faderift | [ CLOSED ] WAR TABLE: INVESTIGATE COMTESSE DE VELONEY

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[ CLOSED ] WAR TABLE: INVESTIGATE COMTESSE DE VELONEY

WHO: Herian, Anders, Issana, Velanna, Pam, Malcolm
WHAT: A series of disappearances in the Orlesian countryside has culminated in the vanishment of some of the Inquisition's own scouts. A team has been sent to investigate the estate of one Comtesse Eléonore Vaillant de Veloney.
WHEN: Over the span of 4 days in the 2nd week of Harvestmere.
WHERE: Estate of Comtesse Eléonore Vaillant de Veloney
NOTES: Trauma, gore, dark themes, homicide, pretentious wine usage, other things not labeled as to avoid spoilers.

Welcome to the Estate

It is a terrible misfortune, all these disappearances- but with a civil war on and all this strange Venatori and Red Templar activity- with the rifts in the countryside? People simply not appearing where they ought is a sad reality. Nothing to be done for it. That such an esteemed noblewoman has found herself unjustly accused simply due to her wealth and prosperity? Cannot stand. Comtesse de Veloney invited the Inquisition herself to investigate her manor and put the matter to rest- they are to be afforded all the cooperation and respect imaginable.

Even the mages. Even the elves.

They are met at the gate by a veritable delegation of footmen led by the Gardener and Tanner to see them inside and out of the stormy, dreary weather. Packs are secreted off to rooms (a lovely set of suites in the east wing if the Steward does say so herself), baths drawn (The Comtesse insists, it's been just dreadful and they've come all this way), and a lavish banquet prepared.

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"Past six months we been busy with new ladies cuz of the war, more sausage cuz of the war, and more gloves cuz of the war. You'd think we'd turn our leather to armor or something- but the Comtesse doesn't want to arm anyone that'd turn their blade against the people." Liddy offers, sitting sideways on the chair, knees slung over the wooden arm. More laying with one knee up than anything else, really. "More pots to scrub but the harder we work the better the drink at the end of the day."

"Might get whiskey, next time." Something peaty from the Marches. "Oh, him? I didn't get a good look at him-"

"I did. All the other House Maides had gone to bed so I got to draw the bathwater. Not a stitch on him when I got it good and hot. Though he coulda stepped in ice cold water and gotten things steamy in a good second or two, he was lovely. Climb him like a tree I would've, if he'd winked."

"Sounds like something strange could land on your doorstep and you'd be too busy to notice if it's not your job to. It's easy to forget the war hurts everyone, keeps everyone working harder, not just soldiers." Wow, Liddy, for all the pretend manners there's about...none actually in her. The impudence of her pose is actually rather impressive, and he's doubly glad none of their superiors are here to see the display.

"Might make it easy to lose track of people," he then suggests. "The Chevalier hasn't been seen since, I hear. Some of the other refugees going off without a prior word." Malcolm leans in, elbows on the table. "Maybe all the word of werewolves and hedgewitches are scaring people off. Ever get any weird feelings, strange things that might strike a person as off?"

"Seems like. It's what them road brigands count on when they try to jump merchants what come to trade or noble carriages with their fancy girls for the Comtesse to finish off proper." Liddy swings her feet oh so casually without a care in the world for how to properly sit in a chair or, well. Address her betters.

TO her, there are none.

Tess despairs quietly across from Malcolm. "Not really. We all sleep in the bunkroom next to the kitchens, yeah? All the creepy stuff happens in the garden or the middle bit of the house. You know- not either wing but, around the wine cellar, the study and the like. Can't really stand the smell of the Cellar, it's all lye and must down there and that can be unsettling if you're walking past that hall at an odd hour. Sometimes smells like rotten eggs too. Or like someone's gone and made a big platter of food and carried it down there. Always passes in the morning."

Liddy peers at Tess, baffled.

"...I take WALKS when I can't sleep, awright? I'm allowed to walk!" Tess huffs, crossing her arms.

He blinks a little, likewise baffled, not so much by the walking, but just by the casual admittance of 'creepy stuff' as if that's normal. "So the wine cellar has very unusual smells one normally wouldn't associate with wine." That is a little distressing. What is the butler doing down there? "What about the rest of the 'creepy stuff', as you say? The garden, the study?" His tone takes a gossiping tone. "You don't mean to say the place might be haunted?" No he doesn't believe that for a second, he just wants it to sound less like an interrogation.

"Pffff, haunted. No one died here save the Comte and he had his pyre ages ago like a proper Andrastian. You only get haunted if there's curses or demons or dead people. Now if the hogs are haunt'n us-" Liddy giggles, shifting till her back is on the seat and her legs up against the back of the chair, looking at the world upside down. "Well then we're in for some trouble, aren't we? Killed so many of them, the Butcher has, we're all goners for sure!"

"Liddy!" Whether to the sitting or the irreverence- Tess huffs. Sighs and props her elbows on the table. "It's an old house, innit? Old houses have old stone and old stone, it talks sometimes. It ain't STONE stone but- it's made OF stone and sometimes it talks. That's all."

"We're above ground, Tess. Stone don't talk." Liddy mutters, rolling her eyes.

"Well that's all I can say that explains the noises! Thuds like carrying a sack of potatoes down a ladder or something, maybe someone's gett'n a late snack or whatever."

"Yeah, but what about the garden then, ey? Ain't no stone in the garden to talk." Liddy twists her head enough to peer at Tess.

"Butcher probably letting her hogs have the run of it again, she does that sometimes! Usually when it's dark so no one see's 'em from the windows. They root around a little and muck up Roland's work but he hasn't pulled a knife on her in, wot, a year?" Tess shakes her head. "She's due another round of that lemme tell you."

This is all...certainly enlightening. Malcolm's a little owl-eyed at the whole discussion, that's all, and not at all about Liddy's...Liddy-ness. Let the ladies have their fun. "It certainly sounds as though there's never a dull moment around here if this is the normal for you," he comments. Hogs in the garden in the dead of night? (Presumably. Uncertain.) Strange thudding noises? Odd smells? People going at each other with knives?

It's still a lot of speculation and vagueness, but they're still interesting details that are really starting to paint an unpleasant image of this place under the surface of prettiness and efficiency.

"I shouldn't keep you terribly much longer, and I thank you for this morning of juicy gossip. Ah, there's another thing--is there a woman among you named Amelie? I should like to speak with her."

"It's like living in one of them Tethras stories sometimes!" Liddy exclaims, flipping herself the right way up so she can stand and push the chair back in against the table like it ought to be.

Tess sighs and does the same, dipping into a brief curtsy. "I'll send her out. She's with the Cook right now, working on a sauce for lunch- but I'm sure she'd be happy to cooperate."

The enthusiasm earns the girls a smile, small but with a flash of teeth. He's never read any of those stories himself, but, well, one does hear of them often enough. "I appreciate it, Tess, Liddy. I'll be right here."

(What is better than a handsome man remembering your name?)

Liddy giggles, swatting Malcolm on the shoulder before flouncing out with a saucy wink. Tess? Flusters a touch, ruddy skin gone pink as she coughs a laugh into her palm. "Yes she'll- right out, Ser!"

Tittering all the way back, tittering at the door, the call for Amelie deeper in the kitchen is answered by a tall, slim Vashoth girl peering through to Malcolm and murmuring "I'll be Amelie if he wants me to be-"

Shushed up with a whap of a drying towel before the actual girl- shorter, slimmer, younger than the Steward trips out among whistles and quiet cat calls before Tess shoos them all deeper into the kitchens. She dips a curtsy and wanders back around to his side, hands held in front of her, posture straight. "You wanted to see me, ser?"

Goodness but he wonders what would ever happen if these girls were let loose on the town for an evening. Nothing and nobody would be left standing.

He grows more serious when the actual Amelie comes forth, though he motions to the chair beside him. "Please, sit. I hope this will not take long, but you should be comfortable." Peers at the doorway for a moment, to see if there are any likewise peering faces trying to eavesdrop.

"Your sister worries after you. I wanted to be certain you are all right, first of all."

"She always worries after me." Amelie shrugs, as though it's as normal as the sky being blue and the sun rising in the morning. Still she sits, not wanting to make a fuss. "Is she saying Miss Ignatia's a hedge witch again- or is it that she's a vampire? Because she's not. Valery is- She doesn't like that I spend all my time with the other scullery maids. I mean if you look all the house maids, they're human."

"I'm sure this investigation only worries her further. She seems afraid that something might happen to you depending on how things shake out." He doesn't put much, if any, stock in the cook being a hedge witch, but he won't say so. "Unless there's another reason you can think of for her to be particularly frightful for your safety?"

"Well if you find your people in a secret room locked up somewhere we're all gonna get hung now, aren't we?" Terribly matter of fact, is Amelie. "She thinks Tess and Liddy and Winnie will be poor influences on me. The drinking and the smoking and carousing, she says. Miss Ignatia does say she wants to train me up, let me be her replacement when she starts getting too old to remember. She's been showing me how she makes the sausage, puddings, spices and the like. I been trying to find out how the pork's butchered for it so I know what cuts to use if the Butcher goes and gets herself fired. She might, she keeps on as she is."

Wow, maybe don't put that idea in the paranoid pessimist's head, that's an unpleasant thought. "Older siblings are like that, generally. Protective to a point. She just wants what's best for you, but she also needs to not worry when there isn't anything to worry over. But I would advise laying low, keeping out of the way, until this all blows over. Don't do anything reckless. Or she'll have my head on a platter, Seeker or no."

That said, he's hardly going to watch over her. He technically made no promises, but he doesn't want to see any of these ladies befall any terrible fates.

"Now, about this rift between your cook and butcher. It seems very strange indeed that you're allowed to work the meat without always knowing exactly what you're working with. And how, for all the work she does, the butcher has no other help. Did something happen between them, or is it just a clash of personalities?"

"Valery? Oh she'll yell plenty but she can't hurt anyone. Doesn't have the stomach for blood. Can't even watch us make a black pudding, really." But she sighs and slumps like a girl properly chastised.

"I ask about it- wasn't like that in any other kitchen I've heard of in Orlais, or Tevinter if Miss Ignatia is telling the truth. Just here. The Comtesse tries to get help for the Butcher but the girls either don't like killing the pigs or say cutting up carcasses makes 'em feel dirty. Butcher's none too kind to them either, always shouting. I've asked to work alongside her so I'd know how to do it, I'm not squeamish- but it's gone on so long she won't take anyone that's worked with the cook at all. It's stupid- it's gumming up the works and making our jobs harder, making her have to work more than she really ought which makes her more cranky. It's one of those broken cycles, ever spiraling downward."

"An outside hire might be better, and if the women are generally squeamish, perhaps a man will do. Any butcher around worth his salt, needn't have worked with the cook at all. Your gardener has an apprentice, after all. It doesn't seem so difficult to find a solution. But surely the Comtesse has tried before. After all, she seems to have turned this place around after her husband passed, so I'm told. No matter how good this butcher is, it doesn't seem good business sense to let her stay so long with no help and only harms everything in the kitchen."

He shakes his head. "And how is it that you're still able to make enough sausage, as good as it is, to make a particular name for the estate? There is one of the butcher only, and she doesn't even get on with the cook. Does she really go through so much hog?"

"Sell to the right people and you'll make a fine name. The sausage used to be made only for dinner parties and balls and the like while the Comte was still alive and nobles would come while they entertained. After he passed we didn't have as many but it's as much the mystery of it as the taste to give it a name." Simple business, really. "Add on something like scarcity or making it seasonal and suddenly everyone's talking about it."

In centuries when pumpkin spice lattes are a thing or the McRib? Amelie will be reborn and on top of that shit.

"Lately- I dunno. Since the war started we've kicked up production plenty- not even by the Comtesse' orders. Butcher's just had that much hog lying around and she says it's cuz the Steward keeps ordering it but Valery doesn't do inventory around here, Clara does, cuz the Comtesse can't run all the numbers on her own."

"So you're saying Clara is, perhaps, more running this operation than the Comtesse? That she runs the numbers and makes the orders and has decided this all her own." Malcolm sits back, raising a fist to his lips in thought. There's a lot going on in the background, enough that tonight there should be an interesting amount to sort through with everyone else's details.

"The Comtesse manages payroll and overall funds, what 'department' gets how much coin for the work they do. Clara handles the books afterward and it'd be easy for her to nudge numbers around to suit herself. Each head's supposed to do their own ordering- and for the most part? They do. Save with the hogs. We got nine. We've had nine for three months now. Much sausage as we made? Either there's more we haven't seen or we've been eating and selling deer meat." No fool is Amelie. "I figure that's why the Butcher won't tell us what it is. Loup hunts it and brings it in early, she doesn't have to kill her hogs, we spice it up fine and the nobles don't know they're eating peasant sausage."

A very bright and observant girl is she indeed. It's...a less dramatic explanation for Loup going off and Gabriella being stingy about letting the cooks know what's what, but a possibility for certain. (One he'd prefer to be true, at this rate.)

"If anything of note or import happens these few days we'll be here, I'd like for you to get hold of me. If the others of my group come asking, don't leave anything out. Otherwise, act as normal. You've been very helpful and frightfully observant, Amelie."

"If my sister spent less time fretting and more time paying attention? She'd have more to tell you than Miss Ignatia being a witch." Amelie sighs, but sisters are sisters. "Juggling the girls and the nobles must boil her brain like an egg I suppose. She tries."

It isn't easy managing so many opinionated women. "I hear anything else I'll send for you right quick. Might send Winnie to meet you, specially if it's around bathing time."

From behind them the Vashoth maid waves and winks. "I think she likes you."

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[ CLOSED ] WAR TABLE: INVESTIGATE COMTESSE DE VELONEY

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