As soon as Cas resumed her seat at the table, a stableboy approached and waited for her attention.

"Miss, I've been asked to tell you that your room is ready upstairs. Room two, on the left, at the top of the stairs. He's waiting."[/i] And with that, the boy disappeared into the crowd back to the stables.

-------------

The hardest part had been keeping the leather bag with its load of gold coins secure. He didn't need to breathe, time was meaningless before his ability to be patient, and the guards gave up as soon as it turned into a murder investigation. Once they were all involved with investigating the tusker, Simon began to carefully and slowly swim out of the canal and out of the warehouse. He gave himself three minutes of swimming, then came out of the water. It was a simple matter to run back to the inn, get a room, and have a fire started.

The grey cloak, mask, boots, shirt, and pants were hanging by the fire to dry. Simon had changed into a simple white peasant's shirt and black cotton pants. The fire's warmth was of no use to him, but the warm glow of the light was comfortable. He waited for Cas to receive his message and to arrive while he sat at the room's small table counting out the coins. The bright side of the swim was that the deathly perfume that normally plagued him was gone. Perhaps regular baths would be in order now that he was becoming a man of means.

The undead explorer watched his friend take notes with an attentive, almost rapt expression on his face. The process of writing wasn't as fascinating as the idea, the implication. Sophie had the essence of the treasure captured, never able to be taken from her, stored in a codified and reproduceable manner. The power of that was staggering...the ability to copy an idea and replicate it meant that he could disseminate plans and ideas to others, for good or for ill. A coordinated thieves ring? Planned strikes to cripple an economy...or recorded information to bring about the rise and fall of nobility...empires? Espionage. That was the word for it. He could steal ideas, not just goods...

Or he could stay on track to be an adventurer, read histories, find ruins and explore them, become an historian like Sophie. He could change his life if only he could read.

"No...I'd trade all the gold in this mountain for the ability to read and write," he replied. There was more value in that knowledge than he had understood as a child. If he knew then what he realized now...ooh, how the world could have been different.

The reply was another few seconds in coming. For Simon, they felt like torturous, stretched out, painful minutes rather than the brief seconds that it took for him to draw in enough breath to send out a barely-there whisper:

"I'm sorry for startling you. I'm-...I forget what its like, sometimes."

And he did, didn't he? He forgot what it was like to interact with other people. They were going to fear him from now on, and he'd no longer be able to get cozy and interact up close with people. Survival was going to be predicated on staying away from humanity, away from the prejudices of the living, and away from any meaningful relationships.

It was going to hurt, ripping off that bandage...Si had been gregarious and affable as a youngster. He'd grown close to his gang, but they were all gone. The dock they'd haunted as kids was destroyed for some pier expansion project. The neighborhood had been gentrified. The old ways were gone, and he would need to adapt. Well. He could do that.

Simon answered her by pointing to the floor. Ambushing here was going to be less of a risk. If this person was part of the Soot Wolves, following them to their hideout would just invite trouble. As it was, they outnumbered the one set of feet that cast the moving shadow on the floor.

The ghoul crept through the rafters and dropped down silently beside the office. As soon as the door opened and his target came out, his knife would end their days. They'd never need to worry about stealing again.

The handle moved and Simon heard someone puff a breath, extinguishing the light from the candle. The door pushed open and a half-orc came out of the office. Simon noted that he wore no uniform. Instead, a black cotton vest covered his chest and rough burlap pants his legs. He was barefoot, and he carried a bulging satchel. Bingo. The ghoul gripped his dagger in an ice-pick grip and planned his attack. He spun for momentum and slammed his dagger into the orc-man's chest where his heart should be, then leaped free of the reflexive grab from the flailing limbs. The orc didn't die easily...or quietly. Shit.

Magelights flared to life outside of the building. Simon looked for an escape route, but couldn't find one that led upwards. Instead, He grabbed the satchel and slipped into the canal that brought the unmilled logs into the factory. Once submerged he sank to the bottom of the canal and waited.

Did he dare interrupt her?

He dared.

"Mistress, Mordecai aren't allowed into Serendipity...Or Adela. And if we took over Adela, we could turn dragons to your army. Who would be able to stop you then?"

Simon had a terrifying vision of Akayuki on an undead dragon, razing a city while maniacally laughing. Then again, as distractable as the kid seemed, she probably would never get farther than, oh...half a mile from here Simon figured, before she was distracted. Even that was generous.

Luna was having a very pleasant dream about chasing one of the toy mice that James had enchanted for her. Something kept nudging her, though, and it woke her up.

<Regis! Is it morning already?>

She stood and stretched languorously. The cat slunk towards the bakery, looking up and down the street.

<Were you followed?>

"I don't think so; Regis protected us. We need...we need to get to the other side of the city. There's a way out that isn't closely watched. Then, we need to make a run for it...oh, I don't know how we're going to make it..."

She fussed and grieved for a few more minutes, but the cat had no words of comfort. Instead, Luna bunted the woman and purred to try and soothe her.

Luna watched the dog and woman run off, so she took her cue and disappeared into the city of Reajh herself.

That night, she stayed low, hidden in bushes, slinking carefully and quietly to the bakery. By the time the sun was coming up, Luna had made her way to across the street from the shop. She was exhausted from spending the whole night awake, so she tucked her limbs in under her body and rested until Regis and Liana arrived.

She was safe under the bush...so she closed her eyes...and...drifted...to....

Simon watched carefully and started forward when she flinched.

"Are you okay?" He started to approach, to try and nanny her, but she didn't need that. She was a skilled researcher and was doing great without him being overprotective. Still...He came closer and looked over her shoulder at the necklace. When Sophie offered it, he gingerly took it, but he was not able to feel its movement.

"I'll take your word for it...is the rhythm steady or does it change?" He asked. At least he could ask good questions and try to be useful to her that way! And...He took out a cloth from his bag and started cleaning the trinket up. The oil and soot were hard to remove, but a bit of work put the shine back onto the metal.

For a brief, bright moment, he had forgotten what he was. In the dim light of the stable, he could ignore how pale his hands were, or that he didn't need to breathe, or that he was technically dead. He could ignore that, but he couldn't ignore the flinch.

Simon's breath hitched and he held it rather than apologize. He did NOT choose this for himself in some odd bid for immortality...but he knew the flinch was an instinct; life protected itself from the unnatural, and what was more unnatural than the walking, talking dead?

So, instead of giving a verbal yes or no, Simon merely gave Silas a wry grin, plucked the Ace from his hand, shuffled the deck with a flourish, and fanned a deck made of nothing but the same Ace. He shuffled again with another flourish, fanned a normal seeming deck, then quickly gathered the fan back into a deck.

He slid back to his own hay nest, contemplative, still unbreathing, trying to figure out the appropriate thing to say.

He wasn't going to comment on the homelessness...first off it would be hypocritical of him because he also had no home. Second, he didn't find it shameful, though by her blush Mistress Akayuki did, and third, he knew better than to shame her. Instead, he considered her options.

"Perhaps, mistress, you could turn a local baron and have him introduce you to the court as his newly adopted child...this would give you access to so many noble families to play with and to turn to our cause. And then if any of the nobility oppose you, you could unleash a plague in their lands? Then, both of your wonderful plans could be enacted."

Ego stroke, check.
Bettering his own position, check.
Getting back at Lord Monmouth...On the way, he thought with a sly grin.

The dim light of the lumber mill was exactly the atmosphere that Simon was most comfortable in; the cool, dark, quiet space embraced the zombie and told him all of its secrets. Below, Cas had taken a perch atop a stack of crates. It was good. Anyone walking below would not see her, but she had a commanding view of the main pathways in and out of the office.

Speaking of which...

Someone was burning the midnight oil. Something told Simon that this was someone up to no good. A candle in the office, but no candles anywhere else? No guards outside of the office? The front door- He turned and looked. Yep. Chained and locked. Interesting. He scanned the windows around the mill and didn't notice anything amiss at first, but a second look showed that one of the ground floor windows had a nice, clean windowsill. Aha. Some other window entering thief, then...and a bad one, because that was a street facing window.

"Tch..."

His quiet click would not carry, but he knew Cas would hear it. When she looked, he would point out the window casement to her. They had competition, and there were several ways to handle it. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew which way she'd choose...

"Easy enough to hate the Mordecai...they turn me mindlessly feral," he agreed with the lich.

Carrying her? He could buy her twenty horses with the gold he had saved from dungeon delving. And helping her conquer the world? They'd need an army...

But first-

Simon was surprised that the girl's request for a hug, but responded as she wanted. He was surprised to feel that she was cool to the touch, like he was.

"My lady, if I may suggest...the Queen of the Dead should have a fortress to begin amassing her army. I have the money to buy property for you, if you wish." His mind began to race with possibilities. He had been born a whore's son street rat...but if they were going to do this...to try and take over the world...he could become the second most powerful being in the realm if things went well...and if they went poorly he'd be destroyed. Eh. He'd gambled on worse odds before.

His mind again began turning with strategy and possibility. He was a thief...and thieves easily could become assassins. Assassins made plenty of dead bodies...dead bodies that a powerful lich could raise as her puppets. They could rule from the shadows...if she ever was motivated to work instead of hug zombies and eat candy.

This adventure into the darkness may be harder than he first thought.

__________________QUICK STATS
Name Jian Kai Rin
Age 24
Gender Male
Species Shijie-Ren
Ethnicity Huoho
Height 5'6
Occupation City guardsman, captain's rank
Residence Xialing barracks

__________________IN-DEPTH STUFF

Physical Description Ren is physically the balance of a fighter and a dancer. He is muscular and lean, but demonstrably strong and balanced. His eyes are a brilliant orange color and he enhances them with red and black eyeliner and face makeup, often choosing to mimic a tiger's stripes at his temple, cheeks, neck, and chest. Despite the fearsome look he chooses, he is quick to smile. Ren keeps his glossy black hair as short as fashionable conventions allow and wears it pulled back in a bun.

When he is off duty, he prefers wearing clothes that are darker shades of red and orange with black accents. He will paint his nails and hooves red and enhance his black antlers with red painted designs as well when dressing fancy. His preferred meditation beads are black and he wears a necklace, a bracelet of beads on each wrist, and a rope of beads over his sash.

On duty, Ren will forego all of his self-decorations. His armor is a family heirloom. The gold washed plates are embossed with tigers, clouds, and sunbursts; its shoulder guards are enameled red and gold and depict tiger's faces, teeth bared. The helmet likewise depicts a stylized tiger's face and is gold washed with a red plume at the top. The helmet has built in cutaways to accommodate his antlers.

Personality Ren is a fancy, fancy peacock of a boy. He likes to dress up, preens, and enjoys being the center of attention. His parents have spoiled and pampered him due to a favorable divination of his fawn-spots, and he knows he's everyone's favorite. He's quick to joke and tries to make a situation smooth. If he's slighted or insulted, his anger is triggered. When angry, he can range anywhere from sarcastic and smarmy to verbally abusive and physically aggressive. He regrets getting angry at people and is highly apologetic afterwards. He DOES work on his anger and flaws when people point them out, and it's difficult for him since he was the golden child.

Magic/Abilities
No known magical ability

Relationships
The Five Friends:
Sunset's Sanctum: Familial armor inherited from his father's father
Perfect Fury: A onehanded short sword with gold pommel and hilt guard, red tassel on the pommel, black leather wrapped hilt, and black sheathe. Inherited from his mother's father.
Summer Storm: A long, flexible spear. Made for him by his father.
Justice and Mercy: A matched set of Deerhorn knives. The hilts are wrapped in black leather. Inherited from his mother.
Tiger's Fang: A short dagger with a forearm sheathe, made to be concealed. A gift from his brother.

Mother: Jian Su Yung
Father: Jian Haoyu
Older brother: Jian Quon Tao

History
Rin was born to an affluent family. His mother is a skilled martial artist and his father is a retired general who commanded the city defenses. They had a son and were intent on raising him to follow in his father's footsteps, but were dismayed by a poor fortune being delivered about Quon Tao...well, it wasn't so much a bad fortune as one that they didn't see glory in. Rather than becoming a brilliant commander, Quon Tao was prophesied to become a master alchemist and gardener.

The cloud of disappointment would shade Quon Tao's life forever onward. His parents tried to love him, but their second son would receive the lion's share of their affection, training, and family gifts.

Kai Rin was born as the seasons changed to summer. He was a strong infant, fussy and opinionated from the beginning. The fortune teller saw in him leadership, military might, and the seat of the Lord General. This was the child his parents had hoped for and dreamed of, and so they spoiled him with trinket, toy soldiers, armor fitted to his child's frame, wooden replica weapons, and training. His days were filled with weapons training, unarmed training, unarmed combat, strategy training, and meditation training. Rin immersed himself in this deeply, enjoying the praise and attention he received for doing well. He never understood why his brother was sad; instead he would share everything he learned with his Tao, smothering his older brother with affection whenever Tao would play soldiers with him.

Rin adored his brother and would always encourage his horticultural work. Rin saw beauty and majesty in his brother's sketches and garden work so much that he often would send home cuttings of plants for his brother to plant in the family garden. Tao helped Rin master meditation and taught him the art of dancing. Rin argued with his parents that the benefit of dance was balance, strength, and agility, so both he and Tao received tutelage in different dance forms thereafter.

Rin followed Huohu-ren society conventions and joined the military. Where Tao struggled through his compulsory service, Rin was the exemplary recruit. He was compassionate on his fellow recruits during training and would tutor them in techniques he had mastered in childhood. His early assignments included traveling the roads of Huohu, protecting travelers, going into the jungle on maneuvers, and maintenance of the military facilities. He did these tasks cheerfully and found himself quickly promoted. He was placed in charge of squads of his fellows, given supply line problems to work through, and was trained in logistics and supply. Eventually, his promotions led to an appointment to captain of the city guard for Xialing. He is in charge of maintaining part of the garrison, training new recruits who join his unit, and coordinating the guard shifts. He is very proud of his position and eagerly works for the good of the city and takes pride in knowing and being known by the city's people.

Recently, Quon Tao has gone missing. Kai Rin doesn't know exactly when his brother disappeared because his parents did not alert him...or seemingly notice when their shy son left...but Rin can't dismiss his concerns that something is wrong. This concern is beginning to distract him and shorten his temper, so his father has counseled him to forget Tao's disappearance. Most of the family thinks that Tao deserted the family, so talking about or investigating the disappearance has been heavily restricted.

__________________THREAD TRACKER
Current Threads

Complete Threads

Two nights ago, the Mirabel had put to port in Zantaric. Since then, two children had died terrible deaths. Simon had few hot button issues, but when the brats of a sea port became prey for nasty things, he took action. The first night of investigation had yielded some information...he'd known the ship that the perpetrator had come from and that the man had an easy smile. The second night that a dock brat had been murdered, her friends were able to pinpoint more information: red hair, missing front teeth, and three earrings in his left ear.

Now, Simon gripped the throat of a man from the Mirabel.The three hoop earrings in his right ear trembled as the man fought against the vice grip that was crushing his throat. No sound came out of the gap toothed mouth; Simon had widened that gap with several punches before coming in for the kill. The red hair was several shades more garnet for the blood that was pouring from the sailor's split scalp.

"I don't care who you are...or were as its gonna be in a few minutes. I just want to watch you flop as the life leaves ya..." the zombie growled in satisfaction, adding fear and desperation to the struggles of his prey. The ghoul was kneeling on the man's chest, holding him down in one of Zantaric's many cluttered alleyways. A trio of the wide eyed and scrawny dock brats stood watch for him, but they were terrible at their job because they kept looking back to watch the murder.

Simon heard rushing footsteps, adult sized by the sound of them, and decided to end the tableau a bit faster. He drew his dagger and sunk it into the man's ribcage, then again, and again, and once more. The flurry of jabs began to eagerly seep, feeding the wood of the boardwalk with one more life.

The thief turned assassin stood, dagger at the ready, and watched the kids scatter. Ungrateful brats he thought with a grin, seeing himself in their selfish choice to run.

Simon hopped over after Cas and watched her work. She was lucky with the locks; rusted locks either crumbled or were his biggest pain in the ass struggles as the mechanisms fought to align properly.

"Here...some oil on the frame here and here," he whispered, drawing out a small vial of golden lubricant. He dripped a few drops on the frame where he indicated, then joined Cas in lifting the frame.

She'd struggled...but he didn't. His body felt no pain and so did not limit him to human normals when it came to lifting ability. He merely had to grip, push, and smoothly stand in order to get the pane up and out of their way. This would be, no doubt, another thing she would wonder about. Simon amused himself with trying to figure out how she was going to reconcile her idea that he was old with him displaying superhuman capabilities. 

The amusement carried through to his mood as he looked into the factory below. It was a long drop...there were support beams crossing the ceiling, but even getting to those was a good ten feet down.

"Long way down...tie a rope off and follow," he instructed, sounding too chipper. Simon didn't need a rope in order to feel safe enough to just roll forward and down into the abyss. His cloak fluttered around him like a bat's wings, and he casually reached out and grabbed a bracer beam and swung onto it. He perched on it and motioned for Cas to follow.

A muted protest died in Simon's mouth, unuttered when the 'cutest lich of all time' began redoubling her power. Instead of grousing, mouthing off, or even fleeing for his life, he sat transfixed, captured by an unholy fear and fascination for whatever was about to happen...

Before he could process what Akayuki was saying, it was happening!

The bright, brilliant, unholy surge of energy through him gnawed through the numbness that he had almost gotten used to, worming its way into his flesh. Beautiful, brilliant pain exploded from every wound that had ever magically healed.

Simon lost himself in the roiling whitewater rapids of agony; there was a kind of bliss as he recognized the peppering of arrowheads in his back, or the hangman's noose that had broken his neck, or when a crow had pecked his eye out, or the broken ribs from a beating, or the myriad of other small damages he had sustained in the last year and a half. Most terrible were the purposeful, grand agonies that Monmouth had inflicted on him. His mind flickered in and out of being as he struggled through the repeated assaults on his brain that his former master had inflicted on him.

Through the journey of torturous sensation, he dimly heard himself screaming...or was he laughing? Crying? Angry? Terrified? ...in pain? The sensations that were overwhelming him roared through his flesh and made him feel gloriously alive again, even through the fires and freezing, the stabbing of the pine needles on his face as he writhed on the forest floor, the raw feeling of the air on his face like sandpaper...he could FEEL!

His lungs caved in from lack of air and he could feel it...it wasn't like when he'd been alive...oh no, he was still dead, but now he could FEEL things again! The weave of his shirt, the rock he didn't know was in his boot, the sensation of BEING! And she did this!

Akayuki had blessed him with sensation once more, when he'd been told before it was beyond the power of a necromancer to undo the works of another...she'd remade him, and made him better...

She was batshit crazy, but she had remade him. What else could she do? Simon found himself wanting to see, wanting to follow, wanting to find out. As the storm raged through him, he found himself realigning his mind and mastering the overwhelming and familiar rush of feeling. It was like picking a familiar lock...it took him seconds to recognize the mechanism of feeling again, and he had mastered himself moments after the initial surge of power ebbed. To his surprise, he was wheezing with maniacal half-screaming laughter. The insanity of the sound seemed right, and he trailed off before pushing himself up to a kneeling position before the lich. Wide eyes, manic, remade, and...ready to serve.

"My lady," He started, voice hoarse and full of wonder. He bowed low to the ground before the child-lich. "I was a stupid zombie before, but I see your power and understand now. How may I best serve you?"

A small part of him was incredulous that he should serve a child. A petulant, maniac of a child who was as insane as the day was bright, but...it'd be foolish to not side with such power when all of the world would see you destroyed, now wouldn't it? She, at least, could remake any destruction the world could inflict on him...

The ghoul smirked and shrugged self-consciously. He stood and slid within arms reach of Silas and sat on the stable floor.

"Most of my stuff is for pickpocketing, but," he reached over and pulled an Ace of Hearts from behind Silas's ear, showed it to him, slipped it into the deck and shuffled. Simon spread the deck out and made a show of looking for the card, getting frustrated when he couldn't find it.

"I could do this a lot easier if you weren't sitting on the card I was looking for," he admonished in a playfully scolding tone. The ghoul held his hand out expectantly.

Kaede listened to his questions and pointed without looking over Karl's shoulder to the sea of trees outside of town.

"About a day's walk that way my tree stands. I was blessed by the love of my people to be able to take form; they have sacrificed in my grove for three generations, now. I grew strong on their first fruits, the blood of their hunts, and the breath of their prayers. When I wanted to see more of the world they lived in, they were gracious enough to grant me their blessing. And this shrine...it venerates my siblings of the forest, and so it feels like home for me. What if you? What brings you here?"

She cocked her head at him in curiosity, though the motion seemed more like an animal's motion than a human's.

Simon carefully brushed the flammable residue off his hands. Fires were his bane because he couldn't heal them by himself. He watched Sophie in her exuberance and followed her gaze to the item in the oily remains.

"Lessee...no out of place tiles on the floor or walls, no holes in the wall or ceiling, no mechanism hiding above it...should be okay, but go slow and be ready to react if something doesn't seem right," he coached. Maybe if he taught her to spot traps, they could work together and clear the place even faster.

It took all of his considerable strength to not roll his eyes at the threat. This was her doll, her friend.

"I swear my best work to her. She is special and deserves care," he promised, checking his work carefully. The stitches were small, the fabric was pulling together neatly, and she was beginning to look like a doll again.

He carefully tucked her stuffing in and finished the invisible seam. The button eye received his care next. He rethreaded with black thread so that the eyes would match, then carefully repaired the dangling eye.

"And there she is. What do you think?" he asked, offering the doll back to Akayuki.