Log:Tower 1-1

Tower 1-1
Okay. I'm going to start getting you out. You're going to have to help each other here for us all to get back to safety.
Participants Velvet, Saulot	29 August, 2018 Velvet goes after a Loyalist in their home.
Location Skin-A-Step
Weaver was asleep. The kind of sleep where violent harm is the only thing that'd wake him up. He'd went not long after lying down the day before, and just as Velvet awakens he saws logs and counts sheep. By her side is a rather thick folder with a note taped on the front. Vee, A friend told me about someone not too far from here. Not here here. A privateer. Good one, too. As good as they can be anyway. The mystery guy or gal isn't too well known aside from them being tied to the disappearances of a few kids. You can find stuff on the kids inside. From what I was told the person has a hollow here, because no one would ever expect them in a bumfuck town like Tammerack or FB. Only problem as far as I've been told are the booby traps, hob guards, and that it's a tower. Like a really really big tower. If you can get to them, kill them, and get the heart it'll be 500 grand. I'd help, but tivyrn's claws were a lot worse than I realized and I may have gone a little crazy with the painkillers. Love, Weaver The note is read, Velet's brows lifting slightly in wild amusement. Weaver was given a kiss to the forehead while he slept before Velvet moved to the hedge gate to step through and into the Hollow. The Wyrd twists and turns around her as she prepares herself and then takes to the shadows. The path to the hollow was specific. Very specific. Down the mountain was a long enough trip. To the west she has to go, and all the way to Skip-a-Step. The land dotted with caverns and ravines and typically just enough stone for one to skip from step to step. The target's hollow as somewhere in this area, and from there it'd be all up to Velvet. The person was known and shown to keep a specific hedge beast. One that smells of cinnamon, and that scent leads somewhere northwest within the area. However, the only way to get there is by several coordinated leaps. Specific is good, it gives Velvet plenty of time to go ahead and plan for the target and potential pit falls that could be in the way. Booby traps means having to keep out a sharp eye. And they can start anywhere. Before she gets ready for the leaps, she is inspecting everything, making sure that she doesn't leap right into a trap. Only once she's sure that things are safe does Velvet take a few steps back, preparing herself. With help from Separation and her own talents, she makes the leaps with the dexterity that might choke a cat in jealousy. Agility and dexterity. In seconds Velvet moves from stone to stone. She leaves nothing behind. Not a hint of kicked up dust nor a print into the stones. Below she can hear the scuttling of something. Some things. It's hard to say with how quickly whatever it is moves in the chasms below. It doesn't matter as her last step leads her to her target. A massive tower standing at least 50 meters tall and about 20 meters wide. There's a window somewhere around every 10 meters up, although the only thing to be seen from them are the dancing lights of candles. The front is seen by two metallic double doors, and before both of them are two mastiff like creatures seemingly made of stone that look more akin to gargoyles than anything natural. Velvet studies the gargoyle mastiffs, fairly positive that they'll move if they begin to notice her. She takes extra caution to shift and move carefully to avoid detection. Around the side of the tower towards that first window. With a little jump, she digs her fingers into the side, working her way towards the windows ledge. Once she's impacted on the wall, she shimmers immediately out of view and begins her climb. The gargoyles do fidget. Just a bit. So very slightly that most people beyond Velvet never would've heard it. It's more that they appear to be restless, or as restless as two stony hedge beasts can be. On her way up she finds that the windows are locked, and in a fashion where it could potentially be opened from the outside with relative ease via Clause or lockpick. The movement is noted, giving her a little tug of satisfaction that she made the right call in making sure to move around them. Just in case. She studies the window for a moment, eying the locking mechanism before she continues her climb upward. It looks like she's not planning to open it right now. She wants to get up a little higher first. Perhaps she'll find an open one. All the way to the deluxe apartment in the sky. At the top floor she can smell something burning other than wax. Cooking. Opening the window via glamour and clause was easy enough. A quick peek inside reveals nothing, and setting that first foot down doesn't set anything off. She's in what appears to be the bedchambers for whomever or whatever calls this place home. It appears quiet enough, but up above she can see it. Sleeping. A spider-like hedge beast rocking around on its web. To the left she can see several armoires and to the right a bed veiled off by curtains. Velvet steps in past the window and pauses once she's right inside. The woman isn't going to make a move until she's checked the place thuroughly enough that she feels safe there are no traps. The Separation that's activated should do well enough to keep her from triggering the spider to alertness thanks to vibrations. She glances towards the curtained off bed, sniffing softly in that direction. Searching the bed doesn't reveal too much on its own. Just a few choice stains likely best to be left alone. Under the pillows she finds a journal, but it's not something normal or mundane. The cover is bound in some kind of skin, and each piece of paper inside looks like more like a leaf. It appears to be a ledger, tracking each sale, potential customers, allies, contacts, and customer awaiting their 'products.' Through out it all, the person that wrote it never left their own name. There appear to be no other traps here save a loose bit of webbing near the bottom of the door's threshold leading out, and it connects to the spider's web. Lastly, she can hear it, but it's faint. The rustling and movement of metal against metal. The journal is kept on the bed, slowly leafed through as Velvet quickly memorizes all of the information she sees. She'll rewrite it all down later to make sure there's nothing that effects the freehold in those notes. An ear twitches at the sound of metal, eyes darting to the floor for a moment and then the door. She gingerly makes her way across the floor, eyes contantly sweeping for traps. She spots the web at the door and steps carefully over it, looking for the stairs. Outside of the bedroom she finds what appears to be a study. Several bookshelves line the left side of the room. The wall to the right is covered in various maps. A desk sits in one corner, a once lit lamp sitting atop it. A stack of papers was beside the candle: nothing more than poems. The musings of the mad that saw themselves as the hero of this tale. At the end of the room she can see the beginnings of the spiral stairs that lead down. Everything is reviewed, stashed away in her mind for later. That perfect memory comes in handy sometimes. She reads through a couple of the poems, trying to get a good read on the person here, verifying that she is, in fact, a loyalist. After another keen eyed check of the area and the wall itself Velvet shifts and starts to move up and onto the wall itself, starting to move down along the stair well. Moving along the walls may have been for the best. The steps themselves were booby-trapped every few paces down. Pressure plates whose effects remain unknown. As she goes along, though, even the walls aren't completely safe. She has to move along the ceiling as the wall have plates similar to the floors in certain places. She does come to the next floor's door quickly enough, though. No windows to speak of, but the sound of movement is louder behind the door. Weaver wasn't kidding when he said this lady was know for all of her traps. Velvet is actually impressed with the whole thing. Chances are that if she hadn't met Weaver, she probably would have ended up in a tower like this, guarded, trapped and alone except for the beasts used to protect her for pay. She's careful still, knife in one hand and gun in the other. She stays near the ceiling, making herself small as she crouches right through the door and prepares. Inside she finds cages. Several dozen cages. It might be easy to mistake it for a kennel of some kind. The inhabitants aren't pets. They're full of recaptured Changelings and a dozen humans of varying age. The cages number thirty, and each of them is full. This loyalist must have a full calender. On the floor Velvet can spot pressure plates in the floor with one in front of every cage - likely to curtail any potential escapees. Velvet's blood goes cold as she gets into the room and sees the cages filled with the varied Lost and mortals alike. Her jaw tightens, the grip on her weapons shifting as she chokes back the demonic growl bubbling up inside of her chest. First, she needs to kill this bitch, then disarm the traps, then free the prisoners. First things first, find the one responsible. Back out and down the stairs Velvet goes again. The floors and walls have their traps still set. Further down and the third floor is free of the tower's guests. This instead is a torture chamber. The rack, an iron maiden, and many more Inquisitive classics. The smell of blood fills the air, although relatively faint. Intermixed with it is the faint aroma of tears and excrement. Lying on one table with her innards sliced open is an angelic figure whose light no longer shines brighter than a faint glimmer of a halo around her head. This one was a fresh kill. The blood is followed, eyes narrowing as she comes across the scene. Well, she wanted proof that this woman was the monster she was said to be. Now she has it. Plenty of it. Velvet studies the ethereal Lost on the table before lifting her gaze to look back around, trying to catch a fresh scent to follow to the monster responsible. Everything is reviewed, stashed away in her mind for later. That perfect memory comes in handy sometimes. She reads through a couple of the poems, trying to get a good read on the person here, verifying that she is, in fact, a loyalist. After another keen eyed check of the area and the wall itself Velvet shifts and starts to move up and onto the wall itself, starting to move down along the stair well. Moving along the walls may have been for the best. The steps themselves were booby-trapped every few paces down. Pressure plates whose effects remain unknown. As she goes along, though, even the walls aren't completely safe. She has to move along the ceiling as the wall have plates similar to the floors in certain places. She does come to the next floor's door quickly enough, though. No windows to speak of, but the sound of movement is louder behind the door. Weaver wasn't kidding when he said this lady was know for all of her traps. Velvet is actually impressed with the whole thing. Chances are that if she hadn't met Weaver, she probably would have ended up in a tower like this, guarded, trapped and alone except for the beasts used to protect her for pay. She's careful still, knife in one hand and gun in the other. She stays near the ceiling, making herself small as she crouches right through the door and prepares. Inside she finds cages. Several dozen cages. It might be easy to mistake it for a kennel of some kind. The inhabitants aren't pets. They're full of recaptured Changelings and a dozen humans of varying age. The cages number thirty, and each of them is full. This loyalist must have a full calender. On the floor Velvet can spot pressure plates in the floor with one in front of every cage - likely to curtail any potential escapees. Velvet's blood goes cold as she gets into the room and sees the cages filled with the varied Lost and mortals alike. Her jaw tightens, the grip on her weapons shifting as she chokes back the demonic growl bubbling up inside of her chest. First, she needs to kill this bitch, then disarm the traps, then free the prisoners. First things first, find the one responsible. Back out and down the stairs Velvet goes again. The floors and walls have their traps still set. Further down and the third floor is free of the tower's guests. This instead is a torture chamber. The rack, an iron maiden, and many more Inquisitive classics. The smell of blood fills the air, although relatively faint. Intermixed with it is the faint aroma of tears and excrement. Lying on one table with her innards sliced open is an angelic figure whose light no longer shines brighter than a faint glimmer of a halo around her head. This one was a fresh kill. The blood is followed, eyes narrowing as she comes across the scene. Well, she wanted proof that this woman was the monster she was said to be. Now she has it. Plenty of it. Velvet studies the ethereal Lost on the table before lifting her gaze to look back around, trying to catch a fresh scent to follow to the monster responsible. The smell of the person is faint. It's not in the room, but was there recently. It leads her out off the room, and down the steps again. The second floor is ignored, and it leads down to the first floor. There she sees the target. A male, maybe late forties. Could be younger. Hard to tell with its shadowy mien. He's sitting accross from another man that looks more akin to an icy wolf than a man. They're discussing business, and how much one of those Changelings upstairs would be. Standing around them are a dozen other men and women of varying power within the Wyrd. That's a lot of people, and a lot of potential enemies if she doesn't get this done right. Velvet has to move around on the wall, setting herself up at just the right angle so that she's not caught in the blasts herself. She takes her time, shots lining up as she settles her gaze first on the shadowy figure responsible for all of this. The first of the grenade will land just at his feet before exploding another moment later. Then the other two follow quickly, trying to cover as much room as possible. Nothing is left standing. Nothing. The dogs outside are now barking and clawing at the doors. The first floor is a mess. Blood, various chunks of meat, bones, and charred matter. It's blown a hole in a southern wall. It's blown out bits of the second floor as well where several dead hedge creatures of fallen to their death. Skuttling silently across the wall, Velvet moves out of the area where she shot from and hunkers down against wall itself. She waits, eyes and ears alert. There's no telling who else might show up after that commotion. She shifts the launcher back to her back and takes out the guns, waiting. The two gargoyle beasts eventually beat down the door, confused and lost when they see their master dead. Well, parts of their master. They sniff around, curious about what might have caused this. With all the blood and smoke it's too difficult to stay. What was on the second floor crawls down, because fuck walking at this point. Another of the spider-like beasts that's missing two back legs on the right side of its body. She continues to watch from her perch, keeping an eye on all the beasts. Velvet doesn't want to have to kill them, so she waits to see if they'll take their leave with their master dead, or if it looks like there's going to be more fighting. The dogs whimper. One of the nudges at an arm that isn't connected to a body. They both sit there, likely confused anf lost now. The spider only goes a few more feet, screech, and falls over dead. The Smoke is begining to fade, so Velvet has to skuttle herself back up the wall and out of reach of the dogs. She'll leave them there for now while she works her way back upstairs. Those pressure plates and traps all have to have triggers and rigs. She just had to find them and disable them. After fiddling with the mechanisms to try to keept the traps from triggering, Velvet had to give up. Traps aren't really her thing. So instead, the woman hurries up to the top of the stairs, knowing that she's about to lose all Smoke. She lets out a shrill whistle, trying to draw the attention of the dogs up in her direction. "Come and get me, boys," she rumbles down the stairs, racing up towards the door that leads to the cage room. They have to make it all the way up the stairs first. Then the chase begins. Weaver The dogs look. Their eyes immediately lock on Velvet, hairs bristle, and they start growling. The only thing new here is her, and she had to have soemthing to do with it. The scent is foreign as much as the sight. While they likely don't suss out the cause she may as well be it. Without a moment's hesitation they charge after the wall-crawling darkling, snapping at her heels as they give chase. Velvet will let them have to come up to meet her first, letting them set off all the traps all the way up the stairs to make sure that, once freed, the lost and humans wouldn't trigger them. Velvet isn't sticking around to watch what happens as they come up the stairs, inside the room with the people in cages, guns in hand. "Keep your hands and feet inside the cages," she offers in warning as she moves to prepare for leading the dogs around the room and setting off traps in here as well. The dogs are in for a treat. Typically, their master would allow others to move about his tower with ease. Not today, and not with his death. Spikes, so many spikes. Acid. Fire. The worst are the arrow traps. By the time Velvet gets to the fourth floor again the dogs are a bloodied mess. The stone has given way to the meat below in certain spots, arrows stick in them like pin-cushions, and the darts are just sticking into the left of their neck. They're still after Velvet despite all the pain, but they don't have much left in them. Glowling eyes are currently red, Velvet looking like she's ready for a fight. "You're going to have to catch me first boys," she tells the dogs as they come scrambling into the room, looking like a mess. She offers them a little growl and then starts to sprint, moving right across the pressure plates. Thanks to the Separation, she can't quite trigger them herself, after all. Their movements are labored, but fight takes over flight. They chase her around, like children going after candy. The first to fall does so on the last trap on the left, currently impaled on the spike that shoots upward. The last one is still alive through it all, but doesn't have much left. It simply collapses near its brethren, breathing slowly as it looks up to Velvet with one eye barely open. Velvet doesn't look windeed as she makes them set off trap after trap. She stops as the one falls dead and the other sinks down next to it. "I'm sorry," she tells the one that's staring at her, lifting an arm as she takes her time to set up the shot. The trigger is pulled, bullet piercing right through the creatures head and sending off to peace with its brother. The gun is still in hand as Velvet begins to look around at the cages filled with people. "Okay. I'm going to start getting you out. You're going to have to help each other here for us all to get back to safety." The captives were already scared shitless regardless of anything else. Velvet barging in and then the dogs coming after just makes things so much worse. Those terrors, however, end up dead in the end. Velvet says she's gonna help, but most of them don't immediately jump for joy. A good few, likely more recently captured, and bang on the cage and call for her to release them. "I hear you," Velvet assures. "But we're all still going to have to be careful," she warns. "They likely sprung all the traps, but there could always be something I missed. Have each other's backs and I'll have yours." Velvet begins to walk through the cages, taking her time unlocking them. Unlike with the traps, this time she knows what she's doing. When the doors are opened some of them come barreling out. Some try to hug Velvet, but are wary because it might slow her down. The youngest of them crowd around her for the time being. It takes almost half an hour until the last one is out, and he has to crawl out of the cage. "Where are we going?" one anxiously asks. There are a few little pats to people's shoulders, the hugging clearly making her uncomfortable. She prefers to be invisible, and this is part of the reason why. The little ones get gentle hair pets before she moves on to get the last of the cages opened. "The local Freehold has a castle that isn't far. You'll be able to sleep, eat, shower, then the Freehold will help figure out where your homes are and help you get back. Do we have anyone here that's too injured to walk?" The only one to disagree is an older woman. She's leaning on a taller hairy changeling. The youngest of the children looks to be in their early teens, and able to walk easily enough. "What's a freehold," one of the mortals asks. "Is it the way back home?" "It's a safe place with good people who will help you find your way back home," Velvet tells the mortal with a little nod. Not a direct answer, really, but close enough. She looks over the old woman and gestures for some others to help aid her in the walking. "I know some of you aren't in the best shape. We're going to take this slow. If anyone can fight, please take the flank and sides of the group once we're out of here. Be careful going down the stairs. And, uh, it's probably going to be a little gruesome downstairs. Try not to throw up if you have a weak stomach.