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

iii.

[murderbaby]

Mhavos spends a fair amount of his free time in the library. The Gallows' collection isn't overwhelming, but it's fairly well-stocked, especially considering this is technically a military organization. He sees a familiar face, and, ah. It's that mercenary mage, the one hunting slavers.

Mhavos finds himself very keen to know if Lino caught the slavers. His own predilections showing their hand, likely.

He's sitting at a table near Lino's inspection of the shelves, with several books open in front of him, one of which he's writing in. They're account books. How fortuitous.

He clears his throat. "Are you looking for something in particular, serah?"

[imbroccata]

He'd known someone was there, but the who of the matter comes as something of a surprise. The elf survived, then. Interesting.

Lino's surprise is expressed in the lifting of one brow, a slight inclination of the head, but he doesn't answer Mhavos' question.

"You survived."

[murderbaby]

"How nice of you to notice."

He could come up with a convenient excuse. He has a few in mind. But why spin them out before they're needed? Anyway, he may not even need to lie. It's not like he's got special knowledge of the wilderness that he's hiding. He's just hardier than Lino appears to think.

Honestly, playing upon that is best. Whoever Lino is, he seems to have a low opinion of... elves, or people, or non-mages, or people who don't wander around with boar spears. It's hard to tell.

He's over-thinking this.

"Did you accomplish your job?"

[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."

ii

[wythersake]

That was unnecessary.

[ it may be within the purview of an assigned escort to keep slightly overconfident circle mages from getting robbed blind on their way toward darktown to pick up — don't worry about it, doesn't matter, definitely not poison —

but the boy needed it more than either of them. not that it stops him from pocketing the money. (he's usually better at this) ]

[imbroccata]

[ If the man wants to get robbed, fine, but Lino is going to make it clear to the urchins that they're not easy marks.

Let one go quietly, more will follow. Make an example of one, and the lot will mind their footing. ]

Perhaps.

i.

[exequy]

Worse people could have been sent.

Like, genuinely. Kostos might hate the wilderness, might despise the squelch of mud and the itch of alighting insects, might resent the proximity of wild animals so much that he refuses to learn to differentiate between their tracks—"might," "definitely does"—but it's not the uncomfortable unfamiliarity of a tower-raised man who's never been out in the wild before. It's the deep-seated personal loathing of a tower-raised man who had never been out in the wild prior to spending the worst several years of his life fighting a guerrilla war in forests and fields while desperately missing bedsheets and cabinets.

So he hasn't gotten them lost, or at least not irretrievably lost. He hasn't been eaten by any bears. He's only gotten his foot stuck down so deep in mud that it took work to extract it twice.

And when the reach the camp, a half-dozen wisps are in the air—a few nearby, ready to act if they're needed, while others further and dispersed, circling around the other side of the camp like miniature scouts. He never lived in Antiva, barely remembers visiting his mother's family there as a child, but all of Thedas knows not to take chances with Crows.

[esquive]

Which is why, at least in part, Marcoulf had been more than happy to let Kostos (or his wisps) lead the way squelching through the woods. He's still a stride or two behind him now as they reach the encampment, muddy up to his left shoulder where he'd jammed his hand down into the quagmire to release the suction around Kostos's knee.

But excepting the part where they look like some kind of offensive comedy double act. they appear perfectly respectable and sensible. Marcoulf's hand is resting just there on the hilt of his fine silvered rapier, but he hasn't drawn it which more or less seems like the exact sort of reasonable caution and respect one ought to give a Crow.

As they pause there on the fringe of the camp, Marcoulf fixes Kostos' shoulder with a look. It isn't direct enough to state, 'Well? What are you waiting for?', but it certainly suggests the concept.

[imbroccata]

What he might be waiting for is any sign that the inhabitant of the camp is nearby. Or perhaps he’s waiting for an invitation. The latter will not be forthcoming, but judging by the embers in the fire pit, the former is not far off.

The camp itself is a simple affair; set in among a rocky outcropping that is, blessedly, not muddy, and consists of a bed roll, the remnants of a fire within a ring of stones, and a few animal pelts tucked away where they’re safe from the weather and other animals.

“What are you supposed to be?” Lino’s voice sounds from behind the muddy duo, and the Antivan—tall, muscular, scarred and completely at ease carrying the carcass of an elk slung over his shoulder—steps past them. By appearances, he doesn’t seem inclined to offer them any attention beyond the question, dropping the carcass on a stone slab and splaying the animal’s legs apart to start gutting it.

But not before using a knife to slice off the elk’s balls.

[exequy]

Kostos doesn't flinch, but he does turn his head quickly enough that someone looking to be uncharitable might describe it as startled. His gaze briefly lands on Marcoulf—a little accusing, a little how did you let this happen, because he's looking to be uncharitable himself—before it follows Nieri into the camp, but the rest of him stays put.

"Riftwatch," he says.

A bit of mud slides off of his boot to plop forlornly onto the ground between him and Marcoulf.

Put them on a recruitment flyer.

[imbroccata]

Lino looks the men over like he still can't quite fathom what this comedy act is doing in his camp.

"Is that so," he says dryly, turning back to his kill and slicing it from sternum to just above where the balls used to be. With the ease of a man who has clearly done this enough for it to be second nature, he makes a few more cuts and does something with a thin length of rope before pulling the nether guts of the elk into its body cavity, then removes them entirely. "Should that mean something to me?"

The entrails plop into a nearby pail, dropped unceremoniously from Lino's bloody hands.

[esquive]

Slop, say the entrails. Which is fine. That's what entrails do.

"We've come to see if you're in need of work," Marcoulf supplies. He isn't in diplomacy for a reason and he is looking, dark eyes, at some point beyond and between the Crow and the splayed open body cavity of the animal. It's fine.

ii - Kirkwall

[exsecutus]

[Unaware. How very dare. Nikos glowers at the tall broad strapping Antivan who rescued his precious coins. Snatches back the purse.]

You some sort of savior? Answer to a prayer?

[p l e a s e. His accent puts him from Nevarra, by way of Antiva, somewhere in the vowels and lilt of it--and then muddied by how he practically growls those curt questions.

For Lino, it might be weird. A Nevarran with this face helped recruit him. Now doesn't seem to recognize him at all. Slightly taller than he was before, slightly fatter, thicker face, wineo eyes. Still irritated, so there's bound to be some familiarity there.]

[imbroccata]

"No," he says, though it doesn't have the trappings of refusing an offer of work. Sounds more like calling someone a liar. He reaches into the elk carcass with the knife and cuts free the diaphraghm, the heart, lungs, windpipe, and gullet. Save for the heart, those all slop into the bucket as well. The heart gets set aside.

"If you needed a mercenary, you'd put up notices." That's what people who need to hire other people do. They put ads on boards. Then, people respond to the ads, do the job or don't, and money is exchanged. He should know; he's done his fair share of that kind of work.

Nobody goes traipsing through the mud looking for one specific mercenary. Even less so, nobody goes traipsing through the mud hoping to stumble across a mercenary. And nobody takes out an ad looking for Crows.

[imbroccata]

[ Lino takes in those very details: taller, thicker, drunker as a trait even if not drunk now. He ignores the questions, unimportant as they are. ]

I think I met your brother.

[exequy]

“A lot of them can’t read,” Kostos says, which is both helpful and relevant information, obviously, and not just a natural tendency to pick a fight with anyone over anything, “and our thug division has all of the help it needs.”

In the meantime he’s watching the dissection with the fairly dispassionate and strong-stomached interest of a man who not too terribly long ago had a small, temporary army of possessed woodland creatures he’d mummified himself. Just not very well. Thus the temporary bit.

One of the wisps is more passionately interested and edging closer, like it thinks he won’t notice if it moves slowly enough. For the time being he’s pretending not to.

“Why are you out here?” he asks instead. “You are the Crow.”

Right? Right.

[exsecutus]

[Nikos' mouth pulls into a frown.]

He does get around. [Fucker.] Before you ask: I can't carry a letter back to him on your behalf. Any pining you want to do, do it right toward him. Leave me out of it.

[esquive]

Here's the thing: they're both right. Here's the trouble: Marcoulf would rather not say as much. So instead, he hooks his thumb in his sword belt and shifts conveniently and entirely by happenstance a half step away from Kostos in case this conversation gets any more insulting and the Crow - which the man is, he's near certain - takes exception.

[imbroccata]

[ Lino laughs, rich and heartily. Pining, oh that's hilarious. ]

I take it that's happened before, huh. [ Stands to reason, if the man issues a disclaimer so early. He shakes his head, dismissing the notion of pining for anyone, or using Nikos as a carrier for it. ]

I have a policy against shitting where I eat.

[imbroccata]

"I am?" His voice lilts with mock surprise and interest. Goodness me, I had no idea! The Crow, fancy that!

Producing a cloth, Lino begins to wipe down the inside of the elk carcass. There isn't much of any blood to drain, since the strike that killed the beast severed an artery. Efficient.

"You tell me; what would The Crow be doing out here? And why would The Riftwatch be inquiring about my employment?"