Session Twelve: The Cook's Tale

The Baton du Coquine

The company follows Jim’s directions to the gambling hall, which proves to be an opulent, two-story structure in the middle of Poissy. Upon entering, they see that most of the guests are in high spirits, enjoying their winnings, their companions, and their revelry. A few, however, seem much more dissipated—one of whom is the woman who Sir Jean-Marc earlier saw flogging her jewelry. While all in the company are on their guard, Pierre is especially alert, for he has the nagging fear that there is great evil at work in this establishment.

The company splits up. Garnier minds Sir Henri, Magnus, and Maurice as they exchange coin for gambling chits and begin playing table games in a large and airy hall. Frieda, Sabina, Pierre, Sir and Jean-Marc sit at a bar in the concourse, order very expensive drinks, and begin gossiping with a bartender most gregarious. Renee, meanwhile, finds her way to the second floor, where she begins a solitary search for Jules.

The First floor of the Baton du Coquine

Gambling Men

The three gamblers win, and win big. Sir Henri, who is playing cards with several others, wins many friends at his table by spending a percentage of his windfall on drinks for the table. Magnus, too, tips his table’s dealer generously, and Maurice’s wins draw cheers from the roulette table and unwanted attention from a very drunk female patron of the baton.

Garnier does not partake, and grows increasingly concerned at the strange and overwhelming avarice that infects his three companions. He has great trouble not only convincing them to stop gambling, but also to get them to hand him part of their winnings for safekeeping. Magnus threatens violence until Garnier brings up his friend’s dear old mother. Magnus backs down, but only barely.

Sometime later, with the assistance of Frieda and Sabina, Garnier manages to tear his friends away from the tables and all but frog marches them out to the cashier to turn in their chits for coin. He is disgusted at the enabling behavior of the cashier, who winks and nods at the three gamblers and insists that they have enough now to enter the “High Stakes Room.”

Garnier resolves to keep an eye on his companions to make sure they do not return to their pursuits. With all that has gone on during their travels so far, he begins to suspect that foul magic is at work.

Belly Up to the Bar

Inquiries to the gregarious bartender prove largely fruitless. They learn that he is happy with his job, that the Baton is a lovely place to work, and that his oft-mentioned superior, Corentin, is a fine and capable man to work for. Unfortunately, the bartender has only been recently hired and knows very little about the other employees. The group brings up Jim and Jules to him (and to a nearby and very baffled guard) with no results.

Pierre abruptly decides to order food from the kitchen, despite its expense. When it is brought out to him, he launches into an excoriating—and quite atypical—tirade about the low quality of his meal. The bartender offers to make things right with the cook, at which point Pierre loudly demands that he be permitted to speak to the cook himself. Both the bartender and Pierre’s companions are baffled by his behavior.

Wanting to avoid a scene, the bartender offers to take Pierre into the kitchen. Sir Jean-Marc offers to accompany his friend. The two are brought across the concourse to a closed door, which is suddenly thrust open from the other side. A woman comes rushing out and crashes headlong into Sir Jean-Marc, spilling chits across the floor. Sir Jean-Marc assists the lady to rise and collect her chits. She apologizes profusely, seems to get quite moon-eyed and awestruck by the dashing knight, and introducers herself as Amelia, second-in-command to Monsieur Corentin and accountant of the Baton.

Pierre takes the opportunity to ask Amelia if he could meet with Monsieur Corentin at some future point. Amelia apologizes once again and says that Monsieur Corentin is very busy throughout the day, both with the management of the Baton and with numerous other appointments. However, She will speak with him and see if she can arrange for a time for the two to meet. She then excuses herself and, blushing after once again locking eyes with the knight, runs off.

Amelia

Renee’s Procurement

Renee ventures upstairs, where she encounters a man employed by the Baton. She enquires about “her friend” Jules, but the man seems not to know who Jules is. Renee, wondering if the man is lying about this (and other things), strikes up a veiled conversation with the man about the other, less well-known facets of the Baton.

The man smiles, says that he understands, and will arrange for Renee to interview with people who might pique her interest shortly. He tells her to enjoy herself while he speaks to the appropriate people, before disappearing into a heavily guarded doorway that blocks off much of the second floor.

Renee processes the conversation and realizes that a) she has just discovered that the Baton has a secret brothel and b) she has just asked to procure the brothel’s services. In a panic, she races downstairs, finds her companions at the bar, and tells them what she has done. Her companions are vaguely amused at this, and will promise to come running if Renee gives a signal.

Renee asks Sabina if she could borrow her pistol, hoping to use that to give “the signal” when the time comes. Sabina strongly refuses, and before Renee can offer justification or compensation for the Imperial-made weapon, the man appears at her side and offers to escort her upstairs to her “interview.”

The Kitchen

Pierre, Sir Jean-Marc, and the bartender stride through a room filled with gamblers at tables and into the Baton’s kitchen. There, the bartender introduces them to the cook, an exhausted looking woman with a sunken chest and hollow eyes (with prominent dark circles beneath). Pierre launches into a tirade about his dissatisfaction with his meal, and says that he wants it replaced and that he wants to “talk to his friend Jules, who referred him to the Baton,” so that he can tell him how unhappy he is. 

She responds to Pierre’s complaints with a flat affect and a halting tone, but does promise to make everything right. Sir Jean-Marc, noting the cook’s sedate expression, claps loudly in front of her face, provoking no response.

Pierre says he is a barber-surgeon, and would like to examine the cook. This draws protests from the bartender, but he is quickly placated when Sir Jean-Marc hands him a Crown. At the knight’s insistence, the bartender waits outside while Pierre conducts his investigation.

Pierre finds nothing wrong with the woman, at least physically. After additional questioning, the pair learn that the cook is a former patron of the establishment, who went heavily into debt at the tables. Monsieur Corentin was kind enough to give her a position in the kitchen so that she could work off her debt. She also, frustratingly, has no idea who Jules is.

The pair leave the kitchen and begin to ask pointed questions of the bartender, but they are interrupted when Amelia steps into the room and asks them if anything is amiss. Pierre repeats his food complaint, but does say that the cook is willing to make good and cook him a fresh meal. He repeats his desire to speak to “his friend Jules.”

Amelia, to the pair’s delight, says that she knows who that is. She explains that he is one of the Baton’s cleaners, and she is happy to help the pair look for him. All four return to the bar, in part so that the bartender can return to his work, and in part so that Pierre and Sir Jean-Marc can tell the others what they have learned.

All the while, Amelia is clearly expressing her crushing fondness for the knight, blushing and making every excuse to touch him on the elbow.

The Baton, Second Floor

A Bit of Fresh Air

Sir Henri sits at the bar. He realizes that he is absolutely famished and considers ordering a meal. Just before he commits his coin, a fresh plate of food (Pierre’s) is brought out and placed at the bar. Sir Henri, not questioning his providence, begins eating it.

Sabina, concerned at Sir Henri’s behavior, all but grabs him by the ear and drags him all the way out through the front hall and into the street outside. She continues walking until she and Sir Henri have put some distance between the Baton and the prying eyes of its guards. Sabina then rounds on Sir Henri, asking him about his strange behavior and his sudden addiction to gambling. When the newly minted knight is unable to form a coherent response, she says that members of the company have become aware that there are strange doings and foul magic at work in the Baton, and that Sir Henri needs to find some resolve.

The Brothel

Renee is escorted into a fine hallway and introduced to several scantily clad individuals of eye-catching physiques. One woman asks her to choose who she would like to spend time with for the next hour or so, to which Renee, more than a little put off by the closeness of the flesh and the reek of perfume in the air, says:

“I want to spend my time with Jules. He works here. I want him and no one else.”

Her new friends are taken aback by this very specific request, but are more than happy to find Jules for her. The man who had arranged for her visit bows and promises to go out and look for Jules. Meanwhile, Renee’s new friends try to ply her with finger foods and heady wines.

Jules, at Last

After dropping off the bartender at his post, Amelia brings Sir Jean-Marc and Pierre around to various rooms that the company, to this point, had not been in. In the third room that they visit—which seems reserved for private parties and banquets—they find a slender, sunken-chested, hollow-eyed man that matches the description given to the company by Lunette Corbin. Amelia confirms this by calling the man—Jules—over. She then apologizes for having to attend to other duties and leaves the room.

Jules Corbin

Jules, unsurprisingly, expresses the same flattened affect and the empty stare of the cook. Sir Jean-Marc and Pierre confirm what they already know, which is that Jules also has debts that he is paying off by working as a cleaner at the Baton.

The pair quickly confer and decide that it would be best to contrive of a way to get Jules off of the Baton’s premises. Thinking quickly, Sir Jean-Marc draws his dagger and opens a cut on Jules’ arm. Jules feels the pain, but seems mostly unbothered by it, and Pierre takes the opportunity to hoist him up and drag him bodily from the room.

The pair—and Jules—enter the crowded gambling hall outside, and Pierre makes a scene by shouting, “this man is wounded! I am a surgeon! Bring me bandages and hot water!” all the while helping Sir Jean-Marc carry Jules ever closer to the exit. Several guards run off, and several of the guests scream in alarm, but none have the social clout to dare to impede Sir Jean-Marc’s progress.

As the two men carry a bleeding Jules toward the concourse, Pierre sees a familiar-looking scrap of paper tucked into Jules’ shirt. He fishes it out and reads the smudged and uneven handwriting.

Great Lady, have mercy. Jules Corbin desires a profession worthy of his stature