#helimeri

(Many bushes and scars under the cut)

All of her sense of compassion is hard-fought and earned and not intuitive. A lot of times, she hurts people completely not intending to in any way and has deep misconceptions about even the people she loves and how they think or feel things.

It's everything.

From being incredibly bitter that someone was late to a party of hers and not being able to immediately consider that X person is working two jobs, there was an incident with their kids, and they still made it. To simple things like not knowing how to be more sensitive when she's talking about something that doesn't affect her, but the people near.

Sometimes some people just genuinely do not matter to her as anything but a source of praise and she just doesn't invest as much thought into them. Which is normal for everyone else to do until it's *her* and then it's proof to be used that she's, somehow, uniquely vile.

She is a big gift giver and uses money as a way to say 'see, I think of you and I value you, see, look, please see that I do think of you' but also can't stand the idea of being seen as desperate or lacking or being upstaged by more sentimental things. She's so, so isolated from meaningful connections and yet that's all she really wants because she's literally! Just a human being! Who loves and tries and wants to be loved!

So she writes out scenarios privately. And tries to explore, in her stories, and through riddles, ways to better understand other people. 'If I can plan for X then I'll know how to react Properly and everyone will say nice things about me'. She'll ask Hellena about 'characters' for her stories, and muse on their motivations, or steal gift ideas from time to time and never admit they weren't hers. She studies other people, what they do. Asks Jonathan about his cases and his deductions.

• The Small Big Top : Keeping a hand at the pulse of London is the duty of any true resident of the Neath, and as of late, you've noticed a murmur, a thump in its works. Movements of mysterious shipments between Veilgarden and Watchmaker's Hill, talk of a 'circus with no tent', and nobles with rather high security measures being robbed without so much as a wink of disturbance. If you didn't already have your own suspicions to consider, a Paranoid Socialite does, and she'll pay you quite well to get to the bloody bottom of it and get her grandfather's cufflinks back. She fears that there is a growing criminal organization afoot. She may very well be right. This story features : the Urchins, Society, Criminals, and the Docks, and may unlock an optional companion of your choosing.

• The Ailsman : Unlucky you, convered in bruises without the rosygold to spare for even the dockers' experimental hands. Well, at least you have enough for some sort of drink at the Blind Helmsman. You arrive just in time to catch the cacophony of boos and jeers of other patrons as a man dances across the counter, dodging thrown glasses and silverware, flinging about what appears to be a dead rat. Oh, wait, it's someone's hairpiece, actually. Not his. Presumably, it belongs to the burly, balding gentleman that picks him up and throws him out. Unfortunately, you were standing in the doorway. Now, in a heap in the streets, you watch as the man takes his good old-fashioned time to dust off his pants, give you a once-over, swigs the last dredges of a bottle of vigor, and trots off like a schoolboy. Now, maybe, if you're a saint, or you were having a slightly better day, you'd shrug the matter off. But now you feel indebted to some bloody answers. Namely, who was that, and what's his fucking problem?! This story features : the Docks, the Correspondence, and a horrible (admittedly effective) detective.

• Tea and Weasels and a Little Bit More Besides : A strange new fad is about; nonleathal weasel hunting! Apparently, it is quite the hit amongst the timid and morally superior. And of course, they're using only the finest, domesticated salt weasels! Look at them with their little belled collars! Through a friend of a friend, you've managed to snag an invitation for yourself to this month's meeting and, therefore, a grand opportunity to make your acquaintance with its magnanimous hostess, the Unsuitable Socialite. Surely, she is a right church bell, but, do the rumors really have the proper angles of things? Not many people are as they pretend to be, in the Neath. This story features : Society, the Bohemians, and Criminals. You may earn an exceptional companion via your efforts in weasel hunting.

• A Competition of Arms : Down at the Dept. Of Menace Eradication, there's a rather intriguing game going on amongst the hunters. One tells you it started with a bet between them and one of the greenhorns, but things 'somehow' got so out of hand that it's brought about a full-swing competition of prowess. They'll give you 150,000 rosygold, outright, if you can beat one of their newest members in one of only five challenges! Well, you didn't have anything better to do this morning, so you sign away and put your own tribute towards the rewards pile, as expected, certain you'll win. What's the worst that could happen? This story features : the Dept. Of Menace Eradication and Monstrous Anatomy. You may earn an exceptional weapon.

• The Blasted Ticking : A rush of burglaries has come upon Veilgarden, extending to even the Shuttered Palace! The Constables and all sorts are alarmed, dismayed, outraged, late to all their obligations—no one can tell the time! All of the clocks are missing...! The collective ransom for the suspected scoundrel, the Masked Toygetter, contains enough echoes to raise a Master's brow, and, plenty of regard to be earned besides. Race against several other detectives to apprehend the up-and-coming rogue of Spite and vye for the glory. Or, offer your aid to the theatrical villain, and find yourself joining a newfound celebration of performance art in the Flit. This story features : Criminals, Society, and the Constables. You may earn an exceptional hat.

I think often of her being in a DE styled game, I think she has fantastic loser energy for it.

They drag you underground to the pit of beasts and scum, into the lost city of sin. They throw you into New Newgate and your cellmate, your only company for your foreseeable punishment, is a really, really buff woman that towers over you and says absolutely nothing, ever. You're praying your keister off for some sign of absolution, and as a man of the cloth, you offer to pray for your cellmate, not knowing her crimes. She smiles at you. You've been in New Newgate for three days. On the third day, the really buff woman who has been watching the guards come and go, *rips* the cell door off its hinges, picks you up, and stars booking it onto an airship. She throws the pilot overboard. You're hysterical. She tries to drive the damn thing. Crashes into the roof of a seedy bar. You both become indebted to the owner, a supposed 'Cheery Man' who is *not* very cheerful at all, and have to labor and work for free to repair the roof so he doesn't kill you. You suck at building and being a bouncer. Your only good fortune is that your companion is built like a stone chimney and she happily lets you do the talking for her so you actually have some sort of purpose. You're still having red-tinted nightmares, the halls of your mind being wandered through by an intruder.

The buff woman seems to be taking this all in stride. She makes you tea and finally talks about coming down here to find an old friend and her sister, both of whom she shows you pictures of. In one, a young man that looks very much like her is standing by a shorter young woman that looks nothing like her, but is, apparently, her sister. You wish to tell her about your life, but you cannot remember much and stutter a lot, slipping up on details. She never interrupts you, and is very quiet, nodding only when you finish your point. You become involved with the Constables, trying to clear your name and debt by trusting the law, and become a watcher for them. You are tipped off about a smuggling socialite called 'Hell Mary', a masked master thief, 'Malintide' and other shady figures to keep an eye on and give reports about.

You go to try and find your first target by posing as a servant at a socialite gathering. You recognize your target as your companion's sister. You now have a choice to betray your only real ally and companion in the Neath, or lying to the law which would be morally terrible of you and ruin your chances at being returned to the surface a free man.

You, not thinking clearly, run into a nearby tavern to clear your head, hoping for water. You meet a man so stinking of honey, he makes you nauseous. He's the friend your companion is looking for, you recognize him from the second photo of two young men in the army, arms around each other. He blabbers a lot but offers you some of his substances, which you pointedly don't take, and asks for your name. You recall a pinch of 'Homer', but also have a slight silver of 'Otto' leave your mouth. He ends up calling you his 'Horatio', mishearing your mangled answer, and drags you off to his shabby shack in the marshes, which he randomly offers you the key to, as long as you answer a number of odd questions he has. You now have a home. But he also asks you about your ailments, and you end up confessing your nightmares to him, the loss of verses, loss of memory.

Suddenly, he is not honey drunk anymore and suddenly you are being raved to about some 'red honey business afoot' and how he is here to kill someone, someone who could very well be the same person invading and ruining your mind, or, at least, involved with that same someone. As a priest, your compassion spurs you to try and stop his clear descent to ill-gotten vengeance, even as you may be pleading for the life of your own tormentor. The man challenges you to do just that, continuing to call you his Horatio and a 'good sport', and now you have some kind of sick moral and pride-based obligation to it, therefore becoming entwined with, what happens to be, you find out, a whole criminal gang consisting of : the vengeful, honey-sipping, dishonored, temporary professor of the Correspondence; an impassioned and emotional socialite poet, whom owns the meanest dog you've ever met and is definitely involved with the Gracious Widow, and is DEFINITELY one of your assigned targets; your quiet ex-cellmate who loves weasels and punches teeth down people's throats and wants to kill some kind of mythical beast; your SECOND target who is apparently both and neither man or woman but definitely ticks and is a known 'new riser' in the criminal empire of the Neath.

And the longer you spend with these people the more you realize you should've gone to the Constables immediately about them all being in cahoots, because now the sister has given you your dearest beetle and she is so lovely to share tea with, your ex-cellmate is showing you how to throw your punches, the man who still calls you 'Horatio' is teaching you chess and getting you into more trouble than you already are, and you're teaching and relearning Latin with the masked burglar who writes you note cards for things you don't want to forget, simultaneously practicing her poor penmanship.

You're a balding, 55 year old man and somehow you've been adopted by four twenty-something idiot criminals that you feel responsible for the souls of, just a little bit more than you should. And the Constables still want their answers and you feel compelled to confess to the church, your involvement, for you are in such a tight, crushing position.

You're 'Homer Otto', the Repentant Deacon. And if you truly did kill that poor man, you will save another to make use of your stained, unworthy hands. You will save the soul of Johnny Fours. You will save what you can of your mind, and put your body to work. You will write.