Crow Hunting | Intro OTA

[imbroccata]

WHO: Lino Nieri & YOU
WHAT: Recruitment of a Crow, ensuing insult and injury
WHEN: covering a span pre- and post-holiday
WHERE: Various
NOTES: Possibly some description of animal skinning, otherwise it’s mostly just introductions and bandit killing

I. Hunt a Killer

Whether by assignment or volunteering, you’ve taken on the task of tracking down a possible recruit. A Crow, more specifically. A task not many would find success in, if said Crow did not want to be found, but somebody who knows someone who heard from someone else says that a man with an Antivan accent has been seen in the Hinterlands, taking on small contracts and jobs from locals to deal with Venatori, slavers, fade-touched bears, and find missing persons.

Riftwatch intel, being as it is, suggests the possibility of this man being one Lino Nieri. Allegedly, a Crow in exile. Self-imposed, as the Crow way is to punish failure or transgression with death.

It is armed with this information that you happen upon his camp.

II. Kirkwall

[ Crowds. Lino hates crowds. The only good they serve is to hide what’s truly going on beneath a tide of chaos.

Case in point, Lino snatches up what appears to be just one of a group of children, running among the people and laughing, playing. He hoists the urchin by the collar and holds out his hand, receiving with reluctant grumbles the coin purse that had just been pinched from whichever unaware sod traipses beside him. ]

Watch yourself. [ Said simultaneously to the urchin and his companion before he releases the former and returns the coinage to the latter. ]

III. The Gallows

In the first days following his recruitment, Lino spends most of his time familiarizing himself with the layout of the Gallows. The armory, the courtyard and its defenses and weaknesses, the uses of the individual towers, he scrutinizes all with the look of a man planning fortifications. Attacks will come from there, the best vantage is here, exits in a pinch are here, here, and here...

When he is found in the library, however, that hypervigilance is seemingly refocused on memorizing the books and scrolls and where they belong. It’s a different kind of vigilance, one driven by a personal interest in knowledge for its own sake, perhaps.

IV. Wildcard

((take a sip, babes))

Comments

[imbroccata]

Nice is not a word that would be used to describe Lino. The several heads on display in the Planascene forest, bloated tongues forcing their mouths into silent screams, can attest to that.

"I did," He answers. "You find your merchant?"

[murderbaby]

"Good." Mhavos knows better than to ask for further details. He doubts he'll be afforded them, and, perhaps more importantly, doesn't want to seem the simpering, sentimental elf, overly concerned with the livelihood of his fellows.

Not that all slaves are elves. They're just what you picture when you think of slaves. Coincidence, surely.

"By a stroke of luck, I did. I'm balancing his books now. Discrepancies."

[imbroccata]

"Discrepancies," he echoes, somehow managing to both prompt exposition and sound wholly uninterested in it at the same time. Something the elf said before comes to mind. I'll forge the logbooks; you can have more than an ingot or two. Lino looks at the books and papers splayed before the elf, mentally filing something away for later.

The slaves were elves, mostly. Some stereotypes have their roots in fact.

Who knows what became of the ones that were sold. Perhaps they're still alive, somewhere. The ones Lino found with the slavers were beyond hope of rescue. Even if he had been paid for that service.

[murderbaby]

"Yes. I'm trying to tell if it's because they just don't use double-entry. Or perhaps your repeating of that word implies some kind of accusation. You'll have to be more clear."

He says this while running his fingers down a column in a book, eyes down.

[imbroccata]

Lino just...looks at Mhavos, a crease drawn between his brows. The only kind of double-entry he knows is vastly irrelevant to book-keeping. He shakes his head, no, no accusation.

"Just musing," he says, shifting his gaze back to the books and scrolls on the shelves.

[murderbaby]

"How droll," Mhavos murmurs. Slightly louder, but still a respectable pitch for indoors, Mhavos gives his final offer. "If you do need help finding something, I'll happily point you in the right direction. Be well, Lino."