london ♔ this is a bad town for such a pretty face

[wynn]

WHO || Wynn, Val'drin, Helen, Francesca, Eric, Lila,  Tia, Grant Peterson, Audrey Peterson, Peter Jayson, various others [closed]
WHAT || A mission gets personal when a cult takes a member of the Knights hostage
WHERE || London, England
WHEN || April 2nd, 10:30 AM  [backdated]
HOW || Actionspam or prose

This is exactly the kind of mess that the Knights like to avoid, and having two missions become very public spectacles in the course of less than a year is not doing much to keep Wynn's hair from turning... oh, wait.

It's already a media circus when the team flies out there in a helicopter that carries Francesca, Eric, Tia, and Lila. Across the street, Wynn has usurped the top floor of an office building to keep an eye on the situation. He watches the screens broadcasting the video taken by the three going on with a tense eye, along with Val'drin and Helen, who are here to consult. Below, the police have blockades of cars, officers, and police line keeping the civilians and reporters back, under orders of Chief of Police Jared O'Keefe.

The Bell 212 chopper hovers for a minute above the building, enough so that Eric can toss a long rope down to dangle over the top floor balcony in the southeast corner. He looks back over his shoulder at Lila, giving her an encouraging but grim nod, and then pulls his SWAT helmet on and grasps the rope, turning around and then hopping back as he slides down. (climb 12) the dc is 10 to climb down, and you are allowed to "take 10" (assume a roll of 10) if you don't have a negative strength score.

Comments

[daredtobelieve]

[Helen seems to have a vague idea of where this is going.] The missing items- are any of them connected to that particular text?

[antiquaria]

[ grant shakes his head ] That's part of what's so baffling about all this. The text itself has no significance that I can figure. Certainly no connection to any of this.

[bittersweeter]

[ okay, so fuck the book basically. she mulls over the missing ones, fiddling with her piece of glass, sliding it back and forth across her palm absently. ] What's the "Nightmare Catcher"?

[ obviously she picked that one first, but she's willing to go through them all. ]

[daredtobelieve]

[Helen doesn't really want to go through them each individually, so she'll try to use her resources. Turning to Val'drin, she looks to his weird artifact expertise. Since he's not blinded by the betrayal of his wife, he might have a cooler head about it all.]

Do any of those stand out to you?

[valdrin]

Not as such, no. I can't say I'm very familiar with any of them, although I'm certain a bit of research could clear that up. I know these names - Barrik the Glutton and Ventyr, the Emaciated. The first was mentioned in the diary of a 4th-century Persian merchant - who also happened to be an infamous diablerist and murderer. It was said he would invite rivals to dinner and, invariably, his guests would be dead before they could finish dessert. Clearly the cause of death was not poisoning because dozens of other guests - including himself - ate the very same food. It's said that he somehow used an item, this fetish of Barrik, actually, to complete the murders somehow.

Ventyr's idol was mentioned in a 4th century source as well - that of a Persian sultan. According to the scrolls, a visiting merchant presented the idol to the sultan at a feast celebrating his 50th birthday. The account claims that before the feast was over, the sultan and all his guests (with the exception of the merchant who brought it) had either wasted away to nothing or eaten themselves to death. The document was, of course, unclear about details, and seemed to contradict itself in several places.

[socialgraces]

[ val'drin u so smart. and despite the gravity of the situation, francesca can't help but pause to admire him that for a moment (or several) as she moves to where he's standing. ] Well, those both sound remarkably abhorrent, though I suppose it's not difficult to imagine why some would seek to obtain such artifacts.

[valdrin]

Presuming either of those are even what she was after. It could have been any of these.

[socialgraces]

How do we determine what it is she was after?

[daredtobelieve]

[Helen looks thoughtful for a moment, mulling over what Val'drin has brought up.]

Two artifacts missing that are from the same location and century? And both surrounding a concept of food- or lack thereof. Perhaps I've been doing this too long, but I'm not much of a believer of coincidence.

[sirstickuphisass]

It's not enough to go on. [ eric looks between the group ] Everybody else realizes that too, right? We're going to be taking stabs in the dark completely, unless we can get a hold of Mrs. Petersen, or one of those artifacts, or Nicholas St. Andrew.

[bittersweeter]

It's not like she left a forwarding address when she peaced out and Nicholas St. Andrew probably isn't someone you can just look up in the phone book under "scheming mastermind catering to bitter trophy wives". [ so yes, eric, valid point. ] But what else can we do?

[daredtobelieve]

Could we search her things? [Helen turns her attention back to Grant.] We need some sort of inkling where she might have gone to meet with the people she's working with. I know this is a lot to take in at once, but we don't have much time.

[antiquaria]

Audrey is not a trophy wife, she's my partner in every thing we do here.

[ anyway. he scrubs a hand through the back of his hair. ] Of-- of course. You can look all you need.

[daredtobelieve]

[Walking by, Helen reaches out to touch Grant's arm gently, hoping to impart some comfort as she peaces out to go rifle through his wife's shit. Anyone is welcome to join her. (navigate 21 if necessary to find a relevant room??? and search 22 for trying to find blue's clues.)]

[bittersweeter]

[ lila doesn't give an iota of a fuck. partners don't just turn on each other the way audrey did, her husband was deluding himself.

but maybe lila is just bitter. cassel's girlfriend while lila was stuck as a cat? audrey.

she gives eric a look like what do boss before deciding whatever he does or says means go with helen. best squire in all the land. anywho her search is 20 total. ]

[sirstickuphisass]

[ by the time they're all done tearing the place apart, they're sure of one thing:

audrey petersen is a damn smart woman, who knows better than to keep incriminating shit lying around. they don't find a single shred of evidence that might help them figure out where to go next. eric paces angrily across the room, rubbing his mouth with his hand, before slamming it down on the desk ] Now what.

[bittersweeter]

I have literally no idea.

[ literally. and this girl can pull plans out of her ass. she's just... completely at a loss with what to do with the absolutely nothing to go on. ]

[daredtobelieve]

I'm afraid I'm running out of ideas myself. [She was hoping that they'd come up with something, no matter how small.]

They've left no trail. We don't know what they were after. If anyone has a suggestion on where to turn next, the floor is yours.

[telekinection]

Maybe we can try to track down someone who knows more about the Children of Chaos. Someone who might be able to give us more information on what they might be after.

[bittersweeter]

Aside from... chaos. [ lila, stop, you are not contributing to this conversation with your sass. ]

[socialgraces]

What about attempting a scrying spell? We have most of her belongings at our disposal. It's at least worth a try. [ also, they can look into this children of the chaos crap not standing here in the mansion (most likely) and the weight of failure is giving her a tension everywhere-ache, so can they leave now. please?

but she's not insensitive enough to ask out loud and instead just looks over to val'drin, expecting him to read her mood. ]

[daredtobelieve]

A viable option. I'm not sure if any of us here have the capability? [Glancing at Tia bc she's the only one who might???] But we could always return to the London office to seek out additional resources.

[telekinect]

I think the next step will be Wynn's decision. We've done everything we can here. [ she turns to look at grant ] And I think you'd better come with us. Wynn's going to have questions for you too.

[daredtobelieve]

[Helen nods to Wynn and will start to usher them back to the hotel room like the good mother hen that she is.]