Confidants Chapter 1 In like a Missile

[Albert Baker]

Al raised an eyebrow as it took him a while to understand why Mr. Jake was irritated. Poor choice of words apparently.

"I see. Thank you for what you've done so far. I am taking over the problem. It wasn't my intention to insult you, I apologize."

Before he adressed the others, a thought crossed his mind. It was perfectly possible the others had been watching someone to get here and the danger was, that they still were. The question might be irritating Mr. Jake further but the matter had to be adressed.

"Do you happen to have an educated guess, Mr. Jake, how those unknown persons managed to follow the trail of their intended prey here ?"


It took a while of thinking to formulate a plan, but after a while he had the nucleus of one. There would need to be input and opinions from the others, of course as he perhaps wasn't having the picture in mind the others had and he wasn't in a position or careless enough to think he could just give them orders. While still thinking he straightened his back clasping his hands behind his back and looked at the others assertively and with authority, as this was more or less his responsibility and his duty.

"Right, the plan. We will speak to the parties that are less difficult to find, meaning Miss Rowland and Mrs. McIntyre. The actual persuasion of Mrs. McIntyre will need to wait until we have found Mr. Camp. Then, finally after that, we will focus our efforts into locating, identifying and neutralising the threat of the arsonists. Questions? Proposals? Ideas? Input?"

[Seryna]

Mr. Jake observes the three kindred. He makes no indication of his opinion or verbal confirmation until Dr. Baker addresses him. Intentional or not, the glacial expression of irritation did not melt.

"I believe that Madame McIntyre followed the young lady." Still carefully not mentioning names.
"We don't have any contacts in Florida." A glance to Baker.

A glance to Helen.

"We were not told to make accomodations for Camp.
We were impressed that it would be beneficial to set up a safe haven.

Madame McIntyre arrived and set up her own place. She arrived with an assistant who looks to be a Hostewick." A glance between the three.

"Madame," emphasis on the word. " -McIntyre appears to be well off. She is a member of the Yacht club. Same as the CEO of the club to which we all belong. My family is not visiting your acquaintance at all, Dr. Baker, to avoid the chance of betraying the location. I impress upon you to be cautious as well.
I have delivered the information that I have. I should depart presently. My group shall always keep a member at the clubhouse if you need to reach us.

I imagine that there are ears hoping for the largesse of the yacht club there as well."

[Helen Kingsley]

Doc Bakey's association indeed. He instantly proves it by knowing the name Jake avoided. Miss Rowland it is, then... Noted !

"Depends, I guess. Maybe we should put that McIntyre lady way to the back until we've got something substantial to talk about. Sure, we can do some observation or stuffs, but making a case too early means she knows we're in this as well. Sounds a little like tipping our hand too early, if you ask me."

For now, McIntyre's ignorance, if thats still a thing, is their best defense for the time being.

"I didn't say that. My guess was you're either also looking to find Camp or keep further trouble off the Tressilian kid."

Admittedly, that's what you get when you call 'em both kid, but hey. Jake drops a name, but it doesn't men a lot to her, as in no bells ringing at all.

"What's a Hostewick ?"

So, McIntyre is Invictus, no surprises there. Same with being careful not to expose Tressillian jr., really. Ah, the fun ! Most likely means they ned to get some way of contacting Tres kid without giving away the location. Hm.

[R Quartermain]

"A hostewick means that the Estate is involved," he says quietly, with a small frown. "And that means I am involved regardless of my intent otherwise."

I am completely afk on vacation for the next week. Please feel free to skip me - we can say RQ is off investigating something

[Albert Baker]

Al nodded on the part where Mr. Jake explained that Ruby was in a safe place.

"I see. As we'll have to speak to Miss Rowland though, that would be not as prioritised, at least I would say that. As we know where she is..."

He paused for a moment thinking, before continuing. Now he was speaking to the team working alongside him. while slowly walking in circles around them.

"Though there is a more valuable one, which we might want to find and secure first... Of course there are several problems with that: we probably don't have a photo or picture, we don't know all the places where people could hide and I think we'd rather not get too many people involved... Which might lead us to delegation of parts of the work to hired help... Questions, ideas, other input?"

[Seryna]

Mr. Jake watched with careful attention.

"I have given you everything that I know, Mr. Quartermain, Dr. Baker, Helen."
Respectful nods to each while not using any masquerade breaching terms.

"Now, I truly must make preparations. I shall be in attendance at Nox the night after tomorrow. I bid you good evening."
Mr. Jake lingers only for goodbyes and then departs the scene.

Helen is first in the posting order, then Albert. Back to Helen until Robert posts back into the scene

[Helen Kingsley]

The Estate is involved... No shit. Still doesn't explain what a Hostewick actually IS, but hey, they'll learn as they go.

"Good evening as well, we'll be in touch."

And like that, Jake leaves and they're left to their devices. Hm.

"We know where she is, doesn't mean we can just go there and knock. I guess it might be good to think about how best to contact her without broadcasting where she is or stuff like that." Doc Bakey makes a good point, though. "Camp's black with a japanese mum. Army brat, 5'2, should come to town shortly, if at all. That's about all I can do." She frowns, as if recalling something, pulls out a letter and reads over it before smacking her forehead with her palm. "Camp apparently goes for 'they/them' pronouns, but from what I can tell, Camp is female or at least looks like it. If I have to guess ? Thirty, tops, likely younger."

That last thijng is a guess though, but its better than nopthing all things combined.

"Means now's the real work, if Camp's not in town already, how do we find out about the arrival, we can't really divide all points of access into town between ourselves. Especially if Camp's got half a brain, and I think that's the case... they'll make sure to arrive here in the height of day and go to ground after that. Now, lets pretend we're a fellow who got pretty badly mangled some time ago and has reasons to believe it might happen again, where would we hide ?"

[Albert Baker]

Al nodded and then they were on their own.

"Good evening, Mr. Jake."

When Helen guessed that it wouldn't do to broadcast where Ruby was by just going and knocking at the door, he stayed silent, as not to let some words slip that might endanger the mutual effort and just looked at her with a raised eyebrow as if to say 'I know that, it is quite obvious'.

Listening to the description he nodded while writing the description down, then pondering the question for a while before speaking. The pause before the pronoun making the mental stumble with it obvious as it seems difficult nowadays to give children proper names.

"The barrens. Were I in ...her positions I'd choose the barrens."

[Helen Kingsley]

"What barrens though ? I mean, thats not like a fixed place, really. Florin ? Elk Grove ? Arden Arcade ?"

Ugh, they're going to need a fucking map for this sort of stuff at this point. She really should know the city better by now, but then, it is pretty damn big. Looks like they'll need to hit up that ghoul again, maybe she knows at least what city Camp has left behind. Because if Camp comes in over the green border, they're pretty much fucked.

"We're going to need a map for this sort of stuffs. Get a look at the land and see where the best entry points are. I'll need to have another word with this messenger again. Unless you know what domain your friends have been active in so we know the general direction to look into ?"

[Albert Baker]

Al was surprised upon learning that unlike Victoria there were no consolidated area as the barrens but several which were not connected.

"That is quite unfortunate..."

When Helen said they might need a map to narrow the area down he nodded.

"Indeed. A map and some help, as Mr. Quartermain and us wouldn't quite suffice even when narrowing it down..."

After spending quite some minutes deep in thought and circling Helen and the surrounding area before speaking again.

"If they kept the agreement which they were until now, their domain of residence would have been somewhere in Florida. I don't know where exactly as not knowing where exactly the others dwelled was part of the agreement..."