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Action Id: 4789 Crisis: Participants: Duarte, Ferrando, Mirari, Quenia, Orland, Mabelle(RIP), Medeia and Celine
Status: Resolved Submitted: Dec. 6, 2023, 4:07 a.m. Public: True GM: Apostate


Action by Duarte

While the rest of Arx is engaged in figuring out this thorn business, Fealty Volitant engages in a counterespionage program.

Knowing that some past attempts to deal with thornweave were thwarted by a certain abyssal agent, it's necessary to identify any other potential enemy agents of the abyss who are among the compact and its allies. Nothing will be done with this information, yet.

The goal is to use Fealty Volitant's expansive network of spies and informants to identify actual or potential enemy spies, informants and saboteurs.

The information gathered will be used in a future action.

(OOC NOTE: This is not meant for rooting out PCs who are on 'team bad'. The intent is to gather a large list of NPC identities like 'Joe Blow the cultist' or 'Harry Buts the sabotaging scholar' or 'the book club down the street that's really a satellite cell consisting of a bunch of Horned God loving lunatics' who can be targeted in a future action. This action will lean on Clue #2846 as well as the story action contributions of Fealty Volitant members.)


Action by Quenia

Quenia is no stranger to working with a network of spies and informants, having been a spy master herself back in Granato, sometimes doing the dirty work herself to get the information she needed. She puts her considerable charm and social skills and treks out into the world, asking questions, taking names, and making use of the Fealty's network to pass information along where she can. She's careful to apply make up, change her appearance, and make sure she's not followed home, using more private areas in public buildings in the city to make subtle changes here and there before beating feet back out into the world once more to get the job done.


Action by Orland

It helps to be involved in many different ... organizations. On the surface level, here's a neo-noble who earned his Knighthood and has gained some respect on numerous accounts through various dangerous trials and tribulations. Here's also a man who dazzled everyone with his Spectacular Spectacular, becoming well known enough for his death-defying escapism that certainly people would LOVE to talk to him. On the underbelly of it all, well, he'll use what connections (ie. secret orgs) he has to pull on a few more strings, to get a few more jingles of information to play with. Low hanging fruit is obvious the best to fill the basket with.


Action by Mirari

One way or another, Mirari always finds a solution to every problem. There are different ways to get an answer, and the woman is skilled in the ones that work. As head of the Corsetina family, Mirari has a vast network of connections in many parts of the Compact. Let's be honest, some might be questionable sorts, but those are the kinds that get the best information. And so, she will smile and she will tempt people into telling her their secrets.


Action by Mabelle(RIP)

Well you do not become a Minister of a Duchy without having a few aces up your sleeve and Mabelle has plenty. Aside from the spy network controlled by her alleged cookie girl, she has something else now: people she broke free from the control of the traitor that were once hive minds to his cause and are so grateful, they want to bend the knee to Laurent. Certainly she can learn from them about missions they carried out for him, especially to handle threats to him or allies he gathered.


Action by Medeia

People just seem to trust Medeia. A lot. It's almost effortless for her to meet someone and understand them deeply, providing a foundation for that trust. Which is likely why Duarte brought her in to review collected profiles and see what information she can glean from them. He promised her the comfort of an office, and so she nestles away in his - for easy access to whiskey - with several stacks of information over a few nights. Her focus is particularly upon the possible motivations of each person profiled. Are they desperate, ambitious, bored? This is all compared against what she already knows of various Abyssal cults to try to find connections between them.


Action by Celine

Celine has been obsessively working with Occultists for years (Clue #4183 'Celine's Secret') and has therefore built up a tightly-knit network of people (NPCs) whom she implicitly trusts. She'll meet and speak with those that she's able to reach out to at such short notice in order to gather names of interest that may pop up, not only in connection with the current Thornweave crisis, but others that are known to sympathise and work with the Horned God's followers.


Action by Ferrando

Never one to maintain something quite so formal as an organized network of contacts (or, to be fair, an organized much of anything), Ferrando's ubiquitous gregariousness and access to every social strata from the Whisper House down to the Murder of Crows nonetheless provides him access to a fairly comprehensive set of people of all shades, stripes, and walks of life. And he's a good listener, which everyone really appreciates! Over the years in Arx his habit of stacking up contacts from guys who know a guy and informally fixing person who has this with person who needs that has built up to a semi-chaotic web of unconventional access, and combined with the finely tuned nose for the street he had ever since his young days as a cadet guard back in Lenosia, any diligent effort he puts into ferreting out something out-of-the-way tends to scare up some results more often than not. Put simply, few people know the city top to bottom as comprehensively as Arx's favorite (semi-retired-from-bouncing) bouncer. Combined with the typical Artiglio trait of over-and-above tenacity, it's a very useful thing to leverage for contributions to a little list-building project.


Result

There's an awful lot that indicate a half dozen nobles and prominent individuals are working in the Horned God's service, having been promised power or positions of authority when he takes over the world. Some are fairly certain, with individuals making admissions or trying to sway others to the Horned God in private. But the trouble is there's nothing that could really be presented as evidence, such as writings or objects, and all would just be testimony at any trial. So they can definitely pinpoint individuals, but public trials might not go their way.