The grand ball welcoming the Bisland's back has finished, and now it's getting down to the nitty gritty of figuring out what is going on here in Pridehall. The enjoyment of that night has simmered down to a feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, like a stiff breeze might push everyone over. It's decided, finally, that action needs to be taken but it needs to be done subtly. Thus Lady Linsey Cherval has been INVITED to host a few people in her families' quarters when rumor leaked out she had returned to Pridehall.

Linsey does not look particularly happy about being volunetold to host a small an intimate gathering, despite the prestige heaped upon her by the nobles who are invited. "Welcome, I am so happy," her eyes say not happy, "to have you join me tonight."

The rooms themselves are comfortable. This main room is clearly made for entertaining with decorative chests spread out to serve as seating alongside the main cushions and chairs. Beyond are three closed doors that likely lead to the family's sleeping quarters. One for the Count, one for Linsey, and one for her brother. For now they are firmly closed with no indication of which door is which.

Michael seems most gracious about Lady Cherval hosting a quiet get-together, even if he isn't dressed for a social function. Warm, comfortable clothes with that always present Family Sword upon his hip. "It pleases me greatly to get to visit and get to know the -smaller- houses under Bisland." A snarky response from a snarky man.

He will sweep in first and settle near the center of the room, glancing at beverages but not requesting any. "Who else is on the guest list for the evening, my lady?"

Evonleigh happens to be stepping in when Michael says that, and she raises a brow at him. "Lady Evonleigh, for one, representing one of those smaller houses under Bisland," she says with a smirk, one corner of her mouth curving upward as she glances at Linsey with that look of 'can you believe this man?' "Lady Linsey, how pleased to meet you in person. I've heard much about you, and was disappointed to miss you at the last event," she says, moving forward to dip a little curtsy to the lady in question. "Thank you for having us."

[Kenna] The grand ball welcoming the Bisland's back has finished, and now it's getting down to the nitty gritty of figuring out what is going on here in Pridehall. The enjoyment of that night has simmered down to a feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff, like a stiff breeze might push everyone over. It's decided, finally, that action needs to be taken but it needs to be done subtly. Thus Lady Linsey Cherval has been INVITED to host a few people in her families' quarters when rumor leaked out she had returned to Pridehall.

Linsey does not look particularly happy about being volunetold to host a small an intimate gathering, despite the prestige heaped upon her by the nobles who are invited. "Welcome, I am so happy," her eyes say not happy, "to have you join me tonight."

The rooms themselves are comfortable. This main room is clearly made for entertaining with decorative chests spread out to serve as seating alongside the main cushions and chairs. Beyond are three closed doors that likely lead to the family's sleeping quarters. One for the Count, one for Linsey, and one for her brother. For now they are firmly closed with no indication of which door is which.

[Michael] Michael seems most gracious about Lady Cherval hosting a quiet get-together, even if he isn't dressed for a social function. Warm, comfortable clothes with that always present Family Sword upon his hip. "It pleases me greatly to get to visit and get to know the -smaller- houses under Bisland." A snarky response from a snarky man.
He will sweep in first and settle near the center of the room, glancing at beverages but not requesting any. "Who else is on the guest list for the evening, my lady?"

[Evonleigh] Evonleigh happens to be stepping in when Michael says that, and she raises a brow at him. "Lady Evonleigh, for one, representing one of those smaller houses under Bisland," she says with a smirk, one corner of her mouth curving upward as she glances at Linsey with that look of 'can you believe this man?' "Lady Linsey, how pleased to meet you in person. I've heard much about you, and was disappointed to miss you at the last event," she says, moving forward to dip a little curtsy to the lady in question. "Thank you for having us."

Lailah sits quietly, observing the lady Cherval they're dealing with. Her gaze neutral, and her only words. "Thank you for having us, Lady Linsey Cherval." She maintains a pleasant voice.

"No, of course it's my pleasure. I am terribly sorry my father and brother could not be here. I'm sure they would have enjoyed this little get together." Michael and Lailah get a bit of grace as she bows to them, trying to hide her displeasure. She DOESN'T have to hide it when she looks at Evonleigh, "I'm afraid I didn't catch your house?" IT's said said with more than a bit of uppity old-noble-bloodness behind it. "Refreshments should be here soon." She hides some of her discontent, but her gaze keeps flicking towards a chest in the corner that has had a decorative throw tossed over it, then to the second doorway. Catching herself she turns firmly back to the nobles.

Kaia follows, after her cousin, in the same quiet manner. Taking notice of each of the faces around her, she sets her gaze on the hostess. “Lovely to meet you, Lady Linsey Cherval. Thank you for having us.” She repeats the last part, like everyone else, as it seems it’s the appropriate thing to say –before taking a sit next to Lailah.

A messenger arrives, delivering a message to Kenna before departing.

"Oh, thats Lady Evonleigh Whitehawk, of House Whitehawk. Lady Lailah Bisland, my sister. Lady Kaia Bisland, my cousin." Michael responds to Linsey's snideness. "Lady Evonleigh was the toast of Arx for a few days, if I remember correctly." Michael exaggerates. But only a bit. Then his ears prick up. There is some sort of ...animal call. A laugh. A HA HA HA HA. "Oh no." Says the Michael.


When Michael speaks for her, Evonleigh smiles his way, lifting a hand as if to wave away the undue praise. "Formerly Mercier. You've likely heard that name before," she says, chin tipping up just a bit -- she is not at all ashamed of her family's ennoblement nor their merchant past, thank you very much, Lady Linsey. "He's exaggerating. Though maybe I will be soon again, in Prince Niklas' play. I hope you'll come to see it." She glances to the doorway and to the chest, following Linsey's glances. She turns to smile at Lailah and Kaia. "Ladies Bisland, how nice to see you. Lady Kaia, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She dips a little curtsy to the higher ranked nobles than she.

Lailah follows Linsey's gaze, towards the chest and towards the door. She doesn't bother saying anything, she just very pointedly looks at the chest, then at her brother, and then back at Linsey.

Kaia nods. “Likewise, Lady Whitehawk.” She replies with a small grin, and subtly noting the exchange of glances in the room among her peers.

"Ah. Whitehawk." So much dismisiveness in those few words before that laugh echos though the hallway outside. Sudden muffled swearing sweeps into the room and then a loud THUD against the doorway. Linsey switches her attention from her guests to the doorway but since no one else seems to be moving towards the sound she purses her lips, "If you will excuse me..." She sweeps herself to the doorway raising her voice, "What in...." her voice is cut off by the door closing behind her, leaving all of her guests quite alone in the Cherval suite of rooms.

A flutter of vibrant green and purple feathers is outside, one lofts through the door and into the suite. HA HA HA. Michael stands up and grins oh so mischeviously. "I think Struttington will only be able to gallivant around the grounds a few minutes before getting caught." Then he nods to his posse of womenfolk before trying bedroom doors. "Hellloooo?" Through a door before he tries the handle.

Lailah, for her part, goes to look at the chest. It's not like people keep only useless thins in chests.


"Oh," says Evonleigh, laughing when she realizes what the game is and that it is very much afoot. "So... we're doing this." She isn't sure what they're looking for or doing, but she's game if Michael is behind it, and she moves to the second door, trying the handle.

Lailah checked perception + investigation at difficulty 15, rolling 58 higher.

Kaia rises right after her cousin's instruction and heads in the direction of the first door.

Lailah looks through the chest in detail and comes to an ah-ha moment. She goes to unpack the contents and really feel around both in and outside of the chest to figure if she can find anything to tell her how to open the hidden compartment.

Evonleigh jiggles the door but nothing happens. She glances around, then pulls out a white trillium hairpin from her braided updo, a couple of locks falling about her face as they are dislodged. She peers at the keyhole, then begins to try to jimmy the lock. Her eyes sparkle a little as she glances over at Michael. "I certainly didn't expect this when I agreed to come tonight," she says with a smirk in his direction.

Evonleigh checked dexterity + legerdemain at difficulty 20, rolling 6 lower.

Lailah checked intellect + riddles at difficulty 20, rolling 34 higher.

The doorway opens under Kaia's hand, and unlike Michael's doorway, this one is lit with bright lantern light. It has distinctive feminine touches within, possibly Linsey's room? It's neat as a pin, but over in one corner are some books open on a desk. They look like ledgers of some kind. She instinctively proceeds to walk into the room, in the direction of the ledgers, and begins eyeing them carefully.

"Let me know if there's a key in there, Lady Lailah," says Evonleigh over her shoulder, fiddling a little more with the key before she begins to move around the room looking for one -- checking in and under any knickknacks, vases -- or wait, maybe over the door sill? Old trick, but some people do that.

Evonleigh checked perception + investigation at difficulty 15, rolling 2 lower.

Kaia checked perception + investigation at difficulty 15, rolling 4 lower.

Lailah finds a small button in the corner, protected by a book. When she presses it, the front of the chest pops out and she looks through the contents, "There we go." She mumbles, and takes the parchments stuck in there, puts those in a bag, then closes the compartment back up and starts putting things back.

To Kaia's eye the books don't look like a whole much, just innocent account books. Maybe someone else could figure something out from it. However, there's a sound coming from behind, in the closet. She turns around and heads towards it with the intention of opening it.


There's a small squeak when Evonleigh encounters a spider and brushes her hands off on one another to rid herself of dust. "Whitehawk is much cleaner than this," she says with a small scoff for Linsey's earlier uppitiness, and she moves to another area to poke around for a key. "Did you find something?" she asks Lailah without much of a glance in that direction.

Evonleigh checked perception + investigation at difficulty 15, rolling 0 higher.

Kaia checked dexterity + dodge at difficulty 15, rolling 9 higher.

From within Kaia's open door there is a sudden crash of sound like something falling.

"Gods!" squeaks Evonleigh again, jumping back from more spiders. So many spiders! But comes up with a key as she pokes around in the sofa. She's about to go to the door she hopes it goes to when she hears the crash from the room Kaia's gone in. "Lady Kaia!" she gasps, and hurries in that direction instead.

Heading towards the doorway unmasks the apparent safety of the clean room. Opening the doorway sends a wooden box tumbling out of the closet, headed right towards Kaia's head. Thankfully, she manages to jump out of the way and it doesn't hit her in the head. It does, however, spill its contents everywhere. There is a suit of well-made leather armor, which is strange. Linsey isn't known for being the martial sort. Why would she have armor? “Guys? I think I found something…” she says.


Seeing that Kaia isn't squashed or otherwise injured, Evonleigh pauses in the doorway. "Strange," she says. "I'm checking the next room," she says, moving to the door she had left locked. She holds the hairpin in one hand -- she *can* stab someone with it, if need be. If she can hit them. That's a big if. The key though gets slotted into the keyhole hopefully.

Kaia then glances back at the ledgers with a thoughtful look, something feels off. She proceeds to peak out of the room in search of Lailah. “Lailah…?” she calls out to her cousin “can you come over here? There’re some ledgers I think you should probably look at…I don’t seem to understand them one bit, but after seeing these…” she gestures towards the spilled contents from the closet “my gut tells me something might be off.” She makes a motion of the hand “Maybe you’ll find something?”

Lailah finishes putting the things back and heads over to check out what Kaia's been looking at, "Let's see what we've got here..." She muses.

Lailah checked intellect + economics at difficulty 15, rolling 6 higher.


Evonleigh peers into the darkness before moving to pick up one of the candelabras to bring into the room with her, sliding the key into her pocket and holding that trillium hairpin just a little in front of her, should something come rushing out at her. She peers around the room, moving the light toward each side, to see if there's anything strange to explore further.

In the meantime, Kaia starts placing the spilled contents back into the box. Ultimately placing it back where they were in the closet, and closing the doors.

Lailah takes some notes on her own parchment when going through the ledger and says in a cheery mood. "I love the smell of treason in the morning." Pause, "Oh wait, the other thing."

Evonleigh checked charm + animal ken at difficulty 15, rolling 4 higher.

From within that dark room there is a sudden very very angry growl, and in the sight of Evonleigh's light a pair of glowing eyes appear. They don't attack RIGHT AWAY, but there is one seriously unhappy dog in that locked room and he's approaching Evonleigh and showing his teeth.

Evonleigh checked charm + animal ken at difficulty 25, rolling 15 higher.

Lailah checked command + animal ken at difficulty 25, rolling 7 lower.

Kaia checked command + animal ken at difficulty 25, rolling 16 higher.

Lailah checked perception + investigation at difficulty 40, rolling 1 lower.

Lailah checked perception + investigation at difficulty 40, rolling 18 higher.

Lailah checked luck at difficulty 15, rolling 6 higher.

"Oh, hi, puppy," croons Evonleigh, her eyes widening as she peers at the dog. "What are you guarding, hm?" she murmurs, crouching down a little and holding the light in a different direction so it's not totally in the dogs' eyes. She holds out her palm for the dog to smell, slowly, as someone who is quite used to strange dogs and how to act with them might do. "Can someone bring me some meat or something to give this thing? A bone would be great... Then we can check this room quick. He might've been guarding something."

At the sound of angry growling Kaia’s eyes widen and she peaks out of her current room towards the on Evonleigh had gone in to. “Lady Whitehawk…?” she whispers as she slowly makes her way into that direction. At the sight of the angry canine approaching Evonleigh she holds her pose. When Evonleigh asks for something to aid her calm the hound Kaia looks around –noticing a plate of appetizers, over one of the tables, that seemed to be filled with some sort of meat. She grabbed a few of those and slowly moved towards Evonleigh and the canine to hand them over.

The dog looked like he was JUST about to attack when Evonleigh gets all coo-y on him. He doesn't stop being angry looking, but he does sniff at that food. He looks like he's been kept hungry on purpose, lacking some of the healthy glow a well fed dog would have. The food is giving him pause as he CONSIDERS IT, eyes fixed on Evonleigh and Kaia for the moment, leaving the room free for someone else to search if they would like.


"Thanks," breathes out Evonleigh, standing up again, and sending a beaming smile at Kaia, before she steps into the room, looking around. "Come help me in here, before Linsey gets back?" she asks the younger lady, as she moves around the dark room, casting the candelabra's light on its secrets.

Michael has long since decided to putter into the dark and STINKY room. Boots kick through rubbish probably. The rubbish being grossness. That makes even MICHAEL consider a thorough cleaning of his own quarters and his person. Its not without some retrieval of things, personal things, personal letters. A thoroughly disgusted Michael comes forth from Cherval's boy's room with nose scrunched up. "I find that room, and this entire family distasteful." Under his jerkin folded letters get tucked.

Kaia nods to Evonleigh. And after tossing the mutt the rest of the appetizers she then moves in along with the lady to investigate the rest of the room.

Evonleigh checked charm + animal ken at difficulty 30, rolling 5 lower.

Kaia checked perception + investigation at difficulty 15, rolling 20 higher.

Uh oh, Michael just came into view. That puts the dog back on edge, growling. Then Kaia starts TOUCHING STUFF. He probably doesn't like his master much, but he's been trained to NOT LET PEOPLE TOUCH. He lets out a loud bark and whips away from Evonleigh's no longer aluring charm to go to attack Kaia.

Kenna GM Roll checked strength(4) + small wpn(3) at difficulty 15, rolling 9 higher.

Evonleigh is overheard praising Kaia.

Evonleigh is overheard praising Kenna.

Kaia checked dexterity + dodge at difficulty 15, rolling 3 lower.

Evonleigh checked dexterity + small wpn at difficulty 15, rolling 0 higher.

Kaia had just come across what looks like a pile of letters wrapped up in twine, when the annoying mutt began to growl once more and headed her way. It didn’t look like she was going to be able to dodge it. But perhaps someone would come to her aid?

9 inflicted and Kaia is harmed for minor damage.

The dog darts towards Kaia, and manages to get a single bite in before something else is attaching his butt. He turns away to put his ire onto Evonleigh, barking loudly and gathering himself to attack unless the pair of them get out of that room now.

It's that barking that suddenly brings Lady Linsay storming back into the room, her hair askew. Whatever Sir Struttington was doing, he did it GOOD. Her mouth drops open at the sight of that locked doorway //open//. "WHAT IS THIS?" Her voice is high-pitched and fearful.


When the dog lunges for Kaia, Evonleigh gasps and reaches out to swipe it away -- she really isn't meaning to hit it with the small dart-like hairpin she still has in her hand, but she does -- no doubt doing very little damage due to the dog's thick skin and fur. "Come here, dog!" she calls to the thing, darting out of the room to give the dog a new target, and give Kaia time to get out as well.

Kaia instinctively shrieks and pulls back her arm --where the mutt had bitten her. "Ah! Stupid dog!" she shouts --but still not too loud. She supply gets back on her foot, and rushes out of the room --with Evonleigh's chance-- locking the door behind her.

Kaia checked dexterity + athletics at difficulty 15, rolling 4 lower.

Evonleigh checked dexterity + athletics at difficulty 15, rolling 0 higher.

The dog is momentarily confused between the two women, not sure if he should attack the person touching his master's stuff, or if he should attack the one that attacked HIM. It's a moment of indecision that saves them, both women getting out of the room and the door shutting firmly. Behind the wood there is a sound of the dog clawing at the wood to get out.

Kaia is overheard praising Evonleigh: Great job Evonleigh!

Michael is overheard praising Kenna.


Darting back into the main room, Evonleigh sees Linsey standing outraged. She darts over to the woman, a glance at the door as Kaia shuts it, then back to Linsey. "I think perhaps you have some explaining to do, Lady Linsay," she says, as she puts a firm hand on the woman's arm, to hold her in place. "The Bislands want a word with you, I believe. Also," she says, tipping her head to look into the lady's eyes, "you really do need better maids."

Kaia is overheard praising Kenna: Great job, this was fun!

Linsay is scared, scared enough that she doesn't try to flee when Evon takes her arm. Her eyes flick to Michael, and she caves right there. "I'll tell you anything, please don't hurt me!" Everything will be a bit of a long tale, but when it's done, Lailah will have plenty of treason to be tasting the next morning.