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Xar "Are you sure this is the right place?"
Myrrh "It's the address that the file listed..."
Xar nods and eyes the place.
ST Unlike the respectable, expensive residence that Carmine and Corve described Ugly Tree living in, this unnamed cultist's address is a little shanty near one of the salt-marked haunted regions of Chiaroscruo. A dangerous, poor neighborhood.
ST There is activity inside, indistinct male voices, two of them. Aside from that, nothing can be discerned from the outside.
Xar looks up and down the street, and shuffles closer to the shanty, trying to hear what they're saying inside
Myrrh sneaks after Xar, wishing he had remembered to bring that glass from the inn.
ST Xar and Myrrh are both able to hear through the muffling, but what they're hearing isn't all that interesting really. Just two men talking about their next job, apparently they're menial laborers looking for a job. They just got fired from their last position, cleaning a nearby hotel, for being drunk all over an important lady.
Xar "Er.. What now?"
Myrrh "Well we wait. That's the point of a stake out."
Xar "Oh." He sits down on a crate.
Myrrh "I don't think we want the attention of busting in yet..."
Myrrh "I mean I don't think Corve wants us to bust into the place just yet but maybe I can slip in when they're sleeping..."
Xar "You are good at sneaking?"
Myrrh "I can get out of the house without anyone hearing anything and Calidreh has ears like a mouse..."
Myrrh "Besides I doubt they're sober..."
Xar "Call if you get caught. I will rescue you."
Myrrh "I'm sure it won't come to it but thanks I will."
ST The talking eventually, several hours later, settles into mutters and then snores. Loud, loud snores.
Xar has, by this time, curled up into a sort of meditative ball.
Myrrh glances and then whispers to Xar. "Xar, i think they've gone to sleep."
Xar "They snore loud." he agrees.
Myrrh "Alright i'm going to try to slip in, you keep a look out for anyone approaching.
Xar plays gargoyle!
Myrrh sneaks towards the back, looking for a back way in.
ST There is a back door, one probably used most often to throw trash out. With a simple application of pressure and a boot, Myrrh is able to enter the tiny house.
Xar sits there some more, meditating on the stone and glass around him, talking to the little spirits within.
Myrrh starts looking around for obvious cult warning signs.
ST Inside the tiny house are piles of disgusting clothing, cleaner's tools, shovels, picks, spare piles of bricks and other things related to past or possible future jobs. And two drunken, dirty, smelling human men laying on cots.
Myrrh starts picking around the house, looking for trap doors and the like.
ST Myrrh can't find any traces of trap doors or such things. But he has ample time to search, and takes advantage of it. Nothing seems to be out of place. Disgusting, yes, but not out of place.
Myrrh grumbles and heads back outside to Xar.
Myrrh "I can't find anything. If they're hiding something they're very good at it."
Xar "This is the right place?"
Myrrh "it's the place from the file. They don't LOOK like killer cultists, let alone Savants..."
Xar "Sound like they need job."
Xar "Maybe the stones will know. I ask." He stands on the crate and touches the glass bits of the roof near the door, and addresses them in Old Realm. "Spirits of the glass, I ask that you awaken and speak with me."
Glass blinks bleary eyes at you, eyes made from tiny bits of broken glass, muddy with age and scratches. "I am awake, Dragon-King."
Xar "Those within have treated you poorly, I am saddened by that. But still you endure, and see through clear eyes, and hear with the clarity of fine glass. Thus I ask you, if you have seen those within speak of the Black Viper, or seen this symbol." he traces it out in the air
Glass considers. "Yes, not often. Sometimes they speak of that name in their sleep."
Xar "What is it that they say?"
Glass "They talk of jobs they must do for the Black Viper. Simple jobs, listening for gossip. Once they killed a man and brought him back here."
Xar "What did they do with him then?"
Glass "They burned him out back and burried the bones."
Glass "They slept and said they had one what was ordered. They did not say his name, but later they joked of killing the messenger. And mentioned a warning. Something about Brume."
Xar "Brume is important. They made an island fall, and threatened to destroy other islands."
Glass "They speak not of this."
Xar "Hmmm have they said what 'jobs' are coming up soon? Or mentioned any names at all?"
Glass "No, they have not"
Xar "Did they talk about the gossip they heard?"
Glass "Sometimes, yes. They speak of visitors to the city, visitors fleeing Brume."
Xar "Are they to do anything with these visitors?"
Glass "No"
Xar "Just listen?"
Xar "Tell someone where they are?"
Glass "They speak in their dreams about what they hear."
Xar "Please, then, tell me what they have spoken." He channels Essence as a gift to the spirit.
Glass "They speak of refugees and how Brume and Chiaroscuro are unhappy with the demands, how opinion is against the cult, how people are afraid."
Glass "They laugh"
Xar "They are secure that they will win, then?"
Glass "I would say these two are"
Xar "Which way do they go when they leave?"
Myrrh sits and watches Xar with confusion and a little bit of interest.
Glass "They go to the right, down the street."
Xar "Has anyone else come in?"
Glass "Not recently"
Xar "Before?"
Glass "No one important, I think..."
Xar "Can you tell me anyway? I am curious, and anything you say can help us."
Glass "Just other drunks and sometimes girls. Cheap girls."
Xar "Hmmm. Did any of them come more than once?"
Glass "Some of them, yes"
Xar "Did you hear their names, or can you describe them to me?"
Myrrh keeps an eye out to make sure they haven't been noticed yet.
Glass "I am afraid I do not remember."
Xar "Ah, that is a shame. You have been most helpful, though and I thank you for your generous assistance. If there is anything else that you feel I would wish to know, please contact a fire spirit, and they will convey the message to me." He bows, sending another gift of Essence to the spirit.
Glass "I will try to remember".
ST Xar knows it's probably pointless. A little spirit like the broken roof god won't remember much but what goes on right under him. They are lucky he knew what he did.
Myrrh "So did you get anything good?
Xar nods, and relates what he learned, although much less fluently.
Myrrh "Hmmm...that is interesting. Although I'm not too sure what we would get out of them."
Xar shrugs a little. "Maybe we can go that way." he points.
Myrrh looks in the direction Xar is pointing.
Xar "That is where they all go."
Myrrh "Couldn't hurt. It might be their little den." Walks towards the destination.
Xar walks too!
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