This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Sophie would like it on the record that, when she accepted the job, she didn't know that the Librarian had to do so much bloody politics. She could be out healing the sick, like Natan in his day. She would love to be out healing the sick. Instead, she's in one of the innumerable studies of Hush House, searching for a book for Hokobald, even though she wishes dearly that she could toss him out on his shiny arse. She doesn't mind helping out Yvette, or Arun, or really most of the others. It's just Hokobald in particular who should really go fuck himself. But it is her duty to remain strictly neutral, and she takes that duty seriously. So she'll find his damned book, and watch like a hawk while he reads it. And should he happen to violate that neutrality himself, well, she might have a few things in her pockets to introduce him to. (Swaddled Thunder isn't casual to make, nor the Rubywise Ruin in case of violence. But she's made them enough to feel they're replaceable, at least.)
Oh, shoot, this is her fault for not explaining! "Sophie - Luto has magic boots. Not as good as a Feather Fall ring, but - she'll never land at the wrong angle, and the boots absorb most of the impact. Even from a mile up, she wouldn't die." She pauses, as if doing a bit of math. "...It would hurt a lot, though."
"Oh," Sophie sighs. "...I'm sorry for shouting. You'll have to bear with me, I don't have the right instincts about what's even possible in this stupid place."
A gentleman in a gold and crimson robe, who has been standing nearby and watching with interest at least since the updraft faded, laughs quietly.
Sophie whirls around towards him, her cheeks pink. "If you're so starved for entertainment you've got to eavesdrop, why don't you go look in a mirror, you clown bastard!"
This makes him laugh significantly harder, but he raises his hands and backs away.
"You're up early," Luto says neutrally, looking him over. (How did she not spot this guy earlier?)
"Sleeping only two hours a night will make an early bird even of the laziest man," he says in lightly accented Celestial.
In addition to the robe he wears a dangling jet earring, a ring on each hand, and an assortment of bangles that would make a royal concubine green with envy. He moves with the confidence of a man who can make problems go away.
"Some people find it within themselves to read," Sophie says flatly. "To pass the time without making a nuisance of oneself."
"My dear lady, making a nuisance of myself is the one thing that brings my life pleasure!"
Foreign adventurer... Ridaya catches Luto's attention with a tongue-click and negotiates a "you talk I'll watch" approach via body language.
Detect Magic.
"Are you at least the kind of nuisance that can point the way to a temple of Abadar? If not, you'll have to excuse our rudeness, but we're busy."
"Certainly! It's the grand temple with the gold-veined marble." He begins leading the way. "They imported the stone, you know, from the Five Kings Mountains all the way in Druma, to be the most ostentatious building outside the Dome. They have to lay spells over each shining block, otherwise they'd be scratched and pitted by the sand and nobody would know how very much money they spent. It seems an awfully tiring thing to be an Abadaran."
So, the thing about Detect Magic is that it can be countered by certain effects. As far as Ridaya is concerned, this dude is about as magical as dirt. Despite the fact that his eyes are visibly glowing slightly. Funny how that works!
Huh. Well, that's allowed.
Ridaya tags Luto and Sophie with a Message. "He's masking his magic auras from me."
"...which isn't hostile, but it does suggest that he's one or both of rich and magically powerful," she adds, for Sophie's benefit.
Of course he's rich. He's also got long enough legs that Sophie has to hurry, just a bit, to keep up. This man should die.
"By the by," the man muses, "it strikes me to wonder how such a lady as yourself comes by such great magical power as I can sense within you, without, as you say, the instincts for what is possible. Is the story as exciting as your elevated arrival in this dismal village?"
"Wonder all you like but leave me out of it," she snaps. "I'm only following you to the temple, don't think we're your personal storytellers."
This feels like a social problem pretty far above Luto's CR! Especially on this little sleep.
Ridaya snorts, looking out at one of the biggest cities she's ever seen. "Dismal village? What are you used to, Axis?"
"A man could stand in Aktun's square and find it smaller than a nutshell if his mind is too grand to be therein constrained; inversely, a fool may find fulfillment in a pigsty, as indeed many good men of Erastil do. Boredom is, frankly, my sole virtue."
Sophie snorts explosively. "The greatest fools I've ever met had your virtue in spades. Stick to the pigsty, it mitigates the damage."
"Perhaps your mind" and ego "might find sufficient space for its grandness in the Maelstrom. I hear it's not boring at all."
"Plausible! Elysium is perhaps too sweet for my taste, and people cannot seem to recommend me the Abyss highly enough, but the Maelstrom is, at the very least, consistently novel."
That grand Abadaran temple comes into view, as the sky is just barely lightening.
Con...cerning? "If you feel that way, what are you doing in the Stormhaven of Osiron?"