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

shhhh it's ok it's worth the wait

[imbroccata]

[ he looks at the cloth. at isaac. the miasma means nothing to him, but he doesn't press the issue just yet. he responds in kind: ]

To this hole in the ground? No.

[ his time in kirkwall as a whole is limited, and approximately 0% of his time has been spent wading through literal shit. ]

[wythersake]

[ good. the better not to be understood by certain of their hosts. ]

Tie it around your face, [ gestured from the ladder. ] Grab me if your breathing —

[ another motion of the hand, sharper, across his neck. he drops out of view, into the undercity. ]

[imbroccata]

[ if it stops. got it. lino does as bidden and drops in after isaac.

and what a drop it is. right into a toxic fog that stings the senses and makes the stomach lurch. luckily lino has a strong constitution. ]

Figlio di puttana... [ antivan, sotto voce. then, in orlesian: ] Miasma.

[wythersake]

Chokedamp.

[ The Trade name. Muffled, beneath his own handkerchief. It's a moment to finish pulling the mask into place. Wry: ]

The heart of Kirkwall,

[ There are torches — which is taking a chance, when the air itself might burst alight. There's lichen, too, shimmering with its own dim phosphorence. Here and there a glowstone: Not enough to see by. Not for human eyes.

It's elven that reflect back, twin points quick to vanish around a corner. Darktown gets all manner of strange visitors, and plenty enough from Riftwatch; someone will want to hear of them, the same.

Isaac hasn't carried a staff today (the escort). He reaches for a torch. ]

Every city must have something like this, [ Built and built over itself. ] But nothing so celebrated.

[imbroccata]

[ As soon as Isaac reaches for the torch, Lino steps ahead to take his position as the aforementioned escort. The elf eyes are not a concern to him right now, but making sure his own are not ruined by the light of a torch ahead of him is.

Of course, it'd be an easier go of things if the Antivan knew his way around half as well as his charge. ]

Celebrated?

[ Of course Antiva is no different, built upon the bones of what it once was. The tunnels beneath Antiva City don't house the poor unfortunates, but smuggle them from ship to brothel, and brothel to charnel house. ]