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Post by Admin on Aug 9, 2019 21:25:52 GMT
Bella felt a growing sense of irritation and agitation in the days after her arrival in Bailey. The reason was difficult to pin down; maybe it was the unfamiliar and often unpalatable food these near-Amerites enjoyed eating, or being so close to Amber for the first time in her life and the essence of the Pattern aura infused lands aggravate her delicate sensibilities, or that this town is a more interesting place than she had first assumed.
The Black Rifters had been quiet since her first day with overheard whispers in bars telling of the group gathering in their safehouses while trying to determine the reason for the loss of a handful of their roughest brawlers. This lack of organized crime has lead to an increase in freelance muggers, pickpockets, and second-story thievery. The local constabulary is also feeling the pinch in lost income and has begun charging for protection services through direct local taxation.
But there is another element to the place that Bella quickly grows to recognize. It is the existence of and secret communication between a number of cults and factions within the town. Maybe not all are dedicated to piracy but each has an agenda. The walls of the alley and hidden on the shadowed sides of ornamental rocks are painted, scratched, and scribbled symbols some of which must be short messages others seem to just tag a group's name. Among the names are The Stoneheads, Red Knives, Blue Manticore, Old Ropes, and The Green Teas.
While sitting at a sidewalk table at a small cafe Bella's thoughts are interrupted by a figure passing into her field of vision. Looking up she sees a bent old lady dressed in rags not so different from the outfit Bella wore on her arrival in this place.
"Spare a few coins for an old woman and have your fortune told, lovie?" she asks while pulling a deck of tarots out from under her rags.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 9, 2019 23:35:23 GMT
Bella had been trying to enjoy her small victory. The lack of response from the Black Rifters was at once both amusing, because it seemed they were so easily cowed by just one woman, and disappointing, because it meant that they were going to make it hard for her to track down their leader. Still, she and her birds had feasted well over the last few days, though the regional diet inflicted an after taste that she didn't find particularly appealing. It was their diet of fish, she had decided. As far as the petty criminal element, perhaps a less subtle message was required.
Regardless, Bella pretended to sip from a cup of some local drink suggested by her server. It lacked the pulse of life straight from the vein. There was no struggle in it. So she pushed it aside, as she turned her attention to the old woman, "Coins are trinkets, old mother," she said, adopting the affectation of the locals. "But sit, and I'll give you your coins. More, if there's something to your prophecy."
She placed three coins on the table between her and the old woman, and the great black bird that had been preening his feathers on Bella's shoulder hopped down onto the table and pecked on the closest of the three coins. She took a deep breath, her lips parting in an even smile as she called up the Logrus so that she could examine the old woman through it, "Begin."
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Post by Admin on Aug 11, 2019 15:45:40 GMT
The woman's face sours as Bella dismisses the value of money. "Easy to say when you're a bleedin' lady o' the court" she mutters but seeing the coins she sits at the table and begins shuffling the cards.
"Which spread to use for you? Yer not from around these parts I can tell so something a little less local might be best."
She places the deck on the middle of the table.
"Cut. But don't get too greedy with yer hands; these cards I cut and painted myself and I don't want you palming a few up 'em up your sleeve."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 11, 2019 21:10:17 GMT
Bella smirks, reaching out with a Logrus tendril and picking up a spoon. She shifted the cards into two even stacks with the handle of the spoon, "I have less need of your cards than I have the gold, old mother."
She kept the Logrus Lens on the old woman... (Anything special?)
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Post by Admin on Aug 14, 2019 4:11:27 GMT
The old woman waits nonplussed while Bella takes the time to summon the Logrus to her mind, reach into it to grab the tendrils, then grab the spoon and use it to manipulate the cards. Seeing the spoon move seemingly on its own the woman gives a gesture of warding and speaks a sullen word. Bella felt a sting of electric shock run through her arms.
"'Tis unseemly for a woman of such power as yourself to be afraid to touch a simple deck of cards. Cowardly even. Readings work better when the querent makes the cut with her own hand."
She takes up the deck and begins to deal out the cards. Bella's Logrus sight shows the woman and her deck to be surrounded in an aura of magical energies.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2019 20:33:34 GMT
Bella's face changed little, though her bird turned to face the woman, his eyes flaring a bloody red. Her lips tightened into a terrible smile, her fangs glistening, as she lashed out at the old woman's hands with her still summoned tendril, forcing them to the table then muttered the lynchpins for her Shackle spell, unleashing it upon the old woman in an attempt to paralyze her, "That's brave, old mother... to speak to one such as me in that insolent tone as if we are equals... brave or entirely suicidal. Which is it? I wonder." (Waiting to see if the Shackle Spell worked)
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Post by Admin on Aug 15, 2019 19:42:15 GMT
The woman's eye widen with fear and wonder as the spell takes hold of her. She tries to speak but the words do not come in time. She sits as still as a statue one hand in the act of turning a dealt card over.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2019 22:13:51 GMT
As her large black bird hopped up onto the woman's head and leaned over to look into one of her eyes, Bella plucked the card from the hand of the old woman and gathered the other cards into a stack, laying them out in a fan on the table before her so she could casually look at them through the Logrus Lens, "Tell me, old mother, what quality of fortune teller lacks the foresight to be properly cautious of her tongue around a woman like me?" She laughed softly, looking at the older woman's face frozen in shock, "Of course, that was a rhetorical question, old mother. Don't worry about answering it."
The cards seemed to have a power to them, and they were a clue, though not one she cared to investigate out in the open, so she picked up the cards and slipped them into her bodice. She turned her attention back to the fortune teller, "Now, what shall I do with you?" She pondered a while, "Did someone send you my way...? Or was it simply the whimsy of angry chance...? Regardless, you've piqued my curiosity, and you still owe me a reading, old woman." Bella leaned in closer, "You will come tonight at the witching hour to the Black Bank, alone, unless you want the blood of kin or ally on your hands. I will be waiting for you."
She smiled, her mouth full of sharp fangs, and moved the three gold coins to the middle of the table for the old woman. Bella leaned back in her chair as her black bird bounced back onto her shoulder. She muttered the lynchpins that summoned a wall of fog spell to roll over the entire cafe then cast the lynchpins for her teleportation spell, returning her to the relative safety of the Black Bank. Safe at home, she cast a Logrus tendril to the old fortune teller and released her from the Shackles spell.
Her bird flew from her shoulder and down into the cellar to gorge himself on the corpses piled down there, announcing, "Food goes in the top, shit comes out the bottom!"
The other ravens, who had been sleeping or watching quietly, muttered their agreement.
There was plenty of time before night would arrive, so she pulled the deck of cards from her bodice and walked upstairs to her new home to investigate these suspicious cards undisturbed, joined by two of her ravens. Planning on resting before nightfall, so she'd be ready for any guests that might come during the night.
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Post by Admin on Aug 18, 2019 1:43:22 GMT
The cards are of an idiosyncratic design and Bella can imagine the old woman painting them herself. They do carry a powerful magic aura but of an unfamiliar taste but in this shadow so close to Amber much feels odd to her refined Court senses. The backs of the cards are painted in an abstract design which could remind her of Chaos but the splotches and swirls are too orderly in their disorder. The faces of the cards are a mix of images from shadow standard tarot decks: the fool, hierophant, empress, moon, wheel of fortune, etc along with images of beasts mythical and mundane. One card shows the largest market in Bailey, another the hold of a ship. None are of a person.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 19, 2019 14:45:07 GMT
Bella regards each of the high tarot in her hands, taking note of the artistic style and care used to produce each, setting them aside once she's been satisfied. All but the last two she stacks in a pile and views them with care. She has a suspicion that the old woman is mixed up in this little game. So much the pity, Bella was looking forward to chatting with someone who knew something of the higher arts. She tucked the last two tarot on top of the others, and tucked the cards carefully back into her bodice for safe keeping.
Her next move would take some preparation, so she pulled up the Logrus and checked her hung spells. She hung a teleportation spell and a shackles spell into the weaving tendrils, then dismissed the Logrus. There would be time later tonight for hunting. Now, she must rest, so she would have time to prepare for her guest. She posted her guards, with order to wake her promptly at sundown, then lay down on her bed to sleep in giddy anticipation for the night...
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Post by Admin on Aug 20, 2019 4:18:52 GMT
The old woman comes at the appointed time, tottering up the path looking even more destitute and feeble than in the afternoon. Even though it is late at night and the skies are clear she holds an umbrella over her head. If not stopped she will come to the door and knock softly.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 20, 2019 6:16:29 GMT
Bella watched the old woman approach from the shadows of a lightless window, pondering the umbrella. Out of a paranoid habit, she summoned the Logrus as she walked downstairs, so she could get a good look at the woman. As the woman knocked on the door, the ravens nesting in the common room rattled and croaked, so much the better to unnerve the old woman. Once the Logrus was vibrating in her mind's eye, she reached how and grabbed a table and moved it to the center of the room with a loud thud, then moved two chairs noisily on either side of it, the smaller of which toward the door.
There were too few candles in the room, which was as she wanted it. Her eyes shifted to accommodate for the dim light, her irises shimmering like a feral beast. A narrowing of the face for effect, in the gloom, something uncanny and horrible, but not too much trouble. Bella let Tobi drop from her shoulder to the chair's high back, then, taking a deep breath, she pulled the tarot from her bodice and set it neatly on top of the deck, the two trumps that drew her attention earlier on top, facing up. Everything prepared, she finally sent a tendril out and opened the door.
She leered at the old woman, paying special attention to her umbrella through the Logrus Lens, her Logrus Tendril coiled and ready to kill, "Punctual... Now, come in and close the door... I have things I want to know..."
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Post by Admin on Aug 23, 2019 1:39:54 GMT
Shaking the woman steps inside and closes the door as instructed. She keeps the umbrella opened above her head. Through the Logrus sight the woman does have a magical aura about her extending up into the umbrella.
"Ooh, you still have those nasty blackbirds about, don't you? Luckily me bumbershoot will keep those nasty droppings off me head.
"I know nothing Lady, everything you need to know is in the cards."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 25, 2019 9:00:14 GMT
Bella held a practiced and toothy smile, "Oh, old mother, trust me when I say that their droppings are the least of your worries tonight... Now, put your bumbershoot aside, slowly, please. It's rude, and surely you know better than to test my patience a second time in my own home. Now, let's ask the cards what they know like civilized people, shall we?"
The conspiracy chuckled at the joke.
She pulled the cards depicting the ship hold and the market toward her edge of the small table, then motioned to the smaller chair closest to the old woman. Bella took a position behind the large, imposing chair she'd chosen for herself, ready to use it for a shield if the fortune teller were foolish enough to get herself killed. She had the Logrus Tendril coiled and ready to kill at the slighted indication of malice.
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Post by Admin on Aug 26, 2019 15:08:33 GMT
"Oh all right then but I'm warning you, if those nasty buggers of yours mess up me clothes then you'll be paying for the cleaning."
She closes the umbrella and places it next to the chair as she sits down. SHe eyes the two cards Bela has pulled from the deck with a mixture of emotions: fear, curiosity, and suspicion.
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