chicago ♔ give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough

[sirstickuphisass]

♬ blood - my chemical romance

WHO || Rose, Dimitri, Amrita, Lila, Aurelius, Tia, and Eric [closed]
WHAT || Investigating the crime scenes
WHERE || The alleys of Chicago, IL
WHEN || April 5th [ backdated ]
HOW || Actionspam

The Knights split up, Tia taking Rose, Dimitri, and Amrita in the rented vehicle towards two of the more distant sites from the hotel, while Eric leads Aurelius and Lila through the back alleys of the city to somewhere nearby. It's late by now, and Chicago is alive with the sights and sounds of nighttime in the distance. A light rain falls, dripping off the overhangs of the roofs above and pooling against the sidewalks.

Comments

[pickyourbattles]

Why would you drop out?

[bittersweeter]

I got a job, family business. I never liked school anyway.

[pickyourbattles]

I suppose that's only fair. Being a scholar, in some ways, was my family business. Or one of them. My sister was meant to go into the other line.

[bittersweeter]

[Was, past tense. Hmm.]

What's the other one? [And how is this the trio of following in their family's footsteps. Having a choice in your future, what's that?]

1/2

[pickyourbattles]

As the elder twin, she was training to become a sentinel of the elven enclave where our father was born. It was a position he held, and as it was a lifetime appointment, no one ever expected Aurelian would have to actually fulfill it, given that our father was likely to outlive us both.

It didn't quite work out that way, however. [ his mouth twists ] ... Any of it.

[sirstickuphisass]

[ over his shoulder: ] This isn't storytime. Let's keep our heads in the game, please.

[bittersweeter]

Haven't you ever heard of multitasking?

[sirstickuphisass]

You can multi-task when you're a full Knight. Squires should focus.

[bittersweeter]

Yes sir. [Surly teenager on the loose. She doesn't even know what she's supposed to focus on since she doesn't know where they are going.]

[sirstickuphisass]

This is it. [ he comes to the end of an alleyway, surrounded on 3 sides - building, wall, building. trash cans and nasty smells decorate the place. ] One of the murders took place right here. [ he stands in the center and looks up, then down at the ground. there are no bloodstains here, no signs of the grisly fate that awaited someone here. ]

[bittersweeter]

Of course it did. [She looks around, nose wrinkling. It's not a bad creepy alleyway. Aside from the smell.] Only one entrance, enough shadow for cover behind the trash cans. Slam someone against the wall, cover their mouth, keep your heads close, and people'll pass by thinking someone's getting lucky.

[She shrugs, nonchalant.] There's a reason it's a classic. If a little... predictable. And lame.

1/2

[pickyourbattles]

[ wow aurelius will be over here just staring, slightly scarred ] How do you, er, know so much on the subject?

[sirstickuphisass]

[ SIDE EYE CITY ]

[bittersweeter]

Because, dear Aurelius, the family business I was in line to inherit? Is an organized crime syndicate.

[She scowls in Eric's general direction.] Sorry. Did you not want the input of first person experience?

search or investigate check plz!

[sirstickuphisass]

[ aurelius gapes a little like a fish while eric sighs ] Fine. Use your master criminal brain then, and tell me what else you see.

[bittersweeter]

[Well fine, she will. Once she looks around a bit more. (Search 20, total.)]

[pickyourbattles]

[ as aurelius plucks up the lid of a garbage can delicately with thumb and forefinger, gingerly peeking in while holding his coat against him so as not to get any grime on himself, lila would scope things out and find a few interesting things.

the site's been cleaned, very obviously, and eric would be holding open the file as they stand there with photos from the crime scene when the body was discovered. the girl in the pictures looks remarkably eerie: she appeared to be albino in the first place, and being drained of blood made her body look even more ghastly, even discounting the strange way she'd been scalped.

there's no other entrances down this way, and the trash cans seem to be made for the purposes of apartment tenants on either side. in other words, there seemed to be no motive for anyone to aimlessly walk down the alley - it was too short to take a turn into and realize too late that you were at a dead end.

on the brick wall that cuts it off, lila would notice a small symbol that appears to be painted in red... until she looks close enough to see that it's dried blood. it looks like this. ]

[bittersweeter]

[Lila kind of wants to pat Aurelius on the head and teach him how to be a criminal, but she thinks Eric would get annoyed and it would be counter productive to bettering herself as a human being or however Wynn put it. Seriously though, he's precious and it makes her smile.

Which isn't at all off-putting, a tiny blonde in a creepy alley where someone was murdered smiling happily.

She takes her time, crisscrossing the alley a couple times so she can peek at the photos. Well, it's not really peeking, she just stops and looks, right up in his personal space before moving on. She stops finally, by the wall, and takes one of her gloves off, licking her index finger and pressing the tip to the mark. She looks at it mildly and makes a face.]

It's kind of weird they took the most noticeable girl possible, so shes probably special. And they would have had to have taken her since no one is just going to come strolling down here on their own. So lust, bribery, blackmail, threats, one of those. Although it would be a clever plot twist if they pulled a Good Samaritan, those are a throwback.

But Eric. Or you, Aurelius, since you're the smart kid. [She taps a single fingernail against the symbol.] What does this mean? I mean, I know a calling card when I see it, the whole written in blood thing gives it away, but what exactly does it mean?

[pickyourbattles]

[ eric frowns a little at having his intelligence dismissed, but doesn't argue as aurelius comes forward and leans in to examine the symbol. ] I've seen this before! [ he sounds positively thrilled to have made the connection ] This is from my world. A, um, an occult symbol, giving to those who worship Illsensine. [ he straightens up proudly ] God of mental domination and magic, and patron of the Mind Flayers. [ his pride deflates a few moments later as his pronouncement sinks in ] ... oh. Oh dear.

[bittersweeter]

[Oh dear. Jesus Christ, he actually said oh dear. And Lila's pretty sure he didn't do it to be ironic. But that's not the point. She wipes her hand on her jeans before she gets to the point.]

Mind Flaying does what it sounds like, doesn't it? [She huffs out a sigh.] It sounded kind of cool until you got to the flaying.

[sirstickuphisass]

[ eric looks hella serious now ] Mind flayers. Illithids. Incredibly powerful Shadowkind creatures who give evil a run for its money. They use psionic powers to control and manipulate others, and they're very good at what they do.

[bittersweeter]

[Lila has to make an actual effort to not look impressed. Which she sort of succeeds at. (Bluff 11) But that just sounds so useful. Scary as hell, but useful.]

Why would they grab a whiter shade of pale, specifically? And do these guys preclude the... um, reptile people? I wasn't paying attention for that bit.

[In her defense, she was slightly preoccupied with the six hour flight part at the time.]

[sirstickuphisass]

We'd speculated that the murders were linked to the yuan-ti cannibalism cult in Japan. [ he shakes his head ] But I was there, and saw those bodies. This is different.

Potentially worse.

[bittersweeter]

So what do we do now?

[sirstickuphisass]

Find out if the others found evidence to prove a link to the same thing. And from there... I guess finding out if there's any known mind flayers in the area's a start.