Strings.

[Cinnabar]

It took a moment before his fingers loosened from around her wrist, once he had assured himself that she wasn't going to do anything precipitate. Her question prompted a shrug and a small smile as he made a show of straightening his coat.

"A little." He glanced to the door again, as if considering the chances of the spider learning to work the latch. "Mainly I was worried you'd just annoy it. A weightier tome might've done better, but there'd still be a risk of getting bitten, or breaking the statue. Neither of which would be very good." See? Some concern for her wellbeing there.

"So, it's better off left where it is for now. Did you see a way it could have got in there?" He'd not seen a big enough hole for it to have crept in, but then there hadn't been much time to make a thorough inspection. "Or what sort of spider it is - I'm fairly sure they don't grow that large around here, hm?" This last spoken slightly louder for the benefit of the researchers, though his attention remained on Mary.

"There's usually a reason behind something like this. Find out what it means."

[Glenn]

"I can squash a spider, Cinnabar." Her hands didn't quite go on her hips but it was a near thing. She may not have been the most book smart person in this room, but she was a farm girl and and that gave her a nice set of very specialized skills. Spider-squashing was in there somewhere in the middle. Still, now that the adrenaline was wearing off, the sheer size of the thing was beginning to set upon her thoughts. Maybe the former Governor had done her (or yes the statue) a favor.

She started to reply when voices behind her chimed in. The 'room' as it was, was voicing its opinion. "Nothing that size could have gotten in."

The first had been a male voice and this, a more nasally pitched female one. "The spider wasn't always that big. IF it is Catch's spider, and we have to assume that to be the case, it used to live in his mouth."

A third voice, male again. "It could have entered and grown. It's been destroyed before, or near destroyed. It might have started out quite small this time."

"The cabinet was sealed tightly." The first male voice chimed back in. "Very little in the way of sustenance, at least the sort to allow it to grow to that size, save for any visually undetectable energy from the statue, that is."

This was, apparently, a ritual of sorts, and now that four comments had been made, all eyes turned to Calomel, the outsider. One did not just stand in this room and open doors and request aid and answers. It was time that the silver-haired man pulled his intellectual weight. Mary cleared her throat, and whispered helpfully and politely. "it's your turn."

[Cinnabar]

Mary's protest was met with silence, and a look that invited her to think very carefully about how true that was. Spiders generally, oh, absolutely. That particular spider, huge as it was? He was sceptical.

The suggestions from the room were... well, perhaps not what he'd expected, the back-and-forth offering of ideas and theories altogether more informal than he might have anticipated. And some of them begged more questions in turn, and at first he took that expectant silence as an invitation to ask.

"Where did Catch get the spider from?" Note that he didn't ask why the addled man would keep the creature in his mouth. It was unlikely that anyone but Catch knew the answer to that.

But then it became apparent that he was expected to contribute to the hypotheses. Grey eyes turned back towards the now-sealed door.

"Unless it knows how to pick locks, it's fair to assume it got in through a small gap - under the door, for instance. Or perhaps secreted about the smaller cabinet, before the statue was moved." Not outside the realm of possibility.

"Visually undetectable energy. Have you watched spiders feed?" This to the first researcher, making no assumptions about his grasp of natural philosophy.

"When they catch a fly, they wrap it in silk." Forefingers twirled about one another in illustration. "But they don't eat it. They drink it. The fly's still whole within its wrapping, but drained of juices. What's left is a dry husk."

His gaze returned to the closet door, some faint distaste visible upon bruised features.

"This spider has spent however long locked in a room with nothing but a statue. A statue with an unusual yet entirely detectable trait."

And with that, he offered a nod to Mary.

"Your turn."

[Glenn]

When that door closed and when guests and visitors faded, the Inquisitory became a very different place. Governor Burnie had insisted on little less. Oh yes, the ability to follow direction was essential, but a certain adaptability of thought and idea was ever fostered by the man as well. That is how he had grown, even if it was a matter of seizing it for himself from a world that did not freely grant it, and these men and women needed to be their very best for Myrken's sake.

Cinnabar asked his first question and three responses shot out. One spoke Faeryl, the second Jirai, and the third Kacela. Following this was a brief moment of infighting where the two voices who agreed that it was a drow argued with the third. Within about four exchanges, there was agreement on the drow count. At this point, that third voice entered the Faeryl camp. "It IS her symbol after all. Remember the warnings." Burnie had told them not to face her directly in their search for knowledge, and used the story of her spell of a thousand spiders to drive the point home. No complete answer, however, so Cinnabar would have to work with the possibilities.

Then came silence as the former governor explained spiders. Some nods, some stares. Knowledge varied as did specializations. Mary had watched a spider feed, and she let him know enthusiastically. Though there was some muttering about smashing soon after.

Suddenly, however, it was Mary's turn. "M.. Maybe the statue nurtured the horn, not the other way around? Or.. or it CONTAINED it, somehow. It had the energy to contain it which is why the horn's energy in the lake was so.." What was the word? What was the word? WHATWASTHEWORD? "Localized! And it wasn't enough to heal the lake from its blight, and.." then, abruptly. "Do you think Catch would recognize her?"

[Cinnabar]

It was an interesting way of going about things, that much was for certain. But pooling their knowledge in this way did seem to be producing results, after a fashion. Mary's expertise on spiders was acknowledged, though with a small grimace at the contniued insistence on smashing them; that the spider was likely a gift from the drow seemed to make sense, and might go some way to explain the addled man's persistent affection for the dark elves.

"If that spider is Catch's pet then I think it'd be very bad to smash it. So let's not."

Mary's hypothesis was considered carefully, though a slight frown betrayed his doubt over the particulars.

"I'm not sure talk of 'energy' is helpful. It's too..." His hand waved in a wishy-washy gesture. "...vague. Might as well just shrug, call it magic and go home. Consider effects - what has been observed. Speculation's a waste of time unless it can be tested." If they had the horn in their possession they might be able to find out the truth of the matter; but if they had the horn in their possession a lot of things would likely be different.

"I don't know what discussions you've had already, so forgive me if I retread old ground." The very briefest of pauses before he forged on, in case one of the researchers did opt to interject.

"The statue and horn were together at the bottom of the lake. During this time the region of water nearby was clear of poison, yes?" That was the impression he'd been given, certainly. "We don't know whether that was due to the horn or the statue, only that it was a localised effect centred on them both. We don't know enough to say whether that is because one was constraining the other, or simply that the horn's effects are limited.

"However: only after the horn was removed did the statue change and begin bleeding. From which we might infer that the horn was the purifying agent." Which was in keeping with what folklore told of unicorn's horns.

"Perhaps it was put in place to stop that thing" A flick of fingers towards the closed door. "from doing whatever it's now doing. Which, yes, might have limited the horn's effects, or drained it somehow, if that's where its energy was going instead."

And that brought them to Mary's question. Calomel was silent for a time, thinking, grey gaze moving restlessly from one researcher to the next before finally returning to Miss Ford.

"I don't know. He has some very old memories of his past - he's mentioned a city, golden and bloody, where he was taken and adorned with silver and gold chains. And then he sang, and the sky blackened and the moon fell." He lets that sink in for a moment, looking past Mary to the cabinet door.

"She might be something to do with that. In which case, yes, he might recognise her. My concern is how he'll react if he does."

[Glenn]

"Could.." Mary began but she seemed hesitant. She was still thinking through just what she wanted to say. Sometimes it took a while, and there were procedures for this. "Could the.." Then a shake of her head and a wave of her hand, a signal, really, and the rest of the room took over. They would come back to her.

Now an unshaven man with a brown beard and rather neat robes (robes far neater than the rest of him), as if he was part of some religious order or another, stood. He wore elaborate spectacles covered with multiple interchangeable lenses, each able to pass in front of the next so that he could seemingly switch them out, one for another. "The governor has a particular theory on Catch, one that none of us can easily argue with. It's far preferable to trigger him, as it is, in a controlled environment, somewhere that the danger to both himself and to others could be minimized, somewhere that we can be most properly prepared. Perhaps we could move the statue to the Arena, after clearing it of bystanders, of course, and having him see it there."

With a little cough to get attention Mary chimed back in. "Moving back, for just a moment," and that was generally considered bad form but they knew she did try so hard, and it seemed like it was allowed. "What if the spider was serving the role of the horn, to absorb the.. ah, that is to stop the effects, uh.. to stop the statue's transformation, you know, like the horn was." She glanced to Cinnabar. That was what he was starting to get at, no?

[Cinnabar]

The robed researcher was given his time to speak, to surmise and suggest.

"Ideally we'd not trigger him at all. But if there's a risk then yes, somewhere out of the way would be for the best." He'd heard mention of the Arena's construction, but had yet to visit it for himself. "Bear in mind Catch's capacity for destruction. Somewhere in the woods might be better - maybe not as controlled as the Arena, but also less of a problem if he reacts poorly."

It was clear from his tone that he didn't rate controlled conditions to be a high priority; somewhere quiet would suffice, isolation serving the same purpose as walls and guards, but with considerably less danger to life and property. His attention turned to Mary's idea, giving her every bit as much consideration as the gentleman with the lenses.

"It's hard to say what effect the spider is having - perhaps the statue's as changed as it's going to be. We can reasonably assume that the spider's why your floors aren't awash in blood, at least. That might also have kept the statue more-or-less static in the meantime; perhaps the blood is what caused the change, hm? Removing the spider would test that theory, of course." His warning glance for Mary hopefully emphasised the distinction between removal and smashing. "It'd be worth keeping the creature on hand, though, in case we need to put it back."

Caution; perhaps surprising to those who'd heard Calomel described as a man of action, of bold deeds and decisions made with little hesitation. But with each new thing he learned about Catch, the more he came to appreciate the scale of threat he posed; not its full extent, no, but just enough to grasp that it was... considerable. Vast would not be an inappropriate word. It made him deeply cautious of doing anything irrevocable.

"I'd advise against introducing him to the statue itself. We've little understanding of its properties beyond that it bleeds, and that it changes; it might react to Catch as much as he reacts to it. Perhaps more. At this point we only wish to know if he recognises the figure; that could be as easily tested with a drawing or a facsimile - a copy. A plaster cast, perhaps." Best to limit the number of variables in play at any one time; Catch would be quite unpredictable enough without bringing a statue of unknown properties into the equation.

"Mary, can that be arranged?"

[Glenn]

Another, more anonymous voice sang out from the desks, this one female, so perhaps not that hard to track down, a mousy, big cheeked woman at the edge of the room. "It's debatable just how deep the capacity is, though. So far, everything we've seen has been intense but quite localized."

This set off a string of contrasting opinions and general chatter. Apparently it was a matter for debate. Finally, though, the bespectacled young carpetbagger, Maxwell, let out a nasal clearing of his throat. "Debate, yes, decision, no. Governor Burnie has indicated that he will not allow us to take unnecessary risks on this matter. The point is to keep Myrken safe, and... if possible, to help Catch as well." He was reciting exact words and was pointing his finger, as if conducting an orchestra to highlight the point. "Controlled can well be the woods, after all, so long as we control the situation, if not necessarily the environment."

More grumbles abound, but Burnie's name was invoked and there would be little flexibility on this issue.

Mary scrunched up her nose, thoughts of a leashed spider in mind. "I'm not... I know DROW can influence spiders, but in general, they do what they want to. I don't think we can call it and teach it to roll over. It'll do what it wants to do."

"Governor Burnie," Mary continued after hearing Cinnabar's request. "said that he didn't want anyone from outside to come in to see it, yourself exempted." Knowledge was important. Keeping it out of the hands of certain people was just as important as gathering it yourself. "Including.." an here another big word from the former farmgirl. "Artisans, but were you to select someone to do the job yourself, someone you trusted, with this specific purpose in mind, perhaps he'd allow for another exception."

[Cinnabar]

"Whatever Catch's capabilities, they're more than enough to upset the citizenry. Too much of that and people will start demanding that the Governor do something more final about him - and we're only a step or so away from that already, hm? So, yes, isolated." The woods would certainly suffice. Decision made, he moved on with a slight air of impatience at the back-and-forth debate. How did Burnie get anything done?

"I'm not talking about asking nicely, Mary. Influence it with a couple of long-handled brooms and a large basket. Borrow some armour from the Constabulary, if you must." The idea of teaching and training it serving only to needlessly complicate the matter; containment was all that was needed, and in a way that might allow it to be returned. He nodded as she explained the restrictions the Governor had placed on access to the statue, however.

"Quite sensible to keep that thing out of sight. In which case, making a cast of it seems like the best option; I'm sure that's well within your capabilities." Directed to the room at large. "Press the statue's face into clay to make a mould; fill the mould with plaster to make a copy. Shouldn't take more than a day or so, and then we can see what Catch knows about the lady."

There. A course proposed, eminently straightforward and sensible. His gaze moved from face to face, in case any of them cared to object, somewhere between an invitation and a challenge.

[Glenn]

It was a matter of deference, really. Yes, how did anything ever get done with a room of researchers, scholars and scribes, most of which were of the hedge or amateur variety, the sort one could get in Myrken? Burnie's presence helped. He was quite good at slamming through ideas and reminding people just who buttered their bread. These were generally outcasts and social pariahs. He'd crafted a community for them and none wanted to be expelled from it. More generally, though, he knew howto work the room, and the very worst way to do that was to, as Cinnabar had done, become part of it.

Though, making quick decisive choices as the former Governor just did was a very good start.

Of course, there was decisiveness and then there was imperial proclamations. It wasn't exactly with a look of betrayal so much as confused bewilderment that Mary realized that she she had somehow been drafted into obtaining and containing the spider. Still, she was a girl of pride and courage, or at least pride and bullheadedness and she wasn't about to back down. Maybe she did pale just a little as she nodded with a slight ... squeak.

As for the rest, no one seemed to want to do the task. That was why an outside artisan was suggested. Now that the issue of who was to deal with the spider was resolved, however, there were grumbles, but ones of acquiescence.

Mary coughed. There was courage and then there was tempting true fate. "We will.. send a quick message to Governor Burnie so that he can stamp his approval upon this plan, though, right?"

[Cinnabar]

"Certainly so." It didn't take overlong to find a clean piece of paper and writing tools, and the researchers were left to confer among themselves while Calomel penned a perhaps uncharacteristically succinct letter.

Governor Burnie

You will be glad to know that my initial meeting with Catch went moderately well, paving the way for a better understanding of his unique situation; unfortunately the second encounter was less favourable, though not catastrophic. The main difference between them was the location, and others present at the time - suffice to say that the second meeting was accidental and took place at the Broken Dagger. I will persevere.

In the meantime a large spider has taken up residence on the lakebed artefact - body about five inches across, legs considerably more; given the lack of food sources in the room, it is assumed to have been feeding on fluids exuded by the artefact.

The current plan of action, with your approval, is as follows:

- Safely capture the spider.
- Take a cast of the artefact and render a duplicate in plaster.
- Find out what Catch knows of it.

Every precaution will, of course, be taken to restrict access to or knowledge of the artefact, and to minimise any risk to citizens or property should Catch react poorly.

Sincerely,

CC
While waiting for the ink to dry his attention returned to the gathered researchers with a distinctly calculating air, weighing the tasks at hand against those present to fulfill them. Glances turned aside, reluctant frowns and nervous clearing of throats were indication enough that delegation was probably not going to be successful.

"I'll need someone to run this letter, and to fetch a few things." Counted off on his fingers, just slowly enough for someone to note each item down if so inclined.

"Potter's clay; gypsum plaster; a lidded basket, say two feet wide and deep; a long-handled brush; and two sets of Street Constable's armour. One in her size," Nodding towards Mary. "one in mine."

[Glenn]

One of the more junior researchers, more of a clerk than anything else, dashed off with the letter. In truth, it was the sort of job Mary would do these days but she had seemingly been deputized in this matter by Calomel.

Burnie's response was surprisingly quick, given how much work he surely had.

My friend,

Let it be known that I have never opposed a plan where the first step is ever so cunningly put: "Safely capture the spider."

Do be careful. Take one of my researchers with you, if you would; your choice on who. Maxwell needs the seasoning, in as he needs to learn to stop hiding behind rocks in key moments, but that may be the exact reason not to take him. I'd say to take Renea too, for muscle (she's well supplied in that in various places), but I've some note from Aleksei detailing the need to speak about her. Don't take Dearest Agony. That would be the direct alternative of "being careful." Let me know the details when you decide upon them so we know where to send the rescue party.

Glenn

[Cinnabar]

Quick as the Governor's reply came, there was still time enough for other preparations to be made in anticipation of his approval. As such, Mary was invited on a brisk tour of the town on Calomel's heels, and his brisk stride made it clear he expected her to keep up.

First of all was a visit to the Constabulary, which involved a certain amount of catching up, though Calomel was quick to introduce Mary as one of Burnie's assistants; perhaps to secure cooperation, perhaps to forestall an impolitic discussion of the new Governor's assumption of power. Either way, it was deemed acceptable for the former High Constable to have a couple of sets of armour delivered to the Inquisitory - sturdy iron breastplates and helms, other parts of heavy leather - with a promise that they'd be returned before they were missed.

Next their path turned to the west side of town, specifically a courtyard off Wharf Street home to a small colony of artisans, the space echoing to the ring of chisels, the creak of potters' wheels and the clatter of looms. Here the former Governor took an interest in the items on display, which led to conversation with craftsmen and some astute questions on the particulars of their trade, on which they were quite happy to hold forth.

Directing his attentions to a potter and a sculptor in turn - along with a few shillings here and there for their assistance - netted a bag of fine plaster powder with instructions to keep it dry, and a cloth-wrapped wad of clay with instructions to keep it damp.

The final errand, with lunchtime drawing near, was to swing past the marketplace and purchase a large and sturdy-looking wicker basket, complete with a well-fitted lid.

Which left a little time for a rest before heading back to the Inquisitory, in which to share a couple of small cakes from one of the market vendors.

"I suppose just one more matter remains, if we're to capture the beast." Grinning in between mouthfuls of cake.

"Do you want to hold the basket, or the brush?"

[Glenn]

Mary was rather well living it up. The entire town saw her hobknobbing with the former (And still at least relatively beloved) governor, Cinnabar Calomel. Oh, some of the Constables knew her for her role of an underglorified gofer for the Inquisitory but this was a much better stamp of approval. Really, unless the spider or the statue killed her, there was little chance that she wasn't going to end up out of this far better than she had begun. Another chance, another real chance after the incident with Catch and the puppet show.

That she had all the table manners of a Kaczmarek as CInnabar gave her the cake, well, that was to be expected. She was well within her guard and she couldn't really focus both on booklearning AND manners. There just wasn't enough time! She devoured the cake heartily and, perhaps as if it had given her heart, nodded. "I will hold the basket." It was, to her, the more dangerous job.

[Cinnabar]

Calomel nodded at her choice, accepting it with perhaps a little surprise; in some ways it was the more dangerous option, but in other ways safer. Yes, she'd have the spider moving towards her, but her role was considerably simpler - move the basket only so much as was necessary, and then close the lid. The thick Constabulary armour would give her decent protection from any bites, and if it came to it she could drop the basket and escape. With any luck it'd be mostly down to Cinnabar to nudge and goad the creature into its new home, and he was confident in his ability to do that.

Once the cakes had been devoured it was time to return to the Inquisitory. The former Governor was feeling more assured in his task, unceremoniously dumping both clay and plaster onto the nearest clear desk and turning his attention to the sets of armour delivered from the Constabulary. Little concern for the researchers who, he presumed, would be getting on with their own business.

"This'll probably be a little large on you, but it's not like you'll be wearing it for long. You know how to put it on?" For his part the Governor had already shrugged out of his coat and draped it neatly over the back of a chair, and began to don his own harness with an air of practiced familiarity.