People who live in Glass Houses. . .

[chupacabra]

A pale dawn pushed the oily shadows from the shopfronts of the Trade Tier until there was no more darkness to be had. A low lying rubbish heap piled up against the building just down from the shopfront of Crystal-Lines moved slightly, then slowly erupted. The parting of discarded bricks and mortar sent a plume of dust into the early light. A small figure emerged eerily from the cloud and stepped deftly from its abandoned hiding place. Its hooded face shot a look up and down the sleepy street, looking for witnesses. Satisfied, the figure scampered around the nearest availiable corner and into the anonymity of the open city once again.

High noon. A hunched and grizzled beggar sat for a time on the very same street, mumbling for hand-outs. The decrepit creature only looked up from her tin cup when anyone entered or left the glass-blowers' door, yet it was subtle, and only a keen eye trained on her would have noticed. Eventually, she wrapped her shawl tightly around her small, lumpy frame, and hobbled off.

The day wore on, rainshowers came and went, as did any number of shoppers along the avenue. Seemingly it was a day like any other outside the Crystal-Lines glassworks, the only exception being that there seemed to be a few more Hin shopping in the city than usual.

[chupacabra]

The stooping old crone's overlong sleeve hovered over the counter and deposited the necessary coin. In one swoop the same gnarled hand collected the vials of alchemist's fire which had been neatly laid out. With a croaked 'good-bye,' she turned and hobbled out of the potion shoppe, the grotesque hump on her back bobbing up and down under its voluminous robes.

*****

"Bah," she growled to herself. "Wouldn' i' bloody figure them bloody fat little Gnomes're wardin' the place from fire!? Bloody 'ates Gnomes, I do."
She looked over at the carefully assembled satchel of alchemist's fire.
"T'will be 'arder 'an I'd first though'. Back to the ol' drawing board."

*****

The hooded Halfling slipped the butcher-cook the small tube of poison.
"Into th' minced-meat pie with this, gov, and none will be the wiser," she said darkly.
"T'is not enough to make me marks 'brown bread,' but enough to give 'em a proper stomach ache, I reckon. At the end of the day, tha' shoul' be enough fer me to make me move. I'll be back in an hour to collect i' when she's baked. Good man; I owe ye one."
With this the Hin went off to prepare her costume and contingencies.

[DM Punchinello]

There was movement at the Glasshouse foundry when the word had got around.

Gaddab the Fat had turned up bloodied and faint having been attacked in the sewers by a prospective diminuitive customer. The false customer has also it turned out, laced a seemingly gracious mince pie gift with poison.

Indeed, most of the market stall owners had seen the red ball of a gnome shreiking in pain leaving bloddied droplets as he went. A Legion officer was seen to later visit the Glassworks, taking statements they said. Another asked for witnesses. The other two gnome were a shade green they said. Poisoned they whispered, but those lovely gnomes were saved, their bellies quietened by the calmative effects of their special cups. Their lady was wroth! Her benefactors insulted at the slight.

The officer assigned to the investigation sat at his bureau compiling a list of possible suspects. Now "Who would have the most to gain from incapacitating the glassworks crew?" he thought. He might need to enlist some help, there was far too much afoot these days.

[Kitsunestume]

All the activity around the glassworks were quietly observed by a pair of faint crimson eyes far higher than most would care to look. That night, a thin sliver of gloom peeled off from the eaves of a nearby warehouse and streaked silently across the dark sky towards it's mistress'.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Songbird sat in her mindspace office, talking with a black-silk shrouded twin to herself when the shade instantated. It offered both Sisters a polite bow, a dipping deeper to the shrouded individual, before handing Songbird a sheaf of papers. The hin took the folder, flipped it open,, and frowned. "Initiates, Folder R-7, if you could, Umbral. It seems like 'Shrew' just lost a grade." The Maskarran turned around and opened the cabinet as it materialized to retrieve the requested papers, offering them to the rogue at the desk, who made a few notes and handed it back. Songbird looked to the shadow, "Good work, get back there, in case anything evolves further. I'm going to see how bad the mess is, you should get Kristie up to date." With that, she tapped twice the floating sphere that connected the mindspace to their physical body and vanished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere in the caves around Aquor a Hin abruptly stopped rummaging through mushrooms as her eyes shifted from turquoise to indigo. Exchanging the floppy hat she was wearing for a find black-silk hood, the Hin wrapped herself in shadows and headed off to to the city to begin her own preparations.

[Kitsunestume]

~lag-inuced double-post. My apologies~

[chupacabra]

The fire popped again, the damp logs sending a swirl of sparks into the misty forest night.

The Hin sat hooded and masked beneath the little lean-to she had comandeered and stared at the fire, trying to make sense of things.

On the lamb again, she thought. It had been a mighty close call; she could as easily have been cooling her heels in a Legion stockade if it were not for the resoursefulness of her co-conspirator. Pity the other Hin liked to slap her so much.

At that thought, she rubbed the welt on the side of her face through her mask and winced.

"Bloody cheeky bitch tha' one, bu' a fine grifter, to be sure to be sure," she said to the fire and the forest.

From out of the dancing fire-lit shadows, one seemed to step forward into the clearing before her, uncannily taking shape. Rasher held her breath--she recognised that shadow somehow, but it had no buisness walking around on it's own!

She pulled her hood off and rubbed her eyes as if to clear them, then put on her spectacles. The clearing sat empty, only herself and the fire and the little lean-to. The halfling shivered and drew her cloak around her, though the night was not particularly cold.

[Kitsunestume]

The co-conspirators in question were standing before a large warehouse: the production facility for the Crystal-Lines Glassworking Company. Armed with key, passcode, and permission from Captain Tidestrike to search the place, the two legionnaires entered the currently deserted building. "Right then, Tirones Downes, you search up front, I'll check the rear. We need to find the hazardous materials before this business can resume." The orders from the shorter of the pair could be heard in the alley before they sealed themselves in.

Leaving the papers of their legitimate activities with her companion, the hin made a beeline for the hoppers of raw sand and minerals, all prepped to make new batches of glass and crystal. Standing above the largest container of pure white sand, the diminutive figure withdrew a number of leather pouches, filled to the brim with the powdered remains of flawed diamonds. The crystalline dust would create an interesting faint glitter within any products, while greatly compromising the structural integrity of such items when put under strain: for example, a beer-mug slammed to the bar. This would probably be enough to ruin the glassworks within a few batches, but the hin had a more lasting effect planned.
Having enacted the first half of her sabotage, the hin hastened onwards, pausing briefly before a number of the other hoppers. At each, she compared the material within to a small chart of alchemical components until she arrived at the basin filled with reddish lead. From elsewhere in her pack, the saboteur brought forth a sealed glass flask, filled with a thick black liquid. The specially prepared lead-solution had been sitting in the unhallowed water for a few days, soaking up residual malignance in addition to increasing in concentration. Upon being poured into the hopper the desecrated solution powdered, turning blood red before blending to the more conservative hue of the current contents. If the dark-blessed mixture didn’t result in a greater chance of future lead-poisonings, it would at least give the building’s current owners some extra trouble if a Hand of Mundus came by to inspect the place.

Nodding to herself, she tossed both the pouches and the flask into a furnace, before throwing one of her special high-potency alchemical firebombs at the pile. As the mass smoldered cold, the hin turned on one heel before heading out the warehouse doors after a motion for her companion to follow. After the pair had informed the Captain and the owners of the Glassworks about the successful search, Tirones Downes and Tirones Auburny of the Eleventh Legion returned to being nothing more than ghosts in the ledger.