[CLOSED] HARE COURSING

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa, Byerly, Edgard, Erik, Mado, Noon, Sawbones, Sidony, Vanadi
WHAT: The Gang Solves A Murder
WHEN: Early Drakonis
WHERE: The Gallows, Kirkwall
NOTES: Content warnings will be employed in subject lines, blanket warning for violence/murder, mention of sexual assault, corruption in the City Guard, etc.

I. A COMMOTION IN LOWTOWN

Erik, Noon, and Vanadi hear a struggle near the Alienage and when they go to investigate, they happen upon a shadowy cloaked figure trying to make off with Saoirse, a fifteen year old elf girl from the Alienage. The cloaked figure flees. Erik decides to stay with the girl while Noon and Vanadi take off after the cloaked figure. The perpetrator takes a dagger to the shoulder and Vanadi gets a signet ring off him in the ensuing chase, but ultimately the villain gets away. Erik finds out from the residents of the Alienage that there's another girl missing, and that the City Guard have done nothing to help find her.

II. A GRIM DISCOVERY

Elsewhere in Kirkwall, Edgard and Mado find a dead body buried in the snow. The cold has preserved the body in such a state that they are able to determine the most likely cause of death to be strangulation, judging by the bruising on the young woman's neck. It looks like whoever did the strangling was wearing a ring. There will also be a copper button, presumably from some article of clothing, clasped in the dead girl's hand. She clearly put up a fight against her attacker. Mado is able to smell faint whiffs of expensive laundry soap, cologne, pipe tobacco, and whatever other normal not-clue things on the button. Seems the owner of the vest this button came from is rather well-off.

III. WHILE THE CAT'S AWAY

Sidony and Sawbones will be tasked with acting as Byerly's attachés while following up on a number of petty grievances cited by the citizens of Kirkwall, during which they will overhear gossip (unrelated to the grievances):

• Talk of disappearances from the Alienage that the City Guards are doing nothing about
  
• Two City Guards talking to each other about the body that was found, and how strange it is that not even the Guard on duty saw anything
  
• Mention of a cloaked figure seen outside The Crimson Cat at night
  
• Rumors that Madame Lette, the bawd from The Crimson Cat, has found a new financier
  
• A general consensus that something isn't right about The Crimson Cat; it used to be more like the other brothels in the city, but after Devigny was killed in a robbery gone wrong, things have been different.

IV. AMBROSE WARRICK

After some sleuthing it's found that the ring that Erik, Noon, and Vanadi got from the would-be kidnapper most likely belongs to a man named Ambrose Warrick, a nobleman with a modest estate in Hightown. He confirms that the ring was his, but that he gifted it to Giordano Allard, a friend of his. The servants at the Warrick estate will be reticent to speak to anyone, but some light eavesdropping will reveal that some weeks ago, Ambrose returned home late, disheveled, in one of his moods, and demanded that the buttons on his vest be replaced with gold instead of copper. He also sent the signet ring to the jeweler's to be polished the next day.

Comments

QUESTIONS

[sulahnan]

[ Don't be shy; I'm here to help! Feel free to request info or even ic assistance from Athessa at any point in this plot. ]

a commotion -- erik, sol, and vanadi

[highborn]

[ It's been, Vanadi must admit, a pleasant evening. Good company, decent drink, an excuse to get out of the Gallows. He's in a high mood, improved when it was suggested they make this a traveling pack of drunks, and not just the sort that sits in the corner chuckling amongst themselves. He'd lead the way out of the tavern, mentally sorting nearby options -- there's not much class to be found near the Alienage, but surely he can dredge up a place or two ...

That's when a flicker of movement catches his slightly unsteady eye. Two figures, violent motion. A struggle? They jerk out of sight around the corner of a building before Vanadi can be sure. He's stopped, though, and stares with unease. ]

Ah -- I don't suppose either of you saw that?

[ Please tell him he's imagining things, he'd love that. ]

[noonrodeon]

[ For as much alcohol as the big man put away, Noon sobers up pretty fast. ]

Better check it out. [ Is the only warning he gives before he sets out toward the corner in question. ]

[clawings]

Yup, [ Erik pats Vanadi on the shoulder, not hard enough to make the man stumble but hopefully enough to get him moving again. ] Looks like trouble, someone make it double.

[ He snorts at his own badly-timed Pokemon joke, and heads off after Noon. ] C'mon.

[highborn]

[ Damn, he was afraid of that. Vanadi sighs, but does indeed get moving again under that pat. He'd not be eager to wander onto the scene of something violent while less than sober, but Erik and Noon seem to be holding up well enough. He falls into step with Erik, just behind Noon. ]

Who is it doubling it? [ That's a quiet, puzzled murmur. ] If it were us, that would be a triple, no? And if it's--

[ He's interrupted by a shrill, panicked shout, cut off suddenly, and Vanadi breaks from a hurried walk into a run. ]

[noonrodeon]

[ Noon's only half paying attention to the conversation behind him, on the alert to the scuffle in front. And yup, that's bad. He breaks into a loping run, turning the corner sharply. Two figures struggle in the dim light of an alleyway. ]

We got two here. [ Noon grabs the larger by the back of their cloak, hauling them up and tossing them in the direction of a wall. He glances back at Vanadi and Erik. ] Check on the kid over there for me, willya? Don't know who started what, but I got a hunch.

[ Particularly since the kid in question is a young elf girl. ]

a grim discovery -- mado and edgard

[lumelume]

It's been an evening of carousing as lighthearted as any: some drinking, some smoking and loud singing of pub songs, and Mado is as unsinkable as ever as he swirls through the street in an impromptu dance routine. He sings along in lyricless, nonsensically syllabic self-accompaniment, completely absorbed in the spirit of it until, suddenly, he gasps.

Stumbling so abruptly that snow sprays all about, he throws his arm back toward Edgard in a wild beckoning gesture as he creeps forward to kneel next to the dead woman in the snow.

"You poor thing," he breathes, "--Edgard, help, she's..."

He reaches for her wrist out of habit, as if to feel for a pulse; but between the cold and the length of time before she was found, there's no need.

[clawings]

Mhm, we'll come back to that, [ he says to Vanadi, because it was a mistimed joke but a good one, and he could talk about Pokemon for apparently a while (after he's gotten some alcohol in him). Though the girl covering her throat and sobbing against the opposite wall has got him sobering up, more than a little bit. ]

Don't let that asshole get away, [ is yelled to Noon, and crouches in front of the girl, keeping his hands where they can be seen and trying to make himself not seem intimidating ]. Hey. You okay?

[muckspout]

Edgard continues singing loudly and tunelessly walking ahead, unaware of anything amiss when he realizes Mado is no longer with him. He doubles back and notices the body. He's silenced at once. He stands staring for a moment or two.

Mado saying his name focuses him and he crouches down. He sees Mado's hands on her wrist.

"Is she--?" He knows the answer, it's obvious to look at her, but he can't quite say it. Instead: "How long?"

He looks around warily.

[lumelume]

"A while," Mado whispers, at least based on how the snow has gathered around her; some has fallen since after she did. He begins to dig at it with one hand, trying to clear it, his other still holding hers.

"Look at her throat," he says in the same low whimper, "someone did this to her."

No matter his city of origin, a homeless musician will have seen his fair share of bodies: particularly those of other cast-offs, souls assumed inaccurately by their murderers to go unnoticed, un-missed by those who love them.

"Help me dig?"

[highborn]

[ Noon is a big man with a good throw, but mysterious cloaks have many uses. One of them is preventing a very good grip, which Vanadi knows, because he wears his cloak for a similar reason -- but nonetheless it catches him by surprise when he pounces on the thrown man and, after a brief wrestle, the man slips away and into a lunging scramble down the alley.

He mutters a curse under his breath and pulls a dagger out of some hidden sheath. That doesn't stop the man either, when it flies to thud into his shoulder, but between that and Noon's throw, it should at least make him easier to keep up with. Vanadi takes off after him grimly. ]

[sulahnan]

[ The girl, no older than fifteen, nods despite the tears and snot running down her face. Not only is she crying, but it's cold out, which only makes everything worse. Valiantly, and only a little blubbery: ]

I will be, I think.

[noonrodeon]

[ Noon sighs and follows the chase. He's slower than Vanadi, but bigger and an intimidating presence as they pound through the backstreets. He plucks a barren flower pot off a window sill and chucks it at the figure's head for good measure.

It does not hit the man's head, but it does bounce off the hilt of Vanadi's dagger. The strangled scream and the loud crash of the pot are violently loud in the near silence of the streets. ]

[muckspout]

"Dig?" Edgard frowns not understanding, but helps him dig nevertheless. He scoops the snow away from her body on the other side. He looks at her throat just for a second before shuddering slightly and looking away. He shuts his eyes, steading himself, thinking quickly.

"Shouldn't we look for someone? The person who did this or--whoever is missing her?"

As Edgard moves the snow away from the hand Mado isn't holding, he notices its gripped. He doesn't touch her.

"Mado, her h-hand." He whispers.

[clawings]

Alright. Good. Where's home, from here? Do you want a walk back?

[ The others can reach him on the crystal if they need him; in the meantime he's shrugging out of his cloak and wrapping it around the girl's shoulders. She's too young for whatever in the fuck just happened here. ]

My name's Erik. I work with the Riftwatch. I got a friend named Athessa, you know her?

[ Presumptuous to guess that every female elf might know the female elf he does but it's better than nothing. ]

[sulahnan]

[ The girl flinches when he puts his cloak around her, obviously not too keen to be in another strange man's grasp again so soon. She shakes her head, frowning like he just asked a ridiculous question. ]

No...d-does she live in the Alienage? That's...where I live. D-Down that way.

[ Her hesitation is easy to write off as not wanting to be too forthcoming to a stranger, even a helpful one. ]

[clawings]

Nah, [ he says with more ease than he feels in this moment, ] she lives in the Gallows too.

[ He feels bad. Obviously, the girl is shaken and he doesn't want to make her feel worse but he's a little nervous about just setting her off to walk home in the dark. ]

Think you can get home safely from here? You can keep the cloak, I don't need it.

[sulahnan]

No! [ She insists with all the sense of a teenage girl. Does she want his help? Or does she want to be left alone? She only seems to deliberate about that after speaking, and sniffs wetly. ]

No, I...I'm scared to go alone and I just know I'll get in trouble if I turn up like this— [ Her words tumble out, increasing in speed as soon as she admits that she's scared and soon giving way to incoherent blubbering. ]

[clawings]

That's fair. I'll walk with you, okay, and if any of the grown folks around got questions I can answer, I'll answer 'em.

[ He puts his hands in his pockets to keep from being too aware of how cold it is without his cloak. Poor girl needs it more than he does. ]

Sound good?

[sulahnan]

[ She nods and wipes her face on her sleeves, one hand swiping with her palm and the other balled into a fist.

The walk to the Alienage isn't more than a modern city block, but it was already curfew by the time the trio managed to thwart the girl's would-be kidnapping. When they arrive, the gates are shut. The girl jogs up to them and almost looks as if she's about to try and shove her face through the bars, looking desperately for someone on the other side to open up.

A young boy hurries as best he can while hauling a bucket of water from the well across the square, and stops when he sees the pair at the entrance. The girl calls out to him in a stage whisper: ]

Hey! Psst! Iowan, go get my ma, ok?

[ The boy, Iowan, looks down at the bucket in his hands, not sure which task has priority. ]

Just go get her, Iowan! [ At that, the boy scurries off, leaving the bucket on the cobblestones. While the girl and her savior wait, she turns her head and keeps looking around, searching. Something isn't right. ]

There's usually a guard on duty...

[clawings]

[ Erik doesn't run when the girl reaches the gate. Instead, he's looking around too, unable to shake the feeling that it's oddly quiet, even for this hour. Is that his paranoia or the drink talking, or some combination of both? Hard to tell.

At least the boy moves with some purpose. ]

Fuck, [ he mutters, trying to narrow down where someone might come from if the guard suddenly 'appeared' or someone else decided to bother the two of them.

He doesn't draw a weapon, for now, but he's feeling itchy. His fingers twist around the crystal in his pocket. ] Tell me if you see or hear anyone coming on this side we're on. [ If her mother comes, all the better. She'll open the gate for her child, most likely. ]

[sulahnan]

[ It's a few tense moments before there's any sign of anyone on either side, but then: ]

Saoirse!

[ An elf woman, clearly the girl's mother judging not only by her calling out to her, but by the features they share. Much like the girl, the woman's nose slopes down in a handsomely aquiline fashion and is dotted with freckles even in the middle of winter when there's no sun to be had. The same bright eyes, too, though...maybe that's just an elf thing.

Accompanying the woman is an older elf, dressed not in finery, but in neatery. He clearly isn't rich, judging by the quality of the fabrics his clothes are made of, but he's taken pains to be neat and clean, suggesting that he deals with the public or at least with people whose opinions he cares about. He walks with a cane, and sorts through the keys on a big silver ring, looking for the one to the gate. Beside and behind him are two younger kids, a girl and a boy respectively, with the same spate of freckles and similar noses. Siblings, probably.

The girl, Saoirse, answers to her name with a cry of maaaa! and her mother looks past the old man to Erik. Suspicion furrows her brow, but considering the state her daughter is in, she opts for ask questions first. ]

Who are you?

[clawings]

[ Well shit. He'd actually prefer to have someone to fight because this girl's mama looks pissed, but Erik pulls it together and gives a little bow. ]

Erik Stevens, ma'am, with Riftwatch. Me and two of my friends were out, came across your daughter being harrassed by someone; the two of 'em went after him, and I stayed with your girl here to make sure she got safely home.

[sulahnan]

Riftwatch? [ She seems surprised to hear it. Not delighted, per se, but a little taken aback. Nobody would expect Riftwatch to have anything to do one way or the other with the Alienage. ]

Well, messere Stevens, the name's Maeve. I'm grateful to you for returnin' my Saoirse to me. She's a good girl, see, doesn't get to no trouble even on bad days, I don't mind tellin' you.

[ The old man says a soft ah as he finally finds the right key and it clanks and jangles in the lock as he opens the gate just wide enough to allow the girl through. The first thing Saoirse does is run right into her mother's arms, face full well disappearing in the fabric of Maeve's shawl. ]

Your friends. If they catch whoever was givin' her gaff, what're you going to do with 'em?

[highborn]

[ Well, that's something. And it's just something enough for Vanadi to spring forward, taking advantage of the man's pained stumble. He snatches for a hold on him, this time aiming for the solidity of arm.

He catches his hold, but -- briefly. In the next second the man has spun and thrown a distressingly well-aimed punch, and then Vanadi is the one stumbling, falling back, seeing a burst of stars. He's lost his grip, too, though there's some small thing in his clenched fist that he seems to have ripped free. ]

Noon -- if you would -- ah, hell --

[ Give him a moment. It seems his nose might be broken again. ]