A wild Ivan Dilisnya appears!--Borca
General Summary
You left the party as it was devolving into an orgy, leaving Vincente there to drown his sorrows in decadence for a while. On your way out, Bianca caught Vanya's arm, pretending to be drunk out of her mind, and asked him not to tell her grandfather Rodrigo anything they'd talked about because he'd be angry. Vanya agreed, and you left.
When you got back to Vincente's, Vanya told Rose that Bianca thought he was an agent of Drakov, although he wasn't sure why, but that she didn't think Rose was involved. You still agreed that both of you should go to the menagerie the next day. Rose told Vanya about her encounter with The Dark Man and said that it hadn't been too disturbing (a clear sign to the GM that she needs to up her game), but mentioned his promise that he wouldn't hurt Julien so long as he helped him willingly. You agreed that even if he was telling the truth, you shouldn't let Julien go with him, but also agreed that you should tell Julien about this because the Dark Man would exploit any secrets you kept from him. (There are too many he/hims in this paragraph.)
Later in the night, Julien had another screaming nightmare about the Blade Brothers and teleported directly from his bed to Rose's. You managed to calm him down and convince him he was safe. He said he wished the Carnival was still around, because he liked seeing Madam Fortuna as a tortured mass of eyes. Rose was unsettled by this, but Vanya was more relieved than anything; maybe this meant Julien's newfound interest in torture was a bloody revenge fantasy and not sadism for its own sake.
The next (late) morning, you told a hung-over Vincente that you had a good idea of what was going on but just needed to make sure of a few things. As you were talking, Silvia de Carlo's maid came in a panic, saying she needed you right away. Ivan Dilisnya was at the de Carlo estate, and he wanted confirmation that the investigation was progressing fast enough for him. You went to the estate and found Silvia tied to a trellis with a vase balanced on her head; a blindfolded Ivan was aiming a crossbow at her, saying he was going to demonstrate what happened when he tried to do delicate work with no eyes and ranting about how she'd allowed Alessandro Alessandro to sell his secrets. Rose talked him down Rose-ishly, explaining that Alessandro may have been under magical influence. Ivan seemed genuinely heartened by this; he'd taken Alessandro's perceived betrayal personally. He told you that you had three days to bring him definitive proof one way or the other; after that, he'd start showing Silvia and her sons what it was like to not have eyes. He cut Silvia's face with a poisoned crossbow bolt, bid the two of you a cheerful farewell, and left.
Rose cast Neutralize Poison on Silvia, who was in bad shape but still coherent. Silvia said that she'd tried to explain to Ivan that Alessandro had died before betraying his secrets--many of the documents containing his spy work were still locked in his safe--but Ivan was angry and looking for someone to hurt, and he could torment one of his own supporters without fear of reprisals.
You asked about the cart that had come in light, and between Silvia and a drover who the maid brought in, you found out that it had been in the care of Bernardo Verdi, an employee of the De Carlo Trading Company who knew about and assisted with its secret missions. There hadn't been any plans to smuggle anything out on that trip, but Bernardo had hidden three crates in the grain, each large enough to hold a human. He'd been extremely focused on getting the crates out and kept repeating the same phrases to the other drovers, over and over again; he'd also split from the rest of the caravan to get the shipment in faster. Alessandro had been furious. When they reached the city, Bernardo had dismissed the other drovers to personally deliver something in the shipment before dropping off the grain in the warehouse (which wasn't unusual, since Bernardo was the one who knew where the various smuggled goods and refugees were supposed to go). By the time the shipment came back to the warehouse, there was nothing on it but grain. Bernardo cut his own throat shortly afterwards. (I added all this to the timeline ).
You had time before your appointment with Bianca, so you made plans to go to the warehouse and check out the cart beforehand.
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Report Date
30 Oct 2021
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