Don't Touch ANYTHING

[Kit Rowan]

x

Day 33, Season of Fall, 513 AV

Kit scrambled, her fingers slipping as she landed on the foreign rooftop. She cursed to herself, grabbed hold of slipping shingles with bare fingers and pressing the points of bare toes against the roof as she began to slide. An inch, two . . . The skidding stopped, leaving Kit along with the swift sounds of her own heartbeat and shallow breath.

She smiled, muttered a half-hearted curse and pawed at her eye with a wrist. Kit pushed herself to her feet and perched herself up top where the two sides of the roof met. The gentle, cool breeze of early Fall danced about her ears, made the tail of her hair dance about her back like a painter's insecure brush. She held a hand to her forehead in ward against the morning sun and squinted. Could it been seen from here?

It couldn't. Kit ducked down again, her practiced body wary on a slope this steep. She found a rope tied at the end of the roof that spread across the canal. Kit stood atop it and step-step-stepped easily across, arms spread wide for balance. She ventured a glance downward and saw a Ravosala pass beneath her feet. Neither passenger or paddleman turned an eye up to her, and Kit felt a small smile play across her lips. This was her own small defiance against the patterns of the city; walk here, take a Ravosala here . . . Kit made her own roads. The truest mark of a follower of Ionu was, she thought, the willingness to play a different game than everybody else.

Now on the other side, on a flatter roof, Kit moved across it with a slow, athletic grace born of practice. She put a hand to her waist, peered about until her eyes locked on a firm lip of the opposite roof. Kit took a step that became a run by the third; when she reached the edge of the roof she pushed off, hard as she could, and Kit sailed over black waters, her heart rising and screaming with pleasure in the moment of weightlessness before gravity seized her feet fist and—

Kit knew what came next and she wasn't about to let it happen. She pulled her legs closed to her body and held her feet out toward the wall, knees still bent. She hit the other building feet first, and impact stole the momentum from the jump. Enough for Kit to seize the lip of the roof with her hands. SHe breathed hard, arms trembling, lips still pulled back into a smile.

With a heave she pulled herself over the top and crawled across the roof. Again a hand to cover her eyes and . . . Aaaah! She saw it now, right where it was supposed to be.

Valerius Nitrozian refused to let himself show anything. He was as emotionless as a piece of wood. What he did allow others to see, perhaps without even realizing it, was tension. He was always tense, but when he had given Kit this letter it had been especially so. The rich boy tried to keep up appearances, but Kit knew.

She stepped off the roof and landed in a soundless crouch, went upright and brushed off her jacket and trousers. Kit unhooked her shoes from where they hung on her belt and slipped them onto her feet before she approached the building.

It was plain, ornamented. Basic. If she had not been told what to look for Kit would have never expected Valerius to turn to using this sort of place. Basic brick, a simple sign; 'Ino Vations.' It did not flaunt wealth like she had come to expect. Did not emit the constant and pressing need to be seen as powerful.

Perhaps Valerius did not want anyone to know there was a connection between him and this place? Well. She whistled to herself, cricked her neck and walked up to the door. Thum-thum-thum went her knuckles against the wood. THUM-THUM-THUM

[Inoadar]

Inoadar was not doing anything particularly touchy at the moment. Just routine centrifuge work to separate some eel mucus from the lake water that tended to dilute it. It was noteworthy that, despite his stock and trade of poisons, "Intellect Mist" was a very popular product. It had no harmful side-effects that anyone had brought to his attention yet. And greatly enhanced mental focus.

He chuckled at the thought of "complaints". His was definitely a trade that operated almost exclusively without fear of complaints. If his poison worked, who was left to complain? The purchaser? Hardly. If it didn't work, the purchaser would be either dead or imprisoned as retribution for his intent, or wishing to be nowhere near the poisoner's shop. That would be tantamount to a confession of the attempt.

And as far as friends of the victim knowing damn well where the perpetrator got his poison, Ravok was a town where such accessory to the crime was not taken personally. It was given, and there had been more than once that Inoadar had drummed up business when it was slow by alerting an intended victim to their peril, and then offering the same courtesies to them. Who could know to whom he had sold goods first? And there was no obligation to withhold a product to a customer just because the person they intended to strike had been in the bell before. Let the best man win! No one ever held him accountable for providing the means. This is Ravok!

The only time any such thing had back-lashed on him was with the businessman, Barton. Inoadar done him the favor of exposing the intended deed. It was the only time he'd done it without pursuing a purchase by the intended victim. This had been simple economics. The more the young schemer had revealed his incompetence, the more Inoadar knew he was not about to let an idiot like that gain influence over anything. Better that Barton should be warned and turn the tables on him.

But instead of any gesture of gratitude, Barton had tried to have Inoadar silenced. It had gotten to where anytime something remotely suspicious happened, he chalked it up to Barton's designs. This was one of the primary reasons that Inoadar was so eager to get on the good side of anything "Nitrozian", and Valerius would do nicely. He was not sure if he wanted Barton to know, just in case the turncoat could be manipulated into being caught red-handed making an attempt an associate of the esteemed family. But on the other hand, this would do him no good if he was dead. Barton continued to be his nemesis, but in a strange, morbid way, Inoadar liked it. It kept him on his toes.

But he nearly jumped right out of them when someone knocked loudly on the door. 'Who in Dira's Dungeons is bothering to knock? People walk right in.' he grumbled to himself. He smirked in recollection of the many customers who couldn't get inside fast enough, peering back out through the blinds to see if anyone might have noticed them in front of the poisoner's shop for even the three seconds it took to open the door and walk in. Wimps!

He hollered that he'd be just a moment as he poured the separated liquid through a screen, which allowed the water, but caught the mucus. He dumped the water and set the mucus in a rack alongside numerous similar vials. He tied his smock as he went to the door to find a short, slender girl in nondescript dark leathers and shirt. Her hair rolled over her shoulders and her eyes were a vivid blue against the sightly dark hue of her skin. The last time he'd seen such a complexion was on a fighter in The Pits that had been said to come from the exotic southeastern land of Eyktol.

He gave her a friendly smile. He tried to coordinate his eyes with it. "Most folks come on inside. I see no reason why you should not do likewise." He stepped back as he spoke, extending an arm in a sweeping welcome. He didn't like standing in the doorway.

[Kit Rowan]

x

The man who opened the door stood about a head above her, dark hair, body built like the gods had cobbled it together out of spare parts till what was left was thin and reedy. His skin was very pale; did he get out much? Not likely. She saw beakers and containers through the doorway, and a smell she could not quite identify wafted through the door. Was he a philterer, like Celeste had been, back home?

She looked at his smile and saw the predator's eyes sitting above it. A chill ran down her spine. It was hard to consider her sweet old friend's face alongside this man with cold eyes. Kit crossed her arms, returned a small smile of her own. She fell back on her heels for a moment before accepting the man's implicit invitation.

Kit cast her eyes around the room, saw vials and beakers and tools of mixing; perhaps he was a philterer of sorts, or at least someone who made their trade by mixing chemicals and balms. "Mister Nolan , I presume?" She kept her language the way that Valerius would like it, for now. Formal and detached. She grabbed imaginary skirts, bent her legs and bowed her head in a feigned curtsy. "It seemed the polite thing to do, and mister Valerius is hardly one for impropriety." While her head was still down where Nolan could not see the girl rolled her eyes at the words coming out of her mouth.

[Inoadar]

Inoadar attached no threat to this young lady's scan of the front room. He had moved some of his gear out into what was normally the common room for customers and had found that it made the place look like the lab was more extensive.

"Mister Parnell," he corrected, "Nolan Parnell, at your service, miss..." She didn't fill in the space with her name. He figured she must have thought he was calling her "miss". Whatever.

He gave her an instinctive nod in response to her curtsey. She mentioned some polite thing to do, and he assumed for a moment she was referring to the curtsey itself, and wished she would get to the point. Then she said the "magic" word...Valerius.

For a moment he forgot what he had been doing. His thoughts flashed to his visit to the Nitrozian Estate the day before, with his letter to the young man regarding a mercenary of sorts, dispatched by Sahovan authorities to pursue some renegade mage into Ravok. He had stolen some artifact, and it appeared to be an item of significant power.

He had met the pursuing agent Miro, a sinister looking gentleman in his own right, with his mask and his battle robe. He had impressed upon this man his willingness to help find the renegade mage, by the name of 'Forus'. This had taken place last season, and though he had made some progress, all his leads led to the kinds of dead ends made by high family influence. He needed a family of his own to counter them, and there was no family higher than the Nitrozians.

He'd met Valerius in a meeting joined by Amolina Moletta, a woman he'd had a hateful feud with, but had recently come to terms with, if not actually patched things up. The meeting had gone well and it appeared that he and Valerius shared many viewpoints about a number of things. He felt there was a good chance he could get the support of at least this one Nitrozian.

If he stated his case correctly, he could hope to get that backing. And "correctly" meant impressing on the young man the potential power of the item, the possibility of acquiring it personally, the prestige of success, and the hold over the rival family found to be sheltering the mage, contrary to Ravokian interests.

Hopefully, this young lady had some sort of reply from the man. "Is this to say that Mr. Valerius Nitrozian has sent me a reply? Please have a seat, I will finish up in back if you care to wait."

[Kit Rowan]

x

Kit frowned as Nolan corrected her, tapped a finger against her waist. Was it true that mister was supposed to to be attached to someone's family name? If so, what was she to call Valerius? 'Mister Nitrozian' could have been anyone from Valerius to Sitanos. So what . . . ? Well, if the popinjay hadn't corrected her the last time she said it, he must have found it acceptable. "Carsma," Kit said, when Nolan groped for her name after 'miss' and came up empty. "Shy Carsma."

He came alive at her employer's name in sudden, rapt attention. Kit rolled her arms and frowned at the power of the name. She wondered if Valerius was really that much more apt than someone else could be, when you penetrated the armor of nobility he built out of lavish spending and propriety. No, he likely wasn't . . . "I don't mind waiting," she said, finding a chair and sliding into it. Kit wiped sweat from her brow and rubbed it into her jacket.

This man was the Nolan the popinjay had directed her to, then. Kit reached back and plucked a scroll from behind her belt, sealed with red wax with the sigil of house Nitrozian. She stared longingly at it for a moment, wishing that her first element had been first, so she could have heated her knife and pried into the popinjay's affairs without leaving evidence. One day, maybe . . .

She twiddled her thumbs waiting for Nolan to finish whatever it was that he was up too. Kit peered over her shoulder, to the sides, up, taking it all in. "Inovations is a bit of a generic name for a . . . Potion maker, isn't it?"

[Inoadar]

Inoadar was glad he was in the back when this courier asked about the name of the shop. This had been growing on his mind of late. He'd been going by the name Inoadar then, prior to the bounty being put on his head by the Black Sun.

He'd faked his death and a bounty hunter had collected on his name. But he'd come to know that he'd not escaped the attention of his would-be prosecutors. They had, however, been impressed by his resourcefulness, as well as his brazen daring in staying in town. Apparently, they liked him. And by that time, he'd discovered he loved Ravok. But there would always be those that considered "Inoadar" a traitor, so he'd been advised to leave that name behind.

But there was an all too obvious connection between the name of the shop, Ino Vations, and it's founder, Inoadar. He wished he'd never called it that now. Or simply spelled it correctly. But he had meant it as a play on his name and it had succeeded, all too well. But he'd only call more attention to it now by changing it. Well, nothing had come of it yet, but having this girl ask about it caused him some concern. Well, he had a lie in place just for this, maybe it was time to try it out.

He finished sealing the mucus. He would have finished with the straining and condensing under normal circumstances, but this heralded a special event. Still he didn't want to appear too eager. "Hmmm?...Oh yes, I suppose it is somewhat nonspecific. There are a variety of...potions...I make here, not all of them beneficiary. So I feel just fine with it being rather vague."

Now it was time for the lie. "It's my understanding it belonged to some traitor hereabouts. Got himself in trouble with the Black Sun. They fished him out of a canal shortly thereafter." he chuckled, "In the meantime, I had my shop destroyed last year in the rioting...damned rebels...So I guess since the CEB was burnt down and so many records lost, they considered it expedient to allow me to step in here. I thought about changing the name, but as I said, I sort of like it. AND I don't want to confuse any standing contracts that may hinge on it."

He grinned down at her. "I will admit your name is far more distinctive...'Shy Carsma" he said, as if testing the flavor of it. "Haven't you ever experienced situations where you wished your name were LESS memorable?" He waited for her to either respond to his query or to hand over the message.

[Kit Rowan]

x

"Traitor, huh?" Kit said. What a colorful story for a philterer . . . Wait. Perhaps poisoner was more appropriate? If Valerius had told her THAT she might have been a bit more discrete. She could only guess what was inside the letter; oh, if only Auristics could see ink and paper as clear as it saw spell and soul, she would know what the Popinjay wanted with a poisoner! "At least your shop has a history worth talking about," she shrugged, put a hand on the letter and passed it toward Nolan. It was clear enough that this was the man Valerius had meant, no need to drag things out further. Maybe having a traitor's name attached even helped business?

She felt her body tense as he brought up her her name, 'Shy Carsma.' Did he suspect? Did he know? If someone who had as much allegiance to the Ebonstryfe as this man seemed too saw through the illusion she had conjured . . . No, no he couldn't. There was no one in Ravok who could know, and her illusion was flawless. "It's a good enough name," Kit said. "And I only give it to people who I want to remember it. There's something to be said about that." Kit had other names and other faces for other purposes, after all. Best that those who knew Shy remembered Shy, instead of Ria or Kit or whatever new self she might invent next season.

"Very interesting that Valerius would want to send a message to a . . ." She breathed through her teeth. "A concocter of potions."

[Inoadar]

Inoadar smirked, "I wish it was a story that NO one would talk about, to be honest." he commented absently as he took the envelope from the courier. "If some old campaigner was to return to Ravok after years away and hear of this shop and it's owner being a traitor, my story is just the sort of fiction he would expect me to spout off, and it would probably not stop him from drawing and attacking."

He read the letter, a look of satisfaction crossing his face. Then he suppressed it as another thought occurred to him. He didn't know if this courier knew that he'd met the young Nitrozian before. He didn't think that he'd said anything so far that would have given that fact away. He decided to ply the young girl for information. Even if she gave up nothing, it would indicate that the aristocrat had the good sense to hire tight-lipped servants.

It had been his experience that servants and slaves were among the best sources of information there were. If he was going to work with the man on operations best kept quiet, he needed to know that the man understood this. Of course, this had nothing to do with the secret lab work they would be joining forces on once the site and equipment were secured. But the principle was the same. And if she DID give up details about the young aristocrat's private life, or dealings with other families, then THAT information would most likely have value.

Of course, he had to consider the fact that Mr. Nitrozian himself might have told her that they knew each other. He felt it was unlikely, but possible. So he needed to word his question so that it confirmed nothing either way. If she was to report back that he had tried to worm information from her, it might not go well. Best to couch it in small talk.

He slipped the letter into his pocket. It would also not do well for Mr. Nitrozian to have any reason to think that his new partner shared private messages with servants. He couldn't exactly don his mail shirt for this, but he could put on his Nettle Cloak. He went to the door and held it open "Shall we go?" He said holding the door. "So, how is it working for Mr. Nitrozian? Have you known him long?"

[Kit Rowan]

x

Nolan offered a smile as he opened the letter up, and Kit felt a surge of envy. She had carried, gods help her, if anyone ought to know what it said . . . But while her smile might have strained slightly she still kept it tight. She knew that Nolan had spoken too Valerius, or made a request OF Valerius . . . Why else would he expect news, and why else would he call it a 'reply?' It was scant hint of what exactly was happening in Popinjay's twisted little head, but it was something, she supposed. Not enough, but it was something.

"Anyone who was going to find a reason to kill you was probably already thinking about it anyway." Kit shrugged. What a topic of conversation! Only in Ravok. An Ebonstryfe with a grudge could kill anyone. The only difference was they'd have to make up an excuse for it if it turned out that person was a citizen. "Unless they had good friends, maybe." Or employers. She shrugged.

"Oh a season or so," Kit said, keeping it vague as she dared. Usually when a stranger got her message, they were glad to have her out and on her way as quickly as possible. A servant in the Nitrozian household served the frustrating purpose of fading in only when convenient and slipping away into obscurity again, just as quick. Nolan hadn't chased her out quite yet with a don't you have somewhere to be? Or I wouldn't want to keep you from your work. That was odd. And a little curious.

"There's not much warmth to him, but he pays well enough." If everything kept as it was, the night leather she'd been eying would be hers by season's end. Maybe even specially tailored FOR her! Wouldn't that be lovely . . . "He caught me in the act of leaping and recruited me." She put her hands behind her back, massaged her wrist. "Have you been working with Mister Nitrozian long?"

[Inoadar]

Inoadar smirked, the contempt for those having made previous attempts to dispatch him visible on his face. "I should hope that any thinking of killing me might, by now, be thinking twice, given the..."success"...of their predecessors." He was about to say more, it being a subject he enjoyed rehashing, when he caught himself. 'She might be from Nyka, and would like to hear about a bounty she could try for. Or worse yet, inform her employer.' he thought to himself.

She didn't go into any detail about her employer. Just a simple answer with no embellishments whatsoever. This was both frustrating for its lack of informative gain, and satisfying for its verification that Mr. Nitrozian hired smart people. He continued taking random glances at her, to see if there were sigil or livery details he could make use of. But she was relatively unmarked beyond the overall "messenger" style of the leather gear. Again, he felt a grudging respect for the Nitrozian, and for the good sense of his employees.

He realized she might think the message had something to do with her, given her obvious note of his repeated looks in her direction. He stifled a chuckle. 'Let her worry. We'll see how she conducts herself when she thinks she might be the subject of this missive. Or even IF she's so self-conscious as to make that assumption.' He was determined to get SOME sort of information out of this.

"Not much warmth to him, but he pays well enough." Shy had said. That suited Inoadar well enough. He felt that to be a sensible approach to employees. He as surprised at the comment about her being "caught in the act of leaping" as though it was a crime.

He smiled at her last question. "All of about eight, nine days now. I've really only discussed working with him as yet. That's not what this is about though, not exactly anyway...So, is this...leaping...something you do a lot of? Is this a metaphor for some illicit activity?"