Completed The Brains of the Operation (Kit Rowan)

[Inoadar]

Fall 40th, 513


Leaving the Nitrozian Estate behind, Inoadar and Valerius' personal courier, Shy Carsma, began to make their way across Ravok. The Docks were the outermost tier of the city and stretched all the way around it. So saying that "the Nuit lives in the Docks", as the young aristocrat had said with an air of the implied ease of a ten chime jaunt, did not mean it WAS a ten chime jaunt.

Inoadar knew from his various jobs of surveillance that the location indicated was on the other side of town. But he was not going to complain. This whole task was for his benefit as much as anyone's. And it did not appear that the courier had any resentment either. In fact, she seemed to enjoy the whole thing. She was disappearing from visibility every so often. Up walls, into shadows, everywhere. She's ask him something, and when he'd turn to look at her while answering, she'd be gone. Only to appear again in the middle of the next block as if she'd never been gone.

Inoadar was fast getting the impression that he was holding her up, slowing her down. She hadn't seemed this eager when it had first been explained to her what they were after. They needed the brain from a body recently abandoned by a Nuit. There was a fluid present that seemed to only occur during the habitation of a Nuit. Inoadar had theorized that this fluid was the fundamental component of the antidote to 'Dark Reaving' poison. But his only previous attempt to establish proof of this had been interrupted by a visit from an angry mage, Clyde Sullins.

He had managed not to have himself and his shop incinerated by the volatile wizard. But he still had three linked scrolls in his shop, any one of which would ignite the trio and scour the guts of his shop with an annihilating conflagration if he attempted to remove them. So the scrolls remained, a standing threat to his shop.

But all that aside, Valerius had claimed to know of a Nuit that had an apprentice that "lived" in this area of the Docks, and had agreed to let Inoadar have the body when he switched to his new one. He had apparently agreed to do it when Inoadar and Shy arrived at his home, one of the NHC housing units. He hoped it was near to a handy canal, because he really only needed the head. He had no intention of dragging the whole body back to the shop when the saw he'd borrowed would relieve them of an hundred pounds or more of unneeded flesh.

They approached the door and Inoadar turned to the accompanying courier, "Well, you're the official representative, I guess you knock."

[Kit Rowan]

x

Nolan traveled the low way, while Kit found her own. It was some relief, all told, to be allowed a nice relaxing trip on the job. Usually her trips were a frantic battle between caution and urgency, the need to get there quickly at war always with the need to get there safe. Nolan's slow travel allowed Kit the freedom to lounge about; he often took ways around, made turns to find bridges and walked around long blocks to curve around and reach a place that would be simple to reach if only one could find a way over the rooftops to the other side, as Kit could.

All the same, the thought of the job made Kit a little . . . Queasy. She had little love for the dead who refused to stay in the ground, and it wasn't much help to hear what she'd heard about nuit needing another body be confirmed. She was to collect a . . . Brain. All the same, no one was going to die for it. Or undie, she supposed? The line between the living and the dead was supposed to be a clear one; the nuit and ghosts blurred that line more than she was really comfortable. She wasn't there to collect the brain and deal with the undead; that was Nolan's job, and she would gladly leave it to him when his turn came up.

She was already waiting by the address, hands on her hips and foot tapping when Nolan emerged from the other side of the bend. She was dressed the same way she'd been when she met him for the first time; leathers, hair hung back in a tail. It wasn't till he arrived that she walked alongside him up toward the door.

"Right," Kit said, smoothing at her jacket and breathing out a long sigh. She marched up to the door and rapped her knuckles against it three times in order, and let it sit. The nuit was not slow to react.

The door creaked slowly inward and a head peeked out over the side. His face was long, angular, with a long sharp nose and narrow eyes. His face was pale, the fingers that peeked over the edge of the doorway long and spiderly. His eyes jerked from Nolan to Kit and back again. They did not blink. "Who." he said, testing the air with a long, deliberate pause. "Are you?"

Kit brought a clenched hand to her chest. "I'm Shy," she said. "And this is Nolan. We're here to dispose of your old body for you?"

"Oh. I had thought so." He said. Another pause. "You may enter." He released the door and shrank back inside his house, leaving the entry half-open. "Quickly. If you please."

[Inoadar]

Inoadar gave a nod of his head and made a motion for Shy to precede him into the residence. He did not know how Valerius knew of this man...this Nuit, but he confirmed the name "Gedrin" immediately. There was a bit of small talk about how his current body was to be, for all practical purposes, a donation to science and research.

Inoadar was not about to discuss the exact nature of the research. He hadn't even discussed it with Shy, not that her frequent wall-crawling indulgences had left a great deal of time for such. It was part of his research, not only towards his discovery of an antidote formula for a fairly potent poison called "Dark Reaving", it was also general research into the effects of the "Nuit condition" on a body, and specific exploratory research into the brain itself.

But this was nothing he was here to discuss. The small talk waned quickly and the three of them all stood there growing more uncomfortable as it became more and more plain that there was still something they were waiting for. Gedrin began making odd eye contact with Inoadar, his gaze flicking to Shy for some reason. Inoadar noted how the man's expression would change, becoming patient and innocent, any time Shy looked toward him.

After a few awkward chimes, the man motioned to Inoadar, with his head, for a private conference. Inoadar furrowed his brows and looked at Shy with a shrug. He stepped over the door separating the two rooms where the Nuit was waiting for him. Inoadar's hand went to his dagger instinctively. Something was wrong. This had all the earmarks of some sort of ambush.

But it was not that kind of problem. The Nuit leaned close to say something. Inoadar naturally leaned away, not liking the close proximity of a stranger in a room he was unfamiliar with. "What is the problem?" he asked Gedrin.

The Nuit made a curious face and responded, "I was just going to ask you the same thing. What ARE you waiting for? I had gotten the impression your employer was in a fair hurry. I'm here, you're here...She's here..." The emphasis on "she" began to give Inoadar a sense of what was going on. But he wanted Gedrin to spell it out.

"Yes, she's here...She is my guide to find your house. They all look the same around here. Why did you think she's here?"

"Oh come on! You don't think I expect her to kill you, do you?" he blurted, "I understood that you were the poisoner here. And I doubt very much that she has the strength to strangle you." The Nuit smirked as though any argument would be absurd, Then he suddenly grew alarmed. "Oh my! IS it supposed to be you? Oh dear me. This IS awkward. She must be some sort of mage to be able to kill you. I must go tell her not to damage you in the process!"

He went to push past Inoadar, getting halfway through the door as Inoadar grabbed his arm and spun him to face him. "What are you saying? I'm supposed to kill her?" he gestured toward Shy with his thumb as he said this, not considering the fact that Shy had probably not heard what was said in the room.

But the grimace on the face of the Nuit, and the look on Shy's face made it obvious she had heard THIS.

[Kit Rowan]

x

Kit's role here was done. Now, she could relax and let Nolan and the dead man conclude their business. . . She propped herself against a wall and let time pass. She scanned the room, tried to understand the sort of place a dead man might live.

She didn't know what she expected. Something barren, like a crypt maybe, with nothing to bother the immortal over the course of their life; what need had they for luxuries? But Kit saw rugs here, a couch there, big enough for two or three people to sit comfortably. Arcane symbols sketched with an unsteady hand lay, held to the wall by needle or nail, each alien and unknown to Kit's untrained eyes. There was a rug in the center of the room, or at least there had been; it had been shoved aside to make room for a shallow metal tub, just big enough for a body to sit, Kit thought, her stomach turning.

Where was the body, exactly?

Kit felt a chill up her spine, breathed in sharply. She tested where she'd hidden her throwing daggers, so she could whip them out from beneath her jacket should the need arise, tested the dagger at her waist. Nothing was happening, still. Kit's eyes darted over the dead and Nolan . . . There was something wrong. The nuit smiled at her like she was a simpleton whenever he caught her looking in his direction, and when he wasn't . . . His eyes whispered something to Nolan that the poisoner didn't understand.

Kit's job here was quite done. Maybe she could wait down the street, or on a rooftop, where she could keep watch on this house while no one knew where she was. She inched toward the door as the Nuit urged Nolan into a corner, eager to be as near an exit as possible.

Tension ran through Kit's body as Nolan had his little outburst; she reached down, grabbed her dagger and pulled it halfway out of its sheathe. "I am am Valerius Nitrozian's personal courier," she said, eyes darting rapidly between the two. "And if I die, he will be annoyed."

[Inoadar]

Inoadar was not sure if Shy was speaking to him, the Nuit, Gedrin, or both. He lifted a hand to gesture for her to stay calm and turned back to the Gedrin. "Look, this is not what we were told to expect. No one said WE had to bring the body. We thought you had one already lined up."

The Nuit scowled, hands on hips. "And I thought that the one I had lined up was the one you were bringing. I don't care for such games, Mister Nolan, and I expect you to tell her Mister Nitrozian not to waste my time again." He stalked over to the door in a huff and pulled it open. "Now go away and don't come back until you are prepared to stick with arrangements."

Inoadar was immediately put out by the display of contempt. He set his hand against the door and shoved it closed with a scowl of his own. "Maybe I don't much care for your games, Gedrin." The scorn he put into the Nuit's name was an insult of its own. "We've just spent two bells crossing the petching town for your sake. Mister Nitrozian would not play such games with our time OR with yours." He slid himself between the Nuit and the door to back him away from it.

Gedrin sneered, "Well it appears that he just has, Mister Nolan, or are you too much of a fool to see it. One of you was clearly supposed to...retire...the other. Now I've got more important things to do than stand here while the two of you decide what to do. I've got other arrangements to see to besides yours."

Inoadar grit his teeth. "Then we'll make NEW arrangements, pal. I don't know where the misunderstanding occurred, but I'm not letting this whole effort be wasted." He looked out through the cracked door. It may have been hard to tell if he was looking for another victim or watching for witnesses. "I didn't come all this way just to go home empty handed."

He stared at the Nuit with cold, dull eyes, like a shark. All he'd meant to express was his willingness to go out and tag another body off the street. Some drunk or bum or even a whore, given that Gedrin had seemed fine with a female body, when he thought it was going to be Shy's. He didn't stop to think how else it may have sounded.

Nor did he notice the look of odd concentration on the Nuits face as he looked once again out the cracked-open doorway. A sudden thought came unbidden to his mind that Shy may have decided to take the Nuit up on his proposal. That one of them be...retired...by the other.

[Kit Rowan]

x

Kit began backpedaling, step-step-steping away from Nuit and Nolan as they began to fell into an argument. She was not much inclined to spend much time in a room with someone who had expressly wanted her KILLED. This was foul business and Kit wanted no part in—there would be a reward for her, if she could manage to put Nolan down and give Gedrin the body. It might be worth it!

"What . . . ?" She held a hand to her head, staggered, like a piece of clockwork with a twig stuck in its gears. What nonsense was that? Her position in Ravok was too risky to begin with, and her funds rather secure already. It would be a needless risk too—and Valerius would reward her for her ingenuity, no question. No if and or buts about it; he had sent them here expecting one to die, and now—Kit gritted her teeth and squelched the voice in her head that ran counter to everything she wanted. "No," she muttered, shaking her head. "No no no!"

This felt familiar, in a distant way. She understood, on some level, what was happening to her head. What was it? What was—Nolan was a bit of a prick anyway and who would miss a poiso—SHUT UP!—Look at him, he'll do it himself, if you don't!

She turned toward Nolan—he won't let this whole effort be wasted, he said. How long until he decides it's easier to kill you? "This," Kit hissed, lifting shaking hands up to massage her temple, "is mad."

[Inoadar]

Inoadar's previous notion that Gedrin would accept Shy's body as a replacement suddenly struck him a ludicrous. 'Why should he settle for a slim, little female body like hers when he can have a fine strong man's body?' There was a surge of conceit accompanying his logic as the conviction implanted itself in his mind.

Kit seemed suddenly confused. 'Just trying to put me off my guard, the bitch!' he sneered inwardly, his hand finding his dagger. He wished now that he'd brought his cane/blowgun, but there had been no apparent need, since the body was supposed to be dead already. It did not even require Gedrin's hypnotism to coax Inoadar's suspicious mind to imagine that this "disarmed" state had been intended all along.

He heard Shy moaning "No, no, no, no!" and assumed it was her dismay at discovering that he was not as disarmed as she'd thought.

'HA. she knows I'm ON to her.' he smirked as he pulled the dagger slowly, enjoying the play of the daylight on the steel. She'd turned toward him now and was rubbing her temples. He didn't know what tactic that was supposed to be and didn't care. Nor did her comment that the situation was "mad".

Certainty set in. "Oh is that going to be your excuse, Shy? I went mad and you had to kill me? it was a good ploy to leave me nothing but a dagger to defend myself with, but I'm not completely useless with it. And I've got a few other surprises for you."

He knew she would be a handful. He'd seen her acrobatic skill before. But he assumed that in the confines of the enclosed room, this would be greatly curtailed. And he had his back to the door, so she wouldn't be getting out that way either.

There was a nagging thought that it didn't make sense for her to take this approach, but he dismissed it. What difference did it make that it made far more sense to simply kill Gedrin than to go through this whole ordeal just to get a Nuit head? The head would still be from Gedrin's current body in either case. It wasn't as though he was going to jump to Inoadar's body and THEN let himself be killed. For that matter, Gedrin wouldn't want his new body all cut up.

The incongruities all cleared up in an instant.'That time she came to the shop! I'd been in the back at first, and had invited her in, going back into the lab to finish up. Of Course! She'd stolen some poison off the shelf while I wasn't looking! I can't even let her cut me. Valerius must have instructed her. He's in on it! That's why she's doing this even though it doesn't make sense. She's following orders. Well, the element of surprise is gone, and acrobat or not, she's still just a courier, not a warrior. And only a girl at that!'

He took a semicircular approach maneuvering left and right to be sure to deny her access to the door. "I have to admit, you-..." he began, trying to lull her with the expectation of finishing his sentence, and lunged with the blade.

[Kit Rowan]

x

Kit felt horror as she saw emotions run over Nolan's face. His hand jumping down to his belt to grab hold of his dagger. See? It's you or him. But this felt wrong. The muttering in the back of her mind was like a stranger's; the killhappy paranoia didn't fit over the skein of her thoughts as well as it did Nolan's. She backed away as Nolan drew his dagger, wanting nothing but distance, nothing but esca—kill him before he can kill you!

She gritted her teeth and watched as Nolan paced and raved, half-mad with the same killing fervor that had seized her but perfectly willing to capitalize on it. "Kill you?" She said, her voice half-quavering. Kit swallowed. "How would I kill you? How whould I know all you had was a dagger? I can't do it, I didn't know." She could bring her magic to bear; her res itched to be released, to turn the elements against Nolan. Kill him!

He pounced! Kit hissed a word through her teeth and tucked to the side, falling into a roll. She let it carry through to its end, threw out her hands and let the momentum carry her back to her feet. She turned around, dagger bared, glinting its own light off its silver tip. Now's your chance! KILL HIM!

But she was already stepping slowly backwards, dagger held toward Nolan as she eased toward the door. Shy Carsma could disappear today, and some other diminutive girl could find a room in the city. A different girl, with a different story, who no one could link with the courier who had worked under Valerius Nitrozian. He'll hunt you down! He'll find you! Kit's eyelid twitched. The thoughts did not click together, snapped and hissed like gears of amateur clockwork. "Let's think about this . . ." Kit said. How many steps until she reached the door? Oh, Trickster keep her keen until the danger passes . . .

[Inoadar]

'Damn! She's as fast as she is agile.' Inoadar cursed as his dagger plunged through empty air. He made a wild backswing to the side, hoping to catch her fleeing arm. The momentum of the swing added to the inertia pulling him forward and he hit the wall behind where Shy had stood.

It struck him that he'd left open a gap to the door, but he was still as close as she was. 'Don't let her escape!' his mind shouted. There was an oddness to the thought's appearance. Even though it was a logical thought to form right then, it was as though his mind shouted AT itself, rather than simply generating the thought WITHIN itself.

But he didn't have time to wrestle with such mental subtleties right now. He had to keep Shy from getting away. He kicked an end table across the floor to bring it tumbling against the door. Hardly an impenetrable barrier, but enough to cost her the seconds it would take to plant his blade in her back.

That done, he considered her words, but only so far as to mock them. He approached slowly, his gaze locked with lethal intent on the girl. "THINK about this?' The only thing to think about is whether I'm gonna need to off that fancy-boy, Valerius as well. Doesn't want to get his own hands dirty it seems. He should have hired someone with more experience. Did he think the element of surprise would be enough?"

...But this also didn't make sense... Inoadar looked at Shy as no threat, despite her slippery quickness. She might be tough to nail down and kill, but she was also an ill-suited choice to try to assassinate him. And it stood to reason Val would have the mizas to hire someone better. By choosing her to do it, he had showed his hand. And not a very good one, her skills at evasion notwithstanding.

Then it all came clear to him again, as if his own deviousness had to fill in the blanks in itself. "She's not working for Valerius either. One of the other families did this, knowing she would fail, but you would not." Yes...he would feel betrayed by her actions here. She would pay the price for her betrayal, but so would Valerius, and HE was the real target.

He laughed with appreciation for the convoluted scheme. "Ho, ho, girl. You don't even realize how you've been played. Too bad you won't live long enough to..." sudden awareness made him cringe. He had made the most novice of mistakes! He had stepped fully onto a throw rug on the floor. The girl's crouching stance had looked to be nothing more than a low-center-of-gravity position to facilitate quick moves. Even as he realized his peril he gave Shy a mental nod of grudging respect.

[Nemesis]

Inoadar

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Intimidation	+2
Observation	+1
Rhetoric	+1
Weapon: Dagger	+1

Lores

*Interpreting Orders
*Shy Carsma: Acrobatic
*Valerius Nitrozian: Untrustworthy

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*None

Kit Rowan

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Acrobatics	+2
Observation	+3
Philosophy	+1
Rhetoric	+1

Lores

*Interpreting Orders
*A New a illusion Required?

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*None

____________________________________________

Notes

*Wow, I wish this thread had been seen through to completion... was an extreme example of what we face in our every day lives... misinterpretation and all. An amusing read
*Inoadar... I think I've maxed you out on Observation... if I haven't, let me know and I'll boost your XP there up a little!

Feel free to PM me with questions, comments, or concerns, if you have any.
Also, remember to either delete your grade request or edit it as 'graded'.
Thank ye!