Right then, now that our brothel’s favor is vested to the Traditionalists’ benefit, it is high time we endeavor to elucidate a certain problem.
In Saint Gorfu, we go meet with Shrike (remember her?) and she has good news for us.
Good news indeed. And after sharing her informations in full, but before we could leave her not-so-secret hideout, Shrike tells us, “Good luck, adventurers.” Adventurers?
How dare you. I have been working so hard. Why, only last night, I had no less than twelve tacos with Hatsuo at the bar then a date with Windress, and when I woke up I fiddled at length with my jukebox.
Immediately the girls and I board the underrail to Cellerdown, where we are supposed to find a pillar of the underworld’s community, a certain Linus who—we are warned—is “not a friend of the watch.”
There:
Boldly, I try to lie my way inside, pretending Linus is expecting us. The guard does not believe me. I instill doubt in his mind, asking him if he really believes Linus to be the kind of man who shares every little detail with a mere guard. And it works!
Linus is… let’s say not exactly a man of amenable nature, and to boot is passably annoyed by our unexpected intrusion into his facility. Needs be said though that, understanding well his predicament, and being not in the least ashamed of his work, in fact being misproud of it, he is surprisingly forthcoming with information.
As we had remarked upon first discovering them in Nena’s warehouse, those yellow tanks look as if they could hold a human being; and Linus confirms they are incubators designed for humans. Of course my mind instantly jumps to the notion of humans grown in vats. Yet it actually is worse than that.
Narsum, the drug used some decades ago to treat unfortunate victims of the Crasher Crisis, now also exists in a new form named S-Narsum, of magistral potency. The means of fabrication for this S-Narsum being to extract the metabolytes resulting from the human body’s enzymes having broken the drug molecules of Narsum down. Despite great efforts, said process has not been successfully replicated in a laboratory; thus the vats.
That is some cruel, Shirō Ishii type of stuff; though to Linus’ dubious credit, Ishii wouldn’t have bothered with the sedation.
I ask Linus for a list of his clients who, apparently, are all Shapers, given the numerous and deadly side effects of S-Narsum use by non-Shapers. He flatly refuses to provide this list; but reveals he has, through channels of his own, been tracking the individual colloquially called the Bloody Hawk, as he—Linus—fears he—the Bloody Hawk—might try and eliminate him. Given this Bloody Hawk is our prime and only suspect in Nena’s murder, I’ll gladly accept any information concerning him.
Once more aboard the underrail, and this time we are the ones bringing good news, proving that a bellyfull of Chicken Brothers’ tacos makes for good adventuring fuel:
I show her the address Linus gave me.
Something tells me Linus withheld some details.
To the cloud-capt Spire district then, where a change of scenery has taken place since last the girls and I visited. The address given us by Linus is the gazingstock of a crowd, and constabularies guard the entrance:
I’m keen to trust in Zafra’s instincts.
But as we now stand amongst some of MoonFall’s richest citizens, Kaywin also needs voice a comment:
Different clothes? Meaning not the loose, ultra-narrow crop top under which your breasts—which look enticingly puffy and retroussé—constantly threaten to escape? Please, Kaywin… if I can’t satiate my physical hunger for you, then let my eyes feast.
Of course, I want to enter the appartment guarded by the cops. But the female cop rebuts me, saying, “We’re not letting anyone in a the moment, especially not a ragged-looking bunch like you.” Going after my appearance? Girl, doing your hair that way, you look like a Ferengi.
Which reminds me of both the 168th and 48th rules of acquisition; thus I tell her, sotto voce and with the biggest of creepy smiles plastered over my face, that if I’m even allowed to breathe The Spire’s rarefied air it must necessarily mean I am of some import—and it might be a good idea to not piss me off.
I enter the apartment.
And find Shrike, with a small contingent of officers bribed to the Old Watch’s liking.
Curiously, Voss has left behind him the fruit of technological marvels: a projection of himself, complete with his full conscience up to the second of his very death.
Boor. In short, he explains his murderer—a man of nondescript appearance—simply tore him apart with powers over which only Shapers have command. As to the reason of his murder, he claims it is probably someone incensed by his writings.
He then starts philosophising more for his own enjoyment than for my enlightment; and his so-called philosophy speak less of an intelligent man often lost in cogitabund consideration than it speaks of a sixteen-year-old smoking his first joint and gazing heavenward.
But in closing, I get out of him a couple of cryptic, foretelling sentences:
Uh. But annoyingly enough, the game doesn’t offer me the possibility to mention this Library to Shrike.
And finally, watching the footage of Voss’ last moments does not bring us closer to our goal:
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