un: karsa

[aprescoup]

( And now for a beautiful interlude featuring the party's witch Karsa and an especially plump, smug pigeon chasing her legs on the Senate steps. )

- go. You hear me? ( The pigeon only comes closer. ) No! No food. No food. You hear me? No. ( Fireball? Fireball. A startled pigeon briefly flies away, while Karsa cackles. Finally, she returns to the pendant. )

You. What are you doing? Not speaking. Not organising. Fools. Why do you never speak? Mouths too busy? I put mustard seeds in them. I put brine. We make pickles. At least we know.

( A pause. ) I am told you are... kingmaking. Wonderful. Very wonderful. I am delighted. If you think this makes you special, I step on your backs.

I know the choices: Caius Justus. A tyrant who is not dead, but that can be helped. Messalina. She is dead. No one helps that. And the man without opinion, Caelius Silvanus. So he says, delay the vote! Always helpful, to say nothing concrete. Someone must have stepped on his back.

Talk and decide among yourselves. You cannot work at odds, or what one hand does, the other undoes. And you are stuck no where, doing nothing. ( Another pause, while the pigeon appears impudently in the horizon, and she sends a warning shot towards him. ) Except for me. I am eating pigeon.


( ooc: this is your convenient post to give your character's $0.02 on whether to support:

— undead lady Messalina, who wants to gain the elite Hand army of Ephes
— the despot Caius Justus, who wants to keep the Hand for his own design
— Caelius Silvanus, who wants to put off the vote

...during the upcoming polls. Please feel free to threadjack — Karsa will only be commenting sparingly. You can have your character factor all this in when submitting threads about swaying votes, if you like! )

Comments

un: Black Prince; text

[blackscales]

[ Alright fine. ]

I'd suggest we put off the vote.

Caius Justus is seemingly a tyrant, and Narula has his favour. Narula and the Hand are waist-deep in dark water, so Titans know what manner of deal has been made there.

Messalina speaks of peace and freedom but I have no evidence she tells the truth, only evidence she killed a member of the senate and had a demon replace them. I understand she's against the Brotherhood, as are we, but her offer is too good to be true. There's a catch, and without knowing what it is I cannot say if it's worth the cost.

Putting off the vote gets us time to either find reason to trust Messalina or replace Justus with someone who had a modicum of sanity, if anyone here does. If putting it off presses Messalina into action, she's shown her hand we've still learned something.

un: wisdom

[mashiara]

Could Caius Justus be placed forward and then handled in the way Karsa is suggesting?

I don't know either 'leader' would hold the balance if Caelius Silvanus has his way. The fact we're looking at two factions of the dead and being told decide which one is least deadly won't end well left on its own.

[blackscales]

Why put a man in charge only to kill him? I don't object to killing him, I just don't see the benefit of allowing him to take charge first.

text;

[reparo]

Jacob and I found written proof that Caius Justus has been selling the grains to Matthias.

text;

[beitangmoran]

That would appear to need to be dealt with urgently.

And also that means we are once again in the middle of a proxy war between the Brotherhood, or what's left of it, and the other undead of this world.

[blackscales]

That does make unfortunate sense, I wonder if the deal struck with Matthias was for protection, and the Hand's strength their own experimentation with the water, or if Matthias taught them to use it. If he's dealing with Matthias then that's equally likely why he's anti Messalina. We're still missing something, however.

[aprescoup]

I do not think he paid. He is poor. He has an air of poverty and anger.

un: ut malum pluvia | text

[somebadnews]

[ Does it matter if Messalina is entirely good? There's never going to be a perfect solution, but he knows what one doesn't look like. ]

I can tell you that putting off the vote isn't an option. We don't have that kind of time.

[blackscales]

[ Well time is always an issue, but: ]

You sound very assured of that.

un: lockwood; audio - Threadjacking is love!

[recklessenough]

I spoke with Messalina. [ Had he shared that fact? Errr .. might have slipped his mind. ]

I have no doubt that while she put forth a good argument, there was quite a lot of deliberate omission. [ That just seems to be the case; always. ] Regardless, I am inclined to believe she is pulling in the same direction as our own objectives and for now, at least, could be a useful ally.

What I did not come away with was a comfortable sense of what would happen once her goals are achieved.

[ He pauses, pensively and then continues. ]

Ultimately our goal does not seem to include living out our lives in this place. But there are civilians here who will be left in the aftermath. Has anyone spoken with the populace to gauge their opinion of these matters?

[ AKA: What do the poor sods left to deal with all the fallout from this want for their city? ]

[aprescoup]

People are like ducks. Or goats. You ask. They answer. They think of today, for them. They not think of tomorrow, or you.

un: mansbane

[bravelyrunsaway]

What, is there a reason we can't just leave?

[aprescoup]

Do not pretend to me you will take sane decision. It is not your way. You meddle.

[bravelyrunsaway]

I would enjoy the flattery of your attention if I didn't know it was so firmly not given.

( he sighs, a touch dramatic, certainly amused. )

No, leaving and going away is all I ever recommend, and what most always ignore.

un: damnable | audio

[damnable]

I think this is a time when a whole lot of us are down to leave actually. Definitely doesn't seem like this is shit we should get involved wit, especially when this isn't our city. Can we vote to do that?

[bravelyrunsaway]

I've been voting for that since I showed up here, count the number of times this lot's walked away like sensible people.

( go on, he'll give Red time to count. )

un: yiling laozu

[weifinder]

I've a few handfuls of the dead who'll take the floor with me, and ah, that can provide... distraction enough, should others seek to shift the landscape.

They aren't the sort to be terribly fond of Messalina, for what that's worth. For what else it's worth, Karsa has a point. Messalina can't be simply solved, but both Justus and Silvanus can. I doubt either is unaware of the fact.

un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)

[beitangmoran]

I would tend to agree. Leaving the reins to any undead, no matter their affiliation, seems unwise. From the start, the fact that she begs humans for help has been... bizarre. She's either desperate, which is not good in an ally, or she has ulterior motives, also not good.

[weifinder]

Or both! In either case, her soldiers don't stop at death. And the living can become excellent soldiers even when they stop with living. Isn't that the case here?

The Hand changes them significantly, warps their life into deaths reclaiming. Messalina can afford to be more straightforward than Matthias bothers with. More like Anurr - you give, you get, he benefits.

[aprescoup]

I always have a point. Usually, a sword leading to that point.

[weifinder]

It does get things across when people would try ignoring it otherwise. Swords are very obvious!

un: worm wife / text

[wifedup]

I don't trust Messalina.

But then again, I don't trust any of them. We're being played like game pieces either way. If anyone knows how to upturn the board entirely then they have my vote.

( Set it on fire? Set it on fire. )

[aprescoup]

You want to kill... all of them. Really. That is the way? That is what we are doing? Again?

un: ut malum pluvia | audio

[somebadnews]

[ Interesting that Karsa is the one pushing for a consensus. ]

I don't think anyone is in favor of what the Hand is building themselves up to be. We'll have to deal with them, and there's not many equipped to handle an army. That doesn't really leave us with many choices to end this peacefully.

[ That's without him outright saying where he leans. He never said it was a perfect solution. ]

Assuming it's our decision. We've come a long way for you to forfeit your vote.

[aprescoup]

Because you ignore me. Why waste time? I protest, you say no. You do your business anyway.