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Post by Deleted on Aug 28, 2019 4:18:52 GMT
Bella held her cruel smile and took her seat across from the fortune teller. Her fingers rested casually on the two trumps as she said, "Go ahead, old mother, read my fortune. Tell me what the cards have to say about my future."
Bella relaxed her Logrus Tendril for the time being, but kept the Logrus Lens up, watching for any suspicious magical forces, and waited to hear what the old woman had to say.
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Post by Admin on Aug 29, 2019 1:26:12 GMT
The old woman shuffles he cards with shaking hands.
"It'll work best with all my cards in the deck." she says. "And careful with your hands on those two - more secrets than usual are bound into their paint."
After Bella cuts the deck the woman begins placing cards down and narrating the draw.
"Ooh, first is the Queen o' Cups, that'd be you for sure, all full of your own mind inner thoughts. Second is the Wolves of War, oh you're in danger lady. Next is the Rampant Manticore, oh I'd not like to be in your shoes. Fourth is the King of Swords, ah that'll improve your luck. Next, we have the Lost Pilgrim, is that you or who you hunt, Lady? See how the card lands crosswise, we can't be sure who it is but only know that someone has become lost. And last is the Bird of Doom, another ill omen. The bird follows you y'see? It's sharp eyes watch you from above and at the right time -" she slaps her hand on the table, "It will strike."
She leans back in her chair exhausted after the day's events and the working of the tarots.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 29, 2019 3:02:04 GMT
The conspiracy croaked in laughter at the last, finding it quite a good joke. Bella found it less amusing. Though she doesn't find the reading all that alarming, because she came looking for trouble and felt she could deal with most any danger this shadow could pose, the reading was, at least, on the mark. She toyed with the two trumps still in her left hand absently as she stared at the fortune teller, considering her next words.
She rested against the high back of the chair and ran a finger over the flow of her black hair, as her next words occurred to her, "This reading isn't very specific, old mother... and I don't particularly fear anything that prowls this city. I think, rather, it should fear me. Tell me more about this danger that your cards see me in. Then I would have you give me a reading on this Lost Pilgrim..."
She lowered her hand to her belt and pulled out a purse, and dumped the coins onto the table, making it clear that payment was of no matter. She did not, however, relinquish the old woman's curious trumps, which she planned to question her about eventually. And she maintained the Logrus Lens, still suspicious of the old woman's intentions.
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Post by Admin on Aug 31, 2019 0:08:23 GMT
"It's the cards that tell the story not me. There is only so much I can say and the rest is up to the quearant to interpret. But you, so well versed in the ways of magic, must understand that not all threats come from this world. That there is a world beyond this with such horrors as would freeze one's soul to look upon them. That's where me magic comes from - the leaking of power into this world from beyond.
"As for the Pilgrim, I don't rightly know where he comes from. He just showed up in my deck one day and has been hanging around ever since getting dealt out now and then in various readings. Nothing good has ever come to those who have seen him in their spread. So many of the cards are like that - I must be cursed."
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2019 1:21:45 GMT
Bella arches an eyebrow at that last, "Interesting. I have seen many places like what you describe. Where the world turns upon itself, the very ground swallowing the air up like a great beast. Where things move within the shadows, hungering for the flesh and the blood of mortals. Fire. Stone. Death. The Abyss." She takes a deep breath, overtaken for a moment by the unbidden memories of the twisting Logrus, her features flowing briefly to her demonic form, her dark hair forming a crown of feathers, black as night, her eyes turning to golden orbs ringed in glowing red, but then she exhales, regains her composure, and returns to her human form.
As if nothing happened, Bella picks up the Pilgrim from the setting and lays it out between the two cards she's been fiddling with onto the table, comparing the art style. She asks, "Now tell me of these two cards, old mother? Were they made by your hand?"
(For the record, does the Pilgrim resemble anyone that Bella might recognize, either from Chaos or from Amber, based on the various shrines to the Amberites that are popular around Chaos?)
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Post by Admin on Sept 1, 2019 17:44:20 GMT
Bella does not recognize the person depicted in the Pilgrim card but the painting is of a heavily cloaked and cowled person so it may link to someone she knows of....
"The Market is one of me own," she says with a flash of pride, "An it's a good one too. Me legs don't like fussing around with walking up and down them hills these days so I painted that one to help me in the morning. Oh I know I shouldn't be using my gifts for something as mundane as that but as my old nan used to say -"
It seems as if she could go on talking about mornings in the market and the opinions of relatives but she catches a look at Bella's shifting features and stops short.
"The Ship ain't one o' mine. It's a fearful one, haunted I say. Your hands shouldn't stray too close or else it may work its spell on you."
The three cards do appear to have been painted in different styles; the Market in a basic, primitive style, the Lost Pilgrim full of the symbology common to tarots, and the Ship in a hyper-realistic detail. Bella can hear faint waves and a ship's bell just by looking upon it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2019 21:42:49 GMT
Bella looked at three mysteries then. The Pilgrim's Trump. The ship's hold. And this old fortune teller who could yet be the agent of one or the other. The simplest answer to that last riddle would be to simply kill her. The larder was growing rotten, after all. However, there was still a possibility that the old hag could be useful. She tucked the trumps for the Pilgrim and the allegedly haunted ship into her bodice, "I'll see what can be done so that they burden you no more."
She picked up the one of the market, holding it between her first two fingers lightly, as she considered what to do with the old shrew, in the meantime. "I find it hard to believe that you've not investigated these strange trumps... Why not?"
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Post by Admin on Sept 5, 2019 20:38:07 GMT
"It's the curse, 'mam, these things appear by magic - and not the good magic - from time to time to devil me. At first, I tried to look but every time I tried some sort of evil beset me. Would you believe that at one time I was wealthy? A proper lady in the court of Kashfa? Well, I was but with just this one little unique skill with the cards. But the more I used the skill the more trapped I became and if I tried to escape their influence they took away my position in society and eventually all my money casting me out here in this lost shadow."
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2019 17:17:47 GMT
"How interesting..." Bella considered the fortune teller's story. It had a certain verisimilitude that made it at least plausibly true, not that she believed a word of it, but it made killing the old woman difficult to justify for the moment. The name Kashfa meant something to her. She'd heard it somewhere, perhaps? The harder she reached for it through her molten memory, the less she recalled.
Irritating.
She rose from her chair, the Logrus Lens still shimmering in her mind's eye, and waved her hand dismissively over the cards and the coins and gems on the table, "Take your payment and go, old mother. I'm hungry and wish to consider these things on a full stomach."
Bella would wait for the old woman to leave, her eyes on her movements until she left the Black Bank. Once the fortune teller was gone, Bella ordered two of her Ravens, Sodu and Logi, to follow the old woman in secret to her home. She wanted to verify the old woman's story of poverty. There might, after all, still be reason to kill her, and, with the Logrus, all things are possible.
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Post by Admin on Sept 7, 2019 23:39:08 GMT
The birds follow the old woman as she totters her way through the city to a small hovel in the poorest quarter of Bailey. Nothing usual is reported by the ravens even when one takes the initiative to perch on the woman's window sill it sees only a dingy interior with flimsy furniture made from salvaged driftwood and rags.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2019 7:08:19 GMT
Sodi and Logu returned to the Black Bank and report on the old crone in the morning.
As soon as the old crone left, with her spies in tow, Bella cast a Concealment Spell then, accompanied by 4 of her ravens, walked up to the top floor of the Black Bank, throwing open a large window at the roofline. She surveyed the dark city, lit in the dim light of the moon and stars, and transformed into her demon form, a venomous harpy with large eyes that make the most of the light. She took flight over the city looking for food in the form of anyone apparently up to no good.
For the moment, at least, she put the mysterious Pilgrim and the allegedly haunted ship out of her mind. She'd look into those things well rested and well fed.
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Post by Admin on Sept 10, 2019 3:47:01 GMT
[[OOC; Ooof. I was most of the way through a long-ish post hen I tapped a wrong key on the keyboard and somehow erased it all. I wonder what key did that and why it would be programmed that way? Gotta find Lazarus or something similar.]]
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Post by Admin on Sept 10, 2019 4:03:16 GMT
Feeding on those up to no good is easy in a port city like Bailey; the dock district provides all Bella's stomach could hold. Finer dining can be found if she turns her head away from the port and up the hill to the area of town filled with mansions and homes of the elite. There reside those well-fed on wickedness and excess. Even at high altitude she can smell the evil emanating from the area. It's a smell she has been unable to avoid since crossing from the fine, serene shadows of Chaos and into the debauched realms of Amber.
One mansion in particular shines in wickedness and magic. Sounds of revelry and incantation assail Bella's ears. Smells of spices, smokes, liqueurs and body odors offend her nose. Her stomach rumbles in hunger.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 10, 2019 20:47:18 GMT
The first rule of monsters has ever been to never engage a magic user simply because you were hungry, Bella reminded herself, though she marked the house for further investigation, committing its location to memory as best her Logrus addled mind allowed. She would send spies to learn more about who or what lives there in the morning. For the moment, however, she focused on figures skulking about the streets, apparently making an effort to avoid detection. She dropped low over the rooftops, gliding into an alleyway that would intersect their path, and, in the darkness of shadows, shifted back to her human form, though kept her eyes adjusted to the night.
While one of her birds wrapped around her, clothing her in a form fitting black wrap that covered her in light swallowing black and wrapping her throat to toes, Bella called to mind the Logrus Lens again, because there were a few magic users around these parts, and there was no telling if one of them were ahead of her just then. She backtracked toward the group, as another of her birds condensed into long saber with an elaborate crossguard decorated with feathers, a talon motif along its blade. The ravens had been practicing. The two remaining ravens circled above, waiting to feed.
Spotting her prey, Bella strode boldly toward them, "Odd time of night for a walk, isn't it?"
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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2019 6:20:36 GMT
Bella starts to feel the initial effects of fatigue with all the shapeshifting and Logrus work. Not enough to affect her at this moment and when facing mere shadow folk but it may begin to hinder her as the night continues on.
"Blimey! It's Jane da Ripper!" one of the two men says.
"Zip it, Zeb!," says the other, "Near as I can tell there ain't no law against trying to keep yer head clear an' lungs healthy with a little late-night walk in the sea air. An' since I'm a free citizen of Bailey I don't see whys I'm getting unreasonably hassled by a stranger."
He stands tall and his hand moves to a cudgel run through his belt.
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