(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

Already I was poking through the cupboards, filled with old charms and
potions, and a few parchments with ancient words of power.
One pair of double-doors, however, clicked and rattled, but wouldn't budge.
"Uh, Annah? I don't suppose you could give me a hand here?"
With a little jiggling and a twist of her lockpicks, the door clicked open.
On the shelf sat a small... well, I wasn't sure what it was. Sculpture or
container, talisman or charm, I had no idea. It was a dodecahedron, a
twelve-sided shape with pentagonal sides. It was cold and heavy in my
hands, and whether it was metal or stone I couldn't tell. Familiarity pricked
at my skull, like the distant buzzing of a fly, and a tension ran over the object
as if it were ready to spring into the air.
I stuffed it into my pack before I left.
~~~~~
They stood in the Lecture Hall, many chatting with one another. Sensates
and nobles, clerks and the occasional commoner. The mass of colors was
dizzying: blue and green silks, scarlet and yellow velvets. White trim and
black embroidery. Food had been prohibited. It was a lecture hall, not a
circus.
The speaker that waddled up before the crowd was a short, plump little
man, his gray-white hair little more than a fringe around his head. His tunic
was tight against his belly... a gray-blue reminiscent of a cloudy sky. There
was a certain naivete in his grin, and a bit of soft-headed dramatic wonder in
his voice. He sounded like a muddle-headed child that had grasped his first
philosophical abstraction, and was eagerly yammering a mangled version of
it to everyone he came across.
"Sigilians, welcome! Please, take your seats, and listen to the 'darks' of
which I speak!"
"'Darks?!' Gimme a break!" Morte groaned, "We're really not going to listen
to this rattletrap, are we? C'mon... let's go find some Sensate chits that have
never had the pleasurous sensation of tasting the fiery passion of a skull's
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