Astarael42 — Roleplayer Guild

~~Group A~~

Isabeau worked feverishly in her lab, one of many labs, studying the specimens she currently had splayed on the table.  They were fresh now and would not be for long, so this was the ideal time to record and study.  Her Talent was heightened to its fullest capability as she gazed through the lenses of her microscopes and scribbled rapidly in her notebook.  

Life was understandably fascinating for her, and since her husband's demise death had become equally as fascinating.  They were tied to one another in such a way that one could not truly understand one without understanding the other.  That is what had been missing from all her prior research, from everything she and her husband had worked so hard on.  The secret to the Panacea was held not just in Life but in Death too.  She had to combine them both to find the solution.  

So today, like most other days, she was madly at work, her concentration sunk deeply into everything she was working on.  She had little sleep last night, or in recent nights at all.  She was always deep in her studies during the day and she had other things to attend to after dark.  It left little time to sleep and the lack thereof was starting to affect her Talent in strange ways.  She compensated by throwing herself even further into her work.  Focusing so deeply she lost track of everything outside her lab space.  She had forgotten she had ever sent a letter to the Master of the Society.  That problem had been long resolved anyway. 

~~Forest/Group B~~

Havel waited uneasily at the edge of the forest.  The man, Adam, had paid him well to act as a guide but lately he found the woods discomforting.  Still it was a weeks worth of wages, which meant once this was over he could stay home for several days.

 In his youth he had roamed from dawn till dusk, learning the land better than he knew his own home, but recently the oppressive silence had settled deeper and deeper.  He was 20 now, and still relied on the forest for his livelihood, but things had changed.  

Some game had moved out.  The rest had become so skittish hunting was no longer reliable.  A keen eye could tell Havel felt that shift in a personal way; he had lost weight, his clothing was weathered and dirty for he had no coin to purchase honey or milk or to pay the washerwomen to give his clothing a good cleaning.  He was surviving well enough, but he rarely had extra to sell anymore and all luxuries had to be abandoned.  The game just wasn't there, and his livelihood wasn't paying.  Then of course there was the silence.  That was the worst.  Anyone who spent long periods of time outdoors knew that rarely were things silent.  There was always a cacophony of noise...birds, animals, winds, rustling, and everything in between.  Now the animals “spoke” in hushed tones, particularly as the day wound down.  The silence made it so uncomfortable he w

He stood still, the fog that soaked the forest from the morning was still thick about, and he peered through it seeking the landmarks that would lead him to the strange kill sites.  He hoped the woman he was supposed to meet would hurry up.  He couldn't actually believe he was supposed to be guiding a woman to the strange kill sites, hunting wasn't woman's work, but Adam had been very persuasive.  Or at least his coin had been very persuasive.  He wanted to be out of the forest by sunset.  When IT roamed.

When the sound of wheels could be heard in the distance he breathed a quiet sigh of relief.  He moved swiftly down the path and jumped onto a rock outcropping so his client could see him easily in the shadowy forest.   He hoped this woman would be able to keep up with him, he wanted to get this over with.   

~~ City/Group C~~~ 

The poor districts of the city were just exactly what one might expect.  Dirt abounded as did rather offensive odors.  So too did street urchins, hawkers of dubious wares, beggars, thieves, and innocents just struggling to survive.  They were all jumbled together in small cramped spaces and poor sanitary conditions.  It was simply a fact of life.  What Prague offered that other cities didn't was the great river.

The river provided water, it washed away filth, gave food, as well as provided a way to hide the evidence of less than savory activities.   Filip was one who used the river for such.  Usually.  Today he was using it to hide.  

There were strange goings on in his world; well there were always strange goings on; but this time was different.  He was a thief, just an ordinary garden variety thug, but of late he had given up the business.  People were disappearing, true it had been only men but all were afraid, and of course the money bags didn't know, want to know, or care if they did know.  

People who made their living by their wits or scrabbled to survive in the harsh river districts of the city shared a sort of bond, despite often not liking one another they still looked out for their own because no one else would.   And now there was something harming one of their own.  And everyone claimed they knew what it was but almost no one had the same two stories.  

Filip knew, he had seen IT.  The monster who walked on two legs.  It had stumbled in through the dark alley he worked.  Filip was street wise, he had known something was wrong, and faster than a spider on fire had climbed a wall and hidden in the shadows of a building's corner, perched halfway up a wall, not daring to breathe.  The monster had passed below, eating the rats that ran before it.  Some said the missing were kidnapped but Filip knew that had to be wrong.  Who would kidnap them? They had no money, no ransom to be paid, nothing.  It had to be the monster. 

Kidnapping brought his thoughts back to the woman who tried to hire him.  He was one of those folk you could hire to do that sort of thing, he had done it in the past, he would do it in the future.  He had shown up, she had told him he was too ugly for this sort of work, and she left.  That had been quite a bit ago, and he had not been thrilled.  Good paying work was hard to find and he was not ugly.  But the bitch had vanished before he could make her pay for her words.  

And since then nightmares had walked the district, keeping all legitimate businessmen like himself inside during the dark hours.  He had been barely scraping by for some time now.  Tonight he had to go out and find a good mark and get some work done.  It was either that or go back to scraping through the garbage again.  

He tucked his blackjack into his belt, checked that all his knives were secure, pulled his hood up, and headed from the stinking shelter of the bridge into the streets.  He would be in before midnight, he promised himself.  Bad things mostly happened after midnight.  Mostly.
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