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Author Topic: The Sea Disgorges a Guest  (Read 379 times)

Acacea

The Sea Disgorges a Guest
« on: December 09, 2015, 05:51:17 pm »
Tori's empty stomach knotted threateningly, still in full rebellion over the damnably long voyage by sea. Her body seemed to find being quits of the ship nearly as bad as boarding it to begin with. "If a woman's fool enough to set foot on the ocean," it warned, "she ought to at least have the good sense to stay there forever."Cities were different places after dark, and this one was unfamiliar to her. She'd heard some stories, passed through on a few occasions, done a few jobs, but she hadn't put in the hours watching. Shoulders tensing when passing one another, steps quickening unconsciously to put something behind. Mapping alleys, ways in and out of the sprawl, the places adults left children to their games and the ones forbidden them that children played in, anyway. Letting herself be stolen from, even as the signs of those who would steal flickered around her with growing confidence. As forbidding as Leringard could appear when it wanted, she'd only seen what it put on for guests, and held no illusions of being anything else.As a guest, then, she needed a place to stay.
 
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Acacea

The third place inside her
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2015, 06:12:16 pm »

The third place inside her target area was full up on account of some closed rooms, and stables wouldn't do for stashing gear. No help for it.

Not her first choice, the Arms. It wasn't the building - she hadn't come so far in her own mind as to view a place like that as anything but powerful grand compared to the alternative. Some kinds of days were never as far as they seemed, and could come to anyone in a shift of fortunes quick as some lordling's snapped fingers.

Another walker, third since she started watching, took a path that edged towards the other side of the street around... nothing in particular. The shadows past a candle's light were deep, but nothing glinted or shifted there, even to breathe. Slow breaths into her coat, count them.

No, it wasn't the place, it was the people. It was like some mocking spirit had scrawled across her face, "guide this lost child, she don't know her own mind. She wants to be big and strong like you." The gall of them it attracted could steal your breath, even if you saw it coming. It went right along with the ability the place attracted - real heavy hitters - but it wasn't a requirement. She saw it most in those who had (or believed they had, anyhow) clawed their own way up, from and to anything.

You are like I was. I am a more advanced version of you. I am entitled to your private life, because I know what you really want, because I can help you attain it. You are a foolish child if you think otherwise.

Appropriate that one was a flaming strife-blooded blue demon. Real formidable one - took on the Deep practically by himself. Girl'd been mentored by him, clear as day - babe's first sales pitch. Heh!

 

Acacea

She was part of the building,
« Reply #2 on: December 09, 2015, 06:41:27 pm »

She was part of the building, a crate or a stack of barrels. A wall, except walls don't wear breastplates and hers weighed about a hundred pounds, right then. Someone else had gone around.

That pair wasn't even the end of it, anyhow. "I can tell a lot about a person from the name they give their weapon of choice," another'd bragged in the same flavor, stating something true enough but with aim a few leagues off. The speech was littered with things like, "you may change your mind one day," and "I prefer to think of myself as a whetstone." She preferred "mind your business" taverns.

Tori missed the clarity of knowing when carefully timed physical violence would send the message she wanted. No chance for a sucker punch here, though. They could tear her to pieces like she was a lost lamb, but words just sank folk deeper into their own prejudice. Useful... for a certain kind of person. Folk'll share a lot of things with those they're "honing" and stay so sure of themselves they don't care what you know. You'd have to play along with back-patters for that, though, and she wasn't looking for the big time.

Still, truth was, she'd learned that reputation lesson long before she'd been bound. With the difficulty in finding good work for... specialized skills, she couldn't afford to condone that sort of thing if there wasn't a contract involved.

A light dusting of snow was settling onto the stone around her, and still nothing had moved in the dark. Could just be a place with local history, or ...

One hand came up for a shrill whistle, the other flung out and away, and she was already throwing herself across the street in a rough tumble. More bruises. She was not built for this. Light bloomed off to one side, dim in her constricted vision, and Granpere plummeted towards where she'd been standing.

It was two streets later before she could hear anything but her heart in her ears, and she still hadn't actually seen anything to explain her sudden alarm. Th'azna. Ship bells rang from the harbour, reminding her innards of the rolling ocean while making her seriously question the amount of time she spent near ports. To the Arms, then. She could learn to hate this city.

 

Acacea

Late enough into the night
« Reply #3 on: July 28, 2016, 12:27:26 am »

Late enough into the night that it was morning, and totally not 6 months or many years later, she makes a mark on a ledger after explaining she isn't "lettered" and sets up her things in a small room on the ground floor. There wasn't anything for it but to hope all of the local organization's starving recruiters were out for the week. 

 

Acacea

No such luck, in more ways
« Reply #4 on: July 29, 2016, 04:20:17 am »

No such luck, in more ways than one. This was going to be days longer than she'd estimated at the Buckle, and apparently the local watch was touchy. And, of course, when she came out at dawn to add to her total, the demon fella's right hand was working the bar. No mask. Not that she thought humans were all that great for all their preaching about demons, but she'd seen him in the Deep. She finished with the lady and walked to the bar to get what she needed, and couldn't keep the amusement off her face at the woman's initial trouble recollecting her. Just another lost soul they tried to scoop up off the street and dress. Regular whiterobed holymen. 

"Toni, was it?" "Tori." 

Throat-cut cutthroat. Bound. Calls herself Viper. Experienced with criminal signs and code words, also more elaborate hand signs. Vehl. Dread Blade. Aeridinite priestess in... damn, somewhere in Boyer, Dalanthar? North Point. Check notes, been a long time. See Steel. Oh, and Charlie Poetr. Mother? Literal or symbolic? Arrogant as all hells, anyhow. 

"Pits, she is me," the woman said, looking at the blue skinned creature enjoying a glass of whisky. "Down to the boots," he responded, with the same relaxed smile he'd worn for most of the exchange. Tori, who had come expecting work, started to clarify a comment she'd made and then shrugged, already worn down with a different situation than she'd expected when she showed up with the halfer. "Eh. Why bother. You folk allays see what you wantin' to see. Whate'er strokes your egos."

"What folk am I?" Amused? Likely. Lost in the mirror, can't shake a first impression, likely vulnerable to abuse of it as well as mind magickin'. Lure with her own strength.

"Read through a body with your mysterious eyes, like." She wanted to snort, but she was keenly aware that this had gone on too long. She should have walked when they first started their prying and comparisons to some mouse of a girl from yesterday just because what, she couldn't use a sword? "You dream. I ain't you. An' you sore misjudge iffen you think that's all there is to a body. But then... that's all to my gain come some day I gotta bring you in, heh."

The woman took a drink with a sigh, as if at a child acting out. "Alright, tell you what," she continued. "Prove me wrong." Great compromiser, that one. Soothing a little girl's pride, give her a chance to show she's worth it. She must have been a piece of work when she first showed up here. Vehl... dockside?  

Tori looked at her flatly. "You're cute, honey."

Viper smiled at the notion. "Someday you might try to bring me in. But there's no wanted poster with my face on it." A good killer expecting that a bad killer was just boasting.

Tori was taller but skinnier, nowhere near as toned and tightly muscled. Her armor turned some blows but not those blades. She shrugged in agreement and nodded. It wasn't like she'd said it would be easy. "Weren't the point. Was givin' you a tip, free like. Knowledge 'n all." She glanced up to Viper's eyes. "You misplaced your feet, 's all." For all that a tip from an invisible voice papered over with a familiar face was worth. 

"How's the bounty hunting going?" "Comes an' goes. Mostly goes," she responded shortly, echoing the answer she'd just given about Reid. The three bottles clanked together as she wrapped them up and tied the cloth in a knot. "See ya 'round, like." 

Viper nodded at her, and she headed out with her price of admission and the repeater she'd brought from the Buckle to check some things and see where the Watch headquartered. As she left, another pair of eyes floated into her mind and she made a mental note to update her real ones. Figures. She'd been too busy thinking about the bloody dragon to add the girl. 

((Please excuse emote descriptions, they are deliberately colored with what Tori felt about the exchange and what she guessed was motive, not an OOC indicator of what was actually felt.))