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Bloody Revelations     Only a couple of people are seeing the capital of the North of Creation for the second time. Though few outside of it would call it such a thing, as it is 'merely' a city state unto itself, it is essentially unarguable that it is by far and away the greatest combination of large, populous, prosperous, modern, comfortable, safe, and generally relevant of all cities *or* states in the northern direction.

    Whitewall. The name of the city has an obvious origin, owing to the gigantic, sheer white walls that encircle the entire city, which must be ten miles across, sat at the bottom of a wide valley between mountains, filled with dark deciduous trees, where they haven't been cleared for a quilt of stitched together farmland. The earth is still locked in frost here, extending deep enough to make soil as hard and unyielding as stone. There is but one gate to the entire walled perimeter, to the south, into which leads a uniquely recognizable road, straight as an arrow, god knows how many miles long, made of pure white granite, and oddly warm even in winter.

    Despite the pretty facade of the city, however, there are a few stark reminders of the wild and almost lawless frontier it occupies, in an already war-torn world. A significant number of advanced siege engines sit on iron rails atop the wall, and there is a constant, robust guard duty. Maintaining a strong checkpoint at the gates, for the quite considerable amount of wagon traffic arriving even in winter, no doubt carrying coal and wood and meats amongst other things, they search any wares quite thoroughly, and briefly check travelers at the gate for name, occupation, origin, purpose of visit, expected length of visit, et cetera; they're airport questions if anything.

    Up close at the gate, the only thing that stands out are the faint impressions of repairs on the walls. It looks as if the snow white exterior was already a facade, with some kind of mosaic briefly revealed under, shattered, and then plastered over again with granite concrete.

    The inside is honestly much the same --exceptionally white and with relatively spartan fronts-- but given where you are, it's surprisingly modern. Well-planned streets, coal-fired lamps along them, plenty of buildings five stories and above, becoming more complicated and ornate and filled with spires further in. Remarkably clean for *any* kind of medieval city, and oddly warmer than the outside, though still within the realm of 'bracingly chilly'. It's busy, the people are well-clothed, the streets look kind of similar, and see plenty of traverse from armed and armoured police, as well as scattered numbers of, bizarrely, clearly non-human visitors, or even guards. The only point of reference is the loomingly huge cathedral-tower in the distance, probably at the center.
Bloody Revelations     For those especially sensitive, there is a low undercurrent of spiritual power --distinct from magical power, which runs through the earth. The faint whisper of prayers nobody is uttering, and the lightest whiff of incense nobody is burning, along with the barest tingle of sunlight that is currently mostly blocked by the clouds.

    There are, according to cursory research, six hundred and twenty thousand people here. A little medieval hamlet would probably have been very easy to find supernatural trickery and conspiracy in. This is a metropolis. One with tens of thousands private buildings, with government offices, churches, craftworks, trading districts, barracks --the works. The police are practically zero help at all; if they knew anything useful about what was going on, they'd have done something already. The disappearance of children each knight is a known quantity, frequently murmured about on the streets as the current topic of public concern, apparently having gone on for near a month now, yet it's an issue they're struggling to resolve.

    After all, it's a famous fact that the Fair Folk, along with the undead, demons, and various other creatures, cannot enter the city unless invited in by a true citizen. And who would be mad enough to do that?
Song of Rainbows Whitewall, a city in the North, has almost certainly never seen a boat on the high road before. But, there is one, rowing down the center line of way. With a sail stowed in the center, next to a pile of large chests practically bursting with 'nondifferentiated valuables - fabrics, spices, coins made of precious metals, talents of jade, glimmering bags containing shards of magical materials and the like.

Sitting on the bench and rowing two full sized oars with long strides that glides the totally normal boat through the road like water, is a woman with long 'flowing' (thumping, more like) dreadlocks, with a large crown atop her head. Wearing a loose white shirt and tan trousers with a black belt, she seems the picture of a sailor...

Except, once again, this is Whitewall.

Rowing to a stop at the gate, Song of Rainbows leans out the side of her boat, and, pointing out towards the inner city. "Heard you have a fairy problem. Also a not-having-this-stuff problem. I can solve both, savvy?"

If unmolested, she continues rowing into the city proper.
Tomoe Tomoe has not been to Whitewall in some time, still, it was good to be back to see how it was doing though the nature of why she's come back was not a happy one. There was trouble afoot which had to be handled one way or another. She took a moment as she dipped down from the skies and kept flying towards the city. she took stock of the defences and everything else as she came in for a landing.

Once she touches down her ruby red wings vanish. Then she will enter the city by the main gate. Once she's able to get through the gates.

She does not have the sense to sense any magical power, that's beyond her.

She does hit the street though starting to ask around about what's going on, she soon picks up on the kids vanishing and frowns.

Whitewalls Guard was pretty good if they had anything to work on they would have already. Still, how do they know it's the Fair Folk? Tomoe will try to find a guard of some rank and question them about the issue. She will note she's come to help investigate the disappearances and wants to put a stop to them.
All-Seeing Eye      "All-Seeing Eye, Warden of the Paladins. Nation of Claslat, Autochthonia. Ongoing investigation..." He taps his finger at the gate. So far his answers have been forthcoming, but the last one--length of visit--draws a smile. "Not for long, I'm sure," he remarks in a sing-song voice. "A few days, at most, but I'll be keeping in touch with your local law enforcement officials." After a quick exchange of any further information, he's on the job.

     The 'secret way' seems all too obvious to All-Seeing Eye. Where do criminals always retreat to? Where do the dissidents always hide? Where they think they won't be seen, of course. The Great Maker's body holds many such places--tunnels, maintenance hatches, waste trenches.

     All places beneath any law abiding citizen.

     Eye is in his Autochthonian winter uniform, complete with longcoat, gloves and ushanka. His hands rest casually in the pockets of his coat, as he peers at the ground. This is the first place he should look--beneath it.

RUNNING MASS-PENETRATING SCAN

     Is there anywhere beneath the ground where conspirators might meet--anywhere the Fair Folk could meet whoever is letting them in, without doing so in sight of the town? If he can find anything like a waterway or disused supply tunnels, he'll attempt to trace its path, searching for any place where it might 'open up' to a spot outside the town's walls.
Tamamo     "I intend a short stay--oh, a day should suffice, no? As you have inquired, I am a deity. I originate from the Sun--oh, so you meant most recently! England, as it happens, where the weather remains, regretfully, much the same. Those reports, or else those rumors, are true, yes? The inexplicable kidnappings. I shall seek to provide some assistance, as my length of stay allows."

    Tamamo no Mae answers airport security questions. She is wearing a zipped-up coat, but the weather is still colder than she would like. Fogging breath is a sign that your lungs aren't yet as cold as the exterior air, but that's small comfort. She walks into the city.

    Prayers. Not for her, not even uttered, but prayers, all the same. Faith and calling. The need for miracles, though she knows not which. If they would only give voice to their wishes, she might understand them. If they prayed to her, she could take up the task of providing an answer.

    They won't, of course, because they don't know who she is. Even if they did, she has no priests, here. There is no friendly cult, and no one to engender trust in the people, toward her. She will have to handle such matters herself, perhaps in person, individually. She doesn't need to save the city, but she does need to hear that which is asked, or else she cannot respond.

    She walks vaguely in the direction of the cathedral-tower, but really, she's following the current of spiritual power, trying to find where it stops or ends, analyzing it on a purely intuitive level, as a goddess overhearing unspoken feelings meant for the gods. If she can find someone, a single person notably contributing to that undercurrent, she'll approach them and, with notable but reasonably subtle Charm, ask them to speak their troubles. As long as she can see someone, and they can see her, she's very good at creating that near-instant trust.
Gawain Gawain has a special place in his heart for Whitewall, ever since the climactic battle where he made a connection with the goddess of the Solar Manse. He still keeps the token he obtained with him, as he steps up to the city walls, dressed in his formal uniform mixed with his armor. This is serious. He introduces himself as Sir Gawain, noting the woman with the boat as he passes and keeping her in mind as 'someone who'll probably get involved', and probably gets right inside the walls thanks to being one of the heroes of Whitewall.

Once inside, Gawain's going to ask the guards who the parents of the missing kids are. He wants to talk to them, and specifically, see if there's any patterns on which kids are being abducted. Did they share similar features? Did they all know each other? Where were they abducted from?

But if it's fae...there might not be any patterns at all. Which would be troublesome.
Staren     Raksha are stealing children. It's hard to have a less morally-questionable mission than this! Or so it seems, at least.

    Staren parks his 'warstrider' outside and comes in the same gate as before, hoping that he's recognized as someone who helped the city before. If the guards let him in, he'll... well, ask them about the problem. Staren's not great at tracking stuff down, so hopefully someone else can manage that. What he can notice is missing pieces of information that might lead to more clues.

    "If you've never seen the rakshas come in and out, or followed them to see where the children are going... how do you know it's fairies that are taking them each night?" If the guards don't know, he'll try posing the same question to random passerby on the street. SOMEONE must know, or know who's the source of this claim, at least!
Bloody Revelations     Song of Rainbows is, immediately, stopped at the gate for extremely obvious reasons. The literal first thing anyone does is prod her with a sort of baton made of rough iron to see if she burns, or at least suffers any kind of discomfort, and even then, the guards are already calling more guards who are calling thaumaturges to come sort it out. Talismans and little magic boxes come out in spades. None of them cross out of the gate thresholds. Finally, someone in especially finely worked and heavily fortified armour comes out, with pale silvery-white markings blemishing his skin in places, and validates the big question.

    No this is not a fairy boldly and stupidly rowing some glamoured contraption of wild fantasy up to the front gates and just asking to be let in. One could be forgiven for being mistaken. They chalk it down to a very fancy personal travel artifact, with great unease, and both have her leave it outside (albeit it'd obviously be well-guarded, considering --it's not like it could reasonably get boatjacked) and a thorough check of her exorbitant goods is conducted --especially for illusions and things that indicate what they aren't what they look to be. Transparently, there is at least one Terrestrial Exalted on call to apply magic to the business of doing so. There appears to be no strong objection to most of it, though she's offhandedly told to not expect to turn a profit on jade and metals in a huge mining city.

    Tomoe's questioning of random people on the street is met with slightly stuffy but highly polite pleasantry, followed by the minimum of conspiratorial gossip about wild things people claim to have seen in the night, without any of it sounding credible. Only the names of a few mothers and fathers who've lost their babes --none of them apparently numbering in the ages of double digits-- are consistent, and only a few that each person at least distantly knows.

    Of course it's Fair Folk, they all decide, however. There is, in fact, a settlement of them barely fifty miles away, who are always trying to beguile or trick their way in. There is, apparently, technically an uneasy pact with them and the big religious leaders of Whitewall, which guarantees them some certain tribute each year, along with the small nations of the dead out in the ice, in exchange for not attacking the city, but that's only at a large scale. A wild ghost would be too demented to set up anything so elaborate. Barbarians have no use of little kids. The Fair Folk, however, are well known for frequently abducting them when there is a local preference for the emotions, dreams, and souls of the very young. Nobody in Creation doesn't know about that.
Bloody Revelations     All-Seeing Eye is instantly met with validation in the form of extensive tunnels and waterways between the city, probably once fully functional for sewers and running water, but now mostly just incidentally useful. They're huge, run quite deep, and spread through most of the city, before eventually going all the way out south for miles and miles, to empty out into the sea. Any rivers would be frozen for half the year.

    Tamamo herself is, oddly enough, looked at with lesser incredulity than the flying sailor. They don't much push or boggle or squint at her calling herself a god, but rather, seem put off by the fact that she'd so openly admit it. There is, of course, the part where she's asked to hold an iron compass, and then let in --something about fox maidens and Raksha. She's told, in the most impossibly polite of terms, not to stir up trouble. There are, even here, monks and missionaries that don't particularly encourage or like the worship of various local or transient gods --though, apparently, few people much care for them-- and the city itself is supposedly heavily blessed by its own particular patron gods to the point they'd rather not anyone cause offense.

    They'd have to be newer than the city, however, Tamamo concludes. That or vastly older; the city cannot possibly be ruled by a City God, in the sense she understands. The newer construction is relatively unplanned, compared to the old and baroque facades, and so it isn't hard to trace the lines of power inward. The concentration of prayers --of whispering spiritual power-- increases exponentially as the streets become regular and straight, radiating from the central cathedral and breaking up city blocks into neat rectangles.

    The architecture itself seems to channel that power --insubstantial, transient faith-- to the city center itself, by some equivalent of the Feng Shui she'd know, worked on a huge and expert scale. The sheer density of it is such that it radiates from every household, from shrines as common as toilets in modern housing. Indeed, the whole city is blessed, in a few ways she may yet recognized, and everyone pays into it.

    Yet the character of the massive cathedral itself is entirely different. The prayer doesn't go *to* it, but rather, an almost-as-large palace partition close to it; the distinction that it doesn't flow all the way would be invisible to a non-specialist. The great spire itself radiates a pseudo-divine power of its own, holy and consecrated, but not actively drawing its power *from* faith or worship.

    Though the people she meets are perfectly cooperative with her particular soothing wiles, the sheer culture of the place ensures they speak only perfectly politely and mindful of other people's privacy while divulging their problems. Most of their are fairly petty and banal. Noisy neighbours, a persistent cold with a relative, the price of salt, mandatory militia training keeping the husband out of the house. The general fear of infiltration by these Fair Folk, however, is a constant undercurrent. Very few people seem actively afraid, but seem to have a strong understanding that any compromise of the security of the city is a grave matter to be immediately rectified. Only a few she finds who live very close to previous victims seem to be genuinely afraid.
Bloody Revelations     Gawain is let in without even being checked. Guards literally salute him and stand aside to let him pass. Men tip hats and women curtsy with robes as he goes past. The minute he shows interest in solving the problem, nobody doubts him for even a second. He's taken to a few homes, though certainly not all of them, and immediately let inside by hopeful parents, allowed into surprisingly colourful and richly decorated domiciles warmed by cast iron stoves, and told far too much about the child missing and the associated hopes and feelings their mother had for them, and far too little about what happened to them.

    Children that young don't wander about at night. They'd been outright taken from their homes. Sometimes the parents notice when the house turns frigid and they find the door open and their young ones' beds missing, other time it's only in the morning, without a trace of an entry save a lightly ransacked room. There's no possible way it can be some sort of smash and grab, nor are so many kids so dumb as to be lured outside by ordinary trickery. He's allowed to examine the houses as much as he likes, but there aren't any lingering traces of magic he can detect --or at least, not strong enough for him to. It indeed looks as if children got up in the night and walked out into the cold, most even remembering to get dressed, or that their rooms had been lightly pilfered for objects of sentimental value.

    Staren gets pretty much the exact same response as Tomoe: the 'well of course it has to be then, who the hell else would?'. Nobody actually knows anything about 'Fair Folk Mechanics', save their hatred of iron, various predations, the local band being known as 'the Winter Folk', tales of coins that turned out to be pebbles and horses that turned out to be beetles in the morning after market, and frightening tall tales. It's clear that it's been a longstanding game they've played with Whitewall though; tricky incursions have occurred before, though they've always been swiftly sorted out, and not escalated past disruptive deceptions, odd thefts, and only occasional, individual maliciousness. They do it to scare and bamboozle and sow discord. They *live* for the drama, apparently. Live *on* it.
All-Seeing Eye      "Possible," says Eye with a tone of casual, professional interest. He removes a gloved hand from his pocket to stroke his chin, as he indulges in a slight smile. But is it plausible? The tunnels are huge. Traversing them on foot would take a long time--perhaps too long. But they're also pretty deep, and the rivers would be frozen. Perhaps, with their size, they could accomodate a means of conveyance. A mounted animal, cart or some still-functional technology from an earlier age.

     If they're using these tunnels, that would explain how the conspirators are letting the Fair Folk in. As for the Fair Folk themselves, his knowledge is limited. He'll have to find information on how they are said to travel, but first, he needs to confirm his hunch, or at least find more supporting evidence.

     He patrols the town, looking for places where the waterways have exits which lead into town. Anything--storm drains, forgotten hatches, even if they're boarded up. ...especially if they're boarded up, in fact. At such locations, he magnifies his vision, searching for striations on the ice, the stone, or disturbances in places where dust has settled--anything to indicate there might have been traffic there.
Song of Rainbows Sailing into town has literally no drawbacks, because otherwise the Song of Rainbows would have to carry in her boxes of loot, and that's unacceptable. The entire point of chests bursting with booty is to be seen, not carried or used. They're like paintings of a color wave-swoosh in corporate conference rooms: Utterly meaningless without being on display. Getting razzled by the soldiers there is all a game, waggling eyebrows and flashes of white teeth as the troops inspect her treasure cache.

"You like it, right?" She chums it up with the totally not having it soldiers, smiling into the prodding with cold iron.

To the one with the jabby-pokey, she whispers a single sentence: "Y'gonna need a bigger sticker."

All smiles and laughter with absolutely no substance, she ties off her rowboat at a hitching post the guards use to stable cavalry, heaves up two chests of booty, and heads on into town, loping after Gawain like she knows him.

She doesn't, but who's going to stop her?

Hearing the plight, however, the good cheer slowly empties from her dreadlocked countenance.

Reshouldering her two chests of loot (she does not put them down), Song leans over to Gawain's ear though she speaks in a conversational tone. "I think all the people here are stupid and haven't seen a real fairy. Yeh? Yeh."
Tamamo     Tamamo intends no trouble at all within the city, and promises mindfulness, a culturally important and familiar concept to her, as well. Holding a compass seems to have no great effect upon her, apart from sparking her curiosity as to why they would use such a particular advice. Her magnetism is of a totally different kind.

    Within the city, she talks a little with each person, listening sympathetically, giving a few words of encouragement together with an aura that says that everything will be fine. To those with sick relatives, she gives small healing charms to keep near them, like any Shinto shrine could provide, but coming from the large stock of potent healing supplies she's begun taking the trouble of preparing before each outing such as this one. She can do little for many other requests, though for such small requests it's little enough trouble to quietly bless this poor woman with a little future fortune for her salt woes, or that one with a stamina-granting charm for her no doubt worn militia husband. For the larger concerns, she can only give an ear, for now.

    She does not discover much concerning the disappearances, but the structure of the city and the flow of that spiritual energy intrigues her. She continues making her way toward the center, toward that palace, as well as its nearby spire, knowing that someone will likely bar her path. As she had made that earlier promise, her options at that point would be limited, but perhaps someone will be willing to talk with her. If not within the palace, then close enough outside it to tell her everything surrounding the tale of the paired structures, one drawing energy in, and the other radiating holiness.
Gawain Gawain's investigation as a local hero slash detective leads to him finding out that this is, to him, a Pied Piper situation. Someone or something is luring the children out in the night, probably mentally-slash-magically.

When Song approaches him during this, the knight smiles at her. Those keen eyes look over her features, but find no recognition, but he's still savvy. A person with a ton of treasure and a landboat in the North is probably not a common person, especially not in Creation. He speaks to her in a friendly way when she talks to him, despite having clearly no idea who she is.

"I do not believe they've seen any personally, no, but the story they've shared is quite telling of the possibility that they walk among us. The cold billows in at night out of nowhere? The children walk away on their own? If not them, then it's someone attempting to frame them."

He pauses, and then moves to start walking if she'd like to follow him. "I assume you have encountered them, then, likely in your obvious travels? As an outlander of this world, I'll ask you for advice." He seems cheerful, despite the clearly distressing subject matter.

"Were you to a hunt a fairy hiding in a city, how would you do it?"
Tomoe Tomoe still gets a bit of useful information the apparent age range of the children who are missing are over the age of ten, that at least is at least a useful bit of information.

Whomever or whatever is behind this? They are targeting children in a certain age range. That could help narrow it down and she'll after thanking the people she questions.

Tomoe will get on the com relaying what she's dug up to those other checking out this whole situation. Everyone is claiming fair folk but is it something else? Is someone trying to disrupt things with the fae? Still, it does seem to be a pretty common thing the fae in general /do/ this and target kids. She's keeping that in mind as she continues. She does get the ide the Fae are the worst part of her highschool's drama class more or less in terms of behaviour

Gawain gives some information on how the children have gone missing and she will make note of it.

That is something she might want to start looking into, but how? Where would such a person be? She wonders, for a moment given how developed the city an idea strikes her. There might be a temple or even if she's stupidly lucky some sort of library where she might be able to do some research on the local fae. Maybe there's some insight that can be gained from such? Also on the idea of the temple may be a desperate soul who lost something or someone in previous incidents Tomoe was involved in here might have made a scene over the lack of response from the gods and then turned to the fae?

So off she goes in search of a source of information on the local Fae.
Staren     Staren was kind of hoping that chasing that question would unearth an additional clue. And... it kind of did, courtesy of the others? The victims are all very young. Too young for labor. But old enough to have been convinced to walk out on their own. But young enough for dreams that are especially delicious to fey, apparently. In his own world, children, second to mages, have the most potential psychic energy after all. Perhaps a similar principle is at work here... Could the raksha be disguising themselves as the childrens' parents, somehow?

    Staren paces as he tries to work this through, until he comes upon another idea: Questioning a guard about what (publicly-known, at least) security measures a hypothetical fae-and/or-collaborator would have to overcome. Even if someone were so crazy as to meet a fey outside and give it permission, surely it's not so simple as the raksha then just walking in the gate, right?
Song of Rainbows "You bait a hook with something that looks tasty, see?"

With a crackingly loud THUNK, Song drops her treasure chests, kicking the one with cloth and baubles in it and rummaging around. With a deliberate paw-through, she produces a single shawl with a weave like a starfield and a color like a rainbow after the first downpour in Spring. There is only the single length of cloth like it in the whole chest.

"Y'have to use good bait. Worms for a scumsucker. Minnows for a flesh-eater. Gossamer for a knife-eared storyhumper. There's got to be a treasure worth seizing for a tale worth tellin'."

Looping the Gossamer shawl around Gawain's neck with a simple throw, Song lets it ride for a moment, contemplating. "Let this be the... Starfield Shawl, and you're... the prince of..."

She shrugs. "Wherever you're from. You're looking for a fitting wife."

Song looks about, eyes calculating as she glances between people at alleys and cut-outs of the prayer-rich city. "Find someplace important and strut around. A Raksha won't be able to resist. Expect a princess... or a rival prince." Song's smile is shark-toothed.
Bloody Revelations     It isn't even slightly hard to get into the tunnels. They aren't particularly guarded, and don't contain anything valuable. They're only really watched near sources of general availability of water to the population; half the year it's all frozen and there isn't much in the way of indoor plumbing, so pumps coming from reservoirs and various springs are common enough to provide, but not quite so abundant people never quarrel over them.

    The tunnels below the city are large, circular, immaculately bricked, though water worn, and boringly empty. There are old lanterns hung on the walls for large tracts, but most haven't been used in a long time. There are signs here and there that groups of them have been picked up and lit, with half-depleted fuel, due to some search of the underways for criminals, or perhaps cults, but All-Seeing Eye doesn't come across any signs of battle, or other dramatic events.

    They aren't, however, completely vacant. There are places, here and there, where several waterways converge, many of them dry, and the city's poor squat. They're not hideous and grimy rejects, but rather, people with no houses, obviously taking advantage of the fact that the temperature and weather is most stable underground. They build little shacks, tents, or at least dividers, out of materials nobody has any use for --even stacked stray bricks amounting to huts tucked barely on wide walkways-- and keep to themselves. There is little evidence that crime between them is a problem. None of them volunteer to speak to him at all. There is plenty of evidence of foot traffic, though the presence of local squatters makes it more difficult to find relevant. Only when the paths all lead to the southernmost main channels, which seem to go on for hundreds of miles, and are bare and dark as can be, are there signs of heavy loads being carried in and out. No doubt it can't be *that* much of a smuggling route without the guards knowing about it --it's so obvious and easy to get to-- but still.

    Tamamo's blessings and talismans are accepted with immediate gratitude, and several attempts at repayment in many cases, immediately recognizing the general purpose of them. Nearing the midtown market districts, there is, in fact, a reasonable business in charms, talismans, and associated bits of supposed good luck and protection, most of which are legitimate, if very weak.

    The further she heads inwards, the more upscale the city becomes, and the older the construction is by far. Eventually, coal lamps are replaced with magically powered crystal-tipped posts, drawing off an energy grid below, tapping the earth, that seems to be relatively intact here, also providing more convenient heating, and other services. The place is rich in jewels and jade, clockworks and artworks, swords and tools, at very reasonable prices, given the distinct impression the city makes most of its money off of mining somewhere, though a number of high quality wines and luxury goods as well.

    The deeper she goes, the more the general tingling susurrus of prayers condenses as well. She gets surprisingly close to the palace, though it seems to be equal parts temple, in a sort of southeast European style. Though it meshes very well with the blocks of intact, very old buildings all around, finally growing tall and complex enough to be administrative and religious centers, it seems more temple converted *into* a government building, and by a best estimation, it would have begun being used at least a few hundred years more recently than the larger, more vainglorious tower less than a mile away, thrumming with its own, distinct sort of power.
Bloody Revelations     The people here aren't terribly shy about answering some basic questions, either. The temple is indeed a government office, for the city's laws, above the various judges, administrators, and inspectors that handle them, are all written by a trio of gods that protect and bless the city. There are no specific names forthcoming. Even anyone religious-looking she should encounter only calls them 'the Syndics', and knows no other name. There is also a very select distinction in their words, as well, for someone used to all the intricacies of language and etiquette: the Syndics are only ever referred to as gods *in* Whitewall, though with the highest respect, and never the gods *of* Whitewall.

    The city people feel blessed to have the direct protection and manyfold benefits of divine administrators, and speak highly of them. They have little knowledge of the larger, older structure, however. They say that it was built forever ago to worship the sun --and many people still do, as the ender of winter and enemy of the dead and fae-- but was damaged in some ancient war. It is a place of power, tapping great ambient energies, but nobody has the means to attune themselves to it or make use of it, so it lingers as a religious monument visited by few, solely relevant as a means of massive power generation for the city, and part of what makes its streets warm, its walls blessed, and its fields productive.

    It was also, apparently besieged and sickened last year, but purified again after some elaborate series of adventures.

    She is formally not really allowed into either though. Not out of any particular misgiving, though; it'd be the equivalent of waltzing into the supreme government building of any major city.
Bloody Revelations     The guards (the professional ones; there aren't any pot helmet-wearing mooks around) are reluctant to answer *real* security questions, but casually answer Staren's questions about safety from the depredations of Fair Folk in a confident and reassuring manner. The walls are completely proof against any powers of dark or chaos, no matter how potent. Foreigners, visitors, and part-time residents cannot give an invitation, and everyone in the city knows very well to depend on one another.

    Beyond that, the entire city specifically sells and equips iron weapons (as opposed to steel or bronze) when the Fair Folk are about, and teams are trained to hunt them in speciality. There are charms available to help see through their glamours, the Syndic gods loathe the Fair Folk, and most importantly, so do the Exalted. The city can easily call upon but the local houseless Terrestrial Exalted, visiting Immaculate missionaries, even random Dynast tourists from the Realm, and especially the Wyld Hunt. Part of the reason the Fair Folk don't cause too much overt malice and destruction when they get inside is that it'd immediately draw down a massive and instantaneous crisis response that'd quickly chase down and annihilate a single mischief maker. They seem confident that the situation will be handled shortly, as it can no longer go unnoticed.

    Actual, genuine information on the Fair Folk themselves is hard to come by. Public libraries are extremely few, as books mostly appear to be hand written and owned privately by scholars, sages, and sorcerers. The exact location of a Fair Folk Freehold --a pocket of warped reality within Creation, which nourishes them with the energies of chaos and provides comfortable, mutable, and defensible surroundings-- isn't hard to locate, and it's frighteningly close to the city, in the mountains to the west, even closer than Marama's Fell that she's been to.

    The Fair Folk of the North are supposedly especially merciless and false, especially fond of 'warmth', in that they prefer to feast on passions and desires, mortal dreams, body heat, and blood. They are supposedly at their most heartless and cruel in the winter, yet completely the opposite in the summer, lenient, merry, carefree, even merciful. What the Freehold nearby looks like is unknown, given nobody goes there, since the Fair Folk that live within it have absolute power over one's shape and dimensions and substance, and the chaos is infectious and hazardous to human bodies and minds. The only other things she can find are fairly typical of fairy tales. Fondness for illusions and trickery, the ability to seduce and charm and beguile mortals, and a propensity for bartering impossible items, like bottled youth and frozen dreams.

    That, and they supposedly trade with The Guild. This is almost no surprise to anyone locally. The Guild trades with everyone. The Guild is *the* trading empire in Creation. With the Fair Folk, it mostly deals in slaves. They sell slaves nobody wants to them, and then the Fair Folk sell back the broken husks as obedient, menial labour.
Gawain As the shawl is looped around Gawain, he nods. This is a solid plan that won't make him look like a goof at all, not that he needs help doing that. "Thank you! Let us see if it works. I know just the location."

Heading towards the Solar Manse where he made his final stand against the Hekatonkhire years ago, he moves for the most central-looking road or square near it, and begins strutting around. He's trying to draw attention, and he does that by talking to the passerbys. They'll probably recognize him, but, hopefully, if anything weird happens, the guard knows he's legit and on the fairy case.

"Ah, ah. I, the last prince of Orkney, search for a fitting wife. Ah, one to share in the passions of life with me, to share in comfort and warmth, one who can match my pace and my royal demeanor. Oh, where am I to find such a partner? For now, only the Starfield Shawl can comfort me..."

It's not a lie. He is, in fact, the last prince of Orkney (that he's aware of), and while he's not actually actively searching for a wife, he doesn't consider it a lie.

This is ridiculous, but, he has optimism it'll lead to something. Even the awareness that, in fact, the Fair Folk are NOT watching.
Tamamo     Tamamo feels the temptation of shopping, but resists it for now. She makes a mental note to extend her visit long enough to peruse the market's supply of jade trinkets. Even if the level of charms available was nothing much to speak of in the mystical sense, many items were at once like and unlike those she remembers from another world. It is a strong temptation.

    Regarding payment, she has no such issues. These are gently refused (unless insisted upon twice more), and her supply of blessings has hardly dwindled by the time she finds her way close to the palace. The talk of gods 'in but not of' the city perks up her ears as another mystery, together with the lack of particular names, but as expected, it would impolite to barge into either building without invitation. She will need find some other, later reason to examine this sun temple. Yes, soon.

    Having more or less understood the reason for the spiritual profile of the city, odd as it is, Tamamo returns to the matter of the rumored fae, and how she might put some of this knowledge to use. Faith sustains the Syndics, and the Syndics bless the city. The temple powers the city, but has been recently damaged, and then repaired. The walls protect the city, and the residents depend upon one another, knowing they must stand together. And yet, a hole has appeared, somewhere in this carefully woven defense. Something is not as it should be.

    She looks, trying to reverse her route, to trace the patterns back out again, find where there might be something that 'does not fit.' Some unfaithful, a traitor to this tightly-knit community, great city that it is. There are, unfortunately, so many places to look, and to walk the whole breadth of the city would take days, at the least.

    Tamamo begins her walk toward that towering spire. From there, in the very center of the pattern, she might best see in every direction, finding the place where 'it is not.' 'Soon,' she had thought. It hadn't taken long, after all, to find a reason.

    She only needs to make her way in, trusting that anyone protesting otherwise will understand her sincere, heartfelt plea to allow her assistance in finding the assailants that threaten the city. She is an expert in this specific matter, a compatriot of others rendering their aid (such as the dashing sir Gawain), and so they should, she hopes, allow themselves to be convinced that she can be trusted with this.
All-Seeing Eye      Perfect!

     This is the first thought to cross the mind of the Alchemical, when he spots the squatters living in the tunnels. The lanterns, that's one thing, but if someone came through, they would have seen it. Naturally, he makes his way down there. Upon arrival, and the subsequent hesitance of the squatters to talk, the wind is somewhat taken from his sails.

     A small, sharp shape pokes furtively at the palm of his glove as he lingers among them a moment. It slides back in after a moment's thought. Circumstance, rather than dissidence, seems to have led these people here. The conspirator might be among them, but it'd be better to catch them in the act later than risk scaring them off now. He'll spare them the Spike. For now.

     His wandering takes him to the southernmost channels. He stops, the complex cybernetics in his eyes quietly clicking as he captures a few images of the point where the paths converge. That, and the squatter communities, will be the points he'll want to watch--but later. In the night.

     For now, there's still daylight--still time to pursue leads. What, though? Where?

<J-IC-Scene> All-Seeing Eye says, "Hello!~ All-Seeing Eye, here. Is there, by chance, an expert on the 'Fair Folk' among us today?"
<J-IC-Scene> Song of Rainbows says, "Shhh. Baiting the hook."
<J-IC-Scene> Song of Rainbows whispering. "Whatchawant?"
<J-IC-Scene> All-Seeing Eye whispering, "Can they come and go freely, once they've been let in?"
<J-IC-Scene> Song of Rainbows whispering. "If t'fool that let 'em in said so, sure. Worse if it's in writin'."
<J-IC-Scene> All-Seeing Eye quietly, "I see. Thank you, citizen! I'll leave you to it."

     It might be time to leave the tunnels, but there's one more thing he does before he leaves. Eye walks as if he's leaving. Indeed, he is heading towards an exit that leads above ground. But as he does so, he's using his vision to take a census of the underground population. Does it seem as though any of their children are missing?
Tomoe Tomoe will continue on her information hunting and will find a little bit of information most of the major books on the Fair Folks are in private collections. Tomoe is aware she's not going to be able to get access to those quick if at all she muses. So she will take what information she can get on the local Fair Folk. She is concerned about nearest Freehold it's pretty darn close but it may be something they will have to poke about. The information on the nature of the Fair Folk's mentality being seemingly tied to the seasons is noted. She also makes note they are godlike in their home domain, with pretty much full control of it.

It's also dangerous for mortals such as herself there as well in a more passive sense from its nature.

She does also dig up information on their fondness for illusions and trickery.

Also, they like to barter for impossible things and have a love of messing with mortals minds.

The subject of the Guild's trade with the Fair Folk is not a happy one, it's a horrific one to Tomoe, yet she sees how the relationship works out for the Guild and the Fair Folk.

She will gather this information up and with that handled? Tomoe muses if the Guild might be involved. Then again was it good business for them to be involved in such things? That's something she does not have an answer too.

She will, however, go looking for Staren to compare notes and see what he might have found out in his own investigations. Once she connects with Staren, she will relay what she found out to him. She will also bring up the idea of them going to see if the Guild might have a lead for them on this mystery.
Staren     Staren scowls when he's reminded of the existence of the Guild. Evidently THIS Creation still has its god of slavery. "Why would the Guild help us?" He gesticulates wildly. "I bet those kids will grow up into fine, docile specimens once they've been drained of their dreams and tortured into husks! This is only GOOD for the /GUILD/!"

    Staren paces. "You know, why are we worrying about which one specifically did it? Why are we continuing to allow this freehold to exist AT ALL? We should just go destroy it and end the problem. No more rakshas threatening Whitewall. If we find any of the kids still alive there we can rescue them."

    "Of course, it won't be EASY. They have control over reality there and they think in stories. How do you challenge a faerie in its own domain? THAT'S what we need to find," He claps a hand on Tomoe's shoulder. "Experienced faerie-hunters. There must be someone who's done it, we just need to find out how."

    So he'll go looking for information on successful raksha-hunters. If it's purported to exist in a private library, he'll try offering information from the Multiverse. Or maybe copies of some pages from Denandsor, if they can prove their intel is worth it.
Bloody Revelations     Song making a general fool out of Gawain, even if he's happy to play the part, seems to have been a joke at first. Mostly, people just stare at him, and politely refuse to comment. Eventually, someone calls some guards which come to bother him about 'offenses against public peace' due to the distraction he's causing, but because he's Gawain, and well-known, all it takes is some 'this is part of my plan' to have them leave him alone.

    Eventually, out of all the Whitewallers, it's oddly a priest of some sort who stops him. A blandly nondescript woman with curly dark hair in plain vestments, clutching a book. She even comes all the way up to him, eyeing his shawl quite conspicuously.

    "Well hello. Pardon my forthrightness, but you must be the man everyone in town is talking about now, right? I must obviously politely clear up that I am in no search for a husband, but I couldn't help but ask wherever did you get that?"
Gawain Gawain immediately tells the guards he has a plan when they come to him about disturbing the peace. He's not going to lead them on, that's mean, though he does praise them for their efforts for public peace. Eventually, a priest shows up! Gawain debates things. Well, it's a priest. Song said it'd be a princess or a rival prince. Therefore this isn't the Fair Folk.

Letting his ruse down partially, Gawain talks to the priest. "Ah, I got it from a friend. Why do you ask?" He's not letting her fully in on it, though. Who is this and why are they interested in the shawl? It's not his to give if they want it, but...

Perhaps he can get some more information by doing this.
Bloody Revelations     Staren looking for help with hunting Faeries *is* a joke. That is, he's immediately directed to a metallurgical quarter and to places that *specifically cater* to people out to fight creatures of darkness. It's *stocked* with iron swords and arrows and caltrops, bags of purified salt, talismans of protection, lenses of 'true seeing'; the works. It's all priced nearly at cost, subsidized by the government itself.

    Whitewall *hates* demons, the dead, and the Fair Folk in about that order. Dynast customers come here to make a vainglorious sport of it, which the locals do nothing to dissuade.

    He is, at least, given token warnings that he's more likely to encounter swarms of minions and mutants without encountering an actual Raksha, that he's liable to get lost and never come back if he ventures too far to the west without a proper guide, and that he shouldn't fight alone. There are probably enough big fish from small ponds who show up looking to swing iron at faeries and who disappear into frozen dream fog or ambushed by entire raiding parties of hobgoblins.

    As far as All-Seeing Eye can tell, the people down where he is scarcely have children in the first place. Out of them, though, he can't find anything suggesting they've been taken. For all he knows, it could just be that the Fair Folk don't want dirty poor children, but really it could be anything. As for all his final mass scans and corroborating with the previous plan of Whitewall, the long tunnels lead all the way to the sub-city of wallport on the southern coast. It'd sure be easy to trade off slaves at a busy place like that, but at least a week's journey for mere slavers to go around back to the Freehold. A serial killer seems a grim possibility at the moment, albeit a small one.
Bloody Revelations     Nobody actually bothers to stop Tamamo before entering the spire. It isn't even guarded. It's immaculately clean and without the wearing of age, its white granite clearly enchanted and constantly banded with huge sweeping arches of improbable amounts of gleaming gold, but completely disused. There is only even one entrance, on the opposite side, and in stark contrast to even the fanciest parts of the city, the whole thing is like a glittering slab of diamond, webbed with gold like a stained glass window, flanked with enormous statues of a lion-headed man with four arms.

    She can absolutely feel it beneath her feet now. This place is drawing *tremendous* amounts of energy from the earth --specifically designed to-- and converting it from a geomantic form of proto-energy into powerfully sun-aspected magic, which courses up and down the tower in tremendous volumes. There is absolutely no way that someone would be brute forcing through the doors. She can tell immediately that they're layered with so many levels of old, powerful magic that it'd take equally powerful magic to get them open if they didn't want to be. No doubt this is why nobody bothers to guard it.

    Except, apparently, the fact that 'nobody uses it' wasn't entirely true, because either beseeching the place on good grounds, or like recognizes like, has them open before her, slow and grandiosely grinding, just before she might turn to leave. She barely has to enter a single hall to see the Temple of Doom gauntlet of bullshit that is currently lying functional but inactive just at the first intersection, where massive mirrors have been plugged into magical circuitry and turned into some sort of massive laser that'd eat the whole entry hall.

    Within a huge, circular room with a radial floor much like the doors, and a giant pillar of light shooting through the center up uncountable levels, walls tiled with intricate mosaics of mythical wars, she could easily feel through all of the power channels that go through the city. Simply damaged or unmaintained ones are plentiful and ignorable. Those that fork like fine veins into various buildings are so regular that it's obvious there's no dynamic power load placed on them. None flows into the walls directly, meaning they aren't actively magically powered. Most of it goes upward into something that no doubt demands a great deal of it near the summit. Small portions dive back beneath the city, powering the very small section of waterway tunnels that still have lighting and automatic pumping, only stretching a few hundred meters from the tower.

    There's one particular blemish, that she was hoping to find. A different temple, much further midtown, where the conduits of solar energy seem to go into and right back out. She could head to the location right now, or else focus on divining more information about it by staying. Or take a long trip to the top and figure out who or what process opened the place up to her.

    The only other interesting detail is a long, thin scar across the floor from its twelve to its four o'clock. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the deep and narrow cut is full of blood, though it doesn't seem to be actively bleeding, diminishing, or doing much of anything.
Staren     It is heartening to see how eager the people of this city are to fight the Raksha threat! Or at least, to sell tools to others who will do it for them.

    He takes the warnings seriously; you don't fuck around when it comes to this stuff. If they weren't such a serious threat, Staren wouldn't be so concerned about them. He clarifies that he's not running off /right this second/, buys some of the minor magic items, and presses the vendors for tales of anyone successfully taking down a raksha in its own den and how they did it -- or better yet, an actual successful raksha hunter who he can talk to. If the others DO find which specific fairy is behind this, they'll still need to know how to take it down.
Bloody Revelations     As far as Staren has any success, the tales of hunting down Raksha into their Freeholds are extremely few and far between. Genuinely nobody wants to do that kind of thing, and it's best left to the Wyld Hunt if at all. The difficulty and general cost is so high that only Fair Folk enclaves that act grossly out of proportion will draw that kind of response down on them, and it's reasonably far from the Realm here, being the supergiant military superpower of the world most able to do it. They're mostly tales about sworn brotherhoods of the Dragon Blooded performing epic deeds and such, and they're all set decades, if not centuries, ago. Obviously, nobody tells him any tales of the Solar Exalted.

    The preferred thing to do by far is to cut off their route back and take them out in Creation, where the exenditure to exist in stable reality slowly weakens them to a more manageable level. The 'successful hunters' that'd still be around are, unfortunately, a scattered handful of Immaculates and Dynasts. Strictly religious martial monks only want to talk to him about how the only means by which to defeat the enemies of Creation is through proper devotion to the Elemental Dragons and sufficient purity of spirit and discipline of body, and basically try to convert him. 'Actual Dragon Blooded nobles from the Blessed Isle' want sweet jack all to do with him, dirty catboy peasant that he is.
Bloody Revelations     Gawain's specific catch smiles at him in return, in relatively innocent fashion. "A friend?" she says, entirely rhetorically. "Well it's just that anyone with a pair of eyes can tell that fine article isn't from a weaver around here --or even across the Inland Sea. That's gossamer, isn't it? Your friend must be well connected. Or with the Guild? Things like that . . . well, they're not exactly tasteful here of all places, but you must've paid a princely sum for it, given how many hands it must have passed through to get here."

    Even the most generically and inoffensively conversational of gazes and tones can't quite hide the inevitable point of this line of questioning. "Or they deal with the Winter Folk. Those would be the closest by far, wouldn't they?"
Tamamo     Tamamo spends a little while looking for either an opening, a person to question, or some mechanism for interacting with the doors, straining her senses. It proves unnecessary, except in that she needed to remain close enough for the temple to respond to her. Brightening, she walks in, and immediately has to hide how much the death trap spooks her, even inactive. It's a good thing that no one was watching. If she can take her pick, she'd like to keep up a 'cool big sister' vibe. Getting spooked by non-dangers is right out. "Ah, ahem, yes."

    She makes her way further inside, and finds something. She isn't going to go look right now, but perhaps someone else may. She tunes her radio to broadcast, saying, "I have found something of some possible interest, though I know not yet how it may help us. I might describe the location within the city, that some other may go and see what stands there, while I continue to look from this vantage." She takes a little longer to get a good enough idea of where that other temple is, that she can recite useful directions from memory should anyone be willing to investigate.
Staren     Do NOT take them on in the freehold. Got it. Staren doesn't think too highly of the rest of the advice (or lack thereof) -- the Immaculates and Dynasts either don't know, or for some reason, don't want others pulling it off. At least he gets some probably-tall tales of ancient raksha-slayers; If necessary, maybe he can try to chase down the truth of one of them later. If he gets other evidence that these people know something, maybe he can find someone appropriately priestly or noble to talk to them. For now... Tamamo's just provided... something.

    Staren can go take a look and see what it is, at least.
Song of Rainbows The shawl is bait on a hook. When the minnows come to see what's chumming the water, one shouldn't pull the line...

But the entire time Gawain is prancing around like a prince with a conspicuous fairy artifact, the Song of Rainbows is brooding. Stormheading, even, her eyes filled with lightning and her footsteps rattling with thunder -- or, at least, the piled-high chests she carries are. She's off-put, off-kilter, a dark mutterance and a forboding countenance that stalks in Gawain's periphery.

<J-IC-Scene> All-Seeing Eye quietly, "I see. Thank you, citizen! I'll leave you to it."

"Citizen. Do I look like a citizen to you? No citizen I know. Neh, neh, that's..."

"I'll set'm right. 'er. W'eva." As she broods and paces, she becomes more and more clipped, borderline unintelligible.

Then the priest shows up, and Song brightens. "Ah! You've an eye, an eye!"

She throws an unkind arm-and-elbow around the asker's shoulders, all 'friendly-like'. "I know news travels fast, but not that fast. Sure, 'e said it, but 'ow did y'know from yer priestly robes alllll the way over in the temple a prince was 'ere? Does word really travel that fast?"

Song is all over the woman, like the closest of friends.
All-Seeing Eye      Eye emerges above-ground.

     The disappearances are nightly. That means the Fair Folk have a way of quickly getting in and out of the city. They also have a way of doing it without being noticed. The tunnels are certainly a good option for 'unnoticed,' but 'speedy' they are not--unless the Fair Folk have some supernatural means of conveyance.

     If so, then they /could/ pose as slavers in Wallport, though doing so would be an unnecessary risk. Eye sighs a mildly annoyed sigh as he strolls through a crowded street. Flipping his long braided hair over a shoulder, he utters, "What a world."

     According to Song, certain agreements or peculiarities in the town's namesake wards might permit the Fair Folk to come back without being let in again. If that's the case, the conspirator might be long gone. Still, though children are scarce down there, the Fair Folk don't seem to be the reason for it. Is it possible that someone among them struck a deal? The squatters don't have much. Perhaps one was tempted into letting them in on a permanent basis.

     But why haven't their children gone missing? Do the Fair Folk not want them? Perhaps they stipulated that the children of the tunnel-folk be left alone, as part of that hypothetical deal.

     There is an outline here. It's missing colors, details. In search of those details, he'll play the waiting game. Eye finds lodging--but not just any. He searches for available lodging closest to the southern tunnel intersection, and pays up for the night.

     He pretends to have business elsewhere, and goes about his investigation as most anyone would--speaking to witnesses, community fixtures, parents of missing children, local authorities. It's mostly busy work. Formality.

     He's passing the time, until sundown. When sundown comes, he returns to his room. To casual observers, he'd just be quietly reading a book he'd bought from the market earlier, cozied up with some food in a warm room. He's actually watching the tunnels, peering through solid matter to do it. His vision makes sweeps between the squatters and the nearby, well-traveled intersections--the one that eventually leads to Wallport.

     If those tunnels are being used, he intends to find proof tonight.
Gawain "Well..." Gawain is about to respond, when Song shows up and gets all 'buddy-buddy' with the priest in a probably not friendly at all way. Gawain blinks, and then nods. "Ah, hello again!" He doesn't know Song's name.

"Now, even were my friend to have interacted with the Winter Court, why would they set me up simply to look a fool? No, this plan was foolproof! I mean, it got someone plenty interesting like yourself to come out, didn't it?"

Gawain watches her reactions like a hawk. How does she respond to him? More importantly, how does she responds to Song?
Tomoe Tomoe seems to light a fire under Staren when she brings up the Guild. Her idea to check out the Guild was not the best of idea and she'll follow after him. Rather than split up with Staren she kepe with him and will take in the formation he gets about hunting.

It's useful at least to some degree she thinks. Tomoe also looks to Staren for a moment, thinking about what research they might be able to get up to later. When Starn moves out she'll keep with him to see just what Tamamo might have pointed them to.

Soon they will find out just what might be waiting for them at that location and Tomoe will start to look around when they arrive there.
Tamamo     And then there is the matter of the blood. Tamamo steps over carefully for a closer look, soon realizing, "It does not dry? The air is... not so that it should be prevented. The floor about it is... not covered, but only this rent. Is it the building itself? Does an unworshipped temple bleed?" Most peculiar.

    Tamamo sets about feeling through the geomancy of the room, the energies she understands in a different way than most here likely would, but are sufficiently familiar all the same. The aspect here is wholly suited to her, producing a sense of appropriate place, a further growing familiarity, though not instantaneous. It is not quite 'hers,' just as Tamamo is not (yet also is) Amaterasu, but it is close enough. She scatters talismans about the room, letting them fly out and affix themselves, and draws lines between them, filling pattern that defines itself, that fills the space with growing complexity, with her own power, and pulling in just trace amounts of the temple's own Sun energy to mix with it. She traces the characters, speaking the words. The Sun in Heaven. Fortunes of Fate. The Circle Made Whole.

    There is a wound across the floor. Of course her first instinct would be to heal it. Climbing up to the top of the place can come after that.
Bloody Revelations     Just from a short interaction, Song would feel pretty sure she has not found a Fairy. This particular priestess is . . . so boring. She's got a mildly attractive but forgettable face. Dark hair and brown eyes. Average height. Average build. Generic clerical vestments you'd see anywhere in town. No particular accent --barely much of a regional one. Her manner is mild, friendly, and inoffensive. She's the type of person you'd barely be able to get a police sketch of fifteen minutes after meeting her. A true Raksha would almost rather kill itself then wear such a disguise and act in such a manner. This is someone very, very boring, interested in glamour-made items, for whatever reason.

    She flinches a little under the swing of Song's arm, though not swaying or stumbling. "H-huh? A prince? Does that . . . he's the hero of Whitewall, right? I didn't know he was a prince too. Or I guess I did, since he was saying so. I just want to know what such a man is doing with a stand out item like that."

    True, obviously people will be talking about Gawain coming back, but you'd think a priestess would have the culture of 'mind your own business' of Whitewall stamped in harder than most, and if it were fangirlism, she'd be all over him, not enquiring about his exotic and fashionable scarf. A catspaw? A Guild agent? If she were, it'd be a rookie one at best. Some useful idiot, solely advantageous for her utterly, perfectly forgettable face?

    In a similar theme, the temple Staren and Tomoe arrive at is empty. Not dusty and dilapidated, but there's no evidence of it being used for service all day, or even the past few days. The braziers are all full and have not a whiff of smoke about them. The few rugs and polished floors are free of even the slightest dampness of wet shoewear. The heating stoves are cold. There's been a bare effort to replace decorative wildflowers by someone who obviously comes by, but not frequent enough that they aren't starting to get wilty. It's like an empty Church of Scientology keeping up the building just enough to get the property tax break.

    The only thing remarkable about it is that it's *just barely* close enough to receive magitech power --right on the very edge of the grid-- and thus the lights are on, amongst a few other things. This is a slight mismatch, given that Tamamo found that the solar-aspected juice is going straight in and out.
Bloody Revelations     Tamamo's business with the temple tower --the remaining business on the ground floor, all radial floors of diamond and vaulted arches of gold-- begins and concludes equally strangely. Indeed the razor fine crevice is filled with fresh blood; it's human blood as far as she can tell, too, and must have been there a while. The elaborate process of creating the necessary divine geometry, point to point, working with the flows of the building and the sacred symbols she knows, encounters a snag which exposes some sort of clue.

    She has to readjust some of her talismans, by degrees, when their lines cross over the slash in the floor. The upper right quadrant of the circle is warped a little bit. Specifically, it's like the damage isn't to the floor itself, but like something had 'cut space' and the floor had split as a result. It's a sufficiently exotic problem that where the blood came from seems secondary.

    Yet this is very, very much her wheelhouse. Elaborate Feng Shui geometry and sacred geomancy on a site aspected to the sun and thrumming with power for the purposes of healing what amounts to the land. It takes some time to adjust the ritual proper, *looking* irksomely out of place and messy, when spatially aligned properly. Given some intense effort, however, the blood begins to glow in colours of gold, then disintegrate into motes of light. As it drains, the gash in the ground starts to weld back together by itself, and abruptly snaps shut when emptied, as if it had never been.

    She can feel a few of the downed power lines come back on, irregularities in the tower's flow corrected.
Gawain "Ah, yes, my father was King Lot. As for the mantle, well...perhaps we could talk about it, if you can show me to the temple you worship at? Standing in the middle of the streets will attract more gawkers, after all." Gawain's smile is genuine, but...the mention of a 'temple' being an interesting place by Staren and Tamamo has him curious. If she leads them to the same place, there's a problem. For now...hopefully she'll be cooperative. "After all, a priest is always a friend!"
Staren     It's an unused temple. A quick radio discussion turns up one mystery, though, and Staren puts on some essence-detection goggles and tries to follow the power that's running the lights to its source. If it was using the local leylines, someone would notice. So what else could it be...?
Tomoe Tomoe arrives with Staren at the temple. The first thing of note is the place is empty, the second is it looks like no one's been around for a while from the looks of it. Yet the place is being up kept as far as she can tell.

Who knows the last time there was active worship here though that's something she does not have the answer to.

She would also note the power is still on and it seems to her? Someone is just upkeeping the place just enough so the power doesn't get cut.

Staren gets some kit out to better help snoop and Tomoe falls in relying on her own mundane eyes and ears as they proceed onwards.
Song of Rainbows Song squints at the priestess. Boring. So boring.

"You're so..."

"So..."

Song relets. "So simple. A fairy'd vex away their own Heart before bein' you. Are you sure you're not some vex'd extra? Got a heart, white lamb?" The crazy pirate taps on the chest of the priestess, before withdrawing, sliding to the side and back to her chests of treasure. "If you like it, here, I've a few more. Would you like the scarf of spun sparks? It's cozy warm, like a campfire."

She's not wrong - the entire scarf seems to be a nearly imperceptible mesh holding uncountable flickering embers in varous states of winking out, only to reignite and twinkle. The whole thing is 'around the same weight as air' and flutters neutrally in the air.

"Or do you want something wet?" The second is an affair that looks like suds or seafom roiling across a glimmering-clear surface. It sloshes like the inside of a seashell sounds, and smells faintly of brine.

"I just came from the south, y'ken. I stole into the hidden stall of Shafiq the Shawled, Lord of Thread, and stole his latest offerings or commissions to who-knows, but th' just pretty - not useful."

"Seen any fairies?" She adds, conversationally, having her chests under her arms with the two scarves on either shoulder.