Scene #5692: Dead Man's Panopticon-4

Owner	Pose
Bloody Revelations	Team Alpha has arrived from the worst of the city's sewers, sunk deeper and deeper into the Labyrinth over many years, and back at stable reality. The chamber they find themselves in is old and very large, and bears signs of long habitation that probably predate the Mask of Winters' coming to some degree. With the layer they enter on being the highest, there are seven in total, including the very bottom, each one surrounded in wrought iron railings of the ostentatious design that has all but disappeared from the historically artisanal history above, clearly meant to be navigated by people even back then, and only recently decorated with fluttering screens of silken curtains. With many tunnels and passages leading in and out, it was probably once a conflux of waters, but it is very much dry now. Instead, it is filled with a thick haze of fumes and smoke, some minority of it from the piles and piles of half-melted scented candles covering every free flat surface, but most of it being some mixture of tobacco, opium, some equivalent of marijuana, and Creation-exclusive drugs. Each level, in alcoves under the shade of the tier above, people in great numbers gather, some poor and ragged, some wealthy in a visibly tacky and non-noble way, and others clearly just thugs, bouncers, and mercenaries. he former are largely in the process of gambling, drinking, smoking, and otherwise doing everything considered both typically immoral and also insultingly wasteful and luxurious in the city above, which struggles to even feed itself (albeit, by intentional design). The latter block the entryway for only a short time, as they have no interest in divesting anyone of weapons. In fact, they only appear to be concerned with challenge phrase that none of them would have any ability to respond to, i.e. fail. It's some obscure chapter of Immaculate verse, and /not/ knowing the continuation appears to be what gets people in. The bottommost tier holds what anyone could guess would be 'resistance members' by looking at them, dressed locally, visibly penniless, and crowded around a table dedicated to a sprawling map of the city in deadly seriousness. They hang on the every word of a particular, beautiful man in dark silk clothes and with long hair to match, which hides half of his face. Beside him is a young girl who clearly doesn't fit amongst them despite being dressed the same. Her pale skin is of noble lineage rather than lack of sunlight, and the rebels mid-discussion seem to gather around her subconsciously. They only glance around nervously when the walls vibrate around them with a brief, dull rumble, causing gravel and dust to fall from the ceiling.
Bloody Revelations	In an unrelated place, Team Vermilion is left hoofing it away from the wreckage of the complete mess they left behind, the stench of exploded equipment carrying down the tunnels for a long ways. Unfortunately, their guide has departed already due to a sudden rash of moralizing, and though the ladder still exists, it no longer leads back into the strange, half-real laboratory they had left behind. Instead, climbing the rusted iron results in them popping up through a wooden floor hatch, of the kind that lead to a cellar or underground maintenance closet in old, large homes. They emerge into a long hallway of lavish design, paneled in polished mahogany and hung with fine red silks and paintings of unknown but surely distinguished figures. Pale moonlight filters weakly through a closed window, despite being underground, and it provides the only source of illumination, as every sconce and candle has been extinguished. The length of the hall is scattered with dead bodies, most of them dressed in vaguely oriental high fashion unrelated to the region, some of them clearly being mere domestic servants, but all of them covered in blood, and having fallen in a way that suggests they had been fleeing in the same direction, some having made it further than others, and some having been too slow to turn away from their killer. There is, at least, a very obvious exit this time. A set of doors at the far end of the long hall, exactly like one would expect to find in a house like this, with the whole corridor being overall uncommonly lucid and untangled for this place. The sole, immediately visible oddity, is the blood-drenched female figure at the far end, stumbling towards the door herself and dragging a sword shallowly across the floor, since she clearly doesn't exist, being little more than a flickering, semi-transparent shadow, save where the bright red blood adheres to it.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 advances at a pace that would pass for casual, if semi-openly more one of caution in an unfamiliar environment. When challenged with scripture, she responds with either staring or "Yeah?" until it becomes clear that the watchman's interest in her is adequately satisfied. Assuming Azure doesn't just jaunt away (as she sometimes inexplicably does, that teleportation being something A-39 can only wish she had), the child soldier sticks close enough to maintain awareness of any challenge against her fellow, and vice versa. The obvious target is that set of people discussing plans, the ill-dressed noble girl, and the ponce doing much of the talking. Combing hair over half one's face immediately draws (potentially irrational) suspicion. Neither "stupid haircut" nor "hiding recognizable disfigurement" do much to earn her instant trust. Regardless, that's where she has to go. It is highly likely that she will receive a challenge of greater, specific interest in her presence upon her arrival. She has an answer prepared for this, to the tune of, "I'm Alpha-Three-Nine. I was hired to contact anyone who can help stage an overthrow of the city above." This doesn't seem like the time to dance around that sort of issue. "I'm not convinced any of you can."
Candle	At the present time, Candle is choosing to remain with Azure Armature. He can't /help/ but make a face, the symbol for 'treachery' on his forehead scrunching up as he does so. With a wave of his hand he demands, "The fuck kind of resistance is THIS? I expected-- I expected..." He drops his hand and thinks about it with an utterly blank expression for a full minute. "Nevermind, this is actually about right." He takes another moment to assess the overall crowd. Now, Candle is an idiot, but he zeroes in on the Pretty People immediately. See, he remembers how /his/ rebellion played out, and pretty people were extremely central to it. Everybody else, they kind of disappeared into the backwash of his memories because mostly they died messy, undignified deaths that were glorious and lived on in the history of Luthe... but really just weren't that important if you weren't there to begin with. They were kind of like scenery. Candle doesn't bother engaging the challenge directly. His entire response is just a confused look and a muttered, "What the hell?" before he moves right on. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he shouts, "HEY! PRETTY LADIES! YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PEOPLE HERE AND I WANT TO BURN DOWN YOUR ENEMIES BECAUSE--" He pauses, and scratches his head. "-- ACTUALLY I DON'T REALLY HAVE A GOOD REASON, IT JUST WORKED OUT REALLY WELL THE FIRST TIME. CHECK OUT THE MY SWORD AND TRIDENT, AREN'T THESE FUCKING AMAZING?" Candle draws out his ludicrously oversized JAWBONE SWORD and TRIDENT for emphasis. This isn't even slightly threatening despite the brandishing motion. He puts them on his back again almost at once.
Azure Armature	Azure Armature had engaged in a quick status update call to her 'mission handler', dropping to one knee to do so as she checked around the entrance of the wretched hive of scum and villianry, before attempting to enter the area and being stopped by a passcode. It was probably someone else that went 'lol dunno', and got the group waved in, because 'Blue' stood there for a while trying to get the right answer pulled up and making 'hurnnn...' 'hmmmng...' and other thoughtful noises. A-39's more direct approach to the matter expedites the process, which earns her a favorable nod. Once inside the den, though, the first thing the teal-haired woman does is pull up her scarf around her mouth less like a concealing piece of fashion and more like a breath mask, her brow furrowing. "What a waste of resources." She practically spits, muttering darkly as she smells the heinous influence of the INJECTION OF MARY-WANNAS and the... freebasing? of OPIE-YUMS. She doesn't jog but she does lengthen her stride to be rid of the upper floors, an obvious air of detached disgust lingering around her as she does. It is not until Candle starts shouting, as she tries to plan, that her right fist clenches... And unclenches. Well, this is fine. "You're right. This is around the expected result for a 'resistance'. A poor excuse for a fighting force, but exactly the sorts that would buck civic responsibilities." She notes, before arriving at the table. "My companion's forthright nature is more or less correct. We are here to ascertain the status of the resistance and potentially assist in your probable goals of destroying the Mask of Winter and his forces on the field." She leaves out a few things. Huh.
All-Seeing Eye	Eye pauses inside the estate's hall. He kneels beside a few of the bodies, touching a finger to the odd forehead to determine if they're still warm. As it turns out, he doesn't have to do much work--the scraping of the sword against the floor is enough to draw his attention away from the bodies, and towards the figure at the end of the hall. He narrows his eyes slightly, and with a soft click, his sleeve bulges outwards. His integrated crossbow is pointed at her. "You're not going out looking like /that,/ are you?" The Alchemical's tone seems more appropriate for critiquing an outfit than pointing out blatant evidence of a murder. "Guards have a tendency to notice strange women drenched in blood." In the event that this is not Bloody Revelations, he keeps his crossbow leveled at her, ready to fire the moment the figure makes a sudden move. He attempts to penetrate the door before her with his vision. Provided there's nothing behind it that might attract attention to them again, he follows the figure through it. "I have no desire to clean up any more messes today," he says evenly, and loud enough for the entire party to hear him. "Please don't force me to."
Gawain	Gawain is not in a good mood. Bloody Revelations' murder of the civilians had angered him more than anything had in quite a long time, especially since they'd been working together civilly until that point. For the knight to not be smiling was strange and highly unusual for anyone who's known him, as he climbs out of the hatch and into the hallway. Sword holstered at his side, Gawain frowns at the corpses, before tilting his head towards the scraping of the sword. While Eye moves to threaten the woman, Gawain's still himself, and speaks up. He doesn't assume it's Bloody Revelations, though his hand is at his sword just in case. "Miss, are you alright? Do you need medical attention? Please don't be alarmed by the weapons, we're prepared for hostiles!" He shouts out, starting to move forward to approach her, his stance non-aggressive. If she's hostile, Gawain will wait for her to show signs of such instead of assuming it.
Starbound Flotilla	Good thing the rest of the Flotilla had left that half-real lab just before it disappeared, because it sure would not have been fun to have to yank George out of some nightmare pit because of the carousel of reality. Albert remains in his odd, skewed fit of Labyrinth Madness, keeping that big radiation raygun of his worryingly out of its holster. He's the one that leads the way through the ladder and emerges from it initially. Now that he's armored, the lack of light shouldn't be an issue; the EPP module at his back clicks, lighting up and shining a soft white light around. "What is this?" He mutters in a distantly contemptuous way. "More detritus of the high classes that maintain extravagance on the backs of torture and mutilation." He mutters. With the flickering shade at one end of the hall -- is that between them and the door? -- Albert's tactical focus floods back into his mind and he glances around. He doesn't know if All-Seeing Eye's approach to this is going to work out cleanly, and so on the offchance that this is a terrible murder phantom, byproduct of some twisty reality, then he needs to check for other tactical options. What's at the other end of the hall? Anything at the sides? He's at least savvy enough to recognize the hair's chance that he might need to duck into a side room's closet or something to evade some sort of terrible reality-ghost, but right now he's in enough of a Berserker Science mode that it'd be more of an attempt to ambush, however unwise, than an effort to evade. All assuming, though, that this is a danger of /that/ sort, and not of an entirely different one.
Bloody Revelations	The crowd below stirs as unfamiliar voices call down to them, very little at first, as they must surely be used to the comings and goings of strangers, perhaps even mistaking them for latecomers, but moreso when they flat out state 'hey we're here to overthrow the Mask of Winters' out loud, and then especially when one of them begins yelling at the one particular girl who now looks incredibly flustered. "Hey! Watch who you're talking to! You're harassing the daughter of the rightful queen you ingrate!" one of them yells back, spilling the beans on that topic instantly. A woman behind him physically manhandles him away, clamping her hand over his mouth and dragging his embarrassing, problematic personage out of the equation. While the girl herself seems to shrink away, the exceptionally pretty man reading the map looks up to the group and laughs, waving and gesturing bid them to come down the stairs. "Excellent! Most excellent timing! My contacts had heard word of people like you milling around the city, and there has been much talk about your intentions, strangers. If you've come to throw in your lot with the people of Thorns, rather than to buy them, you've come to the right place!" He seems intensely amused at the brand on Candle's forehead especially. It's unlikely he has any idea what it means, but the story behind it must certainly be intriguing to him; unsurprising, given his den here. "Now, there's no need to be so harsh. The fact that these fine men and women gather here is already testament to their bravery. It can hardly be considered their fault that they are only human, can it? Where the Mask of Winters controls everything, a rebellion can only be made up of people he doesn't care to, and wield only that which can slip his notice, isn't that right? Granted, our hopes haven't been especially high until quite recently. We've made quite some progress in /preparing/ for an uprising, but until now, we haven't had a chance to make good on it. The armies of Lookshy would be great timing to thrown Thorns into disarray from within, wouldn't you say?"
Bloody Revelations	Out in the sewer corridor that is a mansion hallway, the floorboards creak convincingly with the footsteps of ascending Elites, joining the soft pings and groans of a dead quiet house settling in the night around them. Albert stops to check the scenery, uncommonly 'real' and cohesive in theme for these upper reaches. He finds that the bodies look as if they've been killed mere seconds ago, and are still pooling crimson blood onto the expensive hardwood. The finely papered walls are splattered in still-dripping stains, as is the handle of the only door to the side from the poor soul who had the same idea as Albert. Albeit, none of these people look as if they belong here at all. The fact that there is a window on the opposite wall, which ostensibly seems to look outside, is already evidence enough that this isn't actually a part of Thorns. All-Seeing Eye stops the odd, flickering figure on the assumption it is Bloody Revelations. When he speaks, the stumbling woman's progress skips for a second, like a hitch in the film. He could be forgiven for the assumption, given the dark and the fact that she is roughly her height, but when Gawain calls out to her, that clearly isn't the case, since she turns her head to reveal a face as blank, shapeless, and translucent as the rest of her, being little more than the foggy, shadowy suggestion of a lonely woman. The most material part of her is the gore spattered on her unidentifiable clothes, as even the poorly sized and fitted sword she drags behind her is part of her shadow. She staggers as if completely exhausted, drugged out of her mind, or seriously wounded, but lacks enough detail or definition to tell which. Whatever it is, it doesn't speak. Having no mouth or eyes doesn't help. Rather than becoming instantly hostile like most of the things found down here, it turns away from them instead, skipping frames until it reaches the far door, and sluggishly scrawling something in blood smeared from its fingertips on the frame, before it mimes grabbing the handle and opening it up, and phases right through. The door itself doesn't actually move, but a red handprint is left on it anyways, along with the text: <<Only one left. Don't go outside. Can't go outside.>>
Candle	Candle stares out into the crowd when somebody calls him out. Partially it's because they called him specifically out, and partially it's because he immediately gets bored with the practical considerations of rebellion and the whole... spiel that the pretty man gives him. It's two seconds into this exchange and already he's stopped paying attention. He looks towards the gagged man, and then towards the Pretty Girl, and then back towards the gagged man. At last, he settles on looking at the "Princess". "I /am/ watching who I'm talking to!" He exclaims, and nothing more.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 spends a few moments conferring over radio, leaving Candle out of the loop. It's not that she doesn't trust him, it's just that she doesn't believe he'd have any answers, and that she doesn't trust him, and that she's pretty sure it'd be easier to just deal with him after she has a plan. What answers she does get are within expectations. "What makes you think Lookshy will move?" Citation needed. She's not overtly hostile in the questioning, but it's still a challenging tone. "Bravery's one thing. Means are another." That applies to both parties in question. "I don't want to buy the city, or the people, or your support, unless you can actually do something. Either you're stronger than you look, or you're better off down here, sitting on your ass and smoking until stronger people take care of your problems for you." She's aware that her anti-pep talk could push people either way, but A-39 doesn't care. She glances toward the alleged princess, but doesn't find the presence of a figurehead and royal right additionally interesting, so her stare soon returns to the hair-over-face man, with another look scanning across the crowd of alleged, brave freedom fighters. "If there is something you think you can do, I'd like to hear it. The human guards up there aren't even relevant, so whether you can take them out or not doesn't matter."
All-Seeing Eye	Though his face bears a soft smile, All-Seeing Eye's body is coiled like a spring ready to bounce, full of tension. His suspicion is disproven, but when the unknown figure passes by without hostile intent, he relaxes visibly. Placing his attention on the door frame, the Exalt addresses Gawain. "She's responsible for these deaths," he says with the cold detachment of a medical examiner. The arm with the integrated crossbow activated is raised, and a finger pointed towards the message the spectre left. "If this is an admission of intent, we should find and question the last remaining person before she gets to them." Eye takes a moment to listen to the heartbeats of his fellow Elites. Once he's singled each one out, he begins selectively ignoring them, in an effort to locate any living beings in the area that aren't part of this operation. If there are no such heartbeats, he begins searching his surroundings, hoping to find any survivors of this attack to get their side of the story.
Gawain	Gawain frowns as Eye notes she's likely the murderer, especially as he approaches the door and reads the words. "'Don't Go Outside', 'Can't Go Outside'? What could that possibly mean?" Even with the knowledge she's the killer, her state of exhaustion or injury does concern the knight. "You're right, All-Seeing Eye. We can apprehend her as well." Gawain moves to open the door, trying to force it open so they continue forward. His hand is removed from his sword to do so, as he speaks to the others. "They're likely some sort of ghost, based on how they were moving. Are they killing other ghosts, or living people?" Not that it matters, murder is still murder whether or not the victim is already dead.
Azure Armature	Azure doesn't even look up at 'Harassing the daughter of the Rightful Queen!!!' because it doesn't mean anything to her, queens aren't representative of the pupulat, and are as she has come to understand, an outmoded and inefficent non-counciliary rule by one body, usually in most successful or lasting cases already supplanted in rule of law by a parlimentary or legislative body. "I have come to accomplish a spread of goals, including destroying those that would conceiveably keep you down. I do not understand why I would buy them." Azure leans forward, placing her right hand on the meeting table. "Are your people for sale? I presume the mercenaries are, but I do not wish to expend currency on damaged goods." "Your people have little chance against the Mask's lieutenants, so what plan have you to avoid a grim fate?"
Starbound Flotilla	The remainder of the Flotilla filter through, while Albert follows the figure, until it displays its message. He lacks any meaningful understanding of this one the way he understood the other, but... He thinks. "Probably locked." He checks, just to see, but even if the door does swing open, he's not planning on heading through just yet. "Need to assess location. Seems solid. Real." He strides to the hall's closed window and throws it open with force and gravitas, on the assumption that opening a window doesn't constitute going outside. One hopes that whatever he finds there won't disrupt his further plans, which are to investigate the interior. "'One left.' Means something here isn't /finished/. Deaths of the locals? Locals. No. Something's wrong about them. Don't seem like they belong here. It might be like the lab." He begins checking at the various aspects of the environment, looking for anything... Methodical. Were the lights intentionally extinguished with dedication, and now leave only one source? Were there any other changes to the environment that left only one? It's fine to assume that it's the murder of the person, but Albert's making sure. Despite the fact that his mind is flooded with its own brand of labyrinth sickness, he is at least distantly aware on some level that this could be something meant by a mentally-reactive space to mess with Gawain's objections to the deaths, if they have to find one last survivor and deal with them.
Bloody Revelations	The man dragged off for blowing that conspiratorial wad right off the bat has to wrestle with the woman restraining him not to keep yelling at Candle, obviously incensed by his casual treatment of the situation and his total lack of class properly fitting a Dynast (surely he must be one), but quickly enough, two more people join the woman who might be his sister in wrestling him off. "I beg your forgiveness in his stead, good sir." says the prettyboy. "The Queen of Thorns is a popular figure to the people even today, and everyone would dearly like to see her reinstated. She has given herself over to the court of the puppet king to spare her son and daughter, and the former is sadly the property of the Thornguard now. It is only natural that the patriotic citizens of Thorns would wish to honour their former, kinder rules, no?" At Kyoko's pointed words, he only laughs, and not in a challenging or mocking way. "Ah, yes yes! Welcome to my personal little sanctuary! A place to get away from the blind and dogmatic thugs of the Immaculate Order, put one's troubles aside and relax for a time! Or at least, it once was. Understandably, the Order isn't much in fashion these days, though I still have plenty of customers from the Guild and their sailors and drivers. Trade is booming, even if who is being traded with and what is being traded has changed with the times. Please, don't bother my patrons. These fine men and women in the war room with me here are present free of charge. I've made my considerable resources an open closet to them for their noble cause! On loan, of course." Nobody seems particularly bothered by the fact this guy is profiteering off of their rebellion. Probably because he has the only connections to outside resources and muscle in the city. His private bouncers at least look pretty rough and well-armed. "Oh, don't take it the wrong way." he says to Azure. "The Mask of Winters loves visitors and dotes on them constantly. The Guild, of course, deals heavily in slaves, but a number of them are quite a bit more altruistic than you might believe. There are more than a few 'concubines' and 'oarsmen' who have been bought away from their parents and set free on another shore. The Mask hates escapees, but he is perfectly happy to sell slaves to the Guild, you see the trick?" "Mercenaries, of course. The profits of taking Thorns are so astronomical that there are always some willing to fight for the cause, if the odds look to be in their favour, moreso that they might do so on the side of mighty Lookshy! Other than that, I have great quantities of smuggled salt --illegal here, if you weren't aware- thamaturgical materials, alchemical explosives, some enchanted this and that and petty wonders, really more than most could ask for. Of course, it's nowhere near enough to rise up and fight the Masks's armies ourselves, but we have some ideas." "Specifically, we were in the middle of discussing them. It seems that Lookshy's submission of declaration of war to the local Confederacy has gone through, despite attempts at diplomatic resolution by the Mask's cronies. The fine folks of Lookshy seem to know better, thank heavens. That should keep his attention on preparing for the front lines, at least for a little while, which would be the perfect time to strike. There are three possible candidates for major centers of power that could damage his war effort, but I'm afraid we don't have the manpower to hit more than one at a time, and we'd only get away with the one surprise attack, while he believes we're completely helpless. Come, come! Take a look for yourselves!"
Bloody Revelations	All-Seeing Eye's quest for the beating of living hearts is sadly in vain. The butchery seems to have been swift and complete, as well as excessively bloody, with the wounds on the body implicating that the killer didn't really know how to use a sword, and made up the difference in sheer viciousness. Poking around, it really does seem like it was completely by surprise, as if someone just walked in through the front door and flipped out. Investigating the side room turns up as a dead end, being some sort of large but closed study with the curtains drawn and a broken chair wedged up against the door. Blood oozes out from under the desk, where the corpse of a finely dressed man can be found huddling, poorly attempting to avoid being seen. The papers on his desk are all finances; a family ledger, by the looks of it. One heavily in the red. Albert checking things out as well can see that the lights have been intentionally put out, or maybe a servant in charge of it never made their way here. They don't seem as if they've been lit, at least in the last few hours, save the one closest to the end door, where Gawain is, on the left side, which bears bloody fingerprints to indicate it was snuffed out by hand. Opening the window the window that shouldn't be there could result in a number of things. A very probable one is opening into a stone wall. Another would be some grotesque thing spilling in. What seems less plausible is that he feels cold, night air on his face, and can see the glare of the moon directly, which looks to be the day after its fullness. There is a yard as well, dark, expansive, and vacant, with the hazy, rippling suggestion of some pantomimed city far in the distance. The primary feature is the mob of scores, if not hundreds, of featureless and androgynous humanoid silhouettes standing out in the light of the moon, chaotically clustered in wide circles around the house, staring inward with no eyes, cast completely black by the pale white light from the sky behind them, and casing their own shadows across the ground, leading to an effect that looks like they're standing on water rather than stone. Gawain, eager to make progress, finds that the door is not actually locked. His hand winds up warm and sticky, partly from the blood, but also in the sense of having just touched metal warmed by someone else's body heat. When he opens it, and steps past the snuffed candle, it leads into a dark, starkly plain stone tunnel, and from the far distance, he can hear the echoing of conversation. Something about salt and slaves and front lines.
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 says a few more, low words to her radio. "'Guild' contacts. That's his source of intel. We can expect movement from Lookshy. But that's not a timetable." Even quietly, she's not going to bother with the topic of the rule of queens. It's a thing for the people to rally around, that much is clear, and despite her own nation's involuntary loss of monarchy a few generations ago, she has no strong feelings on the matter. Aloud, "You have something useful, then. Let's see it." Salt. For its power of purification? She's heard of such a superstition. Maybe they're actually true, here, where ghosts are undeniably real. The supplies could be particularly useful, and she's more ready to trust a black marketeer to have ample supplies than to have a surplus of bravery. She approaches the table. "If the plan's good enough, we'll see if there aren't new resources to bring to it."
Candle	Candle makes a revolted noise in response to what the Pretty Guy Who Is Obviously In Charge says to him. He knows what it means when somebody tells him that an integral figure of the whole thing is being used as a hostage. With the HEAVIEST SIGH he ever did heave, he replies, "Does that mean one o' your goals is gonna be to go fetch the Queen's son so he don't end up fed to a pool of needlefish the minute you make a move? S'pecially with her hangin' around you." He nods towards the girl. He hates rescues. They involve too much fine manipulation of a situation and not enough burning absolutely everything to the ground.
All-Seeing Eye	Throughout his search, the lack of beating hearts weighs upon All-Seeing Eye. If it's necessary to do so, he forces the door open to enter the study. The first thing that draws his attention upon entering is the corpse. He kneels beside it briefly, examining the wounds and frowning. Rising above the desk, his notice lands upon the ledger. None of this is here for no reason, and so he begins flipping through the ledger, looking for any explanation as to why the family's finances were suffering. If there are any links between the killings and the apparent financial mismanagement, that'd be just fantastic, but he doesn't expect to be so lucky. The longer he spends searching through the ledger, the more obvious his displeased frown becomes.
Azure Armature	Azure just sort of stands and watches, her eyes (which are the only really fully visible part of her face, that and her eyebrows) narrowing by degrees as the talk continues. "You have left unanswered the lieutenants and their extant issue to any uprising. And the garrison forces..." Azure Armature reveals that she has spent perhaps Too Much Time observing and infiltrating Thorns as of late, by tapping the map in various points. "Here, here, and here - the checkpoint here, the security station here, the front that is actually an observation area here, and the watchpoints located on these street corners." "I have not seen any holding areas, but if you can point out likely locations, I may be able to fill you in. Otherwise, the lieutenants tend to linger in these areas..." She points out a few more areas. "Making movement fairly difficult. I have gotten close to a few of them, but others are extremely aware of their surroundings, making infiltration difficult. Therefore..." She taps a few larger buildings. "I have not made in-depth recon to these areas, largely due to the presence of those Champions." She leans back from the table, looking at the foppish man. "Does that assist in your understanding?" As to Candle's comment, her shoulders almost shrug. "If it's made a mission priority, Alpha-thirty-nine and I can most likely extract her. However..." A sly look crosses her face, mostly hidden by her scarf, though her body language changes subtly. "I actually think that there is a high likelihood that I am aware of another group that will jump at the opportunity to rescue a hostage while a surprise attack happens, that will almost certainly draw most of the Mask's ire, as well as his forces."
Gawain	As the door opens, Gawain looks at the blood on his hand and frowns, moving to try and wipe it off as he steps forward. Hearing sounds ahead, the knight glances to the others. "People ahead! Some sort of conversation. I'm going to approach." Turning on his flashlight, the knight moves to brighten the path, before heading forward to try and get to those having a conversation. It didn't sound dangerous, so he won't assume such. As Gawain got further down the tunnel, he'd actually call out once he's close enough to clearly hear talking. "Hello? Anyone there? Please answer in words this time!"
Starbound Flotilla	All the individuals are featureless, but are they identical? Albert's mind is methodical to say the least, and he tries to follow up on a hunch, an intuition of sorts. 'Can't go outside...' Maybe there's some link between the scores of ghosts and the scores of corpses. He looks about, checking open rooms, examining the corpses themselves, and mathematically figuring aspects of them in his mind. Are there something like as many tall figures as taller corpses? Are there something like as many fat figures as there are fatter corpses? Is there any correlation that Albert can find? Man, he thinks, in a brief respite from his melodramatic shenanigans. He really wishes he had Hibiki here, she's much better at all this than he is. He focuses, for now, on his search. He's looking for two things: A light that hasn't yet been snuffed out, and a person that isn't yet a corpse. 'One more' is the key aspect for him. "Look in the financial records." He says, to All-Seeing Eye. "Need a number of names. Need to match it to the number of figures or the number of corpses. Need to find which one is minus-one." He searches about -- his scanner is useless here, so it's just opening up whatever he can and pixel-hunting like a true adventure game hero -- and sees if he can find either of the things he's looking for...
Bloody Revelations	Prettyboy twists his lip quite theatrically at the question of hostages. "In a sense, I suppose. Of course the mother wants her poor son back, but . . . when I say the Thornguard 'has him', I mean that he's a part of it now. For what reason he joined the Mask of Winters' personal army, I can't say. Possibly as being guaranteed to be some of the only living humans he has a reason to care about. Possibly for the sake of his mother. Who knows. 'Rescuing' him is less the issue than 'making sure he isn't killed in the war', if it can at all be helped. I'm not so certain however. These days, the shirtless knight is the one who takes care of the Thornguard's training, and the recruits he personally teaches tend to come back . . . changed." Not only he, but everyone else around the table watches with extreme interest as Azure beings marking out points all across it, the less spirited among them suddenly gazing at her with intensely projected emotion something like disbelieving hope, most likely that someone so skilled and overly prepared had seemingly just fallen into their laps like this. "Very good, very /good/." the prettyboy says. "You've certainly done your research. More than I have, in fact! The Masks's personal knights are an issue yes, but I believe myself capable of handling one or two. The rest are an issue that, well, we'd certainly like to see the mighty champions of Lookshy handle, yes? Over half of his Deathknights are martially inclined. Most either badly require battle experience after their predecessors were killed, or are hardened veterans he couldn't do without, and so they will be present at major engagements." "What we hope to achieve is sabotage of their personal effects and supply lines, especially their necrotechnological support equipment, to leave them overextended and cut off. Even one of the Mask's most hardened knights couldn't fight his way out of a proper formation of Lookshy's veteran and fully equipped Dragon-Blooded without any support. We have a number of enchanted items for that purpose, as well as easily concealed explosives. Obviously, large quantities of salt will be invaluable in restricting the movements of the Mask's less intelligent war ghosts, keeping them out of the fray."
Bloody Revelations	"Our main efforts aren't to the field, however. At the minute, what we hope to accomplish is breaking the back of his war machine at home. There are three possible candidates we had been debating before you so commandly required our attention." He first points to a space near the coast. "Deep underground, we know the Mask of Winters is mining very large quantities of soulsteel ore and behemoth bone for a personal military project, but we have little idea of how to get to it and disable it, despite being by far the most crucial tactical asset within our reach." He next points to the palace in the middle of the map. "Within the court, my contacts know for a fact that the Mask barely ever deigns visit, and delegates the mundane running of Thorns to his own little puppet circus of cronies, corrupt from bottom to top. There are three factions competing for the top, one entirely disillusioned with him, one eager to take his place, and a third of loyalists to Thorns' old way of life, lead by the captive Queen Lilia. Any kind of upset, perhaps even a coup, could grind Thorns' manufacturing and marshaling to a halt for weeks." Finally, he points to one of the giant buildings Azure hasn't gone near in the northeast. "And this is would be what is going by the Shackle Maw Penitentiary these days. While technically a prison, you certainly haven't seen any holding areas because they are none. I have absolute confirmation that its 'prisoners' are effectively abducted lab rats, and the building is given over to necrosurgery experiments by the Masks's brightest pupils and personal favourite Deathknight. While liberating the prisoners would certainly be a powerful rallying symbol, capturing that sort of research could surely be crucial." "The issue is, of course, that the Mask is not blind. He ignores these fine ladies and gentlemen for their apparent powerlessness, but will not at all be difficult for him to guard himself against them after their first, and likely only, successful strike. Even you are a known quantity to him, courtesy of his top spy, but I believe his interest in you strangers is quite different; much like the Guild and the Confederation, he enjoys outlandish visitors. I suspect he has little idea of your true intentions, yet. Most likely, he has been waiting for a suitable opportunity to enlist your services."
Bloody Revelations	Gawain, searching for illusory metaphors and bad memories, stumbles in pretty much right at this moment. Walking down the stone tunnel, he arrives through one of the waterways right into the exact same chamber as the rebel gathering, to much murmuring and suspicion. That might be because the tunnel behind him is filled in with cement. If 'Eye or Albert follow him within the next several minutes, it will still lead out into the same place, but past that, that door could go anywhere. Not that there can really be fault found with wanting to stay behind and check the details. This particular passage is much less heavily melded and mangled than the others, with a much more narrow stream of half-forgotten symbols and impressions, rather than being a chaotic mishmash of ones that make sense to several people. There is a certain crystal clarity to various aspects of it, and dream-like vagueness to other aspects. The manner of dress on every body is fancy and easily placed geographically, but near-identical, and none of them have any personal effects, yet all of their faces are highly detailed, giving off the uncanny impression of being a real dead person wearing a costume to play a part in a bad dream. The portraits are all bland and flat, corresponding to nobody in particular, and have significantly less distinction than the sprays of blood on the same walls rendered in lovingly fine detail. The ledger is actually one of these things (most of the papers in the study are, by contrast, blank). The figures are extremely well-rendered and realistic, and date back almost a decade of hardship, largely owing to intermittent, slowly accelerating destruction of family property, unexpected deaths and disappearances of servants, relatives, and recently even visitors, massive legal fees having to be constantly paid to half a dozen sources, a costly and expensive investigation for ancestor worship by the Order, and basically every other thing that could possibly go wrong for a wealthy house, possibly of close blood to a noble lineage. There are reams of pages detailing valuable heirlooms, and then functional artifacts, being sold and auctioned off to cover these costs, and keep up a public facade of continued opulence, but any accountant would be pulling his hair out at these figures. This make-believe family was teetering on the brink. The figures outside have nothing to do with those inside. That much Albert can tell right away. There are far too many for one, easily outnumbering the population of any mansion tenfold, and they all have near-identical proportions, which are already 'an artists impression' of being human in the first place. Looking at them for long is incredibly comfortable, getting the distinct impression that eyes somewhere in those blank, black heads, are staring back. Of course, these killings are so sudden and savage that there's no way they'd be recorded in family papers . . . save that someone has intentionally rifled through them and started smearing out names on their own. It's a roster of salaries and family allowances and income (pointedly, where a great number of servants are paid nothing), where someone has obsessively scratched them out on blood-stippled paper. Whatever the name is at the top, it is sadly lost to time, as they have written over it in bright red scrawl: "Give me back my eye."
Kyoko Takada	"How much does he know?" Alpha-39 asks at once, after hearing about this "top spy." She watches Azure mark the map, nodding appreciatively. Her own previous forays had been for the purpose of finding the path down to this very camp, and so she hadn't spent much time scouting the city. The ponce gets a look after his claim of being able to take on "one or two," but soon clarifies that he does realize he's up against death knights. She gives him a more critical appraisal at that, but lacks the kind of local knowledge that would help her assess the source of someone's power, especially if they made any attempt to mask their martial knowledge. She starts to point at the map and give her judgment on the priorities presented, gearing up for much more talking than comfortable for her reticent nature, when Gawain appears. A-39 closes her mouth, turns to look at him, and slowly pulls her mask on. There's a faint whirring of parts moving in and out of place as her sensors get a read on him, and she pulls the mask back and away again, to hang from her neck at its usual position. Gawain being as incapable of stealth as he is, making a convincing illusion of him would be similarly difficult. Therefore, this is probably Gawain, and not the Labyrinth spitting out a figure from her memory to confuse everyone. Thus, "Oh. Good. You're here." A-39 turns back to the table. "Get over here so we don't have to explain things twice. "I doubt the Mask cares about much of the 'Thornguard' at all. They're weak and unmotivated. Unmotivated guards will defect if given a reason and a chance." She starts gesturing to the map. "Forget the rank and file and focus on the lieutenants. Sabotaging resource-gathering will only slow an army's growth before it's noticed and corrections get made. Sabotaging the effects of the knights requires either it go unnoticed or we know just when they'll be heading out, and you don't have Lookshy's timetable, do you? Research might be harder to restart, but disrupting that only matters if the real battle is still a long ways off." Considering how entirely different her world is, she couldn't even give a good explanation for her strategic knowledge if asked, but matters of logistic are within her training, if sadly not her frequent, personal experience. "Explosives will be useful. Me and her," she jerks a thumb toward Azure, "can get them in place, and at least one of us is used to using them. You can never have too many properly-rigged explosives." She pauses. "Destroying a large mining operation is better done by collapsing all the paths down to it. Fastest, most efficient way." She makes another dubious face. "You think the Mask cares what games the puppets run? They're only human, too. He'd be a piss-poor magical undead despot if it took him weeks to kill everyone giving him trouble and put loyalists back in charge."
Candle	Candle has fallen into dumbfounded silence. He draws his ludicrous jawbone sword and uses it to scratch his head -- equally ludicrous as the thing itself -- while he looks between the Prettyboy, Azure Armature, and A-39. He ends up leaning on the jawbone blade and looking actually pretty sleepy. This stepped outside of his area of expertise as soon as the "Prince" became somebody who was just sort of ambiguously on the other side. He jerks his head towards Azure Armature, "I'm no fuckin' good at this sort of stupid thinky shit. If I'm still here when something happens just point me at something that I can go pick a fight with. That's how this /always/ goes." His head twitches slightly in A-39's direction at her final commentary on Mask of Winters. Candle gives a great big shrug. "The last situation like this /I/ ran into involved a magical despot whose primary M.O. was breeding the entire god damned population with animals. Some of it with a fucking whale! Pretty sure most of these assholes have some really pointless ships sailin' for them. Don't know this Mask guy, tho." He rubs an eye sleepily.
All-Seeing Eye	Thump. Eye closes the ledger with a definitive sound. He then makes the rounds, saving the images of the deceased to his drone's internal memory crystal--perhaps the high level of detail corresponds to something in the real world. Touching a hand to his ear, he communicates over the radio to the other Elites. "The family was selling heirlooms to maintain their opulence," he says dispassionately, in that same medical-examiner tone. "A great many laborers went unpaid, to serve the same purpose. There's mention of a missing eye, possibly an artifact or heirloom to which the murderer had an obsessive attachment. Based on information within the ledger, I suspect the murderer was the ghost of an ancestor who took umbrage at the sale of her 'eye.'" He frowns, tapping a gloved finger to his lips. "I've saved pertinent information, and I'm moving to regroup with Gawain." The Exalt leaves the study, using his hearing to lead him towards the sounds of the knight's plate mail, or failing that, the sounds of the voices he claimed to have heard.
Gawain	Gawain joins the group of rebels with a polite smile, his voice elegant and calm when he speaks. There's a touch of genuinity to it as he speaks, the type of commanding yet regal voice that a knight would have. "Ah, my apologies for interrupting! Sir Gawain, Warden of the Paladins, Knight of the Sun. It's a pleasure." Listening to what they have to say, Gawain zeroes in on the penitentiary. "So the prisoners are civilians? Would they have any reason to transfer them to the mines?" There's a touch of bitterness to his tone, as Gawain considers whether or not some of the civilians he saw were the abductees. "How secured would you say this penitentiary is, and where may the best location to strike it from be?" Gawain's going to leave the rest of the strategy to the others. He has something to make up for.
Azure Armature	Azure nods along, as NEW PEOPLE show up. Thankfully, for her, her scarf is already up around her face from the thick 420_RESISTANCE_BLAYZED clouds hanging in the air. A-39 recieves a nod. "I propose the following course of action. Candle and his elites can, with support, most likely hit either a target of opportunity, or the labs. I would like to accompany him to the labs to secure any useful intelligence before it's burned to the ground. I do not think it will be missed. As for you, I suggest moving with the other camouflaged agent in his small.. warstrider? -- Batou? -- to place charges and secure critical personell from the mines, as well as any useful materiel. There are a number of minor targets of opportunity that we can hit, and allow our Resistance allies to strike at while they are confused, while the main force strikes..." Gawain is waved in. "Knight of the Sun, then. I'm familiar. You, however, are not. I have a task for you - one unsubtle yet suited to your talents. You shall be our signal." She gestures to the Queen of Thorns. "Her children are captured by heartless killers, and one is being gruellingly programmed against his will to be a soldier loyal to the Mask. Your objective, with as many of your loud friends as possible, is to rally the people and call them to arms by striking out at this training camp, killing the lieutenant, and freeing those forces from the Mask's dominion before they join his war-host... Or ending their suffering if they cannot be swayed." She taps along the map as she does so. "Alpha and I can move through the city to core points in minor objectives before the set-off of our offensive, and my recon can allow her to set remote explosives around the city to benefit us." She smiles to Gawain, while deadpanning. "Ah, I forgot. A knight and a princess, how romantic."
Starbound Flotilla	Comfortable to look at. Albert, at least, can take a few moments to drain a bit of his own intense anger with the lengthy stare. Lacking another route to take, though, Albert heads towards where Eye is heading. "Blind." He says. "Makes sense that the people here are faceless." Huh. It DOES make sense. The other members of the Starbound Flotilla follow as well, and the whole group soon finds themselves deposited at the same site. He keeps a keen ear out for the sound of the speech, and can hear something in particular. The behemoth and the mines... He can get a somewhat clearer picture of what's going down here as he emerges and moves towards it. He's still got a little melodrama as he casts his weird raygun to one side, to make a show of either not needing it or not intending to threaten the group. "We've annihilated the mines and the behemoth bone. They won't be usable for several years." He says. "I've already seen what the underground has had to say about the necrotech experimentation. We've been tracking the experimentation since we arrived. I'm going to turn the laboratory to ash. I'm going to pull out everything it would use to torture and mutilate the population, and I'm going to set it on them instead. Inefficient, egotistical monopolies on the empirical sciences made in the suffering and death of the people deserve to experience nothing but fire and become nothing but ash." He's just sort of walking right up to this and deciding his angle without any regard for the fact that the rebels might not trust this. "Tell me everything you know about about Shackle Maw. Tell me where to find it. And tell me about anything there that shouldn't burn." His helmet has already folded back into his suit and, between the labyrinth's necrotech labs and his own tumultuous emotions after that, it displays an expression of intense rage. "I've seen this in the Miniknog before, and I'll burn it all here." Even when he's being more verbose than Albert ever is, his speech is short and tense.
Bloody Revelations	"How much? Well, certainly that interlopers with strange languages and powers were responsible for the death of the Golden Bull of the North, in the defense of Whitewall, and the exploitation of Denandsor. That news will take months to reach this part of Creation by normal means, but his spy network is vast, and his top man is one of his very own Deathknights. The most reasonable of them, tragically." "I must say I agree with the assessment that the involvement of your ilk has been schizophrenic to say the least. It wouldn't surprise me if the Mask of Winters thought there could be potential allies among you, for the destruction of one of the Solar Exalted, and denying the Walker in Darkness --his chief rival-- his prize, but then there's the matter that you fought a Hekatonkhire and gave over Denandsor to Lookshy --his political and military nemesis-- as well. Maybe that unpredictability has protected you well so far? No doubt, you wouldn't be able to roam so freely were you 'less interesting', hm?" He then goes on to shake his head at A-39. "The Thornguard, pardon the confusing name, is not the city guard. The city guard have their posts only because the city needs them for appearance's sake. The Thornguard are an elite privilege, personally tutored by Deathknights and given arms and armour of black magic. Many have sold themselves to that group to provide for their families, but others simply want power. Their numbers aren't up to defeating Lookshy's experienced Exalted, but they will most likely be lead into battle by Deathknight generals, where they would be ten times as effective." He taps his finger on the large, square outline of the Penitentiary again as the newcomer brings it up, without batting an eye at the sudden appearance of Gawain, followed by Albert, and so on. "Under circumstances I've seen anywhere else, I would agree, but to do so would be to vastly underestimate the Mask of Winters' capacity. That his armies are not unconquerably mighty has to do with the maintenance required to keep an army of the dead running, and his lack of short term plans involving one. His most powerful savants, surgeons, and Necromancers, I fear are more than capable of whipping one up in a very short time, given a pressing need. The results of their research are less important than the fact that they will all /be there/; conveniently in one place, you see? No doubt there are already many blueprints and upgrades ready for production that are simply being kept on file as well."
Bloody Revelations	He nods along with Azure and Albert, seeming to agree with their assessment. "We have no means of staging an assault on that place ourselves, but if you think yourselves brave, strong, and lucky enough to do so, then I would be glad to set up a little help, so said! While I don't care much for a brazen, frontal assault, nobody would begrudge seeing the place leveled, especially if any of the prisoners could be freed." His eyes light up as Albert just casually mentions they just blew up the mine less than an hour ago, visibly intensely interested in him in only a split second, and catching on something right away. "Well then! If it draws the Mask of Winters' wrath immediately and destroys all future possibility of covert action, so be it! No doubt Shackle Maw will be heavily defended no matter what after today. With two devastating blows like that, the madman may be forced to take to the field himself to make up the difference!" Though some of the people in the room seem to feel a little sketchy about this, they're willing to keep quiet if their boss/idol/ringleader/benefactor is totally enthusiastic to throw the loud Dragon-Blooded with the giant jawbone sword at the problem. They all hate that prison something fierce. "How it might be upgraded, I can't say. No doubt the Thornguard will be present in some numbers, as well as a significant number of war ghosts and lookouts. Likely many early detection wards, as well as those to prevent scrying and intangible entry, with so many powerful magicians on-staff. I'm afraid there may not /be/ a good location to strike from, at least not without an intentional diversion. The bulk of it is underground." Seeming like he's starting to wrap things up, he reaches under the map and produces a sheaf of sketches, six in total. Three of them are obviously the three Deathknights seen previously, maning the other three are likely their peers. He hands over the one of the burly, severe looking man with close-shaved hair. "The 'lieutenant', as you like to call them, who is responsible for the Thornguard is this gentleman here: Conscientious Grimacing Executioner, one of the Mask of Winters' first generation, of a martial bent. A former Immaculate, from some sordid rumours of dubious credibility I've heard. No doubt he is all too familiar with 'programming', as you put it." He picks up on the full meaning of the term rather quickly, then points to a different image of a more handsome and roguish looking young man. "And he would be the Wink of the Storm's Eye; the Mask's inside man and diplomatic representative and spy."
Bloody Revelations	"There is one last matter. If any of this is to succeed in the end, we will need to know one more fact. According to every source I have, the Mask of Winters is immortal. He can only be truly killed under certain circumstances; a secret weakness. It is already a matter of fact that the only Deathlord to have ever been driven back from Creation was done so when a cooperative number of gods came very close to revealing hers." "I've heard many outlandish candidates, but the two most recurring and most credible are the following. Some insist that the Mask of Winters can only find rest after he acknowledges and repents for a murder he committed in life, which ties his soul to this realm. Others insist that he is only capable of being truly destroyed by the white hot rage of one who is oppressed. Either or both could be a fabrication. Believing the first encourages one to treat with him like a reasonable man, which is exactly what he would like. Believing the second encourages adversarial elements to hurl themselves at him directly, which he would also like. Think on it for a moment. If one believes he can be redeemed, their heart is already too open to resist his poison. If one is someone cruelly oppressed, they can only be too weak to defeat him, for if they had power enough, they would not be held down. Make of those what you will, but he /has/ a weakness. Somewhere."
Kyoko Takada	Alpha-39 takes Candle's point under consideration. "Okay, sure. Could be he's crazy in ways I've never dreamed." Wouldn't hurt to keep that in mind. It's probably even true. Azure outlines a plan. There are a lot of potential failure points, but the overall structure is sound, and for a guerrilla operation, they can judge it as a success by how much damage is done, not by whether all objectives were completed. It's passable, and so, she gives a nod. "Robot, warstrider, same thing." Probably. "If he agrees to it, it'll work." She straightens, and shrugs. "We'll see how much of the plan survives first contact." She won't say anything about rescuing the hypothetical prisoners, but hopes Gawain takes Azure's advice. And then the Flotilla is showing up, figures largely more familiar to her than the knight, and they come with welcome news for this particular effort. Quietly, "That takes care of that." The rage in Albert is rather less familiar, but she thinks she gets the gist of why, and says nothing of it. The pretty one answers. A-39 maintains her poker face, not showing any relief at the dearth of specific information, or at how the news was a result of matters in which she was moderately involved, if at all. She takes in the correction regarding the Thornguard, and then looks with some suspicious curiosity at the man's own lack of suspicion regarding the new arrivals. He's either extremely welcoming or has faith in only appropriate persons having both the ability and motivation to reach this place, but she considers it unproductive to point it out. More importantly, she studies the pictures of what she assumes to be death knights. With the mines already being out of the picture, she won't have to handle that part of Azure's plan. "If one of these can be drawn out to a prepared location, I can find out for myself how hard they are to kill." It's on the verge of reckless, but she has to see how strong these freaks are at one point or another, and with the rebel supplies, she can make the kind of kill zone that would bring a hard smile to even her ever-dour face.
Azure Armature	Azure nods at the mine's destruction. "Then we shound most likely move quickly. Killing the lieutenants should be our overall top priority - even if we are to stumble, the Mask will have to re-train anyone we kill. I've marked most of the military-minded ones, and am familiar that one personally inspects the war camps, outside the city, sometimes with one of the necrotech war-smiths, usually without. With the mines down, I would suggest creating a kill-zone in the forest and then engaging the war camp in a hit-and-fade operation, delaying the war-host and luring them into your prepared trap. Alternatively, you could just go with some of the louder sorts and beat them to death in open combat. Either works." Azure shrugs. "As for primary objectives, this means cutting off the arc sprites of this whole chain of command: the spymaster and his agents. Hitting the observation posts and drawing out the spymaster to get a hold of the situation on the ground could lead to a severing of the chain of intelligence. There is always Juggernaut, but now we do not have the luxury of the Mask depleting himself against Lookshy before we act - we've acted, so now we must clean up." Azure brings a hand to her face, thumb and index finger pressing into her eyes. "I know they say that no plan survives contact with the enemy, but my plan barely survived seconds before it was totally destroyed by friendly action. This means your first objective is securing the political prisoner, Knight Gawain. Otherwise, he will be used against the people. I am sure Arthur, Candle, and I can take the laboratory facility as long as the garrison forces don't close the door behind us before we can finish burning it down."
All-Seeing Eye	"Ah," says All-Seeing Eye to the other prettyboy. "All-Seeing Eye, Chosen of Autochthon." He bows, flipping his hair back over his shoulder as he rises. "First of all, let me say what an absolute delight it is to finally be among those whose minds aren't ravaged by the rigors of the afterlife. Honestly, I've had my life's fill of veiled metaphor--but enough about me." He pauses, then giggles. "For now, anyway." With a nod towards Gawain, he continues. "My comrades and I chanced upon a forward camp for the Mask's forces. In it, a subordinate of mine found a coded missive you might find /very/ interesting. He should be along shortly to present it to you." A look towards Azure, and his nose is pointed ever so slightly upwards. "I expect it will give us a tactical advantage to make up for the impact of... friendly action."
Candle	"It doesn't really matter if they close the doors behind us," Candle chimes in with a raised finger, "I can just turn everybody into smoke and get the fuck out of there /and/ set things a little more fire on the way out. No big deal. You haven't seen me /really/ light something on fire yet." It's probably a good idea to ask him what constitutes really setting things on fire by his standards before all of this goes down.
Gawain	Gawain really wants to be involved in saving the prisoners. He feels guilty for the death of the civilians, Bloody Revelations having blamed him personally. However, with the others depending on him for this operation..."Alright, I understand. If a prince is in need of rescue, I will use my talents at being as bright as the sun to light him a better path." The knight places his hand over his chest. "On my word as a knight, I will recover the prince. Please give me all relevant information needed to identify and rescue him. I will organize the operation to recover him!" Atleast here's something Gawain knows he can do. And the others can recover the civilians. "On the lieutenants, I'd also like to know any relevant information about the one who will have the prince. It is quite likely we will have to fight him and any allies he has." When Eyes nods to Gawain, Gawain nods back. "Indeed. It has some sort of encryption that we couldn't break, so perhaps locals could do the best job of it."
Starbound Flotilla	"If you need them dispersed, then they'll be dispersed." Albert says, pounding a fist straight down into the table. "I'll poison the land, seed it with traps the way I did in the mines, and hunt every collective of necroscientists and do the same thing wherever they gather -- I'll make sure they're /never/ safe." His fist shudders with the intensity of its squeezing. "I've built every bit of power I'd need to launch an assault. If most of it is underground then that's how I'll assault. I'll fit a gunship casing to a Starstrider and mount them both to a drill with a heavy booster, and break through into from the underground." Somewhere, no doubt, the Spirit of Motherwill's crew feels a passing breath of anxiety, and glances juuuust slightly lower than usual. Albert looks over the map, snapping a few photographs with something at his wrist before seeming to be done with it. "Immortality. We'll look, but I know /dictators/ like that. Big Ape is 'immortal' too. Immortality is a ruse as much as a weakness. More firepower. More stopping power. More wounds. More advantage. We'll find a way. I don't care about giving him /therapy/. If it's rage of the oppressed that will end him, I'll put the bullet in him myself. It was the plan from the beginning. Not my business to figure out either way. One of you get it done." Since Azure seems to be taking the broader plans, Albert's going a bit tunnel vision. "Lookshy doesn't know or care what they're getting into. Save them the trouble." He says, leaning down and narrowing his eyes. "Games of politics and shows of force. Moonfin's the only one of us who cares who's going to war. They'll buy guns from us whether we finish our mission before or after that." The pragmatic gun-runner as always, even in his weird mad-science rage. "I'll need a short time to assemble the booster, the drill, the gunship, and the Starstrider. I'll strike when ready." One hopes this coincides well with Azure's plan!! Probably, his rage isn't /that/ much of a hassle right now at least.
Bloody Revelations	With an otherwise probably one-sided planning session happily spiraling into something joined by nearly a dozen powerful experts with big names and exploits behind them, the table pretty much clears out for the Elites, who have full access to the city map, marked extensively with notes on who lives where, which routes what soldiers travel, where hideouts and safe drops exist, and where what they call 'dark zones' materialize, their boundaries lie, and where they shrink back down. They also have access to thick stacks of papers regarding the individual sightings of hundreds of people over the span of a decade, and less thick stacks where they've been finalized into actual reports, as well as lists of materials and dossiers containing names of smugglers, savants, and sellswords on board for the lucrative venture. The collection on the six Deathknights is significantly more sparse, but should be workable. Provided people are willing to make copies, they're free to keep the info. The subject of the missive gets some direct attention, to which their host cautiously assures them that he has some familiarity with the phrases, allusions, references, and ciphers the Mask likes to use, and that the resistance has successfully decoded some of his orders to his court before, but that he hasn't tested their ability against high level orders to a personally trusted Abyssal. It will take time for them to crack at it, but it may be possible to divine the particular Deathknight's schedule for the coming months, and with the assistance of a suitable Elite, it may even be possible to forge further letters. In any case, the scope of planning goes well beyond what can be accomplished before the rebel citizens are forced to leave, one by one, either to see to their families, to appear at a job the next day in secret, or simply to avoid curfew. The specifics are largely left up to the professionals.