[Mysterious Cities of Jade] Chapter 4: A Wyld Hunt appears!

Damn it, the kid ducked between two pillars and disapp- Wait, that shadow shouldn't be... there he is on the roof! He must have climbed a pillar to get up on the high ground. He leaps to a nearby rooftop and starts heading east-ish.
 
"Don't wait up." Shinji set off at best speed, watching and tracing the shadow through winding streets and alleyways into the warrens of Chiaroscuro.
 
With that last epic roll, I'm not going to bother asking for another for Shinji to keep up.


You tail him for what must be 20 minutes. He's a slippery one, no mistake. Even now his route doubles back and goes round in circles to confuse and misdirect. But you're not letting him get away with this, oh no.


He finally drops to the ground in a slum far from the city centre, and knocks three times on a door. There's a response of two knocks, to which the kid counters with one. The door opens, and he slips in.
 
A chase-- what fun! Elegy sprinted off after him; all told she moves after him at a good clip, dashing quickly. With any luck she should be able to line up a throw at him... Elegy sprints up to one of Chiarascuro's many merchant's elevators, simple pulley machines that can move heavy goods from the ground to the second floor. With a murmured apology to the owner, Elegy swiftly slashed the ballast line, sending the platform rocketing upward. Up, up, up... and...


Suddenly she is flying. She arcs through the air, her black coat flaring behind her as she moves. A moment of clarity falls over her as she draws the lancet. Very careful, very careful...


Shing.


A lancet whistles through the air, aiming straight for the boy's shoddy leather belt. The patternspiders take a moment to process the object's speed before allowing the leather to slash and the lad's pants to fall around his ankles. Elegy lands on a slanted roof and skids down toward the boy.

Dexterity + Thrown + Acc, 5m for the First Thrown Excellency, 1wp for a success.


Eight successes!
 
Elegy:


Your lancet flies straight and true and... Misses at the last moment, as the boy twists in mid leap in a way that wouldn't be possible, but for the soft glow of silvery essence now surrounding him. He laughs, possibly with glee, and redoubles his speed, leaping over alleys, diving through windows, all manner of funky acrobatics as he tries to shake you.

If you can score 4 successes on a Dex+Athletics roll, you'll arrive in time to see Shinji sidle up to the door you reckon the little git has gone through.
 
Good. Good. Won't be too hard to get in.


Shinji strolls down the street at a leisurely pace, giving them enough time. Musculature underneath his buff jacket turned to stone, promised the strength to topple buildings. He didn't particularly care if it was just a front. He could walk in to a family of eight eating dinner for all he'd care. But he'd find the little bastard and get the coin back. "Elegy." He nods. Approaches the door and lets off a careful three knocks. Shinji takes a stance and draws his hammer back focusing his will into the tip of the hammer. People cleared the street at first seeing the brandished tetsubo. They really clear out now that the shining white jade-alloy begins shimmering with brilliant white and black anger. The two knock reply.


"Here's one back, asshole." He swung.

4m spent for Strength of Stone Technique, strength is now a 9 for the hit. 1 mote more for Dragon Graced Weapon. Time to bring this wall down. Earthquake roll for anyone nearby. Channeling a Conviction! Two Willpower spent this past scene. Essence in auto successes!
 
Ha! Elegy sprints after, skidding down the rooftops. Her elbow hooks around a rooftop as she slides along it. She drops onto another slanted roof, boots scraping along the tiles, gathering speed before she lunges forward... miscalculates the distance...


...and lands on a merchant's awning, slides down, and lands beside Shinji on her ass. Ow.

Channeling Conviction, because Elegy takes games very, very seriously.
 
Elegy is reminded of an old saying common amongst the Earth Aspected Dynasts from when she was a child: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it; I'm HUGE."


The Column sails into the door like the fist of an angry god, tearing it apart in an explosion of matchsticks. Shockwaves from the force of the blow cause pedestrians to topple over, many ending up on their asses like Elegy, so at least she's not alone. The entire front wall of the building cracks in two, and crumbles into piles of rubble around the feet of one very pissed off Dragon-Blood who gave away the last of today's fucks long ago. The rooms of people facing the street for three stories are laid bare; One elderly man in his bathtub frozen in the act of scrubbing his back while singing; a young man and woman, er, making use of some rope and harness. two families sitting down to their meal. All paused, staring at the space where their wall used to be in dumb shock.


The doorway, when it used to BE a doorway, leads downwards, obviously the cellar was re-purposed to rent out as accommodation. At the foot of the stairs, covered in shattered planks of wood, and looking very dazed and confused indeed, is a burly looking chap with a heavy cudgel hanging off his belt and an interesting tattoo on his left forearm- a candle, shining on a single coin, which casts a shadow of many more coins.


He manages a faint "... Bwahaha?"
 
"Nothing to see, folks." Pause. "You two, carry on." He says, deadpan, looking at the young man and woman.


Shinji marches down the stairs, eyes focused on the fool down below. "You, asshole, stand up." Placing the elaborately carved head of the tetsubo under the man's chin. "I said, up." He kicks away some planks. The tattoo is sorted into his brain for later review, hopefully after 'fuck the world' stops sounding the martial cadence of his thoughts. Patience lost with the sputtering fool, Caras plucks the man from the rubble, kicks in the door, shouts, "WHERE IS HE?!"
 
Elegy creeps up beside Shinji after dusting off her coat. "Oh, you'd best tell him, good sir. He gets extremely upset when people lie. And I am no great fond of recalcitrance, either..." She draws a scalpel. "Do you know where the occipital nerve is? Neither do I, but I would take great joy in finding it on your body, if you prove uncooperative."
 
The poor chap works hard to go from "concussed and insensate" to "terrified and helpful". He mostly manages.


"Heeeee... He.. You mus' mean Kim. Kimkimkim. He jus' cam in. Ooh, m'head... wen' buh-buh-below. S' trap... Trapdurr inna inna inna nex' rum. Issa seecret! dun tell anywhuh..."
 
"Will do." He drops the lug on the floor to continue pissing himself, scans the next room for the door. Creaking darkness, panicked shouts from outside. He regards Elegy, then: "I have the feeling we're about to kick over an anthill." He hefts the Column. "I'm okay with that." Shinji begins probing the floor, tapping here and there looking for hollows. "If you've any intricate tricks for finding hideaways, milady, please feel free."
 
"Ahahahahaha." replies the dazed bouncer as you let him drop. The next room is barely furnished. Looks like someone could pretend to live here easily enough, although at more than a glance important things like fireplace, or storage shelves, or bed clothes are absent. There are an unusual number of rugs strewn across the floor, and sure enough, one of them is concealing a hatch. A big one; You could fit an ox through the opening. Presumably it leads to the infamous Chiaroscuro Undercity, an altogether dangerous place; Black market central, a maze of tunnels, shadowlands that escape the salt lines of the surface, and a whole lot of people that probably don't want company.
 
"Fuck subtlety."


Shinji brings the tetsubo down like a meteorite from the Heavens, bisecting the air with a perfect arc of Essence. He waits for the dust to clear and his eyes to adjust before descending into the Undercity. "Hope you brought plenty of knives."
 
Elegy opens her coat, revealing...


...that's quite a lot knives.


"Plenty," she says, smiling brightly.
 
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Both hopping down the shallow hole, you follow a rough stone passageway that twists left and right at random, but always heading downwards. After maybe ten minutes, it opens up into some pretty wide tunnels. There are plenty of stories about the network of transport and service tunnels that criss-crossed the original Chiaroscuro, they seem to have been put to good use. It's a little cramped with shanty town dwellings, shady looking market stalls, more than one brothel where the girls seem a little... different to the norm.


Shinji and Elegy get some strange looks from the denizens of this dark place. Most hurry on by without making eye-contact. The rest look awfully suspicious, especially given Shinji's giant tetsubo and the glowing with elemental power. People keep a hand near their weapons. Guards with bows, and even a couple of firewands eye you impassively, waiting for an excuse to protect their business interests.


The boy, Kim, is nowhere to be seen in the press of scruffy unwashed mortals (and a couple of god/demon-bloods, if those strangely coloured eyes with the cross-slit pupils are anything to go by).
 
They were in it now. And he only felt a distant, vague sense of apprehension. Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he glances of his shoulder. "Ideas?" He scans the market, ignores the guards. "It's a fucking warren, this will take time."
 
"Hmm... you should be aware that I saw the boy use essence, earlier." Really, this turned out to be great fun. Ideas? Hrm... She had contemplated using necromancy to capture the boy's skeleton, but it seems such was frowned upon in Chiarascuro. Down here, though, maybe she could get away with it...
 
"Fortune pisses on me." He sighs.


Nothing to be done about it. "Might as well start searching." Hooking the Column on his belt, hand firmly on the pommel, Shinji forces a smile for the guards armed with flamepieces. Best to think of something different a moment. "I wonder if those events...in the Old City, reflect down here somewhere, as well? If there was another place in this city for it to happen, it's here."
 
The guards do not return the smile. One of them begins stroking the stock of his rifle gently.
 
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