#Udo Ludovich

[costhursdays]

Waking up from their sleep with so much on their minds, the group found themselves still in a battle on whether or not they'd take the Lady up on her offer to kill the Burgomaster or not. Several were in agreement that such a thing would not be the "right" thing to do; others were less so inclined, stating that while he had not done anything 'bad' persay, he had a hand in the creation of several new orphan mouths for the Church to tend to. All the same, they had decided yesterday to tell Lady Wachter their answer the day after tomorrow, so today was their time to get through the everything with the preparation for the Festival of the Blazing Sun while deciding to see whether or not the murderous nature will come upon them.

First thing Chiaro wished to do, even prior to getting food, was to retrieve Flicker from their spot spying on Strazni. Upon returning to the Burgomaster's estate, they swung around the back, and Chiaroscuro gently called out to his familiar. Slowly, a small ember slid through a few cracks in the plaster and cobblestone, transforming back into the little flaming ball of darkness that the party has grown to love. Chiaroscuro asked Flicker what it was he saw, and much like how Chiaro looked when he was witnessing through Flicker's eyes, he now saw a playback of the prior night.

He saw under the bed, the spot that Flicker chose to hide out for the night, and the vision was rapidly passing by, almost like Flicker was playing out the scene at five times speed. He saw the feet of Strazni enter the room, kick some of the discarded bottles strewn about further into the back corners under his bed, and lift up out of sight. Flicker's vision then slowly crept out from under the bed, jumping from the floor to an elevated corner watching the scene from on top of Strazni's closed trunk. Here, Chiaro saw Strazni take several swigs out of a bottle of wine, before dropping it to the floor, having finished it off. From here, he dug to find one of the dolls of Ireena, stroking its hair and muttering something with glassy, bloodshot eyes, and finally rolling over to fall asleep. From this position he remained, back to the doorway, for several hours until he rose with the overcast sky, redressing himself in clean clothing, and heading out for the day. He took a glance at Flicker's position once, but did not seem to have noticed the shadowember cat.

Chiaroscuro questioned if Flicker was able to hear what Strazni had said and with a small chirruping meow, Flicker was able to replay the sound for Chiaroscuro into his thoughts. Chiaro heard a gruff, stilted, slurred voice as the thought of Strazni stroking the doll's head replayed. He heard him question why she was there, why was she plaguing him so severely, and how he could fix this sight he kept seeing. Chiaro relayed this information to the group, and while it did paint Strazni in a different light, everyone came to an agreeance that Ireena should not be told about this. She had made it clear prior that she had no interest in hearing about some freak who was obsessed with her, especially seeing as how Strazni made the count of those up to two.

With Flicker in arms, they went back to the Church of St. Andral. From their spot, they were pleased to see Ireena had joined Father Petrovich with handing out food, which today was a small loaf of bread coupled with a meaty rice porridge. She asked how the day fared them after they had left yesterday, and while they said that, while they managed to have an eventful day, they felt like they didn't have a lot of information on anything that could help them in the future with regards to the festival. Father Petrovich proffered the return the the Burgomaster's manor to check in on Lydia, his sister, as he hadn't seen her in services in some time and was worried about his brother in law's temper, as he had become quite controlling in the recent years. They agreed after having some breakfast, with Nick deciding that Chiaroscuro should be the recipient of their Psychic Whispers, and returned to the manor to make their entrance back in Lydia's good graces.

Entering the home, a lot of the decorations had been finished and were laying on the floor to be assembled fully later, or set aside for the festival proper that was to happen the following day. The maid that took them in and directed them towards Lydia Petrovna did so again, and she was happy to see so many new people in such short notice. She took them into the dining room where she was having a midmorning tea break, and sat them down with glasses. Kenshi took charge of the conversation and inquired about how she had been lately, stating the information they had received from Father Petrovich. She sounded dodgy in her answers but did not stray from her fully committed "all will be well" personality that had been built into her. During the conversation, Chiaroscuro excused himself for the bathroom, and left to do some quick recon on the rest of the house, summoning and resummmoning Flicker into rooms to scope them out. A few times he nearly was found, the chef that seemed to be preparing lunch for the Burgomaster and his wife nearly running his hand directly into Flicker's burning little shadowfire forehead, but never was he found. This brought him upstairs as he looked around in the rooms that he was not privy to from the last time he looked around. While keeping quiet from alerting Vargas of his presence in the house, Chiaroscuro's searching lead him to discovering a locked closet at the end of the hall, where a mostly naked, battered and bruised man lay gagged and unconscious. Picking the lock quietly, Chiaro lay a gentle hand on the man, causing some of his scratches and scrapes to disappear, but he did not stir further. Chiaro Whispered to Nick the findings, and Nick excused themself from the table as well, citing that they were also heading to the restroom.

From here, the rest of the group was kept in the loop with Nick's psychic whispers as well, and they all were aware of the beaten man in the closet. Nick and Chiaro tried their luck at picking the lock to his manacles, coming out with two sets of broken lockpick tools and a jammed lock. Chiaro sent Flicker into the next room so that he could distract the dogs so that it would muffle the sound of a precisely placed Eldritch Blast, and Nick stole a bedsheet to cover the man with. They escaped the home with some help from Cash, who disguised himself to look like Lydia and having the maid take a nap due to how tired she seemed, and the rest of the party took their leave as they all brought the man back with them to the church.

He informed the group that his name was Udo Lukovich and that he was kidnapped by the Burgomaster's beast of a bodyguard and was being kept prisoner for speaking out against Vargas' constant festivals. Father Petrovich feared that the man would end up dead if he went home and asked if the group would take him and his mother, Willemina Rikalova, to the Vistani Camp just outside of town. Here, they should find some respite, and at least would be kept safe from any sort of attacks from the Burgomaster.