Kerberos 01/23/2012

Cousin Charlotte: All men need polish. It is perhaps better to go into this knowing the flaws of the gem you hold.

Nunzio: I have a rock.

Alice (about Angelina): Oh, I believe sewing is definitely among her accomplishments.

[ This is utterly true if one includes surgical and other medical stitches. ]

Leon -- Msg delivery worked like clockwork. Contact Wilkinson family, c/o ---

To Wilkinson Family -- meet at Fox and Hound in East End.

Leon -- Yes. Saturday 3.

So:

Marlow is dead, throat cut with a scalpel by someone who arrived on a horse. Victor knows what type of horse. A torn Two of Pentacles was found in the house, clearly deliberately left. Returning weeks later, Victor found that the body and anything else he hadn't take was cleared out.

Victor also knows that the zombies targeted someone in the group consisting of the Durless sisters and their three German friends. [NB: Victor hasn't as of yet asked Uriah about this, but I think I'd be amenable to his doing so retroactively, if Nunzio wants, or at the "now" point of the timeline, if Uriah isn't, you know, already dead.]

Douglas asked him about learning how to fence. He talked to Robert Doyle, who thought Victor meant he should help out Alec Campion, and Victor suggested man-about-town Robert help both young men out. Alice is taking time to learn to fight and fence, and to consider both of her current suitors. All three -- Alice / Alec, Douglas, and Robert -- are being trained by the demanding noblewoman Frances Gheistbienenstock.

Sophronia found a letter from "L." in Merrill's home, and learned that "L" was Leon, former lover and partner of Merrill. Leon had no idea that Merrill was in Faerie or that Sophronia existed, though he was happy to meet her. Leon's made a giant robot -- er, clockwork golem, because there's no way that could go wrong.

Victor tried to intimidate Uriah with the threat of violence from whoever killed Marlow, but Uriah is too dumb to believe he's in danger. He wouldn't let Angelina examine him.

Victor and Angelina called on Dr. Jasper Butler, who pointed out that Angelina is not yet a doctor. He agreed to a second opinion from a doctor Victor trusted, and who needs a name.

Uriah has been getting better and worse, including suffering from and recovering from a heart attack. Dr. Butler let Victor know when he would be going out of town, and Victor's doctor took on the case load. This was the same day that Milo Pepperton and his wife, ah, mislaid their luggage.

Victor, Alec, Alice, Sophronia, and Martin recovered it (leaving it on the roof of the Pepperton home), and learned that the thieves had been trying to stash some cases in with the Pepperton luggage, these containing a powerful drug, not poisonous per se, but not recommended for human consumption. It was a drug for horses.

Lady Dashingham has been using demonic magic to ensure she picks a winner for the final horse race, a demon of greed who has a small hold on anyone in the lady's circle when she announces the winner and who then makes a bet. The demon is Dantellion. Lord Dashingham, knowing nothing of this, employed the drug because he feared his wife's luck would run out.

Current status:

• Marlow: Dead
• Uriah: Alive at the end of this session, possibly dead at the beginning of next
• Abraham Tallow: Taken down, likely to suffer the full weight of the law, as he's a lower class gang lord
• Lord Dashingham: Did the honorable thing and shot himself. No one is going to question that, or his wife (who almost certainly helped him do this, whether he wanted to or not)
• Lady Dashingham: Knows Alice and Victor are her enemies, and this strange Alec Campion fellow from Yorkshire also
• Lady Doyle: Not in the circle, but did place a bet, sending her daughter to make the wager
• Robert Doyle: Sorry he wasn't there
• Winston Beuchamp: Wondering what Alice was doing there and why she took ill, quite possibly worried, given that he's lost a few relatives to illness
• Douglas: Probably wants the story from Alice
• Lady Rachel Durless: engaged to
• Graf Vincent von Gheistbienenstock (Feel free to suggest a better first name)
• Frances Gheistbienenstock: his sister, trouncing Alec, Douglas, and Robert in fencing
• Klaus Gheistbienenstock: their brother, quite ready to fight the zombies with his siblings
• Angelina Durless: Sad that the Graf isn't marrying her, but happy for Rachel, and determined not to embarrass her
• Esther Rose: Probably wondering why Lady Alice went to the races without her. She is Not Pleased -- a wonderful networking opportunity, and she missed it?
• Leon: Keeping in touch with Sophronia
• Talos: Sophronia's idiot cousin. Leon likes that Sophronia thinks of Talos as a cousin.
• The Lip: Still in the church with his band of pickpockets and beggars
• Mr. Harrington: Not very happy with Sophronia -- or her friends
• Lord Summerville: Aware that there were 1-3 other people besides Marlow and Uriah involved in his situation, that they mentioned tarot cards, and that they mentioned a woman