Voh'ren grimaces as he passes the dead in the streets. Most were strangers, but some of the faces look familiar. Perhaps people he had guided to safety during the riots, or those preying on the scared and confused. It is hard for him to keep track of everything that transpired. He whispers a prayer to the Green to guide the fallen through the eternal cycle: life to death and death to life.

Upon arriving at the House of Roses, Voh'ren directs Kiru to hide. He doubts a brothel would allow a wolf into its premises.

"Stay out of sight, little one," he says, kneeling in front of the wolf pup. "We should not be long."

He stands back up, and looks over to Caleb.

"Lead the way."
This message was last edited by the player at 04:13, Mon 17 May 2021.

Like Voh'ren, Bristle grimaced as they passed all of the bodies. Albeit for a distinctly different reason. She hated the thought of all of them "going to waste" when she could have easily made use of the bodies. But alas, such things were frowned upon, and she had no justification for raising the dead here. Still, she kept them in mind if any emergency situations were to arise.

When they neared the brothel, however, Bristle brought her mind back to the task at hand. She addressed the group. "Remember, we don't yet know if we are looking for an item or a person. All we know is that there is some new information about defeating Whisper located within this structure. So keep your senses sharp." She looked to her group, and when everyone seemed ready, the changeling woman cast Guidance and Enhanced Diplomacy upon her self and knocked on the door.

Hester breathed upon her sleeve, giving her clothing the appearance of the clothes worn by a sailor on leave and looking for fun.  That would do for now but once they were inside, she had a better idea.

The door opens after a moment, revealing a gracefully-aging woman with understated jewelry and makeup of sufficient quality and quantity that it was hard to tell she was wearing any at all.

The madame smiles, practiced and meaningless. "Good day. How may we serve you today?"

"...so this is a Brothel?" She looked around, completely naïve and still at a loss as to why someone would want to come here.

Caleb had kept his crossbow up when they were in the streets, more as a deterrent than anything else. He paid little mind to most of the bodies, a skill born of years spent among such violent scenes. He did pause long enough to close the eyes of any younger bodies they came across though, his expression somber as he took in each of their faces.

As Bristle knocked and Voh'ren nudged him forwards, Caleb cleared his throat a bit to catch the madame's attention. "Don't mind her," he said, gesturing to Firea. "It's her first time at a place like this, and we wanted it to be special. Could you see if Robin is in today, and tell her that Caleb Miller and friends have a proposition for her?"

Seeing as how Caleb had the contact within the brothel's walls, and since he seemed to have the conversation under control, Bristle quietly slid out of the way so that Caleb and the Madame could speak more easily to each other. The cleric planned on scanning people for charms and magic eventually, but knew that right now would not be the appropriate time.

So Bristle waited patiently for the conversation to run its natural course.

The madame nods and smiles, clearly accustomed to requests of this nature. A handful of coins later, she is ushering the party inside, into a room luxuriously furnished with soft couches, rugs on the floors and tapestries on the walls. One of the girls lounging on the couches looks up at the madame's call, and bounces up to bring you further in, up the stairs, and to a wooden door halfway down the upstairs hall.

The girl who opens it is young - doesn't look as though she can be much over twenty, assuming she's human, which she does look. "Caleb! It's been a while, how's the family? Seen anything interesting recently?"

She seems perfectly at ease, cheerful and casual despite wearing nothing more than a few artfully positioned scraps of clothing and jewelry, and a touch of cosmetics. She gestures for you to come into the room, a decently-sized bedroom that smells of perfume and sex. She takes a seat on the king-size bed, gestures at a plush love seat in the corner. "And introduce me to your friends! I'm Robin, it's a pleasure to meet you!"

Caleb returned Robin's greeting with a smile, just a hint of genuine affection creeping into his tone. "They're alright, still hate my job, and water is still wet," he said as he walked inside.

Once everyone was inside, he closed the door and leaned against it. "These folks with me are Firea, Bristle, Hester, and Voh'ren," he said, pointing to each of his companions in turn. "And we have actually seen some interesting things lately, some of which pointed Bristle to this fine place. I know you don't mind just talking, but do you mind if she asks you some odd questions? And when I say odd, I mean things even you might find weird."

Hester's eyes are glued on Robin's as she watches the way the girl moves.  She smiles and breathes on her sleeve and suddenly seems to be dressed exactly the same as Robin.  She says nothing though, merely smiles.

"I suppose that's all right." Robin's voice is a bit confused, but she seems to be taking this in stride.

Firea's nose wrinkles when she enters the room. "...whats...that smell?" She whispered to Caleb, confused, and not wanting to offend this Robin. She couldn't help it with her sensitive nose.

Voh'ren nods as Caleb introduces him. He stays focused on the task at hand despite the setting and potential distractions.

"We're investigating the city's recent disturbances and hoping to put an end to them," he adds. As he speaks, he sizes up the woman, looking for any hint of undue influence. As a professional "entertainer," Voh'ren has no doubt this Robin is an expert at putting forth a facade for her clients' benefit...

OOC:

22:29, Today: Voh'ren Wildheart rolled 25 using 1d20+11.  Sense Motive-Robin.

Bristle nodded along to her companions' comments, but didn't speak up until it was clear Robin was ready. She even refrained from replying to Firea's delightfully naïve inquiry, as much as she might have wanted to reply with a sly remark of her own. But she didn't want to accidentally insult the person who might give them some useful information.

So when Robin was ready, Bristle asked her questions one at a time in a hushed tone. She started by asking if Robin was aware of anything (or anyone) within the building who had records from the time period that Whisper was last known to have been around. Or if anyone was familiar with Sir Elias Halson and his history. If Robin new any leads, Bristle would of course inquire further about them. Or at the very least, how to gain access to the information they sought.

---

I kept my questioning generalized so that we can maybe skip ahead to the more important bits of Robin's replies. Then we can ask more "specialized" lines of questioning from there.

Robin is polite, cooperative, open, and provides no information. There are no people here who are of any great knowledge about the time period. She has never heard Halson's name. She doesn't seem to know anything on the topic at all.

Hester continues to smile at Robin and asks, "Tell me, sister. How long ago did you leave Falcon's Hollow?"

Robin looks...concerned. "My family lived there when I was a child, but I barely remember it."

"You are from Falcon's Hollow?" Bristle asked, surprised. Apparently she had missed that tidbit of information. That opened the possibility for additional lines if inquiry.

"If you are from Falcon's Hollow, do you know anything about- Hold on. Let me cast a quick spell first." Bristle cast Detect Charm and aimed her vision at the woman as she asked, "Do you know anything about a girl named Annabelle? Or a demon lord Jezelda cult near the town - the lord of evil werewolves? Or an entity named..." Bristle hesitated, but pressed on. "Named Whisper?"

Now that Bristle thought about it, perhaps Jezelda had been one of the entities Whisper had betrayed, and had helped Halson seal Whisper away. It would help explain why the two shared that cave. But the theory would definitely need more investigation later.

---

Using Detect Charm to make sure Robin is unaffected. And to make sure no magic flares up when she mentions the name of their enemy. If anything would make Whisper "activate" one of her puppets, Bristle figures it would be mentioning her name.

"Annabelle Ravan? She's my cousin. Mother's sister's daughter. Jezelda...name isn't familiar."

And then Whisper's name is mentioned, and she recoils. "Whisper? My mother taught me to run from anyone who said that name. Because they'd want to kill me."

"Why would they want to kill you?" She asked, cocking her head to one side. "We want information, about her, any information..."

"Because that's what they did to Annabelle, didn't they, sister?" said Hester. "But it didn't work did it? Because there's a whole slew of girls like us that were bred for Whisper's convenience. Killing you would let her in.  Do you know anything more about her Robin? Anything at all?"

Bristle found it particularly interesting that Robin was a close relative of Annabelle's. Although with a town that small, she wasn't ready to rule it out as mere coincidence. It was still a detail to keep in mind though.

"I detect no charms," Bristle reported to the group plainly. Then to Robin, she explained, "We need to take precautions. For exactly the reason you mentioned. We've had a run-in or two with the one with the deadly name." She didn't want to agitate Robin further with continued use of Whisper's name.

The cleric decided to let Robin answer the questions that had already been asked before asking more of her own. She also kept her spell active, just in case any new targets presented themselves before its duration ran out. On a whim, she scanned her fellow party members too. More out of curiosity and an abundance of caution than out of any real concern.

"Not that. Not just that. See, we were made for her convenience, like you said. But you have to let her in or she can't."" Robin stands and paces, clearly agitated. "Some people would want me dead so I can't do that. Others...would hurt me until I did. Neither is a good thing."

The young woman grimaces. "I don't know much about her though. Just what my mother taught me. Stay away from anyone who knows who she is, and stay far away from a few places - Falcon's Hollow, Nogortha, Candlestone Caverns, and Mount Callahan. Those are her places. There's one other, but I don't know where it is, just the name - the Fangwood."

Voh'ren listens to the conversation in silence. All of this is new information to him, ranging from Hester's and Robin's secrets to the deceased girl's name, Annabelle. The mention of a "Fangwood" piques his curiosity, but the name does not bring anything immediately to mind.

"Thank you for trusting us with this," he says to Robin. "I can imagine that is no easy burden to live with."

Caleb had held his tongue during the questioning, trusting Bristle to know what to ask. He reeled at the new revelations, but quickly regained his composure. "That's... Wow. Thank you Robin, we knew about Mount Callahan but the others are news," he said, racking his brain for anything he might have heard about these caverns or this Nogortha.

"It's only right to warn you now, she's back. All these riots over Raskovel being killed, that was her. It'd probably be wise to get somewhere safe, out of the country if you can manage it."

ooc: 01:57, Today: Caleb Miller rolled 12 using 1d20+10.  K. Local, Candlestone Caverns.

01:56, Today: Caleb Miller rolled 30 using 1d20+10.  K. Local, Nogortha.