Fable - Ask Portent of Predation

[Mortivore Urn]

"Why are you here? You are not from these parts. That much is evident."

 

[Livia Quinnick]

The shift in mood was not at all subtle. Livia would be able to notice the change in Zinnia's body language right away. Something was up, even as she closed on the two gaming gentlemen.

She did not need the keen sense of her magic to hone in on the change in Zinnia. She showed it most obvious, in her distracted speech and the direction of her gaze. Livia, without trying to draw attention, turned in her seat. Her own gaze followed Zinnia's, but her brows furrowed in confusion. Whom did she see?

The figure was not one she recognised, nor the garb striking her memory of any religion.

But her gaze wandered to that of the men playing cards and arms not hidden. From where she sat, it allowed Liv time to determine the outcomes of this scene. "I shall remain seated." She assured Zinnia, unsure if the Dreadlord heard her.

 

[Reven]

"You're right on that," said Reven. "I'm a man of the Reach. I suppose you could say I'm from Grishino—it's a town on the Sayve—not born in it but born near enough to it. As fer why I'm here, nothin more er less than any other man come here or there with a sword in hand and gold in mind. Now—"

Excuse me, what game playest thou?

Reven started, glancing up then at the Sister he had thought was still at the bar. "Holy shit, you scared me. Damn you walk quiet." The surprise faded quickly and he gave a small motion of his hand toward the cards, deck and hands, laid out on the table and said, "Just some Five Card Duel. You got a wager you wanna make? Figure I ain't lost enough tonight."

He flashed the fisherman a grin at that last bit. Lost to Lars, lost to him, what a wash, but might as well have a sporting, slightly tongue-in-cheek mind about it.

Mortivore Urn Lilette Blackbriar Zinnia Livia Quinnick

 

[Mortivore Urn]

Spoiler: Music

He noted Reven's story as much as his tone and that hidden speech of the body, with all its little tics and quirks. Reven seemed a man who wore his rough-hewn humour and cavalier manners like a cloak, sheltering something beneath. The defiant grin against setback; a shield against misfortune - no doubt he had seen his share of pain. Silently observing, the fisherman made no move to interrupt.

But someone else did.

Shock jolted through him, yet his shoulders barely twitched. He despised being caught unawares. It nearly made him wish for his previous seat, so that none could sneak up on him from behind. The beard helped shroud his grimace and the smock hid his hunching shoulders, until he could deliberately lower them. The instincts of an orphan boy never quite left the bones or back, still preferring to have a wall pressing against his spine and eyes on all corners.

Those unseen were predators - and those helplessly watched, prey.

His frustration channeled into his tightly clenched fist, despite the pain eliciting from the joints in his fingers. He dropped this little bundle of discomfort into his lap like one might stow away a little pet. Slowly, he turned his head, glancing up at Lilette.

A nun in a den of muted sin. One might believe it as a joke rather than a presentation of reality, but here it was, mocking him in the flesh with its absurdity. He thought something vaguely familiar about her face; but could not place where or when he might have seen it. It seemed the sort of face one might see rendered in stained glass, or in holy books with floral calligraphy and imagery adorning scriptures.

"A game of small consequence. All we play for is gossip. But I would not have expected a holy woman to take interest in a gambler's vice."

Lilette Blackbriar
Reven
Livia Quinnick
Zinnia

 

[Lilette Blackbriar]

The nun flinched as though she might run, nearly frightened of the man's fright as he was of her.

"A... A thousand apologies, Ser...!" she stammered, head hung low.

She gave the old man a glance, who seemed more outwardly stoic than the other, but even over the din of this raucous crowed his heart sang loudly to just for her ears, and only her ears.

He was offered a low nod while setting her bowl aside, then hands pressed together as though a silent prayer of forgiveness.

"Forgiveth me mine silent feet, 'tis a common complaint I am afeared."

Only when the younger answered did her small shoulders loose and posture straighten, even if she continued to wring her hands shyly. An offer to join and wager raised a brow, and the old man's comment a crooked smile.

"Indeed! what wouldst thinkest mine convent?" she nervously laughed.

"Ah, but 'tis learning the game what interests me more than profit, thou see'th. Though playest cards hast I, t'were no Five Card Duel."

"Call it a... satisfaction o' nostalgia." she said, eying an empty seat.

This young sister of the cloth seemed to ponder it a moment, thumb pressed to her pale lip.

"Well, if mere gossip be thine stake, 'tis no gambling in mine eye."

---

Reven Mortivore Urn Zinnia Livia Quinnick​

 

[Zinnia]

A quick glance back and a nod at Livia was all Zinnia spared before she moved forward further.

The "holy woman's" voice was unmistakable. That lilt, that unique manner of speech that was both overly formal and archaic. The otherworldly pale skin. "Sister Lilette." That was the name she went by when Zinnia met her some years ago.

She and Aelita had paid visit to a Celestialist church in search of an armored vigilante. The sister had fled town shortly after their meeting, and the vigilante's killings halted shortly thereafter. Part of Zinnia wondered if the so-called "Black Knight" was up to her old tricks again, but that wasn't quite right. The list of victims didn't match the pale woman's preferences, if indeed she was the vigilante of yesteryear.

Even so...Zinnia had a hunch. Her gut had rarely failed her in her time as an investigator, and now was not the time to start questioning it. Instead, she'd act on it.

"Just being here is a g-gamble, isn't it?" she asked, projecting her voice with as much authority as she could muster while sidling up beside the nun. Golden eyes bore into Lilette with predatory intensity. "Been a while...behaving yourself this time, I h-hope."

She glanced over the two men sitting at the table and nodded. The persona she was putting on at the moment felt entirely alien, a play that would have been far more comfortable in the hands of someone like Thraah or even Livia, but Zinnia had to make it work.

"The sun's going down s-soon. Why don't we all have a chat? I think you'll all find it a lot more interesting than a few card games."

 

[Livia Quinnick]

It was not only amusing to watch Zinnia pull focus to herself, with a voice used that commanded an authority. It was not only amusement, for Livia knew a side to the young woman that had been comfortable amongst friends, and nowhere had she seen this authoritative side.

And so she watched on with awe, waiting to see how others would take to her friend. Were they still friends after Livia simply stopped interacting with anyone from the Academy the moment she was taken on a mission that would make her name known by someone that now hunted her? Instead, Livia took pride in seeing Zinnia not falter with the strength in her voice, even if the stutters still persisted.

Magic or not, Livia would stand beside Zinnia if she needed that support.

 

[Mortivore Urn]

Silence and careful stillness reigned over his countenance. But then, finally, he extended a calloused and wrinkled hand, weathered as old leather, at the empty seat.

"By all means. Sit."

While his invitation sounded more like intimidation, the hand remained extended, and his flinty gaze caught the light like beach pebbles lapped in water, glittering with prospect.

Reven Lilette Blackbriar Zinnia Livia Quinnick

 

[Reven]

Now that was funny. Reven didn't expect to scare her right back, but scared she was. No more than a moment's fright, as though both of them had come round a corner at the same time and given each other a start. She talked strange, the Sister did, and Reven thought he got the gist of it all—but then, there were some folk, mostly city folk, who thought he talked strange, and could only get the gist of the things he said. Guess that was just how the world turned.

The fisherman said rightly of their game, and the Sister agreed—game of small consequence, hardly gambling.

But before the Sister could say one way or the other, there came that warhammer-totin' girl been sitting across the way in the inn. Reven had only taken small note of her when first he came into the Copper Cod, just the same as any patron. Seemed the Sister and Warhammer knew each other. The fisherman invited them to sit, and Reven—briefly—thought it shame now he didn't have spare coin to wager; but then, he'd a feeling no one here now was quite so interested in crowns or cards.

He'd look to Zinnia and say, "What's with the stutter? You nervous?"

Mortivore Urn Lilette Blackbriar Zinnia Livia Quinnick

 

[Lilette Blackbriar]

Lilette never made it to her seat. A cold voice in her ear had turned dead veins even colder.

She blinked once, twice.​

"Young Dreadlord...?"

Zinnia was met with a craned neck and soft voice, but if her query had a heart, it would have raced. Behavior was a foreboding conversation opener, the sort that knit the nun's trimmed brows as she searched her eyes for meaning. Did she know? More importantly, could she prove it?

Or was this because of her comment about-

"What's with the stutter? You nervous?"

"She can't help it." she nudged him on the spot.

Turning towards the Dreadlord again, Lilette bowed her head and rubbed at her sleeve, having trouble making eye contact with the girl.

"I wilt do whatever I mayest to assist the Dreadlords, just as before, miss Zinnia. Dost thou require help of a medicinal nature, or mayhaps something more... clerical?"

---

Zinnia Reven Livia Quinnick Mortivore Urn​

 

[Mortivore Urn]

At the mention of Dreadlords, his eye lingered on Zinnia for a disturbing length of time. His face might as well be chiseled in stone, the only sign of affect on him the studious flattening of his clenched fist on his knee.

With every breath taken in the Copper Cod, the goal of his arrival seemed to materialise further. The conviction nursed deep within his heart solidified.

He was on track. He had caught the scent, the footprints of his quarry - and so had other hunters.

Slowly, his gaze glided to Livia looming behind. Now the last piece clicked together about them. An explanation to the subtle difference in their martial poise.

In response to Lilette's offer of aid, his gaze locked back onto Zinnia, and finally, the lower part of his face moved, rumbling out an answer to the nun while staring at the Dreadlord:

"Dreadlords rarely require anything beyond what they themselves can provide. They take. They do not ask. The day they ask for anything is a day of reckoning indeed." His chair creaked woefully as he leaned back, and a single, scarred eyebrow cocked with marginal disparagement. "But perhaps our murderer has even managed to put Vel Anir's finest on the back foot."

 

[Zinnia]

The younger man's mention of Zinnia's stutter made her jaw set and her pupils restrict. She might have said something rude if not for Lilette's speaking up--and the obvious fashion in which the supposed priestess recalled Zinnia.

Then the elder man spoke, and the girl's golden eyes slid onto him with narrowed focus and suspicion.
"I never mentioned a murderer," she said, without stutter. A long moment of pregnant silence passed. She would return to that curious little slip of the tongue, if it were one.

"I'm looking for information first, f-followed by a few spare hands. My fellow Dreadlord and I can only c-cover so much ground, and hunting alone is dangerous in Vel Luin right now."

Another glance back to Livia followed.

The first mentioned need was presently more pressing than the second, but Zinnia now had reason to distrust two of those she was speaking to, and no quick desire to lay all her proverbial cards on the table at once.

 

[Livia Quinnick]

A couple of glances her way and Livia felt obliged to enter the conversation. Too finely dressed to frequent this side of Vel Luin, Livia looked more high class than Dreadlord, as Zinnia had mentioned her to be. She came to stand beside her friend, smiled to each stranger in a way that it was deemed polite and not out of absolute mirth.

"They seem sharp, St. Kolbe." Livia looked to the men with a tight smile before sizing up the woman of religion. Instinct had her stare a little longer, to notice the woman stand and speak in a manner too... stiff for modern age of now. She would ask Zinnia later what that was all about, for she had eyes and saw the recognition between them. "Perhaps they too have been thinking the same as us. To do something about the injustice happening here... before it happens to someone they care about."

But the young Dreadlord now frowned.

"We require helping hands. Only one of us has their magic, and my own has burned out from aiding in the war." A partial lie, for Livia had helped some cases from afar and the safety of Vel Anir, but it was a perfectly amiable excuse to use instead of mentioning a poison had set inside her and numbed her reach for magic. Poison led to more questions. "You will be paid, of course." She added with a bored drawl, as if the offer was practically part of the deal top begin with.

Reven
Lilette Blackbriar
Mortivore Urn
Zinnia

 

[Reven]

A nudge and an answer from the Sister. Ah, seemed Warhammer—Zinnia, as her name would soon be revealed—was like his old friend Daz. Daz had a quavery voice, born with it, and while he always got shit for it, he was witty, and the shakiness of his voice somehow made his comebacks all the funnier. Shame he got thrown from a horse.

Now came one hell of a development. From what the Sister was saying, this Zinnia here was a Dreadlord. Reven wouldn't of guessed it (and neither of Livia either, once she came up), but it seemed so. Then again, what in the hell was a Dreadlord supposed to look like? Never mind. Day of reckoning, said the fisherman, and Reven was inclined to agree, if'n all he ever heard of them (not much, but enough) was true. Vel Luin must've thought it high time to be rid of this murderer.

Not one, but two Dreadlords, as it'd turn out. And the second would come to say:

To do something about the injustice happening here...before it happens to someone they care about.

In years past the idea would've been foreign to Reven. Justice or injustice, he'd hardly a notion of or a care for, and the only people he really cared about were his mates, his fellow raiders. But these were the things the Gildan priest talked about, the way to turn his life around from what it was into something else, something better maybe. That money Livia mentioned—only some of it would be for him.

"Well now, as it so happens, I got a couple'a hands to spare." And with a little glance the fisherman's way and back up to Zinnia and Livia he added, "Thanks fer askin an' not takin."

The irony of him saying that, given his whole past, wasn't lost on Reven.

Mortivore Urn Zinnia Livia Quinnick Lilette Blackbriar

 

[Mortivore Urn]

His eyes ran the rounds again, sidling the humble establishment for any other curious eavesdroppers. A hidden shadow in a corner slipping away, a face twisting with worry at their conversation. Anything. Sadly, he found no such reaction.

"Honesty of frailty? Colour me surprised." While his eye remained distant, he sounded anything but surprised. But when his gaze turned to Livia, it locked onto her face like a nocked arrow. "Of course it would be an honour to aid you. I would consider it a duty, even."

With a low grunt, he pushed his chair back and rose. Knees popped. Knuckles cracked against his hands, a chorus of sickly osseous sounds.

"I require no payment. Let these others be paid in silver. I ask only one favour." He paused, hooded gaze and crinkled eyes taking in both Zinnia and Livia. An air of sudden intensity suffused him, his metallic instruments glinting in the weak lamplight.

"When we find and capture our perpetrator, I wish to inspect their scalp. Before you eliminate them, preferably."

Livia Quinnick
Zinnia
Reven
Lilette Blackbriar

 

[Lilette Blackbriar]

The rural man's volunteering earned a surprised glance, as did the elder. Neither his assessment of the Dreadlords nor his request brought any comfort.

Lilette wrung her hands.

"It must be serious indeed, for a Dreadlord to fear walking on her lonesome."

She fixed Zinnia a narrow glance as though assessing something unknowable. Her features soon softened at some conclusion, followed by a slow nod to herself, thumb pressed to her pale lips.

"Well, I've no mind to offer thee armed service, prithee forgive, but I hast been away studying medicine."

"If thou shouldst need for a doctor—" the nun trailed off.

There was something to be said about the irony; that both their meetings began with a murder investigation, and her offer to tend wounds in the aftermath.

Her eyes lit up, and only then did she realize.

"Ah! mayhaps if I wert to examine the bodies? the dead mayest reveal ought the living cannot."

"Scalps intact, I shouldst hope." she glanced nervously at the fisherman.

---

Zinnia Livia Quinnick Mortivore Urn Reven​