Cirlot

Hmmm. So statwise I think it's all gonna be a wash - we're ALL CHA +1. Stealthwise Edgewick and Neve both have that skillset, Neve can speak dwarven, Edgwicke potentially can if we want Gregorotto to speak the language . . . I think the split is Val and Clarise approach and talk? Val is an elf which adds some weight to the approaching under a banner of truce. Plus, if things go pear shaped they're our primary melee combatants and they'll already be in close and ready to swing. That leaves Edgewicke and Neve as hidden backup. We'd be out of sneak attack range but would be able to hail arrows (Edgewick) and crossbow bolts (Neve) into the melee as needed. And this was Neve can interpret the negotiations for Edgewicke without having to burn his one free language. This does put the two PC's least likely to want to parley in charge of it's success, which is one of those serendipitous moments where we can try, reliably fail, then roll into a combat confident we tried everything. Truly, we can have it all 😄

Kit Lee-Shen Wei - Konoru Shrine [Night 1 12.23.18] "Hai, Rin." The lack of honorific, of difference between them curdled on the tongue, not sour but tart, sharp and strange. But why need it be so. She was within his own head - or was it the blood? - after all. But still. It felt . . . possessive. And there was a jealous glee in that fact that surprised Kit. Shimada Rin, It Girl. Beacon of sabukaru style. Patron. Aesthete. Vampire. His partner for an immortal life that might last forever. Or be measured in days. "Is this - " he flicked a finger from him, to her, then back again. " - the whole moon eyed 'notice me sempai' bullshit trip I seem to be one, is this how we hunt? That girl you left me with, the one you ghosted, wouldn't piss down my throat if I was on fire and sure as hell is pissed at you but she'd claw over broken glass for my teeth in her neck. And she never - " tasted you. The thought made the still life-flushed flesh of him quicken, redden, the false pulse in his neck tripping upon itself as it peaked at the memory of her taking. His dying. Hells, he hoped the blush faded soon - he wasn't looking forward to having to purge the alcohol but so help him the adrenaline and alcohol pin-balling through his veins and nerves was distracting as hell and Rin, close as she was, near as she was, was more so. SO much more so. Worse than a goddamn schoolboy. "I'm guessing we - " he doesn't use Kindred, doesn't want to get familiar with a term he ought not know. " - don't hunt each other. Or feed. You told me, at the hotel, when - " a small gesture with his hands, inarticulate and pained. Remembering her cold and still inprofile on one side of him, the ghost of her whispering to him from the other. " - I'd broken a rule. A big one. So we don't hunt each other, don't kill each other, at least. Except - " he raises a finger, trailing an exception in the air between them. " - zaibatsu rules? If Ripley or Boone or this Primogen decide I've transgressed, it's my ass. Laws aren't for those that make them, which they do, right?" "Which means these interviews of theirs, when they happen, I'll need to keep as much a lid on things as I can." "Alright, big picture. We'll talk about the other supernatural shit another day, the . . . Camarilla, is it, is the primary threat. Organization. Thing I have to deal with - " Kit rubbed his forehead, wrinkles already fading as the his skin lost the plasticity of his false, second life. "Camrilla. That's not Japanese . . . one of the romance languages, maybe? So not local. Which tracks with Boone. Ripley. Amos. Preston. But Kaeyoni is. Or at least pretends to be." "You're talking factions. Like Kyoko's Kyokuto-kai versus the Matsuba-kai, or the Yakuza versus the Chinesse Dragons or Complex 2K. Foreign and domestic factions with families or clans within each. And within your faction the Prince - Preston - he's the oyabun -" Kit rolls his eyes at Rin's leveling look at her protege " - it's an analogy Rin. Just trying to get my bearings. Boone's . . . sherriff. That's a gajin title. So second to the Prince? Sounds martial so wakagashira, a lieutenant of some sort. And you called Amos a Primogen, that sounds . . . prime. First. But not prince. A prince rules things, Amos is just the first of something. Something that could recognize what you-slash-we are. First of your house?" "Sorry, was just going on about ignorance being a virtue here and I keep speculating." "So, immediate problems. Rumor has it I need to avoid sunrise so that clock is ticking. And you want me to hunt, apparently. That - " he shakes his head. Uncertain. Nervous. "I nearly killed her. Your girl. I felt it, she was so close and tasted so damn good. It would have been . . ." "But you didn't. And there's not a public notice on exsanguinated corpses in the papers. Corrupt as the media biz is here they couldn't keep that under wraps so that means hunting ain't killing. So this is what, catch and release?"

It did! It's interesting how unnerving it is to be without it even for just a day or two, but all's well that ends well 😅 And no worries about the delayed response; it was worth waiting for and it's interesting watching the relationship between them develop, even if it is all in Kit's head. I'm hoping some of the intuitive leaps I'm having him make feel grounded: trying to divorce the metaknowledge I have of VtM and have him react authentically but he's also by and large and student and manipulator of people, so finding the chinks in Rin's armor and position seems IC on that basis, I think.

Kit Lee-Shen Wei - Konoru Shrine [Night 1 12.23.18] He should hate her. He should fear her. Him. What he is. The glimpse of the demimonde she bled, drip by drip, strangeness by strangeness and word by word into his ear. He should not miss the coolness of her touch. Or lean into her while she's there. Kit shudders as Rin pulls away and he fumbles for his anger, clutching at an outrage that was fading, stifled by blood and overshadowed by longing. He held to it not out of comfort but need, running what hate remained along the edge of his thoughts, sharpening them from shocked dullness. He cannot mourn and think and he needs to think. His life - their life, there's an unkind warmth, possessive and glad in the veins at that thought - depends on it. It takes all the hate he has to walk away from her, leaving her waiting upon the bench as he crosses the length of the shrine to Taro's stupefied, slumbering form. He tries not to study the monk, the defenselessness of him, the regularity of his heartbeat, the churn of blood beneath the skin . . . instead Kit merely leans down and gently, so as to not wake him, rolls him over on his side. "There. Hendrix you're not. At least not tonight. Ittekimasu, Taro-kun." Squaring back up he pulled out his phone, trying to ignore Rin's eyes watching him. Studying him. If she so much as cleared her throat he's not sure he could remain where he stood. So he stood, for as long he could. Swiping through delivery apps he settled on one and then and placed an order from a nearby seven-eleven for an hour from now. Long enough for Taro to have slept off the worst of it and soon enough that waking would be unpleasant. Taro would be . . . well, not pissed. He never was, really. Bemused was more the monk's thing. But mildly irked, maybe? At least until he saw the fried "nana" chicken. Sighing, Kit leant down, snagged the bottle and then surrendered to the gravity of her as his steps turned around and towards his Sire. He walks slow, but not easy, the bottle a pendulum in his hand and a grounding weight that tugs at his heels. He waits until he's out of earshot of Taro before he speaks. "You would have left, in the end, wouldn't you? The running together in the night - " he shakes his head at his own yearning for it. " - you were alone. Before. And this - these - societies; Ripley, Boone . . . for it all you were alone. Each of you. Us. Because you don't know any other way. Tigers don't share the mountain." "I'm sorry you got what you wished for Rin. In the worst kind of way. All the nights are our nights now." Sighing he runs a thumb across his brow, scratches the bridge of his nose as he picks at the scab of his sentimentality. Not the time. "So I'm an outcast among outcasts? After all the years, after all of it, I was - " I was making a life here. I was about to belong. But it's a lie and if she won't lie to him he won't lie to her. Even if it's just to himself. " - I get it, I did the refugee to riches thing once already. Different scene, same story. It's an angle I can work with. But if you want a fucking revolutionary, an 'Anarch?' you said . . " "I ran, Rin. They came for my family. They came for my friends. They were gonna come for me and I ran and I ended up here. These friends of yours come after me - " the barest shake of his head. " - I don't think I get to run, do I?" "Just - I wish - " he trails off, looks down. Pointless; wishing and wanting anything else changed nothing. The here and now was what mattered. Looking back up he meets here eyes and shrugs, matter of fact. "There needs to be a story. What happened to you. Because I'm betting for damn sure if I show up with your blood on my breath I'm in the shit, aren't I? So you need to just be gone. Somewhere, somehow. And if making me is a crime I can use that - you f*cked off rather than face the music." "So whatever you end up telling me. Showing me. We need to balance what I need to know with what I need to be ignorant of. Pity doesn't pay for shit, the ignorance isn't going to buy me any grace but if I show up and act like a ringer, like I know more than I should this gets turned around on me fast." "Prioritize essentials, and if you're telling me shit I shouldn't know but need to say so, and keep it to a minimum. We get through the week, the month, we can backfill but it's easier if I have to lie less." He falls quiet and waits. Or doesn't. He doesn't know when he crosses the grass and sits beside her but he does. "Am I . . . am I supposed to call you something? Sire, was it?" the last of the hate fades, leaving a hollow space where the memory of it was. And with that, surrender comes and with it the words. Whispered. Low. Sad. "Rin. Sire. Please; teach me."

Ditto on speaking dwarven; as for the dagger . . . @DoNotFearToTread, would my Legend Lore boon be sufficient to identify the make, or is it of insufficient legend/historical note to be identifiable? As for it being some years ago; true. But both races involved are long lived. Could go either way absent more info and it boils down to is the element of surprise worth losing for a peaceable solution?

Hmmm. We seem to be at a decision point and it's not clear what are choices are: the two I can articulate are 1) parley with the Derro, on the theory that the messenger wasn't killed by the Derro but by some third party or 2) attempt to take some or all of the Derro guardsfolk by stealth and ambush. Do we talk or skulk?

Kit Lee-Shen Wei - Konoru Shrine [Night 1 12.23.18] "Are you actually asking?" it's almost a snarl, a venomous curl to the words as he studies her. Aki and Sakura may be gone but he feels them, pressing behind him, on him. Warring demands as Taro snores away. He can think of a dozen reasons why feeding upon him - his friend - is a bad idea, none of them moral, all practical. Even setting aside the booze, the exposed location, all of it, that he had seen, witnessed something like himself made the risk of exposure too high. And that was before . . . Before considering that the monk actually had driven the kindred away. And yet despite it all, he can think of nothing but the blood. Kit circles Rin, the bench a fixed point in his awareness like it's the center of the goddamn world and no matter which way he turns she's there and she's there and he's sorry and he's angry and her teeth are in his neck and oh Gods . . . "Why didn't you tell me?" He moves in faster than he can think, bracing himself against the bench, arms to either side of her. Were she here, really here he'd be so close to her neck and . . . She turns, looking at him, eyes amber mirrors; warm and cool and appraising. "I'd- " would he have said yes? Is it easier that it wasn't a choice? "If I'd known you wouldn't have had to . . you wouldn't have needed to - " his hands curl into fists, nails leaving long scratches on the bench before he flops down beside her, defeated. Shameful. "This isn't normal is it? You being here?" he frowns, leaning forward onto his knees, not looking at her. The night air is cool and damp and he can hear the shrine in the dark. The gentle lap of the pond, the breeze through the Tori and the ripple of the myriad paper talismans. The soft away of the bell. Taro's snoring seems so far away yet his heartbeat sharp despite it's shallow, resting ease. " . . . where's your body? I didn't - " Kit shook his head, the question tugging at him wrong, the taste of it wrong in his mouth. It weighs on his tongue and stills in his throat. Ashes in his mouth. "You're full of shit you know. I'm not the special chosen one. You're an artist, Rin, or you think like one. We were all drafts, impulse sketches that might or might not have become something. You had no more control over me being the one here than Sakura does over which of her tags trend online, or Rin on how her career never took off." "You wanna teach me? Yeah. I accept. I'm here for that. If only because I miss you. Godsdammit and fuck you to hell despite it all I miss you and and don't know why. You didn't even like me very much. But don't lie to me. This - " he wrings his hands. " - this is hard enough without laboring under the delusion that I'm special. I think you choose me, if I think you had a plan you figured me for, if this is some fucking Karma I get sloppy, I get complacent and I get dead. I need to hate you a little. I need - " he looked up, stared off across the pond, across the shine to the twinkling lights and the neon dark of Tokyo beyond. "I need this to be a mistake. I can deal with that. I can deal with being the thing no one wants around but has to deal with anyway. It's what I am here, after all."

Sorry for the shortish post - writing this on a borrowed laptop. With any luck I'll have the parts in hand for my own within a day or two.

Kit Lee-Shen Wei - Konoru Shrine [Night 1 12.23.18] "Suckers bet - " Kit responds with a dry chuckle as he reaches down and grabs the bottle before Taro can go back for . . . fourths? fifths? His own partaking sat uneasily: there was a detachment ro the process that left him at odds with his vices. To feel the liquor sit, churn and clash but never meld with the vitality that infused him, to just cycle back upon itself with dissipation or consumption. Buzzed without relief or inflection, the whiskey sat as an oilslick over his awareness in a single smoldering, peaty note as thin and as fragile as glass. Hells. Forget Taro, he'd had to much. Shaking his head, Kit played keep away with the bottle even as Aki eyed the monk from the shadows, her eyes fixed on the flushed throb of his neck. It would be easy. So easy. Too easy. " - you're cut off. Rule is when you start betting your inheritance the bottle goes away. Technically you probably broke that earlier tonight, but when you start wagering with ME its past time . . ." gently prodding the monk away with the but off the bottle, he stepped back far enough that the step made his insides slosh unpleasantly and he nearly stumbled over the still-sitting form of Sakura, legs curled beneath her on the grass. She didn't look up as Kit windmilled to keep his balance, instead kept her eyes low, fixed to her phone, thumbing through something Kit couldn't quite see. He almost cursed - not at her, though given his drink and his temper that restrain surprised him - in surprise, before catching himself. It was odd, seeing her on her phone. Despite the lifeline it had provided her art she resisted the terminal online existence that Ava strove for, and to see her searching . . . images flashed under her thumb, to fast to follow, long-limbed specters with glowing eyes, fangs, creepy-pasta horror page after page afer page, tinged with the promise of blood. Kit shook his head and she was gone. Raking fingers through his hair, Kit scowled into dead air for a moment before the scowl went solemn and irritation turned to concentration. "Ask for the originals." He says it aloud, surprising himself as he looks to Taro. "Any recordings. Get the originals - " shifting from his backfoot, Kit straightened, flicked an impatient hand towards his temple, irritated that it took so long for the thoughts to engage. " - two reasons. If this is a mundane thing, you want those images controlled. Gives us leverage on the criminal without having to take this to the police, which - " he blew out a breath through clenched teeth. That was a recipe for all manner of horrors, even when horrors weren't involved. " - would just make things worse. Absent a perp in hand they'll turn this on the parents, beat a confession out of otosan in the name of public order. So if this is just a person, we handle it in house and we need the leverage. And it spares the parents and the kids. Copies means this can get uploaded into the wild, originals can be locked away or destroyed." "And if it ain't mundane, if it's your . . . thing - " an inarticulate shrug. " - horror movie rules. Risk of contagion. This shit gets passed around and it could spread to new targets, or call down attention of things you don't want. Secure. Contain. Protect. Got it? If you get any footage, have 'em scrub the devices and hand over the hard drives or memory cards to me. I'll keep 'em safe."

Short post up to keep the momentum going, and it's the nature of the current Q&A I think; one question leads to another so it's hard to bake a bunch in.

"You, my friend - " Kit sighed, clapping the monk on the back. " - are an asshole, and a master at burying the lead." "Coulda just said you'd seen some shit. Didn't need to do - " a nod to the bottle, to the shrine. All of it. " - whatever all this is. Frankly, I should be insulted. Getting me drunk. Taking advantage to get me agree to some woo-shit. Must think I'm a cheap date." Sighing, Kit got to his feet, brushed off his pants and offered Taro a hand up. From the grass Sakura looked up at him, unreadable before turning away, her attention going back to the koi-pond and some mystery he couldn't fathom. "Look, don't know what I'm gonna find, and I'm skeptical as shit that this some sort of Ringu BS but if I could survive the mundane shit I dealt with tonight, not much worried about tomorrow. I'll be there. And we got the same thought for different reasons - best I do this solo. If it's a spiritual thing, well, it's like you say, and if it's a living perv then they'll have made you whereas I'm so much a stranger." "Any chance any of these worried fathers or childer actually joined the twenty-first freaking century and had I dunno, a phone or webcam or something up when shit went down? Getting eyes on ahead of time might help."

I'll second Rakle's caution - in line dice (and OOC tags) both seem to cause weird interactions where the resultant string gets treated as a unique object in the forum code which can trample formating, erase lines and make even simple things like paragraph breaks go awry. The one thing I've found that helps is build the inline dice rolls into the post first, code them, and then backfill the rest of the post to that point? It's a pain but it's prevented me from losing data since I first stumbled across the issue. Kalan tries to-hit for potential damage EDIT: other odd behavior: the results don't show in-line when I orignally post the response, I need to reload the thread to get the inline results to display what's recorded in the diceroller at the bottom of the post. Odd.

Fair warning I might be offline for a short bit - my laptop is having fan issues so chances are it's going into the shop as soon as I can confirm they have the parts. Hopefully it's a simple swap but no telling 'til someone can look at it.

Kit Lee-Shen Wei - Konoru Shrine [Night 1 12.23.18] Kit goes still - glass half raised to his lips, cig slowly smoldering to ash in his hand - at Taro's description. He knows before Taro speaks of dreams, or crying. Before Taro speaks of blood. He knows without knowing and the false seeming, the pretense of the life he no longer had began to slip away. He still breathed, he still flushed pink at the warmth of the whiskey but his heart stopped and did not beat again. Sakura places a steadying - or is it warning? - hand upon his leg while behind him in the depths of the shrine Aki growled, a low tigress's rumble as she stalked between the gates. Setting his glass down on the bench, Kit frowned, leaning forward and settled his hands beside him on the grass. "Fuck, Taro." Then, with a speed which would have recommended his mortal self but shamed his immortal one, Kit thumped the monk hard on the arm. "You little shit. Seriously? Get me liquored up and tell goddamn ghost stories trying to get me to - " the offending fist opened into a hand, flailed this way and that in the space between them. " - you have a bunch of old men having bad dreams and you think 'this is a problem for my buddy Kit?'" Shaking his head, Kit slumped back against the bench. He made a show of a sigh, picked up his glass, downed it in a single gulp. He barely tasted the burn. Across from him Sakura's eyes were shining glass, wolf's eyes, shimmering with reflected light as her face went calm and still and scared. He could feel her fingers digging into his leg, just to the point of pain but not beyond it. "I'm not sure what you expect me to do." He delays the concession, draws it out the length of his cigarette, letting the the smoke fill the space between them while he thought. Feared. Of course there were more like Rin. Like Ripley. Like this goddamn tower. He hadn't even met the one yet and now another one was here, in his backyard. Which he knew, knew was his problem. Because Sakura wasn't just warning him with those eyes and those claws, she was holding him down, keeping him from pacing like Aki, like a caged thing ready to leap it's enclosure and take on the interloper. "Will they even talk to me?" He gestured to himself, the half-wasted hustler with the wrong way eyes. "Like, I can ask around, and if you can get the details - who, where, when - I can try piecing something together to see if there's something in common. Maybe they're all sitting on landfills, sucking down radon every night, or their wives are part of the same MLM . . " he traffics in the mundane because it's what Kit of two nights ago would do. What the Kit that Taro is drinking with and is laughing and smoking and slightly buzzed should do. " - look, odds that this is an actual, RL fujoshi is pretty damn small. You get you're just trotting me out to make 'em feel like the secular world is taking their concerns as serious as the spiritual one, right?" Running a hand through his hair, Kit stabbed out his cigarette on the grass, grinding out the spark in the dirt. "Just . . . send me the details, I'll see what I can do."

Neve Nevergreen - Smallfolk Rogue "There's danger in ascribing purpose to circumstance, but I agree - " Neve ran her fingers across the blade and pommel of the danger as she scanned the papers from behind and beside and beneath Val's elbow, the spatter of cold wet and drip making the smallfolk more than a little glad that it had been the druid that had braved the muck this time around. "- the facts do seem to suggest something. Or many things. At the very least that the treaty was answered poorly; if there be law of guestright for folk, amongst peoples and those that govern so to stands the right of parley. To kill a messenger is . . ." Neve took in a breath, shook her head, surprised at the brazenness of it despite it all. "That said, we might be seeing an alliance forcibly prevented. I can't think of an easier way to prevent common cause than to make such a courier disappear before delivering their missive. And this - " Neve tapped the blade. " - is an assassins weapon. Magicked to purpose in fact: when used from stealth it would double the killing force of a strike in unskilled hands. In mine or Edgewick's it would triple the heft of the blow." "Useful, if we intend to deal with the Derro by stealth. Though the treaty might serve us as well - could we alter it, perchance? If so we might have means to force them to converse rather than putting the matter straight to arms." At the dubious look of her companions she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose and raising a hand in surrender at her own naivete. "I am aware 'tis unlikely, but to argue it the messenger was killed from behind. That suggests no more stomach for open confrontation than we have which might give us room to ruse and work if we present our case with forceful diplomacy. Maybe. Or - " at this she eyes the knife somewheres between warily and hungrily. " - we'll fall back to the the blade in the dark, make safe the underhalls that way." Out of Character I'm assuming that between Neve's Read Magic and her Magic User ability to use items she can sus out the dagger without much difficulty.

A much belated (Sorry!) third on the best wishes. Keeping my fingers crossed for you for a solution and/improvement! Also, sympathies and vibes, that . . . Well, it sounds shitty and scary and that deeply sucks.