• Solo • The Dressmaker

[Noth]

Zi’da 2, 717

It was still taking Noth some time to grow accustomed to the relative mood surrounding the island country of Scalvoris. It was true that there were some parts of the island that reminded him quite handily of his home, and they made him question whether such places were the same everywhere. The taverns still seethed with drunkards and alcoholics looking to get their fixes after their assorted work had finished for the trial. Farms still stunk of manure and their occupants still maneuvered themselves throughout establishments, proudly wearing the marks of their labor, the dirt and grime acting as a badge of their hard work. Even the markets were not altogether so different from those in Etzos, persons shouting and haggling, cheerfully celebrating good deals and prices, or condemning those few peddlers whose wares were far too overpriced for their worth.

But there was so much too that was different from Etzos. There were so many people who spoke of their travels to distant lands, of their adventures hither and thither. In Etzos, the people were far more isolationist in nature; a byproduct of their intense hatred of the Immortals and their being surrounded almost exclusively by civilizations who worshipped the divine beings. Simultaneously, there was far less emphasis upon the ocean and the journeys that could take place upon it. The plateau city had never involved itself too terribly in the nearby oceans, nor ever truly invested in a navy to patrol it, choosing instead to focus their efforts upon the land and the stone underneath. The people of Etzos were rugged and rough, working with a strange intensity that was lacking in Scalvoris, a desire to show themselves off to the rest of the world, to showcase that they did not need nor desire the assistance of the godlings.

Conflict seemed to be more common in Etzos as well, violence having become almost an everyday occurrence, something that was chastised and discussed at the dinner table. Perhaps it was their geographical location, the way that they were sandwiched between hostile foreign powers, or perhaps it was simply some quality of the general culture of the people that led them to fight for what they wanted. Noth considered that he could almost grow to enjoy the company of the Scalvorians… Scalvorites? Regardless, he could see himself growing to enjoy the pleasantness of their company, and as he sat quietly at a table in the back of a local tavern, nursing a warm soup that had been delivered to him for a cheap price, he found himself eagerly examining the associated persons of the establishment.

A middle-aged woman strode in through the door, sliding past it with an apparent familiarity with its structure, and promptly stepped towards the bar, rapping her knuckle gently against it and running her oft-hand through her hand, exhaling with an exasperated sigh of frustration. The whole place had been cheery and mirthful before her arrival, but as the other patrons took notice of her, the conversation and vibrancy of the place promptly fell several decibels, gradually clearing until it was only conspiratorial whispers and soft consolatory tones. The bartender approached the woman, reaching an arm across the bar and placing it onto her shoulder, sliding her desired lager towards her. They shared a look between them, and if the bartender’s face was any reflection of her own, the hybrid perceived that it was a melancholic and sad expression.

Crimson eyes examined her carefully, taking notice of the uniform she wore, of the rigid way that she had entered the place, and he came to the quick conclusion that she was an enforcer of the law, or perhaps even a military agent. The name of the local law enforcement escaped his thoughts, but regardless, it was clear to him that the manner of such enforcers was the same even across an ocean of distance. In Etzos, the arrival of a member of the Black Guard in one of the seedier drinking holes might have warranted a complete shift in attitude by the patrons who quickly grew tight-lipped of their nefarious schemes. The tavern was hardly a seedy place, however, and the mood had grown sad, not secretive.

“He got another one.” She announced with sudden agitation, her hand twitching with furious outrage, and shifting the liquid in her mug to its sides, the lager sloshing with each gesticulation.

The bartender simply nodded his acceptance of this as fact, a frown creasing his features. “I know.” He uttered, giving the woman another consolation pat. She shook suddenly as though possessed by some unseen force, pressing her face viciously against the counter, and slamming her hand with force against it, a gavel to the conversation, ceasing it in an instant.

“We were so close.” She spoke, her voice choked with sobs.“So close.” She reiterated, her voice beginning to fail.

“I know.” He responded, sighing with evident sadness. Throughout the building, assorted patrons began to stand and make their farewells, each of them wearing a mask of irritation or behaving with depression, each one having had their mirth smashed by the entry of the woman, and yet, when they gazed upon her it was not with anger, but with sympathy, the look of a kindred soul who suffered alongside them.

When at last almost all of the bar’s customers had vanished, and even the middle-aged woman had retired for the night to her sobs, the twilight hybrid lifted himself from his seat in the corner, and approached.

“Excuse me. I am not from here, but I’m curious. What was the sudden change in mood for?” He questioned politely, gesturing towards the building as a whole whilst he spoke.

The bartender shifted his eyes upward as he cleaned out a mug, clearly making preparations to end his shift and return home, and while he carried at least some semblance of suspicion in his gaze, he spoke nonetheless. “The woman who came in here works for the Elements. They’ve been hunting a loony who’s been killing young girls, chopping them up real nasty. Few trials back another girl went missing, and it looked like the Elements might have known where to look, might have gotten close.” He shook his head sadly. “Found her hanging from a tree out in a park today, dressed up in a wedding dress, dead.”

The hybrid nodded, finding himself strangely compelled to grow melancholic at the news though he knew it did not affect him personally. “He dresses them in wedding dresses?” He questioned, and the bartender nodded. “Aye. Dresses them, starves them, and cuts them up real bad. Always keeps them for ten trials.”

The twilight hybrid nodded his acceptance of this news, paid his tab, and promptly prepared to depart from the establishment, a single thought roiling in his mind.

Perhaps Scalvoris was like Etzos after all.

[Noth]

It was a strange compulsion of morality that drove the twilight hybrid to begin scouring through the city in search of dressmakers, as though he had been possessed by some otherworldly being and sentenced to enact a quest of little value to him. It was of little value of him to locate the serial killer who had been stalking the streets of Scalvoris for so long, and yet, he had seen the effects that he had wrought in his place, and it had made the hybrid himself melancholic. He had never been a stranger to death, nor in recent arcs to the subject and act of killing, but there was a difference between what he did, and what the serial killer purportedly performed every few trials. Noth slew others because they were a threat to him, or else because they had something that he needed, typically some manner of economic surplus that would facilitate his future operations. Skinny Jim on the other hand clearly suffered from a desire to maim and murder without reason.

The night had quietly crept its way into control of the world, cascading everything in a blanket of darkness, the only light available being the flicker of faint firelight and the glowing glint of the lesser luminaries above. The cosmic bodies seemed different somehow in Scalvoris, and the hybrid spent much of his walk home gazing upward in astonishment, shackling any inhibition of paranoid protectiveness to its place and focusing instead upon the natural wonder of the place. Were he a young lady he might have been more cautious of his jaunt, but it seemed the killer had his type.

Had his type.

The thought thrust into bloom and he began to carefully unfold it, following it to its natural conclusion. If he could locate what sort of person was being captured by the madman, then he could potentially set a trap for him and catch him in the act. Yet, the more he considered the idea, the more it became something conceited and difficult to perform. He did not have any allies here who would assist him in his scheme, nor any true contact with the criminal underground where he could recruit brutish sorts to align themselves to his will. Further, there was the possibility that the women were being chosen seemingly at random, and if that were the case, then any pattern he discerned would prove to be inconsequential.

What else was there, then? He rapt upon the door of the inn where he had stayed the night prior, and promptly allowed himself entry into the building. A quick exchange of golden nels had secured him his room for another night, but the steadily falling quantity of such shining nuggets was growing increasingly apparent. Within another few trials he would be completely without the currency necessary to sustain his trip, despite his frugalness in regards to meals and rooming arrangements. If he could only capture the murderer, then he would be able to commit him to the jurisdiction of the policing force, and be rewarded handily for his efforts. A potential solution, and even greater motivation now swirling into thought, he committed himself to the goal of catching Skinny Jim and putting an end to his terror. With the thought still rattling around his skull, he lay down to rest, stripping away the armor he wore so often for a short while to sleep.

[Noth]

Zi’da 3, 717

The twilight hybrid awoke early in the morning, quickly relieving himself of the burden of sleepiness that kept wrapped tightly around his form. He donned his armor, steeling himself for a trial of grim investigation and perhaps even interrogation if he came across any particularly difficult subjects of conversation. That said, the first person he determined to check as the dawn arose from its cosmic slumber was the innkeeper. After all, it would raise no suspicion, nor be altogether unusual for a foreigner to ask about the local shops and stores; that was almost entirely what tourists did, and in a way he supposed he was simply a tourist, albeit one with a mission.

“Pardon. Do you happen to know where I might find any shops selling wedding attire?” He questioned eagerly as he came across the innkeeper. The answer was descriptive and filled with assorted directions, a mental map formed to put him on the right track. According to the innkeeper there were two shops in town that made attire of the sort he was seeking, and he was granted instruction on how to reach each. With a thankful nod and a remarkably pleasant smile, the hybrid set off from the inn in search of the first establishment.

The subtle sound of chatter greeted him as he maneuvered through the relatively busy streets of Scalvoris, shifting through several groups of people, and keeping a peripheral eye out for any pickpocketing orphans; there was one for every few dozen people in any given city, after all. Disappointingly, the first business he came to dealt almost entirely with the adornment of grooms and their respective gentlemanly accompaniments. True, there were assorted accessories that could be purchased: brooches, earrings, and the like, but they did not deal in the fabrication of wedding dresses, and thus they were entirely useless to the hybrid.

Noth promptly found himself seeking out the next business, finding it with relative ease though it was a small shop tucked in between two larger business conglomerations. He entered, listening to the gentle jingle of a bell as it alerted the owner to his presence. All around the interior were a series of dresses and gentlemanly attire, each separated off into pairs as though they came in a set. A feathered finger almost instinctively reached outwards towards the nearest fabric, brushing it across his skin, feeling the smooth silkiness it embodied.

“Coming, coming!” Came a relatively light voice from the backroom, the room separated into two portions by a long table stretching across its length, a section of it cut away near the middle to allow for ease of access. Presumably the backroom contained storage for the remainder of the building, but there was also a possibility that there was an office or two littered around the back of the structure where the owner could perform any business-related duties he required in relative silence. Noth sincerely doubted that any noise from the street would ever penetrate all the way to the back, especially since it had all but died when he had stepped into the store.

The owner came into view after a further few trills, and the hybrid immediately set about analyzing him. He was wiry and relatively short, his veins showing plainly through his flesh, the skin having long since set about in the gradual deterioration that always followed old age. He seemed almost elderly, though he moved with a surprisingly spry step, and a smile that immediately reminded Noth of stories of grandfatherly figures. His hair was thin and beginning to grey. His eyes were a genteel tinge of blue, and they moved with rapid movement, a clear sign of his still being mentally acute despite his age. His clothes were far less fanciful as he had expected given the nature of the establishment, but they did not seem poorly constructed either, though, the leathery gloves he wore had begun to fray with use. All in all, he seemed a frail old man, and the appearance of someone so aged made the hybrid consider his own mortality briefly, gazing into a mirror image of what all of them would eventually become, a clue to the inevitable fate of all life: emaciated, weak, grasping at straws with mental prowess that would eventually come to naught.

“How can I help you, sir?” He politely offered, stepping beyond the barrier of the room, and removing a pair of spectacles from his eyes, placing them upon the nearby table for ease of access.

Noth smiled, removing the armet from his head so that they could more accurately look at one another, and whilst there was a brief flicker of curiosity that glazed over the man’s eyes, there was surprisingly little reaction. Typically he received a frightful grimace, or perhaps even a more curious exclamation at his appearance, but instead the man seemed content to leave his abominable physicality out of the picture, the tolerance of the elderly who had already seen far worse.

“I’ve been given the splendid work of being the best man at my friend’s wedding, which naturally comes with all the stress that entails.” He chuckled lightly, his voice friendly and conversational. “Anyways, his fiancée wanted to scout out the dress shops around town, and so I’ve been sent out to help with their search.”

The elderly man nodded, waving the beastly Avriel over to the table as he slipped behind it and retrieved a large bundle of paper bound together and a writing implement. “Of course, of course. You’ve definitely come to the right place.” He grinned, shifting papers rapidly until he came to a blank page. “If you happen to have their measurements, I could show you a few outfits that might work so you get a better feel for my work.”

The Avriel raised his crimson eyes briefly, staring upwards as he attempted to conceive something that sounded at least remotely realistic. He promptly listed off a series of numbers, using his hands to specify sizes in a more astute way to which the elderly man simply nodded, likely convinced that the hybrid hadn’t come entirely equipped for his scouting. Nevertheless, he seemed intent on giving a good impression, and so he scribbled down a series of measurements upon a loose page, and then nodded. “I’ll see what we have in stock. I’ll be just a bit.” He spoke before disappearing into the backrooms out of sight.

Crimson eyes gazed down on the stack of papers, flipping the stack to face him so that he could gaze them better. Assorted records greeted his eyes, drafted in a mixture of short and longhand writing that made it somewhat difficult to discern at first glance. He began to scour through the records with a rapid intensity, looking in particular for the purchases whose dates coincided within ten trials of the murders. He took notice of a name that appeared in two of the aforementioned searches, noting that the sale had gone exactly twelve trials before the appearance of a body in both cases. It seemed strange to him that someone would need to purchase wedding attire twice in such a short time, and the relative dates could certainly be no coincidence. He flicked to the most recent date, crimson eyes scanning the page as quickly as possible, listening intently for the footsteps that would reveal the elderly man had begun to return.

There.

Padren Oakley

He shut the book, committing the name to memory immediately, reciting it like an eldritch chant in his mind so as to make it stick to whatever faculty controlled memories. The elderly man returned trills later, carrying along a pair of garments to examine. He briefly paused at the book, looking down at it for several anxiety inducing trills, and the hybrid wondered whether he somehow knew that the item had been tampered with in his absence. Thankfully, he seemed only to be ensuring that the measurements he had written were correct, and the visit carried on as previous. Nearly a break was spent gazing at fashionable items that he would never need, but the trip had been far more successful than he had imagined.

He had a name.

[Kali'rial]

Noth

Overview

AHHH NOTH IS IN SCALVORIS AND KALI IS GONE DANG IT! Ah well! Scalvorianites. Ah those npc’s are sooo goooooood. Oh go get him birds, go get him! I love the detective work in this. Great writing as always.

Points

XP: 10/10 (Not for magic)

Fame/Loot/Injuries/Overstepping

-5GN for transactions

Knowledge

Skill Knowledge:
Investigation: Look for Patterns
Investigation: Read Records for Clues
Stealth: Listening for Footsteps

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