"I can only but agree," says the man, still looking at Midian with the air of someone being cautious.

"I asked this gentleman to help you with that," says the woman, pointing once more to the heavy black stove.

The man nods and says, "Some help with that would be appreciated, it is heavy."

The two of them bend to pick up the stove and, manhandling it between them, they start moving towards the cart with their burden.

As they are edging the stove towards the cart, the man speaks in a voice low enough so that only Midian can hear.

"I don't know who you are," he says, "but I can make a good guess. You Mithrans have nothing to fear from me or my family. Let us leave this damned city and you will never see us again."

Midian maintains the casual tone, neither admitting or denying the man’s suspicions. “I was raised in the Mithran faith, yes, but I’m considerably more liberal in my views than the hard line church members who have alienated so much of our community. Perhaps there were a few bad apples out there, and maybe if they could have been found this sort of whole cloth action wouldn’t be needed, frightening so many innocents. There are a lot of other worshippers if the spirit of the lake, just like you, who may find far too much of the church’s attention on them, if they don’t know where their daggers should be pointed.”

He finishes the task, wipes his hands and wipes some real or imagined sweat from his brow. “But you and your family are leaving, so I suppose that isn’t your concern, now, is it? Safe travels.”

The man pushes the stove into position on the cart and then turns towards Midian after a quick glance at his wife.

"She is of the river," says the man, correcting Midian's mistake. "That which made this land—and indeed this city—great and she is worthy of all our respect, Sun worshipper."

Then he shrugs and adds, "But yes, we are leaving, so all your petty politics are no longer my concern." He then turns away and heads towards the horse at the front of the cart.

The woman steps in, a surprised look on her face. "Our thanks, kind sir... You must forgive my husband... He is not himself today."

“No need for apologies, it is a day of changes, these bring out stress in all of us,” Midian says.

If there is nothing further said by the family, he goes to purchase a cup of coffee to collect himself after what he perceived as a close call earlier. 

Midian leaves the family to their packing and heads off up the street looking for a place where he can purchase some caf [OOC: Coffee equivalent, see article on the world site for in-game effects].

It is not too long before his nose helps him find a small establishment that specialises in the selling of the beans from which caf is made, where he can also get himself a cup of it freshly brewed. He smiles to himself when he sees the painted sign affixed to the shutters of the shop: It is simply the rune for 'caf', but it has been so badly transcribed that it almost looks like the general rune for any 'plant' [FYI, see 'Languages & Literacy' on the world site].

The proprietor, a older Stemian woman, gives him a smile as Midian approaches the counter. "Caf?" she asks simply in heavily accented Sorian before adding, "four cubs."

Midian pays, getting change for a more valuable coin, likely, and takes a moment to breathe in the smell of caf, while he lets his mind clear, and ponders the best approach to his investigation.   The eerie voice, the child's disappearance, and the large rat familiar all give him an uneasy feeling about pursuing the bookstore owner lead today.  After taking a short rest (no mechanical need per se, more of an RP thing in this case) depending on the hour he will resume his original plan to ask around about Moonson, which may also serve to maintain his cover as an amatuer investigative journalist that he established earlier, or attempted to.

[Presuming the young boy didn't get his cub earlier, Midian now has a total of 14 Constantines, 7 lions and 26 cubs in his coin pouch.]

The cup of caf is okay but not great and Midian drinks it seated at a small table just outside the door of the establishment.

As he is letting the hot beverage do its thing, a couple of town guards saunter past on their rounds. One of them looks Midian over carefully and then gives him a small nod before passing on his way; it is the same guard he reported the death of the woman to this morning.

Midian simply raises his cup in silent acknowledgment of the guard’s recognition, and finishes his Rest In Peace, clearing his thoughts. He may look around the cafe crowd to see if there are academics he might inquire about Moonson with, and if it does not seem the sort of venue that free thinking youth would congregate in, he will look elsewhere. 

Less a café and more a wholesale outlet where people can sample the wares of the seller, Midian decides this is not the sort of place where students, such as he is pretending to be, would gather. Ready now to look elsewhere, Midian finishes his drink, spits the little bit of gritty residue from the bottom of the cup out onto the ground, and leaves.

His wandering path brings him in sight of the School of Occult Studies itself; the institution that spawned the development of the whole Scholar's Ward. However, he is uncertain if he should go any closer because of the reputation of its gatekeeper.

He has been warned many times that the gatekeeper, a master of the school called Hareld Minton, can actually hear people's thoughts if they get too close.

[OOC: Some thoughts on how Midian would go about his investigation would be useful. At the moment, I just have him wandering and relying on the roll of the dice for clues.]

OOC: He has been hoping to persuade the bookstore owner that he is a journalist who believes there is a conspiracy within the church to get the man to open up about his own occult activities as he might perceive him as someone sympathetic to their belief systems, while simultaneously getting the man to aid him in unraveling the genuine mystery of Harlan’s murder. Regarding Moonson his approach would be similar, to pose as a young interested student riled up by the authoritarian actions of the church who would be an easy convert to the man’s system of belief. 

OOC: He took the bookstore owners absence as a good opportunity to break into his place of business and do some direct investigation to learn more about him and his secrets, but the combination of the bizarre incident with the seemingly dishonest - or unreal - child, the bizarre voices, he began to suspect that there was some complex trap lying in wait for would be investigators, or perhaps someone else was observing his actions, so based on this hunch he aborted that plan. 

OOC: He planned time note that he had overheard an agent of the church asking some very odd and specific questions in a cafe earlier, dropping tidbits about the symbol of the priestess order found at the murder scene, the contraceptives, the melted amulet, etc, both to see if he could get any genuine insights into the murder from an expert in the arcane, but also to observe the man’s reactions to see if he might have been personally involved. 

OOC: As the bookstore owner wasn’t receptive to his conversational gambit, he is he would have assumed to be of great interest to him, he is suspecting either the man is already fully on guard, or, perhaps isn’t a genuine agent of the cult and might have been a political target of the church’s. 

OOC: Midian is not an idealist nor is he personally concerned if the church has manipulated the truth for their own ends, in fact, he specifically wishes to be known a position of power to do just that. Being on the outside of the conspiracy, as he perceived there to be one, is vexing to him, so in part he is keeping his options open for any avenues that might provide him leverage to advance his own career and personal power and influence. 

OOC: If he is able to thwart the will of magic users in the process, and cause harm to them, he will take personal satisfaction in that, as it is one of life’s great pleasures to Midian to see reliable in The Art fail others and for his skill, training and guile to allow him to beat those who have grown over reliant on the power of spells. 

OOC: The interaction with the family was a more spur of the moment whim, again posing as a sympathetic ear on the off chance they might reveal some knowledge that those of taboo faiths might be aware of that those of the mainstream clergy are not. He was surprised the man recognized him as an agent of the church, but that was not an avenue of investigation he had high hopes for, just an opportunity that happened to present itself. 

OOC: The pause for a caf break was just an rp moment of him taking a mental reset, as his approaches to the investigation thus far had not yielded the results he had hoped for, and he also would have been a bit rattled from the happenings behind the bookstore. 

[OOC: Thanks for the above, but what I am more interested at the moment is the types of places Midian would visit, and from that the types of people he would make enquiries with, while looking for clues to the whereabouts of Moonson.]

Quote from phillberrie >>

[OOC: Thanks for the above, but what I am more interested at the moment is the types of places Midian would visit, and from that the types of people he would make enquiries with, while looking for clues to the whereabouts of Moonson.]

 OOC: On that, he would be seeking out essentially the places where Greek sophists would have engaged in debates, bars where brave students loosen their lips and speak of revolution and changing the world and how the older generation is too stuck in its ways, etc. Such a place is likely a breeding ground for malcontents as well as a recruitment den for the cult Midian is seeking. So basically wherever students go to say controversial things in peace more or less. 

[OOC: Thanks. This will help me describe Midian's investigation.]

Midian decides not to approach the School, but as he is looking at it he sees two young men exit through the gate. The two—a Stemian and a Sorian, both of about sixteen or seventeen years—head in his direction, deep in conversation. The bronze medallions prominently displayed on their chests proclaim them as students of the School and Midian decides to follow them, hoping that they will lead him to a place where the Arion cultists might be on the lookout for potential converts such as these.

[Make a Deception check at Advantage to determine how hard it will be for them to detect Midian following them.]