Exalted 3rd: Nexus

[Esbilon]

Twice-Blooming Flower


"What happened to him?" Flower asks, tenderly caressing his cheek with the back of her hand. She knows nothing of this man, but from the company he keeps, it seems unlikely that he was a kind man. And yet, she feels no joy at his fate. This man was a comfort to his friends, a source of strength to his family, and a delight to his mother. What else can she do, but look for compassion in her own heart when she sees a man in need.


As usual, of course, she finds no such true emotion, but as always she comes close to understanding the cup-shaped hole cut in her heart.

 

[Vanman]

The Doctor





His ears now tuned, The Doctor can hear the man in pain. A grimace passes over his face. The slaver is up there, awaiting righteous justice, but this man is here, now, in pain, and The Doctor can do something about it. Plus....


A grim smile passes over his face. He turns to Vilsh. "It may be we won't have to use the back. There is an injured man over there, and it sounds as if there are other injured. I may be able to use my skills as a doctor to get myself into the building. Make your way to the back entrance. I will let you in if I'm able to gain entry. And Vilsh...watch your step. I know I don't have to remind you, but, well...I'm reminding you."


With that, The Doctor breaks from his place in the crowd and heads to the tenement building, his focus on the injured mercenary. When he finally arrives, he addresses himself to the Headsman. "Forgive my interruption, Headsman Ferro, but I cannot help but notice the distress your comrade is suffering. I am The Doctor, and I am what my name implies. May I have a look at your injured man?"

 

[Blackadder]

Gaspar Daskin


Gaspar kept his mouth shut and breathed carefully through his nose, as so to avoid the problem of dust getting in anywhere. In that case, the floorboard shouldn't give him away. Carefully, he padded towards the stairs. Whoever it was, target or other, he'd have their exit blocked off entirely.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Skrakes





She...is odd. Like some godly healer come fluttering down from the sky to bless the wounded and disabled. Save that the men and women out here are unhinged and terrified. No saints, no saviors.


Headsman Ferro pauses, watching the scene and the newcomer herself before turning to you. "They use bodies," she says cryptically. "Make scenes and presentations... There's another one up there. And the victim this time is a bit more than a singular dealer or cutpurse. Vandal Gjedde, sir. It...they...did things to him."


That...is a name with as much weight in the Nexus criminal underworld as the Council does with the city. And apparently he's upstairs part of an grandiose, melodramatic murder scene. Fortune pisses on Nexus and its moving parts.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Esbilon





"More what he saw than anything. Room up on third. Um, look, we don't know your face. Your name, miss? Unless you're with him." The guard jerks a thumb at a man packing a smoking pipe whilst talking to what looks like someone in charge.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Blackadder


Tik-tik-thuuuuk Tik-thuuuuk Tik-thuuuuk


"So nice, so nice..." Ribbons of dust fall from the boards nearest the stairs as you see a stooped figure emerge from the door. Cane in hand, he is fixated on a scrap of leather in his gnarled hand. Rolled shoulders, cabbage stench.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Vanman @Skrakes @Esbilon


"...things to him. Hmm?" Ferro stares up at the hulk calling itself a doctor and blinks disbelief out of her eyes. "This day has gotten so bizarre," she mutters. Nodding assent, Ferro looks between the Doctor and Arashi. "Is this the day of Council spooks or am I just that blessed? Hell, who are you?" She asks, looking to Twice-Blooming Flower.

 

[Skrakes]

Arashi


Arashi listens to their hearbeats. His senses project a shadow of their bodies for him: the light breaths of Twice-Blooming Flower. Doctor's heart beats like a bass drum, hammering out a steady beat. He takes a drag off his pipe before he steps forward to confront Flower. "What's your business here?" Keep it business, deal with one weirdo at a time. He looks through her, as a blind man does, milky eyes staring straight through her shoulder.

 

[Blackadder]

Gaspar Daskin


Gaspar stayed silent, studying the strange old man before he approached the elder.


[dice]21403[/dice]

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Blackadder


Something inscrutable in his gaze, feverish. No older than fifty, his body language difficult to read, as he starts down the stairs you see more. He favors the left leg as the right looks a favorite bodily debt--misshapen by violence, patella canted. A superstitious grifter known by the jangling arrangement of charms, signs, penny relics, and the rich gold ring hanging from his thin, hairy fingers. Despite the hobbled leg and charms, very modestly dressed. Thin light burns through the milky windows, casting him in shadow and light with each step. His expression shifts and a lugubrious air envelops him. Like he's woken from some strange dream only to have the fever reclaim him. He's been here for some time. Fixated on that scrap of leather. This is a man slowly coming down from a heady rush or panic. Both, perhaps.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Vanman





Firstly, his actual wounds need care. Some cuts and knicks around the hands. Laceration on the forehead. Deep penetration wound to the thigh. Bleeding...acceptable, but needing to be stopped.

Spoiler

Intelligence + Medicine, please.

 

[Esbilon]

Twice-Blooming Flower





"No business," she says, two flaming orange eyes catching Arashi's and two perfect lips forming a smile. "Curiousity," she adds, lifting her fingers from the wounded man's cheek to the newcomer's, stroking him with a soft touch that conveys both experience and an almost innocent naïvité.

 

[Blackadder]

Gaspar Daskin


"What's going on here, old timer?" Gaspar ventured.

 

[Skrakes]

Arashi


Arashi bats her hand away, stepping back. "Then go. This is nothing to be curious about."


He sweeps back toward Ferro. "Take me back to this room." See if he can't scare some lead out of it.

 

[Esbilon]

Twice-Blooming Flower


Flower takes no notice of Arashi's words or his sweeping gestures, but regards him with curiosity, making no move to leave. When he moves into the house, she follows, albeit at a respectful distance.

 

[Vanman]

The Doctor





"I'll be happy to speak," The Doctor says as he pulls down his satchel, "once I have attended my patient. I would ask that you give me room so I may properly deal with these injuries. Place the man over here, in the shade. Lay him down - by the hoary droppings of Ahlat, don't bounce him around!!! Smoothly. Smoothly!! You there. Yes, you. Sideburn Bill. Your cloak seems the cleanest. Place it under his head, please. I don't...By the Incarnae's sweaty nethers, man, roll it up!!! It's little use laid out on the ground! We need to keep his head raised!"


Once the man is placed to his liking, The Doctor begins his ministrations. Before he begins, he examines the man from head to foot - every laceration, every cut, every bruise, every bone. The examination begins with scrutinizing his patient with his eyes, then his fingers - scarred fingers, fingers covered with calluses, one or two even bent, as if broken - slowly probe the body, feeling for what the eyes cannot see. He spends extra time on the thigh wound, knowing it the most serious. Having finished his scrutiny, he reaches into his satchel and pulls out a bar of soap. Using some of the water in his canteen, The Doctor washes his hands thoroughly, drying them on a small towel found in the satchel.


Once more The Doctor reaches into his satchel, pulling out first one jar, then a second. A third follows and, seeing what that jar holds, The Doctor nods once. Taking the soap once more, the puncture wound is cleansed. He opens the jar and, with a thin wooden blade, scoops out a portion of the unguent therein, spreading it into the puncture wound. The physician begins to speak softly, not to anyone in particular but more as an aid to concentration. "First, an antiseptic, to prevent the festering. Bleeding needs to stop. Needle, thread, yes, must suture. Won't be easy. Patient will need...You!" The Doctor's voice rises in volume as he addresses several of the mercenaries. "Sideburn Bill! Look, I don't care what your name is right now, I just need your attention. And your aid, if you wish your comrade to survive."


As The Doctor continues to speak, he pulls out a small case and a spool of surgical thread. He threads the needle whilst giving his instructions. "You and your friend there, Gaucho the Red, need to hold his shoulders and legs. And you! Gaptooth! Hold his hips. This won't feel good, and he'll most likely try and squirm or buck. We can't allow that. I need to suture the wound and you boys are going to help me do that. But, again. Don't. Let. Him. Move!"


With a deftness seemingly contrary to the size and shape of his hands, The Doctor begins the stitching process. His stitches are small and delicate, and there is a gentleness to his manner which is in stark contrast to his words. "A serious wound, but I've seen worse. He will...Gaucho! His legs, man! I can't very well suture his wounds if he's doing the Peppered Snake dance! Gaptooth, your task is simple, yes? Hold. His. Hips!!! You wouldn't like it if your positions were reversed, would you? You'd want your leg to be sewed properly, yes? Then think of that!!"


His concentration is absolute and, after some more haranguing and some more stitching, he finally ties off the surgical thread. After some attention is paid to the laceration, again with the needle and thread, and the other various scrapes, nicks and cuts are attended with the unguent, The Doctor sits back on his haunches and breathes a sigh. "Thank you, boys. My apologies for my gruffness, but time can be of the essence in these matters. I have some business to attend to in the building here, but once that's done, and you're off duty, I would hope you would allow me to buy you a drink. It's the least I can do."

Spoiler

I am spending 3m for the Excellent Solar Medicine charm. Here are the results:


[dice]21467[/dice]


Plus any stunt dice, if appropriate. Or needed. :-)

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Blackadder


The old man jerks back as if slapped. Wary eyes envelope you. "Who are you?" He hisses, shaking like a leaf.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Esbilon @Skrakes


The walls were once beautiful and marble-clad. Centuries of looters scoured it back to raw stone. Ferro speaks as you maneuver through a warren of halls and sullen eyes peaking out of doorways. Executioners stand ready at nearly every corner, waiting. "Over the past two months we've run in on...things like this. Us, the Nightarrows, the Iron League, Mendicants, lots of the companies have found things like this. Mutilations, staged scenery, weird weird shit." Up the stairwell.


The third floor is emptied of life save a few rattled guards. Their hoods tugged forward to hide their expressions. The stench of copper and loosened bowel. The hall is littered with daggers, a pitchfork, and soft ribbons of blood. "The morons were in the rooms adjacent and heard us coming. Violence, shouting, the usual." She nods at a few dead lying among blankets and a broken table in one room. "So...we thought we'd clear the floor. Then we found this."


She leads you down the main hall to a lone door standing open. Sunlight cutting its way through the gloom. The soft beating of wings. A cooing pigeon rests on the windowsill. In the middle of the room, in sunlight portrait, sits a table. Folded linen napkins. Unusually fine pewter utensils, even for a Cinnabar tenement. An ancient, bifurcated bronze candelabra. Well-wrought clay wine bowls. And there...


Sightless eyes stare out the open window from their new perches upon the twin candlestick holders. A future they'll never see is out there. The fleshy sack of a man they belonged too sits waxen in one of the chairs; a jolly family of life-sized mannequins his company. Wooden faces carved in attic tragedy, eyes smoky. A sickly sweet stench of decay and burnt incense assails your nostrils. They've been here for a time judging by the rotting food on their plates.


His hands and ankles are bound by wire. His jaws soldered shut and lips stretched to a disturbingly lifelike smile.


"Things like this." Ferro shudders.

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Vanman

Spoiler

Take two dice and another success for stunt!





"Sure, you ironsided ass, we'll take a drink. So will he when he comes to." They all chuckle nervously, looking at you dubiously. Serum seeps from the wound, but that's expected. Thankfully the artery was missed when he was stabbed. The man looks much alike a child's first doll with all those sutures, but otherwise on the road to recovery. He weakly spits out of the bit he kept to not sever his tongue. Several of his comrades provide him water and a bedroll to rest his head.


"What brought you to this side of Cinnabar, doctor? Not many sawbones this side of Luna's Walk."

 

[Blackadder]

Gaspar Daskin


"Someone who's looking for people who were here, but now gone." Gaspar told him, raising his hands in a placating gesture. "If you know anything, I'd appreciate. I have no quarrel with you."

 

[Esbilon]

Twice-Blooming Flower





The beautiful woman tilts her head as she regards the scene before them. She wrinkles her small button nose as she takes in the smell, less disgusted with it than most people would be. The imitation of a healthy human family (she recognizes it as mockery or imitation despite not knowing quite what the real thing would look like) reminds her of the place she still thinks of as home. Even if her brother does not. A faerie could have done this, she muses silently. But which one? She met a few while in Firewander, and heard of more. This does not ring any immediate bells, but perhaps a closer inspection and closer thoughts will.

 

[Esbilon]

Twice-Blooming Flower





Moving as if in a dream, utterly ignoring the probably surprised others in the room, Flower drifts past the faux family. With a slight frown marring her otherwise perfect brow, she adjusts the cutlery where the Executioners put it out of place, and cleans a bit of vomit off with the sleeve of her dress. Bit by bit the scene, no Scene, comes together before her, and bit by bit, she is reminded of the home she left behind.

Spoiler

Int + Lore (the Wyld) at -2. Throwing 8 motes at the Lore Excellency for 4 autosux 8 more dice.


Int 4 + Lore 5 + (the Wyld) 1 - 2 +8 excellency=> 16 dice => 7 total sux.


+sunt?


[dice]21584[/dice]


[dice]21585[/dice]

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Blackadder





"Who do you swear to? Council? The sorcerer? Those Undercity shits?" He clenches the leather in a tight fist, the other palm rising up to mirror your gesture. "He-He gives me things..." His eyes focus on his closed fist, charms rattling like teeth. Back against the wall, a trembling finger points inside. "I never touched them."

 

[Cthulhu_Wakes]

@Esbilon


There is something familiar in this violence, something they'd appreciate. Something the Seneschal would have articulated to his Court for a pleasing evening of enigmatic arts. A feast of succulent memory and water tolling in the depths. Translucent beasts carrying the platters. The carved mannequins reminiscent of the Seneschal's handmaidens, constant companions of mirth and bitter envy. The incense burning in their eyes, the blood upon their cloven smiles, these are rituals lost upon you. Pageantry, however, isn't.


This is a loud red sign saying 'Hello.' The Seneschal's hunters created scenes like this to make a declare their displeasure to the court and Order. This is not Fae, but something darker. The whimsy is there, but there is a cruelty more deliberate than the sociopathy prevalent in the courts. There is intent.





The room seems to hiss with prodigies. A name seems to pull from the ether inside the corpse's eyes.


Silat.

 

[Vanman]

The Doctor





"Ironsided ass, to be sure, you thick-skulled Peppered Snake dancer. But if my ass is that ironsided, think of what the rest of me is like!! I'll drink the three of you under, over and around the table, just see if I don't!" A huge smile creases the weathered man's face. Just as suddenly, though, it disappears. "As to what I'm doing here..." A disgusted look comes over his face, the disdain apparent in it. But it slowly closes, as if the medicine man is considering what he says.


When he finally does speak, it is with a subdued voice. "I must admit, gentlemen, to some hesitancy in revealing why I am truly here. If I do not mistake your purpose, you are here in Cinnabar - in Nexus, in fact - to keep the peace. I do not wish to put myself on the wrong side of the Council; even moreso, I have no wish to end up in the Emissary's crosshairs. Let us say simply that I come to...question..." That word is filled with hatred and revulsion, no matter how hard The Doctor tries to hide it. "...a gentleman of...dubious moral turpitude. That is all. Question." This time, the word almost - almost - holds no vitriol. "Perhaps you know the man. Goes by the name Silat."

Spoiler

Here are the two stunt dice:


[dice]21596[/dice]


Nothing else, except for that one extra success.