Low Estate/Turns/Turn 10
- Aernoud van Nevel (josh_g): forest wanderer — FATE ▢▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
- Antheunis Opgieten (lpsmith): slippery urchin — FATE ▢▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
- Boudin Verdonk (maga): bravo and expeditor — FATE ▢▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
- Mattius Rothmann (Fang): brutish warmage — FATE ▢▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
- Willem de Vos (Jota): student magician — FATE ▣▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
- Lazer Dennis (Rob): manic-depressive man out of time — FATE ▢▢▢▢▢ • Stress ▢▢▢ • Consequences unused (2), unused (4), unused (6)
Inside Maldeghem's Headquarters
Boudin continues to spin out the conversation, but even he can't keep it going forever, and Maldeghem is starting to look as though it's time for him to get back to business.
As they're talking, Willem is trying to get a handle on the sensation that's coming over him. It's clearly a magical emanation of some kind, but what? And from where? [With his roll, he can ask three specific questions about the emanation, its source, its target, etc]
- Where is it coming from? (i.e., the physical location)
- Who is behind it? (Even if Willem can't identify a specific person, he might still be able to get an idea of what kind of person they are or what their style of magic is like)
- What are they trying to do?
Willem's impression is that whoever's responsible for this is nearby, off in the back where Maldeghem went to talk to the artisan. [This isn't necessarily obvious to either Willem or Aernoud, but in the interests of reducing confusion I will mention that the study Aernoud was in isn't directly connected to the throne room, but rather there's a connecting corridor which has some other rooms off it.] Whoever's responsible isn't someone Willem has encountered before, but he can tell that they don't have an academic "feel" to their magic; it's much more similar to the few examples of witch-magic or cultist-magic he's seen. What they're trying to do seems to be some kind of unpleasant and thorough taking-the-measure-of magic -- like, maybe the sort of thing you would do as preliminary work to lay a curse on someone, or set a tracking demon on their trail.
Beside the Headquarters
There's a small cabinet in the study with him, and Aernoud rifles quickly through its drawers. Quill and ink, incense sticks, candles, multicolored chalks, a delicate clear glass sphere, and a scuffed piece of brass perhaps a foot long, inlaid with runes and marked at regular intervals like a ruler.
Aernoud picks up the brass ruler-like thing, intrigued. But as he's about to turn away he realizes that stealing something now might tip Maldeghem off, or otherwise escalate an already dangerous situation. Thinking quickly, he grabs a piece of paper and one of the darker shades of colored chalk and makes a rubbing of the ruler. He folds up the rubbing as carefully-but-quickly as he can, tucks it into a pocket, tidies the desk back up and then heads back out the window.
He decides what to take and exits through the window, back onto the crate outside and dropping to the ground again. Looking back towards the entrance of the headquarters, he can see the same artisan exiting and starting the walk across the courtyard.
Aernoud whistles softly to Flicker, who comes and lands on his shoulder. "See that woman? That one?" Flicker chirps knowingly. "Track her!" Flicker flies up out of notice, circling in a lazy orbit around the woman. (Using a Fate Point to unlock Tracker: Aernoud's pet has been taught to track other creatures or people, following them from the air and flying back and forth from the target to Aernoud.) Then Aernoud waits for an opportune time to rejoin Boudin and Willem in the courtyard without the transition being noticed.
As soon as he rejoins the group and is not likely to be overheard, Aernoud lets them know that he may be able to follow this artisan to whatever it is she's working on. He keeps an eye to the air to see where Flicker went, tags along quietly with the group until well out of sight of Maldeghem's lackeys, then whistles to signal to Flicker where he is and tries to follow it until he can get that artisan in sight again.
[Assuming the group manages to make a smooth exit from the complex,] Aernoud has no trouble following Flicker to the artisan's workshop. From there getting a name is pretty easy, and he makes a few other inquiries over the next few hours. It appears her name is Griet, and she's a master in the guild of carpenters (a small and loosely-affiliated guild, in this city of cloth). She has a small workshop with just one journeyman and two apprentices at the moment, and tends to do large specialty jobs (eg, she worked with Gertruda Alinckbroodt to build the launching structure for the fireworks, and did an ornate gazebo for Lady Clare De Wilde).
Courtyard
Meanwhile, Antheunis performs an impressive series of acrobatic feats and ends up outside the fence again, with the note plus loot from the guard's pocket. The note turns out to be an address -- later, when he shows it to the group, Willem recognizes it as a location somewhere near the university. The thing he grabbed from the guard's pocket turns out to be a heavy iron key on a key-ring, amazingly lifted without a tell-tale clank.
Afterwards
Once back at the orphanage, it seems time for people to show their discoveries, give their theories, and make future plans. "Ruud stopped by again while you were out," Sister Marianne says. "He said Maldeghem was getting impatient and wanted his money or his property -- I told him I didn't have it, and he said he'd be back."
"The University," is all that Lazer says. "I'm going there."
"That's not far from <the address on the note>," says Willem. "Since I was planning to head over to that part of town to investigate anyway, would you like me to show you around the University along the way?"
Antheunis says, 'Yeah, that'd be great. I was thinking that...' at that phrase, Antheunis sees a look of intense emotion suddenly cross Lazer's face. 'Uh, Lazer? You OK? Were... were *you* thinking something? What were you thinking?'
Aernoud pulls out and carefully unfolds the rubbing of the ruler-thing he made. "I found a strange brass object in Maldeghem's study, so I made a quick image of it. Willem, can you make sense of it? Is this anything useful?"
