3.5e Batman Campaign (2.0)

[JbeJ275]

Oracle gives a small shy smile barely visible behind the mask when Richard makes the offer.

"I'd be delighted to have you join me... us rather when we hit Tetch, though you're right that we'll have to do at least a little more information gathering first. I'll reach out to you once we're ready to approach it."

She's a little colder in her interactions with Bruce, gratefully accepting the book and googles, and thanking him as she put them away. Then fumbling through an awkward semi-apology that she hadn't had any time to read any more than the spell designations of the Wayne spellbook. She stays a little quieter as Damien speaks but voices bach up when he finishes.

"Well we know the Cobblepots need to get Dent in hand before the meeting of the five families, presumably becase he wants to show Dent off there or has promised the others Dent will be in his power by then, it's what's enforcing the deadline. The Tetch's are one of the most closely aligned families to the Cobblepots, so interrogating some of them would give us insight into the meeting of the five families and maybe let us track down Dent with infformation from both sides together. Alternatively, if we want to try for Dent I've finally figured out scrying. If his resistance isn't up to snuff I could try and locate him based on that."

[Feathersnow]

Seeing to her beloved, Kate returns to her cousin and asks to see research.

There is a rite of passage among my kind of fighter. We are called Gish. Those who use the mind as a weapon in conjuction with more actual weapons. I am considered odd among my discipline for wearing armor, but it was a necessity that I make work. And Gish believe in results. It is martial art for soldiers, not monks or craftsmen like your son.

But, to be recognized as a master of my discipline, I must kill a very specific kind of creature. It is called a Mind Flayer. I think I am ready to begin the Rite of Rrakma, but these creatures are rare and illusive. Perhaps you have heard of one.

[Molan]

When Damien mentioned The Monster, the armory got a little quieter, and Bruce and Richard both exchanged troubled glances.

"Well, you're not wrong." Bruce admitted. "We need to find that Codex."

"Have their been any sightings since the Vaults?" Richard asked quietly.

"None that I'm aware of. But that thing's not going to ever rest; and without the use of the Codex none of us stand a chance against it...even me." That last part seemed hard for him to admit, but the Waynes seemed desperate, desperate enough even to swallow their egos.

"That being said, I think I've got some alternatives for you."

He led Damien over to one of the tables in the armory where an array of unpleasant looking sharp objects were layed out in neat rows. One of the objects he picked up had a strange, two-sided curved shape to it, and was barely larger than one of Damien's shuriken.

"You remember my batarang, right?" he said, causing Damien's eyes to open up wide. "Well, after you and the others returned the Ship Captain's daughter from South Channel Island, Alfred got to work on this. Tell me what you think."

Damien took the curved, avian looking object from Bruce and twirled around, unleashing it across the room, where it landed square in the neck of one of the armor mannequins inside.

"Hold out your hand." said Bruce. Damien did as he was instructed, and after twitching for a moment, the bladed throwing weapon dislodged itself and flew back across the room just as fast, reappearing in Damien's palm. "I've got this here for you, as well."

The second object was essentially a very large knife, though in Damien's hands it looked more like a short sword. It was made of cool, matte black steel and had several subtle runes etched near the base of the hilt. Unlike the crackling black market weapon he'd been packing, this one was much more subtle, yet Oracle could detect it's magic aura from across the room.

Spoiler: Damien's New Batcave Wargear

Show

1. The "Birdarang", Shuriken of Returning +2.
2. "Scion's Shadow", (small) Shortsword of Deadly Precision +2.

"We also stocked out the Poison Cabinet a bit more. I added Goodbye Kiss, Gorgon's Hair, Salvo, Slow Death and Zealot's Blade. we haven't been able to work the lab full time, so I've only got a couple of doses of each, but feel free to grab anything that catches your eye. We've got deeper stores of some of the more common toxins."

Finally, Bruce also handed Damien a Listening Cone, to help with stealthier investigations, before turning back to Kate.

"That's...interesting, actually." he said. "Please, come with me."

Kate and Bruce returned to the archive they'd met him in when they'd first arrived. He began shuffling around through some of the records and old Gotham Herald copies he had inside, until eventually he found what he was looking for.

"Here, have a look. What do you see?"

The direction he'd pointed her to was clear enough. The Herald article detailed several grizzly murders Uptown in Channel Park, near the Hell's Kitchen Slums. Several bodies had been found -- not unusual for Channel Park -- but they were unique in and of that their brains appeared to have been violently removed. Accompanying the Herald article was a scroll -- how Bruce got his hands on it, Kate dared not ask -- that contained a Justicar's report of the crime scene. The Bloodhound investigating the incident stood out for two reasons. One, he'd determined quite forcefully that the murders were not arcane in nature (a category of crime people in Gotham were incredible sensitive too) but were instead the fault of an Aberration. Second, the Bloodhound's name: Harvey Bullock.

"The corrupt half-orc thinks he's found a Flayer in Gotham?"

"Psionics are generally not well regarded in Gotham, or the Empire. I certainly don't need to tell you that. A psionic alien? That'd make a pretty compelling villain. But the injuries seem pretty much on the nose. The key is, he's not the only one."

He then produced two additional scrolls, dated more than a year after the (unsolved) Channel Park murders. They were city records of an official Court Meeting at the Black Tower, the seat of House James. Houses Crane and Isley had, on two separate occasions, found similar murders on their land out in the Farm Lords' Pastures, and they'd furiously demanded that House James and the Justicars do something about it. Some basic promises were made, but it was clear nothing had come of it. The James didn't seem to like the Farm Lords very much, but the feeling was largely mutual. Bruce handed her yet another document -- the Cranes had also complained to the College, of which both they and the James' were high ranking members. That inquiry seemed to have gone a bit further; the College had actually dispatched a team of specialists to address the issue.

"Did they find what they were looking for?" Kate said, asking the most obvious question based on the evidence Bruce'd laid out.

"Unfortunately, I have no idea." said Bruce. "There's no records that I've been able to get my hands on that would indicate what the College's task force actually did or found during their investigation. It's like the entire matter has been sealed, though by whom and for what purpose, I can't say."

"You think the College is hiding something." Bruce laughed. "I think we can safely assume that the College is always hiding something. But I think the broader point is, if they'd have found and destroyed their target, there'd probably be some record of it, given the animosity between the College and the world of psionics. I think whatever killed those people is still out there. And it's not that giant bat monster either -- the victims weren't eviscerated, they were lobotomized."

Kate sucked in some air over her teeth, deciding on her course of action. "So there very may well be a Mind Flayer in Gotham. We just have no idea where it is, and thanks to the College, no leads either."

"Well, not exactly no leads." Bruce said. Kate raised her eyebrows, expectant.

"I had been investigating this myself, until the other monster showed up and I got wounded. I was chasing more than one crisis at the time, so it took me a bit longer to unravel this one than I would have liked. Still, there was one thing that stood out. I interrogated potential witnesses near each murder scene. Mostly homeless people from Hell's Kitchen and peasants from the Farmlands. None of them knew what'd happened, but all of them happened to mention a traveling casino."

"A casino?"

"Yea, rolled in like a week before the murders, best I can tell. Hard to imagine it's a complete coincidence. No one else I've talked to in Gotham has heard anything about it; just a large colorful tent, shows up near parks, fairs and carnivals, hangs around for a while letting people bet, then leaves. Seems strange that the only people who've ever seen the tent happened to do so right near the sight of very specific, grizzly murders. No way that's a coincidence."

"Okay, so. Find the traveling casino, find the Illithid?"

"It's possible."

"Uh, did you guys mention a tent casino?"

Kate and Bruce both turned around to see Damien had silently appeared in the doorway of the archive.

"Why?" Bruce asked. "Have you seen something?

[MrAbdiel]

"We might not know where it is, but we know where it last was - South Channel Island. I snuck into the tent when we were looking for leads on Lord Nigma. I noted a purple haired elf with golden eyes running the establishment with a sense of smarm I had mistaken for simply elven, and some elven staff that seemed... listless and obedient, barely conversational. And a muscular elven enforcer, with green hair. The hair was striking and memorable, in both cases. But if this was illusion... Given this revelation, we must conclude they were enthralled - and must speculate that the showrunner was your now-quarry in disguise. I suppose it makes for a subtle enough trap, for a cerebrovore - run an operation that attracts powerful risktakers on one hand, whose thoughts must be filled with useful secrets... and also the most desperate and destitute, who are likely to be unmissed when they are taken. Sloppy for them to leave the bodies, though - not a habit one expects of an especially cunning killer. But when we asked about that operation, the elves of the island seemed to have no affiliation with the tent's operators and no thoughts about where it had vanished."

He leans against the doorframe and taps his chin as he tries to recall everything he can about the tent. Four tables. No uniformity to the attendees. Conversation about how the tent just popped up from nowhere...

"An ogre, too. Security, like the green haired elf. Damn... Wish I'd taken something from there at the time... but if we go back to the site, even though the tent is gone, we might get lucky and find something - litter, or a tent peg, or something - that is part of the operation and is useful for Oracle's scrying. Which reminds me..."

He turns to the diviner, narrowing his eyes in what might first be mistaken as accusation, but is in fact the scrutiny of an operator trying to take measure of a tool. If Oracle's strength had been a magic sword, his eyes would have narrowed there. Since her talents lay locked within her mind, his interest is, briefly, mildly dehumanising to receive.

"I don't understand the full extent of your scrying talents. But such things often require tokens to succeed, yes? Personal belongings, locks of hair, drops of blood? If you can assemble for me a list of names, and a rundown of what might be useful in the way of reagents for your castings, we can begin assembling a... catalogue, of sorts."

[JbeJ275]

"You have the basics of it right. Blood hair or nails is most useful, but a possession they saw as theirs or failing that an honest recreation of their image will still be worthwhile. There's also a question of familiarity, I've had the misfortune to meet most of those with the colour of nobility at one formal event or another, but I'll have greater trouble scrying on their underlings if I've only heard of them second hand and greater ease scrying on anyone I grow truly familiar with. There's another spell too, which can be used to give the exact location of a creature, and it synergises well with this one, allowing them to be found quickly, though through a lot of powerful magic. There are a few further issues though, it can be warded against by sufficiently paranoid casters and those with strong wills will always be able to try and fight off certain mind tracking elements of it which it requires to give a location. Safely empowering the mirror can take up to an hour, and the magic burns out prior pathways, if they repel it, I won't be able to attempt further scrying on them for as much as 24 hours."

She breathed a little after this, slowly recentring herself and shooting a brief look at Kate.

"There are other spells that go well with it, one I learned earlier today that could let me do better in terms of getting a location on a person from the background around them, but they are mostly secondary. That said, if we have targets I can begin very soon, or else we can each pursue whatever mission we just brought forth, and I'll allow each of you to claim a target for one of my first scrying spells."

[MrAbdiel]

Damien considers their options. He might be mistaken for being distracted, as he spends a while whipping the birdarang around rolling through some katas with the new blade. Finally, he puts them away.

"These are excellent, father. Pennyworth has outdone himself."

It's not quite a thank you, but it's near enough kin. Then he's back on topic, as if his childish interim shadow-dueling hadn't occured.

"Grayson has already laid much of the foundation for us to go after Tetch. If we can catch him off guard quickly, that's one leg taken out from under our enemy quickly. Scrying on Tetch seems like an excellent first move. As far as information about the Cobblepots, we're fortunate enough to have two of their clerics in the custody of the Justicars right now - conventional secret-extraction might be sufficient for them. But if Kane requires the death of this brain-eater, I can't imagine a worthier brief distraction - one that saves the brains of the innocent and promotes an ally's skill. Tetch, I think, but also if you can, the mindflayer. It might be harder to find than that.. but if we get lucky, you will have saved us the trouble of tracking it much more slowly and afforded us a chance to ambush and slay it."

[JbeJ275]

”Perhaps the ogre instead of the illithid. More intelligent creatures often resist scrying more forcefully and finding the carnival let’s us make a good start. I’d rather use the good Sir Grayson list of corrupt names as an initial avenue of attack on Bullock and Tetch, though I’ll keep the option of scrying in the back pocket there, and you’re right about the clerics. Hopefully, Flamebrand sees fit to pass on anything he learns from them.

With this Oracle began making preparations to scry on the ogre described by Damien.

[Molan]

Alfred returned downstairs with a large silver mirror, just as Oracle had requested; it looked lavishly expensive, wrought ornately with the same grim motifs of Gotham and House Wayne that they'd become so accustomed to seeing.

"Before you begin," Bruce said. "I might make one other suggestion that could help."

He brought them to a plinth that stood across a metal bridge near the outer edge of the complex inside the cave. The plinth was sort of out in space, away from the rest of the compound, sitting over a black lake of water, looking out at the waterfall cascading down the north side of the island, occasionally graced by visitors who flitted past from their perches up above. The plinth was decorated with the arcane runes demarking a ritual circle. A desk sat at the end facing the waterfall, clearly used for casting and researching arcana in ideal conditions, and short, metal walls were erected around the north side which hung at various points key Herald articles, pictures of villains the Dark Knight had faced, and pieces of research and arcana. In the center of the plinth was a crystal ball, though it's interior was filled with a strange black cloud.

"Wait...does...does this work?" Oracle asked, flabbergasted.

"The ritual circle does, the Ball...not so much, I'm afraid." Bruce replied. "Like a lot of the facilities down here, it's had a rough year. I haven't been able to repair most of the divination equipment here, but the circle is still quite strong. Fox had wizards loyal to the Merchants' Guild install it years ago."

"So Fox...knows? About you?"

"He does, though he's been kind enough to stay quiet about it."

It wasn't a huge shock; the party'd more or less guessed Fox's complicity in House Wayne's comings and goings previously, but it was still interesting to hear it out loud; their relationship wasn't purely mercantile or philanthropic.

"Long story short, you should cast your spell here." Alfred carefully placed the mirror in the open space between the metal walls with the clippings and pictures, rounding out the ensemble, and allowing Oracle a perfect Diviner's Lab. "This seeing site will enhance your divination magic and make the process easier. With any luck, your target will be weak willed, and we can overcome your lack of familiarity."

With all of that said, Oracle sat down, cross-legged on the stool provided, and began to cast. The divination runes along the plinth lit up white as she began to summon arcane magic to herself, and her eyes glowed white back at her in the mirror as she gathered the necessary energy. The rest of the party stood back, on the other side of the plinth, outside of the circle while she worked.

************************************************** *************************
The green-haired bouncer near the door cackled, goading her on.

"C'mon Mirv, give the little man a shot."

The other patrons inside the casino all chortled and heckled as well, pressing her. In front of the Ogre was a fairly big looking man, with thick arms and a round gut, and a long, unkempt beard. He was drunk.

"I ain't afraid a' ya. I w'as in the Second Legion! I'll wrestle a bear!"

"I'm an Ogre." "Mirv" shot back, underscoring the obvious.

"C'mon now, ya scared? I wager twenty silver on ya."

It was a massive bet for a normal citizen of Gotham. If the man even had 20 silver, it was likely all he had. But his audacity egged the crowd in the casino on. Bets began pouring in. The pot eclipsed a gold piece, then ten gold pieces. Then it kept going. Some of the visitors in the tent casino were dressed as nobles, and they were betting like it too.

"Are you sure?" Mirv gave the big man one last chance to back out.

"Do yer worst." he said, sitting down at a table in front of her, his arm outstretched, and his elbow planted firmly on the table's surface.

Mirv sighed.

"Alright..."

It was one of the shortest arm wresting contests Barbara had ever witnessed. The man was strong, there was no doubt about it. But the entire proposal was preposterous. The ogre was more than twice his size, and she had no problem eventually laying his hand flat down on the table...though she seemed to let it drag out at first, for suspense. The tent erupted into howls; some of misery, others of laughter. Mirv let out a throaty chortle.

"Pay up, ya dogs!"

But her gaze caught the eye of her purple-haired colleague tending bar just across the tent. The bartender had a thin, unpleasant looking smile, his golden eyes dead and expressionless. The ogre stopped laughing, and stopped grinning too, eventually collecting up the house's winnings and returning to her post, overseeing the rest of the night's entertainment.

At some point, the bouncer called her attention again.

"Mirv, I heard something outside, can you check it out?"

Mirv eagerly exited the tent, seeming more than happy to take a lap outside. This gave Oracle a better view of her surroundings, though the Scrying spell's sensor was limited in range. There was lots of debris and trash on the ground, and Barbara noticed...was that a flyer? The Ogre walked further away from the tent casino, and eventually Barbara noticed a string running along the ground under her feet. Tied to the string were a series of colorful banners, each depicting the face of a fool with various bizarre expressions on their faces. Then, the scrying sensor's perimeter happened to encapsulate a colorful building she was moving past -- or was it a tent? It wasn't the same tent as the Casino, she was sure of it.

The Ogre stopped, frowned, shook her head and turned back the other way, conferring with the bouncer once she got back inside the Casino.

"It's those god's damned cultists again." She grumbled.

The bouncer snickered.

"Oh, come now, are we sure it's a cult? I'm sure it's a perfectly legitimate peasants' religion, they just happen to be meeting in an abandoned Carnival Ground on the most haunted island in Gotham."

"They freak me out." Mirv grumbled. "We shouldn't have spent more than one night on this island."

They whispered so the rowdy and drunk patrons couldn't hear them, but very little of what the ogre did was "inconspicuous."

"I know, I know. But you know how much Hypo loves the elves. Don't worry, this will be our last night here. We'll let him have the last of his fun and we'll go visit Sandy Hook tomorrow. Sound good?"
************************************************** *************************

Oracle turned to the rest of the party.

"Well," she said. "I've got good news and bad news."

[JbeJ275]

"Right now, they're in the Carnival grounds, hiding out there but they're clashing with cultists of some sort. That place is gonna be a nightmare to hit, it's a maze, it's totally unknown and the cultists would go for us as likely as them. Tomorrow they're moving to Sandy Hook, something to do with Hypo and elves. That means either forming a procession where they're strung out and vulnerable or more likely taking a ship. If Fox still has an in with any of the local harbourmasters he might be able to help us identify why they're going through, and we can hit them in transit, while they're off guard and won't be able to go for cover as easily."

After only very minor prompting Barbara relays the full content of the divination, but maintains her position in favour of striking as they move.

[MrAbdiel]

"Works for me. But then, I'm not our resident illithid huntress." He eyes the Dame sidelong, counting on her yay or nay.

[Feathersnow]

The Rite of Rrakma can take years, and most Gish live and die without even seeing one of The Enemy. You have done me a great service this night.

That said, it will probably be best to hit the creature while it moves, I agree.

[JbeJ275]

"Kate you're welcome, I know in as bloody a line of work as we do there's not often munch time for sentimentality, for real trust behind masks and real honesty in a city that often hunts the good fiercest of all. But you've stood in between me and the worst this city has to offer, you've been brave and true and probably saved my life a dozen times over. Doing something like this is the least I can do, and I'm glad we've helped you on your journey here."

With that Barbara went about her preparations, trying to identify the ship the carnival would be sailing on and then making her first attempt to copy a spell from the Wayne spellbook to her own.

[MrAbdiel]

For a moment, Damien watches Kate and Barbara before detecting (a moment after it would have been clear to anyone else) that this is a moment between the two of them. They - and Spoiler, for that matter - were the crew that kicked off this war with their daring heroics. They were warriors, yes; but they were also... what?

Friends?

The assassin-child turns away and detaches from the scene before Barbara is finished speaking. He has his own rituals and preparations, best sought alone; and thus, he makes himself to be alone on the cold ascent back to the manor proper. He is the Son of Batman. The Grandson of the Demon's Head. He is the Spear of Infinity, hurled mercilessly into the heart of evil: the greed of dwarves, the pride of elves, the ceaseless corruption of men. Sipping down another gut-vicing ampule of Phase-Spider venom, he winces and hisses at the revolt of his body against it.

I am the master of my blood. I am the master of my blood. I am the master of my blood!

He needs to do something to suppress the pain. Distraction to another focus. He'd stalk streets by daylight, and rooves by night. Spears, after all, need targets. Weapons do not need friends.







Friends are stupid, anyway.

Spoiler: Damien's Downtime

Show

If there's most of a day left to burn, while Oracle gets her Scry-on, Scion will get his Spy-on. He's interested, certainly, in recovering the other portions of the sending amulet-thing that apparently are in Selina Kyle's possession. Also, I wouldn't mind working towards some kind of confrontation with her just because I think it'll be funny if she ever figures out Damien is Bruce's son and gets haughty and territorial. Set up a "on two dates at once" gag for Bruce if Talia ever comes into view in the game. So I guess that's going to involve trying to locate and perhaps some day infiltrate House Kyle.

So Damien's going to follow up on the only rumors he has - the publically available ones. He'll scruffle his hair and don some shabby clothes, leave all his ninja kit at home (taking only a dagger, sling and stones, a wooden bowl, and his Glove of the Poisoner which he can easily conceal); and he'll spend whatever hours he has bumming around the Narrows, gravitating to other groups of street youths, with the hopes that he'll end up in the midst of some who are criminally affiliated. That'll be a good start.

Disguise attempt, to make himself look street urchiny, only changing minor details: (1d20+5)[17]. Takes (1d3)[2] times 10 minutes.

[Molan]

Spoiler: Damien

Show

Damien Wayne walked through the winding, spindling streets of The Narrows, after having sent Titus off to his clocktower before crossing the East Gotham Bridge. His hair was tussled, and he was draped in a ragged, dirty cloak, a common spun tunic and worn shoes to boot. In the Narrows, though, he was practically overdressed. The "streets" were better described as semi-solid rivers of mud and other...substances, and children, wild dogs and all other manner of animal crawled through the back alleys and along the roads cutting through the narrows from north to south. The children around him were dressed in literal rags; he saw more than a few girls wearing potato sacks with holes for dresses, boys with torn breaches and nothing else, and worse. Very few of anyone he saw wore shoes, though some of the kids had their feet wrapped in some kind of muddy cloth scraps.

Every so often in the narrows, a heavy merchant or noble carriage would barrel through the bigger streets, rushing between Midtown and Downtown Gotham, and they always did their best to avoid contact with any of the residents of the slums, often sending shooting splashes of mud over any pedestrians nearby who weren't quick enough to avoid them. The carriages added a strange air of desperation to the place Damien had rarely experienced -- even in the middle of the Narrows, the moneyed class of the city did everything they could to avoid looking at it.

Eventually though, the scenery began to slowly shift from being purely depressing to at least slightly interesting. The thing was, most Gotham residents who needed to cross between Down and Midtowns still had to actually go on foot, and there were plenty of people from Fort Clinton and the poorer parts of West Hill who actually knew people in the Narrows or had family there. The result was that there was still plenty of people who were milling through the place who had coin in their pockets, something the Narrows Rogues were keen to take advantage of. Sitting on the balls of his feet atop an old barrel, his hood drawn up over his face, Damien noticed a trio of street toughs, covered in vicious looking and profane tattoos cornered a couple of common looking half orcs on the street, brandishing knives and spewing a tirade of threats and profanity. Damien watched the mugging with a tight feeling in his throat -- he was here for information, and muggings like these happened every day. Still, it went against every fiber of his being not to do something. The half orcs resolved their plight mostly diplomatically, though they were clearly traumatized, they gave the rogues what they wanted and fled with their lives intact. As the men divvied up the spoils, another carriage began to barrel down the street. Every, every so often, those carriages belonged to actual Justicars, and the thugs scattered, moving in three separate directions; north, south, and down an alley. Damien waited for the carriage to pass, before his pride and anger got the better of him. He hopped off of his barrel and chased down the alley after the third thug.

At the other end of the alley was a T-intersection, created by the presence of simply more buildings jammed up against the one the thug was running between. Damien stalked him at almost a full run while making very little noise -- the thug's footfalls were heavy plods by comparison. Once he got to the end of the alleyway, he found himself in a shaft of moonlight, and took a moment to catch his breath, laugh, pocket the money and pull out a cigar full of devilweed to celebrate.

Damien crouched behind a nearby empty crate, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, when there was a noise just above the thug. It almost sounded like the mewling of a cat. The thief looked around, then disregarded whatev;er he'd heard as mere background noise. The cat plopped down loudly on some water-covered barrels next to the thug a moment later, causing him to start and curse and nearly drop his joint. The little feral feline hissed before jumping a nearby wooden fence and disappearing.

That was odd. Damien thought to himself.

"Fuggin' back alley piece of dung cats..." the thief hissed.

But then, from somewhere up above them both, a small voice called out. "That's not a very nice way to talk about mittens." it called out.

This time, the rogue did drop his devilweed. He drew his long dagger back out, and this time Damien could clearly see the poisoned-knife tattoo on the inside of the thug's left bicep, marking him as a member of the reviled Narrows Rogues.

"You little fuggin' bastards just picked the wrong day to piss me off," he snarled. "C'mon out here and I'll put you in your rotten little place."

"If you want." Replied the small voice.

Everything that happened next happened very fast. One of the smallest children Damien had ever seen -- which he'd only later realize was a halfling child -- dropped down from one of the overhead laundry lines without making a sound, directly behind the thug. He picked the ill-gotten money off of the cutthroat before he could so much as flinch, then rolled away behind some nearby trash, unseen. The thug whirled around, but another, taller thief -- this one about Damien's height, and a girl -- dropped down and grabbed his original money purse.

But the third figure to appear was more or less a grown woman. She still wasn't especially tall, for a human, but she managed to slam the back of the thug's head with the sap she was carrying with incredible force as she landed, taking him by surprise and knocking him completely out cold.

The thug fell to the ground with a tremendous splash of mud, unconcious. The three thieves assembled and took everything he had except his shirt and breaches, includling his knife.

"That was fun!" the little halfling chirped.

"Come now, said the woman. "Let's go back home. We can show what we found to Lady Kyle when she gets in."

"Okay!" the two chimed simultaneously.

They each began to rapidly scale the debris around them, then up the old worn sides of the nearby buildings before reaching additional laundry wires and hopping their way up the warren towards the rooftops. Even to Damien, it seemed like an incredible feet of agility. The woman took one last chance to look down on their "victim" with disgust.

"Maybe when you wake up, you'll remind your buddies that these are our streets now." And with that, she lept into action, eventually making the laundry lines and following her two little larcenous proteges up towards the rooftops.

"Well damn," Damien thought to himself. "'Kyle.' That's got to be as good a clue as any."

With that, he sprang into action, determined to follow the little thieves back to their lair. His first order of business -- figuring out how to catch up with them.

Spoiler: In the Batcave

Show

Oracle enjoyed her time using the Waynes' resources, taking her time to enscribe a new spell into her book, which went so smoothly she felt almost serene and calmed by it. But as she worked, her mind drifted further afield.

As it turned out, she didn't know exactly how the illithid and it's little casino band would travel, but she had a strong suspicion she knew how to find out, something Bruce Wayne's suspiciously complete city archives and library were able to assist her with. She happened to know for a fact that any ship over a certain tonnage had to keep strictly controlled records with the lords of the city, various mercantile interest and the imperial navy. Essentially, large boats were all incredibly conspicuous and hard to anonymise. Smaller vessels, however, simply reported their own names when they pulled into the docks and these dock ledgers usually weren't compiled centrally.

At least, that's how it worked in most ports in the Empire. However, as a low ranking College member, she was aware that in Gotham, things were different. The magic industry was heavily regulated and controlled by the college and the highest ranking Houses in Gotham; these days, that principally meant the James', Nigma's, Tetch's, Lynns' and Fries', along with some other more minor stakeholders. In order to ensure that nothing could get through their strict guild-aligned embargoes -- essentially, preventing anyone from creating a legal secondary market to export arcana -- the dock ledgers at ever dock were kept on magically enchanted plinths which recorded everything that was written in them. Once a ledger was full, whoever was running the dock did...whatever they wanted with it, usually storing or destroying the old mooring logs. But that didn't matter, because the College's School of Arcana Enforcement maintained a specially modified spellpool, which in normal circumstances was a powerful reservoir of magic that high ranking college members could use. However the SAE's "pool" didn't keep arcane secrets; it kept commercial ones instead. And anyone who had access to a linked ledger could read what was in it, and look for patterns.

"Don't suppose there's any chance you have a linked ledger down here, do you?" she asked Bruce politely.

Bruce smiled.

"What, the House that governed the Wizard's College for hundreds of years? How ever would I have my hands on something like that?"

As he spoke, Bruce reached up and removed a black slate from one of the shelves, leaning a bit on his cane as he did so. He didn't seem to need it as much as they first time they'd met, but he wasn't completely healed either. He handed it to Oracle and watched as she waived her hand and summoned the correct rune to activate the arcane markings on the ledger's face.

"What exactly are you looking for, might I ask?"

"Well," Barbara said, half answering and half focused on her task, "Kate wants to track down this suspected Illithid that's been running that carnival you've been chasing. My scrying spell revealed that they're still on South Channel Island, and they're getting ready to move. I think they might have stayed longer -- they implied one of them has an...'affection' for elves...but there's some 'cult' or some such group in an old carnival ground on SCI that seems to have them a bit spooked. Their 'doorman' suggested they'd sail to Sandy Hook next."

Bruce's expression darkened.

"The abandoned carnival grounds? Did you see it?"

"Not really, just the side of a tent," she said casually, still focused on her work. "But in any case, if I can get a sense for what kind of boat ferried them to SCI, with your divination chamber, I'd bet I could probably manage to find it again. Which will give us a moving, vulnerable target between Uptown and Sandy Hook. That's when we can hit them."

"Okay...fine." Bruce said, moving past his earlier question. "But how are you going to figure out what kind of boat it is?"

"Well, we already know we can rule out larger ships. Anything on the Imperial Record would be too obvious for a clandestine group of underground gamblers-***-murderers to move around in. That narrows us to the smaller vessels, which ordinarily, wouldn't be enough to go on."

"Right..."

"But! Thanks to the earlier work you did tying those murders together, we might not have to try so hard. There actually aren't going to be that many small vessels that took off from the farmlands on the day in question. I mean, they don't even have a proper harbor. Of those boats, fewer still would have arrived at the Gotham Village docks the same day."

"Right, but...there's no way they registered their boat with the same name twice. Plus, are you sure they'd go to the Village Docks? And besides, the Isleys aren't College members; they might not have had a ledger plinth at all."

"Think about it. There's no other choice. There are no other docks anywhere close to Channel Park; the only viable escape route, once their most recent victims came to light, was the Village Docks, right across the Cross Bridge." At that moment, she turned to give Bruce a sly grin, beginning to feel proud of herself. He'd proven he was smart since they'd met. But maybe, just maybe...she was a bit smarter. "And I checked; the Isley's don't use Ledger Plinths. They don't have docks on their land of any kind...but the Cranes do."

Bruce's smile came back. "Because the Cranes..."

"Are College Members." she finished for him.

"I've got to say, I'm impressed. So how do you finish the puzzle?"

"Well, like you said. There's no way the casino registers it's boat under the same name every time they dock. So instead, we just look at the descriptions of the ships entered into the ledger on the key dates you discovered -- right after the Pasture Murders, from the Crane Docks. Then again right after the Channel Park Murders, from the Village docks. Then..."

"You look up who arrived at SCI that day, and match the ship type." Bruce finished, looking chagrinned.

"Bingo. South Channel Island is remote -- probably a great place for your murders to go unnoticed, especially given the way the elves run the place, from what I've seen. If we didn't know they were there, the trail might've gone cold."

"But that also means there won't have been many boats that fit your description on the ledger that arrived there that day that also departed the other two sites on the days in question."

"With any luck, we just might get a match."

It took a few hours of searching -- you needed to be highly experienced with arcane minutia to even use a tool like the ledger slate, and it wasn't user friendly in any sense. But with time and effort, she was able to trascribe onto parchment a list of ship names and descriptions from the Crane docks, and eventually a smaller one from the Village Docks, and so on. It wasn't long before she realized what she was looking at.

"True Twelve help me." she whispered incredulously.

Bruce looked over her shoulder. He saw it immediately. "The Green Darcy...the Purple Dorie....and the Fat Rosie. Unbelievable."

"Green haired doorman, 'purple haired' bartender. Ogre bouncer."

"You know," Bruce said. "I thought they'd be a bit more clever than that. Aren't mind flayers supposed to be smart?"

"Needs to stop injesting brains from drunks and drug addicts, if you ask me." she snarked. "Then again...pride makes fools of us all."

Bruce laughed this time, clutching is side as he did so, almost making a point, if unintentionally.

"Alright," he coughed. "Scry us up that boat."

[MrAbdiel]

Damien reached instinctively for the Rod of Ropes, and closed his fist around nothing.

Damn! If I'd just taken it with me... then I'd be a street child carrying around the most valuable object in miles and miles. Real subtle.

He'd just have to ascend without tools; with his hands, and feet, and will. Yet these were thief-acrobats before him, now. Grayson would be able to catch them, or at least keep up. In training, Nightwing's agility was a cut above his own, and even his father's at times. Was Damien that good, now? If he was, why had he leaned so much on the Rod? No... He wasn't that good.

He was better. Grayson was an acrobat; he was a Shadow.

"I am the master of my blood."


He presses the toe of a work and scuffed boot to the edge of the vertical masonry, draws in a breath, and then rises. If he had been careless enough to allow anyone to see him, they might have thought he was flying. He was certainly almost running; toes finding barest imperfections in stone, somehow leveraging against them, and launching him up in great strides. Every three strides or so his fingertips brushed the stone, like a bribe payed contemptuously to a physical world that did not like having its rules ignored. And if gravity would not restrain him, he could hardly let these three alley-scamps shake his pursuit.

Spoiler: OOC Hold Left Trigger To Climb!

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Guess what Ninjas get at 7th level? It's Speed Climb! Damien can double-move vertically up walls each turn as long has he ends his turn on something vertical, or reasonably has something to grab on to. I reckon he'll be able to keep up!

[Feathersnow]

Kate sees to replacing her potions and Powerstones from Cousin Bruce's stores, then returns to Renée.

Dearest, I told you about the Rite of Rrakma, taught to the first psionic warriors by the Lanterns in hope we would be auxiliaries if The Great War ever came to this world.

Well, my time has come. I am going to complete the Great Task and be recognized as a True Gish or die in the attempt. With the help of my Cousins and The Oracle, I expect I will succeed. But I felt I would be remiss not to let you know.

With that, she rests and meditates for the quest.

[JbeJ275]

"I got it, I got it." She said, she was beginning to get on better with Bruce, their sponsor and the dark knight having proved himself still dedicated to the fight, but he was a grim reminder of the collapse of lawful order in the city and with it her family's prospects anyway. She realised she wasn't doing anyone any good keeping her distance, but remained restrained anyway.

After a moment's break to direct Juluis to Chelsea Motte, to check for any notes left to him she begins to settle in for the next our of scrying, focusing her magic as purple lines of magic jumped and flared about her, beginning to try and construct a divinatory image inside the Wayne scrying pool.

[Molan]

With the path ahead of them clear, the adventurers in the Batcave each retreated to their own corners of the complex, to prepare for the day ahead.

Renee retreated to the cave's Shrine of St. Cuthbert, to pray in front of the large, simple bronze Cross of St. Cuthbert she found presented there. It seemed an incredible coincidence that both Questor and the Dark Knight praised the same deity, and yet, she had to admit, the revelation had a certain poetry to it, as if they were meant to meet in this place. She lit the candles lining the shrine slowly, chanting and praying all the while, until she was surrounded by a halo of scintillating light. Her voice was tight, and she struggled to hold back the emotion she felt in her chest; she was proud of Kate, but knew how incredibly dangerous their quarry was. More than worrying that they would die in their attempt to kill the Flayer, part of her was terrified of what would follow if they succeeded; it seemed that the Illithid would only be a stepping off point on their dark journey, not the end. Things would get worse, before they got better. Renee offered her prayers to the God of Vengeance, begging his judgement fall upon those who'd earned it. There weren't many Cuthbert prayers of protection; Renee let the insinuation hang that she hoped that judgement would be spared on the ones she treasured most.

On the other side of the compound, Kate prepared for the battle in her own way. She centered herself on a mat in the dead center of the training hall, surrounded by martial tools she found comfortingly familiar; swords, steel and wooden, training dummies, archery targets. She crossed her legs and laid her palms flat upon her knees, and allowed her mind to clear, as her psionic focus slowly began to accumulate in her psyche once again. The clarity that came from meditation wouldn't be quite enough; her focus had to be hardened into steel, her will, sharpened into a blade's edge. She would meet this challenge, she would be ready.

At the same time, Sir Alfred Pennyworth got to work on Kate's heavy poleaxe in the newly functional psy-forge. He himself wasn't psionic, but he knew how to operate the necessary machinery, as it were. Psyonic power began to flow through the dark crystal, and slowly but surely, swirling, mesmerizing patterns began to etch themselves along the axe blade of Kate's weapon. The process would take time, but when he was done, it would be worth it.

Finally, in the divination lab, Oracle once again poured a small vial of nitric acid into the pool, along with a copper piece and a cloud of zinc. The chemical mixture burst in a cloud of swirling mist and purple lines of power danced around her, summoning her divination magic once again. The mirror swirled and warbled, and she placed another eagle eye back in the pool, completing the ritual and feeling herself getting sucked into her vision once again. For a moment, she began to feel resistance, moreso than she'd expected, especially after last time. It was almost, almost as if someone or something was resisting her. But she held one hand on the stability rune carved into the table, held up three fingers while crossing her thumb and pinky over her palm, and concentrated hard, pushing through the resistance and eventually, forcing the image she was looking for to burst into life.

Spoiler: Scrying

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The boat finally came into view. In front of her, Barbara saw the three miscreants they hunted moving their things on board. But something was wrong; she'd have expected them to be moving their tent, the bar, the boneyard tables, the ropes and stakes. But none of that was present here; it seemed like they mostly each just had a few boxes and some napsacks to bring with them, with little else.

"That everything? the green-haired woman snickered.

"You know, nothing's stopping you from helping." the ogre woman replied, heaving the last of their gear onto the deck.

"Oh, take it easy. You get paid well enough."

"Okay, are we ready to leave then?"

"Not just yet." 'Purple Hair' interjected. "We need to wait till nightfall. Then we can head to Sandy Hook."

"...Right. You sure you don't have any other reasons to want to stick around?"

Purple Hair smirked.

"Of course not. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take one last swing through the Carnival Grounds before the sun's too high."

The ogre sighed, and Oracle ended the spell. She knew what she needed now.

From the platform near the compound's exit, Bruce looked out over the preparations, with Richard watching over his shoulder. Psionic power pulsed through one half of the cave, divine energy in another corner, and arcane magic in the last. Richard appeared over his shoulder.

"Do you think this is gonna work?" he said quietly.

"Honestly, I'm not sure. But they're impressive. And we can't keep doing this alone. There's too few of us, and too many enemies. Something's got to give."

"Well...no arguments there. But what do we do if it doesn't work?"

Bruce didn't look at him, instead staring down at the pendant around his neck, which usually sat beneath his tunic. It was a sigil of St. Cuthbert.

"It will." he said quietly, with all the same confidence his voice always carried. But he said it a second time, a little quieter, and this time Richard started to struggle to believe it.

".....it will."

[Molan]

Spoiler: Damien

Show

Damien bounded straight up the side of the buildings after his acrobatic quarries, rolling nimbly onto the roof and breaking into a silent sprint all in one fluid motion.

The rooftops at the highest points in the Narrows were essentially a world unto themselves; a confusing but strangely beautiful warren of makeshift shelters, crisscrossing planks of dubious structural integrity, and even gardens that sprawled across the top of the island's densest areas like a tree canopy.

It didn't look it anymore, but the Narrows had once been a very different place. The great walled complex that sat at it's eastern most point had once been an Imperial Church Hospital, the buildings surrounding it were actually a large, city-funded complex of tall (between 3 and 6 stories) stone apartments chapels, seminaries and monasteries for the clergy and lay servants of the Church. For this reason, the underlying structures upon which the Narrows had grown were still-sturdy, gothic stone structures replete with gargoyles and steel lattices and all other sorts of architecture that would be out of place in any other slum.

Unfortunately, the tiny island's holier days were far behind it. Unlike most travesties in Gotham, the Narrows' descent actually preceded the infamous Fall of House Wayne. Gotham's Imperial Church had, once upon a time ago, fallen into disarray and hard times during an ecclesiastical power struggle, causing an exodus from many of the orders who dwelled on the island. The Hospital ran out of funding from the Church, and it's property was transferred to the Holy Inquisition, at that time, under the direct supervision of House Blood, one of a number of Inquisitorial Houses. The Bloods and the Inquisition we're thrilled to have finally gotten a foothold in what they saw as "the city of witches", and began rounding up rogue magi and psions with great zeal. However, they were hounded by accusations of improper seizures, something that they couldn't easily shrug off in a city rules by House Wayne. Eventually the Bloods collapsed, though for different reasons, and the Asylum was taken over by House Arkham and their vassals, who's ruled it ever since.

By this time, the island had otherwise been largely abandoned by the church, and the once-beautiful seminaries we're ransacked and eventually overtaken by squatters, who in time became the island's permanent residents. The place was completely lawless outside of the rare Justicar drive -throughs or the walls of Arkham itself, and shanties, tents, and all other forms of makeshift outgrowths began to cover it's taller buildings like tree mushrooms. But at the very top of this sad, crazy warren, remained it's most exclusive environs. There weren't that many ways to reach the Narrows rooftops; the buildings hadn't been built with access in mind. So the strange little micro-city Damien found himself in seemed almost like a haven, a safe harbor from the no-hold's barred den of deprivation below.

Damien danced through this maze with the grace of someone who'd lived there his whole life. He had to be careful to stay hidden when confronted with open spaces, particularly crossing the planks or other makeshift bridges that bound one rooftop to another. But he kept pace with his prey, eventually feeling more and more pleased with himself, sure his quarry was close.

Unfortunately, in his excitement, he did not notice the chalk-etched cat sigils occasionally marked along the walls or rails near where he was running, and therefore did not deduce that he'd tripped a silent alarm spell during his pursuit.

The thieves he'd followed eventually stopped running, ducking inside a makeshift building nearer to the edge of town. Damien knew he could creep over there and get up on top of it, likely getting a great insight into who exactly he was dealing with. But as he crossed the last plank, he was disappointed to be ambushed, finding a sharply pointed Sai suddenly brushing up against his throat.

"You got a lotta nerve little guy... the woman began to speak as her half elf companion stepped out from the shadows to flank her. Damian blanched.

"Uh....Spoiler!?" he exclaimed.

"Scion!?!" she replied, realization suddenly dawning on her. "What the hell are you doing here?"

[MrAbdiel]

"So, this is the personal business you've flaked off to deal with?"

The words are thrown knives; an assault for the sake of which he has forgotten the sai pointed at him. Something like legitimate hurt is there, in the first volley of words; soon bricked up behind a safe wall of sneering dismissal. "Consorting with thieves? Tell me, did you work for House Kyle before you became one of the famous Merchant Guild Mercs, or did the heat of serving the mission just become too much and drive you into their arms?"

[Molan]

Spoiler: Damien

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Spoiler seemed to recoil emotionally, but in so doing she also removed the sai from Damien's neck.

"Personal business? No. Well, sort of. Frankly you've got a lot of nerve making accusations at me. What drew you up this way, anyway? Where are Oracle and Batwoman?"

Damien shrugged. "We had some downtime. The other ladies were all busy diddling with their magic and psionics and whatever else, and I figured I'd take the time to do something actually constructive. Seems I hit the mark -- uncovered some traitors without even trying to."

Robyn looked shocked, and Stephanie's face contorted with anger.

"Traitors!? Listen up, little princeling. You've had no idea what you were talking about since I met you and you have no idea what you're talking about now. What's this outfit, anyway? Thinking that a brown cloak'd help you blend into the Narrows? Near miss little one."

On that, she had a point. Things in the Narrows were far worse than he'd have allowed himself to imagine. "Yea yea, I noticed. But none of that still answers the question of what you've been doing here. Have you given up on our quest or what?"

Spoiler's expression looked as though she wanted to throttle him, but something held her back. She sighed heavily.

"No, damnit. I haven't given up on anything. Maybe you've forgotten already since it doesn't affect life in your giant empty palace but the people of Gotham actually need our help. When we kicked the hornets nest with the Thieves Guild, we also created an opportunity. An opportunity for someone who actually had people's best interests in mind to move in and clear them out. As of right now Velnire's thugs are nowhere to be found in Fort Clinton. I'm trying to do something that will actually make things better."

"Well," Robyn added sheepishly. "We are."

Spoiler blushed, seeming to have forgotten herself.

"Of course. I'm sorry. This one just gets under my skin."

"Uh, how in the Hells is helping a rival thieves gang take over the slums somehow helping things, exactly?" In truth, Damien didn't actually have much animus towards other opportunistic, shadowy organizations...he'd even pondered trying to do something similar with any remnants of his Mother and Grandfather's old clan, if they were still somewhere to be found. Part of him was actually a bit jealous Spoiler'd beat him to the punch. But he wasn't about to tell her that.

"I know this is going to be hard to comprehend, but try to keep up. House Kyle's not the kind of group that extorts and preys on innocent people. They prey on groups like the Thieves Guild, the Narrows Rogues and the fat cats of Gotham who like to treat the common folk like their own personal playthings. If we keep letting people like Falcone or Cobblepott run the streets of this city, it'll never end. But there's lots of young ones out there who want things to change. The Kyles actually might have a way to help make that happen."

"I mean, honestly, that's fine. But why didn't you tell us what you were up to?"

"No offense young one," Robyn said softly. "But your aristocratic and merchant family didn't exactly seem like the kind of folk we'd want to introduce to our merry band of robbers. Haven't the Wayne's and the Gordon's spent quite a bit of their time putting people like us into their dungeons?"

Damien smirked. "Well you're not wrong there. But times are interesting these days. And interesting times call for interesting methods. If you can get me an audience with the leader of this little band of circus acrobats and underage pickpockets, we might just be able to form some kind of alliance. Or, short of that, maybe at least an understanding."

Spoiler and Robyn shared uncomfortable looks with each other.

"Well, we can try." she said. "But I don't know how thrilled she'll be to see you. And an 'understanding' is probably the absolute most optimistic outcome."

"Great. I love optimism. Lead on." Damien snarked.

Robyn and Spoiler led Damien past the next roof, where they found two of the old buildings were connected to one another by a steel lattice, which appeared to have once grown a hanging garden for the nuns that had once lived in the old towers, but which were now bare and empty. In order to cross, the two women delicately crawled their way along the top of the lattice before swinging along the underside at the other end, using a nearby piece of masonry that served as a ladder to crawl inside an old window, which was unlocked.

They were capable enough to make the journey, but only just. Damien observed that this kind of obstacle would be plenty enough from keeping other folks away from the window, making the isolated building a fairly cunning hiding place, even from the rooftop dwellers. But he had no such reservations about feats of acrobatics and decided to crawl the entire distance on the underside of the lattice, smoothly and confidently making the whole way upside down and gracefully hopping through the window.

Inside, an interesting scene presented itself. The apartment was sort of a world unto itself, separated from the rest of the Narrows and their ugly chaos, a quiet little refuge inside a dangerous world. It was filled with old, decaying but oddly comfortable looking furniture, upon which lounged a motley looking collection of rogues, street rats and more than a few cats. Most of them were human, though there was a smattering of halflings and gnomes in attendance. There were more women and girls then males in attendance, and at least half of them were either children or very close to being children, and the adults in the room were on the younger side too. But despite their youth and impoverished natures they had a sort of confident air about them; even as each eye in the room turned towards him as he bounded in, no one looked particularly alarmed.

"Who's the narc?" one girl casually quipped as Spoiler and Robyn removed their masks.

"Colleague of mine. He wants to meet Lady Kyle." Spoiler replied. The girl snorted.

"Bold request."

Some of the rogues played cards, practiced tossing knives at a painted target on one of the far walls, or caroused with each other while they waited. Spoiler assured Damien that "Lady Kyle" would be there soon, and he took his time making casual observations while he waited. A girl around his age struck up conversation while he waited. She was clearly desperately poor -- she looked like she'd be skinny even if she hadn't been born impoverished, but her face was far too gaunt to be healthy. She chewed on a half loaf of partially stale bread the whole time he talked. Still, there were hints that the Kyles' business was doing better than their shabby appearance let on. While they chatted, he noticed a fairly sizable ruby necklace around her neck, which stood out in dramatic relief against her outfit and the rest of their surroundings. Damien noticed several other gemstones and pieces of expensive looking art sort of lying around the hideout, and on one of the tables in the middle of the room sat an assortment of coin pouches, including the ones he'd seen nicked off of the Narrows Rogue right before he'd started chasing his quarry here.

Eventually his patience paid off. "Lady Kyle" appeared through the window, seeming to pass through the portal from the lattice outside so gracefully she almost didn't seem real. She sort of rolled through the window and land perfectly on her feet, as if incapable of falling or losing her balance. She was human, and had a sort of medium height, with a slim but curvaceous build, and was bedecked in a surprisingly well crafted, form fitting suit of black leather armor. It looked like it might have been elven in origin, such was the degree of craftsmanship; any casually observer could tell the suit was also enchanted. She also wore a pair of black enchanted boots, which seemed to make little to no noise on the ground, but were bafflingly were not flat-soled but had fairly lengthy, spiked-looking heels, which somehow did not seem to impair her movement at all. In fact, she seemed to glide across the floor almost too fast. Her gloved hands were ensconced in black metal gauntlets that ended in slender fingers, each of which extended into an elongated claw, giving each of her hands a deadly, predatory aspect. She carried a long spiked whip on one hip and her face was covered by a leather mask affixed to a pair of large-eyed goggles, which had to be gnomish in origin, best Damien could tell. Her dark hair was tied back in a functional knot at the base of her neck, keeping it out of her face.

She passed from the open portal to the center of the room so smoothly and quickly that Damien almost felt as though he'd missed something, and she casually tossed a couple of heavy looking bags onto the center table along with the other coin purses. They plunked down hard with a jingly metal sound, leaving little mystery as to their contents. She waltzed over to a makeshift bar at the far end of the room, pouring out some milk for a jug into a dish for a couple of the cats lying there. She seemed not to notice Damien at all. And yet...

"Who's the narc?" she said casually, without looking back at him. The rest of the rogues in the lounge turned to look at him, too.

Spoiler: The Batcave

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Their preparations complete, the party retired to their rooms in the castle and slept. The next day, they woke up and reconnoitered in the Castle's main hall.

"Alright, so we're agreed? Hunt the mind flayer, then move on to try to bring down the Bankers?" said Bruce.

"Seems our most prudent course, yes." Kate replied.

"Alright. Let me know if there's anything else we can do to support you."

"Well, we could probably benefit from the use of your boat again, if that's still on the table." Barbara replied.

Bruce grinned.

"Be my guest. She's all prepped and ready to launch."

[MrAbdiel]

Damien retreated to his fortress of juvenile indignation as he clashed with Spoiler. They had begun something of a playful friendship, once; perhaps, the closest to such of which Damien was capable. The idea that she might have agendas and goals that forsook such a minor connection was likely a small sacrifice for the rogue. She was likeable, and liked; and had friends to spare. Damien -

Well. It was as he had concluded. Friends are stupid.

Within this Court of Cats, the gunmetal eyes of the boy surveyed the assembled, gifted poor. Many of them were obvious skilled. But they turned their skills to material scrabble, and territory wars with local thugs.

And this woman - who must be Lady Kyle - was chief among them. Queen of burglars. Top of the trash pile.

Were you right after all, Grandfather? Are they too far gone?

“My name is Scion. I am not a narc. If I was, you’d be in trouble. But you’re lucky that both the Narrows throat-cutters and the Justicars are dumb, and scattered. You have something illicitly that I need back - part of a special amulet. Part of a set. I’ve come to retrieve it; and after that, I’ll be out of your way.”

[Molan]

Spoiler: Damien

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The queen of cats turned around, leaning against the bar and curling her taloned hands in front of her, part from curiosity and partly delivering an effect of an alpha predator cleaning it's claws before resuming a hunt. She removed her goggles, unveiling a surprisingly elegant, symmetrical face, set around two enchanting, feline eyes.

"An amulet, eh?" she said, practically purring the words. "I dunno what you're talking about. Can you be more specific?"

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: Damien: Cat's in the Cradle

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Damien squinted from within the shadow of his cowl; trying to take the measure of the woman; failing. Being ten years old, Damien possessed a distinct advantage in dealing with sultry Gotham matriarchs like Lady Kyle - a total obliviousness to feminine charm; a vulnerability to which would not be inflicted upon him for a few years to come. But it also made him at best partially literate when dealing with adults, and their complicated lives, and their strange entanglements. His father loved his mother, and that was that. It was a truth made manifest by the fact that he sprung up from their union, the best of both of them combined. The idea that there may exist, or have existed, or exist in the future, anything apart from the distinctly cut and dry cop-and-robber dynamic between his father and Lady Kyle was impossible; because Damien was a child, and sheltered one at that. Such possibilities lacking from his worldview, he played the confrontation straight as a die.

"I expect you remember. You stole the companion gems from a green sapphire necklace. From a Mage College charity gala, no less; so much, I guess, for being a noble alternative to the other gangs." He spares a glance around. His initial hope had been to steal the gems back; but the presense of Spoiler here... complicated matters. Specifically, by validating the calibre of these thieves; and clarifying the risk of such an action. He changes tack.

"...What would you take, in trade for them?"

[Molan]

Spoiler: The Cathouse

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Lady Kyle seemed to finally register Damien fully. She peered at him for a long moment, like a cat examining a mouse, before her eyes went wide.

"By all the Hells below...does Bruce Wayne have a son!?"

She looked genuinely alarmed, and as Damien couldn't concieve of any reason why (it's not like she knew his true identity, right?), he found that more annoying than anything.

"Perhaps. What does it matter to you?" he demanded.

Kyle slumped back into a nearby chair, crossing one leg over another and idly fidgeting with her claws, shaking her head and seeming to chew on her tongue for a long spell.

"Wow. That's something you just don't expect."

"Really, I'm trying to be patient," Damien huffed, his highbrow attitude getting the better of him. "Are you ready to deal, or not?"
Kyle finally seemed to snap free of her shock, shaking her head and taking him at face value once again.

"Alright princeling. I'm willing to deal. But those gems you're asking for are quite valuable and as that errant bastard father of yours is quite well aware, I stole them fair and square." Damien would have interjected on that point, but he felt close to his goal, and didn't bother dragging the argument out any further. "I'll trade you for the gems, but you're going to need to steal something for me. There's an incredibly rare and valuable diamond in Midtown I'll trade for the gems -- it's called the Eye of Mya."

Damien was disgusted. "I'm not a thief. Are you literally just trying to upsell the gems you stole for a bigger gem you want to steal?"

Kyle laughed. "Hardly. I don't need the Eye for me. I need it because I promised I'd eventually get it for someone else, and he's someone who's badside I'd really prefer to stay off of. Besides, once I tell you who has it I have a feeling your precious little moral code will bend a bit more in my direction."

"Who'd you promise it to?"

"An incredibly powerful and dangerous mage named Lord Victor Fries."

Damien wrinkled his nose. "What would a powerful noble wizard want with another bauble?"

"No, no. You don't understand. The Eye is fugging massive, it's like the size of your fist..." she looked him up and down, "Well, your father's fist. Some people rumor that the Dwarves carved hidden runes into it long ago via some ancient and long lost magic. I have no idea if that's true, but Fries apparently does need it as some kind of spell focus. Some idiot afflicted his wife with this horrible degenerative disease a couple of years back and he's been trying to save her ever since. I had cut a deal with him for something unrelated; in return, he wants the diamond. The person who holds it only sweetened the pot, but...he also makes it hard to take away."

"O.....kay. Who has time diamond?" Kyle smiled. "The Underboss of the Gotham Thieve's Guild. Kysel Velnire." Damien wanted to groan in exasperation. He was beginning to think they really needed to clear the blasted Guild from the field. Was their anything happening in Gotham they weren't tied up in? "What's the matter?" she purred. "Ever heard of him?"

"Pffff. Heard, seen, not impressed. We took out one of his captains not that long ago..." but Kyle interjected. "That was you!? No, no way. Did you bring your school friends to help?" She looked at Stephanie. "You didn't tell me you all'd brought a child along..."

Spoiler snorted. "He wasn't there for that. We actually met..."

"Actually NO!" he shouted, his temper getting the better of him for a moment. "Some adventurers I've worked with arrested Raam, if you have to know, but they started struggling with some much tougher characters after that, and if it wasn't for me," -- he glared at Stephanie -- "They'd probably all be dead by now."

The Cat only looked amused, but Stephanie had the grace to shrug. "Well he's not exactly right but I don't know if he's completely off on that either. Things did get a lot more...horrific since we teamed up."

Damien did his best to ignore Spoiler and press on with the issue at hand. "Listen, why the hell does Fries want this diamond? No offense but I don't find 'sick wife' to be a very convincing excuse. Surely a high ranking College member could just get a healer to..."

"Oh, they tried that." Kyle cut him off. "Oh yea, they went to Saint Mara's, tried every healer and cleric and archivist they could find. Nothing worked. Apparently whatever afflicts Lady Fries isn't so much a sickness as...well...a curse. A magical disease, at any rate, that none of their prayers or elixers could salve. Lord Fries is the foremost Crymomancer in the Empire; he seemed to believe that somewhere in the depths of his own arcane research, he might be able to find a way to restore her."

"Again, this makes no sense. If he's so powerful why not just find out who did it and force them to..."

"Hah! Find out!? No way. No one in this entire fugging city would admit to that nasty little hit job. After Lady Fries got sick, a number of Lord Fries' rivals at the college just sort of...went missing. No one knows exactly what happened of course, and they never found any bodies, but it's not hard to do the math. If he so much as suspected that somebody'd hurt his little snowflake, it'd be a fimbulwinter on their whole House. No, whoever did it is either very, very dead or not talking, and so a powerful mage is left grasping at straws. But I need to close out my tab with the old icicle so if you want to help me, then help nick it off of Velnire."

"Alright, fine. I'll bite. If you'll give the emeralds in exchange we can get you that diamond. Why does Velnire have it, anyway? And where does he keep it? You'd think the Thieves'd just hawk it for the gold."

"Not this diamond," Kyle said, picking some unidentifiable substance off of her black claws. It was hard to be sure if it was blood...then again...it was probably blood. "That shiny little rock made Kysel Velnire. It was his big heist, the thing that put him on the map. You see, little princeling, in our world, the only thing worth more than gold is your reputation. And without one, you're not going anywhere. The heist that Velnire's crew pulled off that got him the Eye put him on the map, and helped catapult a career that eventually landed him one spot under Boss Falcone himself. He'd never part with it; it's a symbol of who he is. But, likewise, it's also his Achilles Heel. We're in a turf war with the Thieves of Midtown. We've moved into Fort Clinton after Spoiler here and her buddies put Raam away, and we're not giving it back. Kysel's pissed. But if we can prove that we can walk into his Guildhouse and take the one thing he values more than anything else? Well, as reputations rise, they can fall. And falls inside the Thieves Guild can be...precipitous."

"Alright, I'm game. Where's the Guild House?"

Kyle just shook her head. "Sorry little robin. That's all the information you're getting tonight. If I knew where it was, I'd have hit it already, right? In any case, Falcone's hideout isn't much of a hideout...everyone who's anyone knows where he likes to lie around, and he's in Uptown. Cobblepott and the Market are Downtown, so the best I can do for you is..."

"The entire island of Midtown. Great. Got it. Very helpful."

Spoiler: Wayne Isle

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The party did eventually finish their preparations, and Damien eventually returned. The following dusk, they were massed up and ready at the Docks outside of Wayne Castle, armed with new magic and purpose. Down at the boat, Bruce Wayne's hooded, black cloaked and silent crew waited near the red glowing lanterns. Standing just before it, was the party, and facing them, staying back at the castle for this mission, was Sir Richard, Sir Pennyworth, Questor, and Lord Bruce himself.

"Be careful out there cousin. I know this is important. Just don't lose sight of the greater good."

"Don't worry about me, Bruce." Kate replied. She gazed for a while at Questor. "My vision's never been clearer."

Bruce looked at Damien. "Remember what I taught you." he said softly.

"Of course. Always aim for their kidneys." Richard laughed, Alfred rolled his eyes. But Bruce remained calm, inscrutable. "What you do, matters." he said more cryptically. Damien offered no reprisals this time, simply lowering his head and nodding. Finally, Bruce addressed Barbara.

"It's always an honor to fight alongside a Gordon. Thank you for deciding to help us." Barbara just shrugged. "Thank me tomorrow maybe. I'm helping Kate tonight."

With that, they were off. They boarded the creepily silent ship and made their way up the East River, through the South Channel and eventually towards South Channel Island once again. It wasn't long until they passed around the west side of Midtown and started heading south again, down the Queen's river. As they began to get close to their intended intercept point, one of the hooded crew took out a book from under the crook of their arm and placed it open on a wooden pedestal near the capstan. It turned out, Bruce's elite vessel also came with it's own pocket mage. Oracle wasn't exactly sure how powerful of a spellcaster they were dealing with, but it quickly became apparent what their specialty was.

Reading from the book, the mage first ensconced the vessel in a shroud of mist, that seemed to move with them as they sailed. Then, a second spell produced a gust of strong wind, causing them to accelerate faster than they would have otherwise, without dispelling the magical concealment. Finally, they cast something Oracle could recognize, especially with her training: a Divination Spell.

"What's he doing?" Damien asked. "He's casting a very specific divination -- detect ship." Barbara struggled somewhat to hide how she'd become mildly impressed. The Waynes really did spare no expense.

The mage gestured to the ship's "Captain" and the party moved to the prow to see what they were pointing at. There, just ahead of them, was their quarry, quietly wending it's way through larger vessels parked in deepwater.

"Alright," Kate said, cracking her knuckles. "Time to shut the Casino down."

Spoiler: OOC

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You can approach the opponent ship with surprise -- they are not watching behind them. However, once you attack or run up alongside to board, the surprise round will end. Lay out how you'd like to start combat and I'll take it from there!

[Feathersnow]

I learned a new power, one especially designed for heavy armor wearers to get places we aren't expected. On your signal, I'll appear as close to The Enemy as I can, assuming we can get within about 700 feet.

Kate looks different, the glamour on her armor making her look sleek and feminine instead of the androgynous box of creeping death her armor appeared as when she released it. Of note was a cape with an emerald brooch, the hooded lantern icon of her Ranger squad, and though few knew it, a far larger and more storied organization with origins far in the future....

On this Darkest Night, the world would be saved from another murderous spawn of time criminals and another mind warrior would earn the coveted title of "Gish"

[MrAbdiel]

Spoiler: Damian: Cat-nabbit

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Armed with new intel and a new quest, Damien retreated from the lair of the Kyle-rogues. Thieves stealing from thieves - why would he expect any different? Still, if Kane and Gordon would help, this heist overlapped with their existing goals.

Why Lady Kyle was so perceptive, and weirdly focused on his paternity... was a more elusive vexation.

"Excellent, Kane. You're the most conspicuous threat; and therefor, a nightmare to anyone who can't see you coming. Once we're in, I'll try to distract whomever I can to give you a clear run at the illithid. Gordon, I assume you'll do the judicious spell craft she deems most necessary. You're welcome to ride up with me on the retraction of the rope, unless you'd rather engage some other way."

With that, Damien offers the Water-Breathing scroll to Oracle, and frees up his hands to start his pre-combat ritual of poisoning up some shuriken.

[JbeJ275]

Barbara has up until that moment been somewhat distracted with spellcasting, counjouring up some Mage Armour and ensuring her ability to Detect Thoughts while also ensuring her Divine Insight, casting from the scroll and finally pulling upon shadows to wreath herself in Greater Invisibilty. Then her invisible hand grasps Damien's. "I'm ready. Pull me up."

Spoiler: Cat-talk

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Barbara isn't fond of the idea. "Those wh swore to enfore the law picking one criminal cartel over another for the benefit of themselves or their own. That's how corruption first took root in the Justicars. I don't wan to repeat it. But from wht I saw of spolier's mind she has good intentions. I mean to watch them, but we can talk about a the problems in any long term agreement once other criminal's aren't trying to claim the entire city."

[MrAbdiel]

The Rod of Ropes sprouts its leather wrist loop. Just as well - neither Oracle nor Scion was strong enough to entertain the idea of swinging the other around. Grasping the loop together, Damien looses the grapple to hook on to the rail at the rear of the ship just under 300 ft away. After that, the boarding is simple - stepping into the water and triggering the rod to winch them through the spray and wet to thr ship’s rear, then up to its rail. As they come within 10 ft of the rail, Damien uses his free fingertips to flick a puff of smoke powder.,. And then two invisible assailants board the ship, to survey its deck activity.

[Molan]

As the Dark Knight's ship slowly and silently closed the distance on it's quarry -- it's lanterns now doused, it's presence shrouded in fog just in case anyone looked directly at it -- Damien's rope grapple sprang out from it's prow, locking onto the rail of the leading ship and yanking Barbara and Damien forward to their destination.

Moving quietly, they climbed over the railing, unseen, to survey the vessel and it's crew.

It was a strange sight. It was a smallish boat -- probably the smallest size one could be and remain ocean-worthy. For all they knew, it might have been more of a littoral merchant vessel than a deep sea one. Still, it was a decent enough size and had two masts, enough work for smallish crew to handle. And there was a crew -- instead of finding the three dubious and possible murderous Casino Proprietors mingling on the weather deck, they saw what looked like between six to eight medium sized humanoids. Some of them stood near the rigging shrouds, each crew member with a single hand on the ropes, ready to operate them if necessary, but standing perfectly still and straight otherwise. Every one of them remained motionless in place, swaying only slightly as the boat bobbed along the currents of the river, and all of them stared straight ahead, seeming to stare at nothing.

Another crewman operated the helm, but other than his actual task of steering the ship, he appeared rigid and stationary. A couple more stood near the boat's capstan.

Up near the forecastle, Barbara did recognize one familiar figure -- the ogre woman sat, hunched, looking out over the dark waters of the Queen's River, sitting in solitude while the silent crew seemed to just stare at her back. No one spoke or looked around, though it was impossible to say if the crew would hear them if they stomped around or spoke to each other. It was reasonable that, depending on whether the creepy crew noticed them, that they could walk around the stern of the vessel relatively freely without the Ogre noticing them, since she was up at the prow.

Spoiler: OOC

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Roll for initiative.

You are currently undetected and therefore are not in turn order, though we should probably work that out now. The area you're standing on is elevated from the main deck by about 8 or so feet, with small stairs running down the starboard and port sides away from the helm towards the main deck. It seems likely based on the boat's design that below you are one or more cabins.

If you give a signal, Kate can, at her leisure, dimension door onto the enemy ship. The Ogre is likely taking a circumstance penalty to Listen checks to notice you given her distance, but you can't be so sure about the rest of the crew. You have six turns worth of action before Bruce's ship runs up alongside the boat you're on, at which point the crew will lock in with grapples to prevent it from escaping and allow you a way to escape back onto your friendly vessel if necessary. The Dark Knight's crew has not, however, offered to help you in combat and you have no idea how capable they may or may not be in a situation like that.

If you can effectively and silently incapacitate any crew members without the others hearing or noticing, you can retain your surprise round and remain out of initiative order. If someone notices you though, you'll have a surprise round and then combat will begin.

Damien and Barbara, roll for Move Silently, and make Will Saves.

Spoiler: Barbara

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Detect Thoughts Round 1: You detect the presence of thoughts.