Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
Glad you liked them 'cause there's more where they came from...
We had a blast playing out the 'Eve Monologues'. Most of what you're reading was lifted verbatim from our email exchanges. I should warn you all, it goes on for some time. Eve is what my players get instead in lieu of handouts.
While I was editing these, I remembered that Eve was, in part, inspired by the character Soneillon from Sepulchrave's fantastic "Wyre" Story Hour. I was reading it at the time and was so impressed with Sep's writing of her --well, with his writing in general-- I made a philosophizing magic lady of my own.
Of course what I ended up with was more a 'Cenobite by way of fast-talking screwball comedy dame'. So it goes...
BTW, nice sig.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
While I was editing these, I remembered that Eve was, in part, inspired by the character Soneillon from Sepulchrave's fantastic "Wyre" Story Hour. I was reading it at the time and was so impressed with Sep's writing of her --well, with his writing in general-- I made a philosophizing magic lady of my own.
BTW, nice sig.
Thanks.
Regarding the Soneillon connection: I don't suppose Eve at some point seduces Burne under pretenses of achieving some kind of metaphysical antinomian synthesis, does she?
__________________ Milton was obviously a gamer - who else would conceive of penning an epic tragedy over the misplacing of 2d6?
Regarding the Soneillon connection: I don't suppose Eve at some point seduces Burne under pretenses of achieving some kind of metaphysical antinomian synthesis, does she?
Wouldn't work. She'd have needed a metaphysical antinomian synthesis which also blows lots of crap up.
Meiji, on the other hand, she had at "Hello."
__________________ shilsen is broken - Crothian (and this is why)
My Eberron Story Hour. Updated November 12. Almost at the climax!
"I like your hat. I must say, I've been sized up by quite a few men in my day, but never so...precisely as you're doing right now. Which is exactly my point. You're getting it all wrong." She flashes Meiji a timeless smile.
"I....", he begins, affronted.
"You're a learned man. An Erisian alchemist, from your..." she pauses to drink from her newly-filled cup, "Aristocratic bearing and sulfurous aroma. But what do you really know?"
"Well, in point of fact...."
“You put everything into little jars, then label each one in a meticulous script, so you call tell one thing is not like another and somewhat like something else. Sometimes you mix them together and there's a flash of colored smoke, and occasionally, from what I've heard, there's one less alchemist.”
"Yes, but..."
“Or you play the naming game, thinking that names have power, especially if they're hard to pronounce. You pick a flower and call it a flame, and soon you're holding nothing but ash. That's just a petty trick, a kind of power which is ultimately self-limiting.”
"That's not entirely..."
“Do you really suppose that gets to the essence of things?
"In my vast experience, I...."
“Have you been to the Museum of Defeated Cultures in Eris? Are you familiar with Hannek's "A Gentleman from Gallina in Two Incomplete Symbolic Systems”? It’s a painting of a bum urinating into a canal mounted behind a statue of a bum urinating into a canal. It's
spectacularly ugly, but it contains a valuable truth. Neither is the bum."
She then says, largely to herself, "You think you're building a library when you're actually building a prison." Turning to Meiji, Eve inquires, "So my young Imperial scholar, are you building something else?"
Burne blinks, dazedly, and raises a finger to emphasize his point. "Um," he declares. "Ah," he
clarifies. "You," he adds. "Fire," he explains. "If," he continues. "Well," he concludes. Now staring into space, he absently lowers the finger, and takes a sip of his now tepid drink.
Abraxis snickers, an almost musical sort of rasping sound.
The Lady Eve’s attention switches back to Burne. "You were right about one thing though, philosophy is entirely irrelevant. Experience is the only teacher, which is why my lessons can get so… messy, and often go awry."
Burne smiles, albeit tentatively. "Practical matters are a specialty of mine," he declares.
Meiji gives Burne a dirty look, which is quickly expanded to include Abraxas. He leans forward, his brow furrowing, as sparks dance around his fingertips, and mutters, “If your mechanical cat isn’t shock-proof, maybe it should be….”
But before Burne can stutter any more monosyllables about the nature of knowledge and the universe, or, worse, begin to consciously flirt with the Lady Eve, Meiji clears his throat and says loudly, “Well, Eve - if I may venture to call you that – that’s half the fun with experience, isn’t it? You never really know what it’s going to get you. Sometimes you make a choice and end up running out of town with a mob behind you, and sometimes you end up drinking wine with a man whose hat is on fire, a man who recently had sex with a priestess while he was dead, a man wearing a dress, and a particularly inscrutable lady.
"To answer your previous question, however rhetorical - unlike my esteemed and inflammable companion, I’m not building much of anything. Other than myself, perhaps. You could say I’m a votary at the temple of experience too. Which - to link our current subjects - is why I’ve been more than a little curious about The Hunger and half-tempted to go mess with it and see what happens. He raises a hand quickly, before anyone can comment, and says,”Not to worry – I’m just a little tempted. I’m not stupid - or, I admit, brave - enough to act on it.
"Nadir, unfortunately, it seems is both, so I’m all for nipping him in the bud.”
Meiji’s eyes sparkle and his grin becomes a little wicked, as he says to Eve. “Speaking of stupidity and bravery and possibly being nipped in the bud, once we've done what we need to, would you happen to be free for dinner tomorrow? It might be a fun experience and ending up messy or awry would be a consummation devoutly to be wished." He raises his glass and gives her a mock-salute.
Eve slowly shifts her gaze from face to face while taking in Meiji's laundry list of vulgar wonders and improbabilities. When he finishes, she says "Just...wow."
Meiji grins like the panda that ate the imperial songbird.
"Why do I get the feeling you just might survive The Hunger? Of course the Three Sisters are another story. And yes, Meiji, tomorrow night, 8:00PM.. Pick somewhere nice. You can meet me at Pier Four, Quai Central. I like the watch the ships come in."
Meiji’s grin broadens enough to make him look like the last man who displeased Lord Kenji. "Excellent! I'll look forward to it."
Apparently not satisfied with captivating two men simultaneously, Eve glances back at Lord Kenji, although, perhaps, only to admire the fine embroidery of his dress.
Sometimes you make a choice and end up running out of town with a mob behind you, and sometimes you end up drinking wine with a man whose hat is on fire, a man who recently had sex with a priestess while he was dead, a man wearing a dress, and a particularly inscrutable lady.
I don't suppose Eve at some point seduces Burne under pretenses of achieving some kind of metaphysical antinomian synthesis, does she?
I can't rule that out... wait, yes I can.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shilsen
Meiji, on the other hand, she had at "Hello."
The funny thing is Eve was supposed to be a potential magical wife for Kenji, since it's one of the things he supposed to be questing after as per his backstory.
Oh well, you know what they say about the 'barely laid plans of mice and men'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HalfOrc HalfBiscuit
Yup .. happens to me all the time.
This Story Hour strives for realism!
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
Meiji looks around at the others and realizes, even with his normally inwardly-focused senses, that they might not be as happy with his social activities, so without missing a beat he says “But right now there are more pressing matters. Not that I’m ruling out more ‘pressing matters’ later on, if you’re game, but…”
Rackhir cuts him off. “What will happen if Nadir gets hold of the Three Sisters?”
“Each one will test him, before they’ll allow him through the Not-Door.
"Salomalle, also known as the Eater of Pain, will measure his freight of suffering, which the Hunger equates with desire, which says a lot about its character, doesn’t it? Malgrazia is the Eater of Memory. She’ll gnaw on his past and by that test his sense of self. Finally, the Eater of Will, Bella Dominatrix, will try her level best to bend him over, metaphysically speaking, of course, for the most part.
"If Nadir survives, the Hunger may just kill him anyway. Or he might transcend to the limits of his kin and kind, which would mean he’ll leave this world entirely. Or become the immortal witch-king of all the Shirac. It's hard to tell."
"Oh, that wouldn't be good at all” says Burne in a rare moment of understatement.
“Will he’ll try to bring down the black barrier and release The Hunger?” asks Rackhir.
“Release? The Not-Door doesn’t keep The Hunger in; it keeps the riff-raff out. A god doesn’t want to be bothered every minute of the day, especially a mad and starving one. I'm sure all the arcane scribbling on walls the Brotherhood of the Black Worm put there might do something to contain it, or perhaps ‘shape’ is a better word. You should keep in mind that it was the Brotherhood who brought the Hunger to Narayan in the first place. To use, I would imagine.”
Meiji clears his throat and says, “Eve - do you have any idea what Nadir’s next move will be?”
“His next move will be to discover all he can about me and the threat I might pose.”
“I thought you said the two of you knew each other already?” asks the ever-alert Rackhir.
“I never slept with him, if that’s what you’re asking. Wait… I don’t suppose it was, was it? I said we saw each other at social functions.”
“Where might Nadir go to find more information about you? Nothing would please me more than to be able to ambush that bastard, rather than the other way around." Meiji pauses to look at Eve and adds, "Well, few things...."
"He’ll start at the University of Narayan, where he used to teach. Of course, he didn’t leave on the best of terms, what with his attempt to enslave most of the senior faculty when they tried to take the chair of the Department of the Mind's Eye away from him. Magical academic politics is a dirty business.
"From what I've heard, he didn't kill any of them. And I'm sure no one there bears him any malice. Which is a polite way of saying they're all too cowardly to raise a wizened hand against him. Well, not Dr. Mephisophocles. He, at least, has some backbone. And you should see him tango.
"Nadir will busy himself with dry tomes and moldy old books; with any luck he'll find a cryptic reference to some beauty from antiquity that'll send him on a golden goose chase to one of the farther corners of the world. Even if he doesn’t, it’ll take him a while before he starts inquiring among the faculty about a certain stylish lady usually seen at the annual Transubstantiationalists Mixer.”
Meiji says, "I hope you're right, since that would mean we have some more time before we have to worry about him. I've been planning to visit the University too, to do a little reading up on gate magic. Hopefully I won't run into Nadir there, since Burne would probably kill me if I blew him up before he did, and it would just be embarrassing if Nadir blew me up instead."
"Oh, I doubt Nadir could blow you up directly, unless he got control of a grad student from the Department of the Material Physick. Now if he got hold of the captain of the Skulling Team… I shudder to think. Have you even seen the mauls they use to crack open skulls? Absolutely massive. But I'm not so sure he'd even try… he's reluctant to harm his fellow magicians.”
Meiji winces a little at the description and then turns in his chair. "Hey, Rackhir - you know what that reminds me of?" After a couple seconds of meeting the ronin's gaze, he evidently rethinks the benefits of mentioning what happened to him with the Tenor's maul. "Um - I see you do, so never mind.”
Looking back to Eve, Meiji says “Do you think his reluctance is because he doesn't like to take risks? We have noticed that he takes very careful precautions whenever we've encountered him, making sure to be invisible and flying, and at a fair distance. He seems to rely on his familiar a lot, which I'll be very happy to feed to Abraxas at some point."
"I wouldn't say he's averse to risks, no. He broke his oath to the masters of Miir Valley, snuck into the Cabinet of Curiosities then drank from the Goblet of Ire, and threatened a large number of the University’s magical faculty with out-of-bodily harm.”
"That bit I can actually sympathize with him for. We don't exactly have Universities and magical faculty in the Empire, but we have some analogues. And they are a significant pain in the ass."
"I should tell you a little something about the Miir Valley School. It is the most prestigious, well, the only formal training site for the Shirac mystical arts. At Miir they teach the pursuit of enlightenment is the noblest cause. And that all paths may lead to wisdom. Even the ones littered with corpses. So they are reluctant to kill fellow seekers. Which is handy in a profession where your colleagues can make stones burn and drop mountains on your head."
Meiji laughs and nods but doesn't comment.
"You see, some day one of these seekers will become the 'Way to Heaven', and lead the Great Ummab of the Shirac off this world and one step closer to God. The thing is, they have no idea which one it will be.
"By the way, that’s the proper name of the Shirac people, 'the Great Ummab'? It means something like ‘mob’ or ‘flock’, use it if want to score brownie points. And should a Shirac mention the 'Way to Heaven' in conversation, say 'Peace be upon them', or they're liable to try and convince you you're a newt.”
"I'll remember that. Not that I'm expecting to be having much in the way of conversation with any Shiracs in the near future, but then stranger things have happened." With a smile, Meiji adds, "I wasn't expecting this conversation either."
A look of consternation crosses the Lady Eve’s flushed and elegant face. "You know, Nadir might have assumed I’m a construct, like one of those fancy mechanical camp followers they tried building at the Acadeum Materia, what did they call them, oh yes, the Whoreforged, in which case he’ll head straight for Gallina. Imagine thinking I’m some kind of alchemical tart…."
"Those contain sulphur," Burne notes, "And must be cooked with great care indeed."
Everyone, except, perhaps, the Lady Eve, realizes that she is beginning to sound slightly intoxicated, after consuming enough wine to stupefy the ronin or send Dr. Wu to Heaven twice over. Meiji, who's been keeping an assiduous - and calculating - eye on her glass, makes a mental note of her capacity and refills it again without touching it.
Eve smiles and nods at Meiji. "Wrongheaded, but certainly useful for impressing the ladies".
Meiji chuckles, looking completely unabashed. "Mostly sheer laziness on my part, actually, but you do have a point." His grin gets a little broader and he says, "It's amazing how many places an extra hand can be helpful."
The Lady Eve gives a short, surprisingly snort-like laugh, "I've heard that one before. Remember, I'm popular at magician parties.”
Nonplussed by banter, Rackhir interrupts, "If I may ask, Lady Eve, how did you know we would be here tonight? Or Nadir? It can’t be a coincidence."
"You could say I foresaw it."
"So you’re an oracle?"
"Would an oracle have shoes like these? I don’t think so. Let me try and explain…
"Since my assignation with Hunger I’m never entirely ‘here’ or ‘there’, which has certain implications. I’m virtually impossible to harm, and sad to say there have been times I tried. More importantly, no barrier can stop me. Not even the one between today and yesterday. A charming and half-mad philosopher called it ‘doing the sidestep', or was it the ‘two-step’? I forget."
Meiji pauses, as a thought strikes him and adds, "Actually, if you can slide back and forth in time, wouldn't that help you find out what is likely to happen to him? Or us?"
"Chancy stuff, that," Burne interjects in an absent tone, "From what I've read, it's deucedly difficult to be sure if you're returning to the same 'when' that you've left. Some nonsense about free will, and temporal constants, and dead cats. Not really my field of study. Except for the cats."
"I wouldn’t know about that, I’m totally ignorant of science. I went to art school. Now have any of you read a Narayan author named Joost? No baser drunk ever picked up a quill. Anyway, he wrote an exceedingly slim novella called Recollections of Things Last. In it, he described both the recalled past and anticipated future as totally different worlds. He was on to something, and not just the best recipe for absinthe.
"When I do the sidestep, I travel to places… just next door. Oh, they’re a lot like here. Sure, the people may look more like birds or Thursday might come directly after Monday, or everyone is the walking dead. Where was I? They’re a lot like here, but time isn't always, sometimes it’s slower, sometimes faster. An observant girl can glean a few things, but remember it’s not precisely the same world I left.
"I suppose I could try stepping straight ahead forward, but, as you said Burne, I can’t sure what world I’d return to when I stepped back."
"In that case," says Meiji, "I'd much rather you didn't try it. We have to judge our priorities, after all. Getting rid of a Shirac mind-witch with delusions of grandeur is all well and good, but we have a date tomorrow."
"I wouldn't miss it for this world." says the Lady Eve.
"Me neither” says Meiji. "I need a break from having people try to kill me. Then again, you haven't got to know me that well yet, so that's still a possibility eventually."
"I'm practically certain I wouldn't enjoy it."
"You flatter me." Meiji looks around at his companions. "So are you guys just being polite and not interrupting, or waiting to see how much of a fool I make of myself?"
The Lady Eve lingers over another bottle of wine with them conversing on lighter subjects; fashion, theater, the upcoming Narayan Biennial, things of which everyone but Eve is thoroughly ignorant. At one point Burne tries to flash-mull the wine in his cup using pinch saltpeter from the Engine and the flame of his hat.
It takes Lucre, the box office manager, the entire duration of their conversation with Eve, not to mention an entire bottle of cheap red wine to work up the courage to ask them to leave. Before Eve goes, she gets Lucre's attention with a wink, and proceeds to walk through the wall separating the foyer and the auditorium.
After stepping back she says. "Do you know why this theater is called the Palladion? It’s named for an ugly lump of iron that fell from the sky like a star, right through the roof of the original owner’s house. It’s miracle it didn’t kill him. After it cooled he put in on display in the lobby, right there, in fact. That is, until it the pirate-kings began fighting over it.
"Now one side the Palladion was said to resemble the face of one of CITY’s patron Goddesses, which it sort of did. If you were blind, or meant the Goddess of Iron Lumps.
"Honestly, I have no idea what made Roderique of Wrackreach go so far as to start a war over the bloody thing. I thought he had better taste than that. He was such a gentle soul, and good at interior decorating, if you know what I mean."
Eve removes one of her earrings and gives it to Lucre. "It’s nowhere near as big as the Palladion, but on the plus side, it has been through solid matter. You can put it on display; maybe even rename the place after me. I won’t mind. Perhaps ‘The Magic Lady Theater’, wait, no, that’s either a drag show or a massage parlor.”
Eve gestures in the direction of Meiji and company. “Let them stay here as long as they want." With that, the Lady Eve takes her leave, choosing to open the front door instead of walking straight through it. Like any common lady.
The next morning, at King Daikon’s, over coffee and hot crossed buns, Joachim Driftwood comes face to face with Mercutio the Mesmerist, who he immediately recognizes as the man in the demon-haunted carriage from that day months ago at Delphine’s family estate.
“What did you do to her?” asks Joachim evenly. His nonchalance is chilling. Like Kenji’s.
“Nothing, nothing, well, not much. No permanent harm, I swear!”
"It is good that you have done little damage. After having gone to some effort to find and keep you safe, I would find it most distressing to have to kill you for hurting the Magnaeta.” Rackhir tells Mercutio.
"Kill me?” says the now sweating Mercutio. "What happened to protecting me from the evil Shirac mind-witch? Can't we go back to that?
"I can assure you that Malgrazia was very gentle with the Magnate's daughter. She might have forgotten a birthday or two, tops. It's not like I enjoy using the rod like that. I still lose sleep over that guy I convinced to be a chicken...."
"You're a comic genius," Burne blurts out. "A chicken, indeed!"
“Indeed you are most fortunate in your choice of paths, since your former associates have caused Lord Kenji to become most... annoyed with them. I have found this to be a very 'short' lived state of affairs” says Rackhir.
“Why would you do such a thing to my Delphine?” asks Joachim.
“Look, Master St. Sous seemed convinced that his daughter was throwing her life away on some no-account bum, and coming from a long line of no-account bums myself, I could see how this would affect a doting father, particularly one with complex business dealings that could benefit from a comely daughter of marrying age.
"Also, I was paid."
Joachim stares quietly ahead, pondering how much foie gras to use when he stuffs Mercutio’s emptied skull.
"It wasn’t personal. I was hired by those other two; the Bottleman and the Doorman. So I might be true that I was looking to get in good with them. At some point in every man's like he needs to find a real job. And its not that I was entirely without prospects. I had a magic demon rod."
"Of course, of course...all perfectly reasonable. The man's a fine fellow," Burne explains to the room, "And I'm certain that it's not his magic that's making me say that."
Having concluded our rather baffling interview with this "Lady Eve", and with no dissections in the offing (damn the luck) I announced my intention to return to my laboratory and do some important work. I'd had an idea regarding the bits of vegetative monstrosity that I had managed to salvage, and wanted to strike while the iron was -- as they say -- hot.
I’D LIKE TO STRIKE SOMEONE WITH HOT IRON. CAN YOU GUESS WHERE?
Meiji informed us that he was off to the university library, to study up on something or other that was entirely unimportant.
YES. GATE MAGIC. THE ARCANE FOUNDATION THAT CITY IS BUILT ON. WHICH WOULDN'T HELP AT ALL WITH THE BAD HUNGER, OR NADIR.
AND DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT BURNE CONSIDERS “IMPORTANT WORK”? SHOES.
After expressing his displeasure at our splitting up to pursue our own projects, for no small number of hours, and warning Meiji and myself to take the utmost care, lest Nadir assault us while we were alone and vulnerable, Rackhir and Kenji decided to spend the day shopping, looking for, among other items, things that would allow them to perceive the invisible Nadir.
Remember this fact, for it serves as a fine point of irony.
TELEGRAPH MUCH?[1]
The two decided that the open-air market in Marimbra, home to the Shirac people, which are Nadir’s people, in case you might have forgotten, as Kenji and Rackhir most certainly did, would be their most likely source for such Things of Power, and spent several hours wandering about, Kenji with the slow-blinking ocular dagger Squint pressed to his eye the whole time, but met with little success...although much apprehension and some outright disgust.
At this point I should probably mention that Kenji and Rackhir, in their unfathomable foreign wisdom, also decided to drag Mercutio, Joachim, and that useless Lovesworn Mallus along with them on their shopping expedition. Mercutio, who was still carrying the Malgrazia rod, one of the three “keys” to the Bad Hunger which Nadir Medhi so desperately sought.
It was a bold, nay, a subconscious stratagem on their part; leaving both spell-casters behind and choosing instead to augment Mercutio’s protection with a newlywed baker and a gin-slinging fop. Even bringing Meiji, a mere pocket-knife compared to the claymore that is Burne, would have shown at least a modicum of good sense...but no, no.
After half a day they found a seller of crystals –what else?-- who offered them stones that could, when crushed, make the unseen seen, and indeed purchased several of these, but as they were leaving the market they were, on the whole, unsatisfied.
Which should come as no surprise to any intelligent reader, seeing as the fools chose to seek magical goods among that race of pointy-eared dabblers, barely skilled enough to fashion glittering gewgaws let alone great works of the Art, instead of seeking magic at its source, along the Avenue of the Alchemists in eternal Eris….
IN BURNE’S HANDS ALITERATION IS A DEADLY WEAPON.
…but far be it from me to tell them that. If I made it my practice to correct my comrades every time they suffered one of their entirely too-frequent lapses in judgment…
I WOULD SOON BE FREE!
…well, no matter. We’re quick approaching the best part of the tale, and so…
They were approaching the Gate, no doubt congratulating each other on their failure to get themselves killed, when Kenji sights, in a manner of speaking, the tell-tale shimmer of a invisible man in the crowd. Quickly recognizing that this is not an entirely unusual occurrence in a city of mind-witches, he relaxed.
Which is when he felt the touch of magic upon him. He fought it off, somehow, perhaps drawing strength from his inner reservoir of inscrutability, only to immediately suffer the effects of another spell. This left him paralyzed, frozen in mid-step.
And naturally, the very next moment Squint was plucked from his nerveless fingers by an unseen assailant. They...they....
My pardon. It is difficult, remembering this, not to laugh until I become physically ill.
AND YET, NEVER TO KENJI OR RACKHIR'S FACES. CURIOUS, THAT.
Well. Rackhir sprang into action searching for Nadir. Kenji continued to imitate a statue afflicted with transvestism. And Nadir, sensible fellow that he is, conjured a phantom sandstorm to cover his tracks -- and blind his foes -- while he made his escape, unaware that the quarry he sought was blinded, albeit badly-disguised just a few feet away.
While Kenji no doubt struggled to form pallid foreign obscenities, Nadir fled through the nearby Gate to Narayan. Rackhir followed, guessing his foe's objective, and staggered through just in time to see people being flung aside by something moving through the crowd. Now, I would not have hesitated to open fire upon a crowd of innocents in hopes of catching Nadir with my attacks. That's the sort of bold thinking that makes me such a masterful tactician.
Rackhir, sadly, lacks the courage of his convictions. So Nadir escaped, to steal again, and his next act of larceny would involve a far more beautiful and dangerous prize…
Notes:
[1] A long-distance communication device consisting of a pair of overlapping Gate-connected writing slates, popular with the young nobility because of their ability to send relatively silent ‘text messages’.
Now, I would not have hesitated to open fire upon a crowd of innocents in hopes of catching Nadir with my attacks. That's the sort of bold thinking that makes me such a masterful tactician.
... which makes me realise most of the people I've played D&D with over the years have been more like Burne than I'd like to admit.
Hilarious! I love the ouns, the themed jokes- and the various instructors in the way of the city. Far better than having dry exposition tagged on. Now you gotta post more often- else I shall suffer from a deficit of humour.
__________________ Read my story hour Rule of Darkness Survival in a world where the devils rule
On a cloudy night Eve watches the ships come in. One in particular holds her attention, careening several feet above the water through the never-quite-dark of Narayan harbor. It would be a fairly nondescript pleasure boat if it weren’t flying; apparently by means of two large boulders that are falling backwards into the sky, lashed to the ends of a wing-like wooden frame girding the ship’s midsection. Tied to each boulder is a tiny shouting figure, likely to blame for encouraging them to fall the wrong way, in defiance of both natural law and good common sense. A tall woman ringed in bright full moonlight imported from somewhere else stands at the prow.
"Show off," says Eve. "Shalazar can Gate to anywhere on the planet in an instant, and yet she bothers making boats fly with stones. There’s something needlessly… baroque about that woman. It’s all so tacky."
"The Shalazar? High Gate Mage from the Acadeum Gaeta?" asks Meiji as he sidles up, smelling faintly of foreign flowers and radiating his omnipresent aura of curiosity about attractive women, whether in his company or not. He glances at the staff she holds, containing the bound succubus named "The Bella Dominatrix", which somehow instantly makes him think of long, hard cylindrical objects. Shaking the thoughts off, he continues, "That so… my acquaintance Mallus keeps promising to introduce us."
"There are better ways to begin a first date than mentioning another striking and accomplished woman, by name even. You could, for instance, express in immodest detail an interest in getting into my pants."
Meiji laughs. Ancestors above – why can’t I meet more women like this? "Did I forget to wear my 'I’d love to get into your pants’'face? Pardon me!" He raises a hand to his forehead and brings it down. As it descends, above it his face changes into a remarkable facsimile of Kenji Yamamoto’s. The samurai’s expressionless visage, quite out of place on Meiji’s foppishly garbed body, stares back at Eve for a moment, before changing back to its original form. "Whoops! That was my 'I’d never even think of getting into your pants unless there was an ancestral sword in them' face."
Eve snorts her amusement. "I’ve noticed you two have certain variations in your philosophy." She glances down at his garb, "And a very similar fascination with pajamas as evening wear."
Meiji chuckles, unabashed at the comparison. "Sheer coincidence, believe me. But I’ll freely admit to being fascinated by Gate Magic, and the sight of Gate Mages at work. It’s very impressive – especially to a poor uneducated foreigner such as myself." Even in the low light, Meiji’s eyes manage to twinkle as he says that last part. Then, as he turns to glance at the distant Shalazar’s borrowed moonlight, the humor is jostled to the side as cupidity and ambition line up beside it.
"Then you’re in for a real treat," says Eve, as she impulsively grabs Meiji’s arm. Which promptly interlaces itself with hers and, displaying a flexibility befitting its master’s lack of a spine, somehow manages to curl around her waist. Eve doesn’t respond in any way, but instead points out over the harbor.
There, the floating boat has stopped, more or less, and dark figures on her deck are conjuring little windows of amber light. Under Shalazar’s direction the team of Gate Magicians begins fitting their individual Gates together in a section of the night sky. Suddenly from above, there is a loud tearing sound, as if an earthquake was beginning in a cloud.
A massive dark shape falls into the water, a bit of a mountain shorn from its moorings and plopped unceremoniously into the sea.
"She’s laying the foundation for the Customs House, the one that’s going to sit in the harbor across from the new Sea Gate to the Osamu Islands."
Noting the tone of disinterest, Meiji – who has just made as good an attempt at looking round-eyed as he is biologically capable of – asks, "You don’t find this at all interesting?"
"If by interesting you mean gauche, then yes, certainly."
The shugenja sighs inwardly, but he’s always been good at judging on which side his momo is fried. "We should go somewhere else then, milady. Alas, since I cannot whistle up a Gate – yet – I cannot…."
"You should leave Gates to those who lack perfect skin and can’t fake good breeding. I’ve got an idea; let’s wait for Shalazar and then follow her. I’m just dying to see what she’s wearing. Well, that’s not strictly true, since I’m not really dying at all, not in the least little bit. You’ll have a hard time finding another woman who can say that, Meiji-from-the-Empire-of-Heaven."
"Not that you’ll believe me, of course, but at this moment I’m really not thinking of finding other women." As he says it, Meiji is slightly surprised – and just a little disconcerted – to realize that he’s actually telling the truth.
Eve laughs and responds with a quick quip, and the two exchange a few quick witticisms, interspersed with the odd compliment, like friendly fencers testing out each other’s defenses, during the few minutes before Shalazar’s wobbling aerial yacht docks at Pier Un. Its crew of Gate Magic students disembarks and they all head, in fine academic fashion, to the closest bar they can find.
"Come on!" The Lady Eve, it turns out, is a fair sneak-thief, darting between shops out of the sight of Shalazar’s band, even while encumbered by a first date and a magical staff that radiates a dangerously sexy malevolence. "Oh pipe down," she tells it after a particularly salacious emanation.
Meiji and Eve follow Shalazar into a large waterfront tavern that’s far more elegant inside that out. Once inside, the Lady Eve’s bearing changes, and she bears down on the High Gate Mage’s table, leading with her leering staff, whose aura sends several men scampering to the privy with their hands decorously covering the fronts of their breeches.
To Meiji’s surprise, Mallus and Joachim are seated next to Shalazar, with the Lovesworn actually whispering some sweet ginny nothing in her ear. Catching Mallus’ eye, after it has made at least three attempts to avoid him, Meiji gestures for the Lovesworn to join him. With an expression suggesting a cat about to regurgitate a canary, Mallus extricates himself from the table and does so.
"You promised to ask Shalazar if you could get me into the Academy," says Meiji.
"You mean right now?" asks Mallus, coolly sipping his drink.
"No, no. But I just wanted to remind you about it, since you two are here." His eyes flicker past Mallus and take on an anticipatory gleam. "And I wouldn’t want any interruption there right now."
Mallus, looking down at his drink and attempting to give the impression that he has no connection with, knowledge or even awareness of the man he’s speaking to right now, looks up. "Oh. Bugger."
While Meiji and he have been speaking, the Lady Eve and the High Mage have locked gazes across the table.
"Shalazar."
"Eve."
Somewhere, far off in the distance, soft music begins to play.
"Delighted."
"Naturally."
A balding gentleman stepping out of the door cries out shrilly as a rolling mass of thorny vegetation knocks him off his feet.
"This … is … beautiful!" Meiji mutters, quietly but devoutly, and wipes a trickle of drool from the corner of his mouth.
"I’m pleased to see you’re aging gracefully as ever, Eve. How many is it now?"
"I forget. Perhaps since I was distracted seeing you get your rocks off out in the harbor."
An unwary fly buzzes through the space where the two women’s gazes intersect and is instantly displaced temporally and physically, while being simultaneously incinerated and frozen.
A catfight for the ages brews. Before it can be served, black and tart and potentially deadly to spectators, Mallus nudges Meiji, "We do need to break this up, you know." The shugenja, a light sheen of sweat on his forehead, doesn’t take his eyes off the pair. "Are you nuts?"
"No, you almond-eyed prat! There are people around. And I like this bar. There’ll be a hole here before they’re done. You take Eve. I’ll distract Shalazar." Mallus takes a large sip at the thought of what he just said.
Meiji says nothing for a long second, and then sighs. "You’re probably right. And I do want to finish this date. And get into the Academy. Don’t forget to talk to Shalazar, okay?"
"Deal." Mallus takes a deep breath and slides back into his seat beside Shalazar, slightly distracting her.
Simultaneously, Meiji says politely, "Eve." Eve doesn’t move, and nor does Shalazar, but as Mallus quietly addresses the latter, the two women carefully disengage their gazes and turn to the men beside them. "Would you like me to get you a drink?" asks Meiji brightly.
Eve frowns slightly, and then her face clears and she laughs. "Yes, that’s enough of that. Come along Meiji; let’s get a drink at the bar." She steps forward and slides her arm through his. As they walk away, however, her head swivels and she calls back to Shalazar, "By the way, I just love your dress. It’s just perfect for working at night."
There is a breathless silence, broken by the sound of Mallus muttering something quietly, and then Shalazar’s sotto voce remark, "What an odd couple!" to the assorted hangers on surrounding her.
Meiji hurries Eve onwards, his leg inadvertently rubbing against her staff, an act that causes him to take on a strangely crablike gait. The two of them reach and manage to squeeze in at the establishment’s long, mobbed hardwood bar.
"I know where we are," exclaims Eve, looking around, Shalazar clearly forgotten. "This is the Chanson Du Ragwan. I haven’t been here in… years. They’ve remodeled. Have you ever heard the 'Chanson'? It’s a famous historical poem that’s been put to music, unless, of course, it started as a bawdy song favored by sailors with the clap that got more respectable as time went by, demonstrating once again irony is the driving force behind history. Anyway, the people in Narayan take great pride in 'Il Chanson Du Ragwan'. Did you know the real Ragwan was a bloody-minded satyrist from the Pirate Times? He was half-brother to the last Pirate-King, dear, gentle, Roderique Wrothchilde. They called him Ragwan Bloody Pike. How I miss pirate double entendres! Now Ragwan would have burned a place like this to the ground, but not before wiping his ass on ... do you suppose those are real linens? And would you look at her. She was not born a redhead. Nor a woman. Take my word for it."
[Todays update is brought to you by me and shilsen. Not to mention the letter 'C' and the number 42...]
Interlude: Mystery Date, part 2
"You see young, potentially plum-sweet Meiji, there's nothing wrong with talking. I approve of all idle and ambitious gossip. Just stay away from understanding like it's the plague, which, as a matter of fact, it is. Now shouldn't you being saying something about my eyes?"
"Actually," says Meiji, with a deadpan expression, "I was so rapt with the glorious sight of those limpid pools that are your twin orbs that I wasn't responding."ť
"Twin orbs?! Are you certain you're talking about my eyes? I've been around the block a few times, Meiji. In directions that you'd have difficulty perceiving."
"Eyes? What eyes? As far as being around the block a few times, in view of what you've told me, I can't argue with that. Maybe I can persuade you to show me some of these curves you've traced that I haven't..."
"Careful, you're straying into understanding."ť
"... or the curves that trace you, as the case may be." His grin broadens.
"That's better. Keep your eyes on the prize. Where did you get 'limpid pools' from? That sounds like Arabia Wainwright's tripe. Have you been reading our literature?"
He pauses like a small boy caught with his hands in the neighbor's daughter's cookie jar, then pats his pockets exaggeratedly before pulling out a page torn from a book.
"Yes ... yes," he mutters aloud while looking at it, "Limpid pool ... twin orbs ... I think I got it all." Meiji looks back up at Eve and grins broadly. "Just making sure. I'd be reciting poetry to you already, but the primary Imperial poetic form usually has more to say about frogs leaping into ponds or cherry blossoms than about a lady's eyes. That was from 'At Long Last Lost Love', by the way. Burne's mechanical cat recommended it. He's quite the fan of Arabia Wainwright. Speaking of which, he - the cat, not Burne - offered to come along in an ... um, advisory capacity tonight."
Eve half barks, half laughs, marveling at the sheer slippery weight of Meiji's personality, which against all odds manages to make what he's saying seductive, in a way that's not only foreign, but wholly foreign to the art of seduction.
Meiji casts an appreciative eye at his dinner companion as she guffaws in distinctly unladylike manner. She's a little like Wu Shu, he thinks silently. Taller, of course. And probably less dangerous. Well, perhaps.
Unfazed by the notion her date sought romantic advice from an alchemist's automatic cat, Eve says idly, 'Limpid' may be the least sexy word I know, and I should know, I've been hit on by pirates. It says to me 'tonight the flag will be flying no higher than half-mast', if at all. Needless to say, it's one of Arabia's favorites.
'Of course,"ť says Meiji, listening with one ear while watching a spot on Eve considerably lower than hers.
"I suppose there are worse introductions to CITY's culture, such as it is. At least Arabia's books are blissfully free of meaning. Except for those dreadful historical novels she wrote a few decades back. She's much older than she looks, you know. Those books have an ugly streak of truth in them."
Meiji looks around the room and says, "This place is a little too crowded for my taste. Would you care to repair, milady, to a perhaps quieter and more intimate setting?"
"I surely would. Should we go for something cozy or someplace with a progressive policy towards conjugal, I mean public displays of affection? Sorry, I was trying to shock you. Old habit. Did I mention I went to art school?"
Meiji says nothing, simply turning his head slightly to hide the eye that began twitching wildly at the mention of the word 'conjugal' and letting Eve continue. "Let's see, cozy little restaurants... there's Piebald's, no wait, that was destroyed by a hurricane spun off the Sea of Storms... well, there's the Fireflower Hive, no, that was accidentally Gated to the Polar Wastes after a disastrous bar-bet during the Skulling Championships of 225. I've got it, the Zenith House, wait, no, they don't allow foreigners. Why don't you pick?"
"I know just the place" says Meiji smoothly; having spent the afternoon scouting out places for his assignation with the Lady Eve, not to mention acquiring a lambskin prophylactic blessed by a trio of priests. He takes Eve's arm in his.
On the way, Meiji asks, "So how have you been keeping busy since you left us? I have a couple of - I think - amusing stories for you regarding what happened to our motley bunch since I saw you last. Which, of course, seems like it was far too long ago."
"I took a walk, did some inquiring into my possible fates. I went... hmmm, just around the block, actually, in one of those directions you can't perceive that I mentioned earlier. I have to say you look much better without bat wings and the tail of a serpent."ť
"So I spent a leisurely hour that would have taken much, much longer here, and spied a woman who bore a distinct resemblance to me, only older and decidedly less fabulous. The details, I'm afraid, are somewhat sketchy.
I saw the woman put into a bottle made of bones. Like some cheap genie. As it happened I felt a chill along my spine, as if my soul was a cup of strong, sweet tea, and someone nasty had just taken a sip. Which I suppose isn't much like a chill at all.ť
ťI am many cups of tea, Meiji, scattered hither and yon. Sweet Aja! Did I just say that? I sound like a bit from one of Arabia's 'foreign novels'. Have you read "Shogun, Show Me Your Heart" yet? Don't. Your people practice ritual suicide, don't they? As I was saying, I'm a little... everywhere. But I'm afraid Nadir might find a way of making me everywhere but here. At least long enough to take the Dominatrix Staff. So, how was your day?"
Meiji is silent for a long moment after her description and then says, "Was it the future you saw? Or maybe I should say, a future."ť
"You should indeed." Eve stands close enough to kiss Meiji. Or, if she was a Kabuki witch, muses Meiji, to consume his mortal soul. Not that he worries about the possibility, his memory flitting back to the time when he let his soul 'and other things' be consumed thrice in one night by a particularly nubile Kabuki witch called...
Meiji returns to the moment and, to hide his momentary displacement, says with a smile, "Wu Shu always said the future is like a box of dumplings. You never know what you've got until you bite into it. Then again, she also said that having too much gives you gas and bad breath."
Eve takes a step back, with a barking laugh that suggests an inebriated seal from a declining nation that just got the joke.
Meiji's eyes twinkle at the response. "Maybe it wasn't that great an analogy. Anyhow," he adds, "Though I'm rarely one for real gallantry and never one for getting myself into unnecessary danger, if I can help prevent Nadir from harming you, I will do so. And I mean you, specifically. I couldn't care less about the Staff."
Even as he is speaking, Meiji wonders, Now what made me that honest? And he is not completely pleasantly surprised at the realization that he does actually care, if not to a great extent, about Eve's welfare. Hmm, he muses, She's getting to me. Strange.
The shugenja opens his mouth to continue, but Eve cuts him off with the skill of a woman who's been talking at men for centuries, "How silly of me! I wanted to show you my nails. I had them done when I was... around the corner."ť
Eve takes hold of one of Meiji's hands, while pushing her other into his face, deliberately brushing one cheek. Up close, he sees her fingernails are painted in undulating bands of red. The eddy currents in her nails are hypnotic and Meiji feels fear, elation, and a hint of burning almonds rise up it him.
"It won't last long. Manicures seldom do. A few hours ago they had a far richer emotional subtext, though on the down side everything I touched turned into something that looked like amber." She smiles sweetly at Meiji, and grips his hand even harder.
Meiji's sense of vague disquiet, caused by experiencing feelings as alien as concern about another being, isn't helped by Eve's display of her strangely-decorated hands. So he reacts the way he always does when something scares him --he fakes both nonchalance and a high level of confidence. Smiling brightly at her, he reaches up to take her raised hand, though he is careful to avoid touching the nails.
He cocks his head to look at the pattern and says, "Pretty." Then he bends over to kiss her on the back of the hand, lingering slightly longer than needed. "Pretty tasty too," he smiles as he straightens up.
Then, looking over her shoulder, he quickly adds, "Ah, here we are," indicating the restaurant they've been heading towards. "Let's get a table and then I can tell you what we've been up to. Let's just say, in short, that Kenji and Rackhir went off without Burne and me and managed to get beaten up by Nadir and also ... as I think they say it in the idiom here ... pimped us out to the Gondoliers Guild and partly to the Shirac. Oh joy!"
Meiji Kitsumi awoke the next morning from unsettling dreams, one in particular which involved one beautiful woman and another with demonic wings but a terrific rack, to find his... 'rod of manhood'... not transformed, as per most mornings, into one of the Pillars of Heaven, rather wrung out like a snake that had been attacked overnight by a pack of shadows.
"That was one hell of a date" says Meiji to himself, grinning. That is, until he realizes he can't remember a minute of it after leaving the restaurant arm in arm with the Lady Eve.
__________________ "We're pimps and killers, but in a philanthropic way." -- Boyd, Dollhouse.
To tease and torment you all. Yet another post not by everyone's favorite Alchemist.
<Read by Deep Announcer Voice>
Rackhir is a man on a Mission.
He has 24 hrs to find the Yu bow before the entire run of the Jerry Springer Show is beamed into his head by Nadir.
<Cut to Rackhir Gripping Meiji by his collar and shouting in his face>
"WHERE IS IT!"
"Where's what?"
"I DON"T KNOW! MALLUS HASN"T TOLD US YET!"
He's a man on the edge.
<Cut to Rackhir on the ledge of a building with Burne Poking his Head out the window>
"Rackhir, don't jump! You haven't tested out the boots yet. Besides I'm sure that Mallus will get around to writing the information on the Bow up. It's only been 15 months."
He's about to explode
<Cut to Kenji calmly having Tea with Dr. Wu>
"No I'm not doing that scene."
Coming to a D&D game near you sometime before the next millennium or the second coming of Elvis Presley.
THE YU BOW SAGA!!!!
__________________ "We are all Individuals! They chanted in unison...
I have just finished reading the first page, and I am hooked. The writing is excellent and the setting intriguing. It reminds me of the world of china melville, familiar and yet surprising. I am very jealous.
- Crothian (and 
Linear Mode
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