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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:01:58 GMT -6
1 Kioume Riku clasped the rose gold amulet in his hand as he walked through the grass towards the questing board. “Kioume” he whispered, summoning the spirit inside of the inanimate object. It didn’t say a word, but simply wrapped itself across his shoulders, wings spread and enjoyed the ride. Riku had the intention of taking on a quest this month. He had just quit his job - of which he put a good week’s effort into....and then realized he was qualified to do more. He was raised a noble, after all! Surely someone would pay to learn from his etiquette and grace. He almost slipped in the wet grass, causing him to figuratively bite his tongue. The polite young woman, human by the look of it, had propositioned him lightly, and he took the bait. The paper had a gold trim, which was rather nice. Reading it, he was both intrigued and compelled to help.
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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:02:32 GMT -6
2 He took one of the fliers and marched on towards the address.....asking for directions a few times. He had a pretty good sense of direction - but that didn’t mean he had every street and address memorized. Besides, this was a Summer home. It was out of the way a bit and had more of its own land. With his ‘wings’ still attached to his shoulders, he rubbed his face on the amulet spirit, which sort of purred and pressed back against his cheek. “Ready for this?” He asked. “I think so, are you...?” Kioume replied through the soft blue ribbon. “I hope so. Not really sure what to expect...” “Are you afraid of what’s causing trouble?” It asked, curling the end of its tail under his arm. Riku laughed. “I’m more afraid of the people living there than the animal stealing things. Are you afraid?” He asked as he reached up and rubbed the creatures side.
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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:02:54 GMT -6
3 “I can’t really get hurt, so no. Not really.” Kioume replied, flicking one of his wings in attempt to scratch an itch. “However, that also means I can’t really help if the situation goes south.” “Yeah, I realized that...” Riku trailed off in thought. “I was preferring to be hopeful than cautious. Besides, I didn’t feel like stopping at home to get Scarlet.” He patted the familiar on its back and then scratched the wing for him. On the property, and now reaching the house, Riku still held the flier in his pocket. He reached into it, being careful not to throw off his friend, and grabbed the sheet of gold-lined paper. He checked the address again to make sure it was correct. Seeing it was, he stepped forward and knocked on the large white door. As he waited for an answer, the two of them looked up and around at the house. It seemed really kept.
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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:03:18 GMT -6
4 Almost entirely white, other than the grey-blue roof and yellow roses that lined the front windows. The paint was flawless, and likely less than a year old. It still even had a bit of a shine to it, which the amulet spirit appreciated. With a creak, the door opened and the same woman from earlier stood at the entrance. “Well that was fast!” She said. “I just got home, myself, from posting those fliers.” Riku thought briefly about all the paper she mist have wasted, and hoped it wasn’t a lot. She gestured for the two of them to come inside, but then quickly stopped them and said “Oh wait, no, let’s go see the shed.” And she politely maneuvered past the winged human and led them around and behind the building. “Here it is! Rickety old thing...” she introduced, pointing to a mini-house almost the same size as Riku’s shop that was clearly not.....’rickety’.
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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:03:38 GMT -6
5 The shack had a similar gold lining as the paper flier he had brought with him. He wondered if it was intentional. “That’s a nice building, too.” Kioume stated. Riku simply smiled, pretty sure he hadn’t understood what the other human had just said. “So you said in the flier something was stealing tools, and that you’re a pocket pet breeder, right?” He turned to the young woman. “Yessir! We here have even designed our own breeds of a few you have probably seen at the shops. The lucky Cojit is my favorite.” He put her hand on her hip and leaned back slightly, having a moment to reflect and be proud. “That was you!?” He exclaimed in disbelief. “Wow, I love those little guys. The color itself is awesome...but somehow their fur is just so much softer than the other breeds.” He felt like he was meeting a celebrity...which explained the large house.
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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:03:56 GMT -6
6 He paused for a moment, and then hesitantly said “Okay, I just have to ask...” The woman raised an eyebrow, hoping it wasn’t for her secret family brownie recipe he must have smelt when she first opened the front door. (Which he hadn’t actually noticed.) “What sort of.... tools does one use to...breed pocket pets?” He chuckled uncomfortably, which caught the attention of his spirit friend. Kioume looked down at him in confusion. The young woman let out a bellowing laugh and even leaned over to catch her breath. “Oh...! You silly thing.” She said. Riku wasn’t aware pocket pet breeding was so ‘common knowledge’ to laugh at. He shifted his feet and out his hands in his pockets. “We breed the pocket pets in the house....and they just sort of do all the work on their own when we aren’t around. We just nurse them through the pregnancies - or egg laying, etc.”
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Post by Riku on Oct 10, 2019 20:04:19 GMT -6
7 She gestured back to the large white shed. “This is where my husband and I do our painting.” “Ooooh, what type of painting?” Riku inquired, shifting again out if his nervous pose. His amulet spirit shifted as well, allowing his wings more room to feel the slightly warm breeze. “Body painting.” She smirked. “Oh, okay. So you paint portraits of people’s bodies.” “Oh, no, no, no...” she chuckled again, and then leaned in to speak in a softer tone. (Not that anyone else was around to hear.) Kioume leaned in as well, curiously. He wished he could understand. “Every so often, my husband and I strip naked and spread paint all over our bodies. Then we use our flesh as paintbrushes to, well....repaint the shed.” She trailed off in a giggle that didn’t seem too appropriate in her head. Riku had asked too much. He was ready to work now. “Lovely.” He lied. “So where can I set up?”
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Post by Riku on Oct 11, 2019 12:37:25 GMT -6
8 The woman laughed and gestured to the entire lawn between them and the work house. “The grass is yours. I hope it won’t take too long...the sprinklers turn on at 7am.” She chuckled and walked away humming to herself something that seemed personal. Riku shook the sudden uncomfortableness off of him and pictured the energy sliding off of his fingertips. Kioume enjoyed the ride, clinging on tighter for the few seconds. “What did she say?” He asked. “You don’t want to know. She just...wasn’t as innocent as I’d first imagined.” Riku cringed slightly, then started moving towards to building. “You need to start translating for me.” Kioume whined. “You’re right. Sorry, I’m just not used to having that sort of three-way bi-lingual talk.” “She probably thinks I’m incompetent.” Riku hesitated for a second, trying to defend his friend’s pride, but then realized he hd given the lady no reason to think his familiar was sentient.
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Post by Riku on Oct 11, 2019 12:38:04 GMT -6
9 “Yeah, sorry. At least you’re cute.” Riku added teasingly complimentary. “Oh stop...” the spirit blushed. He in no way wanted it to stop. Reaching about ten feet from the building, an obviously good spot to stop and be able to watch over the entire ‘front’ half of the small house, Riku kept walking. “Oh, wouldn’t that have been a good place to set up?” Kioume asked. “Yes, but...we didn’t exactly bring anything.” He reached up and slid his hand down the soft length of his living amulet - which he now realized was funny that he literally wore the ‘physical’ being just as literally as he wore the physical necklace. “I figured we could take a look at the work shop first and see if we find anything. It was already getting late, which happens when you start out the day in the afternoon as they had. Perhaps if they checked where things were, it’d be easier to spot the out of place later.
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Post by Riku on Oct 11, 2019 12:38:32 GMT -6
10 The door was locked...which he figured made sense if they wanted to prevent anything from getting in and taking their tools. However, it didn’t much help his investigation. “We can try the windows...” Kioume suggested with a sort of...shrug? “Good idea.” Riku replied with a grin. He had been working on staying positive and not giving up so easily - and yet he had almost become discouraged just then. Fortunately, his friend has made a better suggestion than ‘Oh well, guess there’s nothing we can do’. The building was similar in structure to the other one - just much smaller and with the golden trim. The roses in front of the windows were also yellow, however each plant was clearly much younger as well, since they didn’t block the windows from being stood in front of. Peering in they could see many different shades of white to blue and a few kelpish colors as well as streaks of yellow here and there.
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Post by Riku on Oct 11, 2019 12:38:56 GMT -6
11 The design was actually quite impressive! For some reason...body painting didn’t sound so bad after all. It gave a very unique effect of splotching and fading all at once. You could track the movements of the ‘brushes’ in a way that gave the room a sense of life - even when it was empty. The only thing that stood out was...a set of bright red claw-like hand prints. They started on one side of the room where the table was set up with the paint tins. The red one seemed to have been poured into another flatter container to be spread, and then hands were dipped in it and sort of marched across the floor. Almost as if they did a hand stand. They were clearly not foot prints. This must have been what the couple was complaining about. “How often do you think whatever did that ruins their artwork?” Kioumed asked.
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Post by Riku on Oct 11, 2019 12:39:30 GMT -6
12 “Well, they didn’t seem to get too far last time.” Riku said “They may have been spooked before they could finish whatever their goal was.” He paused for a moment to think. “Maybe they’ll come back tonight.” He turned around and made for the grassy area his spirit had suggested they keep watch at before. “Riku, look!” Kioume insisted, using his tail end to point near the door of the building. “I didn’t see it before, but there’s a can of paint of the other side we didn’t look near. Should we take that before the culprit uses it to vandalize the outside of the building?” “Good catch, Kioume!” Riku exclaimed through the ribbon. He quickly strode over to the bucket that had a tight lid and grabbed it by the handle. He took it with him and sat down in the grassy area they had chosen. “Now I guess we just...wait?”
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Post by Renathan on Oct 14, 2019 6:18:16 GMT -6
Wait in-deed! Who even knew what kind of a thing was ruining the artwork? It could be a monster, a small critter, or maybe even a person? Surely not a person though. But what would a critter be doing as a performing iconoclast so often?
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Post by Riku on Oct 23, 2019 17:44:06 GMT -6
13 “What do you think is doing this?” Kioume leaned in and ‘whispered’ through the ribbon while they sat in the grass. He rubbed his cheek on Riku’s, who leaned into it. “Hmm...” he started, shifting his lips to one corner as a sort of ‘thinking’ expression. “Well, the claw mark means it likely isn’t a humanoid. Or a mammal. It looked more reptilian.” He smiled at himself for using his tracking skills in such a hypothesis. “Okay, but what if there was a person with the reptile?” The spirit added, cleverly. The boy raised his eyebrows, impressed. “Wow, good thinking.” He said “However, a person being involved at all would upgrade this situation from an inconvenient experience to an understood crime. I’d rather hope the creature is acting on its own.” He crossed his arms as he sat on the grass, waiting. “Hopefully we find out before the sprinklers turn on.” Kioume laughed.
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Post by Riku on Oct 23, 2019 17:44:33 GMT -6
14 A couple hours later, there was still nothing new. The sun had gone down, but fortunately there was still a late-Summer’s warmth to the early night. The two boys sat on the grass, trying to stay their boredom. Lying back, they stared at the stars. It was a unique experience for both of them, as the spirit saw them as parts of himself and his friends in their plane of existence. Riku saw them from a more limited dimension of space and time. He couldn’t grasp how a creature could be lying there with him in this dimension - and yet across the universe in a multitude of points at the same time. It was a spirit. An essence. And this one was the Spirit of Shine. Anything that shone was familiar with its presence. Riku simply had an amulet that magically summoned that presence into a physical form of existence......even if it wasn’t really there at all.
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