epidemiology | PLAYER PLOT ★ STORM THE CASTLE

THE CASTLE ( NOV 7 )

Our resident warrior princess, Kidagakash Nedakh, has formulated a plan to investigate the castle and speak with the royals. (The OOC plotting post can be found here.) Now, it's time to put it into action.

The castle itself is huge. From the outside, you can see a beautiful garden, a pond, and a statue commemorating Odette. You can also see several guards, some more invested in their job than others. A few are stony-faced, menacing men with looks that could kill. A couple just look like they'd appreciate a pretty girl or interesting guy to liven up their boring day.

On the inside, all the halls look different, yet the same — different pieces of art, different wall fixtures, but everything else is identical. There's many portraits of the king and his late wife on the walls, sparkling chandeliers, and servants scurrying around. Odette's pale, smiling face and cascading blonde locks look somewhat familiar, but that might just be because of all the statues of her likeness around the city.

The castle has pretty much every room you'd expect a castle to have. A library, a wine cellar, a dining hall, etc. Within them, characters can expect to find various things of interest — there are many books, fancy stationery, even some valuable coins if you look hard enough. There's also many letters to be found detailing the situation in Chantes; of course, there's also plenty of letters on far less official business. Some of them have quite steamy imagery.

There are plenty of servants milling about inside the castle and out in the gardens. In the dining hall and their chambers are several of Chantes' most important nobles. And then, of course, there's you.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

( nothing multiplied by two is a little discouraging. Graham is starting to wonder if he's passed over something that might have helped, and just didn't know well enough to notice it. there seem so many unanswered questions in what is going on here. )

This seems as good a place as any.

( he'll keep working at the desk in relative silence until he finds something or, alternatively, finds nothing, and chooses to move on. )

[Two heads is generally better than one, though only if they're in alignment with each other. She has an idea of what she wants to find, but maybe she's looking at things from the wrong viewpoint, too focused on searching for additional details on the current conflict between the humans and goblins to catch the bigger picture.

In the middle of her second book, she glances back over at him.]

What in particular are you searching for?

[Notes on current events, ancient historical articles, steamy love letters...?]

( he frowns over the bits and pieces he finds at the desk. paperwork, letters, scribblings. it's hard to focus on all of it, overflowing information that's hard to process all at once. it's a good question, what he's looking for. he's heard all sorts of things since he's arrived. whispers about the fight, the missing sun, the hostilties. what exactly is he looking for? )

There's... missing people. They might be sacrifices. I keep hoping I'll find something on them.

( so far, no luck, but he's hopeful. those missing people, he relates and connects to them most, for some reason. even he can barely explain why. )

[She pauses in the midst of sliding a second book out of its neat spot on the bookshelf. That's right, there are people missing, aren't there? This entire affair in Chantes has spiralled into something large and looming, past the confines of her expertise. It would be so much easier if ALASTAIR could provide some sort of input or direction on even one thing - the sun going out, the mysterious disappearances, the queen's assassination from so much earlier.

But here they are, intruders digging through someone's private documents in hopes of finding some sort of lead that'll take them farther than they are now.]

I remember hearing about them from Loki. He said he was planning on looking into the possible sacrifices. [Though that's neither here nor there.] There might be some sort of census in this bookshelf, or in one of the nearby rooms. I'll see what I can find.

( she's not the only one a little overwhelmed by the scale of the problems they're meant to fix. Graham wants to believe the organization they're working for isn't a wholly despicable one, it just seems the scales are rather stacked against them. they use children for work instead of sending them back to their families, and they abandoned confused people in strange worlds with little communication or aide. what were they really after, here? there were a lot of questions, even more worries, and not too many answers.

hopefully this adventure of theirs would provide some. he wasn't done searching, anyway, even though he hadn't come up with much yet.

he manages a flicker of a smile of gratitude in her promise to keep an eye open. he couldn't quite say what about the missing people had drawn him so much compared to the other tales, but something about it had truly registered. it's not that he isn't looking for anything else. that's just what he's especially hoping to find.

finally after ruffling through the drawers, finally the familiar names crop up. it does seem to be a consensus or something like it, with names and birthdays listed. all banal information, and nothing that helps with the fact they're missing. ) There's a little information here. Might help if we want to question their families... ( he trails off. families, or parent. because, oddly, each of them only have one parent listed. that was a strange coincidence, wasn't it? )

[She revises her search based on the information provided, though to her chagrin the books contained on the shelf don't seem to contain anything of worth. A large number on basic economic theory, a few short works of fiction, one surprisingly explicit romance novel.....her eyebrows raise at one particularly descriptive turn of phrase before she carefully closes the thing and slides it back where it came from.

Good timing, since that's when her temporary partner in crime speaks up and she turns, attention fully focused on him.]

Families? [That's new.] Did you find a list of relatives or a genealogy of some sort?

Not sure. It's a list of nearest kin, best I can tell.

( not exactly the sort of list he'd make back home a sheriff, but things were a bit different in this place. not so much modern, that was for certain. still, he couldn't say what the list was for. why was this in here? their parents marked and compiled? surely there was a reason. )

They're like to notice if we take this. Might be able to use one of our devices to compile the names, if we're quick.

[Nearest kin? That sounds more useful in case of sudden deaths or other emergencies, not as a general record-keeping strategy. But she's never had to run a small city before or take care of large-scale administrative affairs. Perhaps this is simply how they do things here. In any case, recording those names down somewhere is an excellent idea.

She slides book #4 back onto the shelf before making her own way back to the open door.]

I'll keep watch if you'd like to get that done now.

[She doesn't anticipate anything arising in the next minute or so, but better to be safe than sorry.]

I appreciate it. I won't be long.

( he's not sure that the information will help them any, but those names are exactly what he's been looking for; it'd have felt wasteful not to pen them down, in the best way he could. )

[She lets him be, taking up a position in the doorframe where she can peer down the hallway in both directions. Empty so far, but if she strains her ears she can make out faint sounds in the distance. Footsteps maybe, or a ruckus from upstairs. Either way, it's not safe to dawdle long.

Once Graham's done with his copying, she's gesturing, suggesting they leave this particular room and head somewhere else. The castle has plenty of secrets, after all.]

PLAYER PLOT ★ STORM THE CASTLE

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i'm so sorry for the delay, it's been a hectic few days :c

same for me really! no worries.

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wrap here maybe?

sounds good!