1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.4 An Artful Carnivale
1.2.4.8 The hijackers
A while later, the tour resumed, as they headed south along the Canalasso in a gondola steered by a skinny man whose large ears twitched every time they said something interesting. They switched over to using group chat.
Alderney: {To our right is the Night Market, run by the Nomad Nation. They’re smugglers and fences rather than thieves, but they’ll sell anything to anyone if the price is right. In fact, none of the gangs are explicitly thieves. There is no actual Thieves Guild, with a building or formal organisation. Different groups have different specialities, and rank is more a matter of reputation and respect.}
Alderney: {For example, most of the second story work in Torello is carried out by Podarge’s Chosen. But that includes scouting, acrobatics, archery, trap work, infiltration, stealth and many other skills. They’re as likely to be called upon to tail someone or plant evidence as they are to steal diamonds from bedroom drawers. And they wouldn’t pick pockets or mug someone in the street - in fact they avoid violence or even meeting people as much as possible.}
Bungo: {Who does teach picking pockets and mugging?}
Alderney: {The Royal Court have a few specialists in pocket picking, though they’re more likely to be trying to find information or acquire a specific item. The Lovari do it too, on occasion, but their main focus is the short con - they’d rather you give them the money. Mostly, though, if someone picks your pocket around here they’ll be a freelancer; either a kid, an opportunist, or just someone you’ve rubbed the wrong way.}
Alderney: {Random violence is much rarer. Freelancers who go around mugging people get hunted down by the Rats - it's bad for business, and if need be they’ll call upon the Three Towers to aid them. If you get caught up in violence here, it's most likely to be drunken sailors or a battle over turf. The Captains’ Council wants Torello to be seen as a safe port.}
Bulgaria: {For adventurers, the threat is non-random violence. If you’re following a quest, your opponent may well have hired mercenaries as protection, or even put a bounty upon your head with the Lily. We’re also far more likely than average to encounter dangerous outlaws such as Platona's Army or the normal pirates, bandits, cultists, rogue necromancers, etc.}
Bungo: {Too much information! Just tell me about them when we pass them, and you can summarise at the end of the day. For now, all I’m picking up is there are lots of gangs who do lots of different stuff. It’s like a whole new city here, with its own rules.}
Alderney: {Pretty much. Welcome to the Arsenal.}
Alderney tapped the gondolier on the shoulder and whispered something to him. He started steering the boat to the left, towards one of the smaller canals jutting off it.
Kafana relaxed back in her seat, and decided to enjoy looking around. The sun was shining and she enjoyed being on the water. All this really needed was a glass of something elegant to sip. In fact, didn’t she have something in her stash? She handed a pair of etched wine goblets to Tomsk, who was sitting next to her, and drew out a bottle of sparkling white wine from Caputa. After pouring for them both, she sighed contentedly, sipping from the goblet held in one hand and trailing the other in the water, watching the ripples lit from below by the glow of her skin.
Bulgaria: {That’s interesting. The gondolier doesn’t seem at all worried about your hand being in the water. He’s obviously been briefed about you. I wonder who he works for?}
Wellington: {He’ll be part of the Seafarers Guild. At the top level it doesn’t do much beyond skill certification and setting navigation rules, but there are branches for different classes of vessel and speciality, and some of those are pretty clannish. Attack one stevedore, and the others come running.}
Alderney: {Well, it’s a nuisance. Kafana, how did you and Bungo do with sonic magic yesterday? Can you cast a mute spell, or set things so the gondolier can’t hear us?}
Kafana: {Sorry, we got distracted with weather magic. Bungo did come up with an idea for visual stealth, but we’ll need your help to test it. I’d love to develop a mute spell, perhaps something like your arlife noise-cancellation ear phones, but I think I need Wellington’s help for that. Also, if I can shape a lens out of water, maybe I can create infrasonics? I think the game-engine can handle it, because the whales seemed to be using it.}
Wellington: {We’re by water now. Want to do a test? We could also see how high the frequency can go. Perhaps you can develop echo location? Give me a minute, and I’ll send you an image.}
Kafana brought up the shared orglife map. Alderney had marked an amazing amount of detail in this area, including things like lines of sight and jumping distances between buildings. They were heading down a canal marked as the Rio Pesce towards an area labelled “Fish Town”.
Kafana: {I notice we’re close to the sea here. Do we have time to divert into open water? I can speed us up!}
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Alderney: {Absolutely. Bonus points if the gondolier falls in.}
Kafana: Hello Fishies!
Fishies: Fana! Mor-lady! Swim/be us?
A chorus of voices answered her. Apparently just dipping her fingers in the water had been enough to attract attention.
Kafana: I want to sing for you all. But not here. Too shallow. If I make a big bubble, would anyone like to push?
The enthusiasm of the volunteers inspired her.
Kafana: {Alderney, I think we can do better than that. Everyone, get ready to act panicked. We’re about to be dragged under by a dread terrible sea serpent!}
She shaped a tentacle out of water, and made it loom past the corner of the gondolier’s vision. She gave a scream and pointed at it dramatically, then made the boat shudder and jerk downwards.
Alderney: “Nessie!”
Bulgaria: “It's going to sink us!”
Bungo: “A Nantucket Sea Serpent! They swallow people whole.”
Tomsk: “We cannot fight it. Swim for your lives!”
Kafana produced three more tentacles and tilted the boat so water flooded in.
Wellington moved next to the gondolier and commanded him: “Make for the shore while we’ll keep it occupied.” and gave him a little shove.
That was enough. The gondolier gave an enormous jump, almost vaulting with his pole, and landed an arms width away from a nearby boat which got drenched by the splash. Kafana saw him being pulled aboard as she finished sinking their own gondola beneath the waves in an egg-shaped bubble. With a last threatening lunge she made the tentacles disappear, drained the water from beneath their gunnels and hardened the base of the sideways egg, where it formed a rubbery surface for the fish to push against at the rear of the boat.
Alderney and Bungo clung to each other, laughing madly, while Bulgaria searched for supplies and Wellington looked out, fascinated.
Kafana: ”Ready for a rollercoaster?” She put her drink away, and Tomsk put a steadying arm around her, which felt way too nice.
Kafana: Let’s go to sea. Show me how well you can steer!
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Looking back later, she decided that cats after catnip have nothing on dolphins introduced to a new game of ‘chase the ball’. They dove around them, formed teams, made improvised hoops out of bubbles to steer the ball through, sang complex chants when a team managed to score a hoop and immediately broke that team up and redivided the players. Or perhaps it was more a dance than a game; she couldn’t tell.
Indeed, it was quite difficult to persuade them to stop playing when they reached a good place to carry out experiments. She only managed it by telling them it was a new game.
She started with the ultrasonic test, buffing her voice and learning abilities, turning on Truesight and carefully laying out the rune design from Wellington on a water lens she shaped to match an overlay.
Kafana: “I’m going to sing part of Emotions by Maria Carey and improvise the whistle register part, see if I can take it up to 20khz. Raise your hands, and lower them when you can no longer hear me.”
Each repetition of "feeling higher" she took it to the next level. Alderney was the last to lower her hand, but she did one last repeat, and this time she got a new type of response.
Dolphin: Hello *higher*, you beautiful ¡signature¡.
The dolphins around them each came to the edge of the bubble and introduced themselves with their own unique signature whistles, before flipping their tails and retreating. Kafana did her best to imitate them back, acknowledging the introduction, but suspected she sounded rather like a two year old child who can’t pronounce all the syllables in their elder sibling’s name.
[Skill “sonic magic” has reached level 8.]
[Skill “taming” has reached level 4.]
Wellington: “From their behaviour, I take it they can hear you despite the fact that we can’t? Let’s call that test a success and move on. How low can you go?”
Kafana: “I’m a dramatic coloratura, so in arlife I don’t normally go much below middle C, call it 240 hz. Here? I don’t know my limit, but with a vocal buff I managed a couple of octaves lower than that, call it 65 hz. What’s needed for infrasonics?”
Wellington: “Some whales go as low as 10 hz, which is lower than humans can hear. If you’re looking for a non-lethal weapon, sounds in the range of 7 hz to 19 hz can cause panic, disorientation and even visual apparitions.”
Kafana: “Hmm, I don’t think I can sing that. Maybe I could make a pipe out of water? Church organs can go down to 8 hz. But that will take a while, and we’re due to have lunch. Anything else you think we should try before we head off?”
Bulgaria: “Could you reverse the parabolic spell you used in the plaza on that thief? If they can hear us, it would be nice to at least even the odds by being able to listen into their conversations at range.”
Wellington: “No problem. Flavio came up with the amplifier, so it uses air not water. Let me fiddle with it while we travel back, and we can try it out over lunch. It will work better above the surface.”
Minutes later the dolphins delivered them to their destination, an unassuming tavern in Fish Town with a rope pot containing live lobsters hanging from the wall. They moored the gondola alongside and entered via the canal-side door.