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TrashQM

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TrashQM ID:P/p8WADg Fri 03 May 2024 06:28:13 No.5992835 View View Report

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The man unwinds his arm from yours so that he may look at you squarely as he talks, and you must fight your face to hide the shuddering relief at the release. As you struggle for something to say again, he manages to marshal his emotions enough to gentle his face somewhat and steal a second march on you.

"I - forgive me for my forwardness, but I assure you, that you have nothing untoward to fear from me."

"And I believe you! Father is ... he is ... shall I say, not inclined to trust? And kept abed as he has been, he is even less inclined than usual. I have to think that one of the reasons he brought me along was so that he had someone bound to him by blood. And ... in that vein, I have to wonder if the reason why father hasn't availed himself of any opportunities yet to seek out and name a ... more typical heir is because he fears that they may ..."

Unsure of exactly how to put the thought to words, you let it trail off into the stuffy, candle-smoked air. Judging from the further softening and falling of the Taker's face, you see that the point has been received regardless. The tightness in your chest slackening just a little, you seize upon the opening, continuing to push the issue.

"His ailment makes him tired, roils his stomach and makes him prone to chills - he is nowhere near so ill that he cannot speak; he can make his wishes known well enough. And he did. He gave me the monies, gave me the charge to use them on his behalf. I set out to prove myself ... but he set me out so that he - in his mind - might protect himself. He is that way, seeing danger when there isn't any."

"And ignoring it when it is right before him? How is his sending his daughter out into a city unfamiliar to her anything but dangerous?"

"I ... yes, that is ... I'll admit that I was surprised when he put the charge to me. But this is my father, I cannot gainsay him! To be sure, I wanted to prove myself given the chance - and I assuredly went about it in the worst way, I see that now. But what was I supposed to do? Say no to him?"

It is with no small relief that you see the Taker has no answer for that. Unfortunately, however, he does have another question.

"And I am to understand, that he would take me, escorting you back to him, as 'dangerous'?"

"It ... it isn't merely the notion of impropriety that raises the hue and cry for him. He feels that anyone getting close to me is on the byway to getting close to him as well."

"Mercy ...".

He doesn't finish the thought, but just as he seized upon your point earlier, you seize upon his. You consider pressing on, trying to take up the reigns of the conversation once more, before you decide that for now, it is where you want it, and you leave it in his keeping.

TrashQM

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TrashQM ID:iDwa8AAQ Thu 04 Apr 2024 02:02:55 No.5969220 View View Report

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And the streets cannot be all as empty as the ones with the Closet or the Clerking house, unfortunately. Several times you pass drawn carts and wagons, several more times you pass small parties of the comfortably situated denizens of Cleanport, well attended by their lantern bearing servants. All of them stare. Someone from one of the parties even calls out to you - the distance made it hard to make out, but the tone suggested that they were asking if you were alright. You pointedly avoid eye contact, and wave as politely and dismissively as you can - before it occurs to you that a woman of your status might not be supposed to be waving. Shit. Beyond the most basic of table manners, your grasp on etiquette is ... spotty, and almost entirely hypothetical. And of course, the level of manners and the like that is expected of someone who should be wearing a dress like this is well above and beyond anything you have any experience or knowledge of. It - it isn't the time.

You pass a few more wagons and another two parties out on the street. None of them call to you, none of them approach you - but all the same, you find that your just-shy-of-running pace has become a full tilt run by the time you lay eyes on the Landward Walls. Your breathing is rasps and wheezes; you must have done up the corset wrong - it is sitting lower and tighter than it should be on your chest. Still, you keep putting one foot in front of the other as fast as you can - pointedly trying to think of nothing but running, but it seems that your aches and your fears cannot be so easily set aside. Though at least the exertion of the run prevents you from really plunging into the usual self-recriminations - the act of the run, the attention that it draws to you as a lodestone draws the filings of metal, you swear you didn't feel so naked when you were undressing in the Closet!

Blessedly, the gatehouse appears before you - anymore abruptly, you'd say that it was unexpected. What is unexpected is that while it is open, you cannot see anyone standing inside, nor can you make out any lights. For a moment, you consider pushing through, or trying to sneak past - but you decide to slow yourself down. If you are seen running or sneaking - especially sneaking - then ... well, best make sure that this post isn't manned before you seriously consider anything like that.

And it is a damned good thing that you didn't! As you slow down and try with only some success to catch your breath, you see slight movement and even slighter light. There must be some sort of alcove for the Guard - or would this be a Tollman? You can just make out his helmet and part of his boot, jutting out beyond the stonework. So then, unless the man is blind, then there is no possible way that you could sneak through the gate. You could allow yourself to be seen and walk on through - that is all that is required of you to leave the Mount ... unless the Guard issued you a lawful order to stop, or explain your business.

TrashQM

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TrashQM ID:TPDAwIdN Sun 11 Feb 2024 08:04:43 No.5923182 View View Report

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You know almost immediately what you should do, and that is to get to the molding. After all, the entire point of 'calling' upon the Clerking House was to see what happened, to plan your approach. If you cannot see the entirety of the Clerking House - and from here you cannot - then it seems that would have paid for more than you received. But with the street alive with soft sounds all around you, potentially even from the houses on either side of you, moving the few feet to the molding will be no mean feat. You squirm at the prospect - but you know that every moment you linger, getting to the molding without being made becomes harder.

That is enough to spur you into fitful, scrambling movement. Bent over at the waist, you break the concealment offered by the rain-barrel and shuffle as quickly as you can to the molding. Once you are as close as you dare, you lay yourself down prone, squeezing yourself as tight as you can against the the foundation of the house and the stones of the alley, desperate to screen as much of you as possible out of sight. To tell it true, you don't think it is going very well, you are a lot more exposed out here than you thought you would be. Thankful that you threw on the black hooded riding cloak and not the red one, you continue to squeeze yourself into the shadows as before you the street comes alive. You can see light from upper windows further down the block pouring out onto the cobblestones of the street, as well as lights the windows of homes that are across the street from you. You have to stop yourself from trying to press yourself against the wall - at this point, the jut and the shadows are hiding what they can hide. Moreover, moving is liable to catch eyes - and while this spot is an excellent vantage point, it just occurs to you now how being so close to the door would make it a sensible spot to check if anyone was serious about finding the source - or the party - responsible for that bump in the night.

Your lower back twitches and your battered left arm spasms a bit, but you hold yourself fast - and finally, you get what you are waiting for. You can make out a light on the second story of the Clerking House, filtering through one set of closed shutters after another - until it stops at the set directly over the door. Guessing what comes next, you fight the urge to try to shrink further into the shadows as one of the shutters is opened up. Your head is practically pointing right at the intersection of paver-stone and foundation, but staring out at the tops of your eyes, you can see the Guard - you are just assuming that it is a Guard, as the man is unhelmeted, and you cannot see a cuirass - as he leans out an surveys the street beneath him. Including where you are hiding, as it is nearly dead on with his window. You have to keep telling yourself that as long as he is not reacting to you, you are safe - but every time that he sweeps his head past your hiding spot, you have to fight the urge to cringe.

TrashQM

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TrashQM ID:tclCgq9D Tue 15 Nov 2022 23:06:40 No.5464399 View View Report

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From what you have seen so far ... you have no way of telling which side of the blast door you are on - the 'sealed in' side or the 'sealed out' side. You haven't seen anything that would indicate one way or another, nothing to tip the scales. In absence of any clues, the smart thing to do would be to look around to see if any could be found before making a decision one way or another, but at this point, right here, you simply don't have the time to be smart about this. Your gut tells you that the best option here is to take a detour. If there is danger on the other side of this door, then you will avoid it. Of course, if this is the sealed in side, then perhaps in your wanderings, you will encounter other sealed blast doors ... or something dangerous. That cannot be helped though, not now.

You consult the schematic again, and you plot an alternative route. It is a little longer, but you are not going too far out of your way. Not wanting to waste anymore time here, you punt yourself off of the floor, and start heading back the way that you came. It is not too long before you pass the door that you came through after detouring around the filter in the intake. From there you feel like you are making good time, and that the infestation seems a little less dire in the hallways that you have moved into now - but perhaps that is just wishful thinking. What is not some idle fantasy is that door along the halls have become much much further spaced out. Glancing at the schematic in the combined light of your suit and your still lit wrecking torch, you are frustrated to see that none of the rooms on the schematic are labeled with their function - all they have is just a number, which leaves you having to guess what might be inside them based off of what is described being in them in the schematic. It is possible that these larger rooms are crew quarters as well, but for indentured or common sailors, while the small rooms were reserved for officers. Or ranking technicians, perhaps. Officers typically sleep closer to the bridge.

Returning your attention to getting to the bulkhead with the second power plant and the desalinator as fast as possible, you start punting yourself a little bit harder. You consider using your booster, but the halls are getting tighter and smaller, and the last thing you want to do is accelerate around some corner and run head first into a fuckin -

From around the corner, and down the hallway where you intend to go, comes a wide beam of light, that pierces through the darkness. Its harsh white glow falls on the wall opposite of the hallway that it comes down, illuminating it in stark detail.

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