Golden Lore: Chapter 1

[Easy]

The Farros Estate, East Poria

After a moment of silence, in which nobody reached out to take any of the tickets, Fortune cleared his throat meaningfully. "I fink," he said carefully, working around to the source of the bosses' hesitation, "Thhat 'f anyone wantss to keep th'r handss clean on thiss, besst walk out now. An' sstay or go, we'll haff a forty-eight hour truce between ev'ryone here. Agreed?" The armored transport was as good as his now; if Vikona agreed to work with him on this, it would be so much the cleaner and safer. Major pieces would have to be moved around, otherwise...

Too late, of course, he realized this was the wrong train of thought to be undergoing at the moment, with the elf right there in the room. "General Bo Ssky," he turned to address the other of his personal issues in the room. "You c'n conssider us settled, either way." As long as they stayed clear of his operations, he'd focus on other things than dealing with theirs... for the time being, anyway.

TAG: @Requiem @Tirin

 

[Tirin]

The Farros Estate

Fortune's irritable thoughts put the hitman beside him in a similar mood. Fortune was certainly the better manager - but he was nowhere close to being a better killer, nor even at keeping himself out of the spotlight. As for revenge... well, that was in no small part what Kanin had hoped to gain through this dangerous endeavor. Kanin sat for a short time without a word, trying to relax himself with a few sips of scotch while carefully considering the details put forth and how he could fit himself into them. Though he was cognizant of a few things he should pay attention to, his mind didn't leave the goblin's until the ultimatum was over - and he found himself rather more amused by the realization of just how difficult it was to keep one's thoughts in line.

His intense eyes hovered over the tickets on the table. The truth was, he wanted to go for the information-gathering: his manslaughter case was far enough out of the public eye that few people there would recognize him, he could relay information more readily than anyone at the table, and he had a supply of knives and other tools that would lend themselves well to entering armed without being detected. He was the best candidate for that job, or so he appraised himself, and could leave partway through to assist in hijacking a shipment as well. Kanin's voice entered Fortune's head. I get that you'd prefer I help with the transport - and I can nearer the end. But I can do us all a lot more good with one of those tickets instead of staying outside the entire time. Get an idea of which artifacts are going in which shipments, which are held in the vault, and which are staying - as well as the depths of their security. It'll help with priotizing and anything else that comes up. By the way, that girl - Sage's 'assistant' - I'll see what she knows. Clearly she's hiding something valuable.

Kanin allowed the goblin to mentally respond before saying his own piece. "Fortune's right; anyone who doesn't wanna be here had better leave. Plenty of risk involved with being a witness to conspiracies like this, y'know - 'specially since I intend to get a very good appraisal of your thoughts before I depart." It wasn't a threat, precisely, but more of a promise as to what might happen to somebody deciding to betray those assembled. Any mobster with a good head on their shoulders knew the dangers of getting on Kanin's bad side: one would have to leave Poria entirely. Otherwise, if a single soul in the city knew how to find you then that head was neither good, nor liable to stay attached for very long.

With that said (and when nobody stood immediately), he began to monitor the thoughts of the blond woman - prodded them in the right direction, in fact, with a gentle query. Pardon the intrusion, young lady, but it seems that you had something to say to us before you were so rudely interrupted. Regarding ancient... something or others. I would be awfully grateful if you let me know, so we have the best chance of pulling off a job like this. Even as he did so, Kanin kept his eyes locked on Sage's - and reached forward to snag one of the tickets for himself, smiling around the room. "I think I'll take one. I'm one of our best choices for any information-gathering, as well as disappearing in a pinch if anyone else needs bailing out. Any objections?"

TAG: @Requiem @Easy

 

[Easy]

The Farros Estate

Do NOT.

The thought was forceful enough to stop Kanin cold, for a moment. One hardly even had to be a telepath to pick up on it. A closer look at the goblin's mind showed a commotion of white-cold rage and angry, flashing red warning signs.

That very instant, it was clear that if he were not restraining his own movements very carefully, so as not to give the others any indication that something was going wrong, his motions would have quite automatically gone hand-to-pocket, followed by finger-to-trigger, and then arm-out and squeeze. With Kanin off-balance, his arms stretched over a table as he was in that moment, even he wouldn't be able to react in time. Fortune generally kept the safety off, as a rule.

What do you think you're doing, Vikona?

There was no greater liability than a carefree merc. If not for his (admittedly exemplary) previous performances, Kanin would be dead already. Slide it over here quickly, and we can discuss the terms of any future employment.

The damned elf! He was supposed to be a show of force at the meeting, not signal to all the other cartels in Poria that Fortune Poi couldn't even get reliable bodyguards anymore!

TAG: @Requiem @Tirin

 

[Tirin]

The Farros Estate

Kanin halted with his finger over a ticket at the intensity of Fortune's thoughts, but began moving again smoothly enough that nobody at the table was likely to be any the wiser that he had stopped at all. Not one, but two were flicked back to rest on the edge of the table in front of Fortune, giving the goblin the opportunity to review them both - as well as making it appear as though it was something he had been considering at least one but possibly the two of them making that attendance. He seated himself immediately after, setting a hand on his lap (and under the table) and clenching it into a fist, downing the rest of his scotch quite quickly with the free one.

The air of relative friendliness that Kanin had been happy to bask in - given how uncommon it was in his life - was replaced by utter silence and a grim demeanor. Of course, he spoke to Fortune mentally, an icy edge to his "voice". He was entirely on edge, now, and that meant that most of what was standing between the goblin and taking the scotch glass (followed shortly by a bullet) to the face was professionalism. The remainder was Fortune's good sense. I think that I'm doing a fine job as your bodyguard, and your assessment fails to take into account the information I have that you don't. If anyone here intended to kill you, they wouldn't have got past intending - and everyone else would know damn well why. 'side from Sage, every boss at this table's hired me. They know what I'm about. He reached into his pocket with the once-balled hand, deftly retrieved a pill from a small bottle, and popped it in his mouth. It was more for precaution than out of genuine stress, but now was the last time he wanted to be seeing or hearing things that weren't there.

He relaxed slightly, then, in mental tone if not physically, and continued - though on a much more diplomatic path. If you just want some real good muscle to sit around and avoid talkin', prepare to kill people, and kill people - fine. I can do whatever the hell you want in that vein in the future, for my usual fee. But I can tell that this job, right here, is open invitation for those at th'table: that woman would've come to me if I wasn't here in the first place. And as much as you might associate me with that murdering, I've come to get pretty damn good at other things in the last few decades. Since shootin' up the place isn't really a part of the plan, why not let me show you what else I can do? Give y'my personal guarantee that it'll fare better for this little heist, and you by proxy.

TAG: @Requiem @Easy

 

[Easy]

The Farros Estate

Near-instantaneous conversation was one of the better perks of hiring telepathic personnel. Understood, went the train of thought, as Fortune's rage subsided into grudging acceptance while he momentarily examined the tickets. But I can't have my employees be seen to negotiate their own deals while they're on the job. Man in my position, it's liable to put him on edge. And makes the competition look at him a little more carefully, greedy-like.

Contractually-flexible gunmen were a leading cause of death among up-and-coming Poria gang leaders. The last such weak point in Fortune's operation had been the drow, Soap. And the mess that little weasel had made was what Vikona had to be brought in to fix, in the first place...

Fortune slid one of the tickets to Kanin, and cleared his throat. "I'm not ffond 'f public appearansces" he told the room, aloud. "Sso I ain't got ticketss 'f my own, already. I could use thiss one f'r th' alibi-" he waved the second ticket in his hand - "if none 'f you two have y'r own already." Odds were that Graggor did, as his group was practically high society at this point, but there was no telling with the Duende. As for Farros, no doubt he already had his own affairs straightened out. He was the only one of them with advance knowledge of the subject matter, after all. "But my boyss will handle th' garage.

"Iff y'wanna work tandem on th' vault, I got a guy that maybe could help. Infiltrator. But he ain't much usse f'r anything but gettin' hisself inside. We ssplit the total haul tthree ways when we're done, truck included. Pay workerss from yer own sshare. Yess?"

TAG: @Tirin @Requiem