Deals with Devils
| Deals with Devils | |
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| Players |
Percy meets Tillo, and they have a pleasant chat. |
Over the past several nights Percy has been diligently working with his contacts among those that uphold and understand The Accord to gain a meeting with Tillo, Prince of Darkness. It's all a formality, really, all he'd really need to do is tell the nearest rat or pigeon that he needs a meeting and Tillo would hear of it. Instead, the Daeva 'follows procedure'.
The figure waiting is average in height, shrouded in layers of concealing, dark fabric, and proves to be a woman. It's impossible to make out the shape of the body under the cloth.
Percy's shoes may not be the same, and the trip is made longer by an effort made to avoid the worst of the muck and mud in the wetter tunnels. Still, it is likely to be unpleasant with all the expected mustiness and gross sliminess one expects of the Undercity. Eventually they arrive at a heavy door with a naval style aquatic seal. This is opened and the woman gestures within. The Oubliette smells of dried blood.
Within the cistern-become-Oubliette there is not much. Where the shadows are thicker, the throne rests, forged from twisted old rebar, burned timbers, and mildewed human bones. A large, old scythe rests against the back of it, and the monster himself is in a posture of thoughtfulness. Unmoving, unblushed. Not bothering the feign the small motions of life that many cling to. Not even blinking. Against the wall across from him rests a simple drying wrack of bound branches with a stretched, human skin on it, drying. The skin of covered in twisting gnarls of fire scarring - enough that features on the face have been twisted and nearly the whole body marked by flames.
Clutching his hat in both hands in front of him, Percy steps forward towards the throne; stopping short at what he would say is a reasonable distance though he doesn't know the owner's personal tastes on the matter. He offers a bow from the waist, forty-five degrees or so, but remains silent. Only speak when spoken to, after all.
Only then does Tillo move, rising to his seven foot height. "It has been a while. The rats whisper of your success." He speaks slowly, with an old mannerism that dates back to the simple black suit, cut in the style he's worn for over a century. As he rises, the aura of famine radiates off of him. A man with hunger so great he could devour the world and still remain gaunt and voracious for more. "What brings you to the shadows?"
"You already know why I've been sent," Percy says with a small frown, though strangely comfortable in the darkness of the sewer, even here in the demesne of one so... wrong. So alien. And yet so... beautiful, in a way. "As usual, your actions and inactions are of concern to those reigning where the moon casts its light." Reigning, not ruling. One is a figurehead, the other... Percy seems to know who actually rules and where. "I appreciate that if you wanted them to know, they would. But they seek to understand, and so sent me." A pause. "Along with a Sanctified Priest. Though I elected not to inform him of our meeting."
"You should have brought the priest. All bark, no... *bite*." The last word clipped, upper lip drawing back to flash the tip of over-large fangs. "Prince Salvatore. Always sniffing around for weakness. He'll find none here. But you know that."
"Still," he continues, doing his best to push Tillo's bestial aura from his mind, "What is of concern to your realm *should* be of concern to all. It isn't, of course, far too keen on infighting. But ripples have been noticed, and Salvatore is... concerned." A pause. "Obviously, his whims and fancies aren't of import to you. But I shall admit, when he mentioned that moves were being made, I became concerned as well. When small moves happen down here, it's usually for a reason. and that reason is almost always bad for those of us eking out an existence above ground." Beat. Two beats. "Am I right to be worried, Prince Protz?"
"We have known one another for a long time. And longer still has the Undercity been in my care. Even before the fire and the rot that formed the verge." He does not move with mammalian grace, but with that of a spider - calculating, precise, with no motion wasted. Unhurried. "You know well, too, the balance between the Kindred, the Lost, and the Wolves that joined the Accord. And within that, the constant shift of power among those that have, and those that do not." The Princes, of course.
"You know the shift of power has long-since lost its lustre to me," Percy says with an infinitesimally small frown on his lips, "Children vie for power under the expectation they can hold it." He pauses to cast a glance towards the Nosferatu, "You and I know that power comes with... baggage." He speaks, presumably, of the Verge. "They will fight their little fights, have their little kingdoms, all the while the Undercity will be left defending the world from unknown horrors and threats, with you standing as the lone bulwark against oblivion." A pause. "As usual."
"And you will know, too, that Kindred are not always the best solution for the task." A motion towards the skin. "and so, we use the tools we have at hand. For the Greater Good of the city." He has grown with the city. Risen in it's fall with the fire. Rising with the birth of the Wound. among the three, he stands tallest, but it is a precarious footing that hinges on the verge and containing the foul things that slink across. "The dogs dislike my use of their enemy. One has made a deal to come and see if he and his can replace them in service to me." "This has already complicated things with Fire-Touched pack." One long, skeletal fingers drags along the hide. "They should not trouble me any longer with their nonsense."
Listening intently to the facts as Tillo presents them, the dashing Daeva furrows his brow slightly, "I should have expected that the power plays and appeals to authority don't stop once you reach the living. Even in the face of the reality we find ourselves in." He reaches up to rub his face, the firelight showing the craters and lines of war-hardened features that almost indicate his true age. "Naturally Salvatore cares more about his position than your needs, he doesn't appear to see that a threat to this place is a threat to everyone. He is often as short-sighted and foolish as the imbecile of a priest he dispatched with me." There's a long pause. "What do you need?"
"He is hungry for that long denied him. But is not prepared for the responsibility. The *burden* of our position here." Tillo says, a faint growl creeping into his voice. He doesn't give two shits about the power plays - he never has. He does, however, use any tool he can to do the job - Forsaken or Anshenga. For whatever reason, setting himself as the bastion to defend the city. "There is nothing to end the conflict between the Pure and the forsaken. Their feud is millennia old and nothing is going to mend that rift." "I need leverage to get the werewolves to work for me, without howling their fool heads off and taking the credit for the Protectorate." Or the throne slips, and things grow more precarious. The math, simple as it is, is unpleasant. And the evidence of how he 'politics' is stretched on the drying frame.
Straightening and turning to look at the Nosferatu once more, Percy's brow is down in a furrowed pit, "I simply cannot allow the undercity to fall. The fact we have a... civil working relationship is a bonus. If keeping you on your throne keeps the doom of the world at bay? I'll do whatever has to be done to keep you there." He almost smiles. It's threatening the corners of his lips, but it's not quite there. "Frequent invitations to the Circle's gatherings also prove an engaging time. So I shall wrangle the wolves, and ensure their... continued cooperation. Their desires be damned while this festering problem remains."
"Let my coffers fund your efforts. Two for yourself, eight to ease the path. Come to me when you have information and need more."
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