Czlaplon Quest

[arcomniflash]

"Two people is more than enough to...bar-hopping, I think. Especially if those two people are Mekhitar and Garsevan. I'll go with you and look into the sailor's story. After you." I'll extend my hand to lead Shaliko out the door, when it comes to digesting information two heads are often better than one.

- Isaac

[Tarliman]

Shaliko and Isaac make their way across the Floating City, island to island, to the north side docks. Once again, as you pass Printer's Island, the old crazy t'skrang man tries to tell you something, but again one of the printer's apprentices shouts at him for bothering the customers and shoves him into the canal. Shaliko ignores the incident.

You reach the dock of the Blue Kestrel, a V'strimon cargo ship of the customary design, her stern draped in heavy canvas over wooden scaffolding. What looks like a small ritual circle is laid out on the end of the pier, and three large, muscular ts'krang in armor stand guard. The few crew members present are doing scut work, polishing the brass, repainting the railing, that sort of thing. Shaliko hails one of them. "Garanto! A moment of your time, please."

The crewman, a young t'skrang probably not far past kaissa, checks with the bos'n, and, on receiving a nod, grabs a rope and slides down it, dropping tothe dock in front of you with a bit of a flourish. "Shaliko!" he says brightly. "Good morning! Which of your friends is this?" He gestures to Isaac.

[arcomniflash]

"Isaac." I'll reply quietly. "Nice to meet you." Not one for wasting words, I'll glance at Shaliko and then say. "So, Shaliko tells me that you have a story to share with use about...something we're looking for. Perhaps we could talk about it....over a drink if need be." I don't know whether Shaliko has enticed this story out of the t'skrang with wit or money, and am largely playing the situation by ear. I'll leave plenty of opportunities for him to step in and take over if need be as I cast glances between the two of them.

- Isaac

[Tarliman]

"A drink sounds like an excellent idea!" Garanto leads the way to a nearby dockside tavern, not much more than a single room wedged into the base of a large, sprawling building. [GM note: The Floating City is loosely modeled on Kowloon, but built a good deal better.] The bar consists of two planks laid across a couple of old beer barrels. A few odds and ends of scavenged furniture take up much of the space, so that you have to maneuver carefully to get to the keg that serves as a table where you end up sitting. Shaliko covers Garanto's beer, so Isaac only has to pay three coppers for his own. It's cheap, watery, and just not very good.

With very little prompting from Shaliko, Garanto tells the whole story in a verbal flood, with lots of brief asides commenting on river conditions, Syrtis sailors and their lack of hygiene, peculiarities of the weather, the general strangeness of the Serpent's headwaters, and a couple of amusing anecdotes about his chaida, who was a deckhand for many years before losing his leg in a freak rope accident. Essentially, for the last couple of years, the Syrtis sailors have been finding the occasional flayed corpse drifting in the river. They've been traced to the easternmost branch of the Serpent's headwaters. Nethermantic examination has been apparently less than helpful, although Garanto doesn't know much about the results, just what's been noised about among the crew. You'd have to go talk with the Syrtis nethermancers to get a proper report, and they're creepy. But the upshot of it is that these bodies appear to be Horror victims. They had been occurring in ones or twos initially. In the last few months, there's been three or four at a time, and once an entire raft of a dozen or so all at once. They haven't had the skin totally removed, and it wasn't the rotational flaying you'd expect from a skin shift, but rather a death of a thousand cuts sort of thing, as if they'd been attacked by a cloud of windlings armed with razors. Lots of cutting, not any real effort to remove the skin, it just kind of fell off in strips from all the slashes. Nasty work, really. Isaac has to pony up three coppers for a second beer for Garanto, to get him over the last bit.

[arcomniflash]

I grimace - while it's similar it's too far removed from the attacks that we know the Horror we are looking for is perpetrating, both in terms of location and method. It's possible that the creature moves around, just as it is possible that it has access to more than one attack, but without evidence of that the connection here is weak at best. Still it is something to look into, and I make a mental note to visit the Syrtis nethermancers later.

With a slight incline of my head I stand up. "Thank you for sharing that with us, I realise it might have been difficult, given the particulars...but the information is nonetheless appreciated. Are the Syrtis nethermancers easy enough to contact? Creepy or no, they likely have a more solid idea of what happened to those people...perhaps even where."

- Isaac

[TarlimanJoppos]

Garanto shrugs. "Try asking around at the Cliff City. I dunno, I try to keep out of the way of magicians." He glances at the time candle, swears, chugs the last of his beer and runs out.

Shaliko watches him go. "Doesn't match one story, but it does match another," he says, staring off in the direction of the door but his thoughts obviously elsewhere.

[arcomniflash]

I'll finish my drink and stare for a moment into the empty drink. "Thank you, we'll check into that later. For now we must be getting back, there's a lot of work to be done. It's been a pleasure talking with you." Putting the mug down, I stand and bow to him. "Good luck in your travels....let's go then Shaliko." Since Shaliko obviously wants to leave, and given that we seem to have gotten all the information we're going to get here - it's time to move on. I'd like to head back to the inn the rest of the party is staying at, to discuss what we've found. Additionally, if we're going to talk with nethermancers, it might be prudent to take Gudrun along.

- Isaac

[TarlimanJoppos]

On the way back to the inn, Shaliko reviews what you just heard a bit. "So, we have something north by northeast, up at the headwaters of the Sperent in Syrtis territory, that's killing Name-givers either by slashing them to ribbons or by some other means and then slashing them to ribbons after they're dead. Both of those possibilities strongly suggest a Horror. You've read Paykar's journal?"

[arcomniflash]

"I have..." I'll confirm. "The horror mentioned in the journal, or horrors if it being simply a type of unnamed horror, did have a propensity for slashing up its victims according the journal. Then again, the two who sent me on this question were skin shifted by it, so I have to wonder then why it didn't simply slash them. Perhaps it acts on a whim, or feeds on suffering...something like that. From the sounds of things, death by a thousand papercuts, as it were, would be a long, painful way to die. We'd better put a stop to this thing sooner, rather than later...but I want to see what the reports from those Nethermancers said about it first...I'd rather we be as prepared as possible."

- Isaac

[TarlimanJoppos]

"Preparation is three quarters of the battle. The rest is - look out!"

As you're crossing Printers' Island, someone lunges out of an alley at you. Before you have a chance to react, Shaliko has his knee in the t'skrang's back, one hand on his crest yanking his head back, and a knife in the other hand at the t'skrang's throat. The crazy old t'skrang, yes it's him again, clutches at your trousers as your knees are all he can reach.

"I have to! I have to tell you!" he gasps out.