The Night's Plutonian Shore

“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”

I feel like Eric should be banned from ARC.

Or maybe it's standard practice for servant-fighting groups to drag Runners along with them to incredibly shady stores run by Jack of All cultists.

I guess I should clarify that. There's a guy called Jack of All who is essentially the Devil. He wears a glove on his right hand, and he likes to make deals with people that always go horribly wrong. It's unclear whether or not he's a Fear, and as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't really matter.

Jack of All has a cult called the Mountebank Club. After dark, they become the aptly-named Night Shop. Members of the Night Shop want weird things from you in exchange for equipment, food, and the like, such as your true name (if you have a pseudonym) or your darkest secret. They also have personae, which are alter egos that Mountebanks alternate between.

As far as I can tell, the Mountebanks are a bunch of glorified theater kids.

Anyways, Eric and I visited the Night Shop a few hours ago. The person who dealt with us... I think he was called Alan? Alan Roach. Alan asked Eric about his life experiences. Eric went pale.

Alan tilted his head. I guess a mask isn't the best for emoting.
"In that case, how about you don't tell me for free? How about..." Alan trailed off, chuckling. "How about you tell me that juicy information, and I give you what you came here for? Say," he said, sounding surprised, "what did you come here for?"
"I want to know why there are so many Puppets and Timberwolves around, and what the deal is with that... thing I saw the other day. The rotting thing."
"Tut, tut," Alan said, shaking his head. "The Carcass? The Puppets and Timberwolves? Too easy. You're boring. Oh, well, I guess it isn't as if I'm asking for much in return, is it? Just your story. So tell me, what is your story?"
Eric grimaced.
"Fine, fine," Alan said. "Hardass. Just tell me in private. You can even keep your weapon with you, if you're scared. You are smart enough to carry a weapon, right?"
"Why do I get the feeling you absolutely should not trust this guy even a little bit?" I asked Eric pointedly.
"Because I shouldn't."
I looked up at the ceiling. "Okay. So you're making a weird deal with someone you don't know and shouldn't trust because you're mildly curious."
"Yes."
"Didn't you bring me on board to protect me?"
I think Alan glared at me, though the mask made it hard to tell. "Shut up, would you? I'm trying to cut a deal here."

After that whole... debacle, Eric and Alan went into a backroom and emerged a few minutes later. Eric and I said goodbye to the nice people at the Night Shop, and we continued on our way.

I'll start with what Eric told me about the new shard. Essentially, this Dying Man shard is called the Carcass. It has the unique ability to possess dead bodies as well as living ones, hence the name, as well as its tendency to be followed around by rats and insects.

Eric's decision to try and shoot at the Carcass while it was chasing us, evidently, was due to him being totally unfamiliar with it; he wasn't, and still isn't, totally sure whether it's mortal or not. I, for one, am working under the assumption that its body can theoretically be damaged, since it was originally human, but that it's a bad idea to stay near it long enough to try to do so.

So the Carcass is a lovely beastie, though I wouldn't consider my personal experience with them to be evidence of its intelligence. I mean, the old "hide in an alleyway while your pursuer continues in a straight line" trick worked on it when it came after me and Eric, for Christ's sake.

As to the Timberwolves and Puppets, evidently the local ones are in a turf war. The place Eric and I are hanging out lately is a big city, so it's no surprise they'd want to control it. The Timberwolves have always been pretty big here, I've heard, and Eric said the Puppets were the aggressors, so that all checks out.

I've also heard that the Puppets have plans of taking over a particular construction site. Evidently, the Timberwolves claimed it for their own a while back. Eric actually said one of his old coworkers met the Archangel in person in that construction site and... well, apparently he got sent to Bliss, and he hated his job as an ARC agent, so now he's a Timberwolf. From the sounds of it, he's not much happier with his current job.

Anyways, to be frank, I'd rather not get caught in the crossfire of this particular fight. Which, of course, means I will be.

- Poe