Editing Abraham Musser (section)

===Basics===
As a Musser, as ''the'' Musser, he is a specialist in [[claim]] and able to speak with authority on it,<ref>I would like to remind you, claims are something my family has always emphasized.  You are, in essence, on my battlefield. [...] As I said before, I’ve studied claim all my life.  I was raised with claim always in mind. I am fully confident I could handle these arguments you’re making, but that takes time neither of us have. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/06 Excerpt] from [[Wild Abandon 18.1]]</ref> giving his arguments regarding claim more weight - even in the face of [[Judge]]s.<ref>“Nonsense.  Three days is the precedent, I speak as a student of claim, backed by the Musser establishment, with no less than two hundred and twenty rituals pertaining to claim under my belt.  Three.  I must insist.”<br><br>“This is what you wish to stress, with all of that?”<br><br>Musser shook his head.  “It is only its own establishment.  We have worked with the rules, we know the rules, we, Musser, in no small part, ''are'' the rules of claim.  We are internationally known and can sway interpretations and influence results.  Three.”<br><br>“Three it is,” the Alabaster said.<br><br>“What bullshit is that?” Lucy asked.  “Sorry, what?”<br><br>“It is his prerogative, by right of [[establishment]],” the Aurum Coil said, coiling some at his high spot by the window.<br><br>“So the powerful get to interpret the rules?  And get more powerful?” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/06 excerpt] from [[Wild Abandon 18.1]]</ref> An extension of this is his ability to steal the results of [[Defining Rituals]] from practitioners.

He is knowledgeable about [[Implements]],<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> owning fifteen of them himself; he also has four [[Demesnes]] and ten [[Familiar]]s and likely has a similar level of knowledge about them.<ref name=":6" /> These all derive from a [[Rapacious]] family practice that let him steal them from their rightful owners.<ref name=":6">I, Abraham Remington Musser, war mage, patriarch, Lord of many, keeper of fifteen Implements, minder of ten Familiars, holder of four Demesnes, hereby make my claim.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/03/01 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.9]]</ref><ref>I know how you get some of those implements and familiars, from people who think the kind of power that makes you great makes you good.”<br><br>“A plurality of demesnes too,” Musser said.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/17 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.7]]</ref><ref>
*'''Rapparee''' practitioners are bandits, waylaying targets to take prizes off them. Unlike typical magical duelists who claim prizes from the defeated, the Rapparee utilizes tricks and ploys to take far more and forestall the karmic penalties and other balancing forces… sometimes by leaving their targets in a state where they can’t assert their claim. - [https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LZFjFfwxLK1UWS59EY5js8ORYAlQLvLzBmkcqdpTp_0/edit#heading=h.i8bfyvxukrbd PACT DICE: Rapacious]</ref>

*[[Familiar]]s include:
**[[Abbas]] the Stormchild,<ref>Abbas, one of his father’s Others, a Stormchild, was standing by the railing upstairs that overlooked the main area, eyes and hair faintly glowing.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref> provides raw elemental power<ref>Abbas was another such safeguard.  The Stormchild was a point of light in the modified church, with its marble walls and columns, and its statue in the back, floating up near the point of the ceiling.  Here and there, Abbas floated, making the shadows slide around the space.  A battery of raw power, and a means of dealing with raw power.<br>[...]<br>The fire was another thing entirely.  The flames didn’t act ''quite'' as normal ones should, and they reached toward him, setting his surroundings on fire, limiting his movements.<br><br>Abbas was his insurance.  The Stormchild hovered high above, and drank in the flames before they could reach Abraham.  Light and shadow moved as the Stormchild did.  The heated air didn’t even reach Abraham. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**[[Nova Aquila]] the [[Icon]]<ref>Nova Aquila was one of his father’s Others, an Icon.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref> - beautiful, provides healing.<ref>Of his ten familiars, several had been chosen for reasons that had nothing to do with the ability to win a fight.  Nova was gentle on the eyes, capable of healing injury, though he’d accumulated a surprising few so far, an icon, a statue imbued with divine breath.  A limited reservoir of healing power.  She sat at his feet, book in her lap. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**[[Rabbit Killer]]<ref>His father addressed him, “Rabbit Killer is telling me there’s an enterprising young woman who can shrug off his influence.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref> -has some way of dealing with Innocents,<ref name=":02">His father addressed him, “Rabbit Killer is telling me there’s an enterprising young woman who can shrug off his influence.  I’m going to intervene to prevent any child services workers or officers from thinking too hard about the fact we were left in here alone with a girl they’re not sure we’re related to.”-[https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref> and his shadows carry overwhelming violence.<ref>The skinny young man with black hair, black shirt, and black jeans reached out a hand, and his shadow lunged out in four or five segments, diagonally across the lot, a section for the head, for the reaching arm and fingers, for the bend of his leg.<br><br>One of the larger, plump raccoons was tossed into the air as the shadow lanced beneath it.  Shadows rippled, arched off the pavement lot, and manifested teeth, reaching up.<br><br>The raccoon was bitten in half.  The raccoon’s upper half bounced once on ground before hitting shadow, falling into the darkness as if there was no ground there, only a hole.<br><br>Shadows withdrew like elastic bands snapping.  The second of the large raccoons was hauled to him with such speed and force that limbs bent the wrong way, back snapping audibly from where Lucy crouched, the length of a skating rink away.  The head went straight into the man’s mouth, even though it was too large to rightly fit inside his mouth.  He beheaded it, tearing with a jerk of his head.<br><br>The pups were already in hand, one dead, the other fighting.<br><br>Lucy itched to do something, because they were just animals trying to get by, but-<br><br>Before she could he killed the survivor, biting around head to the neck and tearing head from body.  He took the head of the other, then stood there at the end of the lot, blood coating chin to throat to the neckline of his shirt, a beheaded adult raccoon in one hand, two beheaded pups between the fingers of his other.<br><br>The second adult raccoon was gone, the only mark it had been there a single ‘splat’ of blood on the end of the parking lot.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/14 Excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.4]]</ref><ref>Within those shadows, Rabbit Eater lurked, lunging out to catch two of the Dog Tags that had circled around.  The way they’d hurdled the pews had suggested they’d hit the ground on the other side and stopped there while the flames roared above and past them, but they’d clearly been moving from the moment they hit ground, keeping low.<br><br>But Rabbit Eater was there, slender, dressed in black, wearing a spiked belt and spiked collar.  His shadow extended out, sweeping toward them, two sets of pews falling into it.<br><br>Flares were thrown at him from five different directions – they’d anticipated him.  It limited how deep the shadow was, but it didn’t stop it entirely, and it slowed how far it reached.  Still, it easily extended below the female Dog Tag that was dressed in black. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> Personality-wise, helps stop the group from falling into patterns as their most chaotic member, with no firm role.<ref>"The fact he has no clear role is important.  The practitioner that heads that family and the Blue Heron is a commander with a firm grip over those under him.  Yet he allows one to roam more free than the others." [...] “Chaos.  Being orderly means being predictable,” John said.  “He keeps one agent of chaos in his group.  Someone who pokes at bears, who peers behind curtains, and who upsets patterns, so they can’t fall into a routine with routine weaknesses.”- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/14 Excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.4]]</ref> 
**[[Farnaza]] the [[Wikipedia:Daena|Daena]]<ref>“Musser stole a Daena familiar.  A Zoroastrian psychopomp.  When seen by wrongdoers and murderers, she appears ugly, and she condemns them to eternal wandering.  Others she guides as a psychopomp will.”- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/10/05 Excerpt] from [[Fall Out 14.1]]</ref><ref>
“There’s a woman.  Older teens or twenty.  Old clothes, well worn, plaid-print shawl or cape or something swept around her shoulders, even in this heat.  White, blonde, badly taken care of hair, looks almost like straw, tied into a braid.”<br><br>“Older teens or twenty?”<br><br>“I think?”<br><br>“To me, she’s aged, moles growing out of moles, stretch marks on loose skin, which ranges from dry and flaking at the parts most exposed, to overly moist in the folds.  Her hair is caked with fluids.  Knobby limbs, long.  You could mistake her for human, but it would be hard.”<br><br>“Hm.”  Lucy turned on her Sight.  She described what she saw, “Watercolor bleeding out around her.  Very bright colors.”<br><br>“You’d know better than I what that means.”<br><br>“Tied into the environment?  Or a leaky power?  I tend to only see danger, pain, hurt, and whatever she’s got is bright enough to push into my way of seeing.  Like colors bold enough to make a colorblind person see…”<br>[...]<br>At the far end, Musser, hand at his face, glasses broken, shoved the door open.  Two of his Others were there.  The women.<br><br>Lucy’s Sight started going ''crazy'' as spirits and echoes began to flow in from behind the young-old woman. -[https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/14 Excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.4]]</ref>
**[[Renleotodroy|Four-in-one]] [[Abyss]]al kids in a trench coat,<ref>“Uhhh…” She assessed one figure, who was taller than the rest, Musser included, and stood at an odd angle, stooped, as if her back was a bit broken, arms hanging limp at her sides.  Her hair hung down on either side of her face, masking her features, and she wore a long black raincoat, black apron with leather strings, and a surgical mask.  With the Sight, she saw… different things.  The figure was heavily stained, making the black of the raincoat swirl like black water had blacker ink in it- and the way she stood was a little bit clearer, especially with knives and broken blades stuck into the raincoat, making it sit in a different way.  She could see the outline of heads and shoulders, a quarter of the way down and then halfway down.  She could guess, based on proportion and how short the legs seemed beneath that coat.  “I think four child sized Others wearing a raincoat and aprons.  Possibly Abyssal?”<br><br>“Abyssal, yes.”<br><br>“Bogeyman?” Lucy asked.<br><br>“I don’t know.  I’ve been wondering.  I don’t know enough about labels.  Bogeymen lean aggressive, feeding on fear and anger.  They’re often restless.  If she’s a bogeyman, she’s the most docile, least aggressive one I’ve ever seen.” -[https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/14 Excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.4]]</ref> name and expertise changing depending on configuration.<ref>Todroyleoren shuffled positions to become Rentodleoroy and severed a limb with a swing of a chef’s cleaver. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> Primarily provides medical expertise and cooks, but can also fight.<ref>Renleotodroy provided expertise on other subjects, with food preparation being one and medicine being another, to diagnose whether Nova was required.  In a pinch, he could do a fine job in a fight, or for an assassination of the less defended. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> Possibly one of, if not the, most dangerous of Musser's familiars.<ref>“Each ‘head’ with a different capability, perhaps,” John said.  “I think that may be the most dangerous of the four, even if you ignore how versatile they are.”<br><br>“Instinct?”<br><br>“Informed instinct.  The way they’re treated, the way they move…”<br><br>“The fact they’re kinda ugly and he seems to like pretty and neat looking Others?”<br><br>“Yes.  I didn’t dwell on that point.”<br><br>“So they’re apparently the most powerful-”<br><br>“Dangerous, out of this quartet, possibly excepting the practitioner.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/14 excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.4]]</ref>
**[[Athena Hillson]], perfected ex-human. Serves primarily as an assistant,<ref name=AHillson>Athena Hillson had been human once [...] Athena had been one of six successful results.  She could build and fly a spaceship, given an opportunity, remember the precise location of each word on a page she’d glanced at for half a second, and she was physically an Olympian.  Entirely Other. [...]Athena had been the sole survivor and escapee, had been found by a conspiracy-minded practitioner she was ''far'' too good for, engaged in a few smaller, misguided plans, and then she’d been claimed by Musser.<br><br>She served as a record keeper, librarian, secretary and event planner, mechanic for his cars, and his sometimes chauffeur.  But mostly it was the record keeping.  Remembering a specific text from years ago.  Normally she remained at one of his properties, managing things while he was gone. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> and most recent familiar at the start of Pale.<ref>Reid aping the approach his father had taken when he’d let Reid watch the capture of his sixth and most recent familiar.<br><br>He mulled over the words, and then decided on, “He was too good for some shabby little girl who can barely practice.” - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref>
**[[Polly]] the [[Muse]] - considered a mistaken choice, but can provide entertainment.<ref>And there was Polly.  A muse, dressed like any girl might, if she’d traveled to New York to make it big, normal to the eye until viewed in his peripheral vision, where she tended to appear as part of a scene, a still image that demanded attention.  A familiar he regretted taking, but he hadn’t been able to stop himself and he hadn’t been able to turn her away after.  He’d set her to the task of singing, even though it wasn’t her specialty, and she sang as beautifully as the best humans could, the acoustics of the building capturing the nuances of the voice. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**[[Entriken]] the Housekeep - acquired during his Lordship claims. A font of servants and luxury accommodation.<ref>Entriken the Housekeep leaned against the wall.  His only affectation of the Other was the loose shirt he wore, almost a toga, though it could be taken for a designer shirt.  He was a good visual pairing with Nova, with a tumble of white hair that was kept pinned back by laurels, long-lashed, melancholy by disposition.  He was an offshoot of certain heroic practices, a devourer of fallen dynasties that took their power and possessions into himself.  That slight, almost boyish appearance was a container for a hundred servants and a dozen manors worth of construction, furnishing, and decoration.<br>[...]<br>He’d had an eye on Etriken for years now.  The recent business with the Lordships had destabilized things enough for Abraham to take him from his previous owner.  Besides, after spending weeks on these Lordships, he’d grown tired of sitting and waiting in ugly places. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**Two unidentified familiars<ref name=":6"/>
*[[Demesne]]s include:
** Demesnes of the serial killer, it enables him to access it from anywhere at a moments notice.<ref>Learned what I needed to learn about the demesne she maintained constant and free access to, slipping back to it at a moment’s notice to elude authorities ... Then told my father what I’d learned about the demesne.  Matter of days later, I smoked outside while my father took it.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref> It works better at night and in a place no one had claim to.<ref>His father drew power, fed the doorway, and opened the shadows around himself.  It worked better at night, away from a territory someone else owned.  Since he had the school, he could use it there now, which was convenient.<br><br>And nobody owned this town, really.  No Lord had claim.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref> Takes him to a shadowy [[Abyss|Abyssal]] version of whatever area he was in.<ref>He used one of his Demesnes, creating a shadow door to step into.  He was swallowed up by the Abyss, drawn into an area just like the church, but lightless, decayed, and decrepit, with faint muffled bangs sounding as if they were underwater and far away.  Here and there, light flared. [...] But they didn’t call him back and the [[greater powers]] didn’t grow too impatient with him, so he had a few seconds to traverse the Abyss, listening for what was happening, before stepping back through, his curved khopesh blade in hand. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**Three unidentified demesnes<ref name=":6"/>
*[[Implement]]s include:
**Golden<ref name=":4">Abraham adjusted the angle of his head, peering through the gold-rimmed glasses he wore.  He could assess them, seeing them for their relative worth, power, and whatever else they might bring to the table.  There were three veterans.  Horseman was almost at the point where someone like Hadley Hennigar could take him as a familiar and it wouldn’t be a step down for an older daughter from a well positioned family.  The Dog Tag in black and the one with graying hair were valuable in their own right.<br><br>He could make a tidy profit simply from binding them and selling them to certain families.  The money hardly mattered.  What mattered was that he could earn the political capital. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> set of Pince Nez<ref name=":3" /> or "pinch nose" glasses<ref>Weakening one of his better Others, breaking his glasses, that would cost Self to repair.  Or whatever he used to repair implements that weren’t his by right. -[https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/08/14 Excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.4]]</ref> that let him [[sight|see]] something's value (including Others) or avoid troublesome items.<ref>Toadswallow nodded.  “The glasses, remind me what they do?”<br><br>“They let him see something’s value.  Lets him avoid troublesome items,” Zed said.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/09/04 Excerpt] from [[Summer Break 13.10]]</ref> The glasses have gold rims and no arms.
** Khopesh - a sickle-shaped knife that causes any cut made with it to spreads outwards as a line.<ref>Reid’s father held a sickle-like knife in one hand, and left his other empty, wearing the glove...From Elise’s vantage point, it was impossible to see, but the old man’s shirt split, and was followed soon after by a line of blood.  The cut dragged itself from the back of his shoulder to the top, to the front, down his chest, tracing a lazy, traveling line.  The older parts of the cut got deeper, as the line lengthened. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2021/07/31 Excerpt] from [[False Moves 12.z]]</ref>
**He took a fingerless leather glove that allows him to grab bullets out of the air.<ref>They kept advancing.  Musser raised his hand, wrapped in a leather glove that left the fingertips exposed.<br><br>John fired.  It might have been a warning shot.<br><br>Musser’s hand jerked.  The bullet hit him smack dab in the palm.  He flinched, shaking his hand, and dropped the lead.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2020/12/26 Excerpt] from [[Gone Ahead 7.7]]</ref> Form-fitting, it allows him to catch even several bullets at a time with superhuman speed, although there are limits to the speed it can grant.<ref>Musser’s hand, in its form fitting leather glove, one implement, caught the bullets out of the air, hand moving as fast as the brief hail of bullets, some bullets hitting others, as they gathered at his cupped hand.  He could feel the heat of the metal. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> Can also catch other projectiles.<ref name="spit"/>
**An intricate pin which can fly through an enemy, pinning them to the wall by their spine, created by a [[Faerie_Courts#Low_Spring|Dark Spring]] [[Binding|Binder]].<ref>He caught those bullets, then reached out to his collar, pulling a pin free from its hiding place- a needle with a rounded top, carved with fine detail so miniscule a magnifying glass wasn’t enough to see the particulars, the metal of the needle bearing a damascus whorl.  An implement he’d taken years ago.<br><br>He flicked it with his off hand, and it struck the airborne dog.  She was slammed into the curved arch of the ceiling on the far side of the church, with enough force her gun was knocked from her hand.  She dangled there, hands at her throat, groping and digging into the pinhole, where the pin had gone in, through, into spine, and attached spine to wall.<br><br>From a practitioner of Dark Spring inspired binding arts.  She’d dumped a lot of her excess power into the pin, distilling it in function.<br><br>It was a good way to remove one target from an equation – especially one that was in the air and couldn’t easily move aside. - [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref> He can summon it to his hand and pin another enemy if one should escape.<ref>He saw the nimble one he’d pinned up at the arching ceiling shoot herself in the spine, and drop from the position she’d been dangling.<br><br>Not pinned any longer.<br><br>Motioning, Abraham called the pin back to hand.  He looked, saw the one with the explosives circling around, and flicked it at her instead.  Similar effect, but closer to the ground.  Attaching her firmly to the wall.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**A necklace of numerous glass beads, each of which can negate a single curse, gaining one bead a year. They can also passively clear away minor irritants such as smoke.<ref name=":5">Glass beads at his neck absorbed smoke from the fire that Abbas hadn’t eaten, so he could breathe and see without difficulty.  They would also absorb any evil curses, but at the cost of a bead, which would take a year to replace itself with a fresh, clear one.  He had less than he’d ever had since acquiring the necklace – only eighty left, with all the Lordship claims and other nonsense.- [https://palewebserial.wordpress.com/2022/04/02 Excerpt] from [[Gone and Done It 17.z]]</ref>
**Ten unidentified implements<ref name=":6"/>