Santuariel, Compassion, and the banshee

[Graybeard]

OOC: No problem, take your time. I'm going to be in sketchy contact for the next ten days or so as well. For your convenience in reading a new forum page, here's a repeat of the scene for Desiree to respond to:

"Where are th' bitches?" a rough voice called from the far end of the alley, as four or five large, disheveled men came into view. "Zeke? Y'said they was... Hey! Zeke! Where is ye?"

"In here, you idiots!" the barkeep snarled through the jammed door. "Door's stuck, dammit, I can't --"

Therese didn't wait around for the sentence to be completed, nor for the thugs, inside or outside, to realize that the "bitches" were still in the alley. There was no way out, but there was at least an open window in the building at the end for her and Desiree to escape into ... if they had time. The boxes Desiree had found looked just greasy and oily enough that ... "Desiree! Stand back!" And then: "FLAME VOLLEY!"

The torrent of flame that Therese cast might or might not have been enough to damage the thugs significantly, but they weren't the target; the greasy boxes were. A satisfying burst of flame, and more importantly, smoke billowed forth as the oil and wood caught fire. There; that should keep the others busy for the moment.

"Through the window!" she yelled to Desiree, and the women plunged through, to find ...

[OOC: To find what? I have no idea, really. Want to have some fun with that one yourself for a round or two? Whatever you come up with will be good.]

[Drusia]

"Through the window!" she yelled to Desiree, and the women plunged through, to find ... books!

Specifically, a well appointed personal library. Old, well kept and freshly polished wooden shelves held an array of old looking tomes in a multitude of languages. A neat rolltop desk sat in one corner with a well worn leather chair tucked in against it. The room smelled of paper, dust, and herbal smoke - probably from a cigar or something similar. Maybe that's why the window was open - to air it out.

Therese is already halfway across the room, about to throw open the door and see what lays beyond, but I find myself pausing to scan the shelf. Scripted and printed spines in various human languages mark the spines - all but one, at least at first glance.

As Therese opens the door and scans the (apparently empty) hallway beyond, I pluck the book from the shelf and open it. The book is entirely written in elven letters. For a moment, I take it for an obscure dialect, but then I recognize several veracian words sounded out in elven letters. The book is entirely filled with the strange pidgin language.

One of our pursuers shouts something from alarmingly near the window. Therese, already in the hallway, looks back at me as if I've gone insane.

Silently, I close the book and press it to my chest, mouthing an equally silent apology to the owner of the library for stealing his book. I slip out the door and let Therese close it behind me.

We slip down the hallway, Therese leading. Aside from the library, the home is fairly humble and a bit undity. I imagine an elderly couple living here. They must be out, since I don't see anyone in the bedroom we pass or the kitchen on the far side of the house that Therese leads us into. She checks the back door, making sure the road outside is clear - or perhaps simply occupied by enough random bystanders to make kidnapping or killing us impractical.

She motions to me again, but her face faulters when she notices me holding the book. Her exasperation is painted on her face. I shrug helplessly and whisper "I think it might be related to whatever's going on." I mean, it probably isn't a book of mysterious half-elven prophesies... but maybe we got lucky and it is. I have no idea. I won't know until I can sit down and translate it to something less gibberishy.

-- Desiree

OOC: Okay, there you go. I considered some rather more dramatic or shocking possibilities, but I settled on "books" both because I liked the idea of going against expectation and because I wanted to give Desiree a chance to put her linguistic skills to use.

[Graybeard]

OOC: great stuff! I can work with this! Back in contact Saturday, which will give me time to think...

[Graybeard]

[OOC: OK, back to it, after bringing a nasty cold/flu home from vacation...]

"I think it might be related to whatever's going on."

Desiree had gauged Therese's mental state and mood correctly. She's developing what the Sisterhood might call "target fixation," she thought. Everything is interpreted as having something to do with this search for Compassion, whether it really does or not. Still, I suppose we should do due diligence ... and I wonder what that band of thugs was all about. She turned to Desiree. "Could I see that for a minute?" she said.

The book's language was inscrutable to her, with only the occasional Veracian-like word interspersed among elvish words in an alphabet she did not know. One random Veracian word, however, did catch her attention ... and it wasn't Compassion, or anything associated with the Five Great Mothers or the Paedagogusi.

"Why does a book in the elven language mention Luminosita?" she said, as she handed it back to Desiree.

[Drusia]

[OOC: OK, back to it, after bringing a nasty cold/flu home from vacation...]

I'm currently moving, so I'm going to be more intermitant than usual. I will try to reply to your post sometime this week.

[Drusia]

"Could I see that for a minute?" she said.
"Why does a book in the elven language mention Luminosita?" she said, as she handed it back to Desiree.

"That's just it," I reply, grinning. "It isn't in elven - it's in Veracian, but with the words sounded out in elven letters. Like, perhaps, someone who grew up reading elven but had learned to speak Veracian might write. Like, say, a very early settler of Santuriel."

I glance around. "Let's get back somewhere safe. The pidgin is too hard to read straight - I'll need to 'translate' it into proper Veracian to make full sense of it."

-- Desiree

OOC: ... moving's hard.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Sympathies on the move; we're considering our first move in thirty(!) years. Meanwhile, nice curve ball; let's see what we can do with it. Therese has an alternate interpretation for what is going on:]

"Veracian?" Therese said, crinkling her brow. "Why would anyone transliterate a Veracian book into elvish letters -- I think that's the right word? The elvish language isn't supposed to be anything like Veracian -- hmm. Got an idea, give me a minute." She stepped quickly back into the library, emerging a minute later with another book. "Basic arithmetic," she said. "Looks like the people who live here might be schoolteachers. So maybe that book is a primer on the elvish language or something. But --"

She didn't finish the sentence, because the sound of a door opening on the far side of the house interrupted her thoughts. Well, we may be about to find out why, whether we like it or not... A man's and a woman's voice were audible from the direction of the door as she glanced at Desiree, a "what now?" look evident on her face.

[Drusia]

OOC: I'm sans internet now - will be hooked up again the 29th, so you probably won't see a post from me until then.
I'd apologize, but honestly I'm too exhausted.

[Drusia]

OOC: I'm sans internet now - will be hooked up again the 29th, so you probably won't see a post from me until then.
I'd apologize, but honestly I'm too exhausted.

Okay, I'm back.

[Graybeard]

[OOC: Glad to have you back, and hope the move went well. Here's a little more to work with, with a link to something earlier:]

Therese was still trying exactly how to present the incursion into this couple's house -- just hiding from thugs (which was certainly true enough)? mistaken address? something else? -- when she heard a third voice from the direction of the door, this one that of a small child, and one she thought she'd heard before.

"Gramma? Grampa? There's somebody else here. I can feel them."

A small child, with sensitivity to people's life forces, thought Therese. Almost certainly magical. And from what Lillith said, small children with magical capabilities in this town sometimes ... are not in complete control of those capabilities. I'm not sure whether this is good or bad.

The older voices said something muted that she didn't catch, but only a few seconds later, the face of a girl popped around the corner, not showing the slightest fear. Therese had developed a good memory for faces from her work in Goriel, and she recognized this one almost immediately: Joanny, the girl who'd brought the second birdcage (and asked about the "holy roller") -- the girl who, according to Lillith, had a mother with "unusual" religious beliefs.

"Hi," Joanny said. as though finding two strange women in her grandparents' house, holding a book from their library, was the most natural thing in the world.