The Barker Street Irregulars case 2 A vision in pink

[Stella Gaslight]

Celia slid down to the floor drained.  "I think so.  Is everyone well?"  Thomas looked at his love she had changed.  Paint had become flesh and her eyes sparked as she looked at him.  "You never gave me a title. What shall I be called?"

[MWBailey]

'Ow's about Rainbow Chiaroscuro?" a man with Bill's voice quipped.

"Bill!" Marley was scandalized. "She might 've been a painting but she's flesh and blood now." He turned to Thomas. "Thoughi feel I ought to call you 'Pygmalion,' sir." he realized something and spun back around. There, sitting on the bench Celia had created, sat a middle-aged man in black robes, holding a lap harp that looked as if it were newly made, but could not have been thus, if it were the sort it appeared to be.

"BILL!? Is that you?" Marley exclaimed, incredulously.

You kin still corl me "Bill" if ye wants to," the man said with a wicked gleam in his eye. "I dinna think I'll be loike this very long, though, so enjoy me whilst ye all can."

[Stella Gaslight]

"I like rainbow." She said shyly taking Thomas's hand.  Celia smiled she could see the love blooming among the roses. She would have to speak to her own love soon enough. "Why Bill I thought you would be taller."

[walking stick]

Verity had quietly started drawing Bill, her picture had the working title of "The Honest Bard" being both the nearest to his name she considered safe to use and a joke Bill would appreciate.

[CPT_J_Percell]

Tobais was studying the ground, now that the paint was clearing, something was revealing its self on the ground. "Mama, did I hear you mention some about the mystic rings of London?"
He wiped the ground with a gloved hand leaving paint in the engraved stones. One stone was cracked and the rune on it flickered. "Mama, I think you just broke one!"

[Stella Gaslight]

Celia winced that was going to be tricky to fix and would require help from old man river.  "We may have to introduce you to Thames quicker than I would have liked.  As long as the greenhouse stands the balance should hold but the repairs are going to take at least two months of moon cycles if I can get a replacement stone quickly."  A ballast's job was never done.

[MWBailey]

"I could bind the paving together and reinforce it with double dovetails inlaid on the fissures, and inlay a copper rune to carry the strain, but that'd only be a temporary measure,"Marley said. "It could be that the repairs you mentioned, milady Celia, are something that just must be, so that other good things can happen."

[Stella Gaslight]

"It was on my list for reinforcing next year. Looks like I am going to have to shore up quite a few things quicker than i would have liked." Celia sighed this was going to mean a lot of long hours alone and one trip to incredibly hostile territory she would have to make unarmed.  "I will gladly take any help you can give me so long as it doesn't get you in trouble."

[MWBailey]

Marley chuckled ruefully. "It occurs to me that 'in trouble' is my normal state of being." He changed back to raven form, then. "In any case, I have to make an actual report in person of my activities, so It's back to the tower for me. Miladies Celia, Brionia, Verity; Ranger, Toby. See you back at the tower soon, I hope, Bill." He flapped toward the wall. "I'll be back to start the inlays as soon as the commandant releases me," he said, and there was a green flash just before he would have slammed into the wall - and he was gone...

[Steampunk Away]

"We seem to have lost the good detective again. Alas, you all handled those louts, I pulled a few tricks of my own, and managed to get into their safe," handing a book to Celia, Abraham continued, "I found this. It seems to be their spell book, or ledger book, or something important, as it was hidden pretty well. It's protected by magic, I'll search a little bit more, and meet you at the house later."

And with that Abraham disappeared into the shadows.

[Stella Gaslight]

"I have a feeling Mal will turn up soon enough."  She had a serous feeling that the city had been building him up for something. That something looked like a roll as an archetype, a sort of human symbol that the city used to build magic out of nothing, She hoped if she was right it would treat him well.  Celia had very little say in that matter, it was over her head, but she could not blame it much with the attacks the order had spread it needed every trick it could call on.  "Old friends, New friends shall we go to the club and relax for a moment?  There is work a plenty to do but it can wait a little bit. After all we have done London a service it can give us some peace for a moment."

[MWBailey]

marley arrived back from making his report just after the others left. He  "find teh others and report back to me," he wrote on a slip of paper torn from his notebook, then took various oddments and refuse from around the site and made a vaguely dog-like assemblage of parts, rolling up the slip and sticking it within the discarded tobacco-tin head; he then muttered a cantrip he'd come up with back at seminary for finding people (he'd named it "Spot," and had never bothered to rename it). The resulting dog-golem bounded off, rattling oddly as the tobacco tin and other parts clashed together as it ran at incredible speed intop the distance in teh general direction of Celia'splace. "Hmp. could have just figured that out for myself, I guess," he said, then set to work.

After a time, the new copper inlays and double dovetails were set in place and consecrated for the temporary fix that they were. Spot returned, communicated the others' whereabouts, And Marley tore another page from his notebook, writing

Milady Celia,
I have patched the broken ring and it's runes and re-communicated them to the Burgesses' Hall Clock. It should hold for mormal stresses or a small storm or contretemps, but only temporarily; the stone is too cracked and fissured for better. Call for me if you need me; I shall continue to be garrisoned with the Ravens at the Tower.
I remain your humble servant,

Marley Whippett, Lt. K.T.

He put the note in Spot's mouth, and sent it running back to Celia's, with instructions to run out back and jump into her rubbish bin and  fall apart, freed of it's duties after delivering the letter.

As the dog set off at a blistering pace, he went ravenish again and flew back to the Tower, to wait for another adventure...