An Evening of Indelicate Tomfoolery

Fallen London
41

Between glasses of Morelways, Dorian was attempting to negotiate his way around a luridly coloured cravat and tattered waistcoat that he had taken from the bag Narciso had brought. He was not accustomed to taking such drastic chances in his fashion (in spite of a personality that could at best be described as ‘libertine’), but years of performing in the theatres of Veilgarden had given him the ability to at least pretend that such a choice of clothes was second nature.

“Oh, those?” he replied to Jane, “I managed to call in some favours from a few scarlet girls I know. Apparently Mr Veils likes to make sure his workers are given some form of self-defence. Usually tipped with some form of poison; I’ve got a bottle of Salts somewhere for them if you want?”

Having roughly knotted the cravat around his neck, he drew the sleeve of his coat up around the spring-loaded pistol that would lie concealed at his wrist.

“Aliases would be far better, I think. It will be far easier to negotiate the other marks if nobody knows where to look. So, at least for the Carnival, call me Titus. It’s one of my older identities”

42

Jane practiced wielding the hair sticks, swishing them around and nodding approvingly. “Some Salts would be wonderful,” she said, putting both sticks back in their sheaths until the time came to coat them with the stuff.
“For an alias…” she said, thinking. “I have it… ‘Tabitha’! I’ve always liked that name.” She looked at Dorian and grinned. “Yours suits you, ‘Titus’.”

Taking another sip of Morelways, Jane looked around for something to do, and her eye fell on the pile of clothing. Towards the front, she found and pulled out a corset, an eye-catching black and red. “Hmm…” she said. “This looks about my size…”
~
A short while later, Jane’s costume was complete. She’d gone with the corset, which was accented with silk bows and a skirt that did absolutely nothing to hide her legs from view. With a choker, some long gloves, stockings, and boots, she looked the picture of a showgirl, perhaps… or, for a more discerning eye, the distraction in a pickpocketing ring.
“Strange, how being so noticeable is the key to being ignored,” she remarked, pensively. “What do you think?”

[color=rgb(153, 153, 153)](Seen:[/color] [color=rgb(153, 153, 153)]Victorian camera pocket-watch[/color][color=rgb(153, 153, 153)].)[/color]

43

“Utterly scandalous. I love it.” commented Dorian with a mischievous glint to his smile, “You’ve got a good penchant for the dramatic, ‘Tabitha’”.

He rifled through a small chest that lay among the weapons, finally retrieving a small bottle that to outward appearances looked like a container for stage powder, and proffering them to Jane. “Believe it or not, the only shop that sells decent Salts in this City also makes makeup for actors. Keep in mind this is not the kind that goes on your face, though”, he joked.

At the same time, he carefully applied a rather liberal amount of actual makeup to his own face, adding a thin layer of grime. The effect, combined with a few days foresight of not shaving gave him the rakish sort of features one would expect of an oft-unemployed performer. “Oh…those could work…” he thought aloud as he chanced upon some of the items laying around the room. He gathered together a deck of cards, several coloured handkerchiefs and a few other innocuous pieces, and before long was rehearsing a few sleight-of-hand tricks in the mirror.

edited by Dorian Sharpe on 2/28/2012
edited by Dorian Sharpe on 3/6/2012

44

“I was thinking, ‘Jack’ is a reasonably common name, even if people where to hear it, they wouldn’t be able to conenct it to me. However, chances are they’ll think about “Smiles”, and we really do not want to catch any undue attention, so how about for the duration you call me ‘John’?”, Jack said, “Just, under no circustances call me ‘Owlfisher’, my name became a bit more well known than I’d like because of an… incident… in a litterary salon, those philistines did not apprechiate my poetry!”

JAck was rummaging around and had a lot of problem choosing outfits. “This just isn’t my area of expertise”, he confessed, “I can blend into the ragged markets of Spite, I can disappear in the crowd in Ladybones, I can make myself like a bat over the rooftops of The flit, but carnevals? My best guess is maybe I sohuld go for an oriental look, what do you think?”, he asked while looking around for Narciso, “oh and by the way, what was the scarf you wanted to show me, Narciso?”
edited by Owlor on 2/28/2012
edited by Owlor on 2/28/2012

45

“John works” commented Dorian, “Common enough that you won’t be traced, but not so memorable as to draw attention to yourself”

He nosed around inside the bag of clothes, before finally drawing out a battered old duster and what appeared to be the top half of a kimono. “What about these?”

46

“Oh dear, I’d look like I was wearing a bathrobe!”, Owlfisher exclaimed, “No, I was thinknig this suit over here, it’ elegant, but lightly more ratty than the ones I usually use, it looks like something one would wear who has to maintain a look of dignity beyond their means. Not to say I don’t live beyond my means”, Jack said as a digression, “but I do a slightly better job at it.” He paused for a bit and looked around, “hmm, and I think this spider-silk fabric could make for a fine turban, it’s purple, whih will stand out nicely without arousing suspicion, you remember me talking about my theory of disguises, that you should try to overwhelm any potential witnesses with one or two eyecatching details to make sure that the things they remember if you do get chaught is not your face. I originaly gew my mosutache for precisely that reason”, he confined, “but as it grew I got too attached to it and right now I could no longer shave my whiskers off any more than I could chop my own nose off. Villiany just is not the same without a mosutache to twirl.” He struggled a bit with the turban, the notes in the book he was using as reference was mostly concerned with style, rather than application, as it seemed to assume you already knew the basics of making a turban, but eventually Jack managed to create something that looked convincingly unconvicinging and he locked it in place with a theathre gem.
“There, how do I look?”, he asked, “remember that I am a person called John that plays a Mentalist called Ohmar, if my oriental friends could see me now, they’d lynch me for sure, but authenticity would only work against me here.”

47

Jane smiled as she assessed Owlfisher’s— er, “John”'s— disguise. “I think you look wonderfully brazen,” she commented. Unconsciously, her hand reached out and twirled one curl of Jack’s mustache.
“Now,” she said, “we’re only to wait for Theodore… where is he, anyway? I do hope nothing has happened to him.”

At this moment, a rattling noise came from outside. Someone, or something was out there… but what?

48

“Narciso as well…I wasn’t the only one to hear that, was I?” asked Dorian. He swept up a neddy stick from the pile of weapons and quietly went over to the window, lifting the corner ever so slightly to glance out.

“…are we expecting someone…?”
edited by Dorian Sharpe on 3/3/2012

49

As Dorian lifted the corner of the window, a thick, gloved fist punched through the glass. He barely dodged.
“Yes, apparently!” someone said, as everyone reached for a weapon.

Then, the door burst open and a group of masked men and women began to push their way in…

[color=rgb(204, 204, 204)](Whee! Looks like our first challenges are for our Dangerous qualities. This’ll be fun.)[/color]

50

Jack leaned over to Jane “The person who just punched trough the window has a loaded glove, which makes him slightly slower than a normal brawler, he’ll almost certainly go for the face. The woman on the right with an antilope-mask has a slight limp, left leg is hurting, the two guys on the right are trained in Bartitsu, watch out for the canes and I suspect one of them is in a relationship with the woman, so if you attack her, you’re most likely going to have him charge at you”, he whispered. While they where talking, Melody positioned herself behind them “good girl” jack mouthed to her and then said, to Melody as well as Jane "allright, let’s show them what we’ve learned.
edited by Owlor on 3/5/2012

51

“Oh, I’m fine too! Don’t mind me, if it please you!”, roared Dorian irritably to the two of them as he swept aside the first punch with a sharp tap to his attackers wrist.

As the gentleman in question squared up to him, Dorian made a quick assessment. He lacked the analytical knowledge of his companions, but as he had quickly learned upon his arrival in this city, there was not much a place for thinking when it came to the fine art of, well, art. However, he was not entirely without his own means. In fact, what kept the gentleman from running, he immodestly reflected, was almost certainly down to the fact that he’d neglected to add a certain ribbon to his current wardrobe…

The thug took a series of calculated swings at him. Dorian again parried the first, but as the second rolled in he sensed something amiss about the speed, and rightly bent backwards just in time to see the fine plaster wall cave in with a crunch. A loaded glove. How unsporting. He thought fast: any attempt to block that arm would be disastrous, which meant evasion would be key. But judging by his stance, and the slight tilt of his hips as he took the swing, the man at the very least held some considerable skill in boxing. Fortunately, so did Dorian.

He played it by ear for the first few, weaving through the rain of blows that the thug brought down on top of him. Slowly, he kept his pace around the room, ducking a punch that splintered a portrait, while never wiping the grin from his face. Not once did Dorian even attempt to return the courtesy, merely narrowly avoiding the attacks with the same sly smile.

“Stand still and fight me, damn your eyes!” yelled the thug, clearly incensed.

“A fight? I thought you were dancing” replied Dorian.

The thug roared. His pace increased, but soon enough the sweat was beading on his brow. Dorian had picked the weakness from the start: those who chose to weight their own gloves always took the risk that as their energy flagged, so did their control. The thug’s next swing went wild, fairly so, and Dorian made a sharp jab. Nothing worse than a sharp slap, and it threw his opponent into an apoplectic fit. Finally, the thug made a mistake, throwing a straight punch directly at him. Dorian sidestepped, gripping the wrist with his left hand and pulling it forwards. Caught off balance by the momentum, the thug was knocked clean out as Dorian’s right elbow met the bridge of his nose.

Almost immediately a young man lunged at him with a knife. Dorian stood back.

“Hold this for me, will you?” he said, tossing the neddy stick. The young man caught it with one hand.

Dorian moved like lightning, and with a hand at the boy’s wrist and collar, threw him bodily down the stairs towards his bodyguard. He picked up the dropped knife, running to the defence of the friend who needed it most.

52

“You’re doing fine!” Jack shouted to Dorian, “I can’t exactly yell tactical notes from across the room, unless you speak cantonese, or maybe spy-speak, but I didn’t want to risk it.” Meldoy and Jack worked together to trip one of the thugs. Melody went out a satisfied meowl as the thug hitthe floor. Jack then promptly got hit over the head with a cane. He cowered his head with his hands, and then got a punch in solar plexus. "Damnit! he wheezed, grabbed the cane and forced it out of the thugs hand. That gave him just enough time hithim with the side of the cane onto his left ear.

53

Dorian jumped in front of a kick aimed at Melody, which subsequently met with a sickening crack into one of his ribs. Winded by the blow, it was all he could manage to simply grab at the offending leg, embracing it in a bear hug. Which might have worked, had the attacker not been an expert at baritsu. Within seconds Dorian was on his back, desparately warding off blows. As the woman raised her hand for another strike, Melody leapt at her, landing square on her face, a hissing ball of fury.

“Good cat…” coughed Dorian
edited by Dorian Sharpe on 3/7/2012

54

“I think she likes you”, Jack remarked, “I’m not sure she’d defend me like that. Now I guess it’s my turn.”, he slipped Dorian a Derringer. "I’ll cover for you, I expect a well-placed shot on the right thug, prefferably before he manages to turn my face into black pudding. This quick feint was executed perfectly, Jack attracted attention by swinging his own cane around wildly, and one of the thugs charged at him, fists raised. There was a sound like a bottle of champagne was opened and the thug kept running for a few step, though the lights had gone out in his eyes. He then collapsed into the arms of Jack, who lowered him to the ground. “jolly good, he remarked,but this is going to be though to clean up aftewards.”

55

As the last of the fighters ran into the room, one, a man in a gruesome sorrow-spider mask, made for Jane Narbon. He feinted to the left, then punched right.
Jane was caught off guard, leaning backwards to dodge. The man’s second punch was a powerful uppercut. JN was ready for it this time, but she still had to step back or get hit. She tried to counter with a punch of her own, but the man caught it easily.
The thug’s third punch was another feint-and-hook, but this time, he was expecting Jane to dodge. Changing the direction of his fist at the last minute, his blow hit her, hard, on her corset. The garnent’s reinforced stays blocked it, but Jane would be nursing some nasty bruises later.

Jane leaped to the side to give herself a little time. It was obvious the man was better than her when it came to a fair fight, but all that meant was that she needed to use trickery!
Something nudged against one of her boots. It was Narciso’s clothes-pile.
Grabbing some silks from out of the pile, Jane threw them at the man’s mask. In the time he took to bat the cloth away, Jane had grabbed her hair sticks. With speed honed through a thousand pickpocketing attempts, Jane swung both sticks in a bright arc, slicing both across the man’s throat.

The man stopped dead as he realized what had happened, then slowly began to paralyze and collapse as the Salts took hold. With the last of his breath, he yelled out a name.
“Chrys!!”
A muffled clomping noise came to the attention of the assembled tricksters. Any structural integrity the door still had was completely lost as one massive punch from an Unfinished Man shattered it.
“I’m getting a door made out of black iron once this is all over!” Jane yelled, as her colleagues mopped up some of the surviving human fighters. Now, there were only a few people and the Unfinished Man left.
“AH, ENTERTAINERS!” the Man said. “IT IS A WORTHY PROFESSION, AND ONE I FIND COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND.”

Things had gotten just a little more complicated.

56

Dorian dropped the smoking derringer and got painfully to his feet. Of course they had a clay man…of course. Calmly he approached the staircase, where his bodyguard was standing in a pile of bodies, and was now levelling the tip of his schlager at the largest of the four remaining attackers. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the shriek of constable whistles…

“Shanghai”

“Yes sir…?” growled the bandaged man

“Now would be a prudent moment for October tactics…”

“Yes sir”

Dorian backed up towards his comrades. With a twitch of his wrist, there was a sharp click, and an intricately decorated revolver dropped into his left hand. He pulled back the hammer, and levelled the iron sights at the head of the stairs. Below, there suddenly came the sound of a tremendous clash. Of steel upon clay, the curious sound of something dry crackling under pressure, and finally a heart-stopping scream of pain cut off all too soon into a quiet gurgle.

“FORGET HIM” came a bellowed order, “THE OTHERS ARE UP THE STAIRS”

“Alright…” Dorian whispered to the others, “Unfinished Men are notoriously difficult to destroy…and to top it off, the long and overly-brutal arm of the law will be here in less than five minutes. The Velocipede squad if I’m not mistaken. We need to keep them at a distance for just three minutes; after that my exit strategy should’ve arrived…”

57

“Wait!” Jane called. “There is a reason I called you to MY apartment…”
And there was. It had cost extra on the lease to get premises with what she was seeking, but it was worth it now.

“This way!” she said, running into her closet and beckoning the others to follow along. Her fellows and Jane ran past dresses and clothing hung on racks, as well as various accessories. There was also a chest that contained the tricked gloves she’d used the previous day, as well as other devices of similar mischievous function. At the back of the closet, Jane stopped and reached around, feeling the back wall.

“I know it … was here somewhere…” [b]CLICK

[/b]The door to the apartments’ secret passage swung open, revealing a slim path that led steeply downwards. The tunnel was made out of the same black stone as the rest of the Bazaar spire.
Standing aside so the others could enter the tunnel, she stood ready to pull the secret door closed again once everyone had gone through.

58

“Marvellous! Simply Marvellous!”, Jack exclaimed, “I can never resist a good secret passageway. I have to thank you for your assistence Dorian, or else I’m not sure if I’d still be here.”
“Meaow”, Melody sid from his hat, “Oh, and Melody says you owe her one”
He continued, “Did anybody catch what they where actually doing here? Hae we been found out or are we just extremely unlucky?”

(OoC: I’ve been waiting for Narc and the Duke to makee their return, could somebody poke them on twitter or something?)

59

[color=rgb(204, 204, 204)][color=rgb(153, 153, 153)](I’ve poked Narcisso. DukeLawliet doesn’t seem to bear a Twitter account of the same name.)[/color]
[/color]

60

Dorian was all too happy to let somebody else take charge, especially if their exit was quicker. He grinned as Jane revealed the passageway.

“Wonderful, Ms. Narbon…you’re truly a woman after my own deviousness! Frighteningly so. You never went to a Rugby college did you?” he joked, “At any rate, remind me to buy you a glass of Greyfields when this is all over”

He looked back at a the sound of their attackers searching.

“I’m not quite sure” he said in answer to Jack, “Fortunately they seem to think we’re performers, which means at least our idenitites are still under wraps. However, I fear if Mrs. Plenty had a hand in this…oh, and you’re welcome Jack. Anything to oblidge an academic”

He quietly scratched Melody under her jaw, “Yes, well done. I suppose you’ll be wanting a nice piece of kipper after this, hm?”