Smoke Flowers IC
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Smoke Flowers IC
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[Mid-Morning, Day One, Autumn; House Laésal, Londinium]
In response to Becky Silk said “Pattern magic is fundamentally the study of probabilities. The Pattern is a reflection of all that was and is and could be. Those of us who can read it can choose our actions in such a way that those probabilities can be shifted, sometimes on a massive scale. It’s not a precise science by any means and we are as fallible as any other magic practitioner in our interpretations of the Pattern but it has aided me many times nonetheless.
Of course the likes of Al and Isaint have a way of warping the probabilities around them which frankly makes reading the Pattern a headache anywhere near them or the flow of events that they set in motion. But that too has worked in our favour as the Webweavers and their ilk have their own variation of Pattern reading and the more confused they are the better.”
Turning to Zag she said “The artefact is in the Webweaver’s House which is in the Temple district on the north bank. It is well protected by House Senjak mercenaries and they should not be underestimated. The Webweavers have their own sentinels too… metal monsters like those you met under the Institute for the Blind in Seattle. They are resistant to magic, particularly Pattern magic, which I believe may be why it has taken so long to reveal the artefact. Of course it means this could be an elaborate trap but given that we have been here two decades that would take the kind of long term thinking of a wyrm to consider… and I truly hope we do not face one of those!”
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#12
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“I have absolutely no idea what you just said, let’s start with the basics. What is going on in this city? And what’s all the talk if war and why am I dressed like a 19th century sharp shooter when Beccie gets a pretty dress?” Bronwean burst out.
“what the hell are Horatios’s Own and do we have any history here, I’m going to be scuppered if I get a card from a colonel I don’t know demanding my presence at a Regiment I don’t remember ”
She rolled her eyes dramatically as she wobbled her head “aaaaand what the hell, pardon my French,” she nodded to the children “are we going to do to against those armoured…. BEHEMOTHS…” she grasped for words “with soft lead chucking muskets”
Her whole huffer act destroyed by her beautiful chorusing voice, however it did emphasis the emotions Bronwean was feeling.
The children both started at her out bust, Bronwean caught their look
“what?” she asked
“oh my blessed pattern she is truly batshit crazy” the little boy muttered under his breath. His sister was shocked at her brother only to be blind sided by the adults failing attempts not laugh.
Bronweans second “what?” finished the lot of them -
Rebbeca nods “I was always fascinated by the science of uncertainty, especially how you weren’t surprised to see me here when I surprised myself in coming here. You change my perspective about magic, and what it can do. “
She then says “We’ll go to the Webweaver’s house and negotiate the artifact, or we can use excessive violence and make a terrible mess. To my untrained eye, both outcomes are certainly possible.”
When Bronwen actually complains about her clothes Rebbeca asks“You want to… switch?”
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[Mid-Morning, Day One, Autumn; House Laésal, Londinium]
As Silk ruefully shooed her children back to their studies she brought Bronwen a drink and with a wink said
“Here, it will settle your nerves,” turning to include the others she said “This city is sick and has been for many years, their own equivalent of the booming industrial revolution but with the added complication of a live manasphere to pollute alongside the more mundane world. Even the coal they are burning to fuel the great machines has some small awakened properties which does not lead to a pleasant meta and physical atmosphere.
Now, as to Horatius, I don’t think you need to be concerned about being called up. They were one of the last regiments sent by the Protectorate to fight the expansionist Afric for possession of Tir na nOg. As far as anyone knew they were wiped out in a desperate last stand on the eastern shores of the emerald isle.
Since the Protectorate lost the war the hostility towards the fae you no doubt felt coming here has escalated dramatically with the influx of refugees. The fae are bottled up this side of the river which is only increasing resentment on both sides. If you go to the north bank you will need to be exceedingly circumspect about your appearances and the Temple is even more rabidly anti-fae than the rest of the city. It is the centre of temporal power and it won’t be easy to move undetected.
Every behemoth has its weaknesses, although I don’t know theirs, but if you start firing muskets then there is almost no hope of getting out again. Stealth will be your ally here far more than any weapon.”
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#13
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“I never get to wear pretty things.” batshit wailed, pouted and stared at the floor “we are going to have to plan this very carefully no winging it and trusting to luck”
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“Its just a dress…” Rebbeca replies. She has no intention of even trying to plan anything in this strange world, sure it is tempting but they understand so little about the motivations, and politics and power struggles, and the matrix is still decades away from being invented. How did people do research in primitive worlds? Rebbeca could not even begin to imagine.
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“we are going to have to do this the old way. First we need maps, then we learn the streets, a ride past in a carriage all that stuff. Then it’s foot work, make friends with the street people, working out who is friend or foe. That’s going to be interesting as I’m going to stick out like moose in car lot. We’re gonna have to Milk it for information and leads, then follow them down. My hunch is either a back entrance or bribe our way in. But with two children bribery might be REALLY expensive so maybe we try blackmail and toecutting” Bronwean sat down like a prim and proper school mam and took a sip from her tea (remembering to stick her pinky finger out) unfortunately she was slurping it out of the saucer which spoiled the effect some what
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Puffing idly on a cigarette as he listened to the opening salvos of the plan, Al remarked, “As methods o’ persuasion go, toecuttin’ always struck me as a mite unserious. I mean, if yer gon’ go that route, what’re ya wastin’ yer time on toes for? Eyes work a damned sight better, no pun intended, an’ that’s not even mentionin’ yer real trump card….” he said, glancing pointedly down at the prominent bulge in his crotch.
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“I’m drek as a torturer, but I’ve been the muscle for some that were good. There is simple pain, and fear of pain, but I think the ones who were best at it were good at making it personal. You don’t just gouge out an eye and threaten the other, you know that they have a young child and talk about what a shame it would be that they never saw its face again. Or talk to someone who is vain about how hideous they will look. Or for many people fingers, hands are personal in all sorts of ways.” He doesn’t mention threatening a dancer’s feet, because he has no need to re-live old pains.
“Anyway, sure we got to get the lay of the land and all that, but I think this place is too weird to be worth a lot of planning and spying. It is hard to get answers to questions you don’t think to ask, and it would probably take us months to know what some of those questions would be. I don’t know about you lot, but I don’t want to stay here for months. Maybe if the place was more friendly to most of us it would be worth a long infiltration, but friendly to us it is not. So we learn what we can easily, then we go in quick while we are still unknowns — if they don’t know what questions to ask about threats they may also be short some answers.“
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Rebbeca listens intently and then agrees “I’ll just go knock on their door and be charming, and rational. We are very talented, and dangerous people – and if we remain stuck on this world we will do something to make a living. Something like working for a rival house, not because of a personal grudge – but because our only contact here is Silk. Do the Webweavers really want us to be allied with the house of flowers? We are like rocks thrown into a pond, and the ripple is undesired by the Webweavers – but they can send simply send us back and avoid it. It sounds like a reasonable opening position.
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“Well Precious, seems ta me yer puttin’ an awful lot o’ faith in the almighty reasonable. Whereas in ol’ Al’s experience, sound reasonin’ an’ good horse sense rear they heads in this here biz with roughly the frequency of honest politicians an’ masculine elves. So yer plan’s a pretty big gamble, cuz if they don’t see things your way, well, then you’ll have jist let ’em know we’s comin’.”
He grinned and laid back on the plush cushions of the divan. “None o’ which is ta say that I got any better idears. Ol’ Al’s more of a napper than a planner. Especially when we got ork-of-a-thousand-faces here ta call the shots.”
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“OK so I need map of this town so I can memorise them. Then we can start peeking at their world” Bronwean stated, matter of factly, all hint of messing around gone.
“if we can’t hack plans we need to find someone who has been inside a couple of time, builder, Mason or some such” -
Turning to Silk, Zag asked quietly “Is there any danger that our talking about this stuff and researching them let’s their magic see us coming, or something? I don’t even understand regular magic, and don’t pretend to even know what ‘pattern magic’ means, but it sounds like all of you who use it are good at seeing things coming? Sort of precognition or something?”
He wasn’t even letting himself think that maybe they should just charge over there and blitz their way in. He was smarter than that. But yet some corner of his mind seemed to be screaming about the plan making.
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Rebbeca shrugs and replies to Al“… Yes, I thought that we should give them at least the chance to listen before we blow things up. Yet, even though I think I will lose the bet, I am willing to bet you 1k nuyen that we return home without killing anyone. Just to make it interesting, what do you say?”
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“you all heard what silk said? Yeah? Stealth! Right” she shrugged “it going to be sooo long but she is right. So Al and Isant are going to have to do the stealthy stuff while Becci and I coat trail and distract” she took a long slurp of tea “we need to find something else this temple is involved in and us two start sniffing around it” she took a large bite out a the last slice of cake (where had the rest of it gone)!)
“maybe we could make noises about an expedition to the Tir to locate an artifact?” she smiled an evil shit eating grin through the cake “get them chasing shadows then sink their boat when they try to beat us to it” she looked around “oh look cookies” -
Rebbeca laughs “We are about as stealthy as a herd of elephants in the subway.” She asks Silk “Before we go… Could you take care of some hot shower and fresh clothes? Bronwen clearly wants a nice dress, and I could use a change as marsh waters and ballroom dresses do not mix very well.”
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Al slitted his eyelids just enough to look at Becky when he answered her. “Well Precious, a wager like that’d be the mother o’ what they call perverse incentives. All I’d have ta do ta win would be ta gratuitously cap some artifact-stealin’ miscreant, an’ a cool thousand-kay’d be mine. But I suppose ya made yer offer fully recognizin’ that ol’ Al is a respecter o’ life in all its myriad wonderful forms, even here, where nothin’s actually real, an’ that I exercise my prodigious lethality with the greatest o’ care an’ social consciousness. So i’ll take that bet, cuz I done a few more jobs fer Silky here than you have over these past few years since Frisco, an’ I’m here ta tell ya, they always end in killin’.”
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She replies to Al Well, you are a gentleman. You and Silk to seem very close, I must admit that I find the different time flow in here very strange. “
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Bronwean started “me? In a dress? That will fun… not! Some boys clothes and…. Oh no! I can pretend to be a boy here. It’s too obvious I’m not. Oh boy this is going to be a whole barrel of fun, isn’t it boys and girls” she rubbed her temples in frustration “we need to be sure in what we want to achieve in each move we make or this will spiral. So lets state exactly what we are looking to do a work back from that BEFORE! we start. I really do want to go toe to toe with one of those behemoths again”
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[Mid-Morning, Day One, Autumn; House Laésal, Londinium]
Silk sipped her tea while the others debated, listening to the arguments going back and forth
“I fear Becky’s suggestion of negotiation with the Whisperers, though a good one, is doomed to failure. When we first arrived here I aligned myself with the Whisperers as their professed goals seemed to match mine and I thought my skills might aid them. Once I delved deeper I found the rot at their centre of their venal self-interested hearts and unfortunately I was quite clear about why I subsequently abandoned them. Were they to agree to let you use the artefact, which I doubt, there is no chance they would permit Hunter or I to use it.
I would also advise against torture if you can help it, information obtained that way is always tainted by something and I would prefer not to deal in such currency. While you may find it strange for someone who lives by prediction of futures to suggest winging it as a course of action I have seen more than once what can be achieved when you have two Fate Breakers stirring the Pattern. That said I can provide you with plans of the city and suitable clothing. The buildings at the Temple predate most records so I doubt you will be able to obtain a layout of the building.”
To Zag’s question Silk responded “There is always some danger that their precogs will be alerted by our discussions here but I have been plucking at random strands of the Pattern to try and mask what I can, and that was before Al and Isaint ripped any semblance of precognition apart just with their presence. I think we are safe in assuming that they might suspect something is happening but without any clear idea of what that might be.”
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#14
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