Black Market

[Black Market Gimmick] (Hey, glad you made it, Fox. Turns out everyone was going to be about a half hour late anyway so we're gonna start in about ten minutes. Just giving Thess' and Pooka a chance to hop on.)

[Emmeleia Uhuru] (oh cool, thanks, happy I'm not late LMAO, I worked over a 12 hours shift, and been up for more then 24 hours. Was afraid I wouldn't make it in time for wake up time after the nap)

[Mean Tommy] (brb guys. one sec.)

[Black Market Gimmick] Alright.

I'm gonna get us started with an Introduction post. If Thess or Pooka show up, I'll see what I can do about fitting them into things but don't feel like you have to wait. Any questions or concerns about the scene should be relayed to me VIA Aim (Klisteban) so as to avoid cluttering up the screen here. I'll be asking for rolls and the like via AIM as well so pay attention there.

Intro post incoming folks...

[Black Market Gimmick] The streets are a medley of Sin and For Sale.

People from both outside and inside the large landscape of Chinatown, isolated as it is from the rest of the city, a great beast they barely understand. From the outside, it seems more like some unknown realm you know is there but never bother to visit beyond the cheap knock offs of american product you can pick up, the occasional chinese ingredient to spice up your Friday night meal and the Tea Shops that each swear by their recipes as the Best for ten blocks in all directions.
Mortal eyes show a bit of trepidition, as the interior is made up of such tightly packed alleys and side-streets, where delivery trucks seem to run a 24 hour schedule, that it is next to impossible to guess at how things run and operate. From the outside, Chinatown is a land of Fable and mystery. A visitor's quarter. A Tourist attraction for those inside their own city.

From the inside, it's immigrint population, Chinatown is just as confusing. The residents live in close quarters, small apartments many North Americans would claim as insufferable, seat and house families of eight or more. Extended relatives with no home to go back to in the Communist regime of China, reside in tolerated hovels and seek out some semblance of freedom that is at once present and yet not at all what they were expecting.
Rumours and whispers follow on their heels, as the elderly and confused try to make amends with the youthful and adaptive, all the while losing sight of where they are, how they are meant to interact and just what this alien landscape says about their culture.

And yet for both factions, the true fear and wonder comes from the well operated and obfuscated Vice Realm that hides in the deeper and darker parts of the landscape. Chinese Triad and Syndicates make their homes in underground clubs and bunkers, completely foreign and impossible to detect by local police. A culture so far removed from everything else, the peddling of Flesh, Drugs and Assorted other unknowns has crafted unique and obtuse imaginings from the simple minds of the population.

Mortals breathe and dreams come to life and here, in Chinatown, imagination has a long leash and a broad perspective.

No wonder the air stinks of Chimerical Gold and the streets run with snippets of dense fog that cloud every alley mouth and side-street as far as a Changeling's eyes can see. Terror and Wonder come in equal parts here.

For those Changelings that have frequented these halls, the one certainty is the presence of Dragons; tiny things, barely the length of Troll's foot, skirt and slither about, hovering mere inches off the pavement. They dart in and around the legs and feet of mortal kind, whiskered and multi-coloured serpants snatching droplets and sprinkles of glamour falling off the shoulders of Tourists and satisfied Immigrints. They vanish, quick as snakes, into the various alleyways and side streets, plunging into the bubbling froth of chimerical fog that spills out from every dark hall between buildings.

Tonight, these are the focus for each Changeling in Chinatown this evening, for each notices something a little different in the movements and actions of the Small Dragon population: Several, not all, but some, dart through the streets and back alleys, holding something in their jaws.

For these Chimera, so used to drinking glamour in droplets? Chunks of indescribable Dross are well beyond the Norm.

[Emmeleia Uhuru] *Things for sale in dark corners, spices, and the art reflecting a romtanized culture. All of it was alive and dazzeling. To an unseelie's eyes it was home. Dark corners, whisps of fog, fear, hate, joy, guilty pleasures run here. Leaving the taist of glamour to roll with the fog that circles around her ankles.

The dragons though were diffrent tonight. They were buisy with something. This intrested in one who belived 'All Glamour is Free'. What were these little scavengers finding? Where the scavengers were, the bigger preditors would eventually home in.

Emm smiled to herself as people moved around her on the streets. Her head twisting to look into fog clogged allies and twisted streets. Bare feet touched the ground and taisted pavement. A silver ring on a toe keeping them warm and protected. Hair and shoulds all the way down to her thighs were covered with a black cloth that draped around her like do many night time pedals with stairs strewen within it's folds. Under the promise of dawn a skirt of pinks, violets, and dusky blues. On one hand she held her staff. Long and weathered strengthing with fire, giving it an ebony hugh, both ends capped with copper with extrodinary carvings and castings of travles and peoples. The face benight the draped fabric, was half pale and half cinnomen, covered in dark tattoos over black night sky eyes with galaxies hidden within. She lifted her nose to the air and took the scent turning this way and that.*

[Mean Tommy] There is a line so fine it is hard to detect between the outer rings of Chinatown's tourist mash and its inner, ironwood core. Those sections ruled by organized crime and the petty gangs that serve them in a nightmarish reflection of a Feudal lord's wet dream.

Its an uneasy thing, Tommy's predatory, brutish senses grabbed by the realities presented by mortals who themselves are in part made of Dreams. Or rather, Nightmares. Nightmares are a thing he knows. Seeing them bent by mortal hands goes far toward removing the chip from his shoulder. Makes him observant. Watchful. Even careful, to a degree.

So rather than battering his way through the ever- tightening crowds, when he's this deep in Chinatown's environs Tommy walks slower. Watches faces, for all that they look the same to him. Occasionally grabs a chunk of wall or alleyway from which to glower at the surroundings- get his bearings.

Its then that he notices the Dragons with prizes in their jaws. His pupils widen into deep pits as he watches. That ever present, inexorable hunger guides his eyes along their paths as saliva fills his mouth. Carefully he watches. Trying to percieve a source or destination- where the dragons are coming from with so much dross- and whether or not they all appear to follow the same path toward the same destination once they have that which he fully intends to take from them.

Its like that. That's the reason he hunches, a grotesque and brutal thing- in an alleyway across from an accupuncturist.

[Emmeleia Uhuru] (percep (intutive speicality) +kenning)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Black Market Gimmick] The pair of them root out the paths of the Small Dragons.
It is not difficult. Both have simply to ignore the crowd and focus on the flitting forms that dance in and out of alleyways. Where one vanishes from sight, another two or three leap from an adjoining alley mouth or a delivery truck lane across the street. Tommy's brutish movements and hulking reflexes, carry over into his Mortal seeming, forcing the thinning crowds of Chinatown's shopping districts to step askew or around him. Oddly enough, few have complaints or insults for his passing. A faceless creature in both respects.

Emm's own passage is somewhat more contested. There is the occasional flicker of something, she doesn't quite grasp, dancing over the heads and shoulders of the crowds. A gimmick or flicker or gleam, that is gone before she can fully focus on it. It is enough of a curiosity and a distraction to pull her attention to and fro and no few times, a Mortal passes her by only to be infected by this dallying misstep of distraction. Emm's path would eventually cross with Tommy's own, but not before leaving an irritable crowd in her wake, jockeying and shoving at one another as their day's negativity increases.

But arrive they do, on the cusp of...something:

The Dragons are a swarm. Not a fleet, or a legion, but a writhing collection of dozens of many coloured and scaled bodies, slithering over a side street the peels off from a main road. Rarely used, the entrance a one-way leading out onto the Main road, choked off by constant pedestrian traffic and a pair of parked cars that sit to either side and as close to the intersection as they can get without Tickets. It would seem like a natural blockage of mortal coincidence...

By changeling eyes, the path ahead all but vomits thick plumes of rolling fog, near as high as Tommy's waist. Above, the arch of hanging clotheslines, connect to either building, framing the street's entrance. From them, hang unlit lanterns of red and yellow, celebrating some festival long since past. Perhaps the coming of spring.

And down that street, a burgeoning black. A shadow that makes each low lit lantern hanging on walls, something of a struggle and a fight. Here, down this unused lane that Mortals didn't so much avoid as...ignored...the Dark had sway and promise and presence. Here, the Dragons vanished into the fog, dipping and curling and swimming. Some, with prizes clutched between wide spread jaws.

And Tommy and Emm stand at the opening, bare toes and boots, tickled by the thickened white smoke pouring from the entrance.

[Emmeleia Uhuru] *Emm stands there for a moment after moving through the crowd. Let them be angry. They themselves would do little worse. They will get over it or go home and bitch about how the arabs were ruining a country where they themselves stuck out as sore thumbs.

She looks down at Tommy dark brows start to raise.*

It seems we meet agian. Always on a long road.

[Mean Tommy] Something animal tells in the way Tommy jerks his head with each twitch of his eyes. Ratcheting back and forth, trying to read what he can from the pitch colored cloud in front of them. Animal- like an aligator. His eyes catch movement, and the instinct to rip what he wants from it drags a colossal jaw after. Then back the other way.

The grind of broad teeth is audible from several feet away. Frustration bled from that ever present hunger. He spares the strange Eshu a glance, but his gaze is miserly. Lingering longer on every piece of dross passing them by.

Rattle rattle clank clank- that is the sound three or four yards of thick grease- colored butcher's chain makes as it snakes from under his coat, through his fingers to puddle on the ground between his feet. At the end of the barbarous puddle is an even more barbarian meat hook- gleaming and wicked and waiting while Tommy waits for a good time to throw. One of the dragons- yes. One of the dragons...

He grunts in agreement, but for a moment doesn't say much else. His eyes taken by the dragons curling and sliding their way along the sidewalk, or across the bricks into that black cloud still some distance away.

"Gonna bring onna them things down heah. I got questions."

He's already wearing the gauntlets. The sound their whispering and click makes against the chain as it passes between his fingers is like some song he can barely remember. Something old. Cruel. He likes it.

"You know whut dat cloud thing is?" It doesn't sound like it matters. The dross matters. The magick.

[Mean Tommy] (uh- change 'coat' to studded leather voile.)

[Black Market Gimmick] (hey folks. Liz is gonna toss her Sidhe into the mix so I'm gonna give her a chance to get acclimated and catch up. Meantime though, keep posting at your leisure. I'll let you know when i got a post incoming.)

[Emmeleia Uhuru] The breath of thousands of tiny dragons, a faery I belive they are called.

*She replies as she watches him. His chain this hook, his very stance. Crude, but could be effective, if he planned to kill the creatures. Knowing a red cap he most likely wanted to eat it to. A pale black clawed hand showed it's self from the folds of her wrap to pet the fabric. She considered what to do with these creatures and the crowd around them. She woundered if the Hsien where here in this part of the city. They were tricky creatures, but rarely left their main land, but one never knew. She would wait to see what happend to the red cap first*

[Mean Tommy] (Int+Dream Lore: 3+1)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Mean Tommy] (Are the two of them some distance down this alley? Or otherwise fairly confident of not being seen or noticed?)

[Mean Tommy] Rumbles, muttering.. half words are all the brutish redcap gives to the air around him, or to the Eshu nearby. The dragons and their growing hoard- that's what commands his attention.

Palms slap concrete as Tommy bends over and scoops up the yards and yards of chain. He doesn't tuck or hide it- chain isn't illegal- but the meat hook isn't readily noticeable as he makes for the corner- the better to cross the street and duck into the alleyway closer to the Shadows and the Dross both.. the better to reach the Dragons and what he wants of them. Preferably before they disappear into the shadows. And if he finds a quiet enough bit of alley that he can drag one down? So much the better.

Now he makes noises. Chuckles to himself, in fact. Also, he sets off without explanation or any apparent rhyme or reason.

[Emmeleia Uhuru] *She walks causally, following him. Making no issue, and trying to behave among the crowd. Her natural curiosity taking the better of her. This was going to be intresting. Might result in a funny story about hungery hunger red caps.*

[Jeff Brolin] *The clop of hooves is quite clear through the streets, like he doesn't know how to be subtle. A cigarette dangles from his lips. He smirks, which causes it to perk with the expression, as he makes his way through the market. Maybe he should be afraid, but he doesn't seem to be. Something invisible to the mortal eye does make him dive out of the way.* Fuckin' hell, watch where you're... *It is quite clear he realizes he's speaking aloud to the creatures. Though he pauses, and he shrugs it off. Trying to be casual now, as he tries to follow the path of the little beastie.*

[Mean Tommy] In a rare moment of forbearance, the Goblin King actually steps around the plebs. Every short and angry one of them. Oh no- tonight wasn't the night to antagonize.. tonight was for taking and keeping.

So, his eyes remain mostly on the alleyway. On the dragons and the precious lumps of dross in their jaws. No fool, he occasionally watches out for too-interested mortal observers as well. One can't be too careful.

With a leery eye on the ink black shadows deeper in the alley, Tommy sidles right in.

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] There's another in the crowd; a stranger not simply human - a pale-skinned, black-haired girl too young to be so composed, so watchful, so bright. She's a whisp of a creature by human measure - a teenager so prettily made, so arresting, with her high smooth forehead, rounded cheeks, her sharp little chin - still soft with youth, but already refined. She's a sharper, more luminous thing than any in the passing, faceless crowd could know.

Darting through the shifting currents in the wake of a pair of colorful dragons - then - with skin pale as milk, luminous as moonlight - and inky coils of curling black hair long and fine and loose over her bare shoulders, the stranger - a sidhe, there can be no mistaking it, slighter than many of her kind, with a softness around her cheeks and brow matched by a sharp chin and ears - approaches, soft-footed, dressed in a sort of bastardized finery - well-laced stays criss-crossed with a herringbone pattern of gold ribbons, long skirts clipped up to reveal creamy thighs and calves.

Emmeleia and Tommy are focused on the gathering; Maialen slows when she sees the former through the crowd. Composes herself, smoothing pale hands over her raven's wing hair, breathes deeply, chest rising and falling about the stays as she catches her breath, shakes out her disorders skirts into something more presentable. Her attention is sharpened now, keen on Emmelaia as the other disappears into the mouth of the alley.

She snakes after, a fine hand on the crumbling brick of a facing building as she steps into the alley's mouth, the fog drifting over her well-turned ankles in those soft kid boots.

A redcap. The other hand goes to the hilt of a jeweled dagger at her waist, which seems little more than some folly of adornment against the hard flat plane of her stays.

And watches, wordless.

[Emmeleia Uhuru] *Her staff taps the ground as she stops behind Tommy. Slowly her face turns and black eyes fall apon the sidhe comeing torwards them. A sneer starts to pull at the Eshu's slips showing razor sharp teeth. Her hand grips her staff tighter, and her skirts start to move agressivly. She pushes her lips and looks back down at Tommy. Her ears also pick up the Satyr's steps. Oh god...that one too?*

Red Cap...we have a usless pretty approching and a hoved freak.

[Mean Tommy] (Dex+Melee, diff 7 for dragon catching)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 7)

[Jeff Brolin] *He is trying to avoid the little beasts. Well... of course, he's a satyr, he moves rather smoothly when they DO get too close. He actually licks his lips, the feel of it pressing on him, the extreme glamour. Not to mention the curiosity of the creatures themselves. He does pause for a brief moment, and clearly tensing. He looks back over his shoulder, and then back forward. Business is the most important thing right now.* ((And am I close enough to hear that?))

[Black Market Gimmick] The quartet (now) move to follow in the Wake of the Dragon march, for what else could it be called (Stampede? Parade?) and it is not long before the Fog at the street's opening has eclipsed even the satyr's hoofed haunches. Maialen and Jeff both push into the alleyway, the former much more hesitant than the latter's brazen personality would allow. Emm and Tommy have already ventured, warned by the Eshu's soft lilt of a voice of the coming of the pair behind them...

...And as each enters, they notice behind them, the sudden distancing of the Crowd and the Mortal world. As if the Fog and the shadow that makes all light here a diffuse thing, were the separating apparatus of Mortal and Fae perspective. No humans, dwindling as the night draws on, turn to watch the four vanish down this side-street nor dip or sway from their own movements on past. No cars turn down here or errant birds, perch within. It is as if the Changelings have passed into some odd little Cul De Sac, not for the unintiated.

Their surroundings are a small assortment of 2 story buildings, the first floor built several feet below street level, stairs on either side prompting one to duck their head to gain entry to the low awning shops that exist down there. Overhead, strings of Yellow and Red and Blue and Green lanterns suddenly illuminate and spread a plethora of colour down on the heads of the four who pass below them, while the strange darkness ahead of them begins to lessen as more and more lanterns flare to life. Heralds of illumination.

The Dragons have dwindled as well. Smaller numbers as more and more flit and dance across the street, dipping in and over the mounds of fog, vanishing over the lip of the stairs that lead into those 'lowered' shops. It isn't until the last of them begin to wind through. lazy and slower than their brethren that a sharp cry erupts.

...And the Red Cap's hooked chain emerges from the Fog, a slender white serpent writhing, spitted on the hook's curved point. Green whiskers and brows flex uncomfortably, while the gnashing jaws snap and clap at the air. Oddly, there is no blood from the wound, simply flecks of gold dust that puff out like pollen from around the puncture.

"Do you mind?! Do you Mind?! Are you Insane?!

It bubbles and hisses and chirps, glaring red coal eyes up at the Red Cap.

[Black Market Gimmick] ...Emm's own attention seems to dance and flit around them, soft murmurs and unintelligible wonder, creeping into her dark appearance and mien. It isn't long before, the Changelings wrapped up in their surroundings, fail to notice the Eshu do what Eshu's do best. She wanders off in search of the Wonders around them and gets lost down one of the small flights of steps, avidly attracted to some glittering shapes in unseen windows. (Player was too tired to continue, consider this her post out.)

[Jeff Brolin] *His eyes suddenly grow slightly cold. And his fist clenches slightly, looking back and forth between the missing city and the slight trap they were now in. He opens up his muth to talk to the Eshu, but she is gone. His annoyance shows itself clearly, and he grumbles.* For the love of... *Things are happening quite quickly. He looks back to the spitted dragon.* What the fuck are y'doin'?

[Mean Tommy] It isn't murder gleaming in Tommy's eyes as the dragon's red ones meet his own. No. Nothing so simple. Nothing pedestrian like that. Rather, it is as if the dragon stares into a window that guides the way to nothing but a yawning, empty pit in Tommy's ever- hungry belly.

So it is that empty-belly eyes are fixed against the Dragon's, and the redcap's scraping butcher's block voice rumbles almost sweetly.

"Shudddup... an' tell me where you got th' swag."

Teeth flash as he snarls at the Satyr. "Less' yer stoppin' me, yer watchin. Now waitaminit." With that, his attention returns to the Dragon, one Gauntlet sheathed fist wrapped tightly around the pale body of the serpent.

(Bully-browbeat roll. -1 diff, man+intimidate 6 dice)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 8

[Jeff Brolin] *He scowls at that. And he seems to ponder, stopping the 'cap. His hooves scrape against the ground, animal in nature, as if he simply can't stop himself. Or maybe it's just time for good cop, bad cop.*

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] There.

The world changes; Maialen turns around, still wordless - cutting a lambent glance back toward the mouth of the alley, the receding mortal world. The satyr trots forward after, and the regal little thing spares him, too, a wordless flicker of her huge, gleaming eyes, lifting her pointed little chin at the end of the glance.

Lifting her pointed little chin and the long sweep of her deliberately tiered skirts in the same moving gesture, stepping into the shop-lined alley in that moment with a movement to assured she looks as if she were alighting from a carriage in front of some gloomy, moonlit castle.

The creamy expanse of her bare shoulders squared, the young creature strolls toward the Redcap and Satyr with deliberate grace, her attention steady on them, fixed and alive.

And then she drifts at the last moment, around rather than into them - the redcap, the satyr, the hooked, hissing chimera bleeding gold dust into the still air. There's a certain presence about her, a certain watchfulness as she passes them, a certain deliberate, demure elegance as she continues past - mute - angled toward the shops set into the below street level.

As if she had meant, all along, to come shopping tonight, and nothing else. A new pair of kid gloves. The fever dreams of a dying man. Whatever she might find.

[Black Market Gimmick] As the Dragon's writhing form is tucked uncomfortably in the Redcap's grip, it's tail saws upwards and slinks around and through the tines of the Gauntlet on Tommy's hand and forearm. It coils, as a reptile is want to do and tries to lever itself off the Hook's point, upper body, twisting enough that the hook vanishes, half-out again.

Those exaggerated green brows, furrow and than flare, licks of gold flame catching the corners of it's mouth. A serpent's tongue flicks out, forked and purple and those murder red eyes dance from Tommy's gummed up features toward the Satyr behind him.

"Goin' to Church!" It spits in a near perfect mimicry of Jeff's own voice and brogue. Then it shifts attention back to Tommy and seems to lean upward, sprouting small, three clawed limbs from the flesh beneath white scales to perch on either side of the gauntlet holding it's body.

"Chew 'n spit 'n shit where you want, it isn't mine to say or tell. Isn't mine to sell..."

Tommy's voice and dialect this time, gold flames continue to lick over teeth and curled lips, a flash of two rows of black incisors, cast up at the Redcap's scowling face. The hook slides another inch or two out of the body, half covered in gold dust. A moment of heated resistance and then...

...the Dragon's eyes seem to catch sight of Maialen and the head slowly turns to follow her passage around the hulking Red Cap, a slow sort of pan that keeps in time with her steps. The tongue flicks outward, a flash of gold flame dancing at it's tip before vanishing with a wink.

[Jeff Brolin] *He groans at the vanishing beast. And he shakes his head.* What the fuck, *he mutters. And he looks for another.* Where is he takin' 'em to?

[Mean Tommy] It always manages to be a redefining moment- the one between absolute confidence and the next one when you know the eyes of Lords are on you. Somehow... he feels drab. Less. Its inescapable, as far as Tommy knows..

and he hates it.

Red eyes follow the willowy Sidhe- and so do black ones. In fact, for a moment Tommy holds the serpent like a kid who'd been caught with a dirty magazine. Just for a moment. Just in case she wants it- she might want it-

Air hisses between his teeth and fingers clench tighter around the body of the snake and he snorts.

"Yer really gonna walk right past alla dis Dross? Really? More feh us, izzat it?"

Tommy flicks a quick glance at Jeff- a strangely united one- two commoners alone with a Noble.. dicey.. then he holds the Dragon out toward the brand new, sparkling new, glowing new Sidhe.

"Dis guy knows wheah it all is." He hooks his jaw at the Dragons bringing more, then he holds the writhing thing out to her.

"Likes yew. Maybe he'll gib yew more info den he'll gib me. huh?"

[Mean Tommy] ...and he's handing her an empty fist. "FUCK!"

[Jeff Brolin] *He sighs, and he cants his head.* Mebbe we can just ask the next one questions, mate. You know. Without stabbin' it through the middle. Or just follow it. *His eyes are constantly averted from the Sidhe, as if he just can't look at her directly, though there is both spite and fear in those grey eyes.*

[Black Market Gimmick] (Ack. I seem to have mis-placed a description. That should have read, "a Flash of Gold flame leapt out at the tip of it's tongue, before vanishing with a puff and a wink." The flame vanished, not the Dragon! Sorry about that folks.)

[Jeff Brolin] ((Okay, I misunderstood! The flame vanished, not the dragon.))

[Mean Tommy] ((Okay. I need to calm down. I keep jumping the gun on you guys. *L* Disregard my last post.))

[Jeff Brolin] Hey, liddle beastie, *he offers to the small dragon, then.* Mind tellin' me where you're takin' that horde to? We need t'eat too, y'know. Y'take it all, we'll waste away.

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] The creature is a handful of steps behind the Redcap and and the Satyr when the latter curses and the former addresses her. Oh, they're small steps, ladylike. Not quite mincing but nearly so. She stills though, turns around, casts the both of them a shining look across the pale curve of her shoulder - looking first at the Satyr, then the Redcap. Giving the razor-mouthed latter the hint of a sharpened smile on her bow mouth.

"Gentleman - " her voice is soft; the accent elegant - some hint of a romance language laid like a mantle over her english. Beneath that, the well-polished precision of the upper class. Finishing school, someplace with mountains and views. With cliffs, oceans, incalculable fortresses.

One small hand is still curled about the hilt of her jeweled dagger. The other floats like a moth at her side, pale against her golden skirts. Her eyes drop to the dragon, then, in Tommy's hand. "He's not taking it for himself. Whose is it to sell? What price does he charge?"

[Jeff Brolin] (Jeff is trying to be nice. All beware.))
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] manipulation + persuasion
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 5)

[Black Market Gimmick] "Fuck"

Jeff's gentle coddling. Tommy's bullying gaze. There's something to be said for commoner Etiquette or lack thereof. The Dragon snorts a plume of smoke out of one nostril at the two before it's attention seems to swim in Maialen's direction, the soft accent falling around the Three with something like grace and lilacs and other pretty things. Maia's first words have a soothing effect, something like aloe to a burn, or milk to chilli.
The Dragon shrinks visibly in Tommy's grasp and coils further off the Hook, until it pops out fully and swings to clang absently below. Those green brows bunch together, nearly eliminating the red glass eyes. The word of before is uttered, not as some description or act, but as evidence of Maialen's guesswork.

"I'm not made to mention such things. Oaths bind us to blood and blood to life, you know that, you do! Can't tell you 'bout the Mister Click's deal and All but I can tell you sure enough his name is Mister Click. Least the name we call him ourselves." Another plume of Gold fire, skates the rim of Tommy's grip.

"You don't want any of that and his direction though, Young Thing, Noble thing, Sweet Precious Delicious thing. You don't, I mean, Do not. At all. You steer right back the way you came." And then those eyes turn toward Tommy and peek around him at Jeff.

"You two go on ahead, though..." Followed quickly by another flash of those obsidian fangs.

[Jeff Brolin] *He snorts at that, and he looks back to Tommy. Back to the dragon. He does what he's better at.* Fuck you, *he snaps at the dragon.* You don't fucking tell me what to do. Just tell us where the goddamned Mr. Click is, an' we'll make our own fuckin' decisions, eh? After all. I'm not bein' used, like you are.

[Black Market Gimmick] "Why don't you come here and say that to my face?" It tenses in Tommy's grasp, jaws clapping hard and a plume of Gold fire racing from it's nostrils, murder red Eyes glaring at Jeff.

[Jeff Brolin] *He smirks, and he steps forward.* I AM sayin' it to your face. You're a fuckin' pussy, for a dragon. Owned by someone else.

[Mean Tommy] A vigorous shaking- that's what's called for, yes indeed. However, the brutish, hunching bulk of redcap finds himself able to restrict it to one firm jostle.

He thrusts the lashing body of the snake like thing back at the Sidhe- oddly enough, as though he were either trying to focus its attention on her... or he were threatening it with her presence. Her luminous, beautiful presence. Beauty kills in their world.. perhaps he's threatening to put it too close to her beauty. As though it were a fire.

"You jus' talk ta th' Noble, you."

His openly violent gaze swings toward Jeff. "You, shut up. Give 'er time ta work."

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] When the dragon mentions Mister Click, the sidhe cuts a look between the commoners, searching their faces for some twitch of recognition over the name. Finding none, her attention slips back to the beast, mouth curling into a (rather self-satisfied) little moue as the dragon warns her away but urges the others on.

The moue of her mouth sharpens, and the creature's eyes gleam with a banked but darting humor with the exchange between the Satyr and the dragon. She cuts a moving glance between them, but still holds herself back from the pair. Though now she does turn more fully back to them, her her skirts eddying around her in a wide sweep from the narrow V of her bound waist.

"Thank you," to Tommy. A sort of courtesy to it; a gravity that is well above his station. "My question's no different than his," here a dip of her dark, dark head toward Jeff. "Good dragon. I am afraid you're wrong, " she cuts a look over her soft, bare shoulder, the drift of ribbons over her moonlit skin, "I do want all of that, and his direction too. If only," and her she dips her head to the chimera, a sweet, supple acknowledgment of his complimentary warning. " - so that I can find him or not as I please. Mister Click - he's down among the shops there, is he? You and all yours oath-bound to him? Who else has he bound?"

[Jeff Brolin] *Her interjecting herself between Jeff and the dragon works. The satyr side-steps so quickly he might as well have been hit.*

[Black Market Gimmick] Something unintelligibly expletive rips from the Dragon's maw. Like the sound of shattering glass, fireworks and the crack chopsticks make when you first pry them apart, as Tommy jostles it sharply. The Dragon's attention returns to the Sidhe with some reluctance (whether because it isn't finished with Jeff or because it is indeed, fearful of growing to close to Maialen), brow crushing it's eyes from view once more.

"No one else. Doesn't need anyone but us. Mister Click runs part of this town, this part of town. Likes to think he does, does even if I don't-Do Not like it. You go looking for him and he'll make you offers. You go looking for him and you'll...you will be accepting." A tiny dragon's hand, three fingered, lifts to jab at it's chest.

"We get off light. Lighter than you would. You're-...you are exploding stars and Marigolds. Make you a Malt smoothie and drink you over a century. You don't-...do not want to do that, Young thing. Pretty thing." The constant correction of abbreviations seems to be the Dragon's attempt to repeat Maialen's own words and dialect. It writhes somewhat in Tommy's grasp, tail slapping absently at the fingers as if the Redcap might loosen them one of these times.

It takes only a few more seconds of nervous hope, dashed to rocky shores, for the Dragon to wilt in defeat and slither off to one side, hissing at Jeff for good measure. Then it turns and slithers closer to Maialen, rearing with narrowed eyes.

"Keep walking down the alleyway and hum a little tune. Something soft like a lullaby. Don't do it too loudly or he'll stay where he is. Gotta be quiet so he keeps needing to get closer. By the time you're whispering? Well, pretty thing, it'll be too late." And then around on the Redcap without another word.

"Now get this oaf off of me before I'm found late. I like my insides where my insides are"

[Mean Tommy] He doesn't quite hop from foot to foot. Not quite. Instead, boots crunch against the asphalt pebbled underfoot. The roughly stamped demon faces decorating Tommy's armored voile leer a ghostly blue in the strange not-quite-light of this shadowed cul-de-sac. This puddle of dreaming reaching into the mortal world.

He swallows saliva. Pays careful attention.

And as the Dragon's explanation flickers back and forth inside Tommy's head, he freezes. All but that metal- clad hand. The spiked hand. The spiked hand opens..

..and his eyes fasten on Maialen. Flicking across her features haphazardly. Stalking wolves pacing back and forth in his nightmare face.

Holy shit he's thinking.

[Mean Tommy] (Intelligence+Streetwise. Is he referring to who I think he's referring to? Pool 5, diff 5)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] "Your word, dragon, that you will stay quiet about us. Your blood-oath and he will release you, right as rain." So she says, quietly, leaning closer to the dragon, bestowing on him her softest of silken smiles. A few tangled strands of ebon hair slips over her bare shoulder; she's all softness, but contained by the tightly laced baroque-style stays.

"Safe as houses." Here, she reaches out a soft little hand, lends it to the beast as if he were an acquaintance at court, brushes fine fingers through the lingering cloud of smoke leaking from the dragon's nostrils. "Elsewise," nearly mournful, her voice, though there's an underlying sharpness to her presence, "I will be forced let him eat you, Dragon-mine." Here she, she tips her head and lowers her gaze, sooty lashes against the pale curve of her cheek. And continues, as if she were confiding a secret. "It's in his nature, you know."

[Black Market Gimmick] "That's not Fair!"

A flicker of flame reaches out to coil itself around Maia's proferred fingers, though there is surprisingly, very little heat. There is more the avaricious and unique sensation of greasiness, like one might pick up from well handled coins. Greed's excess.

The Dragon bounces from left to right, as if it might physically escape the promise as easily as the Redcap's grip. It lasts a few strong heartbeats, before finally-

"Fine. Fine! Sign your own warrants, fine. Oath of blood, not a word. Not a peep upon release. Simple simon, pretty thing. Not a peep upon release."

[Jeff Brolin] *He grins at that, and he looks back at the little beast. Of course, he can't say much - he is ALSO terrified of the point-ears.*

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] Here she cuts a sidelong look at the redcap, straightening rather primly, all contained now - all bound except for the brilliance in the heart of her moving gaze. Brushing her thumb against her forefinger - thoughtfully, feeling the slide - not of heat, but the slick, filthy residue of common lucre on her fine little hands.

"He has given his oath, now. Please let him go," her words are soft, the elegant accent clear. " - but watch him, both of you, until he disappears. And - " a further promise, she's stepping back, opening the way into the alley, turning to flank the pair with a brief, lambent glance toward the Satyr. "If you're still hungry, Redcap, I will find you something else to eat."

[Mean Tommy] Awe is simple.. its right there, in his face. But something else writes itself across Tommy's frame- so filled with waiting speed and hunching, brutish strength. He watches the way Maialen's throat throbs with her soft offerings of freedom or doom, the endless black of his eyes prowls along her shoulder, the gentle swell where stays meet flesh. Her voice curls through him as well.. and the Redcap does what it always does. It hungers. It wants in its blinding, all consuming way. That desire wakes in his chest as though he had already swallowed the snake and there it was, inside him, thrashing around and bruising his insides with this desperate mix of want and hatred.

He thinks he'll explode. He thinks she's too close to him, and he might burn up. As Kithain like her are stars suspended in a night sky, Tommy knows he is the black and emptiness between the stars. For a moment, caught between reaching out and crushing the soft spoken woman or kneeling..

..then he shakes his head. Glowers a blistering accusation at the female. Then lets go of the snake.

Rip her. Squeeze her to death so she will not confound you. Sell you lies. RUN

All that screaming is silent, and lost between the stars. Tommy looks between Maialen and Jeff and hunkers down. Squatting on the asphalt.

"Mistah Click, then."

[Jeff Brolin] *He doesn't look at the Sidhe at all.* Mister Click. Sounds like some sort o'weird sex toy. But if he's takin' all fo the Glamour, mebbe he's hidin' the 'hold too?

[Mean Tommy] (My screen wasn't refreshing. My apologies for the delay.)
to Black Market Gimmick, Jeff Brolin, Maialen de Xove y Miasol

[Mean Tommy] "Nobody feeds me, Sidhe. I aint yer pet."

The look is long and wicked.

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] Manipulation + Persuasion
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 5, 6

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] (Reroll, dif 7!)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 6, 8, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 5 at target 7) [WP]

[Black Market Gimmick] As if to answer the Commoners, the Sidhe's long neck stretches and a tune drifts aimlessly past closed lips and begins to haunt the air before them.

...And the Changelings turn, their business done and the information gathered, beginning the trek down the alley length with a lovely creature of dark suggestion at their head. The street beneath their heels and feet seems to cobble, the further along they go, the architecture turns into that curve and the opening they'd come through vanishes from sight behind them.

The way ahead takes only a few dozen steps, the shops to either side growing lower and lower as more steps emerge. It isn't long before the Awnings are level with the alley floor and there is simply an opening ditch to either side, down which one can adventure. The light within those openings is minimal and the dark, pregnant and not terribly inviting.

The curve in the alley becomes less pronounced and suddenly, the Trio find themselves before a Steel Gate. The alley narrows into red brick walls, which culminate in this plain fence gate, which stands slightly ajar. Beyond the fence:

It is a round square, centered by a fountain. A single Brown spire, like the apex of a water drop in a puddle, jutting upward and spraying a perfect cone of blue tinted liquid into it's pool below. There is little ornamentation or elaboration to the fountain's construction, much like the brown brickwork that makes up the ground and surrounding flowerbeds. The flowers themselves are plentiful, multi-coloured and in no way resemble any species either of the three may well be familiar with. The beds are so thick with their rainbow presentation, as to make the soil beneath them impossible to see.

The buildings are likewise, that odd brown smoothness, with small balconies and windows made from yellows, blues, reds and greens. Opaque and resilient.

Maia's humming has drawn from a piercing sort of saturation to the vaguest of things, by now. It drifts just barely past the Three, guided by nothing short of a Sidhe's fickle fascination.

[Jeff Brolin] *His eyes widen at that, and he looks over the tower.* Jesus f... *The curse is torn from his throat, and he moves up to the gate.* Ahh... we goin' in?

[Mean Tommy] Bile, scorn, a desire for violence, a desire for one smile- One nod from the strange Ailil- not that he knows her house- and a desire to twist her head completely off and caper down the alley with it should she give it.. each tide clashes together and parts in Tommy, and his eyes swivel from the gate, to the Satyr, to the Sidhe... and he knows he won't be the one answering that question. Not tonight. Tonight, they'll follow the Sidhe's commands.. and hate themselves, and her, for it.

The sound of teeth grinding together may be heard from yards away.

[Mean Tommy] "...Want that Dross..."

Belated. Maybe to himself, for all that he at last coughed up his own opinion, as though it weren't already obvious.

[Jeff Brolin] Well. Either way, we've gotta end this guy. *But he's waiting for the Sidhe to speak as well... maybe so he can disagree with her.*

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] I'm not your pet - snarls the redcap. "Certainly not," Maialen agrees with Tommy, terribly calm in the face of his long, wicked look. Entirely contained, the creature, made of moonlight and raven's wings. She favors him once with an appraising glance, lingering on the nightmare hunger in his eyes. And smiles, soft as the rest of her, supple as silk spun from the dreams of sleeping mulberry trees. "And I have never liked leashed things."

Then she begins to hum, a glance to the Satyr a lingering consideration. He's taken all the glamor here, this Mister Click. Maybe he is hiding more, besides. Her boots are soft on the cobblestones, her skirts swish susurrant along the pavement. The creature keeps a firm grip on her little dagger as they walk, her alertness evident in the changing environment, brighter than anything here - with a certain, celestial gravity, no less.

"Fortune favors the bold, gentleman," she returns, an answer to the redcap, a challenge of sorts to the Satyr. It is followed by a sudden, brilliant little grin that shows white teeth fine and luminous as pearls, all in a row. " - of course we go in. We won't have a chance like this one again."

[Jeff Brolin] *He's no pussy. He wanted to tell her no, to go do it herself. And he scowls. He moves up to the gate, then, and he goes to shove it open. Or pull it.*

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] Intelligence + Graymayre
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Mean Tommy] Thick fingers- the sort swollen by murder and misdeeds prowl across the chain.. he reels it in, stows it somewhere beneath the leering leather and black studs of his ancient-looking voile. In the same long- practiced motion the whispering, chiming, chanting metal of his gauntlets is pressed together, seating the wickedly spiked things more firmly on his arms.

(INt+Greymare)(wp)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 8 (Success x 3 at target 5) [WP]

[Jeff Brolin] Int+Gremayre+Remembrance
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 5)

[Black Market Gimmick] The three Changelings push through the gate with Jeff leading the path ahead, hand on the gate. It does not creak or hinge incoherently, but sways with well oiled ease out of their path. They march into the brownstone space of the fountained area, gazes adept and alert, regarding their surroundings and the sensations that come with it.

And each knows. Without doubt or hint of it, the place they are in is more sanctum then assembly. Like some sun room or solarium, for an occupant. They had traveled the alley road with a comfortable sort of leisure and beckoned with the loving little tune that had grown quieter with each step. It was nary a whisper by the time they'd arrived at the Gates and the Dragon had said, the closer the quieter. Perhaps there had been a thought that He would come to Them.

Now, it would seem to be the other way around. Providing them access to his front door.

As they enter, a ripple of something dances across the upper story of the Brownstone buildings, warping the colours of red, blue, yellow and green that make up the windows. The ripple extends all around the flesh of the upper story, forming a broad ring of obtuse distortion that each of them can see almost plainly. Evidenced in their understanding of Arts.

And Redes, the powers Chimera make use of themselves.

"What's this then to beckon with so...tantalizing an offer? Present and be known..."

The voice is silk. The voice is smooth. Calm, like motown and subtlety. It drifts down from on high and at it's end, the gate clanks closed as if struck by an errant limb, the distortion climbing back higher in the process.

[Jeff Brolin] *He cants his head at that, and then lowers it, as if he's protecting himself with his horns.* Is this your territory? Name yourself, first. And know that here and know, I'm citing the rule of Safe Haven. If you refuse, I can always go, an' let the Dreamin' deal with yeh.

[Mean Tommy] Oh he goes in, alright. Right behind the two of them.. though it doesn't seem to be cowardice that slows his feet.. no. Its a look at the gate. Not like a glance.. like a LOOK.

(Intim+Cha) -1 diff
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] The sidhe's steps are still soft as she sweeps in with the pair of commoners, whose names she does not yet know. When the satyr claims the right of safe haven, she squares her soft white shoulders in quiet chorus of his of his claim, and cuts him a narrow, gleaming little look, darkly brilliant. The pleasant, quiet plash of the fountain in the courtyard, the ripple of incandescence across the windows; all background.

"We only know you by some common vulgarity, whispered in the shadows of your streets," her voice rises, a quiet pillar of support for the satyr's demand of a name. Softer, deliberately. " - Mister - " here she pauses, pink tongue against her white teeth, hesitant. Click becomes French, "Clique - was it then? That cannot be your only name. Tell me another, and I'll give you one of mine."

[Black Market Gimmick] (Alright folks. Unfortunately, Dirge has gotta get goin' for the evening. So I'm gonna put up a couple of options for how to continue:

- We can try an co-ordinate times for when folks might be available again via the Forums.
- I can actually put this up in the forums and we can continue it that way if folks feel like we might not be able to meet like this again anytime soon (I'd prefer not to wait a whole other week to continue)
- I can probably separate this into three separate scenes, one for each of you, at this juncture.

So can I get thoughts on which people would prefer to do?)

[Mean Tommy] Personally I like forums. I think it would help liven up interest in the game. Also, I like to showboat and use lots of words.

[Mean Tommy] Although I do like actual scenes. For my part I'm available every day after around 7pm site time.

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] (why don't we start with forums and go to scenes? I would love to continue IC since I'm better with the push of an IC scene - but I promised blu I would continue Roman's rank challenge tomorrow, and am not around Sunday. So Monday would be the earliest day for a scene for me. :) )

[Mean Tommy] (Let me know. I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open.)

[Jeff Brolin] ((And for me, usually after 7 PST, but I'm dying right now, so we'll have to see what doc says tomorrow.))

[Black Market Gimmick] (I think a Forums scene would work best. I like the idea of promoting the Changeling game via an exposed Scene for folks to keep track of. If the scene in the forums continues on to a logical point where the four of us can meet again we'll finish it that way. I'll throw up my next post in the Forums and you guys can post there at your leisure.)

[Maialen de Xove y Miasol] (thanks harv!)