LadyAnnaLee

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

The Detective did their best to refrain from sighing as Aodh and Ivan just got up and walked out. The rest of them confirmed payment. Setepenre wanted to keep close to her family. That would be one phone call laced with Persuasion. Argenti wanted to destroy all the ways to summon him. That was less easy, but doable. The same was true for Juniper’s request for first access across The City. Albert said he was just helping for story which was the easiest payment of all. Cain was willing to help for a price to be discussed in the future. That was worrisome, but they could and would figure it out. The Detective stood and nodded. It was time for them to go.

They smiled, “It seems that you have things figured out.” They reached into their pocket to pull out an external hard drive and slid it across the table to the young Ms. Murik, “Here. This contains all my notes on the Outcasts and the Innocents they have killed.” Their smile was down right mysterious, “It also has some interesting information on The City. If you can find it.” Their smile widened, “Good luck!” They grew solemn again as they looked around the room again, “This room is reserved for the rest of the day. Feel free to stay, make plans, and enjoy the rest of the treats.” They nodded once, “I’m off to Sleep. Good Luck to all of you. And happy hunting.

With that The Detective put on their coat and was out of room. They had done all they could to help. Now all they could do was Sleep in order to maintain the barrier. Well, they could also make a few phone calls. The first was to smooth things over for the Lesser Pride to take care of her pride. She would have the required documents on the mail with in one to two weeks. She would have an email confirming things in a matter of moments. Persuasion was damn useful. The second phone call was to make sure that a VIP first access all-inclusive ticket for the upcoming fashion week was sent to the Lesser Gluttony’s email. Hopefully she wouldn’t be too distracted with shows to help with the Outcasts.

Then The Detective cheated just a little bit. They could walk to where their Sleep would take place, but instead they let The City carry them to the small grotto near the very foundations of The City. It was lined with comfortable blankets and pillows made of all natural materials. They had been asked if they needed help with their Sleep but the truth was they didn’t. They sealed the grotto off so it could only be reach via magic and then pulled of their shoes and switched to pajamas. That wasn’t strictly necessary since they wouldn’t exactly be aware during the Sleep but it would help them when and if they Woke. The Detective curled into the comfortable nest and was Sleeping in moments. The Barrier around The City pulsed as Magic swept over it making it stronger. Nothing with more magic than a hedge witch wouldn’t be getting out or in. The City was now an arena for the battle with the Outcasts. Hopefully that would give the Lessers a chance.

Posts Due

August 29th, 2022

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

The Detective has exited! I know I said two to three cycles, but it seemed to flow better here. Hopefully now that the introduction is out of the way we will have an easier time of things. Hopefully. If you think of something your character should have asked prior to this point just drop it in the OoC. We'll figure out if we can recon things of if Juniper can find the answer on the external hard drive. If that makes sense.

On another note. It's looking like Aodh and FollowthePath will not be playing. Here's hoping that Followthepath just got busy and nothing bad happened to them. I decided to just remove Aodh in the manner that gave FollowthePath the most options should they decided to come back. If anyone has questions or concerns about how I handled that please let me know.

Thank you all for sticking around as long as you have. Here's hoping for more fun as we continue!

LadyAnnaLee

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

What I am under standing from what @duskshine749 and @Zanavy are saying is that hopefully it gets better when we leave the introduction phase and actually start with the story. That's good to know. I think we are about 2 or three cycles out from The Detective leaving. So, then the characters will be forced to interact. Here's hoping that helps too.

As for posts.

@Dragonfly 9
@DawningAurora
@Pascal
@Zanavy

I am not feeling up to a Detective post tonight. However I do have a rough outline figured out. So, I will be posting tomorrow night. So you have til then to either let me know you aren't posting or to post.

Guys. I really want this to work. I am doing my best to make this work. If you feel something is off or could be done better please let me know. I don't know if you don't tell me.

Have a wonderful day slash night!

LadyAnnaLee

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

Hello! Just a reminder. Posts are due tomorrow.

Though I do have to ask. Is there anything I can do to make the story more compelling or to make posting easier? I want us all to have fun. If we aren't having fun there is very little point. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

Lots of love!

LadyAnnaLee

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

Argenti looked at the woman who mentioned avoided “net zero” and basically implied that she wouldn’t help without something in return. Well, that was fair, and it wasn’t even that ridiculous a price. She was right. Something like that should be easy enough for the so-called Detective. Rumor had it that they practically ran the town. Of course, that was just rumor. Still, it had to be easier than what the two of them discussed. Argenti had been about to kill The Detective when he had been summoned. Luckily, they had been a fast speaker. In the end Argenti had agreed to come to this meeting if the Detective had agreed to help find an eliminate all the ways to summon Argenti. In the succubus’s opinion that was a fair price for helping with these Outcasts as well. Though it sounded like he might have to wait until the problem was solved to be paid. That was alright. Argenti would be paid, one way or another.

He did claim another pastry, this one a plain glazed donut, “I’m in. I have no problem trying to figure out these Outcasts and their goals and then eliminating them.” He smirked at no one and nothing, “I don’t even have a problem with working with the others in this room.”

That was true enough. Argenti had worked with others in the past and figured that he would work with others in the future. Many supernatural types were loners and Argenti certainly fell into that category well enough, but he wasn’t such a loner that he refused to deal with others. Besides this was bigger than any personal preferences. This wasn’t even just about justice at this point. The sooner then figured out what was going on with these Outcasts the more Innocents would be protected from whatever this plan of theirs was. Though justice had a part of it as well. Argenti would have to figure out exactly what type of Fae Eris was as well as what type of demon Samael was. That would help him figure out how to make them suffer. Though more important, not that Argenti would ever say this bit out loud, was finding the bodies or proof that the Innocents were dead so their families could have closure. It may have been cruel, but the truth was that even too much hope could be poisonous. Hopefully it wouldn’t reach that point.

Argenti reached for another file. It wouldn’t hurt to look at more information. Perhaps he would see something that the investigators hadn’t. It wasn’t likely, but who knew. Right now, reading files was all he could do. After this meeting was over, he could try poking around for information on Samael and Eris, but even that would probably reveal next to nothing new. Still, he had a few sources that he knew for fact this Juniper didn’t have. He wasn’t sure about The Detective. It wouldn’t hurt to ask the other minor demons of The City. At the very least they would know that things in The City were changing and know how demons were reacting to the change. Any information would be valuable at this point. Right?

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

Hello! How is everybody?

Okay. I'm just going to be real. Monday nights is a better time for me to be posting my posts. So, I'm just going to move the due dates to Mondays. Hopefully that works for everybody.

On another note I was going to have The Detective mention everybody's payment in that last post only to realize that I didn't actually require that in the character sheets. Oops. My bad, guys. I said this was my first time. I'm working on it. So, if everyone wants to either post here in the OoC what their character is expecting as payment or mention it in their next post that would be awesome. I know some of you did mention in your character sheets, but I'm just going to say everyone needs to either state or restate payment methods. Just to be fair! I hope that makes sense and is good for everyone.

Also I didn't have time to get this to @Pascal to beta read it. So, there are probably typos galore. Please forgive them.

You are all amazing!

LadyAnnaLee

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

The Detective clenched a hand into a tight fist as their gaze focused on wall above the door across from where they were sitting, “They’re dead. I just don’t have bodies to give families closure.”

If The Detective could find bodies to place in places where they could be found they would do so in a heartbeat. Some of the Innocents had families and friends that were desperate for any sign that their loved ones were safe and coming home. It might be cruel of The Detective to want to dash those hopes, but the people wouldn’t be able to start healing until they knew what had happened to their missing loved ones. The Detective didn’t want to be unkind, but they could fathom allowing people to live with false hopes. That being said right now they had no proof to give anyone that the Innocents were dead. The Detective knew when they had died. Or more importantly The City knew. That would have to be enough.

The Detective gave their head a shake and turned their gaze to mother across the table, “Of course. I will smooth things over before I begin my Sleep. After all, for some of us family is all we have.” They looked around the table, “In the past I discussed payment for this job with some of you. For others that is something we still need to discuss. Some of it I will be able to take care of before my Sleep as I can for the Lesser Pride. Some of it will have to wait until the situation is resolved, but you will all be paid. I keep my word.” Then The Detective said that it that might of seemed as if they let something slip but was deliberately planned, “Breaking my word is against The Rules.”

It was true. Breaking promises made meant breaking the Rules and The Detective tried to avoid that. For some of them it would be easy enough. Setepenre just wanted to be able to take care of her children no matter what form they might take. Calling in the right favors to make that happen was something they had already started and would finish up this afternoon. On the other hand, Juniper Murik wanted exclusive and first-person access to events, restaurants, museums, and other such things that would look good on her social media. That was also fairly easy but ongoing. It would have to wait. For others The Detective wasn’t sure exactly what they want or required but wasn’t too worried. They were all intrigued enough by the threat to the Innocents to come here to this meeting free of charge or bribe or threat. They might not be reasonable, but The Detective was willing to wager they wouldn’t be completely unreasonable either.

They nodded to the Lesser Sloth, “Thank you for the invitation, but I have already prepared a place for me to rest. It will be safer than most other places and I am comfortable with it.” Then they looked around the room and asked the question that would confirm either their fears or their hopes, “Will you all be working against these Outcasts?”

Posts Due

August 15th, 2022

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

Little mini update. Odds are I will not be able to get a Detective post up tonight. It will probably happen late Monday super early Tuesday. Keep in mind that I'm in CST, sleep days, and live nights. So, "midday" for me is like midnight for most people, and midnight tomorrow is *hand waving* roughly when I'll be posting the next moving on post. I would do it today but something came up. That gives the last few people a little bit more time to post. Keep in mind this is the exception not the rule. Thank you for understanding! Have a great rest of your day!

The Tree of Astra (LadyAnnaLee and Blackfridayrule)

I understand. Thanks for letting me know.

The Lesser Evils. (Play is live!)

Well, Argenti wasn’t going to share his full set of power, but he didn’t want to be the one holding out, “I’m a low level succubus.” He flapped his hand at this Cain, “There’s no point in copying my powers.

That was true for the most part. If he could mimic mundane powers as well as supernatural like he said Argenti’s parkour and free-running skills might be useful, but there was no point in bringing those up. If he got called out later, he would just say he hadn’t realized those were important enough to mention. Could Cain copy knowledge as well? If so, he might like the knowledge of how to efficiently torture a plethora of species, but since he hadn’t mentioned that Argenti would keep it to himself. He didn’t need to know about the Gift. John had given that to Argenti and he wasn’t sharing that!

He might get a few raised eyebrows for calling himself a succubus rather than an incubus since he wasn’t cross dressing today, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t even sure when succubus had come to mean female sex demon and incubus had come to mean male sex demon but that hadn’t always been the case. Oh well, these were supernatural creatures indeterminate age, not some “traditional” idiot born only 5 decades ago. This group had to have more sense. He draped over the table and flashed Cain his flirtiest smile. It didn’t mean anything. It was just supposed to reinforce his statement that he was just a low-level succubus, which was true enough.

Only to straighten and turn serious as The Detective simultaneously handed Juniper the files and talked about Bob. Practically perfect and completely ordinary? It was possible. Argenti had seen it before. His silver eyes grew hard. It was also extremely difficult. Argenti looked around the table. No one here fit the bill, but if this Bob did, that might explain how they got Innocents away for the crowds to extract their souls. They had to get them away and into a private space. That fact that there were so few victims lent proof to that theory. The Outcast weren’t taking souls in mass. Whatever their plan was they wanted, pure, undiluted, uncorrupted Innocent souls. It was dangerous, but sooner or later, it would also make them trackable.

So, when the witch, Juniper, passed over the files he took one at random. IT opened to reveal a yearbook picture. Argenti steeled himself to look at the age: 16. So, these Outcasts weren’t just taking Innocents. They were taking children too. It was true that most Innocents were under the age of 30 and even more were under the age of 18, but still, it felt worse somehow. The boy did the fairly typical things that Innocents did. He volunteered at a youth sport’s program three times a week, played the same sport at his high school, had slightly higher than average grades, volunteered at a soup kitchen once a week, went to a farmer’s market for most of his shopping, helped his single working mom taking care of his two younger siblings without complaining, and was genuinely well likely. He hadn’t been declared dead yet and his social media was filled with comments about how he wouldn’t have run away and how he was such a sincerely sweet guy. Argenti pulled out his only phone, plugged in his headphones and found the interview with his mother begging for whoever had her son to please give him back, that she wouldn’t press charges. She wasn’t an Innocent, but even through the screen Argenti could tell that she wasn’t an Innocent because of some big choice. Life had just happened to her. The way it just happened to most people. She was at least 98 percent Innocent. That wasn’t exactly how it worked, but close enough. Argenti’s whole posture screamed an increasing rage as he watched it, and his face promised murder.

He scowled as he looked back up, “There is a pattern here somewhere. They are looking for quality rather than quantity. We can find the pattern and we can stop them. We just need to work together. We don’t have to trust each other. We just have to work with each other.”