First was Marshal P., whose name had been made with his pedirail locomotor. With his inventions and the lines of credit their success in the last war had opened up, he had everything he needed to carve out a domain of his own anywhere in the witchwoods. He chose the settlement of Rueford, situated on the river and with oil deposits belowground, and his machines set to work scything down the forest to make way for grain, grazing, and oil pumps.

Marshal P. had always been one to take matters into the hands of his personal locomotor, and that took him beyond the expanding walls of the town of Rueford for long periods. In those absences, Guildmaster T. rose to his title. He remains the head of the Clockmaker's Guild, his clockwork devices and meticulous management outcompeting other guilds in their own domains, expanding the scope of the clockwork patent he had been afforded beyond what anyone had foreseen. By the time Marshal P. had noticed, the Guildmaster was impossible to remove without tearing out most of the city's economy in the process. He remains the city's largest source of employment, injuries, and prosthetic replacements to compensate for those injuries.

The most recent arrival is Dottoressa F. and her salon. With the growth of Rueford's economy, the toiling classes aspire to more. Supervisors study manners and follow fashions in pursuit of good marriages, and those trends are set by the Dottoressa's circles. For those whom nature has not gifted with the figure of the month or the appropriate temperament for the season, she can offer tamed fauna from her menagerie that can be discreetly bonded or ingested. The most common merely siphon off excess blood and boost one's verve with their glandular secretions, but there are rumors that those shared with her inner circle are capable of much more. Unusually for the Lettered, the Dottoressa's creatures can be bred and raised by their hosts to pass on and found circles of their own, but doing so elevates their appetites beyond what a salon mistress may be able to sustain should her station fall again.

And it is upon this recent arrival that the host of an underground prosthetics clinic sets her sights - for in the process of shaping her Spark to work at her command, and not its own mere whims, she has rendered it ill-suited to working from the barest nothing, and if she is to develop the necessary treatments to regrow limbs...these will do nicely for inspiration.

Mademoiselle Ophelia Mondegreen is in fact the proprietress of quite a few of the local sources of entertainment, much appreciating the finer things in life herself - though it's said that she is never seen to drink more than the sip that courtesy requires of her wines, and she abhors cigars, so it's curiously unclear from whence this rumor comes.

She's been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long, long while.  To unseat the Guildmaster, but not his works, would be to create a newer and worse horror - but now, she has the hope of an alternative, if she is quick enough.  And that is the first step in her plan to steal Rueford out from under the smog that chokes it.

She's been doing what she can to ease the burdens upon its people - "unauthorized meddling with technology under a letter patent", it's considered, in Rueford's jurisdiction, though the surgeries never occur within its civil bounds - but this is an opportunity far grander.

Regrowing limbs is as yet not a capability that any of the Dottoressa's menagerie have demonstrated. The closest of the public strains would be the Repilatory Louse, an uncomfortable but undeniably effective baldness cure, and the Sanguinary Leech that is generally advertised as enabling one to maintain a perfect sang-froid or sang-chaud as the situation requires, but can also stimulate the replenishment of blood in a pinch.

Of the more speculative varieties, one of the Dottoressa's closest confidants fell beneath a pedirail. He now moves with a boneless fluidity and wears gloves at all times. The members of another prominent salon have all shed the pox-scars of childhood illness, but they avoid the topic of their cure and diligently vet prospective invitees.

How very interesting, this.

Perhaps an employee of her own pubs, one of the more genteel sorts - it would hardly do to spook them - shall approach the ladies and gentlemen of the salon, discreetly - for dear Sylvia, while a rugged survivor of the highest degree, has hardly come away from her travails unmarked.  The pox in childhood, and scars upon her hands, heroically sustained in a boiler accident?  Goodness.  That is far too many scars to keep for overlong.

She'll do her best for the Lady, she's sure - but surely the Lady is aware that she is hardly well-spoken of the sort they'd need?

Nonsense, darling, we'll have you quite well-trained by the time you're needed, if you're willing.

If the Lady commands --

No.  Not by her command.  By Sylvia's consent.  This is important.

The Lady does not ask more than her people are willing to give.  Is Sylvia truly willing to give even her body to the Lady's keeping, and bear experiments, as this task will require of her?  Does Sylvia trust that the Lady will be doing her best to keep her partners safe, and that no order shall be given without reason?  Does Sylvia believe that if she has concerns, the Lady will listen to them?

If not, then the Lady would like her to have this for her time.

...And if she does?

Then she shall learn the proper ways of speaking, memorize this history, and meet a certain salon's clientele when she's ready.

The good Doctor's skill in mesmerism is quite useful for such practices, as it happens.

And so, soon enough, Patrice Clairemont shall make an appearance at a certain salon; she brought baked goods she made herself!

As well as a simple resonance transceiver, built in to the decorative layers of the tray she bears them on.

Such a tragedy, life in the city can be so hard at times. What kind of employment has this Patrice been able to find for herself, following that dreadful accident? Was it a long fall from grace, did she have prospects before? Has the Clairemont - is that her maiden name - family been able to offer any support?

They are scrupulously polite in feeling out what Patrice Clairemont might have to offer the salon in return, and in avoiding anything more than hints that such a transaction might be an option. The baked goods are a good start; the ladies and gentlemen alike seem to have hearty appetites.

Her family died to the pox that marked her; they'd had her surprisingly late, and were vulnerable to it, while she was young and strong; teenage vitality saved her.

She works at the same patisserie they once operated, actually, beneath safety equipment, but hers is a long-dimmed star; sadly, she simply cannot get recognition for her works because her ex-poxedness "would scare the customers", her boss says!  Oh, if only she could...but there are no miracles, not for her.

Patrice, or someone else listening in through the tray transceiver, may be astute enough to notice that her tale seems to divide the room.

One set of salon guests are full of praise for her impeccable manners and comportment, and the industry and care she has applied to her trade. Some of them discuss in passing their own charitable contributions to the worthy poor of Rueford.

Another group appears to disapprove of the idea of working a trade, no matter how diligently. Of course they aren't rude enough to say so, but when the topic of making the pastries they're enjoying comes up, they will break off into their own conversations about loftier matters, a subtle shunning.

Then there is the third fraction of the attendees, saying little, more or less indifferent to Patrice's claimed background, but watching closely for any direct evidence of her character. Does she seem inclined to eavesdrop, should a mildly scandalous affair be whispered about in her vicinity? How does she react when the conversation shifts away from her misfortune and what might be done about it? Will she respond to any mild slights in kind?

(The mistress of the salon, a bibliophile dowager who leads the poetry readings, is among this latter group.)

Well.  She might perhaps drop an eave or two, should someone be seeming to bring such a matter to her attention by repeatedly whispering about it in her vicinity - though her reaction is to whisper back that "really, I feel that the story of Mister Delacourt's affair being the talk of the town is quite unkind to his poor wife; she had nothing to do with it, and yet to have it be the talk of every gossip in the town surely hurts she as much as he; do have a care!"

She seems entirely impassive to the conversation's shift away from her misfortune and what could be done about it; it was something she expected.

As for slights, well, it depends upon their manner!

"That was a private conversation," one of the gossips harrumphs, his affronted flush perhaps the work of a Sanguinary Leech. Some women of the salon give Patrice approving nods, however.

One of those slights comes from that flushed gossip, a Farrier Serjeant Wolsley Croft (ret.), who Patrice will have gathered once served with the Marshal's forces before retiring to enjoy the proceeds of the cattle ranch his service earned. It's said his unblemished neck was mostly scar tissue before joining this salon, though his voice remains gruff and he doesn't turn his head much. 

"Doesn't hold a candle to a Tommikins' teacake," he mumbles through one of her baked goods.

Another woman offers some unsolicited advice on where to find a young servant that knows how to work a needle. "Judging by the state of your attire, that injury must prevent you from doing any of that yourself."

The waspish milliner's tone makes it clear that the insult is intentional.

"I shall have to try one, sometime, if they're as good as you say," she returns to the veteran.  "A friend of mine says that things can always be better, and it is up to us to find out how."

Ss for the waspish milliner...

"Hm.  Perhaps.  Though if your tailor is as bad as mine, then clearly we both need a new one."

F. Ser. Croft accepts her diplomatic reply in good grace, offering no more hostility. "My hearing's not what it used to be. When's the Dottoressa going to dig out an earwig that can fix that?"

Her other opponent is less tactful. "I hadn't realized your boiler accident ruined your sight as well as your hands," she says, before knocking over a teacup to spill towards Patrice's lap.

"Deirdre, enough." The dowager's voice cuts through the chatter, and the milliner bites back her anger with one last scowl at the salon's latest guest. "It's time for the last reading of the evening, any volunteers?"

Once the reading is finished, Patrice will be thanked for her attendance, and encouraged to check her post regularly in case she receives another invitation.

In the meantime, certain members of the salon will make their own enquiries into this persona. Will they find people who can confirm her story? Are any people of status willing to name themselves friends, patrons, supporters of hers?

And will the resonance transceiver be left behind at the salon?