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A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2021 6:18 pm
by Finn
73 Searing 121
The Academy of Kalzasi
It wasn't uncommon for Finn to find himself in the Academy's archives. He might not have been there today had he not been given a reason, however. After his morning classes, he might have gone to Ale'Ephirium to see if Lyra needed him for anything that day, or gone busking to keep his performance skills honed just in case every good fortune that had built up over the past couple of seasons burst like a soap bubble and he was back to singing for his supper and hoping he would have enough for rent at the beginning of the next month.
But Petra Cormorant, the woman with the face of a card shark and the strange companion, had remembered the Crown and Lion and sent him a note there. Mail was uncommon for him, but she asked to meet at the archives that day and so here he was. But his classes had ended long before the appointed meeting time so here he was. Caught up on most things because he kept himself to a strict schedule lest he get overwhelmed and everything come crashing down, he found himself with idle time and so he found himself copying out what he thought was something poetic in Vallenor.
At this point, he could read it phonetically, but his actual grasp of the ancient elven tongue was not impressive unless one was impressed by a young minstrel attempting to learn a dead language just because. His script was neat and concise, though not as pretty as the original. The foundation of most of the lines consisted of two hemistichs of six syllables each, separated by a caesura. It seemed like an iambic hexameter, which would certainly flow like water. He murmured many of the lines as he wrote them, making little musical notations here and there to remind him later of some little idea that had struck him if he were to put it to music. If it did turn out to be purely iambic, he might have been mispronouncing a couple of words. Where the stress fell mattered, of course, but some vowels changed shape depending on whether they were stressed or unstressed.
Finn was unstressed by this. There was no deadline, only his own intellectual and artistic curiosity. It hardly felt like work at all.
But he did lose track of time, startled, and quickly packed things up. In his rush out, he handed the source material to a librarian and asked if it could be held for him until the morrow. With murmured thanks, he hurried to the appointed meeting place Petra had described.
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 2:49 pm
by Petra
Petra suns herself like a regal housecat. Like a calico, she is in shades of cream and black. Her pale face lights up like pearl in the afternoon sun, and her pale hands rest on the top of the wall where she slouches against a pillar. Her clothes are dark, as dark as her hair - black trousers cling like a second skin to the dangling leg, and one of her black jackboots kicks at the air, while the other keeps her perched on the top of the wall.
If one were to be unflattering, one might also say that, like the calico, it is rather hard to tell Petra's gender at first sight - in her relaxed, slouched attitude, she looks as much like one of the indolent schoolboys who frequent the academic district as she does a Circle Sorceress. The ambiguity resolves when she turns her head to look at Finn, hearing him coming as soon as he rounds a corner to enter her little, empty, out-of-the-way yard.
A tree blooms in the middle, a stunted oak. Young, vey young, one day it will fill the cloister to bursting and rise to heaven, but for now it pushes furtively out of the ground and towards the burning sky.
In its shade, right below Petra, Yesod stands. Perhaps he is afraid his mistress will fall, and is ready to catch her with his malformed, disintegrating arms.
"Finn. It's good to see you again." She's hard to read, certainly, but the warmth in her voice is unmistakable. No matter what thoughts lurk in the pits of those green eyes, her affection for Finn is amicable and undeniable. "I'm glad you came. I think this is an opportunity you won't want to miss."
Yesod shudders suddenly, as if moved by his mistress' words. Petra runs her braid between her fingers thoughtfully, waiting for the wind to pass and silence the rustling leaves. Her quiet voice might have been drowned out, had she challenged the music of even this fledgling arbor.
"I have a position as a party entertainer that needs filling, and all I ask is that I get to be your plus-one. Are you doing anything tonight?"
'Do you want to go to a noble soiree with me?' What a romantic I've become.
"There's money in it, and you're the perfect man for the job."
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2021 6:36 pm
by Finn
"Hullo, Petra," he said. No need to bow, so he just took a seat nearby where he could keep her companion in his field of vision as well as her. The thing looked gentle enough, though it certainly looked capable of violence. Perhaps he was judging it too harshly; perhaps the atavistic prickle up his spine was his soul's way of warning him about things he couldn't sense with his all too human mind. There were so many things in this world that remained a mystery to him.
Finn had slowly been improving his wardrobe. One had to look presentable when one was playing for people above one's social class, after all. And while there were scholars poorer than him, there was something about the Academy that made him want to clean up and look his best—respect paid to the pursuit of knowledge, perhaps. The blue of his doublet was greener than his eyes, which flattered his skin as well. He looked more Plaza of the Jeweled Arches than Low-City, but it had required a steady investment in his spare coin.
He considered her offer for a moment.
"I am free this evening," he said. Then, with an impish smile, "Are you going to tell me why you want to be my plus-one? You needn't if it's a card you want to keep close to your chest, but you can't blame me for being curious." Perhaps it was her poker face that lent her an air of mystery. Perhaps it was the creature that waited on her.
"Am I dressed all right or ought I go home and change?" He didn't know whose party this was, what neighborhood it was in, or anything, really. But it was always good to be seen professionally, especially given his time for professional work was limited by his studies these days and while he enjoyed the homey feel of the Crown and Lion's taproom as well as the vaguely familial feel of its regular crowd, he did want to be able to reach a wider audience.
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:15 am
by Petra
"You look perfect."
It comes out as a little more complimentary than she intended, but it's not like she doesn't mean it. Even with her... particularities, she has to acknowledge a handsome and well-dressed man when she sees one, and Finn certainly fits the bill, at least to her eye. The perfect troubadour, just different enough from the platonic ideal to not seem artificial. She rather admires the genuine charm of his presentation. Amongst magi, there are so many secrets; while she's certain there are just as many with performers, they at least have the good sense to hide the fact.
"It's at the manor of a Hatakomon. Yanghseng Kong Sichong." A moderately famous name - patriarch of a family whose interests, even beyond their impressive military record, include the lion's share of the porters and couriers within the center of the city. A man with the potential to be profoundly powerful, Petra is more confident in this scheme knowing that is comparative mediocrity within the city's upper elite is a mark of his less than exceptional ability.
An abundance of means and a paucity of ability: always the perfect target.
"I've been tracking down a book for some time - across a hundred years and a thousand miles. The Records of the Brass Embassy, by a collection of long-dead sages. A repository of daemonic information. The sort of names that could be sold to factories to power their machinery, or to guilds to facilitate the manufacture of goods, or to couriers to transport material across the city. Profitable names. I intend to sell some of them back to the Yangsheng family, once I get a look at them and bind them for their couriers."
Petra leaves out the most likely buyer - the military, and those with an interest in violence. Blood, even more than knowledge, pays. She also glosses over the fact that, while technically legal, the illicit access of information is not something the powerful are ever willing to happily allow, or even go unpunished.
"I just need a foot in the door, and a few minutes alone with the book, which is somewhere in his manor. You get me in the door, entertain, rake in gratuities, and keep eyes drawn when I need solitude, and we might both make out like kings."
Yesod shudders, inhuman - tantalized by the very mention of success, no doubt.
"Verdict?"
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Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 12:24 pm
by Finn
"Well, thank you," he said, startled by what sounded like a genuine compliment. He didn't immediately respond in kind as many people would; he always felt like that made a compliment, even a sincere one, seem perfunctory.
"Ah, House Yangsheng..." He considered, listening to her actually share her plan. He appreciated that. Many people thought him too stupid to understand things; more so even here at the Academy where he was actively seeking to improve his education. Of course, chances were she wasn't telling him everything, but he could hardly expect that. While he knew the Hatakomon's name and some of their reputation, he had never played at their home, so of course, that was enticing. But at the mention of demonic powers, his gaze cut to Yesod.
His gaze cut to her. She claimed to be of the Order of the Red Robes, and he trusted at least one of their members. Of course, a black robe meant ambition, not evil. A white robe meant working toward the greater good, but he knew plenty of tales of supposedly virtuous people doing problematic things. Blue eyes regarded her frankly, not hiding that he was calculating an ethical question. He didn't ask why a Hatakomon held a tome of demonic lore, but Finn had never been one to assume the moral superiority of those higher on the socio-economic ladder than he was. There was something of derring-do in the idea that Petra would read a book and steal its secrets if not the text itself, thereby sticking it to the people who thought themselves better than the working classes. He pursed his lips.
"All right," he said. "But if you read anything that would make a good story, I want to hear about it. If not, I might have to make this little plot into a ballad, though, of course, I'll change the names to protect the guilty." He winked.
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 2:16 pm
by Petra
Petra pricks her finger with a knife that seems to appear in her hand as if from nowhere. Blood runs down it, and she whispers a name into it. The blood, carmine and dark in the sunlight, simmers and vanishes into a puff of blue haze - one that transforms into a misshapen bird with four wings on one side and three on another, a bird made of polished brass and with eyes of fire.
It hoots in a language that man forgot. Its feathers change colors like heating metal, the patterns spreading over its body. It is heavy on Petra's body, and its wings flap in a polyrhythm that almost hurts to try and follow. Frustrating, inhuman, and incorrect - oddly fitting for the waifish sorceress who preens like a statue of a languid cat.
She murmurs another word to it, and it warps with a flesh-cracking, bone-wrenching, gut-churning sound, and appears in a puff of feathers like a pigeon. "Endaemon. Bird of Ten Thousand Faces. I pay her for courier services. Very useful." Petra pulls out a little slip of paper from her pocket and ties it neatly around the demon's leg. Then - a quick pat on the back, a given address, and it is off.
Petra must have prepared the paper beforehand. She only prepared one. She has never liked to consider the possibility of failure. It only makes her more afraid.
"I've never been immortalized in song. Please, sing about it. I would love to hear my pseudonym in taverns and pubs. There's something beautiful about a secret only you know. To invent one, from thin air, is one thing. To then advertise it, spread it, give it a life of its own, and all the while keep its mystique?"
Petra's smile is tiny, but so very, very real.
"I can't think of anything better. Can you?"
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 5:20 pm
by Finn
The bird certainly looked wrong before it changed shapes. Summoners could call to spirits of the wild and celestials, but also the chaotic entities and infernals. He guessed she was fond of the latter half of that list, though he supposed there was nothing inherently evil about binding evil and chaotic spirits if one put them to good use. Or perhaps he was missing something in the grand scheme of morality.
"Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot." He was quoting someone; he just couldn't remember who. He smiled and shrugged and readjusted his lute case's wide strap on his shoulder. He liked that one and others to the effect of artists using lies to tell the truth. It was an exciting sort of paradox that he understood how to solve, if not articulate. A great deal of his recent training was learning how to articulate so much of what was ineffable to him, and sometimes it helped but other times it rather took the joy out of things.
Finn squinted at the sky, watching her faux messenger pigeon disappear toward Cloudhaven and Adira's Promenade. He couldn't remember where this particular Hatakomon's estate lay, but he figured Petra knew where they were going.
"Shall we?" he asked. He didn't know how long it would take them to get there but, he knew that when one was responsible for the entertainment, it was frowned upon for one to be late. He crooked his arm and held it out to her. If she was going to be his plus-one, they were going to have to act the part, at least enough to get past nominal scrutiny and it would be best to get used to it well before anyone from the party saw them.
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2021 1:17 pm
by Petra
"And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs is little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherries hung with snow.
Petra hops nimbly down from her wall. Yesod almost makes to catch her, but Petra needs no assistance. She lands with a cat's grace, her slender legs bending to absorb the impact, her whole body coiling up and then slowly unfurling back to a straight-backed stand when she is good and ready.
"Soon, very soon, we'll attend. There are days yet before the party. The lord of Hatakomon is notoriously mercurial. Perhaps the party will never come, and all this will be dust. But for now..."
Petra walks up beside Finn and, having to reach slightly up to do so, links her arm in his. She hangs her forearm in the crook of his elbow, and lets their bodies touch.
Perhaps there is no harm in playing the part. No doubt Knife would mock me for paying for my date, but who else will take me? It has been too long, after all. Far too long, by any account.
Petra is warm, and firm, and slender. She is a woman of glass hanging from his arm - delicate and sharp in equal measure.
"For now, we need to build our story. I intend to do so collaboratively. Over a meal, and good coffee." Petra's smile widens ever so slightly, and perhaps there is the faintest blush on her cheeks. A rosy addition to a woman unused to contact.
How long has it been since another person has touched me? The knife pierces my skin more often than a person touches it. What a sad state of affairs.
"Your choice. My treat. I don't get out enough to decide. Surprise me, Finn."
Petra bites her tongue briefly, considering, then utters a word she is so loathe to use.
"If you please?"
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Sat Aug 21, 2021 5:36 pm
by Finn
Finn smiled when she took his arm, and was equally, if not more pleased that her companion didn't come to take his other. For a moment, he considered opening his senses through his rune to listen to the creature's symphony, but something stopped him—an atavistic sense of self-preservation, perhaps.
He would ask Zef about protecting oneself from a symphony that might overwhelm one. Of course, he knew how to pull his senses back into himself, but he hadn't ever really considered that listening to a symphony might damage him. Of course, the intense feedback with Arry could hurt; the two of them were growing in mesmeric power and the loop was a great deal to handle.
Once Zef taught him some defensive techniques, he would listen to what Petra's companion had to sing.
"Well, there are plenty of places near the Academy that offer drinks, both stimulating and intoxicating, depending on what the scholar in question requires. But for something to surprise you, we might have to walk as far away as the Plaza of Jeweled Arches."
It didn't occur to him to take a cab. Whether from his village upbringing, his modest means, or habit, he got places on his own two feet. It saved money, it kept him in tune with the population around him, and he supposed it helped to keep him in decent shape, though he wasn't one to overeat and practicing his sword forms helped with the shape-retaining as well.
He glanced sidelong at her, waiting for her reply as they walked. Everything was in the same general direction, at least for the time being. He would change their course when he had a better idea of what she wanted. It was a mite strange to see her acting the part already, but perhaps she did just want a mundane little adventure after all.
Re: A Recurring Theme [Petra]
Posted: Fri Sep 03, 2021 5:53 am
by Reviewer
REVIEW TIME
Petra
Lores: (10 Requested, 8 Eligible)
Summoning: Messenger Summons
Summoning: Hook Summons
Summoning: Demonic Tongues
Rhetoric: Bargaining
Rhetoric: Recruiting
Etiquette: High Society
Research: Underground Connections
Research: Private Collection
Architecture: Noble Abodes
Navigation: Nice Restaurants
Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Points: 8, 3 Points may be used for Summoning(Summoning [Apprentice])
Comments:
I assume this was turned in as abandoned/finished from Finn? This was an interesting thread as I'd not read Petra before. She certainly seems an interesting character and I'm looking forward to more.
I didn't give full points to magic for the actual use of magic was small in the scale of the story/experience earned. It was well done, and within the acceptable skill range.
I've removed the Architecture and Navigation Lores you requested as you wrote 4 posts, which by the rules, only makes you eligible for 8 Lores. If you'd like 2 other lores removed instead, and I will adjust as per your desire.
Finn
Lores: (0 Requested, 10 Eligible)
Linguistics:
Phonetic Reading of Vallenor
Vallenor Poetry Structure
Understanding Word Stress
Music, Composition:
Taking Notes for Later
Adapting Poetry for Music
Etiquette:
Proper Wardrobe
Politics:
House Yangsheng
Order of the Red Robes
Mesmer:
Knowing When Not to Listen
Inherently Dangerous Symphonies
Loot: None requested
Injuries: None Requested
Points: 8, 2 may be used for Mesmer (Mesmer [Journeyman])
Comments: Only 2 points were awarded toward Mesmer for the actual use and the learning behind it was small. But a lovely thread and looking forward to seeing what happens when Finn gets truly good at it.
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