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BRUNILDA & FIORA'S HOUSE - LATE AFTERNOON
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Fiora is stepping back and forth with her hoof, leaning forward, then pulling back, over and over again. Her ears twitch as she continues this strange behavior, the only response being the faint squeak of the wooden floorboards beneath her. "Hmm. Yeah. It's definitely these ones that are the culprit..."
Brunilda has also been listening intently, standing to the side but being oddly happy having a use for her huge ears for a change. She points towards a particular one: "Yeah, that one on the left of center sounds the worst. Like it's gonna give up from under me if I step on it too hastily."
Fiora shakes her head, "Nah, this house has some solid bones, a good foundation. A bit of force might be just what we need to scare the rest of these boards into line." She stomps on the board in question, frowning at the rebellious squeak.
Brunilda gives Fiora a look: "...I'm not sure floorboards work like that. Do they?"
Fiora shrugs, "I mean, a squeak is just two floorboards rubbing together wrong, right? I think? So a little bit of force should kick it back into place... and then..." She continues to stomp the offending board, only to have the whole floor break way beneath her, dropping the giraffe downwards and out of sight as a curtain of dust rises up from below.
Brunilda nearly jumps back, only barely staying upright: "Eek!" She swallows as the dust overwhelms her: "F-fiora?!" As quickly as she dares, she carefully makes her way to the edge of the now-huge hole on their floor, getting closer on her hands and knees: "Fiora?"
Fiora calls out "SHIT!" She coughs at the dust as well, her ass having landed rather heavily upon some old ceramics. She slowly sits up, a bit daze. "Uh, Brun? Did we always have a basement?"
Brunilda blinks and looks down at the edge of the hole, trying to make sense as the dust clears: "Umm... no? Or yes, now? Are you okay?"
Fiora takes a moment to check herself, "Unf... yeah... yeahh... actually more painful to fall a few stories in my armor, so, this was basically nothing. Landed on some old vases or something..." She takes a few breaths before standing up, glancing around the old room, filled with large pitcher jugs, one wall lined with small cages. "The hell is all this?"
Brunilda frowns, then looks around: "Well, good." She glances to the side, then vanishes from view. "I'm coming down." With that, she breaks couple of additional boards, enough to uncover a way to the actual stairs to this covered-up basement of theirs. The stairs, thankfully, are made of very sturdy stuff so she can get down relatively easily.
Fiora walks in a little further, clearing the way for Brun to come down. "Just be careful..." She reaches over towards one of the vases, poking her head in. "Empty... Looks like they're all empty? Was someone stockpiling food down here?" She looks towards the corner, spotting something moving. "Eh?"
Brunilda makes her way to the ground, looking around as she does: "I don't know... would be strange to board over what is just a food stockpile, right?"
Fiora nods, walking towards the corner of the basement. "I thought I some something moving... just a couple mice or something? If it was food, that's probably where it all went." She shrugs at Brun's question. "Folks get weird about that kind of stuff. This was one of the older houses in Respite, I guess... who knows what they were thinking when they built it."
Brunilda nods absently: "I suppose so... and yeah, if there was any here, plenty of able critters can get here even if we didn't know this was a thing." She looks about the broken and intact vases of various colors, most of them not labeled in any way at all but one faded label catching her eye. She steps closer and squints: "Test... Pygmy Possum... and some numbers after that. I wonder what that means?"
Fiora tilts her neck back towards Brun as she reads off the label. "Pygmy what now? Guess... maybe it was food for them? Pets? Or... well..." She points towards the tiny cages. "Super creepy..."
Brunilda frowns: "Y-yeah... let's go with the 'creepy' part. I don't like this."
Fiora hmphs, walking over towards the bench where all the cages are set. She glances inside, not seeing anything through the various open and closed cage doors. She runs a finger through the deep dust gathered on the bench, "Well, whoever it was and whatever they were doing, they're long gone now. We can clean this crap up, throw these cages out, and then hey, we get a free basement for... something."
Brunilda looks over at the table, stepping next to Fiora. She then shrugs with a smile: "Guess that's right. Whatever this all was... it's ours now, yeah?" She glances up at the nearly floor-sized hole above them: "Though we got some more fixing to do than we initially thought."
Fiora glances back over her shoulder at the hole in the floor. "Oh uh... sorry about that? Fixed the squeaking floorboard though, right?"
Brunilda giggles, lifting her hand on her lover's shoulder: "That you did." She glances around, then sneezes at all the upset dust: "Eugh. I think we need to start from cleaning. I honestly don't know what all this was and I'm not sure I want to know, either."
Fiora glances down at her hand, the faint dusty residue coating it. She rubs her fingers to spread the dust, then lifts it up to her face to sniff, then takes a lick. "Ew, just uh... dust? Guess we've got our weekend project planned, though." She lowers her hand down to lean against Brun softly.
Brunilda slightly leans on Fiora, then giggles despite herself: "Guess we do! I mean, it's not the worst thing, just... surprising that we had this here and never realized, right?"
Fiora laughs. "We'll have to check for a subbasement." She cringes a bit as she starts to step towards the stairs, "Ah... but you can check first. Until my ass is less sore anyways."
Brunilda lightly holds her hand on Fiora's buttcheek: "Well, let's get that sorted out first. At least we're plenty stocked on stuff for this." Bruises being nothing new to the pair, their particular medicinal cabinet (that thankfully did not stand on the floor) is always full.
Fiora heads towards the stairs, rubbing her slightly bruised butt. "Yeah... like I said, not the worst fall I've taken."
Brunilda walks to the stairs with Fiora, pushing aside debris to make way for them to get up (relatively) safely: "Probably better that you took it than me, considering. I would have found that sub-basement."
Fiora chuckles. "This place is only mildly creepy. Sub-basements are always extra creepy, so best we didn't find it... yet."
Brunilda helps Fiora get up the stairs: "Let's hope we don't. Come on, let's get you patched up."
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THE THIRSTY MINNOW - LATE AFTERNOON
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Teis has been a sad kitty since the news of Elizabeth's departure. She's still yet to receive any of the Skunk's journal entries, left only with vague musings about why Elizabeth did what she did. She finds herself at the Minnow for the first time in a long while, nursing the straw of her current drink as she mumbles around it, scribbling and drawing poorly on the notepad before her. Ideas, or hieroglyphs of despair?
Gareth comes wandering into the Minnow after a morning spent watching the caravans for a certain person of interest, but to no avail. The earlier part of the afternoon was then spent in the guard training grounds just amidst the clatter of folks practicing, the noise at least passingly familiar to the sounds on a ship deck at dock, minus the sounds and smells of the ocean. He sighs a little as he makes his way to the bar counter and orders himself a drink.
Teis: Suddenly, Teis tears off the sheet of paper from her notepad with her free hand. She scrunches it up into a ball and clicks her fingers, a spark igniting the page into a brief flash of fire, the ashes crumbling to the table. Teis herself huffs, a mix of anger, frustration, and disappointment. She raises her head, stroking her hand through her head as she briefly looks around the room, tapping her pen against the paper expectantly, as if something will, nay, should just manifest itself into reality. Her eyes fall upon Gareth, the tapping slowing, her frustrated expression briefly giving way into one of thought. Then, she quickly sets her pen back to paper properly, scribbling away once more while muttering.
Gareth 's ears flick a little as he catches the sound of scribbling nearby. He glances around a bit, drink in hand, only to smile and wave a bit when he spots Teis at one of the nearby tables. "Oh, Teis, Afternoon, lass. Good to see ye out and about."
Teis tears off the piece of paper once more, aggressively shoving an outstreched hand with it towards Gareth. It's a crude, shaky drawing of one of her mana crystals. On one side is a vague (Incredibly so) individual with an arrow pointing to the crystal, then from the crystal it points towards two more vague individuals. Around the drawing are several indecipherable words. She mutters and mumbles incoherently, pulling the paper back to point at the first figure, then the crystal, before pushing it back out toward Gareth once more. What the muff is she saying?
Gareth tilts his head and examines the drawing, though he can't read the words written down at all, even if they were legible. As Teis pulls the paper back, taps at the first figure, then shoves the paper at him again, he gives the feline a strange, perhaps slightly concerned look. "Ye're goin' to have to speak up more clearly, lass. I can't understand a single thing ye're sayin'... and I don't have the magical knowledge to even remotely understand pictures alone."
Teis: Frustrated, despite Gareth's best efforts, Teis pulls the paper back and slams it onto the table, writing down on it once more, this time with a larger print. She pulls the paper up again towards Gareth, having written only a single additional thing on it - 'GARETH' - directly above the first figure.
Gareth raises an eyebrow, then nods. "Alright, so... ye need me fer somethin' to do with yer crystal magic experiments. Somethin' that'll... result in two o' somethin' else comin' out as a result?" He blinks, "...Wait, is this somethin' to do with Ms. O'Williams' magic?"
Teis nods to the first part of Gareth's statement, though pulls back the page in response to the second, shaking her head. Then, she tilts her head confused at the mention of O'Williams. "Who?" She asks. A clear word. Amazing. She shakes her head. "Nevermind. It's Lady Catherine's."
Gareth nods. "Aye, Lady Catherine. Elizabeth Catherine O'Williams. Skunk lady from Sarn, nobility, pretty, smart and not someone I'd want to cross." He turns in his seat a bit to face Teis a bit better and leans against his knee, "Ye figured out some o' her magic stuck to me, aye? She did, too, and managed to reclaim it fer herself a couple months ago."
Teis frowns, placing the paper on the table. "I know. I'm the one that told her." She folds her arms, sounding and looking hurt. "I was helping her get the rest of it back, but she up and went to do it all by herself and messed it up." Teis huffs, taking a deep breath in and sighing it out. She uncrosses her arms after this brief moment, placing her hand on the piece of paper to push it closer to Gareth. Her other hand points at the mana crystal. "But, you see? If she'd just WORKED WITH ME!" Her pointing hand scrunches into a ball and slams the table for impact. She growls at first, then sighs and flexes her hand. "Muffin ow. . ." She mutters, focusing on trying not to become a loud, angry drunk.
Gareth hums as he looks at the crystal drawn on the paper, though Teis' outburst doesn't seem to do more than just draw a concerned look out of him. "Take it easy, lass. It looks like ye figured out a way to separate the magic from each other with less... trouble? She did manage to pull the magic free herself, but it wasn't the most graceful way about it, I think."
Teis sighs. "Yeah. . .Well. Fat lot of good it does now with her gone." She withdraws from the paper, back towards her drink. "She muffed it up so bad that they booted her from town." She takes a long sip from her straw.
Gareth frowns, tilting his head at the news. "Wait, Ms. O'Williams is gone? What even happened to get her booted out like that?"
Teis sighs, pointing at the two individuals on the other side of the crystal. "She went after the elementals spawned by her magic. Tried to forcibly take her magic from them. Not exactly a well thought out plan or solution. . .And most certainly terrible execution." Teis unintentionally puns.
Gareth slowly brings his free hand up and rubs it over his snout. "Yer serious...? Gods, that could have been dangerous even in the best case. I'm surprised she got so impatient, though, considerin' how she was actin' when she came to grab the shards o' magic that I'd wound up with."
Teis crosses her arms again, looking hurt again, slumping and her ears lowering, "Not only that, she didn't accept my multiple offers of help. . ." She sighs. "Even with you."
Gareth hums at that then shakes his head. "Sounds impulsive on her part... Sorry ye didn't get a chance to do yer thing, Teis. If I knew ye were thinkin' up an easier way, I'd have come to ye first instead o' meself and Ms. O'Williams gettin' knocked on our rears from magic backlash when she tried pullin' her magic free directly."
Teis: "Guess I wasn't as impressive a student as I thought. . ." Teis mumbles, glancing away for a few moments of silence. When she looks back, ". . .Why do you call her O'Williams?"
Gareth shrugs. "Fer what it's worth, yer magic skill's been impressin' me fer a while, lass." He pauses, considering the question, then shrugs, "As fer why I call her O'Williams, force o' habit, I guess. Whenever someone introduces themselves with their full name, I just call them by their last name out o' respect. I don't really go by first names until I'm familiar with them, or unless they prefer another name."
Teis: Gareth's compliment does seem to make Teis feel a little better, at least. "No, I mean. . ." Teis shakes her head. "You're the first person I've heard call her that? Is that her maiden name?"
Gareth shrugs a third time. "No idea. She presented herself to me as 'Elizabeth Catherine O'Williams' when she found me at the trainin' grounds. I don't know if that's her maiden name or anythin' o' the sort, though."
Teis: Why Gareth, and not her, or anyone else? "Weird. . ." Teis muses. She takes another sip from her drink, noticing her paper once more. She stares at it, lost in thought as she begins to deflate. After some silence, ". . .Is it even worth it?" Teis questions, "Pursuing her magic now, with her gone?"
Gareth shakes his head a bit. "Wish I had the knowledge to give ye a good answer, Teis. I'd say it's entirely up to ye if ye want to at least try, since ye'd at least be a bit more tactful about things, I imagine."
Teis: "I don't know. I don't exactly have a good reason. I want it just to have it, to prove that I could've done it. . ." She sighs, "As if it makes me valuable." She stare at the slight wavering of her drink. "I guess. . .I should at least check if it's potentially unstable inside of you and the others. . ."
Gareth nods at the reasoning. "Sure, if ye like. Ms. O'Williams did mention that a little bit o' her magic stuck to me even after she removed the rest o' it. I've not felt out o' the ordinary since then, but no harm in checkin'."
Teis nods. The last thing she wants is someone getting hurt if she could've stopped it. "I guess. . .Come swing by tomorrow so I can get another strand from you. Lady Catherine absorbed the strand I had from you originally."
Gareth nods with a reassuring smile. "Alright, Teis. I'll be there whenever ye think would be ideal fer me to show up. Not sure how much o' her magic is left stuck to me, but I'm sure there's enough fer that."
Teis: "Well. . .If there is none of it left, then there's nothing to worry about." Teis forces a weak smile. She looks at her near-empty drink, then back to the bar, contemplating getting another, then back to Gareth, ". . .Probably later rather than earlier."
Gareth raises an eyebrow as he looks at the glass, then to Teis' eyes. "Might not be a bad idea. How many drinks into it are ye, and what are ye drinkin'?"
Teis looks to the glass, then to her notepad and the scattering of ashes. ". . .I. . .Don't actually know how many. But anything with the peach liquor has been good."
Gareth rubs his chin a bit, then nods. "Liquor, eh? Well... just try to take it easy fer the rest o' the evenin'. Nurse the drinks ye get, and get a few glasses o' water in ye before headin' back home or upstairs... or wherever ye plan on sleepin' fer the night. It'll help with the headache tomorrow." He hitches up a little smile, though, "As fer the drinks... if ye like the peach, ye could probably ask the barkeeper to get creative with it. It mixes pretty nicely with a lot o' other things."
Teis: "Not the worst idea. . ." Teis nods. "Take care, Gareth. And. . .Thanks."
Gareth hums and dips his head as he sets his empty drink back onto the counter along with payment. "Ye as well, Teis. I'll see ye some time tomorrow around noon or so, to give ye time to rest. Have yerself a good evenin', alright?"
Teis: "I'll try, Gareth." Teis weakly smiles again. Once Gareth has gone, she looks at her notepad and empty glass for a minute or so, then shakes her head with a sigh. "What am I even doing here. . .?" She mutters. She should be drinking because it's fun, not because she's upset. Enver's probably worried about her, as might Rondelethia if she's not home soon. She might be a little drunk, but she's come enough to her senses that she pays the barkeep and returns home to recover instead of withering the rest of her night away here.