(I'm sorry to those who've posted faithfully in recent weeks.  I've been without internet for a few days, but mostly have been waiting for someone to do something I can respond to.  Not to mention that we have a great deal of dead-weight players on hand.  Therefore, unless players show up and provide a damn-good reason for their absence, this rp will proceed with the few remaining posters still active in the forums.  This may mean that situations will change, but I trust that those who remain have enough skills to vault over these hitches.   Thank you)<br/><br/><br/>"Of course you may ride Black Sheba." Lilliana replied, shifting her riding boots on the grass and straw just outside the stables.  "She could certainly use the excersize considering father is so preoccupied with the proceedings at court.  He barely has time to see her anymore.  It would be good for her to get out and stretch her legs a bit."<br/><br/>She stepped into the stable and skirted the stalls.  Rather than taking her old marshmellow of a horse out to trot the trails, she saddled up a tall, flaxen mare with a tan coat and beautiful eyes.  The older horse seemed disappointed, but resigned herself to watch with caution.<br/><br/>_________________<br/><br/>"Your Majesty!"  A young man swept into the side chamber where Thothcapel sat with a few other women.  He presented her the slip of paper, on which was scrawled the not from "Cut and Tie".  He also handed her the dagger wrapped in a piece of burlap.  The queen didn't even have to unwrap the weapon to guess what it was by the way the servant handled it and the way it felt when she herself took it up.<br/><br/>Setting it off to the side and read through the note.  Her eyes were aflame with anger after scanning it the second and third time.  Was this some kind of ploy to incite rash action?  Or some serious threat to the state of the Royal Family and their guests?  In any case, Thothcapel only had to think a minute before formulating a course of action.  She certainly hoped it would work, but the whole thing was a gamble.<br/><br/>She stood and addressed the few guests that were sitting around her.  "I apologize for the supreme inconvinience, but I must leave you.  I have a few things I must attend to before the night is through."  She curtsied with a very small bow and left the room.  She returned to her chambers and withdrew parchment from her writing desk.  On it she wrote a fairly long list of names.  These were the people fortunate enough to be invited into her council, those she considered worth saving.<br/><br/>With a few bells, she summoned her team of maids and presented the list to them.  Their job was to collect the names on the list and assemble them in the room with the white door at the end of the large hall.  There, the group would recieve instructions.  Once they had been dispatched, Thothcapel summoned the groundskeeper.  After scolding him intensely for permitting someone to actually tamper with the plumbing of the castle, she bade him go and find where the intruder might introduce something into the water supply.  Taking care of emptying the remaining water was also his duty.  The queen was working on the assumption that if the water was cut off from the rest of the plumbing, whatever toxin or polutant was added would be unable to reach them.  Of course this was also assuming that the intruder had already done so.  It would mean that the castle might not be able to draw water for as long as the threat was emminant, and perhaps things would start to smell a-foul, but at least no one she considered valuable would die.<br/><br/>_________________________________<br/>The names (of importance) on the list are:<br/>Anna and Sophia<br/>The Hisuka Family<br/>The Nagasaki Family<br/>Uryuu Kiritsugu<br/>(Coleman didn't make the list)