Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Bloodied Shards IC (CLOSED!)

The magistrate pinches the bridge of his nose, clearly bothered by the situation he had just been informed of.

"Our opposition is close to gathering information about the shards, and in doing so would gain the upper hand. My people will be attempting to remove her access to the source," he explains, tone rich with exasperation that manages to clearly not be directed at anyone in the room, "The risk that she would destroy, take, or hide the source after recording the information is very much non-negligible, and you will need to know at least as much as she does about the shards and the vase, I suspect."

He pauses for a moment, thinking. One ear flicks. "I... have had some analysis done, and have come across something of value, something which I suspect she may learn soon should she succeed in her most immediate task. I am concerned that telling you makes the information vulnerable, keeping information compartmentalized is generally wise in these cases, but also that not telling you could lead to problems in the future. I will ask you your opinions on the matter. It is not tactical information, or even strictly strategic information. It is not of urgent importance, but I know it will matter. If you feel you should know, I will tell you, though I myself would advise maintaining compartmentalization of information, despite the great value of transparency from allies."

Although Lisa's eyes never break from Victi's as she's trapped under the force spell, she tunes out of the sorceress's rebuttal and listens to Adriannu. Her expression changes, subtly at first, softening as the child describes the code she'd learned from her parents before murderers slayed them in front of her. It's a life story that's eerily reminiscent of her own, with a group of archers and their deadly arrows replacing dragons and their tongues of fire, until it takes a dramatic left turn into a nightmare land of abusive adults and cruel peers. While Lisa had been rescued and taken in by an eccentric but loving human witch, the cathera suffered neglect at an orphanage and rightfully fled into the wilderness after risking life and limb to get a set of weapons.

Her face reflects her passing emotions a little more clearly than she'd like, flying from horror, to pity, to abject guilt over taking for granted what few blessings she'd been given that Adriannu may never experience. Lisa had grown up something of an outcast, of course, but she had the company of another outcast and a roof over her head for the majority of her life...

When the guards approach them, Lisa's both relieved and frustrated. She's had enough of the local law enforcement today, but she can't help but sigh with relief as the pressure is lifted from her and she is free to collapse into the chair Adriannu thrust beneath her with a snap of Victi's fingers. She nods quietly along with Victi's explanation, going back to relative agreeableness just to get them to leave. She struggles to focus on the exact words spoken by anyone at this point, let alone get out a few of her own. Her body aches and her vision blurs in and out of focus as she sits hunched over in the chair.

All the same, she reaches for her canteen, tucking it behind one cupped hand and unscrewing the cap with the other. As defeated as she looks, the brief confrontation leaves her with a firm resolve to carry through with her ill-defined and reckless escape plan. While Adriannu never received the help she actually needed after surviving the catastrophe that stole her parents, Lisa hopes it isn't too late to give her a shot at a new family. Not to replace who she lost, but to offer her a life that doesn't put her life on the line every single day, and prove that not all, not even most, adults are out to ruin her life.

The squat guard glances at the...disturbingly angry pair of kids and lifts an eyebrow as Lisa slumps into a chair and opens a blank metal canteen, leaping to the most obvious conclusion but apparently choosing not to say much to it. "I get the feeling you two need somethin' a mite stronger than tea...but anyways, you're welcome to stay, but from now on save all the hemming and hawing for the taverns downtown, got it?" Assuming the two adults agree, he and his partner retreat to their seat on the other side of the tavern, and slowly the gathered crowd all either vacate the area or return to their own tables, discussing the incident with hushed whispers and quick glances over their shoulders.

Victi watches the guards leave with a look that sits on the line between neutrality and the expression someone might have when they someone they hate trip and fall. An irritant/possible complication was out of the way. That said, this disguise was probably burned for Telmarune at this point.

Once people have stopped paying such direct attention to the group, Victi sighs, closes her eyes, and casts a modest muffling spell to make it just a bit harder to listen in on the group, but not so obscured as to become suspicious, before speaking again.

"Okay, admittedly, never got the 'abusive foster-care' treatment, so not exactly in my realm of knowledge. The whole point of what I said, though, frankly didn't involve me caring for your life story, so much as saying that telling a potential threat 'ackchuallee, I am a valid target' is a terrible idea. Be glad there are other factors in play here, including people who I do care about who might actually be bothered by me just offing either of you," she explains, gesturing to Liliath and Adriannu as she reaches for her tea, "and trust me, I'm not here to make your life miserable. I mean seriously, if someone else was trying to do what I am here before me, I'd probabl--"

It was then, as her hand began to shift the cup a little bit closer before lifting it, a smile bemused at her own thought adorning her lips, that her tea exploded in her face. The liquid, having been heated perfectly evenly by the magic of Liliath's shard, was in a superheated state, over the temperature needed to turn to steam, but without any real movement to actually make the bonds break just yet. The result: a pillar of steam erupting with a soft whoosh as Victi's face abruptly took on an expression of shock. Defensive spells briefly kicked in, protecting her from being scalded, but it was still hot and, under her illusion, the fur of her face was very damp. It dripped slightly through the illusion, small droplets appearing from thin air to plop onto the table.

"Thpbtlp!" she sputtered incredibly inelegantly. "Ha, haha, very funny whichever one of you did this, good job," she quips with annoyance before muttering, "freakin' shards and their...." She sighs again, successfully drawing her cup closer before looking in to find it very, very empty.

"Oh...kay," she says, looking up, "that was actually pretty impressive. Annoying, especially since it smelled really good as it all rushed past my nose and I can't drink it now, but impressive."

She slumps her head on the table in dejection. "Wellll.... that's a few coins I just lost, then," she mutters, "ugh."

Liliath did not care much about Adri's story, it was maybe quite sad, but her own life story had been quite sad aswell. She did not like all this sadness, cause it only made her feel sad herself.

When Victi took a sip of her tea, Liliath couldn't resist smiling, she ended up laughing hysterically. But when Victi clearly seemed annoyed, she stopped laughing and only looked frightend and a bit proud. Since she still felt proud about what she ahd done she decided to say "It was you're own fault you shouldn't have tried to hurt Lisa and probably Adri to." She said softly as she played with her shard in her pocket, her blood was still streaming over her hand. It also still hurt a bit. The only thing which was annoying, was the fact that her pocket looked like a bloody mess.


"Leave us alone."

As Isabella stands there watching the group argue over the shards, one of which was in her left hand, something in her began changing....reverting even.

A cloud of what almost could be mistaken for shimmering gnats fast as any jet and nimble as any hummingbird emitted from her eyes, slowly making their way into a swirling torrent of silence as it twisted it's way off to the side of the child. Her hardened face softened, and as she stood their with clear vacancy in her expression, the torrent slowly funneled down to the ground beside her.

As it reached the ground each piece found its spot, like a microscopic puzzle assembling itself. Of course, the end product was once again, the Maleficis Mihi....Isabella's book setting front cover upwards facing the child as if a pet waiting for attention....or perhaps a parent waiting for an answer.

As if waking from a dream, the girl slowly and almost mistakenly sauntered her eyes down at the book, surprised by its presence there. She snapped, quickly reaching down and dropping the shard on the ground as she desperately grasped it and thrust it back at her chest again. Once it was within her grasp, she then carefully, and more slowly, reached down and grabbed the shard again. As she stood to face the group and recall what had just happened, she looked down at the book with her once again emerald green eyes, no longer glossed in the void, and reached up to place the shard in her book as a secondary bookmark.

Her eyes fell immediately to Nadia and Geoff, and she stared with hard judgement unsure of just what was going on. She trusts him? He just tried to arrest Isabella...she turned away, now to look at Drake. Her face softened a little as she stared at him and a small smirk appeared on her face. She liked him so far.

The smirk was buried in Nadia's interruption, however, as the fairy spoke her name. Questions? What questions? The childs confused expression was clear as she looked at the fairy.

"What?" She asked Nadia, "Questions?" The memories came back in fragments, like recalling a vivid dream. She was questioning someone....about something....but couldn't yet be certain who or what it was.

"Oh, um..." she said timidly while staring at her, "I can't think of any more." Truthfully she couldn't remember who to ask them to either, but she didn't offer that information.

Adrainnu hadn't noticed Lisa's expression changing as she told her story as the child was focusing all of her attention on Victi. As she spoke, it became clear that she was released some pent up frustration, which considering her story, it seemed like she was rather entitled to do so. However her story ended up being interrupted by the guards approaching which caused her to shut up and wait to see what they would do. After all, she didn't know how they would take Victi's excuse of magic since the Cathera didn't know how common magic was in Telmarune, so it was possible that things were about to get very interesting.

However it turned out that the Kitsune's excuse worked just fine with the guards save that they asked her to to save all the hemming and hawing for the taverns before walking away. Disappointing really, since if the guards had done something, perhaps they could have used the inevitable chaos it'd cause to make a quick escape. Pity, looks like ditching the enemy wouldn't be that convenient. Now instead of swiping Lisa's old chair to sit on, Adriannu chose to walk over to the nearby wall and lean against it. Consider the little fiasco earlier, she really didn't feel comfortable enough to sit anymore. But now that the guards were gone, Victi chose to reply to her little rant, though one might be surprised to see the child listen with a rather stone faced expression. It was as if her little outburst earlier had used up all of that emotional energy from before, leaving her in that eerily "mature" state that lisa was used to.

When Victi pointed out that saying that I'm a valid target was a terrible idea, Adriannu shrugged and said. "For all I knew you had some magical means to detect when I was lying since you clearly didn't fall for my attempt to pass myself off as an innocent kid and were able to discern a fair bit of information about me. So I really had three options: One being to simply not answer in hopes you wouldn't press and/or get distracted by something else. However that option seemed like a dumb one since you don't seem to be the type to let a question go unanswered. Option number two was to lie, but judging from earlier, it seemed to be a very risky idea that had a fairly large chance to just get caught lying and still clearly say that I am a valid target as you say. That left telling the truth which did say that yes I am a valid target, but at least I admitted it and didn't try to lie to your face. I have seen some people just explode at a liar, while they let those that told the truth off much lighter, so I figured it was better to risk angering you in one way rather than in two ways. Since for all I know, you were the type to react especially poorly to being lied to."

She had been about to respond to Victi's ridiculous claim that she wasn't here to make her life miserable when her tea suddenly exploded in the kitsune's face. Knowing that Lisa's shard was with Raven, that her shard couldn't have done that and that Victi would hardly do that to herself, that just left only one other surprising explanation. "Little crybaby actually has some guts." Adriannu thought which was quickly confirmed by Liliath's words and the Cathera actually looking impressed. Well she could hardly stand here and do nothing if the little kid was going to pull something like that.

So looking at Victi, she simply said. "Nature calls." Now all she had to do now was wait to see if Victi was the type to deny someone the right to answer a call of nature.

Victi considers the points the two girls make to her as she works the moisture out of her unseen fur. Freakin' kids actually being vaguely worthy of respect.... if more were like that, maybe she'd actually be able to tollerate younglings!

"Yeah, yeah, you don't like me doing what I'm doing, but frankly I don't expect you to!" she says to Liliath, watching the girl with one eye as she rubs the other one. Sure, she had a spell for this, but doing it manually felt more right.

The smell of Liliath's blood hit her nose at this point, prompting a sigh followed by the vixen sarcastically adding, "Oh, yay, thanks, now I have the physical and auric smells of blood to deal with. Lovely. Either way though, I wouldn't have started this if someone just kinda saying 'don't' was going to be enough to stop me. That said, if you give me the shards or come along to help me out, I won't cause any more trouble for you.

Her ears and bizarre eyes switch to focusing on Adriannu now, as do her words. Her hand, though, moves over her cup, tips of thumb and index finger close together as she starts extracting moisture from the air to sloowwwly refill it. Hell if she had any idea how long to steep the remaining leaves for, assuming they had anything left to give, but it would be better than just watching the chimera awkwardly drink tea alone.

"Okay, fair point. If I'm being honest, though, most of what I figured out was just from the smell of your aura and your build," she explains flippantly, gesturing slightly in a way that made the narrow stream of water she seemed to be creating wiggle a bit, "I appreciate the rationality on your part, though. It's refreshing if I'm being honest. Anyway, do what you need to do."

Victi waves her off. Sure, the girl probably had some kind of plan, but not letting someone relieve themselves would be just.... inconsiderate and gross in several ways. If she was just escaping it wasn't a big deal. Victi had no plan for her yet, anyway, so nothing was really changing. If something devious was coming up...well, hey, that would be interesting. Better than staring at a tiny stream of water probably failing to become tea.

Now Liliath was kinda getting mad

“I am not going to give you my shard! And I doubt any of us will. You probably will do bad things with it and that’s why you won’t get it! So if you think Is m going to give it to you or if you think you can get it, you are very very wrong. And if you decide to continue to bother us, then you should expect that I will use my shard to hurt you. If you hurt Lisa or Adri again or will try to, I will hurt you with my shard. I killed 2 strange little man who tried to kill me , so I don’t mind to do that to you either.”

Liliath’s face had turned much less pale, but now had turned into a slightly red mad face.

“You get it now?” She sighed deeply and then looked to Lisa “Can we almost go from here?”

Lisa stays silent while the children and Victi argue, focusing on discreetly pouring the content of her canteen into her own tea: a mostly clear liquid with a slightly herbal scent which should be masked by (or nearly match) that of the drink. Then in a woosh of hot steam, Victi's drink practically explodes in her face. Lisa gasps as her head jolts up, jaw slightly hung open in stunned surprise. She first casts a wide-eyed side glance to Adriannu, suspecting that to come from her, until Liliath takes responsibility for it. Lisa turns her gaze to the other little girl, and she shivers at the dark stain soaking the child's pocket. "Liliath..."

She caps the canteen and slips it back into her pouch as she reaches for Liliath's hand, her instincts as a healer kicking in for just a second. Then she pulls back, and returns her attention to Victi, very quickly picking up on an opportunity she might miss if she gives her time to order a new cup or just plain get over the loss of her tea.

"Just...take my drink," she says, sliding the cup across the table. "I'm not in the mood anymore, anyways." She can't trust that she didn't accidentally slip herself an overdose, either, not after today's events.

Speaking of Liliath, Lisa reaches into her pouch and pulls out a large white cloth. "Could you please give me your hand, the one you, uh, used?"

"This isn't the time or place to fight. Definitely not the place," Victi says to Liliath with a smirk, face finally dry and back toward normal, "Anyway, I honestly want to avoid hurting you little ones, and the not so little one is actually useful to me, so she's safe, too. The force area was honestly a little outside my comfort zone, so we should be fine now as long as nobody does anything rash. Right? right."

Lisa dejectedly sliding her tea toward Victi elicits a happy look and a faintly wiggling ripple in the air behind the ominous vulpine. "See, she's being reasonable. She gets it!" Victi chirps happily, "Yes, I'm not exactly your friend, literally the opposite, actually, but sometimes being patient and, hopefully, playing the long game ends up with things panning out better. Now let's just hope this one doesn't abruptly undergo phase-change, hmmm? You might be getting all.... defensive about things right now, but I actually did like that one. It was clever! Nice display of prowess, too. Is flourish the right word? Possibly."

She begins stirring it with a finger claw as she continues in her oddly cheerful-again ramble, "You ordered this with no anything, right? hmmm... Believe it or not, not an obligate carnivore. Sweet does something for me.... Eh, no point complaining at this point."

Outside:

A half dozen small, furry, goblin-like creatures scurrying by in an alley catch the attention of a patrolling guardsman. He knew the kind. Right pains, and sometimes dangerous if they found was of breaking and looting things without just getting kicked out of the city by anyone with a broom. The weird things about these ones, though, is that they were silent. Those little buggers were never silent. Giggling, laughing wildly, wooping and jeering.... there was a reason nobody was surprised whenever they snuck in.

The guard jogged down an alley behind them to find them opening a crate behind the district's bakery.... and withdrawing bottles of high-proof liquor and rags. A brief glance showed dull eyes, too.... something was wrong, and about to get extremely dangerous. He got ready to yell, both at the little fur-goblins and for backup.....

A ray of unseen light emerges from his chin, leaving a cauterized hole coming from where the ray entered the back of his head. He falls down, dead and out of sight of the rest of the city. Hanging upside-down from the eaves of the high roof of the university's iconic tower, an invisible shape waits, watching the streets below...

"If you won't hurt us I won't hurt you that's how simple it is." Liliath sighed clearly still mad "Yes and we will never be friends.' Liliath than simply ignored most of Victi's comments.

"It's not that bad, I've done it before it only hurts a bit." But Liliath gave her hand anyways "It's a bit of a bloody mess and then I both mean my hands and dress. Maybe we can get a new one today."