Weekend at Ferdie's

[notathreat]

WHO: Ellie, Astarion, Nikos, Kostos
WHAT: Family road trip and also Astarion is there + oops their contact is dead, what now? WELL-
WHEN: Auguftempber
WHERE: Hasmal, Ferdinand's most unfortunate living room
NOTES: Murder aftermath, corpse misappropriation, misuse of magic, various hijinks

Comments

[exsecutus]

The room smells. There's the blood, first of all--thick and coppery. There's the pleasanter smell of a woodshop beneath that, and the more unpleasant smell of a blood-and-sawdust paste. And death, of course, which smells both sweet and stale. Most of Nikos' senses have been blunted by wine. You don't need a sharp or well-trained nose to smell any of this.

He crouches, somewhat ungainly, and leans in look at the place that the fucking table leg protrudes from their informant's back. Clumsy, ugly, and, yes, bloody. The makeshift weapon sticks out from the dead flesh like a stunted limb fixed in the wrong spot. The place where it's punctured the flesh looks sick, if mostly obscured by thickening blood and his tunic and shirt.

"They couldn't have waited?"

[exequy]

Kostos might have been asking the same rhetorical question, had he beaten Nikos to the corpse. But he didn't. He isn't. Nikos is asking the question. So it's a terrible question that he doesn't allow the privilege of being rhetorical, actually.

"I know you're used to murders happening on your schedule."

He hovers near the door, arms folded across his midsection in a way that would make his hands disappear if he were wearing robes. He breathes through his teeth. Corpses don't bother him—not when they're cleaned, dried, mummified, in places that smell only of dust and soap. This is different. But his glower is only infinitesimally more uncomfortable than it always is.

He breathes in through his teeth, not his nose, and starts moving, searching the perimeter for anything useful.

[illithidnapped]

"Question, are we— " Suspended from the nearby window like a cat hanging from a ledge (forearms folded) over the open sill, feet likely propped on a lower feature or outcropping, chin comfortably resting somewhere around the midpoint of his own crossed wrists, he's clearly taking his role as lookout very seriously, which—

"Ah."

Cue one pause for pursed lips. Another for raised eyebrows beneath white curls.

"Is that the fellow we're after?"

[notathreat]

"It's our contact," Ellie answers, offering Astarion a hand inside, because the last thing they need is some neighbor seeing an elf hanging out at a window.

"Ferdinand."

Which puts a hell of a kink in their plans, actually.

"Think somebody figured out he was talking to us?"

Ellie glances around the room at the various furniture projects. The guy was a spy, but he looks almost depressingly normal otherwise, and he can't have offed himself, could he? Considering all the saws and carving implements, he'd have had much easier and less weird options than a table leg.

[exsecutus]

Nikos first takes the time to roll his eyes at his brother. The stupid fuck. But as it seems as if Kostos has pivoted to trying to be useful, instead of standing in the back making idiotic commentary, Nikos decides to take the high road and limit his response to that eye roll.

"It seems the most likely reason," he says in answer to Ellie's question. "And as his killer didn't even bother to make it look like an accident, it seems also likely that they want the body found. Good way to send a message to his network, and to the whole fucking neighborhood besides. We need to make this disappear."

[exequy]

Now aided by a wisp as he pulls open drawers and pushes aside cushions, Kostos does not immediately say anything when he succeeds. He does make some noise about it, though. The half-open drawer squeaks and thunks as he jerks it out the rest of the way, the false bottom makes a hollow thumping sound when he knocks his knuckles against it, wood scrapes and the few things that had been resting on top of the bottom clatter as he pulls it out.

He flips through the hefty stack of papers inside, too, for a pleasant thwick thwick thwick of victory.

Then he looks at them.

Looks at them a little longer.

And finally he interrupts the others' discussion by dropping the lot of them on the flat surface nearest to them, unceremonious and annoyed.

"They're encoded," he says.

Not too difficultly, but he can—sullenly—admit that someone else will make quicker work of them.

Still sullen: "There is no body-vanishing spell."

[notathreat]

Ellie looks between the others and the body a little incredulously, before she blows all the breath out of her lungs.

"Shit. I keep forgetting there's... consequences for getting found with dead people heeeereokay um- we should hide this. And get rid of the blood."

Because that's not normal either. Right. Fuck. Okay.

Ellie bends down to the corpse, picking up one of the arms to drag, realizes that'll spread the blood.

"Someone help me."

[exsecutus]

Consequences for getting found with dead people is met with a no shit sort of look from Nikos. But at the same time, "If you're good at your job, there's no consequences or dead people."

The dry smack of the papers on the table is a siren's call. Nikos wipes his hands on his legs, in case any blood has been left behind, and pushes himself to his feet with a quiet grunt of effort.

"One of you." He jerks his head toward Ellie and the flesh vessel formerly known as Ferdinand. Help. "If there's no body-vanishing spell, make it vanish the old-fashioned way."

He begins to look through the papers--skimming at first, then with sharper eyes. His mouth moves as he soundlessly reads some parts aloud. After another moment, he's casting around for something to write with, something to write on. This is almost fun, except that it's very serious Riftwatch business, and Nikos isn't a child looking to be amused.