Prisoners of Gravitas
Log Info
- Title: Prisoners of Gravitas
- Emitter: Ashes
- Characters: Ashes, Elyanna, Mikilos, Jinks
- Place: A01: Jail Cells
- Time: Monday, September 05, 2022, 9:06 PM
- Summary: Ashes and Elyanna are spending their days in jail, as they have been, when Mikilos comes by to pay a fine for a permit. He stops to ask what crime they've committed, and the reassure him, it's protective custody for their own good. Jinks arrives, bailing out a scion of a noble house, and they all discuss jailhouse musicals. Jinks is able to go into great detail regarding the various Myrrish sub-categories. Ashes comes to the conclusion that she might be using the jail as an escape from Alexandria affairs, or a personal one, and the hobkins consider taking a day out, despite the risk.
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--<* A01: Jail Cells *>=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-
The cells at the Watch are often often full with various people: the usual, returning drunks, the occasional shifty halfling, and then a few Korites who appear to have a rotating door policy. One cell in particular is labeled, 'Sandy.' Visitors may stand outside the cells to speak, while being overseen by an officer.
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-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ashes 5'11" 177 Lb Hobgoblin Female A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face. Elyanna 5'11" 153 Lb Half-Orc Female A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. Mikilos 6'8" 180 Lb Dawn Elf Male Tall male dawn elf, rosey blonde and handsome. Jinks 3'4" 39 Lb Gnome Male A gnomish fellow in fancy garb and jewelry. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
A few cells are well on their way to getting new name plaques. The current hobkin occupants have been here for some time.
Ashlee has settled in to waiting. She has a bed, a desk, and a chair. Her armour is occupying the chair, the pieces folded, stack, resting on each other and the back. Her boots are lined up in front of it. They are arranged in a military fashion for swift donning, with 'swift' being relative. Her khopesh and umbrella are propped in the corner, her ancient satchel at the foot of the bed.
The mourner herself is sitting on the bed, wearing a long sleeping shirt. Her familiars and friends are arrayed around her, with Chippen in her lap being slowly stroked. Her eyes are fixed on the far wall. She's memorized the bricks. She blinks occasionally.
"I -did- file the appropriate survey forms. You being unable to find them speaks more of this offices' lack of organizational skills than my willingness to fill out paperwork."
"....be that as it may sir, the situation is still that you undertook construction efforts without the proper permit on file. Now you can pay the seven silver processing fee, or you can wait for a court hearing to be-"
"Here, take the money, keep the change, and maybe hire a clerk to organize some of this mess."
"...very good sir. One moment while I fill out your permit."
Mikilos sighs, rubbing absently at his temple while peering back at the cells. Sandy doesn't appear in today, who else is around? Wait, is that...?
"What did you do to deserve private lodging?" the elf inquires, curious and amused.
Similarly occupying the halls of justice's storage space, the Keeper has, somehow, managed not to wear a rut in the floor of her 'quarters' for her caged tigress pacing.
Somewhat mollified by the return of her arms, particularly her ominous companion, Maidenhead, the red woman now finds herself traversing the halls to visit her friend.
And her gentleman caller, one of brief, if significant acquaintance to she, herself.
"Greetings." she intones politely not far from the Master Mage's side, several paces or so at most.
"Oh. Hello Mikilos." The Mourner looks over towards the door. She doesn't blink. "We uncovered a conspiracy, but it hasn't been dismantled yet."
Her hand slowly glides over her centipede. "You can come in if you like. Hi Elyanna."
"We met a mermaid."
Mikilos glances to the file clerk, who isn't likely to be finished anytime soon, and shrugs, stepping into the cell and moving to the side to allow Elyanna room. "Few too many conspiracy's around. What's this one about?" The wizard quirks a brow. "A mermaid?"
A bow of the head as he accedes the space to her, and the red woman steps gracefully into the Mourner's chamber, "Hello, Ashlee." <goblin-talk>
Taking up a spot somewhere between the two, with enough angle not to lose sight of either, she folds her arms loosely and chimes in, "Murder for wealth, primarily."
With the mage's second question, the hobkin nods, "A gifted healer, as it turns out. One who had run afoul of a villain in the sewers."
"Illiria. We rescued her from the Fish Butcher." Ashes explains in monotone, her hand rhythmically moving along Chippen's back. Carbuncle, the white lizard, hangs from her left ear. Dunny, her barn owl, is on her right shoulder and Minnie the mouse, her left, slightly away from the lizard's tail.
"You were at the execution." The Mourner gazes at the Mage, "One of the Twin Sisters. An Illithid's Apprentice is behind it."
She lets that sink in, then adds, "It sounds like a musical but it isn't."
Mikilos blinks slowly. "I can usually follow an opera's plot. They might be unreasonable, but can follow. This... this has more players and twists than I'm sure can keep up with. So is the illithid involved, or just the apprentice?"
"A musical what?" the hobkin inquires of her friend, an eyebrow arched Ashes's way.
"This city has very lively sewers." she asides toward Mikilos, though upon his question, she returns, "The illithid has been...." what's a proper Trade word... "Extinguished. The Fieu of the Tears would spare no more clemency. Best she is unsung, and forgotten."
A shrug causes her raven feather cloak to rise and fall, then, "The apprentice is the knife, a local noble is the hand on her hilt."
"Ella's testimony against Delilah was compelled by kidnapping her child, Alvin." Ashlee states, her strokes remaining constant. "We had to die, and almost die again, to unravel the plot."
"The apprentice, Veren, is an assassin and sent assassins after us. Protective custody was recommended. Norrington." There's a hint of inflection on the Knight-Commander's name, not a favourable one. "We're waiting for Merek to return."
She glances at her weapons and armour, "We were asked to be ready to help with the Wights, but they never called us out. It's been a long wait."
"A musical is like when prisoners sing, but without prisoners."
Mikilos snorts softly and smiles, nodding to Elyanna. "I am quite aware. Sometimes think the sewers have a greater population than the upper streets." He smiles, nodding to Ashes. "Some musicals have prisoners, like the Myrrish classic, 'The Miserable', but yes, a complicated plot with way more pieces than is reasonable. Less work to just earn money honestly than to get all this set up."
The din of the lodge spills into the cells, swaddling a fancy (if somewhat disheveled) Jinks and the gnome's surly Khazadi escort before it's squelched by the portal's closing.
"-- and so the writ of clemency was obviously the least she could do," explains the bard as he combs his fingers back through his long, loose hair. His glance askance is repeated when he sorts out a few recognized faces and his free hand finger-wiggles a wave. He maintains course, however, as he's led along to one of the larger, general population holdings. "It might not be the most lauded profession... but where would he be without it?" The addition is punctuated with the widest of winningest smiles. The dwarf answers with a deepening frown and inarticulate grunt.
The pair stop outside the cell with the guard waving back prisoners with a reinforced baton, the bard standing on tip-toe, and both searching the thin crowd and shadows. "Ah," Jinks announces, giving the Khazad a light backhand and pointing out a small form. "Riccidizad-- Ricci? You're off the hook; Coyote laughs with you tonight..."
The guard grumbles something and his keys jangle as they come off his belt.
There comes another shrug, and, "There is a tendency toward the overly complex when it comes to ambition, here, I have noticed." Elyanna observes.
Arching a brow anew, she swings her attention back toward Ashes, "I... may need to see this." she concedes, before Mikilos has it returned to him, "Miserable musical prisoners?"
It's entirely possible certain aspects of her occupation are making it hard for the Keeper to step back from certain details to grasp this larger concept.
Her thoughts, however, may have just sidetracked, if the sidelong glance on sound of the jangling keys means anything.
"I'm not a sewer witch either." Ashlee emphasizes, having experienced too much of them. The noise in the corridor draws her attention, and her skull-face turns to watch as Jinks and escort pass by.
"It's a date then." She nods to Elyanna, in answer to the musical question. Her gaze returns to the wall. The number of bricks have not changed, nor the nicks and scratches in them. Her hand continues to move along Chippen's back.
"There's not a lot of news." It's not a dead silence, there are the rowdy prisoners, the movement of the guards. Ashes checks the door, then her weapons. There was a reason they wanted them separated. She's vigilant. There's the almost-silence, and a need to say something to be 'social'.
That thing.
"I could tell some fortunes to pass the time."
Mikilos nods to Elyanna. "The opening scene is a chain gang singing their woes. The plot moves on to other people and their assorted problems, some unfortunate, some the product of their own nature. I find it very enjoyable, but opera isn't to everyone's tastes."
A return wave to Jinks, idly curious, before turning focus back to Ashlee. "Was a caravan just yesterday with a soothsayer reading fortunes. Not sure if was powerful, well informed, or just good at making general predictions sound personalized."
The prisoner release is sorted in short order. The Khazadi guard pulls the lead-footed youth from the cell and re-locks the door. Hard grey eyes glance between the two gnomes before he turns and stomps his way back towards the larger room of the watch house.
Jinks and the young man have a quick and quiet talk, the bard all smiles. The younger man appears to be a fishmonger, white-apron'd and decorated with shiny smeared scales and spatters of old blood. Perhaps a fishmonger's apprentice: his eyebrows have yet to fill in and his face is spotted in addition to an awkward length to his wiry arms.
"-- and she worries about you," Jinks concludes, raising his voice for emphasis as he pokes Ricci's sternum. The bard hands over a small purse and a letter before he cants his head to send the freshly-released working man off.
"This sounds.... curious." Elyanna notes to Mikilos after Ashes makes plans, "I expected basking in lamentation to be..." a furtive look to her friend and spiritual advisor, "frowned upon, here."
At least publicly.
Ashes once again owns her attntion with the offer of telling fortunes, though she isn't entirely sure what she thinks of them.
Of the activity happening outside the Mourner's accommodations, she comments, "Things seem livelier here, today as well."
"I haven't used my cards in a long time. The fortunes were always dark." Reading for adventurers might do that. Ashlee raises her head slightly, her voice remains monotone, but Chippen runs up her arm as she speaks, climbing onto her head. "I can make the bad ones come true, too."
Witches are good at that.
The prisoner release draws her attention for the moment. Goblinoid ears easily pick up the conversation, goblinoid eyes are attracted to things like scales and blood.
"It must have been a celebration weekend." Ashes speculates, reaching for her satchel. "Everything is frowned upon here."
Mikilos chuckles, nodding to Elyanna. "Well, the plot develops with the eventual triumph of the good, the virtue of liberty, and the unstoppable power of young love. More bittersweet then most musicals, but that's part of what makes it popular. That and the symphony chorus." He smiles to Ashes. "Downside of a diverse population. Can always find someone who disapproves of whatever you're doing."
"... even when you're the most-innocent man ever to draw breath on Ea," agrees Jinks as he sidles up behind Mikilos and steps to one side of the elf. Mischievous eyes of solid black bounce between Ashes and Elyanna as he pulls open his dark green coat and rests a forearm against his capped quiver. "Not that I'd imply to be that man..."
The gnome pauses a moment as if to prompt someone's disagreement, his smile growing in the brief silence. "Anyway.
"Coyote laughs, tallmen. Are we at war with Blar?" He asks this as he leans back, turning his head this way and that as if to look for additional incarcerated goblinoids. Then he looks back with an eyebrow quirked. Closer inspection reveals the gnome has an extra flush to his cheeks, a shirt almost entirely unbuttoned, and the strong smell of a distillery. There's an almost imperceptible sway to his stance, too, as if he's just come ashore.
"Do you need a solicitor, Ashlee? A palm greased? I'd assume the affirmative if you didn't look so... comfortable." His eyes bounce over the cell's contents.
Elyanna \The Keeper nods, considering the reurns on that score, then, "They do not sing, here." she notes with a shrug.
Maybe it's a Myr thing.
As the other singer from their... troubling errand of weeks past arrives the red woman nods his way with a polite, "Hello again." before his query prompts a level, "Not that we have been made are of. The guard have.... concerns."
Ashlee looks around the room, noting the few furnishings, returning her gaze to Jinks. "It's Fine. It's not the catacombs. Chippen crawls all night so he feels like a lot more vermin."
She might be joking. It's hard to tell when everything she says is monotone. "Sometimes I summon a swarm of vermin."
Really hard to tell.
"Protective Custody. We're waiting for some others to return." She explains, "thanks."
"Oh." She looks directly at Mikilos, "the vulture cape works well."
Dunny turns his head around to peer through the arvek's hair at Jinks, "WhooOoooo?"
"Jinks."
"WhooOoooOooo?"
Mikilos sighs. "No war with Blar, just trouble with the nobles. Well, certain nobles, and the apprentice of an illithid, apparently. More plot twists than an opera, which is how we got on that topic, by the way." He nods to Ashlee. "Glad it's working out. If you ever have a problem with it, let me know, will do what I can." A lifetime guarantee carries a bit of weight coming from an elf.
"People like to say things are for your own good when they're acting in their own self-interest," opines the bard on the topic of protective custody. A thought occurs and he half-turns, looks over his shoulder, shrugs, and turns back. Maybe it was just to hide the subtle shiver at the thought of vermin swarms.
The smile he gives Elyanna is thin and does little to mask the dark expression that ages his face for a heartbeat. Another shrug and the laissez faire air of mild amusement returns.
"'The guards have concerns.' Hah. So they do-- then again they're paid by the trouble and so it's in their interest.
"... like musicians and operas," he adds with a nod up to Mikilos. "Or nobility and their estranged heirs..."
The red woman nods, "The swarms are very effective." with a little smile toward Ashes. Ok, there's a wry tinge in the expression.
"In Bludgun, we did not have such things." she notes to Mikilos, "The lamentous singing of a prisoner chanced confiscation."
Seeing the smile of the gnome turned her way, the von Diesel scion nods and returns one of her own in kind, "This one touches upon their family by marriage, and perhaps their issue yet unborn."
Ashlee listens, sitting still for the most part, turning just her head to face whomever is speaking. Her gaze drifts back to Jinks. She stares.
It is an unsettling gaze, dark pupils in the darker eye-sockets of the skull that marks her face. A penetrating one, reading the small cues available to witches or perhaps whispered by ghosts. She's familiar with being haunted, and there are some things about the glittery gnome that remind her of another.
"I should make you a rebirthday cupcake." She says randomly, and rolls her shoulders. "We could leave. No one seemed to need us for anything."
And as an arvek nar who doesn't like to be told what to do, that's likely why.
Mikilos nods, considering. "I doubt Myrrish prisoners actually sing, not in multi-part harmory anyway. Prisoners in Llyranost sang, but usually hymns for forgiveness."
"It's a nice thought... but which to choose? Your Harpist, unfortunately, has good tastes and calls me to Her halls far more often than I'd like." Jinks waves off Ashes' offer with a wink. "I'd rather celebrate the days furthest from death than those closer-to."
Then, Mikilos earns a skeptical look and a shake of the head. "'The Myrrish' is far too broad a term. The Holy See has hymnaries full of their own repentant refrains. Isobar, their chained gang work songs. The people of Selentia sing to celebrate their escapes from consequence or belt tongue-in-cheek exultation that mock their 'betters...'" A jeweled hand comes up to wave circles through the air as if to say 'and so on, and so on.'
"Is that your real reason for being here?" The gnome wonders, turning back to Elyanna and smirking. "A literal prison to escape the figurative one of marriage?" There's a bit of laughter and a quick "(kidding)" added for clarity.
"Her cakes a very tasty." Elyanna returns to Jinks' declination of rebirthday confections, then looks to Mikilos as he notes other lamentative outpourings.
Hmm.
Jinks' expansions supplant that then, and she takes all that in before the marriage quip briefly derails her.
A blink. Two, then, "There are no prospects in that regard."
Another beat, then, "Is it yours?"
Oh... is that the real reason? The Mourner blinks slowly, fixating on a stone. Chippen, stirs and circles her head, settling down as an insect tiara, massaging her scalp with many tiny feet. Dunny senses a subtle change, and warbles, "WhooOooOo?"
An appropriate question, one Ashlee hasn't resolved since her various epiphanies. Dying, does give one perspective, especially when the grey halls seem more alive than the living ones. As was the revelation that while the Goddess of Death doesn't moonlight as the one of love, she is willing to allow a conjugal weekend or two. This quite clashed with Ashlee's career plans, which were to spin out her days until she achieved Crone status and then hopefully graduate to some form of servant on the other side, like Tessa.
Feelings and a romantic entanglement were not things she was expecting to deal with, any more. After the abysmal results with her first crush, finding herself on the other end of a similarly confused, unrequited relationship threw her for a loop. She's not even sure what she's not sure about. She likes dead people. They're very predictable.
The living... much more complicated.
A cell where visitors are discouraged provides a security against having to act like a normal person. She notes it has been several breaths since anyone said anything.
"I made one for each of Merek's. My cupcakes are really good." To die for.
"I was doing a favor for a friend who can't be seen amongst the dregs," Jinks answers Elyanna. There's a thumb tossed over his shoulder to indicate the larger cell. "No one would be surprised to find me here; people have ideas." The gnome leans on the word 'ideas' like an octogenarian resting at the top of a flight of stairs.
"Though it wouldn't be unheard of to need an escape or respite. One might expect it were your mistress to be hateful and cruel and prone to lashing out in anger..." The bard shrugs as he ventures down the path of hypotheticals and rubs a half-exposed bruise at his breast. "What a terrible existence that would be-- even if it were a hell of your own making," he supposes flippantly as he laughs through a lopsided smile.
"Liquid diet, Mourner Ashlee," counters the bard. He produces a flask seemingly from thin air and shakes it indicatively at the witch. When it tinkles hollowly, the gnome frowns deeply. "... and I appear to need a top-up. Coyote laughs, tallmen."
There's a wave with the decorative tin container and he heads for the free world beyond the cell block's threshold.
"As a Mistress...." Elyanna begins with a shrug, "Those are to be expected." she observes matter of factly.
She does nod, however, to the gnome's stated goals, "You are a good friend, then."
She clams up at the last, though her attention turns toward the others in turns for their reactions, then back to see the gnome departing, and so offers a polite, "Good evening."
Mikilos perks an ear has his name is called, the all but forgotten clerk finally fished with the paperwork. Saying farewells, the wizard makes his way out, and back to fixing his driveway.
"Okay." Ashlee says, as Jinks and then Mikilos depart, leaving her alone to stare at the wall and Elyanna. Or perhaps she is the wall Elyanna might stare at, though her long time partner in crime knows the chinks, nooks and holes in that particular barrier.
The Mourner's thoughts drift towards a drink version of her cupcake, something that tastes like death warmed over that makes one feel like death warmed over, with a heavy does of sugar on top to provide just the right sort of headache later. A few options come to mind. Maybe it could be on fire. Something to drink quickly before it explodes.
Now that's thinking like a goblinoid.
Her head turns, she stares at Elyanna. "Maybe... we should go out... tomorrow."
