2019.09.03 Mirror, Mirror
| Mirror, Mirror | |
|---|---|
| Swift Wing and Feather Picks the Lock search for hidden enemies. | |
| IC Date | 1881 |
| IC Time | Dawn |
| Players | Royan |
| Location | Raven's Rock |
| Prp/Tp | Ravenscar |
| Spheres | Gaian |
It is almost dawn by the time conversation ends for the evening. Guns are holstered. Children are tucked back into bed - mostly. Tea and biscuits have been had. Guests are now being set up with the accommodations while they are in Ravenscar - and while the house is big, some people will have to share rooms.
Jase "Feather-Picks-the-Lock" Skarne takes it upon himself to take Magnificent Feather to a place he can comfortably roost. Carrying his cousin on his shoulder he takes him through a large Victorian Era study. At the back of the study there is a set of double door that lead to a tower with open windows, just the kind of place that a homid Corax may use to come and go from his home. There is plenty of open, covered places to roost here. From here you can also see... YOUR TREE! A much younger tree, surely, but the very same tree you loom from in the year 2019.
If there are any insects in the home of the Corax from the Past, then by the time Bob is done there will be no insects for a long time. Somewhere, a very happy humming is heard from a singing spider that realizes he's been set loose in a house full of things to catch.
The large black raven lets his spirit friend be for now, letting him just hum and spin away. Instead, he is being carried up to the tower, "I looked all over for information about you, but no one would tell me anything. Your fate is a secret well kept, and not spoken as is demanded." he pauses, "And now that I am here, I know why."
Jase reaches up and strokes the back of his neck as is he had feathers there to brush. "My past has required me to be secretive, of course. But there are other Corax that know of what I do here. Only the most trusted of course. I do not wish to speak ill of our family, or of the tribes of your friends, but these are trying times. Many Corax have felt they had to take sides in the War. This is the side Olivia and I have chosen to take - the side of the innocent."
See, the Raven has seen TV shows. He has sat on many a window sill watching many a TV show through peoples windows. Timetravel shows, even! The bird tilts his head a bit to the side, peering about, "I think you meant to keep this secret. For if what we do here will be a story told far and wide, then we would know of it before we come here so we would know what to do and that would mix up everything that were are here to do so I think that once we leave here you make sure that what we do here is not told to anyone so that we know what not.. to.. do.." he pauses, losing himself in his train of thought.
Jase seems to get distracted by that train of thought as well. The IMPLICATIONS! He rubs his tired eyes and checks a pocketwatch in his vest. "Would you like to see one of my greatest secrets? And perhaps help me figure out who may be threatening us?"
Silently, Swift Wing ponders the question, "I am only Oviculum, but I have under my wings an entire pack of Get of Fenris. I have tamed one of them to be my mighty steed. I have fought other Garou in the Realm of Nerigal and nearly frozen my wings off in arctic snow." he silences, "But I am a child of Raven. I live for Secrets. They all need to be whispered to Helios."
Jase chuckles tiredly, "I thought that might be your answer. He tucks the watch away in his vest and walks over to a large object, positioned in the room to catch the morning light. Currently, is is covered in a dark velvet cover. He released some ties and pulls the cover off of the object to reveal and large, strangely shaped mirror. It looks like a teardrop, turned upside down and made of the finest, clearest glass you have ever scene. It isn't over large, the mirror itself may only be two feet top to bottom, but it rests within a large, if rather plain frame. The mirror isn't plain though. It seems to shine from within with Helios' own light. "Now we'll only get the one chance at this, so I'll need my journal and ledger. A Shard of Helios can only be used once per day."
The raven does not want to be any less, though! He, TOO, has a shard which he then speaks out aloud, "I TOO have a shard!" And to this he manifests his sliver of helios from his .. wing? His beak just sort of pokes into the feathers, to then pull out one of those lamplight fetishes, "See?" he waves his beak about a bit. He then puts the sliver away, seeming to just have been wanting to show it off a bit, "Journal and ledger. Right, right. And where are those?"
Together, Jase and Raven open drawers and pull from shelves, gathering journals and ledgers and opening them on a side table near the mirror. As Jase flips through the ledger, Common would see a list of dates, times, names and what looks like some kind of coded script. Corax markings! Yes, but instead of made with talons they are made with ink. The ledger seems to be a list of objects... you'd guess stolen, from different people at different times over the years.
Feather-Picks-the-Lock seems to keep very detailed records of what he has done, as well as who he has done them to.
Gathering journals and ledges would be difficult for the little bird, but he can flip them open somewhat well with his beak and look at the scribblings while Jase finds another ledger! Poor bird is lacking opposable thumbs, "See, now is the part in this where I tell you about how it would have been faster to find what we were looking for if you had, once we find what we were looking for, included it in the story so that the future .. past .. other me would know already and we would not have to look." he pauses, "On the other hand, I am sure we will run into something up ahead that will make me go the opposite to what I just said."
Jase hrms as he searches, "I've been considering that very question. Why would I not have been more clear? I haven't come to many conclusions but the ones I HAVE come to are either A) When I wrote the letter, I no longer knew that information," he shudders at the thought of secrets or memories lost, "or B) I didn't want there to be a chance that information would be intercepted and thus interfere with you getting here. There are some occult beliefs that ascribe the idea that 'saying the name of a thing' draws the attention of said thing."
Swift Wing (Yes, referring to him as that from now on as well!), who would have left the mans shoulder to stand upon a table instead, has his eyes going all over the place, head tilting this and that way, "What are we looking for?" he wonders, peering about, "Ledges and journals abound, but I am not sure what to look for."
"I have a confession to make Swing Wing," Jase says in a serious tone as he flips through the journal, "I wasn't just a thief in my youth. I continue to be a thief, and what I... acquire, have certain qualities in common." He hrms and pinches his lip as he makes a notation on a piece of paper, "They are objects or... other things... that are sacred to the many peoples of Gaia. Fetishes, mostly, recovered from people who would use them for foul purposes. Those who serve the Wyrm for instance." So that means I have taken things from a number of.... very bad individuals."
"Thief?" Swift Wing wonders, "Thief?" he repeats, "What is Thief? I do not know this word Thief. I would never hold to such strange words. That is not something that even exists." Well, of course he knows what a Thief is and what acquiring means in this instance. He just choses to ignore it because, frankly, he's born a bird. He's not even in the Five Finger Discount department as a bird. He's in the 'take it and fly the hell away' department, and never looking back! "You are still not telling me what we are looking for!" Because the man just told the poor raven he most likely has a stash of tainted fetishes laying around somewhere and that is a mess in and off itself!
"Right, I'm sorry, it's been a long night and might thoughts get a little muddled when I'm tired." He pauses with the ledger and picks up the journal. "Some of these people were the of the mundane sort. Rich collectors who want a show piece. Or maybe they were academics who stumbled upon a Bastet fetish while exploring Aztec ruins and mistook it for a relic. But some of these people, had nefarious intentions. Over the years, I discovered that a number of these people were part of a... society... spread across the continent and abroad. They call themselves the 'Enlightened Society of the Weeping Moon'. They are heretics of the worst order, and I believe, willing servants to the Wyrm."
"Well, even big business have to start from some silly organisation with a weird name!" The raven says to this in what might be a very obscure reference to the future big business that serve the Wyrm in all its forms and names, "So, we are looking fooooor.." the bird ventures.
Jase flips through the pages of the journal, "I can only use the mirror once per day. And I can't look at anyone I've ever stolen from at once. So I'm looking someone who maybe I have stolen something POWERFUL from, or someone POWERFUL that I have stolen from, or someone who I have stolen from on multiple occassions. Narrowing down the list. And then we find them and see what they are up to. If they are in Prospect, for instance, we can be pretty sure that they are an immediate threat."
The raven, Swift Wing, falls silent to this. He clicks his beak a few times before he leans his head down to drag it back and forth along the edge of the table. He then sort of knocks on the table with his beak before he lifts his head back up, looking at Jase, "Well, I have a very good memory." he says, "I can help you pour over all these books. But if I do this, you will have to promise me to never.. ever.. tell anyone.. ever.. what so ever.. that you saw me do this. Deal?"
The request is enough to make Jase pause. A Corax, asking another Corax to keep a secret? Secret's aren't meant to be kept. Then again, Jase seems to be just the kind to keep secrets, now isn't he. "Very well. Deal."
To this, the large black bird spreads his wings and then .. takes a step forward. It looks as if he might take flight, but he instead sort of steps off from the table entirely and, as he does, turns into a human. Wings melt into his body and makes way for fabric and clothing. Feet gets shoed. Beak turns into nose and mouth and chin. Hair sprouts on his head. Then he takes a breath, standing very straight and stoically, "Well then." he says, holding himself with a very .. strict and regal sort of posture, "Shall we begin?" he wonders, his dark and almost black eyes staring around the place.
Jase smiles, corvid Corax are so odd sometimes. He gives a little twitch of the head, a subtle nuance belies Jase's own nature. "Very well." He hands Swift Wing the ledger. "I'll go through the journal. Easier for me to thumb past things that are irrelevant. If I find a particular juicy bit, I'll have you look up that day on the ledger and see who I've offended on that day and to what result. Meanwhile, you check the ledger for names that recur often. I don't expect you to be able to decipher the value of some of the objects. They are all priceless to someone. Worthless to most others. Eventually we will come up with someone that matches all our criteria and we will have a look and see what they are up to today."
Royan lifts his right hand slowly, letting out a light sigh. He wiggles his fingers in the air a bit, "Hm." he says then, bringing the hand closer to his face as if inspecting a nail, "Certainly has been a while." he says, eyes then going to Jase, "Ah, yes. Journals. Ledgers." he takes the offered Ledger to which he begins to pour over the records.
The two Corax pour over the journal and the ledger for at least an hour, going back and forth with tidbits of information. Sometimes, Jase reads you entries from his journal about a particularly fun or difficult adventure. In the meantime, you confirm that many of these objects are indeed, fetishes from different garou or fera people. Some of them you have heard of before, some you have never heard of before. Some of them have actual names and some just descriptions. Then you notice that in some of the entries, the names written are not of objects.... but people. And one name keeps coming up as the person stolen from. A Mr. Lloyd Fairweather.
Well, at least the name was not something -too- obvious like.. Stormy McStormFace! That would have been weird!
Royan eyes the ledgers, listening with both ears to the stories Jase tells him, but always keeping his eyes on the ledgers and the journals as he pours over the details there. It is names and places that he mostly tries to commit to memory. Each puzzle has a common thread to follow, and in this case that would be that common thread, "Well, I believe we have our name then." he says, once the name has been localised, "At least in so far as this lead goes." he puts the latest ledger down on the table, standing up straight in a very rigid and sort of striking posture, of sorts. Corvid born really are odd! It is like he was trying to present himself as extra noteworthy now that he has no feathers to show off.
Jase sighs tiredly, "Indeed, and he is the worst of them. I should have come to his name first. But there is so much to remember and so many of them are vile. So... shall we?" He leads Swift Wing over to the mirror and clears some space. "This mirror will allow us to see anyone, anywhere in the world, whose Helios' rays shine upon. It is a longshot, but the entire continent is now bathed in His light. If our quarry can be see, we shall be able to see them here." He takes a proud posture, perhaps inspired a bit by Swift Wing's noteworthiness. He speaks the name, "Lloyd Faireweather," and the mirror begins to glow. The reflection of the two handsome and dashing and dare I say rakish homid Corax fades away and the images seems to tilt as if looking up into the sun. The rooms becomes unbearably bright, or would be to those who did not have Helios' own blessing. Royan turns slowly to look at the mirror, and for a few moments he just stares at himself. Once more he lifts his right hand, taking a look at it before he lowers it once more. Fetching fellow! He waits then for the mirror to show them .. or not .. what they want to see. As he waits, he moves one hand to rest behind him at his lower back, the other sort of resting with his thumb in the belthook of his pants.
Eventually the image would arc back down, no longer are you looking into the sun, but arcing down, as if a bird in flight, coming down upon it's quarry as they are blinded by Helios' rays. The glow gets dimmer and dimmer as the image leaves behind sunny streets and rooftops and searches for rays that pierce windows and doorways. Finally, the image settles on a large dim room. It looks like some kind of warehouse, or maybe storage room. The shelves are lines with peculiar objects and oddities. Some of them are kept in boxes, other in glass jars. Some seem to have body parts or small animals floating in liquids to preserve them. To one side of the room is a tall thin man in a red coat, not unlike a hunting jacket seen on those fox hunting paintings. His hair is bone white and perfectly coifed under a fancy hat. He carries a cane and a pair of white gloves.
Other people are with him. One seems to be a well dressed, brawny man who looks to be some kind of bodyguard. Two other men look to be of the working man variety. They have a pry bar and are working on opening a large wooden crate.
While the mirror shows them this, Royan stands very still. He is looking closely at what he sees, but seems to be leaning forward juuust a bit, as if he can't quite accept that his human eyes are -this- weak. So very weak.
The crate falls open, one side banging against the floor. There is no sound. The light does not hear, only sees. When the dust settles, the men reach into the crate and pull out two small children. A boy, dark haired and dull green eyed who looks to be about the age of 10 - 12 at the oldest. Then a girl, raven black tresses and bright, intelligence eyes that always seem to be looking this way and that. Both are dirty and scruffy. They cling to each other in fear.
Royan tilts his head a bit to the side, to then slowly turn his eyes to Jase, "It would seem your Mr Fairweather is not just into collecting powerful Fetishes and objects." he comments, "It would seem he has something even worse planned." he points, "Does this man live far?" he wonders, "We could sick our Garou troops on them, but I fear they might not make it fast enough. Unless we get there faster as the Raven flies.. one runs interference, the other tries for the kids." he pauses, "Well, you know this man better than I, him and where he lives."
Jase's face turns a rather unpleasant shade of red and an anger comes over his expression rather unlike a gentleman Corax. It rather reminds Swift Wing of the rage he has felt when he follows the Get of Fenris into battle. He steps forward and grips the side of the mirror as if he might try and go through it, which unfortunately, is impossible. One doesn't just step through a mirror to another place any more than one would step through a clock to go...nevermind. It doesn't work that way.
Almost as if that rage is a palpable thing that can be felt, the image of the man turns and looks toward the mirror and smiles. He is younger than you might expect. Old, but not ancient. Older than Jase certainly and Jase is... older than any of the shifters you know at least. He waves a hand to his brawny companion and the may unscrews a vial. As he does, shadows crawl from the vial and scamper up the wall towards the windows, erasing the light and preventing the mirror from seeing anything further.
The image gone, Jase just stands there for a moment, gathering himself. He purposefully lefts go of the mirror lest he accidently break it. "I could not tell where in the world he is in that time we had. His home is on the other side of the continent, but he could be anywhere. His agents are everywhere."
It is strange, really. He should feel Rage. He should feel anger. He should feel .. something! But while he rode into battle with the Frostbite, that was for him present day and time! In his brain, in his tiny little bird brain, this is the past! Jase, his children and the kids in the mirror. The past! But, it is also the present! The preasent? The pasnt?! The.. well, its too much for his brain to comprehend! Too much of his mind thinking about to let his rage boil. He does nod once to Jase, though, "Well. Even so, the others have to know. I suppose we are here to help stop whatever it is that has to be stopped. And if this Fairweather is part of it, then we stop him." he takes a breath, "Now, if you will .. excuse me." he moves up to the table and then lifts his right leg up. He puts his food on the edge of it to then -step- up. But as he does that, his body shrinks fully into the bird for once more.
Jase rubs the bridge of his nose. "Yes, of course. You should rest. I should rest. We will tell your friends what we have found when we all are rested. Dinner tonight. Will you dine with us? I can at least find you a shiny perch to be at the table with us."
The raven spreads his wings a bit, flexing them some as he looks about the room they are in. This is so much better. Real eyes again! A real beak! Real wings! Being human is such a chore! He looks to the man then and begins to chitter away in the Corax tongue, "-I will rest a bit then I will join you all for dinner. It would not be seemly for me to miss such a thing. My trusty soldiers among the Frostbite would expect me to be there.-"
"Good day to you then cousin, and sweet dreams," Jase says, "May the light of Helios shine upon you whilst you sleep."
