kapuchu

All We Do for Gold

Seems like we're getting a half decent group of people together!

And hello to you @divinedisease! Good to have a character who is good at thinking :D

All We Do for Gold

@Kidgoat I would assume that you're free to "start" your post wherever you like, but probably end the first post somewhere during the beginning of Day, after you arrived and sleep.

All We Do for Gold

Exclusive

3/3 Fate Points

Title: None
Name: Astrid Ava Helgadóttir
Alias: Ava
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Blood Type: B+

Has your character killed?: Not people.

Characters Appearance:
In most respects Astrid would be considered an ordinary young woman; Her eyes—blue and bright—do not strike awe into those she meets. Her pale skin, though tanned from her travels, does not carry runic markings or other mysterious symbols. She might be called pretty but she would not be considered beautiful by many. Perhaps the most striking of her ordinary features is her honey-blonde hair, which she most often keeps in a bun or a rolled up braid, and when free falls to her mid thigh. This, however, is where the ordinary stops.

The first thing someone would notice upon meeting Astrid is her excessive height, and at a finger's width shy of two metres—or 6ft 6in—she towers over most every other person she meets. She has been blessed with a figure that allows her a proportionate appearance, rather than gangly and long, and when combined with her advanced musculature born from years of physical labour, Astrid strikes an imposing figure. Her hands are rough and calloused as a result, and a jagged scar on her right forearm leaves a reminder of an old injury.

Her mother's habits having rubbed off on her, Astrid maintains a cleanly and put-together appearance in spite of the physical work she performs. This extends to her clothes, which she takes care to maintain and repair when necessary. They usually take the form of a simple shirt under a coloured vest, and either a shin-length skirt, or a set of functional pants, whichever she feels like or is most useful at the time. She is also, almost always, seen wearing a wide-brimmed hat to shield against the sun.

Notable Skills:
Astrid possesses a number of skills relating to, or derived from, her homelife and trade.

• Blacksmithing & Metalwork. She is a proficient crafter of all manner of tools and trinkets made of metal, and is able to appraise the value, make, and quality of most any metallic item as a result.
• Woodworking. Though to a lesser extent than blacksmithing, she is capable of working wood in a variety of ways.
• Archery. A recurve bow is Astrid's weapon of choice, and both her means of hunting and primary means of self defence. Years of practice has afforded her excellent hand-eye coordination.

Special Knowledge:

• Metallurgy. In conjunction with her blacksmithing skills, she has gained extensive knowledge about metals, and how they act under certain situations, and how one might manipulate them.
• Mathematics & Physics. She is not a savant, and any person with an extensive education would know more, but her work felling and cutting up trees, blacksmithing, and personal interest has required her to learn a great deal of the world of numbers, as well as how the forces of physics might interact.

Powers:
As one of the lucky few in this world, Astrid was born possessing a unique and powerful ability: She is capable of conjuring a very faintly glowing, light blue arrow that acts as a compass needle.

Characters Personality:
Kindness, patience, and solidarity are three virtues which Astrid's personality is centered around. She always strives to meet people with a smile on her lips, and a kind greeting, and failing that she makes an effort to not be rude. When focused on something people will find her to be driven and not easily distracted, a trait which it could be argued is the reason why she made it all the way to Fortune's End. It also helps her to stay level-headed in stressful situations and able to work under pressure. She is also someone who strives to put neither group nor individual over the other, desiring instead for people to work together and cooperate to reach common goals, and to this end she is always willing to help.

This is not to say that she will never raise her voice or lose her temper, but in her own words such things would only happen in situations that are not silly. As a result of her upbringing, she has become fiercely protective of things that she considers personally valuable—whether people or objects. She will not care if minor things such as her food, brushes, or chisel are taken for they can be easily replaced, but if one dares try to take an heirloom of hers, or touch a person she holds dear, she is prepared to make full use of the size and strength nature has seen fit to grant her.

Motivations:
With technology rapidly advancing and making lots of artisan jobs superfluous, her father's blacksmith is having an increasingly difficult time generating income. Even remote as they lived, factory-made tools and other metal-made items were becoming increasingly cheap and easy for the general populace to get, making her father's career more and more replaceable. Her mother's tailoring, however skilled she was, could not keep them afloat forever. Astrid's eldest brother had already left for work elsewhere, hoping to bring back money, which left only Astrid and her younger brother. She chose to head out to Fortune's End—leaving her youngest brother to help her father's blacksmith—hoping that she might bring home enough money that they could move to her mother's home country, and start over; build a business perhaps on novelty items and metallic artistry, more than tool-and-weapon making, or perhaps something else.

Personal Effects:

• Portable Blacksmithing kit. Includes hammers, viking anvil, tongs, chisel, whetstones, engraving tools, etc..
• A small collection of spare material for metalwork such as; a few small copper, iron, and steel ingots (about 1 kg of each); leather strips, 1 sq-ft of ray skin, and a few pieces of wood.
• Woodworking kit. Includes chisel, sandpaper, various carving and whittling tools, a saw, and a woodcutter's axe, etc..
• Three several inches long iron needles/nails, used to keep her hair in its bun; each engraved with an arrow on either side.
• A recurve bow + about a dozen arrows.
• A set of liquid paint, and brushes.
• A spare set of clothes, and a spare hat.
• Cooking utensils, sewing kit, and other survival necessities, including a compas.
• Half a pound of very, very stale bread.

Extra Information:

• Born in Iceland, to her Icelandic father (Helgi) and Norwegian mother (Ava). Has two brothers Anton (older) and Magnus (younger).
• She is the shortest person in her family except her mother, who is only 5'10.
• She is likely to be seen humming or quietly singing to herself, even while working.
• Character Quote: "I don't like to try for Perfect. It always gets in the way of good, sound work."

All We Do for Gold

Hello! Does this count as the first, or second, post in the OCC?

Well whatever it is, I'm here!

All we do for Gold [Weird West Horror Mystery RP]

Hi! I'm Kapuchu!

I think I'd like to give this one a shot.

Ianus Congreatio: Secret societies, horror, and mystery in the shadows of Prague.

The sound of approaching footsteps warned Lucie of their presence before Adam’s words did. She glanced over her shoulder, nodding as he spoke and he and Lillian settled down beside her.

“I experienced something like Babaroga’s teeth tearing at my mind earlier—I attempted to search for Olivia’s location—after using my talent on the entirety of Prague.” She winced at the memory, her finger trailing the line of dried blood by her hairline. “Good to know it’s this… thing, then, and not my limits. Probably. And hello to you, Lillian.”

The doll she accepted otherwise wordlessly, turning it over and inspecting it, as Adam laid out their goals. It was not entirely comforting to know they were up against something superhuman, especially not when she could not reliably punch it into submission. Even so, the directions aligned with Lucie’s own intentions and priorities. She wanted to give Olivia a chance at a new life, and even if she couldn’t be the perfect mother, she—no, those thoughts would come later. She had to focus on the task at hand. She stuffed the toy inside of her jacket, close to her heart.

*************************************************************************

Lilian stared intently at the manor, taking in every detail, hoping for something resembling a clue. She heard Lucie's greeting but was rather distracted and barely managed to respond, simply turning her head slightly and nodding . The house was old for certain, dilapidated by all metrics of the word, however she would not have described it as unkempt, or even abandoned. It was the small details; both the roof and the porch were devoid of any kind of foliage or other such fauna that tended to accumulate in places that had been abandoned; the flower beds, though only sporting the bloomless skeletal remains of rose bushes that had long ago given up on life, were devoid of weeds and the normal underbrush a gardener would busy themselves removing; the windows that were intact, of which there were few, were as clean and transparent as glass could be. By all accounts someone was doing their best to maintain some semblance of a home.

The information was not terribly surprising, but also not terribly helpful. Either the girl was simply keeping her hideaway as tidy as a child could manage, or the entity was. Either way it didn’t tell her much beyond that the illusion of a home was important to one of them. Her mind leaned more towards the entity as whatever it was was clearly tied to the house in some way.

“I have…” Lillian began, but stopped. Her hand was buried deep into one of her pockets and was grasping a palm sized device made of brass. “That is to say… I believe I have a course of action in mind.” She didn’t wait for a reply for genuine concern any distraction would lead to her changing her mind. “We have little information, therefore we must proceed assuming the worst case scenario possible and work backwards with the information we do have to make things… less worse.

This is clearly not human, which opens up a world of dangers. A being of pure psionic energy is a being with near limitless capabilities. Especially if it has reached a point where it has not only the ability to influence the physical world, but reach far distances. Adam, you say this is a trap, and I tend to agree. Such a being would in all likelihood know we are here.
Now…” Lillian pulled the device out of her pocket but kept it in her hand and did not reveal it. “There are some assumptions we can make. The first being, though likely powerful, if it knew for certain we were here, and where we were, we would have been dealt with already. So it most likely isn’t fully aware of our presence. Whether that means specific location, specific numbers, both or neither, is hard to say. Regardless of specifics, I think we can take advantage of that small detail by splitting into groups, divide its attention.”

She turned to look at her companions who waited intently for her to finish. “The next thing we know is that it is likely tied to this location, otherwise it wouldn’t need to have lured the girl out here, and it wouldn’t make a point to keep things as well kept as they are.” A twinge of confusion on Lucie’s face made it clear she didn’t see what Lillian saw, but she pressed on “so, destroying the house is likely a suitable means to remove the entity. Fire should do the trick, even when the wood is moist, a house as old as this burns like kindling.

Lastly, this thing feeds on psionic energy, meaning it needs it or at the very least wants it. Which is where this comes into play.” Lillian revealed the brass device. Cylindrical and well polished with a filigree design etched into it by someone who clearly had no idea how to do such a task. Both the top and bottom of the tube were plugged with brass caps, with the top cap possessing a protruding ring. “This is my Ionic Propagator, it is a device I made to-” Lillian cut herself off, realising there was no time for a proper explanation, and the look on Lucie’s face made her feel like she was speaking another language. “To spare a long explanation, it can absorb Psionic energy. I couldn’t say how much however, as to date I have been unable to properly create a suitable metric of measurement. Regardless, it works, and a lot or a little, this thing should notice a piece of itself missing.” She looked down at the device, praying in the privacy of her own mind that her assumptions on the entity were at least half right.

”My plan is to make myself known with this device, and attempt to bluff it. It has no idea what this is, or its limitations. But it will know it can steal what it has. I only need to keep it distracted long enough for you two to find the girl. You leave, signal me, I leave, and we burn this place to the ground. Thoughts?” Lillian turned to look at the manor again, not wanting to see her companions' faces. Technically speaking her plan was likely less dangerous than sparring with a large ogre was, but the unknowns in the equation made her skittish and she didn’t wish the others to take note. She was pragmatic, not a hero, were there other options she’d have suggested them. Were she to base it on her own preferences, she’d have sent one of the other two in with the device to dupe the inhuman creature. However Adam was by all accounts still run down from their last encounter, and Lucie’s desire to adopt the young girl meant it would do the most good to have Lucie be the one to find her. Lillian knew how the device worked, had not a motherly bone in her body, and between her and Adam she was the least worse for wear. Pragmatism, not heroism.

Lucie stared at the strange device for a moment, her thoughts racing. There was definitely a chance that it could work, she figured. Her previous experience left her still cautious however. “I think the idea has merit, Lillian, but if what Master Adam says is true, then we are at a disadvantage. This… thing is arcane and esoteric in ways I cannot begin to comprehend yet. I recommend caution.” She looked towards the manor, her expression one of consternation. “Promise me something,” she said and fixed Lillian with a stare. “If it gets dangerous, you run. I would rather have to bolt for my and Olivia’s life, than an extra ten seconds of head start at the cost of your health. Or life.”

For just a moment their eyes met, a curious look of mild consternation flashed across Lillian’s face, before she directed her attention towards the manor. She didn’t say anything, but gave a single, quick nod. It didn’t quite convince Lucie that her warning and request had been taken seriously, but there was a buzzing at the edge of her senses that told her that they were on a time limit so she decided to let it go. She released her grip and directed her own attention towards the grounds. Lillian was a resourceful woman, she would not get herself into unnecessary trouble. Hopefully.

Lucie glanced at her other companion. “Adam, you said to not try to ‘touch’ the entity within the manor, correct?”

“Yes. It feeds off of psychic talents, and would be inadvisable.”

A faint smirk, tinged with uncertainty at the edges, appeared on Lucie’s face. “Nothing about the grounds, then. Give me a moment.” She put her hands to the ground, and let her mind probe the area they were on. She made a point to avoid the building itself, only letting her field of ‘insight’ creep up close to the walls. Fortunately, that was all she needed. ’Where did Olivia approach the manor?’ she queried, and as soon as the thought formed, it was like glowing footprints appeared on the ground, visible only to her mind’s eye. Her attention fell on a pair of trees to the north-west of the manor, ordinary but for the fact that they were leaning against each other and creating an angled archway of sorts. Experience told her that it was an animal trail; a common road that deer and other critters likely used. And it was where Olivia had approached from, and walked directly towards the manor in a straight line.

“There,” she pointed towards where she now knew was an entrance. “If we follow Lillian’s plan, that would be our best entrance point. It’s where Olivia came in, and there’s a good chance she’ll still be relatively near it.” She glanced at Adam and cocked her head, then headed that way, expecting him to follow—or voice complaints.

Feature Request Thread

If allowing users to delete their own posts is not feasible, then an easy-to-use "Delete Request" button or something? It's quite annoying to have accidental double posts, or stuff like that, just stuck forever, unless you contact Admins directly.

So just something by your post that allows you to easily log a "Please delete this particular post, here is why" request, I think would be warmly welcomed by many users.

Ianus Congreatio: Secret societies, horror, and mystery in the shadows of Prague.

Optional Reading

Lucie McClellen and Lucie Ruzicka in:
The Cedar Chest

An opportunity had presented itself.

It was the kind of opportunity that did not come often, and which one would be a fool not to make use of. It was also the kind of opportunity that Lucie Ruzicka did not know she had been searching for.

She looked down at the letter in her hand, reading the words over again. It was an invitation to a clandestine soiré of sorts, in which a sixteen year old girl such as herself had no place. That is, were she the daughter of a respectable, normal family, but any who knew her could say with certainty that Lucie was anything but ordinary, and her way of life anything but respectable.

She failed to suppress a smile, and turned her direction to the woman in front of her. “Thank you,” she said, twisting her voice into something it was not. “This is appreciated.” She let her eyes rove over the smaller woman. Though an adult, the top of her head barely made it to Lucie’s nose. An adult who could barely afford clean clothes. She held back a sigh and flicked a few coins free of her sleeve, pressing them into her hand—payment for a job well done.

The woman beamed, a week’s wages clasped between her fingers, and profusely thanked Lucie while reasserting her future loyalty. She turned and ran off, presumably home to hide the pocket change that Lucie had given her.

The letter in her hands drew Lucie’s attention again, as she read over the contents. Already there were ideas for entrance, exit, and half-formulated plans forming in her mind. She would have to secure a way out once inside, perhaps a gardener could be persuaded to leave a ladder by a window?

---

Lucie had returned to one of her current hideouts; a small apartment ostensibly owned by a young boy who’d ran from home. She sat on a stool in front of her vanity, puzzling over the best approach to her new goal. The host of this soiré she had discovered, was one rather wealthy individual, and one who her circles did not watch as closely as they perhaps should. Lightening his proverbial pockets, and starting a new secret stash of her own, would go a long way to help her in the future. She glanced at a picture on the vanity of Filip Beran, and immediately felt her mood drop. The sooner she could get away from that man, the better. She needed a lot of funds first, however, and the likes of the ones organising such an event, weren’t the type to be austere. She would not be surprised if she could get away with enough funds to buy a small house.

There was the matter of a disguise, though, and the in’s and out’s. She was fortunate enough that it was an anonymous invitation, the kind where you need only know the time and place to show up, so no one would look into whatever name she gave them. She looked at herself in the mirror, realising that perhaps going as herself was not the best option. She wanted to be attractive enough that no one would second guess her presence, and any suspicion of an unknown individual showing up would be alleviated, but not so much that they would come looking for her specifically once the festivities began.

“A boy, then?” she said to herself. She had decided almost as soon as the words left her lips. It would certainly make her height less conspicuous.

As for the escape route, she knew the mansion had an extensive garden, and a fair number of very tall bushes. That necessitated gardeners and ladders. She would approach one of them, pay them to leave a ladder near the master bedroom’s window before going home for the day. From there, slip out between guard rotations which she would have to learn—even if the invitation guaranteed no interference from the serving staff, they would still remain.

The entrance was easy enough, but slipping away from the gathering was another matter. The invitation alone provided very little details about the schedule of the event, so she would have to play that one by ear.

“As for tools,” she murmured and untied the knot around a roll of fabric, opening it on the vanity desk. She pulled out a number of small items such as lock picks, a sharpened and reinforced fruit knife, and a length of wire recently purchased from a craftsman of stringed instruments. “For locks, inconspicuous weapon, and last-resort if someone is too troublesome,” she said while pointing to each of the three main items. She would also need to bring a proper weapon just in case. Perhaps two. And a tube of lipstick of course. No woman, not even when disguised as a man, would go without one.

Satisfied with her preparations for the moment, she went about tidying up, while deciding what clothes to wear for the event. A visit to her tailor was definitely a necessity.

---

A young man stepped out of the carriage and calmly approached the double doors leading to the mansion. He wore a powder blue dress shirt under a cream coloured vest, and over that an indigo tail coat; as well as a pair of off-white loose pants and black shoes. His hair was long, to the point of being feminine, and held together by a simple ribbon as it fall down his back. A white tie tucked under the vest completed the ensemble that, while perhaps a few years out of fashion, was still a style held in high regard by the wearer.

He adjusted the padding of his shirt and vest as he walked, making sure that the very feminine figure underneath did not show. He was, in fact, a she. Lucie Ruzicka had used almost every trick in her book, to turn herself into a young man by the name of Tuomas; a recent immigrant from Finland, but deeply enamoured by the works of the lord of the mansion he was currently visiting.

“Good evening,” Lucie said to the manservant guarding the door, deepening her voice and twisting it enough to sound like a boyish young man. She handed him the folded piece of paper that was the invitation, offering a genuine smile as his eyes flicked between her face and the invitation.

“Your name, please?”

“Tuomas,” Lucie replied.

The manservant nodded. “Everything seems to be in order,” he said. “Welcome Master Tuomas. Enjoy the festivities.”

The room beyond was a grand foyer, designed to impress and awe those who entered. Expensive artworks lined the walls, busts of important historical figures, interspersed with those depicting the members of the house, were evenly distributed along the halls, and flanking each of the doors.

Up ahead were a grand set of stairs leading to a second floor where she knew the event was to take place. She directed her mind towards the house as a whole as she walked—absentmindedly leaving her jacket with a servant—and queried about the master bedroom and personal office. Each step she took towards the stairs coincided with an image flashing in her mind, and before long she had the precise locations of each room.

She let an easy, comfortable smile spread across her lips as she let a servant lead her to where the other guests were assembling. By the looks of it, none were even close to her age, and most looked easily twice that, maybe three times. Still, she didn’t let that dampen her mood. She was here for valuables, not company after all. Even still, it made her happy to have made the decision of dressing as a man. When compared to the other women—with some exceptions, particularly the fiery haired one who looked both bored and perpetually annoyed—she knew she would have garnered far too much attention.

A woman some three or four times her age, wearing enough jewellery to rattle as she walked, approached Lucie, holding a pair of spectacles in front of her eyes and smiled brightly. “Welcome, welcome!” She said enthusiastically. “I am Mrs Severa, and you must be…” She let the sentence hang in the air, waiting for an answer.

“Tuomas,” Lucie replied. Even with the half foot difference in height, Lucie could smell the smoke and alcohol on her breath, which told her that this soiré was to be as ostentatious and decadent as the decor of the foyer. She immediately decided that this woman would be a good companion for the night, if only because her weak eyesight would keep her from seeing through the disguise. She offered an arm to the older lady, and laughed politely at some tired old joke. “Shall we?” she asked and gestured towards the tables stacked with small, expensive foods and drinks.

“Of course!” Mrs Severa said, and excitedly took the offered arm. “Have you seen the gallery here?” She asked, to which Lucie had to admit that she had not. “Oh you should! The collection is marvellous, containing pieces from every corner of the world! Although, and let this be between the two of us, he does sport a few paintings of… questionable quality.” She snorted, and sipped heavily from a glass of champagne she had plucked from the table. “There was this painter, he lives in Paris now as I understand, whom he is terribly impressed by. He owns a painting of his, some Van Gogh I think he called him? Truth be told, I do not quite comprehend this infatuation, his paintings are not anything I have not seen before.”

Lucie let her talk. She knew this kind of woman; the kind who would latch unto younger men, fawn over them and shower them in attention. When your husband was no longer as interesting as he was twenty years ago, and his interest in you lessened in favour of work, brandy, and cigars, there were often young men in search of connections, and who would live with the indignity of drunk, old women on their arm.

She entertained the woman for a time, pretended to listen intently to her stories, asking questions, and laughing at jokes twenty years out of fashion when she wasn’t trading flirtatious touches. However, the evening’s main event approached with every tick of the clock, and soon enough an announcement was made that they were to gather in the ballroom.

A man by the door had a collection of golden masks, asking each guest to choose one. Lucie glanced over the collection and quickly zeroed in on one. A half-mask in the shape of a hawk, its beak curving over her nose, and feathers flaring out on either side in a mimicry of wings. If nothing else, her own eyes would match well with the bird’s own.

The room was mostly bare, save for a single table upon which stood a score of goblets, one for each of the guests, and in the centre of the room a pile of pillows of various shapes and sizes.

The final guests entered, and the doors locked. Lucie stepped to the back of the group that gathered around the host, her eyes scanning the room. The servants had left and—she turned her Talent and thoughts towards the room—locked the doors it seemed. The intent truly was to let the carnal event happen behind these doors, in this pile of cushions and pillows. Vulgar, but an effective distraction. It certainly would keep everyone preoccupied while she removed the host’s unnecessary valuables from his personal rooms.

She turned her talent to the room again, and quickly found one of a few hidden servant entrances. While everyone else was occupied by the mention of demons, rituals, power, and other such nonsense that only lesser people could come up with, she extracted herself from the group and snuck through one of the pathways, shutting it with a nigh inaudible click.

She could hear the muted cheers as she made her way through the servant halls, which was soon followed by sounds much less palatable to the young woman. She grimaced at the obvious going-ons and hurried on, knowing there would be no servants to catch her.

---

She shut the door behind her with a muted click and turned around to look at the personal office of the dear host. She undid the buttons on her coat and reached under her vest, pulling out a thin, folded satchel.

“Now what to take,” she said to herself, smiling with genuine excitement for the first time that night. It was always a thrill to be where she shouldn’t, taking things that didn’t belong to her. Yet, anyway.

She unleashed her talent, bathing the entire room in her will. She hadn’t had close access to her host, so she had been unable to learn what he treasured the most, forcing her to instead rely on the question of; What cost the most?

What returned to her was an odd sense of emptiness. Like something had been here that was exceedingly expensive to get hold of, but which was no longer here. That she could sense the absence of an object, spoke of how important it had been. She queried its location, and was led to an empty spot underneath in the corner. Indeed, there was a noticeable lack of any dust or discolourations on that part of the floor, as if something large had stood there for a long time.

There was another curiosity with that part of the corner, for above it there seemed to have hung something. Empty hooks were still stuck in the wall, and there was a slight discolouration to the wall as well. Judging by the size and square shape, it was a carpet or tapestry of sorts.

“Curious,” she said to herself. However it wasn’t exactly unheard of for people to move their most beloved valuables to a different place, when they had guests over. That way they could remain safe in the knowledge that the location of their riches remained unknown. She would have to look for them later, if she had time.

For the time being however, she went about searching through the other valuables. There were a few pocket watches that caught her interest, as well as a beautiful, silver-and-gold fountain pen. She turned it over in her hands, smiling. It was indeed beautiful, and would fetch a hefty price on its own, but perhaps she would keep this on.

She went on to other things, using her talent to guide her. Without going to extremes, or specifics that would garner little results, she could only get estimates of the worth of certain items, and discarded many of them when her own, mundane inspection revealed some of the items to be forgeries, or overpriced when initially bought. Digging through the drawers on the large desk fortunately proved a lot more fruitful. A bejewelled letter opener was perhaps the most interesting single object, alongside a few intricate tools of some sort, and as luck would have it, a number of deeds and titles. The titles weren’t for anything too impressive, but a small property was still a property, and with a little forgery, or the right buyer, could become very handy. They were unfortunately also risky, as this was not a man without influence, and robbing him of titles to property could bring too much attention.

She reluctantly let the papers lie, and went on to the next drawer, finding a number of pieces of fabric with detailed embroidery, and of very high quality. Either the man had very feminine hobbies, or he was hiding a gift from his wife. Nevertheless, she placed the silks in her satchel.

A handful of minutes passed, and the satchel was getting close to being full, when Lucie happened to look up, and happened to notice something odd in the reflection of the window. The door behind her was cracked open, and she was certain that she had closed it when she entered.

Her hand was in her jacket before she had even reached the door. Her fingers wrapped around the handle of a hidden knife as she ripped open the door, expecting an intruder. There was no one, not even in the hallway, and the handle proved solid enough when she tried it. Had it opened on its own? Unlikely. Was there something else here? Someone skilled enough to hide from her trained ears?

She sent a pulse of her talent through the room and into the hallway, searching for people, but found none. Uncertainty still clawed at the edge of her thoughts, for while she knew her own capabilities, it wasn’t impossible that someone had snuck to the door, and away from it, without her noticing. She hesitantly returned to collecting valuables, all the while sending out the occasional search with her talent.

It turned out to not even be necessary to use her talent, as it seemed the twinkle-toed individual had decided to abandon all pretence of sneaking when they returned. With no sound other than Lucie’s own rummaging, the gentle thudding of feet against the carpeted hallway floor was easy enough to hear, even before they slowed down and the attempt at being silent was resumed.

Lucie stepped up to the door, close enough to rush in if it opened, but far enough away to not get hit by it. Her hand found a hidden knife in her vest, pulling it free with a nigh inaudible whistle of scraping cloth.

But then, the intruder spoke. "H-hello Ma'am. I mean sir. Did you kill all those people down stairs?"

Lucie started, for a moment shocked into inaction. Murder? Never, unless necessary, or when forced to on a job. She had no reason to kill them, and had not even considered it an option. She sent her talent out to the building they were in, asking the simple question of ’corpses’. An image of naked bodies flashed in her mind, and she had to suppress a gag.

That was when another detail struck her. The woman—for it had been a very soft, feminine voice speaking through the door—had called her Ma’am, only later correcting it to Sir. Had she seen through her disguise? How? No one else had noticed a thing, and she knew how detailed it was. Her eyes narrowed, there was something about this stranger.

“No,” she said quietly, not bothering to alter her voice.

"Right...well, that's good. Now that that is out of the way, I am going to have to ask you to s-stop your acquisition of the hosts personal possessions, there might be a vital clue that could lead to the culprit of the murders hidden in them." The woman paused for a moment. "Except for the box of jewels on the credenza, I am reasonably sure those won't be of importance to my case."

Case, clue, culprit, credenza. She looked down at her satchel, filled with everything she had found so far. Was she to give it all up because some person with delusions of intellectual grandeur asked her nicely? She thought back to the image of dead eyes, frozen expressions of people who had been very much alive just moments earlier. She suppressed a sigh and set the satchel on the floor, removing from it only the fountain pen which she had found. It was too nice to sell, and the initials, belonging to the lord of the mansion, could be filed off.

She let her talent flow into the floor, telling her where her footsteps would make the least sound, and made her way to the jewellery box. She had been spied upon, evidently, it hadn’t just been a loose lock. It took only a little more work to open the windows and storm shutters, and climbed out with nary a sound. The gardener had been good to his word, and she found the ladder placed to the side of the window. A little act of rudimentary acrobatics later, and she was on the ground, jewellery box tucked under her arm.

---

She sat in the shadow of one of the tall bushes, waiting for the time when the guards would rotate. Judging by the hands on her pocket watch, one of her own ones, it wouldn’t be much longer. Every tick led her closer to getting back home and catching up on some sleep.

She looked up at the moon, its crescent much like a sideways smile. It looked almost taunting, in the way it smirked down at her.

”Don’t you want to find out?” it seemed to ask her. ”Why was that chest, and that carpet, so important that eighteen people had to die for it?”

“Aren’t you the least bit curious?” Lucie finished, whispering the words to herself. The lights from inside the mansion drew her eyes, hinting at the party that was supposed to still be going on within. A party that had been reduced to something of a wake, with only a single living person that she knew of. Likely more than just one, though. Unless the twinkle-toed woman was the culprit, there had to be at least one more person within its walls.

Was she going to let a mass murder take place, and not try to catch the culprit? She snorted. She was a thief, a saboteur, and at times an assassin herself. She didn’t have a moral high ground. She flicked open the latch of the jewellery box, peering inside. No, moral high ground there was none of, when she had run away with something this precious.

She took out one piece, a necklace with a sapphire of truly ridiculous size. If it was real, and her intuition told her it was, it would fetch a hefty enough price on its own. Her thoughts turned to the pile of corpses her mind had conjured, and wondered if perhaps there was a high ground to stand on. She hadn’t killed for wealth, at least. Not her own anyway. The box locked shut with a click, the sapphire went into her pocket, and the box she slid under the bush. Moral high ground or not, she at least wanted to see who the culprits were.

The shadows covered her return to the mansion walls, not that there were any to see her. She unceremoniously slapped both hands against the whitewashed cobble, her mind already demanding answers from it before she even touched.

How many people were alive inside? An image of three silhouettes emerged.

How many entrances and exits were there? The number 1 flashed in her mind.

What is the location of that entrance? A series of images flashed before her inner eye; River, back of the garden, sewer, and a door atop a set of stairs within a concrete tunnel.

She stepped back from the wall, staring hard at it. Three people, one of whom was the woman. The other two must then be the thieves, and they were heading for the single entrance into the mansion, which seemed to be located within the sewers, and connected to a river. But only one entrance? That meant everything had been locked down and closed, and that the culprits weren’t amateurs. They knew what they wanted, and had gone to great lengths to get it. They had been prepared, too. She couldn’t underestimate them.

Her thoughts directed towards the ground underneath her, and the garden of the mansion itself, she demanded the location of a river. South west, and tangentially connected to the estate only enough, that it could be used as a port, and for sewage.

Two murderers inside, to exit through a river, meant that there would likely be a boat. That meant guards, at least two, probably three. One to watch the boat, one look-out, and one to cover the gaps.

Her fingers traced along the coarse lines of the wall, and she knew the location of the individuals within. The woman wasn’t too far away from the murderers, but they were closer to the exit. Were they moving? Her skills told her no, they weren’t, but if not then what were they waiting for?

The answer became clearer when she neared the river, and saw the size of it. It was a tidal river, and the waters had risen high. The sewer tunnel was likely flooded. The thought made her grimace. That was a concern for later, however, as the sound of a rustling tree alerted her to the presence of someone else. She darted into the space between two bushes, using their shadows to hide herself. It was the look-out, and he seemed to have grown bored, evident by his vigorous attempt at shaking apples out of the tree.

The boat could not be far away yet, and a cursory use of her ability told her much the same. She looked up from her hiding spot, seeing the building under which she knew the sewer exit was. The river curved by its corner, and with no visible connection from here, meant it would be around the corner of the building. Good, then her soon-to-be acquaintance was out of line of sight from them.

”Well, perhaps there’s one amateur among them,” she privately criticised as she watched the distracted thief shake loose an apple, only for it to fall and land on his head.

She used the distraction to move, closing the distance fast enough that he didn’t look up until she was already too close.

“Wha—”

She didn’t bother with niceties, and silenced him with a dirty, but effective, blow between the legs. She caught him as he crumbled forward with a whimper, and drove her knee into his midsection, robbing him of his breath, then locked her arms around his neck and squeezed.

A matter of seconds later, and she had an unconscious idiot held in her arms. She let him drop like a sack of flour, caring little for his well being. He would regain consciousness soon, however, so she took her chance to pull out a length of wire and set about hogtying him. Her used sock became a substitute for a gag, stuffed into his mouth when he started to regain consciousness.

She left before he was fully back to his senses, taking it slow and cautious. Even she would have difficulty with two men attacking her at once. Once she reached the corner of the building, she stayed low to the ground and peeked around it. Sure enough, there was the boat, a simple one with two oars, and just as many men about it, anchored to a simple pole hammered into the riverbank. It looked rudimentary, like they had brought it as a temporary anchor point.

As opposed to their companion, these two were properly on guard. One stood by the boat, watching the sewer entrance which she now also could see, and the other had his back to her, keeping watch the other way. Not a bad plan overall, but their reliance on a buffoon was coming to haunt them.

She would have to approach carefully, but quickly. There was precious little cover, and though the second thief was on the other side of the small waterway connecting the sewer tunnel to the river proper, it was but a short jump for anyone who wasn’t in bad shape. She could not afford to take any chances here. Even if she took down the first one quickly, chances were the scuffle would be heard by the other, and it would become a brawl.

She dug a hand into her coat, and pulled out a set of brass knuckles.

Her steps carried her quietly forwards, taking a curving path so she didn’t come straight from the side. Another five steps and she would be within striking range, but even her best efforts weren’t enough this time.

“You’re back, Da—” He turned as he spoke, but when he saw a face that wasn’t his friend, he swung.

The knife whistled past Lucie’s face, missing her by a hair’s breadth only because she had stopped.

“JACOB!” He yelled and stabbed at her.

This time Lucie was ready. She danced to the side, grabbed his arm in passing and swung at his elbow. He pulled away, not enough to avoid getting hit, but no bones broke. She rushed in after him, not giving him time to rest. Her brass knuckles found one of his ribs, but he still held his knife and stabbed at her side.

His rib cracked, the wind going out of him, just as the knife found purchase. The blow hurt, but the padding filling out her waist stopped the blade. She kicked up, her foot once more finding purchase on a man. Another strike at his jaw while he was distracted, and he crumbled.

Jacob tackled her just as she looked up, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Jacob was a small man, as evidenced by his tackle being centred around her chest, but the hail of flows that followed painfully informed Lucie of his strength. She blocked one going for her face, turned her head so another hit the ground under her, but the third rattled her jaw and set stars circling her eyes.

“Okay, fuck you,” she growled, and aimed a blow of her own. He grabbed her arm and pinned it, and did the same when she struck with her left.

“Gotcha now,” Jacob growled, leering at her from far too close, and for Lucie’s purposes just close enough.

She threw her head forward, shattering the mask between them as her forehead broke his nose. His grip loosened as he yowled in pain, and using the opportunity, she struck with her brass, shattering his clavicle and knocking him off of her.

Gathering her feet under her, she made certain to knock the last of the resistance out of them. The first one was still out, but Jacob was still awake. One kick, then two, and all resistance and consciousness had left him.

“Way too close,” she grunted, inspecting the hole in her coat. If not for the padding, that knife might have found a kidney, or at least caused so much internal bleeding her life might have been in serious danger.

A quick inspection of the boat rewarded her with a length of rope, which she readily applied to hogtying her two new acquaintances as well—adult men tied like pigs for slaughter. She sacrificed her remaining sock to muffle the two of them, splitting it between them.

The company taken care of, her attention was drawn towards the boat and the sewer entrance. She had little intention of staying around while a self-proclaimed investigator, possibly with law enforcement connections, saw her, but she could at least make certain that they couldn’t get away.

There was still the door that exited into the sewer tunnel which, she saw, was still flooded. If she wanted to trap that one, she would have to get wet.

“I need a shower after today anyway,” she said to herself, and discarded both the vest and coat. She grabbed her remaining wire from her hidden pockets, and took the plunge.

The water was wet, cold, and thoroughly uncomfortable, but at least the flooding from the river meant the water was as clean as river water could be. She half-swam half-walked through the tunnel, using her talent to guide her. There was just enough of a gap to keep her head out of the water and not much else, but thankfully the trip was short and she soon found the stairs, and an old, worn door atop them, just barely a handspan higher than the water.

Much as she had hoped, there were rails on either side of the door, and even a pair of positively ancient oil lamps, nearly rusting off the hinges.

”And,” she thought, ”perfect neck height for the average adult man.”

A minute later, she had tied a piece of wire to either side of the rails at ankle height, and another between the ancient lamps. The last one one likely wouldn’t survive more than one impact, but hopefully the low wire would survive both of them tumbling over it. It would be a painful fall down the stairs, but with even just a little water, and the soft muck on the floor, the victim would have to be exceedingly unlucky to get seriously wounded.

Satisfied with her handiwork, Lucie turned and was about to leave, when a thought occurred to her. Why not leave a small present behind?

She took the oversized sapphire necklace from her pocket, and a tube of lipstick. She scribbled a quick word on the sapphire, and left it to hang over the rusting lamp as well.

“There,” she said, now properly satisfied. She threw one last look at the door, smirked, and swam back the way she had come. She had a boat to take care of before going home with tonight’s income.

Ianus Congreatio: Secret societies, horror, and mystery in the shadows of Prague.

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Ianus Congreatio: Secret societies, horror, and mystery in the shadows of Prague.

Faces rushed past Lucie as she rushed through the dark alleyways and streets of Prague. She paid attention to none of them, and kept her head low so as to not be seen herself. Diana’s uniform still clung to her, and her hair was still done up like one would expect a nurse to be, but even with a functioning disguise chances were not to be taken. If but one person saw her and recognised who she truly was, a great many things would go wrong.

It was for this reason that she took the slower routes; avoiding the main thoroughfares and faster roads, in favour of the places where she would remain unseen by most. Under normal circumstances the small ways would have been the faster route, but she knew that those were watched by people she did not care to meet again. And so she was forced to take the truly abandoned ways to avoid the hubs and gathering points of the less scrupulous members of society.

An urchin followed her with his eyes as she walked past the boxes he sat on, eyeing her curiously. She stopped by him, and keeping her eyes trained forward so he only got a vague profile of her, asked, “where are they looking?”

The urchin sniffed, and opened his mouth to utter something obviously self-important, but the flash of the sun hitting a silver coin silenced him. “Noon, wheat, and Sun-Up,” he said and grabbed the coin from her hand.

A muttered thanks, and Lucie was off again. ‘Noon’ and ‘Sun-Up’ meant two things respectively. Noon always referred to the Prague Orloj, or the astronomical clock tower, Sun-Up was east, and Wheat meant a bakery. Together, it told her where the next checkpoint was. In this case, it was east of the Orloj, by a bakery. There was only one such place, so she knew to avoid it. She kept her head down and continued on her way.

It wasn’t long before she found herself past the checkpoint, and with relatively free reign to continue. She paused in the shadows underneath an old, gothic bell tower, intent on getting her bearings. It was a relatively simple matter to gain access and climb up to get a vantage point. A few words here, a coin to beggar there, and she had a distracted steward whom she slipped past, and then up the stairs and all the way to the attic, and even amidst the rafters.

She didn’t dare risk climbing out onto the roof, fearing unnecessary questions, but fortunately the view was enough. She found a relatively secure nook to sit in, and closed her eyes to concentrate. While it might not be necessary to be at a vantage point, it helped her to concentrate and center herself for what she was about to do.

While she most often used physical contact, such was not actually necessary for her talent to function. She could look at any object, connect to it in a fashion, and glean information from if she so desired, guided by her own intent and inquiries. The human mind wasn’t entirely isolated within the skull of a person, nor were humans and animals the only things which had minds. Every rock, every tree, and whatever else inbetween, had a mind—a presence—in the world, and as such carried with it wisps of anything and everything it had come into contact with.

Lucie’s talent was in finding these wisps, and plucking out individual threads of information, in the grand web that was the world. Any intelligent mind was guarded against unwanted intrusion, whether deliberate or not, and so there she required physical contact. But a stone? A piece of wood? They had no such protections.

But what was a stone but a collection of pebbles yet broken apart? A stick other than a shattered piece of a tree? She could see the wisps connected to and from a puzzle, despite it being made up of several different pieces, for it was a whole despite being multiple pieces.

By that logic, what difference was a city?

Air filled her lungs, and she held her breath as she let her mind open, and with a deep exhalation, reached out for the threads that would connect her to Olivia.

Babaroga’s teeth tore at her mind. A startled scream escaped her lips and the air was knocked from her lungs before she even registered a falling sensation.

---

Lucie awoke with a start, panting and with the distinct feeling of cold sweat, with a single spot of warmth on her forehead. Before she managed to regain complex thought, instinct kicked in and she performed a quick inspection of herself.

Sore, several bumps and bruises she knew would make themselves known to her in the morrow, and a small cut just below her hairline, which also caused the warmth: Her own blood.

Blinking the figurative stars away she gave her surroundings a quick look. She had fallen from the rafters, hitting her head on the way down, and landed squarely on her back, and was knocked momentarily unconscious. Judging by the light still shining through the small windows she hadn’t been out for any significant length of time, a few minutes at best.

She sat up with some small effort and a groan, wiping her forehead.

“Lesson learned,” she muttered, “don’t use it on a whole city.” In the past she had never sought to glean information from anything larger than a single street. She hadn’t even guessed that there would be a limit to how large a thing she could connect to. Was there a limit? Never before had she felt resistance when asking about anything from any object, or any person, no matter how large, old, or complex. Was it just because she had never approached her limit, and now far overstepped it by accident, or was there some other cause?

She stood up and resolved to find questions for those answers later. For now, she had a girl to find. She knew there was a connection to some mansion on the east side of the city, but beyond that she had no clue, and she was unlikely to gain anymore until she reached the mansion, as her most recent attempt at pinpointing her location proved.

She counted herself fortunate that the beggar had remained his word, and kept the steward busy for as long as they could. Otherwise she would likely have been found when her body had dropped to the attic floor.

She sacrificed her second glove to wipe the blood from her face, and was once again on her way, headed eastwards.

---

About an hour later, Lucie found herself outside of the city proper, now walking across old, beaten paths, rather than cobbled streets. She had acquired a cloak since the bell tower, trading it for a few coins with a traveller—She feared that walking about in a nurse’s uniform would attract too much attention.

A lone wanderer still attracted attention, but there were very few hiding places nearby, and though she could hide part of the way, more questions would be raised if someone saw her appearing from hiding, than if she just kept walking. So she trudged along, keeping her head down and her senses sharp.

She passed a few farmsteads, sharing a quick greeting with the farmhands that happened to trudge along. This far out, she was expecting Adam and Lillian to show up soon. She might be able to outrun them in the city, but out here horses and wheels reigned supreme. She directed her talent at the road underneath her, and queried the direction towards a grand building, all the while paying careful attention to whether she strained her skills or not. Straight ahead, it told her effortlessly. No stress, or difficulty.

She was still able to locate the mansion, it seemed—or at least something akin to it—but that raised the question of what the feedback earlier had been caused by. Was it truly just the size of the area she tried to affect, or was the mansion itself protected in a fashion? Her previous attempt had been focused on the girl’s precise location, so if the mansion was protected to keep people from seeing inside, that would explain that. At the same time, her inquiries in the room she stayed in were directed at where the girl disappeared to. Again, the general location, an area, not as precise a query as the one that had knocked her from the rafters, but also relatively small in scope: She had merely searched the room for the location the occupant went to when disappearing—remarkably smaller than the entire city, after all.

She contemplated making another attempt, but thought better of it. If she feared her being alone would attract attention, then a lone stranger falling over would doubly so.

So she instead hurried along, heading towards the old mansion, and hoping Adam and Lillian would soon catch up to her. A knot in her stomach had her hesitate to continue on entirely on her own. There were too many variables for her liking. A girl that vanished seemingly without trace, imaginary friends, difficulty detecting where the girl was, and then the possibility of protections of an arcane nature. She was no slouch in the mental department, but prideful as she were, even Lucie conceded that Adam’s mind was needed here.