New Avalon

[accalia]

Sam nods at the suggestion "I rent some rooms not to far from here, they'll be as private as we're likely to get in this quarter."

[yamikuronue]

T nods. "Lead the way."

[accalia]

Sam nods and leads the way towards his rooms, they're not very nice, and he doesn't keep them as clean as he should, and he's about three months late with the rent.... but they are his, at least for now.

[yamikuronue]

Erika sits gingerly on the edge of her seat, but T looks right at home as she leans against the wall. "What do you know?" she says, almost as soon as Sam sits.

[accalia]

"Sorry about the mess" Sam apologizes to the ladies before answering the question "what do i want to know? Everything, about everything. That's why i'm in this line of work. But I think that might take a bit longer than we have here. How about we start with what you think i can make use of and we'll go from there."

[yamikuronue]

"I asked what you already know," snaps T. Erika frowns, but says nothing, letting this play out.

[accalia]

"And I told you that..... oh." And there goes Sam shifting from indignation to embarrassment "Jumped the gun there..... sorry. I know... about as much as a frog knows about flight. People are going missing, Obsidian Roidmet seems to be involved, likely as a victim, and this Rob fellow was looking into matters and got kersploded.... that's about it really."

[yamikuronue]

T takes a deep breath, and lets it out as a sigh. "Okay. From the top, then. Erika?"

Erika nods. "A few weeks ago, I was in a hole -- I needed money, and I was already hitting my payday loan limit," she begins, nervously watching Sam's face.

[accalia]

Sam nods wincing at an unpleasant memory..... there's some debt collectors he's still dodging. nasty people those payday loan sharks.

[yamikuronue]

"So this guy, Harrox -- we've been calling him Perry in public, in case of eavesdroppers -- he offers me a deal. It's beyond money -- he can make my money troubles go away forever. And he seemed to. I suddanly became... Welcomed. But at a price. It's not really welcomed, it's... tricking the city into thinking I'm welcomed. And when it wears off, the city tries to kill me. It's like a drug, I can't ever stop."

[accalia]

"And of course it wears off, forcing you to go back to him to fix you up again...." Sam mutters "That's nasty."

[yamikuronue]

T cuts in here: "Meanwhile, there's something wrong with the city. I was gifted with magic powers that let me see things others can't, like the spirits that make the city work, or ghosts. It was one of those spirits that killed Rob; I saw them kill someone else just the other day. My sources... the ghosts don't know about people being Abandoned or Lost, either. Just Welcomed and Waiting. Something's wrong and we don't know what, but I'm guessing Harrox is at the heart of it."

[accalia]

Sam nods, scratching notes on a pad of paper, when had he gotten that out?

"hmm. so we need to pin this Harrox to the wall and figure out what strings he's pulling?"

[yamikuronue]

T nods. "Obsidian Roidmet's central to this too, I know it. My sources say he wouldn't have just vanished like that, abandoned his family. He was Welcomed, so he couldn't just up and move out anyway. And he wasn't near desperate enough to--"

She suddanly chokes on her own words. ~Shit. What if he got into a deal with Harrox to find me?!~

[accalia]

Sam sighs" Of course, we couldn't have just one simple angle to run on this one, we get two complicated and difficult ones. huzzar." Sam says waving his fingers in fake celebration "Well we gotta track one of these first and.... the Roidmet angle seems safer to start with?"