@Anon101 (Freyic)
@RedAuron (Marcus)
@duskshine749 (Elora)
@DoubleChecker (Hwicce)
The Backroom
The room held still for half a breath after
Freyic’s realization, as though every man inside it had been forced to stop and decide whether he had just said something insightful or incredibly dangerous.
One of the goons by the curtain suddenly found a vase at the corner very interesting. Another slowly turned his head toward Dom. The don himself just stared through the cigar smoke, heavy-lidded and motionless, fingers drumming once against the edge of the plate before he let out a short, irritated grunt through his nose.
Don Domenico Calabrese
“You got a real gift for timing, kid,” Domenico muttered.
“Maybe later I hire you to explain the obvious to thunderstorms.”The moment passed only because
Hwicce, with all the careless confidence of a man who either knew exactly what he was doing or had long since accepted the consequences of not knowing, produced a concealed dagger after having just been frisked and began spearing slices of gabagool off Dom’s mountain of a platter. The nearest goon stiffened at once, one hand twitching toward his coat.
Dom, however, pointed with the cigar instead, not at the knife, but at Hwicce himself.
“See? This one gets it.” His jowls shifted in something close to approval.
“A man walks in armed, pays respect, and recognizes quality cured meat when he sees it. That’s culture.”Behind him, one of the lieutenants looked personally offended on behalf of the frisking process.
Elora’s refusal might have drawn offense from a lesser man, but once the flash of fang caught the light, Domenico only narrowed his eyes, squinted once, and gave a dismissive flap of his hand.
“Diet’s a diet. Long as you ain’t insulting the plate.”Then the questions began in earnest. Description. Suspects. The stables. Whether his own people could be spoken to. Whether he had enemies bold enough to do this. That last one drew a humorless bark from Big Dom, as though Hwicce had asked whether water was wet.
“Enemies?” He leaned back in the booth and spread his hands. Rings flashed gold through the sepia haze.
“In this city? I got rivals, grudge-holders, bookmakers, jealous patrons, sponsors with too much perfume and not enough spine, and at least three bastards who smile to my face while praying for my public humiliation. So yes. I got enemies.”His expression turned ugly again.
“But this?” He jabbed the cigar toward the table hard enough to scatter ash beside the platter.
“This took nerve. Access. Timing. Somebody who knew where to hit and when to do it.”Marcus’s request for a detailed description earned less anger than the request for a picture. At that, Dom’s eyes flicked for the briefest instant toward the turned winner’s photograph on the wall. Just long enough to be noticed. Then his face closed again.
“You don’t need a picture,” he said flatly.
“You need a crime scene.”His gaze shifted between the four of them, measuring.
Freyic, whose mouth had gotten there before his caution.
Marcus, who looked like he was already trying to solve this like one of his little mystery serials.
Hwicce, who had somehow turned gabagool theft into diplomacy.
Elora, composed and careful, asking the right kind of question instead of a dangerous one.
“The stable comes first. You see the stall, you smell the place, you talk to the handlers. You ask my men what they saw, what they missed, and why I shouldn’t replace all of them with bricks.”At that, one of the suited men by the wall quietly swallowed.
Hwicce’s question about speaking to Dom’s men earned a short nod.
“Ask whoever you want. Long as you understand this. If I find out one of mine sold me out, I’ll deal with that myself.”The don reached down, pinched a slice of gabagool between two thick fingers, then pointed it accusingly at the room before stuffing it into his mouth. He chewed, seethed, swallowed, and stabbed the air with the cigar again.
“Piero.”One of the lieutenants pushed off the wall at once. He was wiry where Dom was heavy, sleek where Dom was broad, with slicked hair and a tie just a little too bright to be tasteful.
“Boss.”“You take them. Stable first. Then the route from there to the service gate. Then you let them talk to whoever was on duty that night.” Dom’s face darkened.
“And if I hear anybody gave them the runaround, I start rearranging teeth.”Piero placed one hand over his chest in mock dignity.
“Dom, I am wounded you think I would allow such a thing.”“I think you’d narrate around it,” Dom shot back.
“Move.”Chairs scraped. The room shifted. The meeting, for all its smoke and theater, had become a job.
As Piero pulled the curtain aside and motioned for the adventurers to follow, the sounds of the restaurant returned in muffled layers. Clinking glasses, kitchen noise, a burst of laughter from the front rooms where respectable people pretended none of this sort of thing happened in the city. Behind them, Big Dom called out one last time, voice rolling after the group like thunder through velvet.
“Bring me something useful. A name, a witness, a scrap of truth. I don’t care which comes first.”Then, after the briefest pause:
“And if any of you come back having changed your mind about the gabagool, there’ll still be some waiting. Assuming Hwicce here leaves any for the rest of civilization.”Piero gave them a sharp little smile in the corridor beyond.
“Careful,” he murmured as he began leading them through the amber-lit back halls of La Stella Rossa.
“That joke means he likes you. Usually the people he hates get quieter exits.”
The Stables
Piero did not stop talking until the restaurant was behind them.
He guided the group out through a side corridor, past steaming kitchen doors and a cook who looked at armed adventurers the way other men looked at weather, then out into the racing district proper where the city opened up in ribbons of light, polished stone, and restless noise. Even at this hour, the avenues near the track were alive. Newsboys shouted about tomorrow’s odds. Carriages rattled past beneath bright banners bearing painted emblems and racing colors. Somewhere in the distance, from beyond the grandstand and its looming lattice of lamps, came the shrill cheer of a crowd watching some smaller late-night heat or exhibition. This part of the city did not sleep so much as pace in circles.
“Try not to look too impressed,” Piero said as he led them off the main boulevard and through a narrower lane lined with stable walls and carriage sheds.
“The district can smell tourists. And fear. Sometimes in that order.”The Calabrese stable sat behind black iron fencing and a gate that had not been broken so much as professionally defeated. The chain still hung there, cut clean through, its severed loop dull in the lanternlight. Inside, the stableyard was neat in the way only recently disturbed places ever were. Not untouched. Just put back together too carefully.
A broad groom in a rolled-up shirt and leather apron stood near the main doors with his arms folded so tightly they looked nailed there. He had the sturdy neck and red face of a man who had spent the last two days being blamed for things. Beside the water trough, a younger hand with straw in his hair kept glancing between the party and the yard as though hoping to be overlooked by everybody involved. Near the side gate sat an older night watchman on an upturned crate, cap in his lap, one cheek still purpled from either a punch or the shame of surviving one.
Piero spread one hand.
“Here we are. Dom’s pride and current ulcer.”Inside, the stable was all polished timber, brass fittings, expensive tack, and the thick mixed scents of hay, leather, oil, and animal warmth. Most of the stalls were occupied, and their residents shifted restlessly at the arrival of strangers, snorting and stamping in soft complaint. One stall at the far end, however, stood empty.
It was larger than the others.
Its brass nameplate had been removed, but not very well. A brighter rectangle remained where it had once sat, and one screw still jutted stubbornly from the wood. The latch had been forced from the inside or the outside, it was hard to tell at a glance, and fresh splintering marked the frame low enough to notice only once someone got close. On the straw near the rear wall lay a narrow strip of blue silk half-buried under trampled bedding. Nearby, beneath a shelf, something silver caught the light, small enough to miss if one were not looking for it.
Across from the empty stall, a grooming station had been left in a hurry. Brushes, oils, a bucket still half full, and a folded towel sat on the bench. One item looked particularly out of place among the stable tools: a hand mirror with a cracked ivory backing, tucked behind a jar of hoof ointment as though somebody had tried, belatedly, to make it less noticeable.
Off to one side, the tack room door remained open. Ledgers lay stacked on a side desk beside feed invoices, race notices, and a clipboard of staff rotations. One page had been torn out recently enough that a corner still clung to the binding.
Piero clasped his hands behind his back and rocked once on his heels, looking entirely too pleased to be near other people’s disaster.
“You wanted the scene. This is the scene. That angry ox by the door is Bassi, head groom. The boy trying to become wallpaper is Nino, stall hand. The old man by the gate is Toma, who was on watch when things went bad and has been reliving it ever since.” He tilted his head toward the empty stall.
“And that was hers.”He let the silence sit for a beat, then smiled thinly.
“Ask. Look. Poke at things. Just maybe do not stand directly behind the other horses unless you are deeply committed to learning humility.”Summarization: The party is now at the stables, they have a few options of who to talk with or what to interact. Feel free to explore.
Tellussoil
AwesomeZero5
supamusu
Fetzen
Red Hood
Not a Sayan
SkyeOfStars
DancesWMonsters
