[Off Shadowpath] Mystery, part 1: Gangland Eternal
It has, indeed, been Something Of A Trip. Starting with a sail off to Begma, and then a carriage out into Shadow, it's been some hours. The world has changed - well, obviously. And now the buildings are of stone and steel, and there are long, low, sleek looking but obviously very *solid* cars on the roads. And newspaper stands, and ...okay, yes, in the distance, not too far unfortunately, the crackle of gunfire.
Moxon has been practicing as they travel, in gesture and expression and body-language, "getting into character" as a weaselly enforcer-type. Short trip.
Cyndre does no such thing. She is as she is, no getting around her appearance and definitely not her bearing. She will simply be the foreign, exotic beauty built like a one woman wrecking crew. She does look around at the style of clothing available, however, as though she's trying to pick something to emulate.
Slender and almost boyish, but wearing short little dresses that might almost be long tunics seems to be the height of women's fashion just now. "Kagwa," he says, and fishes a notebook out of his pack. "This is the place. Cyndre, make a note of everything you want to take back with us. We'll load up a trailer or something before we head home, okay?" He looks around, wincing at the gunfire, and starts toward a newsstand. "I think I want to know where they're at in their cycle."
Moxon watches others move, and gradually acclimates. "Cycle?"
Cyndre watches some cars... Oh and look, a truck! "If we can round up some horses along the way, that right there would do just fine. Two birds with a stone, and all." she says, pointing at the vehicle. Beast of a thing, rumbling along with a mix of metal and wood for its bed. As for the women, she actually stops someone and asks, "How do you avoid showing your goods when you bend over in that thing?" Obviously, this has the expected effect of offending the person asked who looks at Cyndre with a mix of fear, hurt, and anger, and huffs right before walking off.
Quinlan grins, and fishes a coin out of a pocket to buy a newspaper. Heading for a bench to look it over, he says, "Yeah, cycle. That's the *weird* thing about this place. History repeats, over and over...and the funny thing is? The people *know it's going to*. Or at least they seem to. So...maybe it's not time in a circle, but a spiral? That's what brought *me* here, Moxon. I want to know why. It got me curious." He starts turning through the paper's pages, frowning, and then consults his notebook. "Looks like they've just found Valentine...like in the past few weeks or so. Good. That means the cycle's about to end and restart." He looks toward Cyndre. "So. Before we pick cars to kidnap, do you want to side with the old guard here, or the rebellion?"
Moxon has been focusing on the cars, planning how best to disable something so dense. He seems to have settled on the wheels, though he cranes his neck to examine the locking-mechanism on more than one passing door. Good thing they move like arthritic turtles.
"Side with... Oh, there's a conflict going on?" Cyndre inquires curiously, and with that edge of 'Yay, I get to bring on the wartime!' to her tone. "Old guard. Rebellions really aren't my thing."
Quinlan nods. "Okay." He opens up the newspaper again, looking for specific stories. "Here's the situation from the point of view of the old guard. Scarface is the boss of this town. They've theoretically got an elected government, but Scarface's crime syndicate's the one really running the show. His second in command, however, betrayed him..." he flips a few pages, checking his references, "About three weeks ago, forming his own *rival* gang, which is why the papers call him 'Valentine'. This ...whole showdown happens every twenty or thirty years or so. Scarface's second betrays him, becomes Valentine, there's a gang war. Valentine's *side* loses, but Scarface dies. And then someone new becomes Scarface. There's peace until the inevitable betrayal and it all starts again."
Cyndre ahhhs, "So it's not like everything resets exactly; events just occur in such a manner that the same things happen again and again to a new cast of faces."
Moxon blinks. "Yeah, that's a new one on me."
Quinlan nods to Cyndre. "Exactly. And I have no idea why. *Something* must be causing it. But any car or truck we take, anyone we fight who's got guns, they'll be on either Scarface's side or Valentine's until the final battle. So we might as well pick a side, so we don't have to fight *both* sides while we find out what's up." He looks between the two. "Any ideas?"
Cyndre hmms, "Well, do we have to stick to native means of fighting, or can I bring some of my talents to the game without too much to worry over?"
Quinlan mmms. "...I'm going to go with 'try not to be obvious about it'. If we advertise our strength we're likely to wind up ...heavily sought after. Both sides want to win."
Moxon nudges Quinlan. "/You're/ gonna be heavily sought-after. Now you know how I feel in Rebma." He grins, crooked.
"Pity this all happens only every few decades. It's a long wait to test out different scenarios." Cyndre says with a hint of disappointment. "Of course that makes me curious how long you've been studying this place."
Cyndre adds, in case it wasn't obvious, "Subtlety really isn't my strong suit."
Quinlan shakes his head. "Not long. I was hanging out in a nearby Shadow and heard the story. Then I came here, and..." he indicates the newspaper. "Events fit the expected pattern. So it's the right place, now it's just figuring out what's happening. If you'd like to study variations we can hit a library?"
Moxon says, "We could steal books, maybe. Aren't we on a timer?"
Cyndre says, "Now, of course this isn't subtle, but we could always destroy something one of the groups claim as under their dominion. Blow it up, wait to see who shows up, and then either attack the rebels or make amends to the old guard depending on who shows up to claim it."
Quinlan mmms. "Well, we might be able to pick a side more directly? I'd bet the police know who owns what, and that means a lot of other people do too."
Moxon asides, to Cyndre: "Thirty minutes and nothing's in ruins? Is that really too long to wait? I could go mug someone ..."
Cyndre chuckles, "I didn't say that at all. My plans are likely just likely to be along those lines; direct, a spectacle, and from the hip."
Moxon checks. "You brought hip-rockets?"
Quinlan smiles and shrugs. "I bring along experts, it'd be kinda pointless to not listen to advice." He passes over the paper to Cyndre. "Choose your target? You're welcome to poke at it too, Moxon."
Moxon laughs. To Quinlan, "I'm the expert at not being found when they're looking for who blew it up." He winks. "If you're nice to me, I'll make sure they only find enough of you to declare you dead and close the case -- the rest of you gets away. Y'only need, like, eight fingers? Right?" Joking, clearly.
Cyndre starts to look more closely at the buildings.. "Let's see... what enterprises would a criminal group be interested in... Prostitution... gambling... drinking... any vice, really."
Quinlan nods, and obligingly turns the pages of his newspaper until he gets to the police blotter, and the society pages. He offers both out as options. "Like these?"
Moxon rattles off a list of links for Cyndre. "Those are your big money-laundering hotspots."
"Oh." Cyndre replies, and eyes Moxon with a renewed sort of interest. "Thank you. I have to admit I'm confused, though... Money laundering? At the risk of sounding horribly dull, I can't imagine criminals need their coin so clean of filth that they devote man-hours to it.. Can you explain what that means?" Yeah, she's completely clueless when it comes to criminal activity. She shifts from link to link, seeing if any of them specifically mention a tie to one of the bosses.
Moxon ahs. "It means taking money you got not-legally and doing the necessary faking to make it look like, for example, profits from a legitimate business. Restaraunts, charity balls, tax returns."
Several links seem to tie to *both* bosses, probably part of why there's a war on. Cathouses, speakeasies, jazz halls - it almost seems like anything one could possibly do for fun in this town is owned by one or the other of the bosses, and the paper covers the raids and shootouts - depicting the police more or less as a bunch of cannon fodder often caught in the middle.
Quinlan nods agreement with Moxon. "As openly as the syndicates run this city, there's more to this Shadow than this city. Outside the borders of this town, there are people who have to be fooled into thinking everything's normal here."
Moxon says, "Liquor, maybe. Stage our own raid on a corn silo. Too stupid?"
Cyndre hnhs, "So the rest of the world moves on, knowing nothing, but /here/ specifically this repetition happens. How /very/ queer." She nods to Moxon, "Flammable booze is a plus. If I do it right, everything should fly away from me, and I'll be unharmed by the fire."
Quinlan nods slowly. "So. What're we aiming to do?"
Moxon shrugs. "Aim for one of their outer rings, the smaller fronts? They won't notice. Gotta admit, we'd better hit big and fast and hard."
Cyndre flips through pages, then says, "This one. The pictures make it look better class than say, Bloody Pedros or whatever it's named now, but not opulant. Enough to get notice without being unforgivable, I hope." She picks out a jazz hall called Lonesome Dove, that just opened back up after one of the said shootouts. "Might want to grab some weapons along the way."
Quinlan nods. "We can probably get that much fairly easily?" He looks toward Moxon for confirmation. "Are we holding up the place?"
Moxon blinks. "You said, let's support Face-Scars. Right? Are we sure this is Valentine's bank?"
Cyndre replies, "I think it's contested. It says here Scar.. Scar's men were massacred there last week, and the new manager might be working for Valentine.
Quinlan nods slowly. "So...we're holding it up to see who comes?"
Cyndre bobs her head. "Aye. That seems more forgivable than blowing it up."