Crowley was silent for a moment. He sat down in a thud that made the cage swing, the rusty chain creaked as it moved back and forth. His grimy hands curled once again around the bars, ling finger nails sharp and yellow.

"Well someone is doing it." He concluded without much further evidence. "And that someone is in the Circus." He added.

"Someone is destroying the whole Circus from within. And you're the only one I know who has been poking around. You and Griffix and your card tricks. Don't think I don't know about what you and your tricks did to Eddie. I heard he was out by the Krinner after what you did with the card trick Griffix showed you."

Crowley shifted, temporarily turning his back towards Shawn as if looking for something.

"On top of the mountain." He added, craning his neck and tilting his head as if to get a better glimpse. When he was unable to find whatever landmark he was looking for, he sat down in the cage again.

"So you're not as innocent as you think." He concluded.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:47, Mon 23 July 2018.

The shock on Shawn's face this time wasn't from any calculated choice on his part - it just immediately showed, overwhelming his pokerface with guilt. "Eddy's here? On the mountain?"

"Oh, he's up there somewhere." Crowley added cryptically.

Shawn caught himself, and tried to go back to his previous pokerface. "Okay, how about a new deal? Instead of any stuff about your store, you help us find Eddy. How does that sound?"

Crowley smiled, seeming to enjoy discussion of a new deal and Shawn detected a look of victory on the baby-demon's face.

"Eddy?" Crowley feigned ignorance. "I can help you find Eddy." Crowley agreed. "I just need you to get me out. And to give me some shoes." Crowley petitioned. "Or for one of you to carry me on your back out of this desert. We can take the road to The Toad Abyss to get to the mountain."

Shawn realised right away that he'd made a mistake by acting too eager for a new deal. He needed to make Crowley think his help was less valuable than it was. "Oh, well if you don't know exactly where he is, we don't really need your help. The mountain's pretty easy to find, and we were heading to the top anyway..."

"Alright! Alright!" Crowley said. "He's on the path that leads up to the Krinner. I'll take you there!" Crowley pleaded, sense that Shawn had the upper hand.

Shawn folded his arms, and then gave Crowley a moment to sweat before nodding. "Alright, then. But before I let you out, you have to swear that you're not going to try and trick us or abandon us."

"Fine." Crowley mewed, stirring in his own mood of discontent and folding those baby arms, the fat billowing out at reddened, swollen joints.

As Shawn approached, he saw that the eagerness of leaving the cage had sapped out of the baby-demon's attitude, replaced by a passive annoyance. Crowley waited for Shawn to open the cage only remarking "they're all dead. And there's no garuntee that we won't be next."

Shawn walked closer to try and see how the cage worked."Fine what? You've gotta be more specific."

Shawn could see that the cage had just a simple lock from underneath. I small lock on the bottom of the outside of the cage and unfastening it would clearly make Crowley fall out from the bottom.

"Fine. I won't trick or abandon you." Crowley promised.


"Careful." Crowley advised, as he saw Shawn examine the bottom of the cage. Clearly realizing he could be falling soon, Crowley added "I've got small legs." "

Shawn realised that triggering the lock from directly underneath might end up with him getting a face full of Crowley. He looked around for something soft, like leaves or something that he could use as a landing pad for the little creature.

As Shawn looked around he saw there were some sparse leaves on the floor of desert, underneath the cage. However, there was far more sand. Shawn pushed the desert sand into a little mound underneath the cage.

Crowley remarked during Shawn's work "I've got some news about the movements of everyone. Before I got taken here, I used the tea leaves of Arcadia to make some tea. I was able to read through the leaves as I sipped. Terrible stuff. But it helps prevent the spying eye of the Fortune Teller's Crystal Ball. It wasn't enough to prevent them from finding me. Whoever is doing this has far more at their disposal than just the Crystal Ball."

"While sipping the tea, I learned that Jody and Erica Hoff had been eaten. They weren't able or willing to satisfy Griffix's growing hunger."

Shawn continued to shove the sand into a safe pile that Crowley could crash into. "Last time I heard from him, he didn't think it was natural. Could someone be making him extra hungry like this? How do you reverse it?"

"Reverse it?" Crowley barked with a single, sharp, laughter in the word. "When he's this hungry? I'm not so sure. The last time he was made this hungry, he stopped after eating five children. Maybe he has three more to eat? Or maybe you and the other kids can satisfy him with all those books and letters he had people write last time?"

"Is he up to that again? The books and letters?" Crowley asked with humorous, disapproving smile. "Oh, poor, Old Griffix. He'll never give into his inner demons, I'll give him that. But it's a lot easier on the rest of us if he just ate the kids and got on with it."

Crowley looked over the pile of sand. "There. That's good. Now, unhinge that lock below me and let's give it a go."

Shawn noticed the particular way Crowley phrased his statement. "He was made this hungry before? Who did that?" He approached the small lock, and stood out of range of where Crowley might fall on him. Then, he triggered the latch.

"Urrphmm!" Crowley grunted as his butt hit the mound of sand diaper first, then he slid down, tumbling slightly before digging his baby heels into the mound of sand to slow his descent.

Crowley looked up with a large, predatory smile, displaying all of his needle-like teeth. It was a smile of victory and of achieving his goal of liberty. Then he answered Shawn with wry smile "Those who have tried to promote chaos in the Circus have sometimes seen Griffix's hunger as the right way to push their goals forward. It hasn't happened since the Old Times. There are few of us left that were part of the Old Ways. The Tattooed Lady did it once, when she tried to fight on behalf of the Freaks before they were destroyed during one of the Circus' many Soul Contests."

"So it could be her doing this. Or maybe someone else who has learned the Old Ways."

Crowley looked around the arid landscape. A breeze blew hot air which send a gust of sand stinging against Shawn's face.

"There." Crowley said. "Give me those bones." Crowley pointed towards a skeleton of a bird that long ago had died and now lay under the tree.

Shawn considered that. "Does the Tattooed Lady have any students? Or does anyone else know those...'Old Ways'?" Seeing no reason not to, he trotted over to the bird and brought the bones to Crowley.

"Not that I know of." Crowley said. "But that's why I thought it was you. A newcomer. An interloper. The rest of us know the dangers. Well, I guess there aren't many left who know."

"Now drop the bones on the sand and hand me your wrist." Crowley advised. He placed a fingernail into the sand and started to draw.

"Oh, I was hoping maybe you might have an idea. The only other person I know who even talked to the Tattooed Lady was Bradford." Shawn dropped the bones onto the sand, but he didn't hand over his wrist quite yet. "What're you going to do with my wrist?"

"There are others. The Old Ways have existed for some time." Crowley remarked with disinterest, now assembly the bones with one hand and beginning to draw strange patterns and letters in the sand. They looked like archaic shapes like some kind of alphabet.

"I need your blood to read the results." Crowley explained, offering a fingernail an indicating it would be used to slice Shawn

That does not encourage Shawn to proffer his wrist in the least. "The results of what? And why does it have to be my blood?"

Crowley grumbled something and ground his needle-teeth in a mix of anger and disappointment. It was obvious that that wasn't how he wanted Shawn to respond. With a quick motion he pushed his yellow fingernail into the center of hos own wrist and moved it upward. The sound of flesh tearing was quickly accompanies by a gout of blood that splattered across the bird bones and the strange symbols in the sand. Crowley let out a cry of pain--one that he clearly would have preferred that Shawn endure--and then clutched his wrist tight to his chest in wounded gesture.

"Oh wow, are you okay?" Shawn looked around for something to staunch the bleeding. In a pinch, he could probably use a bit from his or Ralph's or Bobby's clothes.

Crowley shrugged away from Shawn in a bitter refute of the gesture.

17:18, Today: Evil Circus - Crowley Noggenfogger rolled 4 successes using 5d10 with the World of Darkness nWoD system with a target of 8, rerolling 10s ((10(+9),9,8,2,6)).

Then he started to trace lines with the blood in the sand among and in between the strange symbols. "hmmm......" Crowley murmured.

"Who is Tiffany?"