“Uh … no, sir.”

“Answer me this then; if his bed is in the belfry, but you did not climb up into the belfry to check, then how do you know that he is in his bed?”

“Well … uh, I didn’t go to his bed, sir, but, but I sent him –”

“How did you send him anything?”

“No, no. This one, sir. I sent this one to bring the other one to the window. And they did. And he was there. Look sir, I’m sorry, but he was coughing. Coughing up blood, sir. I didn’t want to –”

“Oh, I can tell you didn’t want to.”

The guard stumbles for something to say, but the sergeant cuts him off.

“Forget it. Just go mind the gate until you’re relieved by the reinforcements.”

Before you can even begin to parse that, Plotinus turns his attention to you, and now it is your turn to shrivel.

“You got back from the South Burying Ground early today, did you not?”

As your stomach sinks, your mind races, trying to figure out where the sergeant is going with this. What does he know? What does he think you have done?

“I … yes. I was early. The South Sexton was busy after today’s internment, so we were let off early.”

“You will address me as sir, Leper.”

You open your mouth to apologize, but Plotinus keeps barreling forward.

“So, if you were here in the Midden, then how did you manage to miss the call to muster half an hour ago?”

“I … Sir, I must have just missed it. It – it is hard to hear things sometimes, with the mask, and I just … must have been lost in my thoughts, I guess …”

“Is that right?”

You nod, but do not say anything else.

“And while you were lost in your thoughts, where exactly were you?”

“I – I mean … sir, I wasn’t anywhere exactly. I was just walking.”

>>5072986
“Walking?”

“Yessir.”

“You work for ten hours, at what must be hard labor for a woman, and when you are done, and you finally have some time for yourself, you spend it … walking? By yourself? For more than an hour?”

“Uh – no. I mean, no sir. I was not walking for an hour – nowhere near that long. I spent most of the time since I got off tending to father. I take walks to, to clear my head.”

The sergeant looks at you for a what feels like half a minute without saying a single word. Finally, he drops this line of questioning, and motions for you to follow him. You do, but before you have taken more than two strides, he starts in on another line of questioning.

“When the Leper Smil was absent without cause when the gate was opened at the sixth hour, you did not report it. Why?”

So this was all about Smil having gone missing after all. Seems odd for all this fuss over a missing Leper, but maybe Plotinus is worried that it will reflect poorly on him? You are working it over in your head when unexpected, Strange-Staining activates, and all of sudden, you can see the footfalls of the one of the Coroners passing in front of you. Fighting down another black surge of regret, you awkwardly adjust your stride to walk around them, as you answer the question that has been put to you.

“We didn’t know it was without cause, sir. We – ”

“We?”

“Me and Vaclav, sir. He is one of the –”

“I know who he is.”

“… Anyway, we figured he was sick, or maybe just running late.”

“Hmm.”

You wait for a follow up question, about why you did not check on Smil when you returned early, but it does not come. Suddenly you realize that the sergeant is leading you out of the plaza, away from the ruins in the center of the Midden, and towards the western section where most of the free-standing hovels in the Midden are located. The cobbled street gives way to a dirt street, which becomes smaller and more winding the further you get into this section. You are seriously considering asking the sergeant where he is taking you, when you come around a turn to see a distraught looking Vaclav standing outside of one of the hovels, next to a guard. Before you can ask what is going on, the sergeant finally asks a follow up question, though it is not the one you were expecting.

“When was the last time you saw the Leper Smil?”

“Uh … Yesterday, sir, when we were leaving the South Burying Ground. I … wanted to get back to check on my father, so I rushed on my way back here.”

The sergeant turns to Vaclav.

“And then, while you were making your way through the chip, he went off on his own, saying that he needed to pick something up, without ever specifying what that was?”

Vaclav, eyes wide with concern, nods in the affirmative.

“And did either of you notice any … changes, in his behavior in the past two or three days?”

>>5073030
Vaclav looks at you, but you do not return the glance. Instead, you answer the question truthfully.

“Yessir, he did. After being quiet as a clam since he arrived, he just started asking Vaclav questions about the Midden yesterday, during work.”

Unexpectedly, Plotinus points to the door of the hovel, and once realizing that this command is meant for the both of you, you and Vaclav take trepidatious steps towards the door. The sergeant moves closer as well, coming closer to the two of you than most people would get to a Leper. As he does, he speaks, though this time there is not as much edge in his voice as there was a moment before.

“We found him under the floorboards.”

In your stressed, tired, and hungered state, you do not even realize what he is saying at first, but as he continues, it eventually clicks.

“Whoever did this was smart enough to place a chamber pot right over him, to explain away the smell, but by the time that the guard checked this place, it was so bad in here that they realized something had to be up.”

As you get to the door, and look inside, you can see a body, covered by a spare Spotted Cloak someone had draped over it. The air in the hovel is redolent with the heavy smells of decay, heavy enough that you have to wonder –

“He’s been dead for at least two days, maybe as many as four. So whoever you were speaking to yesterday, that wasn’t Leper Smil. That was the bastard who killed him.”

A chill goes straight through you. And that bastard was trying to get into the Belfry! Not to mention he coincidentally showed up while your father was out on some huge, mysterious job … but before you can really consider the implications, Plotinus speaks up again. This time, his voice is almost gentle.

“Our search of this residence also turned up a bunch of a laudanum – a small fortune’s worth, as well as some coins, so it seems our murderer is also a smuggler. I’m not sure if he planned to kill someone and take their place, so he could sell his ‘product’, or if Smil found him out, or what, but I want you two to know that you are not in danger – no one is in danger. Right now, my men are combing the Midden. Once we confirm that this butcher is not hiding here right now, we are going to find how the Hell he got in here. And until we do that, the guard is going to be doubled, and there is going to be night patrols through the Midden. I’ve also requested that the Captain of the Guard lend me some of the Stickport men to do perimeter patrols, so I can put more of my men in the Midden. We will get this place completely air-tight, so if this monster, or anyone else for that matter, tries to sneak in and out, we’ll catch them. Sure as sunrise.”

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>>5073112
>We will get this place completely air-tight, so if this monster, or anyone else for that matter, tries to sneak in and out, we’ll catch them. Sure as sunrise.
JUST

>>5073114
It may mean that we need to change our plans take less stuff, to simplify our exit, maybe starting a fire to draw attention since the body can at least cover for "father" or slip out during the day using the new clothes, hopefully they don't restrict travel or have some sort of permit system for leaving convoys / merchants.

>>5073112
Your head is absolutely spinning right now. Vaclav looks just as stunned. With no more questions for either of you, a hint of the edge in his voice returns as Plotinus dismisses you and Vaclav back to the plaza. You and your fellow gravedigger make your way back in silence.

Of all of the times for security to be tightened! You still are fairly certain that if the worse came to pass, you could be able to run away, but that would mean leaving behind all of father’s equipment. Maybe … maybe you should accelerate your schedule. Get the lifting oil, and then get everything out. Forget the dresses, forget buying materials or sundries – do that elsewhere. Just get out of the city as soon as humanly possible before anything else goes wrong. Or maybe, that is not the best idea. Maybe you should just stick to the original plan – seven days.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Plan for an immediate escape, taking only what you can carry on your back.
>Plan to take everything in the Belfry but make the departure ASAP. [Initiates vote on abandoning dresses, the investigation of the late Aldoin’s house, and anything else]
>Stick to the original plan.

>>5072920
Well, the good news is that if we get through this last push, then things should finally slow down, and Chlotsuintha (as well as the rest of us) can take it easy (easier, at least). Also, about the point of not helping the Lepers, do not worry, after that Retribution (or what she believes is Retribution) she is definitely keen on proving herself. And there will be opportunities to do so, don't worry.

Also, I'm glad that you are liking the quest!

>>5073122
At this point, the focus is just on the Midden.

>>5073123
>Stick to the original plan.
Probably for the best, since it will all assist us in the future since things both haven't gone wrong or actually degraded to the point that cutting our losses would be the right thing to do since not following through could point fingers in directions we don't want them pointed just yet.

>>5073123
I'm ultra conflicted, this is gonna make slipping out tonight to even get the oil super hard, maybe even game ending hard, the same for slipping out to get the dresses.

If we left now we would at least have the money to secure our future, and we could probably take all of father's notes too. So with the knowledge the workbenches could be recreated and we could still learn everything, the money could fund the recreation of any materials or tools we'd need for that too, but we know from the flashback that purchasing large volumes of suspicious materials brings the inquisition.

Leaving without the dresses could be bad, I actually can't quite remember what the specific reason why we wanted them other than leaving with only rags would be bad for travel and that we cannot leave with a spotted cloak. I should probably reread the old threads some time.

Still, we aren't compromised, this just makes things harder. Perhaps it is best to stick to the plan, we got this far, we have the dresses lined up and some things to look into still.

Maybe we should carry more than an ordinary amount of money around just in case we are ever forced to make a run for it with just the things on our back. That way if we had to run we could at least slip out, get our dresses, have enough money to pay for food and water so we don't die and then pay for transport out. Just a precaution to prevent a game over should we end up discovered but not in the vicinity of anyone who would want to take us.

>Stick to the original plan.

>>5073123
>>Stick to the original plan.

Leaving immediately with just a pack containing a piece of the life loom, Father's notes, money, and meager supplies would be foolish. The time to do that was yesterday.

Our best option is taking advantage of teh spreading madness of the 3rd degree strangeness and leaving then. We'd need to plan around contact with the strangeness(lifting oil seems good for an air balloon type escape with a wagon?).

The other route is getting out on foot with backpacks. This involves recruiting people into coming with us to escape the impending strangeness. Maybe we could warn Father's friends at that gambing parlor and get help or recruit Vaclav, the South Sexton, and his son once we reveal their impending doom at the hands of the inquisition. Lots of big gambles, hard to say what would pay off.

>>5073163
Despite being kind of threadbare, the description of the pirate who robbed the Euthyphro and briefly kidnapped her captain is a unusually tall cross-dresser or a near unnaturally tall woman wearing a ragged dress. As we cannot shrink ourselves, getting new clothes became a priority. Also, having better clothes means that it will be easier to get into certain places, and convince certain people of certain things.

>>5073123
>Stick to the original plan.

Frankly, I expect us to die before we escape, but going off half-cocked is also a sure fire recipe for disaster.

Also, I don't expect expect us to last through this last push, as I fully expect another shitstorm to fall on our laps, and with the introduction of hostile re-rolls with there being no comparative counter for us (and no, the lucky tenth-talent is so rare that it doesn't compare, and I ain't expecting crit successes to start falling from the skies here), and I'm a bit depressed at our chances of getting out alive.

>>5073193
We need a distraction for the Inquisition and the Midden guards and a couple red herrings for when they start investigating our disappearance fully. We need them to waste time on dead ends, false trails, and other such distractions if we really want to get the best odds of relieving this stressful headache of a risk that the Inquisition investigating us represents.

>>5073123
>Stick to the original plan.
Rushing into things is a sure path to make mistakes

>>5073123
>>Plan to take everything in the Belfry but make the departure ASAP. [Initiates vote on abandoning dresses, the investigation of the late Aldoin’s house, and anything else]
This is bad. Staying longer will tip off the guards to the things amiss in our place.

>>5073123

>Stick to the original plan.

We need to study the new patrol environment.

Leaving now would be acting "blind."

That's about what I expected for Smil. Abandoning that thread may have caused the tightening of security though - if Chlot had investigated and hidden this body then perhaps whatever triggered this wouldn't have led to the escalation response, though of course that would mean she would drop some other plate...
So many plates.

>>5073684
Someone would have found out eventually. Acting strange around not!Smil could have tipped him off and brought real danger on us.

>>5073710
One things that bugging me is how they know the dead body is actually Smil, the presence of laudanum on the body we found that died trying to ascend to the Belfry might indicate that something is up or one of them is being miss identified somehow.

>>5073684
It's inevitable that we'd have to drop a couple. I mean, we on no sleep or food for close to 48 hours now, and we still barely accomplished anything that would legitimately help us escape. I'm starting to get frustrated here.

>>5073710
Could've burned the body, and we wouldn't have investigated if not!Smil was still alive fucking around.

>>5073717
Anon, it's clear to me that this is the real Smil and not!Smil was either Father's friend or an Inquisition agent sent in to investigate the Graverobbing. With Fathrr being gone and not!Smil impersonating Smil, it's clear to me that this man was an agent and that we lucked out with him breaking his neck and head.

>>5073899
But the "original" Smil was the laudanum smuggler, he would probably have had money and contacts to procure the expensive club that the "Fallen" corpse had on them, though it just as easily could have been looted off whichever one was the first to die.

There would be a few ways to figure this out, but we don't really have the time to do the investigations we would need to, though if we do end up leaving a note it would be worth it to mention most of what we have seen that is non magical for whomever finds it since having a timeline would help close the "loop" or let them have a better idea where the authorities are at in their investigation if they need it.


Also figuring out if Smil was working with "Father" or if he had some sort of incriminating evidence that he was holding over him might be a good idea to see if we need to clamp down on, though at this point if there was any evidence it was likely found alongside the stash of laudanum and by now would be being looked over for clues.

>>5074138
If not!Smil was working with Father, he wouldn't need the info on us from Vaclav or have tried to climb the Tower alone. It's clear that being a laudanum smuggler was a cover, to get info and assess which leapers were graverobbing.

Also, we are not helping these lads with their investigation, considering the suspect's body is laying on our bed.

>>5074156
Considering that it's pretty likely that a lot of supplies bound for elsewhere come in through the attached port, keeping things from going sideways here as best we can would be beneficial to any attempt we make to support ourselves elsewhere since if goods stop flowing supplies are going to dry up very quickly which will be a problem.

It would also help delay people coming to look for us since they would likely have more interesting things to do than send someone to look for us, since they would either be taking the heat that our leads provided or looking into them, themselves. considering that they have caused friction with the guards I don't think it came down through normal channels since it would probably have been smothered to prevent it from causing issues

Anyone investigating the body would notice the obvious headwounds and realize that they fell attempting to climb, especially if we provide a curated timeline for them to read along with it to point them in another more "beneficial" direction.

>>5074177
Frankly, I doubt we can stop the spread at this point. The amount of Strangeness in the 3rd degree we've seen clearly indicates that it's a bigger problem than we think it is, and there may be other 'graven ball' type magical artifacts spewing more Strangeness all over the place, because the witchlet who created the graven ball (not Father), was either totally incompetent, or wanted the Strangeness to spread uncontrollably. Unless we are willing to put in the effort to investigate it fully (which I would support), then I doubt this will be the last Strange 'artifact' that will infect Midden while we're here.

Anybody investigating the body will clearly notice the smell and bloat, and will realize that this corpse ain't fresh. I personally either try and create a minion from the corpse, or try and use the loom the expand the body to our size and characteristics and stage our 'death' with it.

>>5074229
>try and use the loom the expand the body to our size and characteristics and stage our 'death' with it.

I like this idea.

I liked the idea of a fire. Though...Fires in premodern societies were...very lethal and liable to spreading...So perhaps that is a poor idea!

>>5074239
Pretty sure that if we were to knock over a candle in the belfry or something similar it would look pretty convincing we could use even use any spare lifting oil to accelerate it and only do damage to our living space, and since we live in an old church we shouldn't have to worry about the surroundings since there should be sufficient clear space to not drop burning wood onto other buildings and the damage "wood" be limited to an already condemned building, the body they would find in the aftermath would also probably solve some issues, though it might cause others if "Father" is still around or makes it back.

>>5073123
>Plan to take everything in the Belfry but make the departure ASAP. [Initiates vote on abandoning dresses, the investigation of the late Aldoin’s house, and anything else]
I've been a "stick to the plan" guy for the last 10 votes but I think we now need some flexibility.

BTW we actually have the body they are looking for, maybe we can stash that somewhere and tip off the guards to get rid of this.

>>5074286
Funnily enough, if we do commit to the body enlargement scheme, people would just think it was just our Father who croaked.

>>5074299
They seem to have a way to identify bodies. The idea is to get him out of the bellfry again.

>>5074306
Unless they have dental records, or some other pre planted (anything magical we could probably detect) way to ID their operatives burning the body seems like a pretty safe bet.

>>5074306
They only figured that it was Smil because this was his hovel and he was dead for a couple days hidden underneath the boards. Plus, no one who knows us as Sty doesn't know what we look like. If we manage to get the corpse to our size, they would be no chance of them misidentifying the body as anyone but Sty. If our luck remains white, we may even be able to pin our death (and potentially our witchlet actions) on the not!Smil, have him take the heat while we run off to the countryside.

As you are wondering just what in the Heights of Hell you are supposed to do now, you realize that it is kind of … odd that Plotinus and the guards are taking it as a fact that the body that they have in the hovel is the real Smil. You are fairly certain it is, but that is because you have the other body. It chews at you enough that you actually ask Vaclav, as the two of you make your way back to the plaza. After putting the question to him, your fellow gravedigger slows to a stop, and rocks back and forth for a moment as he mulls it over.

“Well … I’d assume that they know more than we do. When I was brought to speak to Plotinus, they had some of those book-boys on hand, going through those great big ledgers that they write us all up in. Maybe Smil – the real Smil – had something wrong with him that was identifiable, or maybe a couple of things, and it was writ down in there. Beyond that … I mean, these are guards we are talking about. They have to have an intuition for this stuff.”

Well, you do not know about that, but the point about the guards knowing more than you does make a lot of sense. Plotinus did have two clerks, or ‘book-boys’ looking over the Roll Call when you were brought before him too. And the body was all covered up, so there could have been something physically identifying. Not to mention, that when you investigated the body of the impostor, you did notice that there was nothing obviously wrong with it. At the time, you had taken that to mean that this was someone who was sent here as a punishment, not as a precaution … but now, it seems that the bastard was not sent here at all.

Still, there is something odd about all of this. You do not doubt for one minute that there is a big market in the Midden for laudanum … but unauthorized entry into the Midden is a capital crime, just as unauthorized exit, and that extends to non-Lepers as well. And it is not like this is just some unenforceable law ‘on the books’, you are all under armed guard here. Excluding guardhouses, barracks, and the Bowels, this is probably the most dangerous place in the city for anyone to try to peddle contraband.

>>5074506
You know from the conversation that you overheard at the well last night, that the laudanum was being sold for one hundred and fifty eight-talents. You had a lot more pressing things on your mind at the time, but now that you think about it, while that is a lot of money for a Leper – enough that some of them would need to buy the vials in shares – how much money is that for a narcotics smuggler? Or for that matter, any non-destitute Imperial Subject? So then why would a smuggler, someone who has to have a real self-serving, mercenary mindset, sneak into a fairly well-guarded compound to sell this stuff to Lepers when he could sell the same vial to a … depressed writer or poet or whatever, probably for a bit more money, with none of the skullduggery and at a fraction of the risk to themselves?

It seems like there has to be more to this, but for the life of you, you cannot figure out what it would be. Was this smuggler working with father? You do not want to rule that out, but father was so diligent at keeping all of that stuff at arm’s length … and while you know that he has had to … kill people to protect his (and yours, and mother’s) secrets, you hope that he would not confederate with cutthroats. Besides, Smil’s death has caused all sorts of trouble, and –

A stroke of inspiration hits you like a bolt of lightning!

>>5074508
>Please choose ONE of the following

>Modify the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom to use as a stand-in for yourself. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. When you leave the Midden, you can light the Belfry on fire, leaving the body behind to burn. It is possible (BUT FAR FROM GUARANTEED) that this could be enough to get the Inquisition off of your trail. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.

>Reverse the decay from the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom, and then stage him like he fell from the palisade, trying to climb over. If the guards fail to find any secret passages before they find the body, then they will almost certainly assume that there are none. If the guards have the body, and are convinced that there are no secret passages, then the state of alert will end. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire some flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.

>It is completely unrelated to any of this, but you think you have just figured out how to make flesh-threads with venation! (I thought it would be nice if the neither-option came with a little tidbit of its own. Flesh-threads are conduits, that allow you to directly interface with any flesh-construct that you make. Veined flesh-threads can be made much longer than basic flesh-threads (ten yards instead of just one yard), which means that constructs could conceivably be controlled at longer ranges. Additionally, they transmit input between the master and the construct much quicker and much cleaner, and they do not interfere with perception alteration spells, like Strange-Staining. So if you were connected to a Cat’s Eye (a night-vision construct) with veined flesh-thread conduits, then you would be able to see the Strangeness. If you were only connected with basic flesh-threads, then Strange-Staining would not work).

>>5074509
Damn, that inspiration for the last option is a pretty potent buff. Nonetheless I'm certain that we should prioritize our short-term survival over this longer-term buff, our situation is so dangerous that I think we should take any chance we get to reduce the difficulty of our situation.

The problem is, when are we gonna find the time to do this stuff with the life-loom and acquire the meat? We were scheduled to get the oil tonight, but presuming they start finding secret passages we use by the end of tonight or start of tomorrow then we'll have trouble getting our dresses or even the oil if we use tonight to get the meat and spent the night using the life-loom.

I'm torn between saving our passages so as not to have an insanely difficult time doing our essential tasks and just saying "screw it" and just trying to go for the big "throw off the inquisition" play. Not to mention we'd probably still end up behind schedule regardless. Still, I think we need to preserve our original plan by throwing off the guards, we don't gain as much but sneaking around is already hard and we cannot afford to have it be harder when so much of what we need to do revolves around sneaking. If we wanna do both then I suppose we can always kill someone or find a body via gravedigging or snooping around.

I think this needs a lot of discussion, which I sadly won't be awake for.

>Reverse the decay from the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom, and then stage him like he fell from the palisade, trying to climb over. If the guards fail to find any secret passages before they find the body, then they will almost certainly assume that there are none. If the guards have the body, and are convinced that there are no secret passages, then the state of alert will end. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire some flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.

>>5074509
>Modify the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom to use as a stand-in for yourself. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. When you leave the Midden, you can light the Belfry on fire, leaving the body behind to burn. It is possible (BUT FAR FROM GUARANTEED) that this could be enough to get the Inquisition off of your trail. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.

Why is human mass hard to procure when we're literally an undertaker working on a graveyard? It's why dad chose this job in the first place.

>>5074664
First, the fresher and more intact the flesh is (the closer it is to the original Form), the easier it will be to work with. As very little of the flesh in the graveyards is fresh, you would either have to track down a recent burial or you would have make do with what you dug up randomly, which could get difficult. Secondly, pork is a common Imperial staple. Butchers will have closed up by now, but they are not the most secure institutions. Or, as an alternative to larceny, you could try knocking on the door. Most butchers would live above their shops, and they might be willing to sell you something outside of normal business hours, though you would probably be remembered. If you wanted to combine trips, you could check out the available horseflesh and your options for wains and coaches while you pay a visit to the livestock dealers outside the landward walls to go steal some live piglets.

>>5074746
Alright, got it. Depending on how much flesh we need and the general situation on the Mount, we might also go for stray cats or dogs.

>>5074509
>>Reverse the decay from the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom, and then stage him like he fell from the palisade, trying to climb over. If the guards fail to find any secret passages before they find the body, then they will almost certainly assume that there are none. If the guards have the body, and are convinced that there are no secret passages, then the state of alert will end. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire some flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.

>>5074509
">Reverse the decay from the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom, and then stage him like he fell from the palisade, trying to climb over. If the guards fail to find any secret passages before they find the body, then they will almost certainly assume that there are none. If the guards have the body, and are convinced that there are no secret passages, then the state of alert will end. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire some flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.
I am tempted to take this vote with the intention to see Chlot use the Life Loom. I don't remember that she's used it so far, but it's more or less the foundation of her future witchcraft.
Of course, magicking the body like this will introduce even MORE strangeness to the world, and I assume she would want to minimize that. In addition...the palisade just isn't that tall. Not as tall as the Belfry. I don't think it's realistic that someone would die from falling off of it.
>It is completely unrelated to any of this, but you think you have just figured out how to make flesh-threads with venation! (I thought it would be nice if the neither-option came with a little tidbit of its own. Flesh-threads are conduits, that allow you to directly interface with any flesh-construct that you make. Veined flesh-threads can be made much longer than basic flesh-threads (ten yards instead of just one yard), which means that constructs could conceivably be controlled at longer ranges. Additionally, they transmit input between the master and the construct much quicker and much cleaner, and they do not interfere with perception alteration spells, like Strange-Staining. So if you were connected to a Cat’s Eye (a night-vision construct) with veined flesh-thread conduits, then you would be able to see the Strangeness. If you were only connected with basic flesh-threads, then Strange-Staining would not work).
So I'm voting to not use the Life-Loom here. The Inquisition would be the first people not to be fooled by a potentially Strange fake body, and the palisade isn't enough to indicate a plausible death IMO

>>5074509
>Modify the smuggler’s body using the Life-Loom to use as a stand-in for yourself. As the Life-Loom cannot create mass, you are going to need to acquire flesh. Human would be best, but pork would probably be easier to procure. When you leave the Midden, you can light the Belfry on fire, leaving the body behind to burn. It is possible (BUT FAR FROM GUARANTEED) that this could be enough to get the Inquisition off of your trail. Of course, you only have one body to work with, so if you screw up the spell, then you have wasted time and taken risks for nothing.

A red herring is better than nothing, and this may stump the Inquisition long enough for our trail to have gone cold. After all, the guards will assume that the smuggler committed the crime of arson, which may force them to investigate a mysteriously missing man.

I will ask though, will we need a secret entrance to escape with our wagon? And could we create a second body from other animal flesh? Answered are the leapers headed to when they die?

>>5075030
You'd be surprised what will kill a man if they landed on their head and snapped their neck.

>>5075175
Well, sort of. You are not going to be able to get the wagon into the Midden undetected. That is not physically possible, whether the guards are on alert or not. Instead, you are going to have to park it somewhere safe and get everything out of the Belfry. That will require secret passages. But once the wagon is stocked, then it is a simple matter of heading to one of the landward gates, paying the toll and going through - so long as no alarms have been raised, and no one on the gate recognizes you from the description given by the criers (which is where getting the new dresses comes in handy).

>>5075276
>Instead, you are going to have to park it somewhere safe and get everything out of the Belfry. That will require secret passages.

Fuck, and I was really hoping to use the body as red herring. Now I'm really conflicted.

I imagine that if the body is found, certain parties (i.e. whoever [most definitely the Inquisition] is investigating us) will be very interested in Midden. Best bet? We'll be lucky if we get another day or two before somebody starts poking around, and I don't want anybody investigating shit in Midden when we decide to move our Father's shit later.

Thinking on it, I still think that the best play is modifying the body into a red herring. While this will complicate our escape from Midden, obfuscation of what's actually happening in Midden will help us out in the long term, as having two Inquisition agents missing (us and not!Smil) and a supposedly unrelated murder spree will put enough dust in there air that by the time that they may figure it out we may be far away from this mess as we can be. We need more red herrings though, as many as we can manufacture.

What we need is another body. TrashQM, how do they dispose of dead leapers? It may be a long shot, but I'm wondering if we can snag Smil before they dispose him.

>>5075340
Well, despite all of the stigma on them, Lepers (and those in unclean professions elsewhere in the Empire) are Imperials and are therefore considered to be in possession of a soul, so they are entitled to burials, (though they are remanded to their own graveyard - the North-East Burying Ground). Smil's body will remain in the hovel for now. In the morning, he will be brought to the Morgue. He will probably be buried by this time tomorrow.

>>5075175
To answer the other question, about creating a second body completely from flesh. Yes, it is possible. And yes, Chlotsuintha could attempt it at her current level - but it would be dangerous and difficult, and on top of that, the body would not be flawless. I have not gotten to into it yet, but when working with the Life-Loom, and magic in general, there is the question of the Form - the underpinning 'idea' of a physical object. If the Form that you want to create (a stand-in human body) is far away from the Form that you are working with (a pile of pork chops, or whatever), then the harder it becomes to pull off, in terms of skill, efficiency, and material. Repairing an existing human body with pork is one thing. Creating vaguely anatomically correct body with pork is quite another.

>>5075366
So there is a chance to snatch that corpse?

I'm forming an insane plan, and to more idiotic it becomes, the more I'd like to air it to see if any anons are interested.

What if after we finish our nightly business (including reversing the decay and planting the body), we start a fire or two in an abandoned hovel, start shouting that there's a fire, distract all of Midden in the morning. Then we head to Smil's hovel, grab the body and set his place alight, and quickly hightail it back to our Tower or hide it in a nearby dumping ground.

The purpose of the chaos would dual, to get the body and further obfuscate and impede any potential Inquisition investigation. I know it's risky, dangerous, and very likely idiotic, but it would be worth it if it works reasonably well, and I don't think things are going to get easier if we Sty just disappears instead of 'dies'. I'm tired of letting shit fall on us and not doing anything to help throw a stick in any Inquisition investigation in our affairs.

>>5075431
Seems pretty risky. Do we know if there is a curfew? I forgot if there is or not at night or one was put in place for some reason. 'Cause that could put a damper on this plan. Personally I'd rather not fuss about with more complications to this escape with fetching extra bodies, but I guess we'll see what other anons think.

>>5075477
I remember that the Midden gates close at night, but I also remember those two chucklefucks the night before arguing about laudanum, voyeuring some wife beating, and how many women there are in Midden. If there is a curfew, it isn't strictly enforced.

>>5075484
There was no curfew inside of the Midden before, and no guard presence inside the palisade at all during the night, but that is no longer the case with the guards all rearing and ready to find the murderer. The curfew will be announced in the next narrative post when all of the Lepers who have been waiting the plaza are allowed to return to their homes, while the guards pointless poke around the place. The curfew will last, so long as the guard thinks that there is a murderer running around. It will not make it impossible to move around, and so long as you are over-encumbered, it will probably be a little less difficult then getting out of the Midden was before all of this started. The issue is that if you have a lot of stuff to do, and you are running back and forth, the odds get longer and longer that you will be able to do everything in completely perfect stealth.

>>5074509
I'm really conflicted and unsure but if I have to break a tie the I'd vote for using the body as some sort of decoy or leaving it to be found near the walls.

Well, let's see the tally.

>>5074539 Reverse 1
>>5074664 Reverse 1 Modify 1
>>5074907 Reverse 2 Modify 1
>>5075030 Reverse 2 Modify 1 Neither 1
>>5075175 Reverse 2 Modify 2 Neither 1
>>5075776 Reverse 3? Modify 2 Neither 1

>>5075776
Anon, if you are still here, could you confirm that you are talking about reversing the decay on the body, and then leaving by the walls? I want to make sure I correctly count your vote.

Assuming that the tally above is correct, then we will be looking at reversing the decay.

Either way, you are going to need some raw material, and there are several ways that you could get it.

>Please choose ONE of the following:
>Break into the Morgue, and hope there is a fresh body there for you. No guarantee that there is one, and depending on how Strange things have gotten over there, it could be dangerous. However, fresh human meat would be the easiest to work with here, though if it was Strange, it would need to be remediated.
>Break into a Butcher, and look for some pork to work with. You can effectively guarantee that somewhere in the Mount, there is pork, waiting for you. Beyond the risk of getting caught, a Meat-Market is not inherently dangerous.
>Head to a Butcher, and try to purchase some pork to work with. Most butchers live above their stores, so hopefully you could convince one of them to sell with a little bit of a story. Of course, you would need to be wearing the ragged dress, and the butcher might remember you.
>Break into an Stockyard. You would be able to get the freshest possible meat here, possibly even still alive, which would eliminate most (but not all) of the difficultly that would come from repairing human flesh with pork. While you are out here, you could take a look at available options for wagons and coaches.

I have some stuff to do at the moment, so I probably will not be able to start writing until later tonight. Look for the narrative post sometime tomorrow.

>>5076032
Actually, I'd like to break into the Morge to just grab another body for our red herring project, and go to the Stockyards to get the free meat and scope the place out for wagons personally. Any chance on doing that?