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]

There are plenty of ways to drink from the same bottle as someone you're planning to poison, but that's not Lino's concern right now.

No, right now Lino's main concern is the taste of this so-called wine.

"It's disgusting," he says, just as blunt but not quite genial. Though, he does take another drink after issuing that verdict, so perhaps that's as genial as he gets.

[gentlecountry]

"Ain't it just?" Barty says, returning the drink with one of his own, to match. His grin is a flash of humor, unoffended, indeed even flattered by his response, "Wants a top-off?"

Of course you do. Of course. He does so, and then reaches to shuffle the deck, for the next round.

"So! Riftwatch, then. What, ah.. what brings you outs to our humbles companys and our grims tower bys the sea."

[imbroccata]

Lino stares down into the liquid, frowning, trying to parse what Barty is saying.

He can't be drunk already, can he? No. No, he isn't, the dwarf is just speaking strangely. Making things plural that don't need to be. Strange.

"Money," he says simply. It's mostly true. It doesn't hurt that they sent the incomparable Signora Fitcher to recruit him.

[gentlecountry]

"Ah," Barty barks, into the cup of his drink, where it echoes the sentiment back at him. That was a delicate and communicative pause you just gave there, "Sents a lady after yas, didn't they."

He's guessing, of course. But then, it's not the cards you play, in this or any other game. It's the people. And Barty is often quite good at people, even if he's fairly poor at cards.

"Sames to me. Excepts the woman I was followsing was dead. Turns out she weren't! That's Wardens fors ya; we never quite stays down."

It is a joke, you see. Warden stamina. Get it?

[imbroccata]

"Hm." He doesn't get it.

Lino may be better at cards than he is at people, but to say that he and Barty are opposites would do him a disservice. He might not be good at interacting with people, but reading and dissecting is another matter entirely.

That's why he enjoys cards, honestly. It's less about the conversation and more about body language and risk assessment. You can learn about a person's nature by their tactics at the card table.

[gentlecountry]

That's not much to go on, but then Barty is starting to get the measure of the man, or at least to get the measuring stick lined up to do so; he doesn't question it. He just shuffles and shuffles, with thick-fingered hands scarred from a lifetime of labor and fighting, clever under their calluses. The cards only knew, he'd die with a story written on his hands.

Barty delt, and then drank, eying his own cards with the same patience as a cow considered her cud.

"So! Wheresabouts you from?"

[imbroccata]

Lino looks at his cards, and the drink. What the hell. He knocks it back and raps his knuckles on the table. Check.

"Antiva," he says, the burn of the spirits, because that is not wine, still on the back of his tongue. "You?" His accent is so...bizarre.

[gentlecountry]

"Ah! Sames here," Barty replies, thumbing out his polite little bet. We're all friends here, right? "Well, mores or less."

You want a card there, Crow?

"Outsa Orzimmars, originally. Workeds my ways up in the An-ti-van Wardens. Cames by on here's for a change, nots so long ago. It's goods enough work, since they're payings you."

[imbroccata]

"I wouldn't have guessed," Lino admits, squinting at Barty. "Your accent isn't one I've heard before."

He matches Barty's bet in a modest play. It's best to lose the first round, to make the opponent want to ride out their luck for a while. With that in mind, never bet too much too early.

[gentlecountry]

Barty matched it, after a moment's hesitation. He drank slowly, seeming almost to actually chew, though what there was to chew on distilled mushroom was a question best left unanswered.

"Signs of the times that you're hearings it at all, I s'spose. Smaller world than evers," He takes a card, then adds to the pile, the least amount he can, still considering his hand, "Takes a good lots to gets a crow to flies this fars froms the nest, afters all."

[imbroccata]

He rolls his eyes at the bird metaphors. The worst part about being a Crow is the rampant slinging of bird terms.

"Not really," he says, once again simply matching Barty's bet. "All it takes is a contract."