undergrounds | August investigations (open)

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August investigations (open)

Battleshots fired

Evening in the Black Bear Tavern, and someone had set up what looked like an oversized game of Battleship on one of the tables, with one major exception: all the ships had gleaming shot glasses carefully set into them at even intervals.

The bar was dark. The board was illuminated. There were cheesy underwater sonar noises involved. And Heiji stood on the other side of the board. "So. You ready?"

Handy Battleshots board here. Gameplay video here.

Battleshots works like Battleship. You and your opponent each have your own ocean grid, which is hidden from your opponent. You secretly place your ships on your ocean grid horizontally or vertically.

You and your opponent then alternate calling shots on the grid (for example, A1 or D5). If you pick a spot that your opponent has a ship in, it's a hit. Your opponent must then announce the hit and drink the appropriate shot off their ship. The middle shot on each ship is tequila served in a black cup.

Gameplay continues until you annihilate your opponent's ships, force a surrender, or someone passes out.

Groundwork (throughout August)

Heiji could be found throughout August in regular libraries throughout the city -- and libraries-underneath-libraries as well, looking through records and old archived newspapers. Or, occasionally, falling asleep with his face in a book or pressed against a handy keyboard. His topic of investigation? The East End Pack, and in particular one Derek Hale. It was all a matter of public record, which meant this was A-OK and totally aboveboard, right?

Right.

Reconnoitering (mid-August)

Lewisham was not a particularly safe place for the faint of heart -- in fact, it was a no man's land, a veritable hive of scum and villainy. But during a few evenings in mid-August, there was one extra supernatural beastie about: a black fox the size of a full-grown tiger, lurking about the rooftops and getting the size of the activity there. Heiji was doing a little reconnaissance work, though he could also be found scoping out the neighborhood in Havering.

[Or lemme know if you want anything in particular o7]

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It probably said something about Mab's character that she wasn't terribly concerned about the dangers Lewisham posed. She seemed to take great delight in walking those streets, observing what she would be tasked with cleaning up or not cleaning up as the decision was still up in the air. She had laws she would most definitely be enforcing but those would come after she'd laid claim to the land. It shouldn't be much longer now. She glanced up as she felt a familiar presence, walking through the streets that evening, hand pressed against a solid brick wall where she was closing a stray door a lesser fae had opened.

"Lord Heiji." She murmured, not stopping her work though she did smile just a little. "How nice to see you this evening."

Heiji leapt easily down off a chimneystack perched high atop one of the buildings. As he landed, he shifted back into his human form. The transformation was accompanied by a wreath of blue flame that licked at him briefly before disappearing, spent.

"Nice to see you, too. Surveying the battlefield? There're quite a few outcasts out here, but I don't think they'll be able to mount an organized resistance to... anything, really."

The fae did enjoy their grand entrances, Heiji was no exception, shifting to human in a quick blaze of blue flame. She took a moment longer and then removed her hand from the door that was again solid wall and surveying him. "In a manner of speaking, yes." She agreed.

Her fingers flexed once, like she was stretching them after spending some time at one task and she glanced down the street absently. "The dredges of their specific societies. You would be amazed at how quickly the lost can fall in line." She smiled mostly to herself and looked back at the fox fae. "You were doing the same?" She doesn't specifically thank him for his assistance but there is something like gratitude there. Even if he was simply repaying her for her own assistance during his claim.

Heiji pulled a notebook from his jacket pocket, handed it to Mab. Inside was a series of sketches: maps, containing information on the flow of nighttime commerce in the area. Foot traffic, concentrations where criminals, dark witches, vampires, and all sorts of unsavory sorts gathered.

"These are the patches you'll need to worry about the most."

Heiji was remarkably organized. She took the book from him and flipped it open. Where Mab had memorized what she needed, he had documented everything and his maps were passably readable which was not the case for Grimalkin. She had noted a few of the places he had as well. Once she had control of the territory she planned to make an announcement to anything supernatural in the area. She had few rules but some were iron tight. She had alliances to keep, after all.

"The dark witches are broken." She murmured, looking at the list, "I anticipate no problems with them. They may even prove grateful if they are introduced to Mistress Widdowson." The vampires could be more problematic. She flipped pages, taking in his observations. "You have been doing remarkable work."

To be fair, it probably wasn't easy to draw maps with giant fuzzpaws.

"I always do remarkable work," said Heiji easily. "But I thought I might as well since I'll have to mind the house this time around." By which he meant standing guard over their existing territories to make sure no one tried a sneak attack while their main force was elsewhere.

Mind the house. Heiji could sound very domestic when he chose to. "It is always wise to leave a guard." She agreed. It would really be annoying if someone came around and tried to snap up their territories while they were off cleaning up Lewisham.

"There is a small nest at the Brockley and Ladywell cemetery." That was wasn't on the list but that just meant Heiji had been covering other ground when Mab came upon it. And it also didn't look like it would present her any specific problems. She had planned to go and deal with them in the evening. Glancing up she realized that wasn't actually far off.

"Is that an invitation?" Because it certainly sounded like an invitation. Heiji generally wasn't big on picking fights with people minding their own business, but he'd heard about this nest, and its denizens didn't sound like particularly model citizens. Bloodletting parties and stalkings and all that.

Technically it had been an observation. She considered Heiji for a moment. It wasn't something that couldn't be done on her own. And this time it wasn't humans. The question was, would he give her free reign to do what needed to be done or would he interfere?

"You will not intervene in what I deem necessary?" Yeah she still kind of holds that grudge.

Interfering was his life. Why would she even invite him places if she didn't want him to do things? Doing things was his job.

"You want me to just observe...?" Maybe this was some kind of Unseelie thing, like the way cats would bring you dead things or stare intently at you while slowly shredding your papers.

Mab gave Heiji a dry look. "Certainly not. Just do not stop me if I find it necessary to take more lethal measures." He could do whatever he wanted as long as she didn't have a repeat of the Ringer experience. "Other than that you may do as you wish."

She closed the book and offered it back to him in case he had not finished his observations.

"Keep it," he said, heading down the appropriate street. He'd already memorized the contents of the book, anyway. It was her claim, so he wasn't inclined to interfere unless he had to.

"You comin' or what?"

Mab tucked the book away in her clutch and turned to follow him. She noticed he made no promises about stopping her. Finally her heels began clicking on the sidewalk, long stride catching her up to him quickly.

"Patience, Lord Heiji, they have some time before they will waken." And she did intend to speak with them first. Minions were more useful than dead vampires. But one had to see if they could be dealt with first.

Heiji tried not to make promises he couldn't keep. That would be lying.

"Sure, but while they're asleep would be a good time to scope out the area, see if they've got any weapons or anything like that. Best not to leave things like that up to chance."

He was not above nabbing a crossbow or two. The look on their owners' faces was always priceless.

If her expression was anything to go by, Mab wasn't overly concerned with weaponry. She rarely seemed to worry about such things. But if it would help him feel useful, he'd be happier about sending his vassals to assist her later. "No interest in the excitement of the unknown?" She asked him with amusement. He likely knew her well enough now to know she valued knowledge as well.

They didn't have far to go and soon enough they passed through the gates of the cemetery. Really, it was cliche for the nest to be in a tomb but sometimes the classics were classic for a reason. Old enough tombs weren't visited often and tended to be light tight where as newer buildings had windows that needed to be boarded up. The sun was low on the horizon but they had a good 15 minutes before it actually set.

"What's unknown about a crossbow or a gun? You pull the trigger and something metal hits ya." That wasn't what he considered a particularly scintillating mystery. A locked room murder, on the other hand.

Heiji looked around as they reached the threshold of the tomb. "Gunpowder," he said.

A second later, there was an explosion of rock chips and dust as a shot clipped the edge of an oversized stone slab. Heiji stepped aside quickly, tracing the trajectory of the shot.

"When it will hit." She replied as though the excitement of it should be more interesting than he was making it.

She paused just outside the entrance and lifted a hand, preparing a shield just in case. She shifted enough that the actual projectile missed her and her shield caught the rest of the blowback. Well, perhaps these vampires weren't as destitute as they had appeared if they could booby trap their nest. Her eyes scanned the inside of the entrance looking for a trigger or a person hiding. "Do you see anything?"

"Depends on the weapon," said Heiji as he scanned the top of the tomb, where several melancholy-looking angel statues had been placed. "Rifle bullets are generally between 180 and 1500 meters per second. So if you were 200 meters away and the bullet velocity was 500 m/s, you'd have .4 seconds, not factoring in air resistance."

Why was he talking about this now, though...

"It's still daylight. I suspect they have a human sentry keeping watch. A jumpy one."

His response with bullet speeds earned him a dour look before she returned her attention to the tomb. Her shield dropped and she touched the stone near the door. "Yes, jumpy." She agreed. She lifted her fingers and they sparkled with ice for a moment. "Would you like to deal with them or shall I?"

Tiresome but it was actually rather impressive that these outcast vampires had managed to cobble together enough loyalty in a human to be able to post one as a sentry.

What's wrong, Mab? Did it take away from the mystery.

Just above one of the weeping stone angels, a man let out a brief howl of pain. Something heavy and metal dropped to the surface of the concrete. "What do you want?!" he demanded from his perch. "This is private property!"

Considering she meant you never knew when someone would actually shoot at you as opposed to the interesting but useless information about how quickly it traveled seeing as once the shot was fired there wasn't much time to dodge anyway, it was more likely a 'stop being a smartass' look. If Mab said such things.

She looked down at the weapon and then back up at the man on top of the tomb. Did this man think they gave out deeds to cemetery plots? Sometimes one had to wonder how many brains some humans could cobble together. She was sorely tempted to just freeze him up there. She would have if Heiji wasn't with her. Better than leaving a human at their backs. As it was she raised a hand and froze the gun into a very large block of ice on the ground. It would take at least a day to melt and that did not mean it would fire at that point either.

"Come down or stay up there permanently." Her voice wasn't raised but it carried in the quiet pre-dusk light.

Oh, Mab. You were a romantic.

The man staggered back, still clutching his arm; ice blocks were clearly out of his realm of general experience. "Y-you... I get it! You're from the Night Council! One of those Guardians! We're not breaking any rules!"

Heiji returned to fox form as the man talked, sneaking around the graves while he was focused on Mab. As the sentry came forward to peer down at the fate of his firearm, Heiji bumped him from behind. The man sprawled onto the grass in the front of the tomb with an ungainly shriek.

Mab gave the man a razor's edge smile. "Oh no, not the Night Council. My rules are very different from theirs." Heiji bumped the man off the roof about then and she lifted a hand, forming what looked like horseshoes of ice in the air and slamming one down on each of his wrists to pin him to the ground, the two ends digging into the grass and dirt to hold him there.

"Now let's see if we can approach this again, with more manners, shall we?" Steam curled around the ice at his wrists from the massive temperature difference and how quickly it had happened.

The man shrieked in mortal terror, wriggling about like an unkempt, slightly smelly fish on a hook. "Don't take me to your sex dungeon!" he pleaded, eyes darting every which way for someone to call upon for help. But the cemetery wasn't widely trafficked, so his choices were rather limited.

"I'd make a terrible slave! I've got... parasites! Amoebas!"

Heiji dropped off the edge of the roof and landed on the grass. He curled around the entrance to the tomb, but all was still quiet.

Sex dungeon? Mab raised an eyebrow at Heiji. Just who had this man been speaking with and what kinds of things were they filling his obviously addled mind with?

"I am less concerned with your ameobas than with your inability to shut your mouth." She replied dryly. Standing next to him she frowned. She knelt down and turned his head toward her by touching his chin, until he was forced to look her in the eye. "Now let us come to an agreement. You will remain here, and quiet while my associate and I have a discussion with your masters." Her eyes shifted still, and there was some natural fairy magic working here. "And if you interrupt, I will freeze your tongue within your skull."

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