Completed A Foot in the Door (Iskessah Kosun)

[Inoadar]

Inoadar looked over at the other man when he suddenly sputtered and choked. 'So, she keeps her past secret from him as well.' he thought. Another oddity stuck out as he slowly brought his gaze back to Iskessah. He thought back to Joshry's invitation, the mention that it was her birthday. Yet there was no evidence of her partaking of her own cake. Inoadar had absently noticed that some was missing when he came in, but there were no crumbs on a plate anywhere except the one in her friend's hand.

He recalled Kyro mentioning that he only had a taste for meat, though he'd found that he liked alcohol. If this woman was a Dhani, he was in a very volatile situation. He had his usual complement of poisons with him, but didn't know if Dhani were immune to them. But it was possible that if they were immune, it may only be to some types, perhaps only 'Serpente' types.

"So you're telling me that Master Mattieu only worked with one source of toxins? That he was largely a sham, then? I find it hard to believe that he would be able to fool the masters at the IHL with only a single species mastered. And what ssspecies was that, I wonder?" his look was direct. He knew he was taking a risk here. But it seemed clear that the other man here didn't know, and that, for whatever reason, this "Iskessah" did not want him to know.

He also knew, again from his experiences with Kyro, that it would take her a good half chime to change over to that monstrous form he'd seen Kyro transform to. By then, he'd be two blocks away and she'd be way too smart to come after him in broad daylight. But it didn't need to come to that.

He lowered his voice. "I am not your enemy. I want to be partners, if nothing else. And not the kind you kill when you judge me 'unfit." he waited a moment to see if she would show any reaction to this comment. "I have a lot of friends in this town and I believe I can help you in one way or another. Call it a trade. I certainly don't want you thinking that you can't let me leave here alive. What would your friend there say?"

[Iskessah]

A sinking feeling formed in the pit of Iskessah's stomach. There was no mistaking it now; he definitely at least suspected. She could almost fool herself into believing he was just mocking her speech style, but that was bordering on stupidly naive. Her secret had been slipping out here and there for years; she was a fool to believe it could go on forever. Then, the man lowered his voice and changed tactics. Rather than trying to force an inconsistency into her story (as if the details of Mattieu's career were of any interest to her whatsoever), he took a friendlier stance. (Not quite as friendly as Joshry's had been when they first met, but the boy was terrifyingly naive.) Nolan seemed to think they could benefit each other, and he was sufficiently intimidated by Iskessah that he assumed she might consider dumping his corpse in the lake to be a valid option. Still, his "having a lot of friends" could go both ways. If he ever found a reason to turn on her, she'd be in trouble. She frowned, considering. She had been largely without ally for most of her time in Ravok, which was...wearying. She'd known upon returning to Ravok that she could no longer live in paranoia. Still, she was not such a fool as to completely trust someone she'd just met. "Return tomorrow," she suggested. That would give her time to explain things to Joshry and decide just how much she wanted to give away. It wasn't just that she didn't want him knowing her secret; it was almost certainly too late for that. But much of what Mattieu's journal said about her was a reminder of a time she would rather not think about, and if she were forced to, it might inspire a murderous rage. It would probably be best that no one who wanted to stay alive was around her when she looked through Mattieu's scribblings. "I will... consssider your offer."

[Inoadar]

Inoadar was not sure if her proposal indicated success or not. It did not now look as if she was planning to attack him. Not here in the unit anyway. But he would certainly be on guard for her possible attempt to skip town. There was more than a mere seed of doubt that he was the first person to ever see her for what she was. 'Were all the others dead? Did they all "come back tomorrow" to find themselves ambushed? Or did they come back to find her gone?' He would be keeping a close eye on this unit.

He knew he'd taken too long to respond to stage a convincing show of total satisfaction. She was not stupid, and he was pretty sure she did not think him stupid either. She surely would not hold his caution against him while practicing her own. He stood up slowly, his eyes switching from her to Joshry and back.

"Oh-kay, I guess there's nothing else to be accomplished by staying any longer. I will give you time to consider." He turned to the man sitting with a piece of cake. "I'm sorry, again, for intruding on your celebration. I had no idea this was a special occasion. The last thing I wanted was to make a nuisance of myself. I will return tomorrow at about this same time then."

He gave a bowing nod. "Until then. Happy Birthday and enjoy your cake." he said this last more to the man than her. He opened the door and stepped out. He moved away as silently as he could, listening back for any creaks that might indicate someone inside listening out. He was not going to try to spy them out up close. They were far too much on guard for that. But he found himself a shadowy spot a couple blocks away and spent a few bells watching any comings and goings before finally going to the IHL to see if there was any literature on Dhanis.

[Iskessah]

OOCAnd here's my mini-solo within the thread! Which might be why it's so long

As soon as Iskessah closed and locked the door behind Nolan, Joshry immediately tried to ask questions, but Iskessah quickly hushed him. "He might still be listening," she murmured, jerking her head toward the close door. She moved to cover the window as well, the stripped and began shifting into her Dhani form, to better sense intruders just outside the room. Joshry turned away as he always did when she unclothed her human form, but she could tell he was still agitated. Thirty ticks later, Iskessah had confirmed that there was no-one in earshot, though she could still taste the remnants of Nolan Parnell in the air. "Perhapsss you think I ought to tell you more about the lasssst time I ssssaw Angela," she said, trying to figure out why Joshry's expression made her feel so unpleasant. Angela has been Mattieu's apprentice, who'd smothered him in his sleep when he was too old and feeble to fight back. She was also Jshry's mother, who'd disappeared from Ravok ever since. "You were lying, right?" he said, almost desperately. "My mother's not a killer. She wouldn't have done that. You were just lying to get rid of that man. Weren't you?" Iskessah's heart felt strange, almost...soft. She did not like it, and that caused her to snap, "Why do you think ssshe had to abandon you? It would have been ssstupid for her to risk the Ebonsssstryfe hunting her down." The hurt and confusion on Joshry's face struck a chord of pity within the Dhani. She clenched her jaw tightly against any more careless words. Anyone else, she would have enjoyed their suffering, but for some reason, almost against her will, she liked the boy. With a sigh that came out like a hiss, she ,lowered her tone and spoke more gently. "Sshe had to kill him. He sssaw you as a threat to the work they were doing, and he would have done sssomething to hurt you if sshe hadn't ssstopped him. Sshe killed him to protect you." In a small voice, sounding very much like a lost little boy, he said, "But why hasn't she come back?" Iskessah sighed again. "I don't know," she admitted. With anyone else she would never admit that. Joshry was the one person she didn't have to play the information game with. "Maybe sssomething happened to her." His expression turned horrified, grisly scenarios flashing through his mind. Iskessah hastened to add, "Maybe sshe can't come back until you crack the letter. Wherever sshe went, if her intention was to lay low, sshe might not have any way of getting new information from Ravok." Joshry latched onto that possibility like a drowning man clinging to a Ravosala. "So we just need to solve her code and we can find her!: he said enthusiastically. "One thing at a time," Iskessah said grimly, moving to the cupboard. "That man won't leave ussss alone until I give him sssomething he wantsss." She pulled out a thick, worn journal and brought it to the table. Joshry, his mood improved, had taken another bite of cake, but when he saw the book he asked, his mouth full, "What's that?" He swallowed and said, "Wait, is that the journal he was looking for? I thought you said you burned it!" Iskessah would have smiled if she'd still had a human mouth. "I nearly did. The man hid it under the logsss," she said, gesturing to the fireplace. "I wouldn't have bothered to look, if Angella hadn't asssked me to find the journal and keep it sssafe." Joshry dropped the spoon he'd been using to eat the cake and grabbed Iskessah's massive Dhani shoulders. "That's it! That's what she meant!" Iskessah stared in bafflement as Joshry dug out the crumpled letter Angela had left him all those years ago. He pointed wildly at the only sentence written in plain Common. "'The sun holds the key'! That must be what she meant! Somehow the old man's journal is going to tell us where she went!" Iskessah found it hard to imitate Joshry's enthusiasm, since she doubted it was that simple, but it made sense. Angela had hated Mattieu at the end, and Iskessah could not imagine her wanting to keep the diary for its knowledge. But using it in one of her convoluted coded messages was just something the woman would do. The Dhani remembered how frantically Angela has searched for the journal, that night. If it was the only way her son would have of finding her, no wonder Angela had wanted to make sure it would stay safe. But as they flipped through the pages, nothing obvious about Angela's whereabouts stood out at them. There was no loose sheet of paper in her hand explaining everything, in fact, nothing in her handwriting at all as far as Joshry and Iskessah could tell. The first pages were all observations about Iskessah. She wanted to rip them out, shred and burn them, but Joshry reminded her (somewhat desperately) that any of the pages might have some clue they were missing. Reluctantly, she went back to pouring over the volume, trying to keep her thoughts clinical and free of revenge. ~*~ The pair spent the rest of the day and well into the evening researching the journal. Iskessah discovered that she'd been mistaken in what she'd told Nolan; there was information about other local snake toxins, but it mostly referred to Mattieu's competitors, and making antidotes. He spoke scathingly, declaring their work amateur and mocking them for being so lacking in imagination as to use such predictable materials. As the journal went on, there was surprisingly less and less about his "secret weapon" and more about various other poison families he'd dabbled in. Iskessah skeptically examined entries that seemed to refer to taking bodily fluids from the walking dead. Had the man turned senile in his old age? Was it some sort of code? Sooner than either of them realized, Joshry began to yawn. He pretested when Iskessah sent him home, but she told him, "We won't learn anything from the book without breaking Angela'sss code. There'ssss nothing more you can do here tonight. Get ssssome ressst." She briefly considered giving him the journal, sot here was no chance of Nolan finding it when he returned the next day. (He had believed her lie so readily; it seemed a waste to tell him the truth now.) But then a vivid image of Nolan finding Joshry alone and weaseling the book out of him flashed into her brain, and she dismissed the plan. Joshry was more sweet than clever. In the end, she opted to hide the book in the chamberpot, which she slid back into its usual place under the bed. She rarely used the thing, her metabolism being slower than most Ravokians, and it was something that most people would not readily search. It was not a perfect hiding place, but then again, if Nolan somehow got free reign to search her rooms, she had already failed beyond tolerance. Satisfied that she could do no more, she collapsed onto the bed, not bothering to change forms. She dreamed of what information she could give Parnell without showing him the book or revealing too much. IN a way, it was convenient he'd already figured out she was a Dhani...

[Inoadar]

This time, Inoadar was going fully decked out. He did not trust this woman, "Iskessah". He strongly suspected she was a Dhani. Her last comment, to consider his offer, had not even featured a poor attempt to hide her sibilant accent. This, over and above the other noticeable oddities about her behavior, left no real doubt in his mind that he was going back to the home of a powerful and aggressive shape-shifting predator, that may just feel that he had become a threat to her privacy.

He put on his mail shirt and his Nettle Cloak, slid his loop bracer with his poison darts up his wrist. He still had the "Pillowsap" already loaded in his blowgun. He bemoaned the fact that he had not had time to get the broken spring blade replaced in the toe of his right boot, so he had only his left. He pocketed his knuckleduster and decided to wear his sheathed dagger in plain sight. Perhaps if she planned to attack, she may think this his only weapon. Nothing else was obvious to an untrained eye. Of course, he was well aware how little he knew of what training she may have.

As a last resort, he stopped at a street kiosk in The peoples Market and bought two strongly scented candles. He was wearing enough extra metal with his mail and his blades, as well as the odor some poisons carried, that he felt it a good precaution to rob her of the advantages of her sense of smell. If she asked, which was doubtful, he would say that they were a gift for someone he was seeing later.

He made an effort to time his preparations and travel time to bring him to her door at Tenth Bell, and was off by only an additional ten chimes. He had no doubt that she knew he was on the doorstep, so he made no attempt to press and listen. He approached the door, meaning to simply knock and wait.

[Iskessah]

The knock awoke Iskessah, and for a moment, she panicked forgetting that she was expecting company. Fortunately she recalled the events of the previous day before she'd done more than fall off the bed. She was still in Dhani form. She debated shifting back to human, but decided it would take too long. Besides, he already at least suspected her identity, and she was strongest in this form. Let the man know just exactly what it meant to mess with a child of Siku. Using all the speed of her snake-like reflexes, she opened the door, grabbed the man outside, and yanked him in, tossing him toward the floor. Closing the door behind her, she raised her tail with a hiss and slammed it down at him. This entire confrontation would go much more smoothly if he were disabled.

OOCCombat post is short. I guess that's why you usually go for intelligence posts

[Inoadar]

Had he not seen one of the snake-shifters in Dhani form before, Inoadar might have bellowed in horror. As it was, the sudden grip on his cloak and the inhuman strength lifting him from his feet partially drove the breath from him as the fabric closed suddenly around the middle of his torso.

Whether it was by design, he did not know, but the arc of the throw caused him to tilt in the air so hit hit the floor on his side, his arms tucked to cushion as best he could. The one Dhani he'd met before did not have the cudgel-like bulb on the end of his tail, and something about the way this monster positioned herself looked to prepare for this very tactic. So rather than stop his momentum to get to his feet immediately, he added impetus to his roll and barely avoided the slamming impact of the tail on the floor where he'd landed. He cursed inwardly. His mail shirt would be little or no protection from such a bludgeoning type of attack. What's worse, he'd lost track of his cane/blowgun/stiletto.

Many things ran through his mind as he came up hard against the wall and started to tuck and brace against it to get to his feet. The first was that this creature was unbelievably fast. It looked as though he would not even get his feet beneath him before he'd have to dodge another blow, let alone get completely to a stance. The second was that there was nowhere to go. No rooms, no windows, and no doors that would not require him to go through Iskessah first. The third was that the scaly skin would probably defeat the use of a garrotte in close. The throat cutting wire would probably just break. The fourth was that this same scaly protection would probably defeat the spikes in his Nettle Cloak to a large degree. The fifth was that this bulbous tail was probably not live flesh and would not be subject to poisoning. Add these all up and it amounted to one thing: He was Petched!

As he dove and rolled to avoid the blow he was sure was coming, he found that she had anticipated this move and spun to bring her tail to stop his roll with a painful thump to his side. It hadn't hit directly, but it still hurt. 'Add quick reflexes to her other advantages.' he though in a grim flash. He did the one and only desperate thing he could, the one thing she might not expect. He locked his left arm around her tail and fished for his knuckleduster with his right. Perhaps his added body weight would prevent efficient use of her natural mace. And she brought him in close, he just might surprise her with a brass coated set of knuckles to her jaw.

[Inoadar]

The force of her swinging tail nearly dislodged him and he had to abandon any hope of getting hold of his knuckleduster, at least for the next instant. He needed both arms to hold on. However, the sudden additional weight did throw off the balance of her swing and she lurched sideways. This greatly reduced the ensuing impact he suffered from hitting the wall. She had not known he was going to hang on, so her inertia and trajectory had not been delivered with impacting intent.

Nonetheless, Inoadar slid to the floor in a dizzy slump. Instinct revived him in time to grab an end table and see IT reduced to splinters rather than his head. Desperation gave him the adrenaline to jump to his feet with the remains of the table legs in his hands. He'd seen the folly of trying to stay out of reach. All that did was keep him in range of the swinging tail, her apparent weapon-of-choice. So he charged in, screaming maniacally.

There was just the briefest hesitation in her fanged lunge. Inoadar had seen the rebalance of her aggression, and realized with sickened resignation that he was charging into a venomous bite, but this blink-of-a-pause allowed him to get the table leg stubs up and he jammed them in her mouth as the fangs tore through the cloth of his jacket but came up short against the mail beneath, largely the result of the table legs interference.

He wrenched the table legs in opposite directions, hoping to pry her mouth far enough open to jam one of the wooden dowels down her throat and choke her. Rather than resist his efforts, she simply slammed both fists into opposite sides of his torso. It felt as though his vital organs must fly out through his mouth from the force of impact as he withered in choking pain and slid down the length of her torso in a heap.

It was over. He was now going to die. He felt strangely satisfied with his efforts to defend himself as the beast lifted him up to dash him against the floor...

There was a pause...

Were those voices...?

He thought he heard noises from without the room, but it may have been his head throbbing in pain, or his heart pounding with fatigue. Suddenly he was flying...dropping...landing in alleyway debris. Amazingly enough, his cane came whistling after, as did a voice hissing "Don't come back."

He suddenly realized the commotion must have drawn the neighbors. He didn't have the strength to get up, and his own code of honor-among-thieves rejected the notion of having any part in exposing her or turning her in. Perhaps she would appreciate that later. He rolled himself up in some old bags and lay still. A few chimes later he heard someone say "No...I guess not...I don't see anything." There was a pause and then the voices continued in a muffled tone that indicated that the speaker was away from the window now.

Inoadar slid some trash aside and looked around. He didn't see anyone. he DID see his cane however and was not about to leave it where some bum could grab it. He wasn't sure he could fight anyone for it, the way he felt right now. In fact, he decided he might need it to make it back his room at Tarsin's.

[Verin Rush]

Inoadar

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Investigation	+1
Negotiation	+2
Observation	+3
Rhetoric	+2
Unarmed Combat	+2

Lores

*Getting My Ass Kicked
*Iskessah: Dhani
*The Appearance of the Dhani Form

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*Bruised ribs - healed within 20 days.

Loot/Expenses

*None

Iskessah

Knowledge :

Skills

Skill	XP
Observation	+2
Poison	+1
Rhetoric	+1
Storytelling	+1
Unarmed Combat	+1

Lores

*Birthdays: Worth Celebrating
*Nolan Parnell: Knows What I Am
*Nolan Parnell: Poisoner

Micellaneous :

Injuries

*None

Loot/Expenses

*None

____________________________________________

Notes

*Nicely done, guys - would be nice to see where this goes, if you have any more threads planned!
*Point for Poison for reading the journal, Iskessah

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Thank ye!