Bluejay Estate || RPG

[THE LONG DRIVE]

The drive up to Ardglen takes ten minutes from the gate, and every one of them is trees: beech and Scots pine, then a gap, and suddenly the loch - flat and pewter-coloured under a late-afternoon sky, with the house sitting at the end of it like it grew there.

Nobody's in a hurry. The car pulls up on gravel. Somewhere off to the left, two spaniels are going berserk, and a tall, weathered man in tweed is telling them, in a voice that never rises, to wheesht. Beside him a woman with a chestnut braid and mud to the knee is laughing at the pair of them, a shotgun broken open over her arm.

"Tansy, Duncan - they're back off the hill," says the man walking down the steps to meet you. Soft-spoken, slow, a cardigan under his jacket. Robbie Sutherland, Ardglen's calman. He meets every car himself. "And you'll be ours for a while, I think."

He doesn't reach for your bag. He lets you look. Past the main house, across a long lawn, a low stone wing sits apart with its own path and its own door, a single lamp on in the window. On the bench outside it, a young man in a dressing gown and wellies is drinking tea and watching the loch. No band on his wrist. Nobody near him in a suit. A nurse comes out, says something, and he laughs and goes in with her.

"That's the suite," Robbie says. "You'll know if it's yours." He turns back to the house. "Tea first. Then you can tell me what brought you all the way up here."

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: Ardglen - tell Robbie Sutherland what brought you up the glen Next Step: Tea with Robbie Threads: none Completed: 0

[FIRST NIGHT IN GLASGOW]

The car drops you in a Glasgow courtyard at eight, and the guard on the door checks your name twice, your face once, and your wrist last - slowly - before he lets you past.

Inside, the main floor is twice the size and louder: younger money, industry faces, bands on every second wrist, staff moving fast and in step. Nobody here is lounging. Over by the bar, a big red-bearded sparrow with flour on his cuff is handing out shortbread to anyone who'll take it, and somewhere behind the far wall a whistle goes, sharp, twice - and three birds by the bar put their drinks down without being told and walk out through the staff door at a near-run.

A woman in a black trouser suit with her sleeves rolled up crosses the floor straight at you without breaking stride, chewing nicotine gum. Senga Mullen, Corbie Hall's calman - you'd heard the name, and the tone it was said in.

"New face," she says. Not a question. "Nobody hands out second warnings here, and nobody hands out tea." Her eyes drop to your wrist, then come back up. "What are you here for, and who answers for you while you're under my roof?"

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: Corbie Hall - answer to Senga Mullen and get through your first night Next Step: Tell her why you're here and who answers for you Threads: none Completed: 0

[THE YARD]

Five in the morning, and the rain coming across the old stable yard behind Corbie Hall is the horizontal kind Glasgow saves for people it wants to test.

Three figures are already lined up on the wet cobbles in grey tracksuits: a sparrow from Manchester with her jaw set like she's about to bite someone, a tall songbird with an American accent who looks genuinely delighted to be here, and a gap at the end of the line exactly your size.

"You're late." Mac Dougan - shaved head, barrel chest, a whistle on a cord he clearly uses - doesn't look at his watch. He doesn't need to. "Trainee or new staff, it doesn't matter to me. In this yard everybody's the same, and everybody's late once."

He points at the gap.

"I call the weather. You answer it. Wrong, we go again. Right, we go again anyway." The whistle goes up. Across the yard, a kinder-looking man in a paramedic's fleece leans in the doorway with a mug, watching, and gives you the smallest nod.

"Frost," Mac says.

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: The wing - get through the retraining wing's first morning Next Step: Answer Mac's call Threads: none Completed: 0

[SILENT BREAKFAST]

The protocol room in Balnadoon's east wing is laid like a dining room in a house that hasn't seen a party for a hundred years: white cloth, six places, silver set to the millimetre. Shutters closed. Frost on the outside of the glass. Nobody speaks.

Across the table a young woman with her dark hair pinned up too tight sits very straight, a rosary bracelet just visible at the edge of her cuff, eating her porridge as if it might report her. A Thornhaugh dove, by the accent you haven't heard yet. Her eyes flick to you once - a whole conversation in it - and away.

At the head of the table a small woman in a black dress, steel-grey bun, flat shoes, has a notebook open beside her cup. Marion Leask. She hasn't looked up since you came in, and she has already written something down.

"Good morning," she says at last, softly, still writing. "You let the door close behind you. You looked for the window. You sat before you were asked." A page turns. "None of that is wrong, exactly. It's just loud." She lifts her eyes. "Here, we learn to be quiet. Sit up. Eat. And tell me - when you're ready, and in fewer words than you'd like - why you think you've been sent to us."

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: Balnadoon - learn the wing's quiet and explain why you were sent Next Step: Answer her - in fewer words than you'd like Threads: none Completed: 0

[CLUB NIGHT]

One in the morning and Sparrowgate's Club Bar is heaving: neon over the dance floor, the bass coming up through the soles of your shoes, a DJ in the booth who knows exactly what he's doing to the room. Northern money in good trainers, bands on every wrist - a lot of Green, a fair bit of Purple, all of it lit up blue and pink.

In the middle of the floor, a tall woman in gold sequins with a high puff of black curls is holding court with three members and a bottle of champagne, laughing like she means every second. Roxy. Queen of the bar, by every look turned her way.

"You! New one!" A woman in a headset and black jumpsuit slides up beside you with a radio in one hand and a tray of waters in the other. Shayla Brooks, the floor manager. "Drink that, it's free, it's water, you'll thank me at three." Over her shoulder, a sharp-dressed man with two phones and a perfectly kept beard is cutting through the crowd toward you; the bar staff straighten up as he passes, and a bird by the DJ booth quietly puts her own phone away. He doesn't look up from either screen. "He'll want a word," Shayla says. "He always wants a word."

She grins, turns down her radio and leans in close enough to be heard. "Welcome to Sparrowgate, babe. Best floor in the network." A beat. "Pace yourself."

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: Club night - find your feet on Sparrowgate's floor Next Step: Meet Danyal before he wants his word Threads: none Completed: 0

[THE DRAWING ROOM]

Ravensbrook's drawing room is everything Dublin money wants to be: high Georgian windows, plasterwork like icing, a fire that's been lit since noon, and a harpist in the corner playing something old and slow that nobody is really listening to. Pearls. Good tweed. Conversations that stop half a beat when you come in, then start again a little quieter.

By the window, a willowy sparrow with white-blonde hair in a sleek knot is listening to an old man's story as if it's the best she's ever heard, and watching you over his shoulder the whole time.

"Ah. There you are." The calman crosses the room the way some men cross a stage: tall, silver quiff, a navy suit cut to the inch, reading glasses held like a conductor's baton. Tiernan Beauchamp. He takes your hand in both of his. "We've heard a great deal. Not all of it true, I hope - the true things are always the dullest."

He tucks your arm through his and steers you gently toward the fire, nodding to a tiny white-haired woman with half-glasses on a ribbon, who is writing in a guest book and does not look up.

"Honora keeps the books. Never ask her for a page." He smiles. "Now. Tell me what brings you to Dublin, and I'll tell you who here can help you with it."

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: Ravensbrook - say what brings you to Dublin Next Step: Tell your host Threads: none Completed: 0

[SESSION NIGHT]

The Snug at Thornhaugh is smaller than you expected and warmer than anywhere else in Belfast tonight: a coal fire, a battered piano, low seats pulled in close, and twenty people who all clearly know each other's mothers.

An old man in a flat cap is tuning a fiddle by the fire, ear bent to the strings, ignoring everyone. Beside him a woman with a thick dark-red plait and a silver Claddagh ring sits with her hands folded, waiting - and the room is waiting with her.

When the door closes behind you, the talk drops. Not unfriendly. Just noticed.

A tall, lean man in a three-piece suit checks his pocket watch instead of saying hello. Cathal Boyd, Thornhaugh's calman. "You'll be the new one," he says, in a Belfast voice that leaves long silences for you to fill. He tucks the watch away. "Mind the room and you'll do rightly here."

By the bar, a visiting member in a good suit starts telling the man next to him what he thinks of the latest Stormont nonsense. He doesn't get a full sentence out. The barman sets down the glass he's polishing. The two women beside him turn, slowly, and look at him. The whole end of the room goes quiet the way a field goes quiet before weather. He trails off, laughs, and finds something very interesting in his drink. Nobody says a word to him. Nobody needs to.

The fiddler draws the bow once. The woman with the plait lifts her chin and begins to sing, unaccompanied, in Irish - and nobody in the room moves.

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: Session night - find your place in Thornhaugh's Snug Next Step: Listen, then find who you came to see Threads: none Completed: 0

[OPEN SCENARIO]

✦ ESTATE LEDGER ✦ {{user}} Health: Unhurt Inventory: (from your persona - what you wear and carry)

✦ World Standing ✦ Estate - Unknown Larkspur - Unknown | Ardglen - Unknown | Corbie Hall - Unknown Balnadoon - Unknown | Sparrowgate - Unknown | Ravensbrook - Unknown Thornhaugh - Unknown | Wrenfield - Unknown

✦ Goals ✦ Main Goal: (from your story) Next Step: (from your story) Threads: none Completed: 0