The Investigative Virtuoso

[Chai High Tuba]

Locke Rathbone || Thirty Four || Basil of Baker Street || Thieves Guild || Chai High Tuba

The keeper of the Guild Tavern, in charge of business matters for the Thieves as well as the one and only bartender, Locke is infamous for two things: a talent for the mandolin and a keen eye for detail. He is often aware of what is happening to whom, either through communication or observation, and he has had the distinct privilege of serving the likes of the Venancis family, Lord Armel Mor’du Cynbel, and a number of mercenaries. He keeps a respectable distance from everyone, but remains an open ear to the burdened and may even take up the role of the entertainer for those in need. Few know his true story, but rumor has it that not even his name is his own. Very often he is one of the first people to know when something is going on, much to the chagrin of others, but he holds back to see how it will play out with others. Because of this, he is rarely surprised. However, he keeps an open mind always.

Model: Chris Thile
Story: The Great Mouse Detective
From Roleplay: Sola Fide

[Chai High Tuba]

XX XX

”There is always a chance, as long as one can think.”

__________________________

Username: Chai High Tuba
Full Name: Locke Rathbone
Call Names: Locke, Mr. Rathbone, Hey, You
Role: Basil of Baker Street

Age: Thirty Four
Gender: Male
Orientation: Bisexual
Height & Weight: 6’6” & 164 lbs.

Personality:

xoxoDistant but friendly, carefully navigating conversation while picking up hints and clues, Locke is the kind to know enough about a person after ten minutes of conversation to cut into the core of them. He is observant and calm in all things, even in moments of stress or danger among the Guild. A kind of eccentricity still characterizes this man, most especially in times when he shrinks into himself to find answers to a question that are not obvious. In these times, his brooding can be a hinderance to his job, but he fears not for his security within it. The mandolin is his inspiration on many occasions, and he keeps a fair collection of them neatly stashed away in his private quarters. Things lose his interest quickly when he has analyzed them at proper length, but he has mastered feigning interest.

Biography:

xoxoA minor lord of some house in some country far, far away, Locke was well known in a previous life for his insatiable hunger for truth and justice, paired with an eccentricity that sent most would-be-peers far from him. Infamous for a knack for keeping himself a part of everyone’s business in some way or another, he seemed at times thoughtful for his memory but at other times terribly nosy. He lacked a filter at times, and while he could easily hold his own in court, he was not immune to the ire of nobility.

xoxoFor a time he was entertained with idle high society gossip but it quickly lost him when he realized just how directionless it could be. He began tracking down more troublesome information as time carried on, and by the time he was in his late teens, he was tracking down chicken thieves for the local cooks and making sense of crimes in politics - tracking down lost documents, pointing out flaws in legislation, even going so far as to follow trails of murderers. It was on one of these cases in the latter that he experienced real tragedy for the first time. On the tail of a man who had much to lose from exposure, he had drawn suspicion for the last time. His family was killed shortly before his twentieth birthday. Knowing then that he could no longer do as he pleased where he was, he dropped everything and made his escape into the world.

xoxoLocke’s history with the Guild includes a lot of well-placed lies or obtaining knowledge too valuable to lose, his standing with those above him is rocky at best, but in fourteen years he has learned how best to deal with these people.

Fears:

xoxoBeing connected. Though he encourages conversations and calls the Thieves his friends, he keeps his distance largely for personal reasons.


Strengths:

- Information Gathering: Locke's connections have varied in strength over the years, but he somehow maintains contacts in powerful positions who are more than willing to share what they know about any given situation. These are purely confidential, and their identities are shared with very few people.
- Deductive Reasoning: Despite his often frivolous behavior, Locke thinks about problems very logically, working through an entire process before arriving at an answer he deems worthy. It is a gift of his to think far ahead in consideration of others' actions.
- Music: A virtuoso with a prime interest in the easy-to-carry mandolin, though he can easily play anything and sing to boot.

Weaknesses:

- Self-Loathing: After some hard times when he was hardly more than a boy, Locke has a strong dislike for himself and everything he does.
- Slim physique: Tall, slim, easy to break.
- Desire for the Truth: Underneath his posturing and actions within the Thieves' Guild, he hungers for answers as to why Fantasia is the way it is -- why society is dictated by kings and queens, who makes the rules, and why those are important. He questions many things, which is often a hinderance as he will doggedly follow the truth through to an end.

Weapons/Combat:

xoxoWhat he can’t win with wit, guile, or a bit of persuasion is generally attained with small blades, mostly of the throwing variety. Of course, while he has a talent for long range weaponry, his true powers lie more with being in a position of power. It is said he can get information out of anyone.

Theme Song:

Prélude (Scriabin) as performed by Punch Brothers
Movement and Location by Punch Brothers





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[Chai High Tuba]

Post Layout

[xoL O C K ExoR A T H B O N Exo]
Thieves Guild Bartender

xoxo”Good night, sweet prince,” said the man pleasantly. He sat at the foot of a plush bed, leaned on one knee as he turned to fix the man with a kindly smile. ”And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” In one hand was a fine little knife and in the other was a stained linen rag, concealing the blade as he idly removed bright red. Apart from his voice, the fine room was eerily silent and had remained so for many hours after the events of the evening before. Locke was a reasonable and civil man, hardly acting out of turn or deviating from a set plan, but there were times when things did get out of hand. This was clearly one of those times.

xoxoQuiet it may have been, but the room was a nightmare to behold. The man he spoke to was hardly recognizable beneath caked blood on his face, all of which had presumably originated from his slit throat. He was missing all five fingers on one hand, which rested in his lap underneath the other, wholly intact except for the tip of his index finger. Nasty bit of work, that one, but he could not have the boy trying to strangle him again. In another world, perhaps it would be fun, but neither found it particularly enjoyable that evening. Oh, well.

xoxoThe man was otherwise tucked into his bed quite nicely, sitting up with his back against the pillows with a distant stare into the room. He was still dressed in finery from the ball, but in the roguish, disheveled way that must have gained popularity in court after Locke had left it. He had only begun to wear his shirt partially unbuttoned after turning to a life of crime, but to each their own, of course. Anyway, it had been very flattering. Had been. Now he looked tired, the same as Locke. Upon the wall just above his head was a nice big painting of a symbol that matched the one Locke had allowed to be branded into his own skin fourteen years ago. Circle, square, triangle, circle. Aut viam, inveniam, aut faciam. Locke admired his work for a moment before finally standing up. He had waited all night for the blood to dry and now he would have to deal with the consequences of being there in the daylight.

xoxoThe knife was tucked away. The bed was abandoned. Pulling a hood over his head, Locke approached the window to appraise the area outside. This room was high up enough that no one would see a man climbing there. Besides, all he really had to do was go down a single floor and enter through the doors on the balcony there. The room below should be unoccupied, but if it was not he had more than one auxiliary plans. He pushed open the window with a gloved hand and slipped out through the small opening easily, his own body so thin that he could turn sideways and disappear. The bartender knelt on the ledge beneath the window with care and took one final glance at the corpse of Prince Hans of the Southern Isles.

xoxoGood riddance to bad rubbish.

xoxoHis escape from there went off without a hitch, surprisingly, though he did nearly lose his life by falling from… how many floors up? He had to contain an odd laugh that came with rising and falling fear. No, he was alive. Expecting detection of his work in time, the disgraced noble walked his way dutifully down to the kitchens, where he picked up dishes in a washbasin and began scrubbing, removing the last tiny bits of evidence as to his work. Somewhere behind him, a pair of cooks sang off-key while punching at dough for the meal that evening. He hummed along quietly, voice calm and pure. A lovely day it could still turn out to be.

[Chai High Tuba]

Spotify Playlist for Locke

"Partita No. 1 in B Minor, BWV 1002: I. Allemanda" as performed by Chris Thile
"Helping Hand" by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile and Stuart Duncan
"If the Sea was Whiskey" by Chris Thile
"Prélude (Scriabin)" as performed by Punch Brothers
"Squirrel of Possibility" by Punch Brothers
"Attaboy" by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile and Stuart Duncan
"No Concern of Yours" by Punch Brothers
"Rye Whiskey" by Punch Brothers

Notice a theme yet?

[Chai High Tuba]

Miscellaneous Links
Last updated March 4, 2016, 2:56 PM MST

User Journal
xo‣ Introduction and Opening Thoughts
xo‣ Origins 1
xo‣ Origins 2

Videos
xo‣ Prélude (Scriabin) as performed by Punch Brothers [0:58]
xo‣ Movement and Location by Punch Brothers [4:12]
xo‣ "Why Only One?" - Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer, The Bluegrass Situation [4:32]
xo‣ Bach: Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001 (Complete) performed by Chris Thile [15:08]

References
xo‣ Mandolin commonly carried by Locke.

Stories
xo‣ Sola Fide - Main Thread
xo‣ The Guild of Thieves - Base of operations.
xo‣ Blood on the Ice - Organized crime and the law that ends it.

[Chai High Tuba]

Updates
A summary of the trail Locke has left behind.
Last updated July 20, 2015, 3:39 PM MST

Pre-Main Story, Thieves' Guild

xoxoUpon returning to the guild after a lengthy session of... persuasion, Locke retrieved his beloved mandolin from his own quarters before returning to the bar where Cleo, the barmaid, and her lover, Figaro, held down the fort dutifully. As he made a show of his return, his young coworker used her guile to pass along while message and wheedle him out of two gold coins. Though the contract was optional, he took to it with great interest.
xoxo

Day One

xoxo[Character Inactive]
xoxoCan be assumed that Locke arrived a month before the ball held by Lioncourt royalty and took up the position of servant to become familiar with the staff.

Day Two

xoxoFollowing an optional contract handed down by the leader of the Thieves' Guild, Locke made his way to the castle currently held by Charles and Isabella Lioncourt, where he carried out the assassination of an upstart noble by the name of Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. After finishing the job with some unnecessary but fun artistic flare, he escaped the bedroom where the young man was deposited and took up the disguise of a servant in the kitchens where he now waits for a sign to get moving. It is here that he is discovered by Cassius, a man he somehow neglected to meet in the month that he has occupied the castle while minding his mark. In hopes of rectifying this situation, he has introduced himself as Bram Siosalach, a common servant from Dunbroch.

[Chai High Tuba]

Long Forgotten Stories of a Young Detective

xoxoPeople and their capacity for cruelty fascinate Locke, who learned the ways easily enough with a burly older brother and three vicious older sisters. Not an heir, the very youngest of a small but 'culturally rich' clan of Dunbroch, he grew up watching his elder siblings go about their lives with an awe-inspiring amount of backstabbing and sniping for fun. He absorbed it like a sponge, looked for reasons, made connections. What he lacked in the pure verbosity of greater conversation, he made up for in quiet retorts and inelegant intelligence. Members of higher society took to him for his perspicacity and his talent for having the last laugh, even if it was only to himself. While his brother was groomed to take over lordship from their father and his sisters were married off one by one to gain political favor, he was welcomed into social circles across the country with familiarity from strangers. He enjoyed his freedom, happy to see his range of observation grow. Where his family had been beastly, the outside world was so much more savage.

xoxoTo be continued.

[Chai High Tuba]

The Bartender, The Thief