It is about 65/span>/span18C) degrees. The mist is heaviest At Mayflower and Colonial/span

(Your target and their allies discover a supernatural predator has been hunting in a local park, leaving behind drained victims. They must track down and confront the creature before it claims another victim tonight, but the predator has been using the park’s homeless population as both prey and unwitting guardians.)

Kai had just entered the Brine Pool Lounge to bum around for a bit, but as a faction and society member, not to mention a Dasher, he could be pulled back out at any time.

In the Brine Pool Lounge, late night patrons and early attendants gossip and chatter over the latest news. A new death in the city. A homeless woman has been found dead, head nearly severed from neck, an incision from collarbone to nape, another from collarbone to navel. No blood at the scene, as if whomever murdered this person had done so after draining all the blood out of the victim. And supposedly, similar circumstances have occurred, around this so-called park, every single day for the past two weeks.

“Hmm!” Kai makes a little sound of interest at the gossip and starts to look up what public details he can find, “The news never shows unfiltered pictures, but maybe since there’s no blood…” he says with a little grin, the light catching just right in his eyes as he looks for more information about the murders, but especially any macabre photos he might find.

Tick-tack, click-clack, Elliot/span hobbles and steers himself forward, slow, yet steady, those murmurings bringing a sort of disgust that ruptures and taints the concern that emanates from his knit eyebrows and lightning blue hued eyes. A wave towards Kai is given, and proceeding along, the towering fellow settles on a stool, listening more into this gossip. “How utterly uncivil… how uncouth!” he mutters, wrinkling his hawkish nose, as if he had just bit into a bad lemon.

“Why would you say that?” Kai asks Elliot in confusion, looking up from his phone temporarily at the man’s reaction to the gossip, “They’re just bums,” he shrugs and after a few seconds, “Ooooh, because they should be picking more quality victims?” he asks of Elliot, turning his hazel-eyed gaze his way to see his response.

Kai, far more efficient in this moment than the hobbling cripple, swiftly realizes a pattern in this gossip. The targets appear to all be brunettes, slender and feminine. All homeless. All slain somewhere around the park’s fountain. There’s never evidence of any blood at the crimes, but, occasionally, traces of vomit. There’s been several sightings of a rather beefy person, wearing ratty clothes, and a black and green hoodie, prowling around at the hours of the murder. Not much else of note, however.

“Because of obfuscation,” Elliot answers Kai, with a polite smile. “No one should ever learn of your naughty deeds, and you should always act a gentleman in society.”

Kai grins at someone a bit and nods a bit, “You’re saying he’s sloppy?” he asks, “He definitely has a type, thin dark haired women… black and green hoodie. Sounds pretty buff too,” he frowns just a touch and rubs at one of his darkly circled eyes.

Kai grins at Elliot a bit and nods a bit, “You’re saying he’s sloppy?” he asks, “He definitely has a type, thin dark haired women… black and green hoodie. Sounds pretty buff too,” he frowns just a touch and rubs at one of his darkly circled eyes.

“The thing about strength, Mister Ashford,” Elliot expresses after listening to the gossip. “Is that, it can always be manipulated. All things are malleable, whether we like it or not. Now… shall we go see about meeting this roguish vagabond?”

Kai looks to Elliot and grins a bit, “Um… okay, I guess so,” he nods to the man and stands up, “Probably a vampire anyway, so that’s some slight advantage…” he supposes as he gets to his feet and slips his hands into his hoodie.

“Do me a favor?” Elliot asks of Kai, holding out the crutch he uses with his good side. “Snap this into two?”

Kai takes the crutch and lifts his brow at Elliot, but he shrugs. He brings it down hard over his thigh and grunts when it just rebounds, “Sturdy fucker!” he mutters bitterly and, out of respect for the owner, steps outside before he swings the crush down against the sidewalk a few times until it cracks and breaks in two, “There we go,” he mutters and heads back to Elliot with the two pieces.

With a nod, Elliot hobbles out of the bar and it’s vicinity, gesturing, beckoning for Kai to follow. The longer, sharper half of the crutch is selected as, seemingly, an unorthodox spear or stake of sorts, while he walks, the other tossed to the side as unsuitable for his purposes. “Let’s head to the park. I need to get back into the swing of things anyways, and, downing someone like this? It’ll be a dream.”

Kai hmmms and slams his heel down on the smaller piece, breaking it up a bit more until he can retrieve a thinner, shorter piece from it. It may not work as a stake, but it’s still wood, he pockets it and trails after Elliot, “Sounds like a plan,” he agrees with a chipper grin, despite the weariness on his face.

With the temporal cripple’s pace, the park is eventually reached, and while it’s not night, the traces of the last crime scene remain, marring the carefully manicured trees and gardens with the stench of death, benches vacant and the homeless populace still not attending to this area. It’s near grim and melancholic, with city workers cleaning up the remnants of the corpse that once was, whatever is left are, what seems to be, dismembered bits and bobs. The psychotic killer has left refuse from the corpse here and there, tissue, muscle, this was far more than an evisceration, but a messy dissection and destructive autopsy that has tainted this public utility.

Kai presses his lips together in thought as he approaches the scene, keeping pace with Elliot rather than moving on ahead. He flares his nostrils a bit as he inhales, scanning the surroundings. The trail’s likely to be cooling, but hopefully it isn’t completely cold just yet, “Bad business,” he mutters to Elliot at the state of the park and the dismemberment that’s occurred.

“Happens when one gets to a city like this,” Elliot admits to Kai with a small frown, peering around at his surroundings as if to look for something. “We should check the streets,” he admits over towards Kai, “Odds are this predator is homeless too, I can’t think of a better reason to prey upon the downtrodden in this city. Or perhaps they live in a rather slummy apartment? What do you want to do? Ask the cleaners?”

“Hmm…” Kai looks around, open skepticism on his face about the killer being homeless too, “It’s possible, but homeless and hookers have often been targets because no one really gives a shit about them. I’m not sure it means he’s homeless too, but it’s possible,” he nods to Elliot, “I guess start with the cleaners and see if they found anything noteworthy and expand from there. Maybe I can pick out a scent, but… eh… it’s a public park…” and then contradicts himself, “Then again, if he had a lot of blood on himself, which seems possible, that might help narrow the scents down.”

“Sadly, I’ve not yet expanded upon my natural senses,” Elliot rubs his chin, before going around, inspecting the area for clues, his hobble bringing him around the fountain. “But, if it is a vampire, we’ll know they’re somewhere shady at the least. Dim, away from the sun. I’ve met more than my fair share that act like they’re allergic to a little sunlight.”

Kai nods in agreement, trailing Elliot, “Yep… maybe the maintenance tunnels,” he considers, “Unfortunately, a lot of buildings still vacant too, could be squatting,” he hmms and approaches the cleaners, opens his mouth and then turns to Elliot, “You know… you might be better at this right now actually, I don’t want to screw it up.”

With a smirk, Elliot nods and heads over towards one of the cleaners, offering a hand to shake. “Agent Harrison, I’m here to investigate the murder that occurred here, on behalf of the Department of Public Safety for Massachusetts,” he intones in a rather serious voice, certainly not dressed the part for whomever he’s intending to act as. A bit of chatter and skeptical glances later, and the Harrington returns to Kai with a small nod. “They didn’t really believe me, but at the very least, they saw someone fitting the bill of our ‘suspect’ heading north. Apparently there’s a construction site a lot of homeless people stay in.

Kai nods to Elliot when the man comes back, his expression pensive, he shrugs and tells Elliot, “North it is then. Hopefully we can catch this fucker sleeping,” he grins a little to the man and starts off in that direction, he’s sluggish enough that he doesn’t need to do much to ensure Elliot keeps pace with him, even with the other fellow’s bad leg.

Both the men hobble along and find the structure, a new apartment building being constructed, nearly finished. Except the homeless have certainly made this into so camp of sorts. Look-outs for the vagabonds are set up outside, constantly arguing with angry construction workers who are trying to shoo away the slum rats to continue construction. No one has yet called the police, if they’re even interested in assisting with the problem. Tents shroud the surroundings like a make-shift tent city, found in Skid-Row. More homeless mill around, hawking this or that, drunk, high, belligerent.

Kai looks around for a likely person, someone not-drunk, belligerent or outwardly high. He approaches someone selling bullshit and says, “Boy, this looks interesting!” with a little grin and he hmms, “I think I’ll buy this, how much?” he indicates something particularly cheap looking.

The fellow hawking wares that Kai approaches shows him definitive knock-offs of rolexes, and they aren’t even particularly convincing knock-offs. In fact, it looks like this man, has, somehow, acquired a good can of spray-paint to paint the piece gold, a long with other discrepancies, the name misspelled, the crown logo crudely fashioned… “Fifty bucks!” he asks, wiggling around his fingers to flaunt his (definitely fake) gold rings.

“Let’s call it forty and you have yourself a deal!” Kai says and pulls his wallet from his hoodie, pretending to fish around in it, “You hear about all those skinny dark haired women getting murdered?” he asks almost idly, “I guess some big guy in a black and green hoodie’s been seen around the murder sites… I’d steer clear if I were you,” he tells him, “Hmm… you haven’t seen anyone like that around here, have you?” he asks with overly widened eyes, glancing from side to side as if suddenly afraid.

“Donte isn’t a murderer,” the man scoffs, pulling back his fake watches in haste. “You shouldn’t say things like that! Don’t be accusing him, he’s just like the rest of us!” Hostility creeps in the hawker’s voice, and he tries to wave down a few other fellows, crying out, “This man’s after Donte!”

“Whoa, whoa! Do I look like I cop!? I was just repeating the rumor on the street. I’m not after any fucking body,” Kai says and takes a step back, his hands up, holding only his phone, “But if people are talking about Donte to guys like me, sooner or later someone who is looking for him’s going to come around. So I hope he’s hunkered down somewhere safe, if he hasn’t done anything. Fuck those cops.” in an effort to try to defuse the situation before it becomes an informal episode of the homeless vs. the crippled.

“Get out of here fucker,” the hawker growls, shaking his fist in a rather comical manner, but, seemingly, the people he called over are shooed away and everyone’s at ease. The construction workers continue to argue, and at some point, they begin a fight with one of the homeless men, slamming a wrench into their neck… So, at the very least, some form of chaos begins, and starts to escalate. The brawl grows as quickly as it has started, and soon, plenty of workers and vagabonds are trying to eke out a victory over the other.

Kai glances sidelong toward the brawl, looking to spot anyone who might fit Donte’s description. It seems unlikely, so he isn’t looking too hard, instead he beckons to Elliot and starts toward the construction site in an effort to sneak in while there’s a convenient distraction happening to keep eyes off of them.

While there’s no one visible outside, the innards of the apartment building seems mostly clear to begin combing over for this ‘Donte’, and so Elliot makes his way over towards Kai, flourishing his improvised stake with some care. “Found our ‘friend’? I’m honestly surprised with the perpetual brawl happening right now. Seems like this one has been boiling for ages, and the bubble has just burst.”

“Sounds like the guy is named Donte, they were really protective of him, which makes me wonder if he could be a witness, or if they’re just clueless,” Kai tells Elliot, “But a detective I am not, so…” he shrugs and continues through the interior of the apartment, searching for any likely hiding spots. The vague image in his mind is of a piece of sheeting used as a tent or pulled over a gap in a wall as a make shift door, something along those lines. His hands are in his pockets again, one hand on a sheathed knife, the other on the little over-sized splinter he broke off of Elliot’s crutch.

“Some supernaturals,” Elliot suggests as he enters the dim apartment complex, “Are capable of hypnotism and psychic persuasion on a scale to make others do as they please for a rather long period of time. It’s entirely possible that this ‘Donte’ has been psychically manipulating these people like a herd.”

“Truuuue,” Kai nods at Elliot, keeping his voice pitched low as he looks about, his eyes are keen and he’s able to see okay in dim lightning. He’s also using his nose, especially if he can pick up on the coppery scent of stale blood as he searches. Unfortunately, he’s not particularly light on his feet, and Elliot’s crutch may not help with their ability to be sneaky either.

Inside the complex, the duo can immediately notice how dim and dank it is. It seems almost as if all construction has stalled in the nearly complete rooms, wall frames a rare sight, but still prevalent enough that no room is completely enclosed and no room completely obfuscates its interior towards the passerby. Plenty of homeless lay asleep, drunk, high, or experiencing some sort of episode within the hall, the most downtrodden of society using this strange place as some sort of hive. No one fitting the subject’s description is spotted, however a stairway brings one upward, to an unknown amount of floors, but proper estimates may yield that they number three to five. It’s still dim, and further inward, the place becomes darker and darker, as if no amount of light can penetrate the shadows that lurk here.

Kai voices his doubts to Elliot quietly, “We’re getting pretty high, if you’re right and we make noise, and he calls all these people up to defend him… that cuts our escape. I don’t love our chances,” he frowns slightly and looks about the floor they’re on, “Are we sure we don’t want to cut our losses, give what we found to people more capable, who might have backup?”

“We can,” Elliot nods over towards Kai, glancing over the stairwell with a bit of envy and trepidation. “I’ll let it be your call, Mister Ashford.”

Kai shakes his head a bit at Elliot, “We’ve got a name, a location and some hunches, let’s pull back. I don’t want us both to end up as a statistic. Besides, if no one catches him… then when your leg is better and I’m… feeling more myself, we can try again,” he decides, starting to creep backward the way they came.

“Alright, I’ll send a report to the Sons of Olympia and Miss Fairchild-Montrose,” Elliot expresses with a small, faint nod, beginning to hobble his way out of the apartment, past the escalating scuffle that’s practically on its way to becoming a riot.

Kai nods in agreement with Elliot and soon enough, the cripple and the husk of an arcanist descend, with the latter’s choice to kick the can to someone else for this particular problem.