07.30.26: G.R.I.F.T. and the Black Dog

The axe in Alexa B’Praghus was not a murder weapon after all. Jonah stepped forward to save her, Alexi came up through the crowd, and Alexa sat up unharmed as the entire emergency turned into a sales demonstration. Alexi introduced G.R.I.F.T.—the Greater Resurrection Insurance Fund & Trust—which promises to protect a client's possessions while they are dead, incapacitated, being healed, or awaiting resurrection. He cleared Vic of the supposed attack while using Vic's celebrity and stolen weapon as the centerpiece of the pitch. Maine answered the stunt with a campaign speech. If the Lawful protected people properly, he argued, no one would need to buy resurrection insurance from grifters. Alexi immediately folded that criticism into the advertisement: Maine was right, but until he won and fixed the government, G.R.I.F.T. was still available. The crowd split between insurance customers and potential Maine voters before the B’Praghus family teleported away. Vic then discovered that the axe returned to him was not the exact weapon that had been taken. It was a newer +2 great axe, leaving his original sentimental weapon's location unresolved. As the market settled, Ash noticed a Black Dog watching him. Its violet gaze brought on a sickening sensation of pursuit, and Jonah tracked it through the crowd by the cold air it left behind instead of footprints. The Dog doubled back through Velvet Cross and turned the pursuit into a public spectacle. Vic caught it with a carefully tied lasso, Maine pulled it closer with telekinesis, and Ash used Vic's chest as a springboard before diving from above to grapple it. The Dog escaped through a patch of shadow and ran toward Rabe House. Ash caught it near a fruit stand and destroyed it, recovering 100 Void Dust—enough to refine into one Void Crystal. The chase carried another mystery with it. Three strangers moved through the crowd in the same direction without openly traveling together. While Jonah preached the word of Djeebus, one hurriedly traded him a wrapped, magically locked metal box for a pamphlet; another handed him an invitation to become a Fish, the entry level of the exclusive Abyss Club. Vic's new axe could not break the box, but Jonah's thunderous warhammer opened it. The papers inside repeated “I hate you” before crumbling away and leaving the container empty. The party returned to Rabe House and found its doors open. A man calling himself Mr. Kite was waiting with a velvet couch he said had been brought for Jonah. He accused Jonah and Vic of ruining something Trixie had arranged, then revealed the actual corpse of Nick Kremp on the couch. Mr. Kite introduced himself and announced that he had a proposition. The session ended before he explained it.