View source for LogLondon Fog-Jason-3

{{Gamelog
|Session Date=2017/07/09
|Campaign=London Fog
|Author=Jason
|Session Title=Bad luck and squeezing the Sharma
}}
wMalachi goes looking for a place to live. He goes to the boarding house of {{npcref|Allan Preston}}, on the west side, near Hyde Park. Werewolves have been fighting over this area. Think that will come up again? Nah.

One of Judith's adopted children, {{npcref|Pip}} comes to her, and says that another kid named Sidley is missing. She was last seen in the old shoe factory, where someone offered her a lollipop to go with him, and she went for it, because she hadn't had a lollipop in quite some time. Judith hits the streets, asking the ghosts of the old garment factory next door what they saw. They don't know anything, and one of the ghosts who usually hangs out there is also missing.

She goes into the boiler room of the old shoe factory, a somewhat separated coal-fired facility. Even for a ghost, this is a cold, dead, unpleasant place. She finds a table where the workers used to take their breaks, and there's {{npcref|Sibley}}, licking a large and extremely bright-colored lollipop. Judith scolds her young charge, but just when Sibley seems properly chastened, someone behind her says, "I wondered when you'd arrive." It's the {{npcref|Jigsaw Man}}, aka Lliathlin, who mentions that there's some disruption in the Fae realm. Judith moves to sit down with Sibley, so that she can protect the child-ghost if needed. From her glimps of the Jigsaw Man, he has almost cat-like features, but his skin looks like it was sewn together from little pieces. She explains that she stays out of Court business. He thinks she can still help him, by connecting him to Galinar. He wants a private, candid, and perhaps extended conversation with our Faerie friend. She tries to figure the Jigsaw Man out, and calculates that the Lady Eos holds his strings. The only thing the Jigsaw Man wants from Judith is Galinar. If he has to hurt the children to get her to cooperate, yeah, he'll do that. She asks for a way to contact him directly, so that they can keep their little relationship private, and he offers her a ring off his finger. "When you want to speak to me, hold this in your left hand, and think of my eyes." She puts the ring in her coin purse. Sibley curtsies to the Jigsaw Man and thanks him for the lollipop, and then they're off.

Judith goes right to see Galinar. He's arguing with the doorman at Lady Arwell's supper club, where he's become persona non grata. The doorman is a ghoul and looks like he might decide that Galinar makes a better meal than a guest. Judith pops in to talk to Galinar, and they adjourn to a decidedly less upscale locale. They go near a coffee stand, where he has to stand around and talk to someone nobody else can see or hear. She tells him that she doesn't like to get involved in anyone else's affairs, but stuff's going on, and they need to talk someplace private. He hails a carriage and tells the driver to take him to the Opera House, and then Gal and Judy can talk on the way. She tells him all about the Jigsw Man's visit, but makes it clear that she's only acting as a messenger, and cannot vouch for this rather nasty fellow from the Dawn Court. He agrees to be at the Opera House for the Jigsaw Man to find him, and she tells the Jigsaw Man so.

Malachi goes looking for Judith and ends up sending {{npcref|Knickers}} to find her. Malachi is packing up and moving out of Oscar's flat. He's also had a vision of something bad happening, involving a carriage being led by a moon to a place it wasn't meant to go. There was a stormcloud over the carriage and Judith inside it. She tells Malachi about her wacky fun encounter with the Jigsaw Man.

Cleo's at the Opera House, where she's met up with {{npcref|Barton Cromwell}}. She did her homework on this potentially useful contact before ever meeting him, and now, having met up with him in his (guarded) box at a performance of La Traviata, he invites her to sit with him. Once she's seated next to him, he slaps a manacle on her wrist. "Pray tell, what seems to be the problem here?" His press contacts have informed him that she's been asking a lot of questions about him, and that she has specific knowledge about certain events. Perhaps Scotland Yard ought to take an interest in Ms Cleo Sharma. Perhaps she knows so much about so many disappearances becuase she's involved in the crimes.

"Dear sir," she says, "it's my reputation to be a thorough investigator, but I don't know the particulars of any incident." Ah, but she's told people things that only one of the perpetrators ought to know. She can't really explain how she knows the things she knows. He offers her until the end of the first aria to decide whether to cooperate, because if she doesn't, they'll be continuing this interview at Scotland Yard. She tries to persuade him that she doesn't need to be cuffed, but he prefers caution when in the company of suspected kidnappers and murderers.

Galinar enters the Opera House and goes to his box. From there, he can see Cromwell with his dear friend Cleo. She seems uncomfortable, and he seems dismissive. Gal has a history with the Chief Inspector, and knows him for a determined and unrelenting investigator. Suddenly Galinar's box becomes cold and very dark. He pours another glass of brandy and says, "Have a seat, I've been expecting you." The Jigsaw Man takes the seat offered. Gal praises the opera, but his guest expresses a lack of interest in the sounds of screaming monkeys. The Jigsaw Man asks to be called Liathlin.

Across the way, Cleo notices that unnatural darkness of Galinar's box, and an indistinct shape sitting with him. She thinks about the danger of her situation and cheerfully assures the Chief Inspector that her critical information came from Galinar. He's going to have to think about that one for a while, but he admits that he might have misjudged her. "It is best not to have a amateurs messing with police business." She refuses to be daunted, because she likes helping people. Just as he's letting her out, he asks why she sought their encounter. Notwithstanding the caution he just gave her, she asks what he knows about Lord Throckmorton. He reminds her to stay out of police business.

Galinar sees the Chief Inspector remove a manacle from Cleo's wrist, followed by a brief conversation and her quick departure. The Jigsaw Man does something to cloak their box in silence, thus eliminating that pesky monkey noise. Gal explains that he was exiled for killing the Queen's favorite monk, who he believed had gained some manner of power over her. They also discuss his banishment from Lady Arwell's presence, which suddenly seems like part of a pattern of making himself disliked by powerful women. Anyway- the Jigsaw Man has heard that the Storm Court is protecting members of the Dawn Court, who might be desiring a return to the Dawn Court. He asks what Galinar might do to return to the Dawn Court, and he mentions that he might, for example, infiltrate a group of her enemies and betray them to her. Aside: the Jigsaw Man laps his brandy, like a cat. Gal then asks why the Jigsaw Man asked him that question. Well, you see, he has a choice: come in and start asking pointed questions with a lot of torture, or he can keep a low profile in these mortal realms. So - would Gal betray the Storm Court for the Dawn Queen? Oh yes, yes he would. Or, according to the Jigsaw Man, he might find out what his fellow exiles are up to, that might earn the Queen's forgiveness. The Jigsaw Man then offers Gal a ring, for to contact him, and vanishes from the box.

Cleo's attempt to find out what was going on in Galinar's box was foiled by the Jigsaw Man's little silence spell. Once the music comes back, she feels a dark shape slide past her, linger for just a heartbeat, and vanish.

Malachi thinks something bad will happen at the Opera House and goes there, with Oscar and Judith in tow. Judith does take the time to remind him that his visions are often wrong, and uses the whole trip to the the Opera House to spell out her concerns. He's overreacting! He's a silly mortal man who doesn't know what he's dealing with! He's not smart enough to comprehend Fae politics! The three of them arrive around the time that the Jigsaw Man is asking Gal what he might do. They notice that the waxing gibbous moon shines very brightly tonight, even through the fog, which seems as though it's parted just for the moon to shine through. Oscar notices a vampire named {{npcref|Cesare}}, taking the air during intermission. Cesare has no concern about vampire politics because he just doesn't care about all that crap. They ask Cesare to get them in, but he declines, having sworn an oath. He will tell them, however, that there's only one guard at the stage door.

They proceed to the stage door. Judith sees the driver of the surrey she and Galinar took to get here before walk up the stairs and merge into someone's body. Ghost driver? She decides to tail him, without a word to the other two.

Malachi and Oscar round the corner and see two people talking to the guard. One of them is a coach driver named {{npcref|Ned Borthwick}}, who plays in Oscar's rugby league and is no friend of his at all. The other is an opera fan, whose fortune Malachi has told in the past. Oscar and the rugby lout quickly get into a fight, and Oscar gets the worst of it. Malachi distracts the guard by suggesting that the rugby player's about to kill Oscar, and then slips in. Oscar's foe gets a few kicks in before the guard breaks up the fight, kicking out a couple teeth.

Judith sees the driver share the body with the host for a while, they jump out again, and cruise around the edge of the promenade.

Malachi goes looking for Galinar's box. He sees Cleo standing outside a box. Judith senses the Jigsaw Man somewhere close. The surrey driver with the weird body sharing power sees Cleo, shakes his arm, and produces a hatchet. Malachi sees it too and calls out, "Behind you!" Judith cruises up behind the driver and tries to manifest to grapple with him. The sudden ghostly hand on his wrist confuses him, as does his inability to connect with his hatchet. Cleo takes advantage of the distraction and tries to run for it, though not before she sees Judith's face. Galinar hears the scuffle outside his box, pokes his head out, and sees Cleo running away, Malachi standing there, and Judith scuffling with a hatchet-wielding surrey driver. Galinar jumps into the fray, while Judith dematerializes once Cleo is gone. Galinar effortlessly dodges the first wild hatchet slashes, and Malachi jumps in to try to tackle the driver on his backswing and takes a hatchet wound in the shoulder for his pains, leaving him down on the floor. Galinar charges up his fist with the withering power of Fae and punches the driver square in the face. Inside the rapidly dying flesh of the driver's body, there's something like quicksilver, and he takes off running. Galinar recognizes the attacker as something from Wild, and sees that it's dripping something which shines and glimmers for a moment, then disappears.

Oscar finds a private place and changes form so that can heal himself and get his teeth back. Only one of them comes back. Doh. Also, a prostitute returning form her shift sees him, screams, and runs off.

Cleo finishes her wild sprint to freedom somewhere else in the opera house. Judith helps her find her way out.

Galinar calls the ushers for help. They "escort" Malachi out, which is really more like a very gentle way of throwing him out and taking all his money. The Opera House management cancels Galinar's box, because he's brought trouble to their establishment. He protests that the trouble has nothing to do with him. Unfortunately, his attempt to pay them off fails utterly, and they insist that he should leave at once, out the back way. The back door of the Opera House is quite the happening place tonight. Galinar offers to take care of Malachi's malady, and uses Nature's Caress to heal some of his wounds.

Cleo takes the long way home, taking pains not to be followed. Judith goes with her. When they arrive, Judith makes it very clear that Cleo should never, ever mention her face again. Judith then checks out Cleo's flat and finds {{npcref|Nazagor}} there. She reports as much to Cleo, who isn't, you know, thrilled to hear about her visitor. Judith then wanders off.

Nazagor compliments Cleo on the quality of her cheese, and explains that he's visiting in the night hours because that's when creatures of the night do their thing. He needs to close out a deal, and he thinks his quarry has a mistress, who might be a rakshasa. Cleo can blend in and find out for sure whether she is or ain't, and there's no particular rush. As long as the mark signs a contract while living, Nazagor's fine with it.