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This is a normal woman, doing her normal job. She has no clue that she's just ferried up a contingent of the Weeping Eye.

She's playing it too normal. File under 'Goon, potential'.

The autopilot is immaculate, all things considered.

Opposable thumbs- check.

No hint of accusation. He's convinced he is misremembering somehow.

He strips you naked with his gaze, on his expression a desire that is not lust.

That vibration that you can feel through his skull -- the prelude to sobbing.

He even makes the same sound you make when you're thinking.

A tone so venomously sarcastic it's worse than no admission.

He shrinks even as he is suggesting.

The last time you spoke, there was a hint of desperation in how he insisted he was the original. Not anymore. Now he's had days to indoctrinate the idea into himself.

It's not just earnestness... what fills his voice is a kind of anti-irony. A wilful, forced belief.

As if an equation is forming in which you are subtracted.

Desperate yearning.

A fighter's chin.

A fanatic's certainty, forged through sheer trauma.

The burning, twitching gaze she fixes on you transmits the message with telepathic clarity -- you will not distract her -- she is onto you.

The posture suggests prayer, but a violent one -- every muscle clenched and quivering.

The air quivers alongside her movements.

Though she speaks fluent Illuminado, she is not Luzian.

Three hundred tiny windows, ghost hands tapping on the glass.

You all seem uncomfortable in a crowd.

The light cowers from you.

He's subsisting on these alone.

Excitement sliding into her voice. This gorefest is a painting of her own personal revenge.

A slightly weightless tone in her voice. Gravity suspended.

Asked as if the question scared him.

His voice is reasonable, calm -- utterly at odds with the sparks of fear behind his eyes.

Let it go. This is as far as you'll get on this.

And he can't wait to tell you.

Absolute conviction behind his words. This is no bluff or bait.

A trace of concern that you've pre-achieved the very thing he was attempting to do when you found him.

A shade of jealousy.

Visual only. No touching.

Oh yeah. Mentally snapshot this. He's impressed.

No irony here. No dress rehearsal either.

None of that sounded real. It was a scene from fiction, from an espionage novel.

Behind his gaze, he is cast in iron. You are being entrusted with this.

Deceptively blank. Just behind, his perfect memory ticks and whirs like ancient clockwork.

A laser beam of suspicion.

There's nobody in there.

You're not sorry. You wouldn't have done this if you were.

There's nobody in there.

He shows you a quick smile. Relieved but anxious.

No judgement in his voice. His curiosity is innocent, almost childlike.

A dry, barking laugh, it reverberates off the walls of the cell and back into the receiver.

He did not, in fact, mean it.

A wariness in his voice. Even now he thinks the Weeping Eye may have ears as well.

His seething anger appears genuine. No false notes in his voice.

Wait. A discrepancy, like a false note.

811 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 13 of 17