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Character of the Season
Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, he's now The Butcher of Dygra, stepping forward as the first created demigod of the Ancients. There is no question that Astaroth casts an intimidating silhouette. Tall, domineering and dangerous, if looks could kill you'd be dead already, but to get up close and personal with the Grounds' resident cannibal tells a much different story. Dripping with charm and clad in only the finest attire, Asta is a gentleman monster, as polite as they come and committed to his role as security for the Dusklight and those who have earned his loyalty. Be careful of that smile, though - those teeth are sharp.
Congratulations, Asta!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
The moment Finch swipes at the mud, Calan’s chin lifts, because that is obviously what guilt looks like, or defeat, or possibly both if you’re older and trying to pretend you haven’t been properly caught. When Carlo adds the extremely important cannon detail, Calan nods so hard his hood slips halfway over one eye again, but he doesn’t bother fixing it because the point has already landed beautifully.
He turns his attention back toward the stormdrain, where Boaty McBoatface has vanished into damp glory and possibly mortal peril, though Calan is much more interested in the glory part. The black gaps in the grate suddenly look less like ordinary drainage and more like a secret mouth into somewhere important, which is exactly the sort of place treasure likes to be. Treasure doesn’t usually sit out in nice dry spots with labels on it. It hides in unpleasant places so only brave, clever, properly rain-slickered people can find it. "She’ll need help bringing back all the treasure she found down there," Calan says, as if this is not an argument so much as a responsibility that has tragically fallen upon them. "She’s only little. What’s she supposed to do, drag it with a rope?"
Then Carlo mentions a seaweed empire, and Calan gasps, his eyes snapping to his brother’s, brows lifting with the dawning enormity of what they may have just uncovered. A seaweed empire would explain everything. The crab. The suspiciousness. The way things kept disappearing into drains and coming back different, or not coming back at all. Leaning closer to Carlo, Calan lowers his voice into a whisper. "Are you thinking what I’m thinking?"
Finch is having what can only be described as karmic vertigo where every bad choice of his life piles in front of him in tragi-comic detail, personified by two rain-slickered little troublemakers with evil gleams in their eyes. This is, without a doubt, what people call ‘reaping what you sow,’ and the Gods have given Finch a backhoe and told him to get to work. He can see the pieces fitting together in the mischievous smiles of the twins, their eyes glinting as they consider the trials ahead of the brave but small Boaty McBoatface. Combined with the tantalizing new knowledge of Thieves’ Cant and the hubris that must have also been an inherent quality of garden-variety children, Finch can see how he had effectively damned these children to curiosity themselves to death.
He catches the whisper between the two, and is also unfortunately thinking what they’re thinking. “You’re going to go down there,” he says flatly, a grim acceptance. Now, it wouldn’t be the moral choice to leave them to their fate, but Finch has never been a moral thief. He could wash his hands of this and go off, whistling a jaunty tune and wondering what’s for dinner. It would be so easy. He could do it. He was going to do it.
He groaned. “Alright. I’m assuming anything I say against the subject will only interest you little gremlins more.” He examines the dirt under his fingernails like its child’s blood. He knew he had to proceed carefully; any word of advice or paternalism, even if it was right and for their own good, would only scuttle them away from him. And if these two monsters were going down into the Fingers, he’d rather it be with someone who knew they could read the symbols etched there, not only hoped they could.
“Boaty’s probably gonna get overloaded with treasure. She’s a sturdy boat. Good for hauling. You may need a third hand to help move everything out of the tunnels,” He postulated, trying to spell out the idea enough the twins would think they came up with it on their own. “And it could be helpful to have something with you who’s been down there before.” He shrugs.
Carlo leans in towards his brother at almost the exact same time, almost as if the movement were choreographed. "Always," he says, though his expression never changes from quietly defiant, and he glances quickly towards Calan before his gaze returns to fix on Finch. He and his twin are almost constantly thinking the same thing, whether or not it happens to be completely true in this particular moment, and so he's confident that their plans when it comes to The Fingers and the fate of Boaty McBoatFace will be similarly aligned.
As it happens - whether or not he intended it that way - it seems Finch's plans are starting to align with theirs as well. Straightening up and puffing out his chest (as best one can in a lime green rain-slicker anyway), Carlo lets a magnanimous smile - that looks a lot more like Smug Spongebob than anything else - spread across his face. "If it makes you feel better," he says, "we were probably gonna end up down there anyway, even if you hadn't turned up."
But yes, Finch's conscience can rest assured that he's definitely expedited the process with knowledge of Thieves' Cant and its importance to the area. "You can come," he says, granting the decision slowly and with another glance to Calan as if to gauge his opinion, "but you can only have one piece of the treasure."
Calan’s eyes sharpen with immediate approval as Carlo grants Finch permission to join them, because that is exactly the sort of decision that should be made slowly, seriously, and with the full weight of captains deciding whether a suspicious older thief deserves a place on their expedition. He gives one grave nod, already imagining Boaty McBoatface wedged beneath the city with so much treasure piled aboard that her heroic little wax-paper sides are beginning to buckle. Obviously they’ll need assistance and obviously Finch is very lucky that they’re generous.
Then Calan’s expression changes; one finger snaps up between them, bright yellow sleeve sliding down nearly to his knuckles as suspicion returns with the speed of a trapdoor opening under someone’s feet. "And that doesn’t mean you can put all the treasure into a chest and then say that it’s just one thing," he clarifies quickly, fixing Finch with a look meant to suggest that this loophole had been spotted before it could be used.
Finch nods gravely at the terms of the deal, genuinely touched that they’re granting him a piece of Boaty’s magnificent haul. An impressed bark of laughter escapes him at Calan’s(? Probably? He still can’t tell), stipulation. It wasn’t a loophole that had come to mind considering his clients in this contract were children, but it’s an intelligent stipulation to include. Maybe they had more street smarts than Finch gave them credit for. Or not — he still remembers a swallowed orange peel and plenty of retching.
“Deal,” Finch says with all the gravity of a serious negotiation. He turns on a heel and jerks his head towards where he came from, a craggy entrance in an unassuming crack above a slimy puddle of somenting he doesn’t want to think about. He’s not planning on intentionally taking the slipperiest, most uncomfortable route possible in order to deter the twins, but he imagines the Fingers will do that work for him.
“The nearest entrance I know of is this way,” He explains conversationally, trying not to come off like he’s instructing or leading the stubborn baby thieves. “Once we’re in I’ll show you where to find the Cant on the walls.” He certainly wouldn’t be showing them how to identify entrances to the Fingers, but would at least leave them equipped enough so if they ended up without him they wouldn’t get lost.
Maybe while they were down there he’d finagle them into using their quick, thin fingers to try Jack’s next cache he needed to try. If they lost one, it would certainly be a deterrent for a life of crime.
The word deal sounds very grown up when Finch says it; completely the opposite to how it sounds when he and his twin are trying to tease favours or trades from other kids (and sometimes from their own parents). Satisfied with the arrangement and especially by Calan's stipulation, he straightens up and puffs out his chest like the confident, rain-slickered captain he is. "Deal," he replies, and were it not for the rain or their too long sleeves, he might have demanded a three-way handshake about it.
Instead, his blue eyes flick over Finch's shoulder where the older thief confirms he can show them an entrance down into Rae's Fingers. Perhaps they shouldn't be so eager to follow someone who is still basically a stranger down into the deepest parts of Torchline's underbelly, but Finch, for all of his threats to break their wrists, hasn't ever seemed actually dangerous. His hands are quick but his shins are soft and kickable, and besides, he'd taught them a thing or two already about how to be good thieves.
And so Carlo nods magnanimously and gestures for Finch to lead the way, before exchanging a quick and boyish smile with his brother as they swarm forward to follow. For better or worse, they're about to have a taste of what a real life of crime is all about.
