#anywhere

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Symon's mentor managed to hook him up with a slaugh in the area, not in Rivervale proper, but...not far out of the Barony.

It can suck to have an overly-attached stepmom hanging around, but it's handy for when you need a ride to meet a stranger and just can't explain to your muggle parent why this is a good idea. Symon is dressed a little nicer than usual - not Church nice, but at least reluctant school picture day. A buttoned down shirt (if wrinkled) and slacks, dress shoes that would have polished up nicely (but instead are coated with dust. "Yes. I'll call you when I'm done with the meeting." He promises Ann Marie, before turning to look at the door of the location he has arrived at...

The location is a creepy old house on a creepy old hill on a creepy road. It makes his step mother nervous, therefore, it endears itself to her already

He climbs up the pathway to the house, glad that Ann Marie was able to drive most of the way, but now wishing she would drive away. It's like a watched pot never boiling though, so he just leaves her behind him as he catches his breath and reaches up to tap lightly at the door with his free hand - a small cloth-wrapped bundle dangling from the other.

the door creeeaaaks open, as if it hasn't opened in years before now And candles flicker along the sconces of the hall. the hall has two ways to go... up spiral steps. Or straight ahead to a wooden door with patches faded unevenly

/roll coin

He stands for a moment, listening quietly, then moves to the stairs. Dress shoes clacking softly with each step before he pauses to slip them off, and continuing up in bare, unstockinged feet, up the spirals.

quietly he goes, and it gets darker, less candle light.

He continues on, each step confidently placed as though the light, or lack thereof, doesn't bother him, moving up the stairs with slow deliberation.

His nightvision works fine, in fact, better than fine! There's scribbling on the walls that only those with night vision can see

He does pause as he notices the writing, to peer at the scribbles...

Hello Darkness my old fiend. It's nice to seize you once again. one writing says The Sweeny Todd Diet isn't foreveryone the shoes were silver, thank you very much when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you- so what if you're soulmates? and other odd wordings

He moves forward, reaching up a hand as though to trail to along that wall, but his fingers fall just short of making contact. A quirk of his thin, greyish lips, and he whispers his own quote back at the writing. "In his house at R'lyeh... dead Cthulhu waits dreaming..." And continues on.

He whispers, and the sentence appears amid the other writings, it scrawls and makes its mark joining the others!

A twist of a grin before moving forward.

And down a new hallway he finds himself, still dark, but one door of three is cracked open. soft music is playing. Something foreign.

Moving on to the doorway, he pauses just outside, and sets down his shoes beside the cracked door, letting them click softly onto the ground, an announcement of his presence.

"enter, young man. " A rasping whisper

He pushes the door open with delicate fingertips, then steps through, pausing to bow in the doorway. "Madame Gray sends her regards, along with the hopes that I, her poor student, may do some poor semblance of a proper greeting." He peers dark eyes up through hanging hair - cleaned, but somehow already oily and lank once again. "Though it be no judgement on her teachings if I am simply too dull to learn proper manners." Carefully schooling away a hint of a smile as his dolorous recitation.

"Madame Gray, ever a woman for stickler for good manners," the slaugh near the phonograph is not that tall in the torso, but his limbs are almost freakishly long and spindly, as are his legs, and he hunches.

Straightening back up - the bow as politeness for an elder, though not the scraping that a noble might demand, Symon steps forward and offers out the cloth wrapped bundle. "A small token, by way of Madame Grey via myself, and, I suppose, Hearth Kerri of Rivervale. Pastries from Beltane that I have aged beneath the radiator for an appropriate occasion."

(Does he know who he was sent to meet? 🙂 )

"oh my, madame kerri's cooking is something akin to legend in this county, the abrupt knight has heer secrets... please, call me Mister Withower... " he rises, and takes the bundle, "would you like tea?"

He almost declines, it's clear in the stalled shake of his head, but his voice is polite enough when he speaks. "The Madame despairs of my palate, but I would appreciate a chance to try your blend, though the subtleties may be lost on me." Almost loquacious now, among his own kith, finding that the words that die in his throat in a crowd come more freely in this comfortably dark room. "Thank you for seeing me, I haven't met any other slug- uh. Cousins, in town yet."

"slug? oh my, as a favor to you I'll not tell your mentor you've adapted that bit of slang so popular among the younger crowd, this way" he leads him not far, to a table in the center of the room with a cover, he lifts it, and tea is already prepared, "time is a thief, it is also a keeper. don't worry, Mister Symon. I shan't be too formal. "

He does seem a bit more at ease at that promise - and he remembers, just before sitting down, to offer to pour the tea, first for the elder, then for himself, and politely offer the aged cakes as well, niceties and rituals before any small talk.

He partakes of the tea and cookie, but only a nibble, once rituals are done. "well performed"

Etiquette observed, he pauses after a sip to broach a question. "There is a new fledge in Rivervale, she goes to my school. A Troll, for all that there are enough of them in town already, but she's not a bad sort. Quiet, and I get the feeling..." He wriggles a little, as though something itched. "She'd have my back, if I needed it. And..." A slight shrug of narrow, thin shoulders. "Who knows, I might someday. But there's something... I'm not certain. Hunting her. With bugs, and spiders, and maggots, I think it was? It has almost... our taste about it, but no subtlety." A wrinkle of his nose in distaste. "Bashing down doors, and interrupting in the middle of class..."

Adding as he remembers, "And poison, too."

"it does sound rather crude doesn't it? well, the poison at least might be subtle, but the rest, quite crass." A tisk, "one of us? after a troll fledgling? mmm" A sip, "Can you tell me more?"

He shakes his head, but then hesitates, and looks unsure. "I don't know... but if not, it feels like it could be someone wanting them to THINK it was one of us. I don't know why we'd want to bother Dagmar, though. Or Sam. She's been bothered enough, I think." Spending a couple minutes to describe the spider-ish grammarbug that dangled over Dagmar's head, and though he did not see the Beetle, extending his own arm to indicate on it's scrawny length the distance of the pincer bite pierces, to help show how big he imagines it must have been. "I can't imagine why any fae would want to give Sam a harder time. And Dagmar is too -new- to have made any enemies. So my guess is it's an old one. Which isn't really fair. But that's life."

"Lives. For us, the phrase should be 'that's lives'" Mr. Withower says, "if that is the case, then we are looking for someone with a strong remembrance, haunted by something in the past. frankly, i am of the belief that a spin on the cycle should cure all old grudges. A tyrant becomes a cook, an outlaw becomes a knight, a seductress becomes a church mouse. So many blends vary just with a shake"

Remembering, he digs into a pocket, and produces a hankerchief wrapped around something - which proves to be a segmented leg. "Lovecraft - that's my shadowcat... she came to me when I Awoke... she killed the spider. I saved one of it's legs." Offering this out, curiously. "Is there anything we may be able to tell from this?"

"good name" he says, taking it, "let me see"

"I thought about whispering to it...." He ducks his head a little, and his voice is quieter as he whispers again. "But if there was something on the other end that might awake... I didn't want to stir it, not alone." A pause, and almost defensive in his tone, though there was no blame cast at him. "But that's just common sense."

"common sense died sometime ago. I was a paulbearer, but still, good on you to try to raise it from its grave" he runs fingers over it and hums, to the tune of some minor key classical music

Glamour does not spark so much as seep out, like oil catching moonlight when no moon i about

And he gasps, as the leg freezes, icing up, then shatters!

Symon's dark eyes widen at this as he shrinks back from the shattering. "Frozen? But why?" Reaching out, in spite of himself, to prod a fingertip at a fragment.

"I asked the dreaming for an omen, a portent, something vital, what we most would need to know- and the dreaming tells me this. Sluagh or not whoever is behind this? they hate your friend, dagmar sam. they hate her so much that they'll use banality to destroy her. whoever this is, is borderline dauntain, if they haven't already stepped over that line'

He goes still, his breath scarcely audible. "Iron?"

"possible, but there are...other ways . The former ruler of Goblintown, for example, did experiments, trying to use banality like some use glamour. fool. and now this one, might do the same for revenge. if he is one of us, he's become a mad dog. if he's not one of us, well, he's become a mad dog."

"But... the Right of Rescue." He asks, gaze flicking to Withower. "Even unseelie respect the Escheat, where it matters..." The expression in his face, giving lie to how young he is, whether or not he has an old soul. That he'd like to believe otherwise than what he's being told...

"dauntain aren't us anymore, the escheat ceases to apply," A sigh "maybe he can be saved, or she, but whoeve they are, for some reason they want Dagmar not just dead, but undone."

His eyes narrow. "Someone else can save them if they want to try. As far as I'm concerned, they give up their right to be protected by the rules once they broke them."

"well, that's between you, your mentor, and the noblity - do be cautious, trolls don't think...." A long pause "like we do."

"I won't kill them... but I don't have to save them." Muttering to himself, then looks up, and nods. "I understand. Too honorable to do what might need done." A hesitation, eyeing the empty handkerchief that previously held the leg. "Is there anything else we can tell? One of the trolls there... he asked me to find out. Though I don't know what's in it for him. He said to ask, and said that he pays his debts. Jaymes Ironhawk."

"i will try to learn more, but it may take time. tell mr Ironhawk word is out and he may receive a visitor in the next few days"