RP:Chapel of Suspicion

Part of the Larketian Fault Lines Arc

Summary: An exhausted King and Queen visit the decimated Towering Tenements where Larket’s poorest have lost their homes. There they learn that the Chapel of Pleasure in the northwest miraculously survived with nary a scratch. The King and Queen visit the Chapel and are Josleen is spooked by how eerily perfect it is. They decide to launch an investigation.

Towering Tenements

Josleen hasn’t had a chance to rest since the wedding. In the two days since, she spends her days walking the breadth of the domestic wing of the fort (fort staff call this area ‘the castle’) with a high ranking butler. Together they take tally of what needs to be repaired, replaced, discarded, and in what order. Repairs and replacements are further complicated by the fracture in Larket’s supply lines and productive industries. The city is all but paralyzed. While Josleen sees to the castle, Macon addresses the military side of things, and the greater city at large. The newlyweds hardly see each other during the day, and dinner is rushed and frequently interrupted by staff members with urgent questions and reports. Besides, Augusta always manages to insert herself between the couple, figuratively speaking, so that even when they demand to be left alone at dinner, the old crone ensures the couple cannot enjoy each other’s company. After dinner, both the King and Queen have just ‘a few more things to do’ that inevitably snowball into ‘a lot more things to do.’ They go to bed late, exhausted, and in separate rooms. Today they scheduled a tour of the western quadrant, an appearance and a chance to reassure the public. The monarchy is tradition, it’s stabilizing. Josleen had looked forward to the short carriage ride with Macon, hopefully alone, but alas, he hadn’t yet received a very important brief and the only time to receive it was in the carriage ride. Two items of note: The concert hall was ransacked during the wedding. Judging by the bite marks on one of the victims, there was at least one vampire involved in the attack. The entire orchestra’s instruments were stolen, a few props, and 3 legendary instruments from the museum including a fabled, fairy-enchanted flute. Second item, a contingency of armed mercenaries came from Rynvale and issued threats, but, confusingly, also offered aid. A young knight named Reinhardt dealt with the situation satisfactorily. Although Josleen listens, she is naturally interested in all things, her gaze drifts out the window to take in the shattered city. She leans an elbow on the door and rests her chin in her hand. She rubs her eyes, exhausted but willing to do what must be done.

Macon has visited several sites around the city already that have sustained heavy damage. Where a couple weeks ago the Larketian military was fighting a war, it is now in full disaster recovery mode. Their peaceful time of rest is cut short and the might of Larket is now clearing rubble, finding the last of buried survivors, and setting up temporary campsites for the hundreds of displaced civilians. The Rage Knight only has a couple days sample size, but he perceives married life to be very difficult. He has barely seen Josleen since their wedding and he is completely exhausted. Macon can't help but yawn while being briefed on the incident at the music hall, but, upon hearing that the culprit is a vampire, quickly lays down the decision to make finding the stolen instruments a priority. The situation with the mercenaries arriving at the fort earns a growl, but the king is happy to hear that it has been properly dealt with without his intervention. Good work, Reinhardt, Macon has more important things to do. The carriage reaches the tenements, the city within the city, but they are in ruin. This is perhaps the worst of the damage that they have been out to see yet. Towers reduced to massive piles of stone, dust still in the air somewhat from the collapse. Macon can hardly bare to see it, such a large part of his legacy as a councilman, all but gone. The royal couple will meet with Harold, who built the felled tenements, after surveying the relief effort. Macon disembarks the carriage first, offering Josleen his hand for when she follows.

Josleen takes Macon’s hand as she descends from the carriage. She’s disappointed by his lack of interest in her in the carriage, especially because she had been looking forward to it so. But she says nothing and dutifully greets Larketians in line for soup, or sitting in tents. She carries babies, talks to children, and distributes feminine hygiene care as is expected of Queens, to be feminine and focused on family. Prior to the royal visit she had arranged for a caravan to arrive ahead of their carriage with additional supplies: blankets, pillows, clothes, shoes, dry rations, and so on. She doesn’t have to fake it here. Josleen is no stranger to disaster and wreckage, and while this may be her first earthquake, it’s far from her first time in service. Her attention and empathy is genuine. When it’s time to meet with Harold, an aide guides her to the meeting where she stands pretty and smiles as expected.

Macon and Josleen are received well, thanks in no small part to that caravan the Queen sent out ahead of them. The King gets to point and wave one or two times, but the facial expression that goes along with that greeting he sends out is more like the one where you see someone you know from across the room at a funeral. He shares Larket’s pain as his own, (now that he isn't personally inflicting it) and matches his Queen’s genuine empathy for those ravaged here. He assists with unloading some of the last of the supplies from the caravan, having left the marble crown of Larket on the bench in the carriage so that he can move and bend freely without fear of dropping the thing again. Macon rejoins Josleen for the meeting with Harold, which is fairly short and goes as one might expect from the builder. He assures them that he has a plan, and that he can rebuild, better, stronger than before. The King believes him, but is skeptical about how the costs will be covered… Before they part and the royal couple is left to the next leg of their tour, Macon looks his new wife’s way to see if she has anything to add.

Josleen asks Harold if he has any ideas on how to solve the immediate problem of homeless, displaced families and tenement residents. Rebuilding will take months, and these people, in the dead of winter, cannot survive in tents for long. Even in the spring, who wants to live in a tent for months on end? Harold snorts derisively and glares to the northwest as he says, “Maybe your majesties can decree that perverted Chapel of Pleasure open itself up to something wholesome for a change. How the hell that building-- even closer to the epicenter!!-- How that! That Sven forsaken place survived this earthquake is beyond me! Suspicious to boot.” His glare and confusion to the northwestern chapel deepens. Josleen looks to Macon, brow furrowed in bewilderment. ‘What?’

Macon tilts his head curiously, (good thing no crown), at Harold’s complaint about the chapel. The King and Queen, to this point, have only been concerned with damage reports, which an unharmed building does not show up on, so this is clearly the first they are hearing of the fortunate chapel. The Fury Knight meets Josleen’s questioning look with one of his own and dips his head back towards the carriage, silently indicating that they should perhaps change their next destination. The builder is thanked and told that he should call on The Crown directly for anything he needs to expedite the reconstruction here. Once they are back inside the carriage and have given their change of itinerary to the coachman, they finally find themselves alone, the staffer briefing the king on the way here having been left behind to assist at the tenements site. Macon tiredly runs a hand through his hair before leaning back in his seat and looking towards Josleen, trying to get a read on what she suspects they are going to see at the chapel. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake he had briefly entertained some suspicions of foul play given the timing of it, but since that moment he hasn't had the luxury of time to think about some conspiracy cause of the disaster. It is only now that he is allowed to think that way again, but he won't let her in on his concerns yet, preferring her to view this situation untainted.

Josleen‘s heartstrings tug when she sees her weary husband wring his hair and deflate, a little, into the seat. She shifts closer to him and leans against his side. Her fingers weave through his and she stares at their union, their hands and wedding bands. She can read his looks, discern from the lines of his face that he wants her opinion on the chapel and its miracle. So much of their relationship is tacitly understood. In just a couple months they developed a language of their own, marked by the absence of sounds rather than the presence, like braille read by the depressions, not the dots. “I don’t like this. If it were a chapel to Cyris or Lore, even the Ascendii Olric… I’d say it’s a divine miracle. But Delisha?” She shakes her head disapprovingly and looks up at Macon to see if his line of thinking parallels hers. “I really hope it’s a coincidence and easily explained. But… we do still have enemies.” She means enemy, singular, and the single greatest villain of her life. “He’s still out there. And he’s no paladin of Arkhen, that’s for certain. Do you think… He could have gotten in and--? I mean, the timing of it…” On their wedding day, the day Kelovath’s girl married his big bad wolf. She shudders violently at the thought then leans forward, elbows on knees, face in hands. The idea that her marriage to Macon would provoke one evil man to destroy the lives of so many innocents makes her feel nauseous with guilt.

Macon finds some comfort finally when Josleen leans on him and lets out a light sigh of relief before she voices her concerns. For a moment they are looking at the same thing, their hands together, but when she looks up, so does he, his slate stare meeting her own. He hadn't considered the fallen Paladin as the cause of the quake in that brief moment on their wedding day, and has not since, until now that she mentioned it. She curls over and he shakes his head, seeing how the very idea upsets her, he lies and says that he doesn't believe it is possible. “I don’ think he ‘as the capability t’do somethin’ like this. The chapel could be a coincidence,” he growls out in the way he always does while discussing Kelovath. Macon is not naive enough to believe what he himself is saying, even though it may be the truth, and she can probably see as much that he is lying to comfort her. He concludes that they will ‘‘ave t’wait and see wha’ they find at the chapel.’

Josleen reads his generous lie for what it is, and nods reluctantly to accept his false wisdom. She leans against him again so that his presence and touch can fill her up. In the days since the wedding, she’s missed him, but she doesn’t say so. The carriage ride takes longer than usual as they meander around rubble and pop-up encampments. Josleen is so exhausted she falls asleep against the King and naps for just over five minutes. When the carriage stops she blinks herself awake and mutters to no one in particular, “I’m up.” She didn’t even know she had gone down. It takes her a second to remember where she is and why. With Macon’s help she gets out of the carriage and enters the Chapel on his arm. She recoils at the perverted statues and decor, despite the fact she is no prude. It’s about identity. Lady in the streets, hussy in the sheets. As for any suspicious evidence, once you account for the Chapel of Pleasure’s creep factor, nothing looks amiss. And that’s exactly the problem. Nary a candle fell off a candelabra, nor did a moaning feline statue fall flat on its face. Surely, even if the quake failed to loosen the building’s foundations, it would not have failed to topple its furniture and props! But, there is also no evidence of foul play. Josleen whispers, “I’m not sure what we expected to find. A villain clever enough to pull off a quake would cover their tracks.” She gestures at a row of bottles containing aphrodisiacs sitting neatly on a shelf. “This isn’t normal.” She means the bottles should have fallen. “We should talk to Headmaster Percival. And maybe Professor Valen. He can read the minds of the worshippers here.” With nothing more to see here, the King and Queen leave to begin mobilizing an investigation.