Modern-Day Badasses [Ellwood's Emissaries]

[JNAProductions]

The limo slides away smoothly, the closed door shutting off all sound from Jim. You are now alone on the curbside, outside the subway station.

[Ramsus]

Jim frowns about what Garret said. He's not exactly comfortable with that, but the guy they were talking to was probably a lot worse and this situation probably requires all the help they could get. He just hadn't wanted to solve this thing only to find himself in a situation where he couldn't get any work in the future.

He sighs and takes the subway back to his truck and goes to tell Ellwood everything that happened.

[JNAProductions]

The ride is mostly uneventful. A few other people are on the subway, but none of them draw knives or guns or anything. Soon enough, you're back at the police station, where after some brief discussion with the man at the front desk, you're allowed in to see Shantae.

[Ramsus]

"Hey. So we encountered more of the tieflings on the subway. Three to be precise. We made pretty short work of them. When we got off some crime boss type named Kintobor showed up in a limo and offered us to work for him instead of you with better pay. He said that an underling of his is the cause of all this ****. The guy, apparently worked with some cult to summon a demon called Culexus for personal power. Then apparently thought it was a good idea to backstab the cult and try to summon another demon called Callidus, which apparently 'was not a total success'. He says that's why all these tieflings are being drawn here. Apparently the tieflings are trying to kill him, Kintobor I mean and he had a magical guardian or something named Echules who got killed. And so he wanted to hire us to do that. He said if we didn't agree we could just **** off. Oh and he threatened to kill our families if we told anyone. But honestly if I shat my pants every time someone threatened me I wouldn't have made it half this far. I don't know why the others decided it was a good idea to go along with a guy like that. So... yeah, now what?" Jim says to Shantae once they're in an office with a door to close.

[JNAProductions]

Shantae, while Jim is telling her, slowly grimaces worse and worse, and near the end, begins muttering swears. "Okay-this is not good. Echules was, to my knowledge, a pretty damn powerful person in his own right, so if they were able to handle him... I just hope they managed to engineer the upper hand, rather than being able to take him on directly. Thank you, for not taking up Kintobor's offer. He's been running this town's undercity for almost a decade now, and the last thing we need is talented people like you working under him. From what I know, it always starts innocently, but he's insidious-before the year is out, you'd be murdering people he didn't like."

"But, he did give us some information. Culexus and Callidus you said? I know someone who might know more. Bryce's Used Books, near the edge of the city-he's a dabbler in the arcane arts, and knows a lot more than he can actually do. With luck, he'll know something about these two, and with more luck, he'll even have a book or two on them. Come on," she says, standing up. "Let's get going-we'll take my car so we can get there faster."

Assuming Jim does not object, she leads him down the stairs to where her vehicle is located, gets in, turns the sirens on, and starts flooring it for Bryce's.

[Ramsus]

Jim does not object. He does roll down the window to feel the breeze on his face though.

[JNAProductions]

When you arrive at Bryce's, Shantae parks, and heads in. Jim comes along just behind, and is able to hear Shantae shout a swear at the same time as he sees Bryce dead from a gunshot between the eyes.

[Ramsus]

"Of course...." Jim says with a sigh and leaves the detective stuff to Shantae for now and looks about the store for any useful books. Or at least seeing where there's stuff conspicuously missing.

[JNAProductions]

Shantae looks to Jim, ordering him "Stay at least 10' away from the body at all times. You probably shouldn't even come in the store, but we need information, and that won't happen if these books get taken in as evidence."

She starts stepping closer to the body, looking over the situation and seeing if he has any other injuries.

Make a Perception check to try to find useful books or anything missing.

[Ramsus]

Perception: [roll0]

[JNAProductions]

The store is in surprisingly good shape, considering the owner was shot. In about three minutes of cursory searching, you find two important things:

1) A few books that contain references to Callidus, Culexus, and other demons.

2) Some kind of device in the back, hooked up to several modified lighters. If you had to guess, it's an incendiary.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Ishmael

*He'd always had a knack for blending into the background and going unseen, and as Jim and Shantae go about their work, he does just that. The two of them were intelligent and skilled detectives - he was no dummy, but tracking down intel and following leads was never what he trained for, so he simply followed along silently, letting them do their jobs.*

*Once the group arrives at the books store to find Bryce dead, Ishmael reached up to rub at the bridge of his nose and thinks for a moment before speaking.*
"Clean shot. Either a marksman or he was executed. I'll watch the front. If anybody rolls up, I'll knock on the door, but I'm about as knowledgeable with these things as with particle physics, so I'm just gonna keep my distance."

*It was a half-lie, but believable enough under the circumstances. The fact was that he knew quite well what they were looking for and how to avoid leaving that kind of evidence, but that was a different skill set entirely.

Stepping out the front door, he carefully surveys the surrounding area, paying particular attention to intersections and nearby businesses where there might be traffic cams or surveillance cameras. In the age of information, there was usually something. Finding it would be hard, but leaving no trace was harder.*



so, making a perception check to search for any cameras or surveillance that might be nearby that would have caught details of the incident.

[roll0]

[JNAProductions]

There's a few cameras out front-fish eye lens. They appear to have been wrecked.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Ishmael

*Shoving his hands into his jacket pockets to warm them a little, Ish stretches his neck as he thinks, running through the details they knew so far. Dead body, who knew something about what was going on. Wrecked cameras. Apparent single gunshot wound.
Whomever had done this had wanted to get away clean, but there were still possibilities. The cameras being wrecked would give them a timeline, as well as the temperature of the body and blood patterns. They could work backwards from the timeline spreading outwards looking for footage or clues, but it would be a slow, tedious process. If there wasn't a pressure for time, it could break open new leads - after all. No one can destroy every bit of evidence along their route, but the wider it got, the more random.*

*They might know more get lucky and get a couple details from the destroyed cameras. At the very least they'd see how they were destroyed, and if they'd been smashed, they'd have evidence, if they'd been shot, there'd be ballistics. It was something.*

*Stepping over to a nearby vending machine, he shoves a few coins in and pushes the button for one of the drinks loaded with caffeine. It was going to be a long night.*

[Ramsus]

Jim snatches up every book that seems like it might even possibly be helpful and goes back to Shantae (at least 10 feet from the body) and tells her about the probably incendiary device. He's sure as heck not touching it, with his luck it wouldn't just explode in his face... it'd light up the store and the car too. So while she continues, he goes back to the books and looks for other books that might have knowledge of other monster or magical related things and grabs up those as well. Not like the shopkeep was going to miss them and he doubted Shantae would question him on it since who knows what they might run into. If an actual demon was summoned, tieflings were probably going to be the least of it. Not that he knew really what to expect. He'd previously considered demons above his pay grade and the only reason he hadn't run off the moment he heard about them is that.... well who knows what would happen if he didn't do something about it?

((Are there any items around that maybe might be useful ritual components or that kind of thing? While those things wouldn't be of much use to him, they would be for Lily.))

[JNAProductions]

"Out-out now!" Shantae orders, adding "And call the fire department, Ish!"

Once the three are out and a safe distance away, she begins calling her own people at SI, just as the store begins to glow from a fire within.

[TheMightyQuinn]

Ishmael

*As the two come running out, yelling for him to call the fire department, he pushes himself away from the side of the building where he was leaning, his fingers dialing swiftly.*

*it doesn't take more than a moment to relay the details to the dispatcher, and he keeps his phone on speaker as he moves closer to the other two.*

"They've got a truck on the way. Ellwood, you want to fill them in on anything while I've got them on the line?"

[Ramsus]

Jim grabs a last armful of books before running out and once outside he begins levitating as many books as he can out of the store.

[JNAProductions]

"Yeah-it's arson, and hurry their assess up because the whole store is evidence."

[JNAProductions]

The store bursts into flames, books lighting up as the incendiary goes off. Shantae watches grimly, saying "I hate to see good books destroyed."

After just a few minutes, the SSFD arrives, and begins hosing down the building. "Why the hell didn't you use one of the extinguishers?" one of the back-up people asks.

"Not up to code-there weren't any."

"The owner better-"

"He's dead."

[Ramsus]

Jim looks through whatever books he managed to save while the cops deal with cop stuff. Also possibly fireman stuff.

[JNAProductions]

Make an Investigation check.

Callidus is a demon of treachery. Culexus is a demon of anti-magic, despite being magic itself.

Summoning Callidus is a recipe for disaster. It betrays. That's what it IS.

Summoning Culexus can actually be quite good. So long as you aren't magical yourself, it's reasonable.

The last time Callidus was summoned started WWII.

The last time Culexus was summoned caused the Ice Age.

There are, hidden within the texts, ways to summon them both, among other demons.

[Ramsus]

Investigation: [roll0]