Reinald's Perspective (20th-21st Leaffall)

20th Leaffall - Dusk: At Rink's Trinkets, Reinald gets ink spat in his face by a book that rejects everything written into it. Rink wipes it off with practiced sympathy. Reinald buys a featureless vine-wood doll with inserted needles, sourced from the Sunset Expanse via his uncle Marco, though Rink doesn't know they're related. Röka mutters something and goes evasive. Rink mentions the district has felt wrong lately: strange figures, a house fire, neighbors arguing in ways he doesn't recognize.

20th Leaffall - Dusk: Back at the mansion, Reinald hears something shift in a locked room below his. Röka slips under the door and reports a gallery of tarped statues. Nothing conclusive.

20th Leaffall - Evening: He examines Lucien's amulet. Old, precise, dwarven in lineage but quieter. When he puts it on and lies still, it ticks in time with his heartbeat.

20th Leaffall - Evening: Aveline returns with Celica and Ervin. Reinald introduces himself as a friend of the family on Lucien's business. Business talk over tea; he listens. Aveline gently corrects an offhand remark he makes about deerfolk.

20th Leaffall - Evening: Aveline recommends Bertus and Marisse for information, and Celica's son at the docks as a discreet option. Corrin arrives. Reinald is checkmated in two moves by Aveline. Her match with Corrin runs past midnight.

21st Leaffall - Morning: Breakfast with Aveline. She shows him experimental sapphire earrings — communication enchantment, malfunctioning dangerously. She asks if he knows someone who can help.

21st Leaffall - Morning: At the warehouse, Douglas already knows who he is. Reggie described him as the intriguing one. Douglas explains him that asking about employers on arrival is not how things are done here.

21st Leaffall - Morning: Celica escorts him to the Temple of Allura. Professional, composed — but her gaze keeps drifting toward a docks where a ship has recently arrived.

21st Leaffall - Morning: Inside the temple, he examines Allura's Sword. The tip damage wasn't from combat — from stone, as if driven into rock. He catches a blue flicker inside the steel. Then it's gone. The inscription below the display sign has no meaning even the priest can explain.

21st Leaffall - Morning: The priest's delivery runner hasn't shown — a large blond wolffolk named Fen'ryk, unreliable lately. Reinald takes ceremonial candles and promises to deliver them to the pottery shop on Crow Streets.

21st Leaffall - Midday: On Crow Streets he spots Brigitte and Gurak. He steps sideways through the nearest door. The shop is The Knightly Endeavor. He does not linger. He exits with the expression of someone who didn't see anything at all.

21st Leaffall - Midday: Clay accepts the candles and pays ten gold. Mid-transaction he sneezes hard enough to draw blood. Odd itch in his nose since yesterday. Reinald notes it.

21st Leaffall - Midday: At Dragons & Deposits, Reinald is charged one gold for a withdrawal. A new fee under the new mayor.

21st Leaffall - Midday: At the city checkpoint, a trader's cart is being fully unpacked by guards. Mandatory inspection, new sign posted.

21st Leaffall - Midday: Siegbert takes Hoocrates' package without comment. Mentioning Lucien's name, Siegbert explains more. He found Hoocrates' diary. The last entries document sewer sounds and a planned surprise for Katrien around her birthday. Both are now gone. He offers Reinald access to the city archive.

21st Leaffall - Midday: At Felix's shop, Reinald spots a bootprint in dust and a hole near the window handle. Someone came in at night, looked around, and left without taking anything. Felix then sneezes — odd feeling in his chest since his bath yesterday. Reinald thinks of Clay. He warns Felix and asks about the water; it comes from the Waterworks further outside of town.

21st Leaffall - Midday: Outside the temple, Reinald spots the cloaked figure from yesterday heading toward the beach. He follows and realizes the cloaked man is watching Brigitte and Gurak meditate. He turns around and leaves before they can see him.

Brigitte's Perspective (20th–21st Leaffall)

20th Leaffall - Dusk: In the scaffold district, Brigitte passes Bertus and Marisse. A young human bumps into them — apologetic in a rehearsed way — then asks about the district and gets directions to the Drunken Phoenix. As he walks away, Brigitte sees him slip something into his pocket.

20th Leaffall - Dusk: At the hideout, Branded is making a precisely organized salad for the harefolk guests. He notices her injuries and the sewer smell but says nothing about either. He offers enchanted sand to help her sleep. She declines with emphasis.

20th Leaffall - Evening: In the hallway, she nearly collides with Sloane loading an enormous crossbow. Sloane fires and puts an arrow clean through a candle at the far end of the hall without dropping it.

20th Leaffall - Evening: At the Bright Lye, Salt and Pepper haven't shown. The bearfolk from last night's arrest sits in the back corner, eyes moving in a way that says he expects to be approached. She walks over. She tells him a pamphlet is not what he had on him. He catches himself mid-sentence twice. She warns him: bring that (TGS) into the Bright Lye again and it will result in considerably more than an interrogation.

20th Leaffall - Night: Downstairs, The Cage is loud and full. The harefolk guest sits beside Rhazeth — small, red-eyed, still in a predatory way. Salt and Pepper still haven't shown. Brigitte volunteers to challenge someone from the crowd.

20th Leaffall - Night: Fen'ryk steps forward, large, blond wolffolk, massive axe, loincloth. The crowd chants. She lets The Beast Within out.

20th Leaffall - Night: A proper fight. She knocks him down twice. He takes TGS mid-fight and doubles his aggression. She holds her ground. As he yields, The Beast Within smells something: The Good Stuff first, then beneath it a Lily of the Valley. A smell that belongs to someone from somewhere else entirely. She loses control. What follows is fragments: a smell, a sound, blood, Gurak's voice. Then nothing.

21st Leaffall - Morning: She wakes tied to her bed. Through the door she's heard the argument that ran all night: Branded saying it wasn't her fault, Coldrock telling him to wait for Gurak. She frees herself. Sloane is in the hall with the crossbow aimed at the doorframe. Coldrock tells her Gurak and Rhazeth are dealing with the body. She killed him.

21st Leaffall - Morning: The family assembles without Sonya. Rhazeth tells Brigitte to speak. She tells them what she remembers and says she has no better explanation. Branded proclaims it wasn't entirely her fault, the TGS triggered it. Gurak agrees. Coldrock not.

21st Leaffall - Morning: Coldrock says it plainly: turn her in. The guests saw it. The family can't afford this precedent. The vote splits: Gurak, Branded, Beastie for her to stay; Coldrock, Kaelis, Sloane against; Wilt's undecided. Rhazeth breaks the tie and keeps her in. No fighting in The Cage until things settle; she must focus on the investigation. Coldrock yells and leaves.

21st Leaffall - Morning: Vesper walks in uninvited, calls Brigitte Rhazeth's pet. He doesn't respond to it. Brigitte's stare to Vesper has no effect, and she feels briefly dazed. Gurak tells Vesper that she will call her Brigitte. Vesper suggests the foxfolk could be handled the way Fen'ryk was, by getting rid of him. Brigitte says killing someone doesn't solve things. Rhazeth ends the meeting abruptly.

21st Leaffall - Morning: On the way out, Kaelis touches his necklace and transforms into a striking likeness of Fen'ryk. He goes out. She hears his earlier words ring her mind: "I don't like pretending to be someone I'm not." She understands what he's doing.

21st Leaffall - Midday: On the beach, Brigitte tells Gurak about the smell — The Good Stuff first, then the Lily of the Valley, a scent tied to someone from her past that had no business triggering what it did. He listens and suggests it might be worth meditating on.

21st Leaffall - Midday: Branded has been waiting. He asks if she saw anything — like a vision or something. She says not in the way he means. He tells her she was screaming in Luminary while they dragged her to her room, shouting about a flower. He didn't tell anyone. She invites him to join the meditation.