Holes in Walls (Closed adventure)

Once, during the budding swell of their friendly rivalry, Mithras challenged her to a game.

Their unit was fresh from an encounter with the Clawgraves, if she recalled correctly; the self-styled bandit group was a nuisance at the time, led as they were by a veteran fighter who clawed his way to the top with his own cadre of bloodthirsty minions. The brigands terrorized the road along Silverymoon Pass, evading capture nearly every step of the way, growing fat on coin and spoils wrested from merchants coming in from Sundabar. They grew bolder with each victory. Nobody could have fathomed that in a year, their collapse would be brought about by infighting and relentless skirmishes with the Garrison.

Without that foresight, it was no wonder that the soldiers of the Moon Garrison cherished every morsel of victory against such a vicious enemy. Especially so if there were no casualties. The temples saw a spike in donations and visitors during that occasion. So did the taverns.

Everyone had their own way of celebrating, but it was known that only Mithras and Astariel saw fit to replace a close brush with death with another misadventure.

Imagine, then, her surprise when he challenged her to a stacking game. Not a battle of wits (enumerate the High Mages of Silverymoon and no, Lashtor doesn’t count), or a no-holds-barred sparring session—not even a misguided midnight race across the Northbank on half-sawed wooden stilts. He bought an odd game from a peddler the other day, a game which made very little sense. The goal was to build a tower with small wooden blocks, then try to dismantle the tower one piece at a time without causing the entire structure to collapse.

She won, of course. To play the part of a gracious victor, she tried not to seem smug as their audience—they set the game right then and there at the barracks—exhaled their bated breath in a collective guffaw as the miserable tower crumpled inward. The absolute fool. The look of disbelief on his face was delicious. She had been stacking coins and other trinkets for fun ever since she was a child; her father even encouraged hired tutors to integrate the activity in lessons, no matter how disjointed it may become, just to keep her attention.

She could understand it, now.

Not Mithras. She didn’t, at first, but in time she knew him as she knew herself. They were one breath, one fluid motion writ in starlight in a synchronized dance.

The wooden tower.

The Warm Beds Inn (if it could be called that) was bombarded each and every night with the noises of revelry by its surrounding establishments. Usually, though, it was quiet—and that was when she heard the floorboards and the walls, each squeaking and wheezing with the slightest hiss of wind like an ancient creature about to exhale its last puff of life. Her one-bed room was exceedingly sparse and narrow—which suited her just fine—but in those instances, she could feel the narrow building’s death throes even more keenly. One had to be careful walking along adjacent of Fish Street on a windy day. Even when she left for a meal at the Cookhouse Hall, Astra found that she hastened her steps until she was out of the building’s looming shadow. It would have been exceedingly ironic if someone who outran a dragon would get crushed to death by a stationary establishment.

Now then, on to this new task.

Decked in a newer set of no-nonsense adventuring gear, Astra headed for the meeting point with single-minded efficiency. Her long dark coat, edges frayed and lapels double-stitched in a fine hand, flapped behind her as she continued her brisk pace. Although she was wont to change her style—or, in truth, use long-hidden articles of clothing that she kept more out of sentiment than practical use—Astra had no choice but to do so. Her usual robes sustained a fair bit of damage in her last adventure.

Despite her hurry though, it was clear that the other adventurers had reached the location earlier than she had.

“Greetings. I am also here for… the investigation,” Astra said, the words escaping her mouth with a little more air than intended. She froze and focused on controlling her breathing, taking the opportunity to study her companions—at first glance, they seemed very… colorful. The strange hybrid-woman most of all. In contrast, she seemed even more severe and colorless. No matter. Hopefully, nobody was as long-winded as a certain old sailor.

A raspy caw from above announced the arrival of her familiar. Mitja swooped down, awkwardly landing on Astra’s shoulder, and turned its head from side to side. There was a thin metallic strip in its beak, perhaps burgled from an unwary passerby, which it proceeded to drop on the elf’s upturned hand.

Stephen cut through the crowds of the city with practiced ease. He had spent yesrs honing his ability to move freely, and was thankful he did. His boots splashed in the occasional puddle as he navigated the city. He didn't use street signs or cardinal directions or anything like that. After so much time, he had learned to navigate almost by instinct.

His fingers brushed against his old Investigator badge, a badge which now had "RETIRED" stamped at the bottom in plain sight. This was going to be his first job as a freelancer. After years working with the city, he was anxious to work for himself.

Breaking through a particularly dense group, he pulled his coat tighter around himself as a particularly cold gust of wind kicked up. He pulled the collars of his coat up and thanked the God's he was allowed to keep his issued coat. Say what you want about the Waterdeep Watch, but they had good coats.

As he approached, he was finally able to make out the group he was looking for. Or rather, he saw the woman with the clipboard and realized he would be working with the people surrounding her. "The more, thee merrier", he mumbled to himself as he approached.

Only waiting a moment to see if anyone else would jump on the question, Citrine gave a polite simple (for her) answer. "Ye can' call me Citirne, Lass." She replied easily enough, not pausing like she perhaps usually would have. With the quill and ink? She was a Holly, it'd take too long to do anything but give a name. Taking a glance around her as she began to accustom herself to the landscape they had been summoned to, she noticed -to her delight- that she recognized more of the people who'd come up from behind. Stephan, whom she now understood was a retired member of the City's force, not an active member like she'd once thought when they first met under the stars and cold that night in the Dock Ward. And Astra - the elven woman who had the lovely raven familiar, Mitja.

"Aye recognize teh others 'ere, Lass, but Aye let them introduce themselves. Be quite rude otherwise." She bit back much of the grin she had for her own inner joke. "Sae not as un-organized as ye might think at first glance." Citrine looked from Malakbel to Stephan to Astra… then herself. "Alright, sae perhaps we do look ah little disorganized. But Aye promise ye, we're all 'ere tae set tae rights teh trouble ye've been havin'."

Her head tilted back and forth a moment before adding, "Ye've already asked fer help, sae sayin' ye'd hate tae ask es ah bit… silly. Ef et's this bad?" She gestured to teh barely contained city around her. "Then ye've nothin' tae be upset o' pained about." The firebird did her
best not to become too unfocused at the task at hand.

The Yuan-ti chuckled, and looked back at Citrine.

"I see you've been around lately" And then focused his gaze on the coated man, the latest arrival who was sporting a badge he didn't quite recognize, but assumed to be of importance... Or had been of importance, at least, given the "retired" bit at the end. He nodded as a way of saying "hi" as well, and then turned towards the woman who had identified herself as Vanalika Aboret, the "mayor".

"You can call me Malakbel, and I'm here to provide aid in capturing the guilty alive."

In truth he didn't really care about whether the guilty would be alive or not at the time of capture, at least not at the moment. He would make that judgement call when the moment came for it, right now what he cared about was getting paid and completing the job. If anyone would care about inquiring his reasons for it he would be absolutely honest about it. He had this burning passion about not starving to death under a briged, he just couldn't help it. It was like he was addicted to gold, almost.

Checking out as details began to get passed around Citrine tried to keep her focus on the information being shared. But she was never good at keep track of details like planning or intellectually forming a plan. She'd much rather wing it, haha, and go with her gut and what felt right in terms of attacking - coming up with ideas on the spot. But lives were on the line here, not just her own innate lack of curiosity that had to do with learning new things from a verbal instruction perspective. So she kept casual eye contact with Vanalika and pretended this was simply a briefing from a fleet commander - someone even she'd pay attention to no matter how boring the topic. Despite the pretend all she could think of was Holly and her love of writing down details, and unconsciously tapped her foot in, not agitation or annoyance - but impatience as she spoke her part.

"Sae: plague, undead bodies, disease." The firebird counted aloud by manipulating the largest of her flight feathers with an extended wing wrapping now in front of her. "Ah trifecta o' nasty. An' where are teh priests ef nae at teh temple? Seems kinda pointless tae go there then." Her posture betrayed how foolish she thought the action was, to go somewhere no one was at all to find out more information. And at the offer of beverage? She rose an eyebrow and shook her head. She was all for hospitality, but to take the time for tea. Now? With a plague loose? There wasn't time. And instead of saying so? The phoenix went right into sharing her thoughts.

"Plauges just daen' appear an' disappear like teh wind." She looked at the group one at a time as she spoke, accustomed to speaking to a crowd - you could tell how she held herself, how her chin was raised confidently despite being the shortest here. Could tell by the crisp and clear tone of her voice and how it carried well enough that no one would have difficulty hearing what she said. "An' plagues don't re-animate the dead. There's soumethin' o' soumeone stirrin' up trouble, tha' be what me gut es tellin' me. An' me instincts are rarely wroung." She fluttered her wings so open so they were behind her back like a flag, the 'elbow' part to the wing tips catching in the breeze carrying the perfume like smell of candlesmoke, ash, and clove with the wind. "What all ye' thought on teh matter? We can gae tae teh temple ef teh whole thinks et's worth et, but et's probably ah waste. We're better off goin' tae where teh bodies were burned. Ouer, eff ye all want, Aye can search up ferm above an' see ef anythin' looks odd ferm teh sky. Any clearin' Aye should be able tae spot without difficulty, an' where there's ah clearin' there tends tae be those who don' wish tae be found." She flapped her wings then, as if they wouldn't have been noticed before mentioning them. "Et's ah fair day fer flyin'."

Citrine bird-cocked her head towards the rest of the group. "Astra? Mala? Stephan? Naki? Mitha?" She took a second to even include the two familiars, "What be ye' ideas an' strengths?." Though she'd met everyone before, it'd been in an informal and casual atmosphere. And it wasn't like battle prowess or adventuring skills often came up in that sort of setting.

"Ideally? A field team would start a spiral search pattern while another team worked on data. Recent events at the location, similar events in other locations, possible motives and suspects. Cordon off the area, armed checkpoints, and a few clerics on standby". He looked around at the group surrounding him. "In our case, I would say... Get there fast?"