Before the crack of dawn, even before most of Riverbend had roused itself awake, Evie was up. The first few days of forcing herself awake at this hour, her body and mind revolted, but eventually it relented. She had lost the discipline necessary to wake before the sun once, instead slipping out of sleep whenever she could sleep no more. Instead, she would lay in bed and let the day pass her back wasting her days in self pity. Regardless, she found it far more difficult to wake up without a drill instructor yelling in her face. She had to shove a number of tacks into her candle for them to jangle loud enough on the copper candle holder to wake her up.
It'd gotten easier. It was never easy but it had gotten easier. She didn't need as many tacks these days, and after the first fell, she dutifully rose and began to dress. As became part of her morning routine, after she dressed and slipped her pant legs into her boots, she slipped her estoc's sheath over her shoulder and stepped outside. She didn't plan to go far, and turned to stand in front of the broken table that leaned against her makeshift home. The bottom legs had broken off, and it was kind of charred from the riots, but it served her purposes. Evie drew her estoc and stood in front of the table, imagining an enemy. She proceeded to step through her stances, complete with parries and imaginary strikes, working through her whole repertoire more than once, until the sun began to rise over the horizon.
She had already developed a sweat when her practice was interrupted. "Miss Lafleur?" Evie turned toward the voice that addressed her, estoc resting on her shoulder. The man speaking was a city guard-- strange enough to see in Riverbend-- though he was a younger one. A rookie, if Evie had to guess. "I have a message from the Guard for you." Definitely a rookie. The guard pulled a letter out of his armor and offered to it, the seal of the city guard keeping it folded. After she accepted it and nodded her thanks, the guard took his leave.
Evie took a seat on her steps, her estoc leaning against her knees as she opened the letter and read. It was from the guard captain herself, and said that there had been a development concerning her uncle's case. That if she was curious or interested in following the lead, she should report to the guardhouse. It wasn't a difficult choice to make, and after about twenty minutes, she had donned her breastplate and a tunic over it, and was beginning to make her way in that direction.
Her path eventually led her to the said place, the Guardhouse. It was a stark and orderly contrast to the roughness of her own adopted neighborhood. After speaking to another guard and explaining everything, she was taken in and led toward the captain's office. As the door was opened for her, it seemed that she hadn't been the only one to receive a letter. Corvin, Vito, and Lia were waiting for her, but not for long if their posture was anything to go by. She gave them a small wave before turning toward the Captain. "I guess this means this is bigger than just my uncle then?"
The office was sparsely-appointed and immaculate, though there were enough chairs in it for all four of them to sit if they so desired. Vito and Corvin had availed themselves of the opportunity, and the former offered Evie a small smile before returning his attention to the woman on the other side of the plain desk.
If the signature on the letter was anything to go by, her name was Captain Ines Bernard. Dressed not so differently from Evie, she wore serviceable light ringmail with little to distinguish her rank save the subtle embroidered stripes on the high dark blue collar that showed beneath the layer of armor. Her hair was chopped to the exact level of her shoulders, an unremarkable chestnut color with the first few hints of grey barely visible in the mix. Her eyes were dark, assessing, and she gestured shortly at an empty chair before folding both hands beneath her chin.
"It was always bigger than Jean-Louis Lafleur. You discovered that yourselves, if I'm not mistaken." The Captain paused, taking a long draw from an opaque cup. It smelled of coffee, which correlated with the dark circles beneath her eyes.
"I won't bore you with details unless you want them, but the reason I asked you here is because we finally managed to track the "M" from his letters. Trouble is, he's holed up in a place the Guard can't reach."
Evie's back straightened as the captain spoke. She glanced at the other three collected in the room and then back to Ines before she spoke again, "I am curious, but the details can come later," Evie agreed, "Though, I guess the most important ones are where are they, and who they are?" Evie asked, brows raised.
"Who is still not entirely clear." The Guard-Captain set her coffee cup down with a long sigh. "M is apparently male, dark-haired, human, and entirely unremarkable, which I suppose is what you want to be when you're handing out orders to the lowest level of some sort of criminal organization." Ines, of course, didn't know nearly as much as the four of them knew about exactly what kind of criminal organization it really was, or who ran it.
"What I know a little better is where. He's rumored to be in a section of the Riverbend sewers. Problem is, the section is in the kind of neighborhood where the Guard isn't much welcome. Not the Alienage, but in the—" she paused, clearly searching for the right word. When she found it, her tone hardened. "—jurisdiction of a particularly difficult gang. They call themselves the Untouchables, which should give you some idea how they feel about city guards operating in their territory."
"And you're concerned that this gang is hiding M or something?" Corvin wore a puzzled expression, as though it didn't quite add together the right way in his head, but gave the Captain respectful silence in which to answer the question.
The captain shook her head, the ends of her hair brushing armored shoulders. "It's just the opposite problem: they're hunting him, too, and what they have in mind is not an arrest and a trial." She grimaced, then elaborated. "Kotter—not his real name, I'm sure—was moving that Ember you found out about. But not while knowing exactly what it would do. Petty crime lord he may be, but it's not in his interest for his customers to die or be that debilitated, and no doubt he was... unhappy to discover what the stuff did."
Vito blinked. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Captain, but why not just let them have him? Do you think he has some information that makes all the trouble worth it?" His tone was delicate, but it wasn't too hard to make out a bit of disbelief in it too, for some reason.
She sighed. "Honestly I have no idea. But he's the best lead we have, and so yes. I'm hoping we can get him first. I'd like to say something here about justice and fair chances, too, but I can't really claim the courts would do any better. Not always known for fairness, as you're probably aware."
"So I've heard," Corvin replied dryly. "So if I'm putting this all together right, you want us to see if we can figure out exactly where in the sewer he's holed up before they find him, and get him out alive for questioning?"
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. The posture didn't seem defensive, only thoughtful. "Is there anything more you can tell us about this gang?"
Captain Bernard hummed low in her throat, a contemplative sound. "The Untouchables are run by a dwarf named Kotter. As I said, probably not the name he was born with, but that hardly matters. We don't know much about his lieutenants save one. Human fellow—the others call him Bleeder. Rumor has it he's a blood mage, though no one's been able to confirm that." She wrinkled her nose, distaste for the possibility clear. "They're well-organized, and they operate in a cell structure: everyone knows what they need to know to get their work done, and no more. It means even if we can arrest one of them, we likely don't get anything but one or two more names or aliases. None of the low-level people know anything about the leaders or what they do exactly. I only know this much because I managed to plant a couple guards in the ranks, but the trouble is keeping them there."
"And is illicit alchemy their main business?" Vito rubbed at the edge of his beard, partway up his cheek.
"As far as we know. Of course, you have to commit a lot of other crimes to be successful at that. Smuggling, probably some extortion... we suspect them of a few murders, rivals that met a bad end, but I can't say it was certainly them without more evidence, so I won't."
"And what's the driving force behind the people going against the guard here?" Lia had been silent thus far, sitting straight-backed and somewhat ill at ease in her chair. She seemed more... rigid, perhaps, in this building than elsewhere that Evie had seen her. If she was making any effort to hide that, it wasn't working. "Are they afraid of retribution from the Untouchables if they help you?"
The guardswoman shook her head. "I don't think so. No doubt there's at least some of that, but for the most part..." She grimaced, pushing a breath out through her nose. "There's a lot of history bound up in this, and I doubt I need to tell you that the Guard itself hasn't always... cared. About certain areas of the city. Leave a place like that isolated for enough time, and someone else becomes the stabilizing force. Local law, if you like. The Untouchables are like that. Much as it pains me to say so, by and large their community looks to them for leadership. There's a loyalty there, and that's the real issue for us in terms of getting the information we need."
"So we can't expect much outside help if we find ourselves against the Untouchables," Evie noted, crossing her arms while shaking her head. Sounds like their best bet would to try and get in and get out as quickly as possible, though such plans rarely go so smoothly. "Regardless, it sounds like this is a time sensitive matter if they're looking for this M as well. Unless there's anything else we should know, we should probably get started then?" she asked the others for a confirmation.
"Let's." Vito lowered his hands to the arms of his chair and pushed himself out of it with perhaps a bit more vigor than was necessary. Touching his open hand to his chest, he inclined his head to the woman at the desk. "Thank you, Captain, for the information. I'm sure it's not... regular, for a relative to work on anything in connection with a case, nor..." He paused, glancing between Corvin, Lia, and himself. "Well, any of us, really."
Captain Bernard huffed softly through her nose. "If you get the job done, serah, I couldn't possibly care less. Good luck out there."
It'd gotten easier. It was never easy but it had gotten easier. She didn't need as many tacks these days, and after the first fell, she dutifully rose and began to dress. As became part of her morning routine, after she dressed and slipped her pant legs into her boots, she slipped her estoc's sheath over her shoulder and stepped outside. She didn't plan to go far, and turned to stand in front of the broken table that leaned against her makeshift home. The bottom legs had broken off, and it was kind of charred from the riots, but it served her purposes. Evie drew her estoc and stood in front of the table, imagining an enemy. She proceeded to step through her stances, complete with parries and imaginary strikes, working through her whole repertoire more than once, until the sun began to rise over the horizon.
She had already developed a sweat when her practice was interrupted. "Miss Lafleur?" Evie turned toward the voice that addressed her, estoc resting on her shoulder. The man speaking was a city guard-- strange enough to see in Riverbend-- though he was a younger one. A rookie, if Evie had to guess. "I have a message from the Guard for you." Definitely a rookie. The guard pulled a letter out of his armor and offered to it, the seal of the city guard keeping it folded. After she accepted it and nodded her thanks, the guard took his leave.
Evie took a seat on her steps, her estoc leaning against her knees as she opened the letter and read. It was from the guard captain herself, and said that there had been a development concerning her uncle's case. That if she was curious or interested in following the lead, she should report to the guardhouse. It wasn't a difficult choice to make, and after about twenty minutes, she had donned her breastplate and a tunic over it, and was beginning to make her way in that direction.
Her path eventually led her to the said place, the Guardhouse. It was a stark and orderly contrast to the roughness of her own adopted neighborhood. After speaking to another guard and explaining everything, she was taken in and led toward the captain's office. As the door was opened for her, it seemed that she hadn't been the only one to receive a letter. Corvin, Vito, and Lia were waiting for her, but not for long if their posture was anything to go by. She gave them a small wave before turning toward the Captain. "I guess this means this is bigger than just my uncle then?"
The office was sparsely-appointed and immaculate, though there were enough chairs in it for all four of them to sit if they so desired. Vito and Corvin had availed themselves of the opportunity, and the former offered Evie a small smile before returning his attention to the woman on the other side of the plain desk.
If the signature on the letter was anything to go by, her name was Captain Ines Bernard. Dressed not so differently from Evie, she wore serviceable light ringmail with little to distinguish her rank save the subtle embroidered stripes on the high dark blue collar that showed beneath the layer of armor. Her hair was chopped to the exact level of her shoulders, an unremarkable chestnut color with the first few hints of grey barely visible in the mix. Her eyes were dark, assessing, and she gestured shortly at an empty chair before folding both hands beneath her chin.
"It was always bigger than Jean-Louis Lafleur. You discovered that yourselves, if I'm not mistaken." The Captain paused, taking a long draw from an opaque cup. It smelled of coffee, which correlated with the dark circles beneath her eyes.
"I won't bore you with details unless you want them, but the reason I asked you here is because we finally managed to track the "M" from his letters. Trouble is, he's holed up in a place the Guard can't reach."
Evie's back straightened as the captain spoke. She glanced at the other three collected in the room and then back to Ines before she spoke again, "I am curious, but the details can come later," Evie agreed, "Though, I guess the most important ones are where are they, and who they are?" Evie asked, brows raised.
"Who is still not entirely clear." The Guard-Captain set her coffee cup down with a long sigh. "M is apparently male, dark-haired, human, and entirely unremarkable, which I suppose is what you want to be when you're handing out orders to the lowest level of some sort of criminal organization." Ines, of course, didn't know nearly as much as the four of them knew about exactly what kind of criminal organization it really was, or who ran it.
"What I know a little better is where. He's rumored to be in a section of the Riverbend sewers. Problem is, the section is in the kind of neighborhood where the Guard isn't much welcome. Not the Alienage, but in the—" she paused, clearly searching for the right word. When she found it, her tone hardened. "—jurisdiction of a particularly difficult gang. They call themselves the Untouchables, which should give you some idea how they feel about city guards operating in their territory."
"And you're concerned that this gang is hiding M or something?" Corvin wore a puzzled expression, as though it didn't quite add together the right way in his head, but gave the Captain respectful silence in which to answer the question.
The captain shook her head, the ends of her hair brushing armored shoulders. "It's just the opposite problem: they're hunting him, too, and what they have in mind is not an arrest and a trial." She grimaced, then elaborated. "Kotter—not his real name, I'm sure—was moving that Ember you found out about. But not while knowing exactly what it would do. Petty crime lord he may be, but it's not in his interest for his customers to die or be that debilitated, and no doubt he was... unhappy to discover what the stuff did."
Vito blinked. "Please don't take this the wrong way, Captain, but why not just let them have him? Do you think he has some information that makes all the trouble worth it?" His tone was delicate, but it wasn't too hard to make out a bit of disbelief in it too, for some reason.
She sighed. "Honestly I have no idea. But he's the best lead we have, and so yes. I'm hoping we can get him first. I'd like to say something here about justice and fair chances, too, but I can't really claim the courts would do any better. Not always known for fairness, as you're probably aware."
"So I've heard," Corvin replied dryly. "So if I'm putting this all together right, you want us to see if we can figure out exactly where in the sewer he's holed up before they find him, and get him out alive for questioning?"
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. The posture didn't seem defensive, only thoughtful. "Is there anything more you can tell us about this gang?"
Captain Bernard hummed low in her throat, a contemplative sound. "The Untouchables are run by a dwarf named Kotter. As I said, probably not the name he was born with, but that hardly matters. We don't know much about his lieutenants save one. Human fellow—the others call him Bleeder. Rumor has it he's a blood mage, though no one's been able to confirm that." She wrinkled her nose, distaste for the possibility clear. "They're well-organized, and they operate in a cell structure: everyone knows what they need to know to get their work done, and no more. It means even if we can arrest one of them, we likely don't get anything but one or two more names or aliases. None of the low-level people know anything about the leaders or what they do exactly. I only know this much because I managed to plant a couple guards in the ranks, but the trouble is keeping them there."
"And is illicit alchemy their main business?" Vito rubbed at the edge of his beard, partway up his cheek.
"As far as we know. Of course, you have to commit a lot of other crimes to be successful at that. Smuggling, probably some extortion... we suspect them of a few murders, rivals that met a bad end, but I can't say it was certainly them without more evidence, so I won't."
"And what's the driving force behind the people going against the guard here?" Lia had been silent thus far, sitting straight-backed and somewhat ill at ease in her chair. She seemed more... rigid, perhaps, in this building than elsewhere that Evie had seen her. If she was making any effort to hide that, it wasn't working. "Are they afraid of retribution from the Untouchables if they help you?"
The guardswoman shook her head. "I don't think so. No doubt there's at least some of that, but for the most part..." She grimaced, pushing a breath out through her nose. "There's a lot of history bound up in this, and I doubt I need to tell you that the Guard itself hasn't always... cared. About certain areas of the city. Leave a place like that isolated for enough time, and someone else becomes the stabilizing force. Local law, if you like. The Untouchables are like that. Much as it pains me to say so, by and large their community looks to them for leadership. There's a loyalty there, and that's the real issue for us in terms of getting the information we need."
"So we can't expect much outside help if we find ourselves against the Untouchables," Evie noted, crossing her arms while shaking her head. Sounds like their best bet would to try and get in and get out as quickly as possible, though such plans rarely go so smoothly. "Regardless, it sounds like this is a time sensitive matter if they're looking for this M as well. Unless there's anything else we should know, we should probably get started then?" she asked the others for a confirmation.
"Let's." Vito lowered his hands to the arms of his chair and pushed himself out of it with perhaps a bit more vigor than was necessary. Touching his open hand to his chest, he inclined his head to the woman at the desk. "Thank you, Captain, for the information. I'm sure it's not... regular, for a relative to work on anything in connection with a case, nor..." He paused, glancing between Corvin, Lia, and himself. "Well, any of us, really."
Captain Bernard huffed softly through her nose. "If you get the job done, serah, I couldn't possibly care less. Good luck out there."