Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:31:25 GMT -6
Amonuro Stamina: 2 Strength: 0 Resistance: 0 Dexterity: 5 Mentality: 8 Special Abilities: Ethreal, Empethetic Link, Wind Immunity Moves: Telekenetic Powers, Wind's Blessing
- Character Profile -
The quest board had certainly had oddities in terms of previous jobs, but the sphinx did have to wonder if perhaps the encounter she just had wasn't more out of the usual than normal. To be sure, she never would have wanted to point out the whole glasses issue, as to save both of them a world of embarrassment.. but then she never would have also learned more details about the problem the kapper was having.
The interaction still replayed in her head, like a quiet loop as the mammalian and shijin walked towards the center of the city. Amonuro drifted around her, both curious over what was going on, but likewise concerned, considering her emotions seemed pensive.
It was at the slight intrusive nudge of a questioning sense when she blinked and looked up to him, seeming to wake from her thoughts. "Hm? Oh.. Ah, sorry. Just trying to understand what the task exactly is."
(1) Amonuro: 70 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:31:56 GMT -6
The nature of the task was explained well enough - something was lost and it needed to be found. The inherent problem with that was the item in question was actually several, and each of them sounded more unique than the next. Never-mind the puzzle of where the kapper had even kept all those glass figurines, unharmed no less.. A better question was how many had he lost compared to how many he still had remaining.
It didn't sound as though even the kapper had a clear sense of the exact number. And if he was as absent-minded about leaving them, no doubt keeping track of the multitudes of objects in his.. pockets? (It must have been some magical space thing, that was the only way to explain it) then how absent-minded would he be about knowing just exactly how many were even on him, much less which kind.
The only lead they had was a general idea of where he had been and the overall size of the objects.
(2) Amonuro: 70 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:32:33 GMT -6
The exact shapes, well.. by the time the eight object had been pulled out of whatever extra-dimensional space housed them, the sphinx had long since buried the idea of asking about that. But, at least she could tell all of them were handmade, with a certain kind of style and with just enough of a flare to look a little over the top without being gaudy.
If nothing else, it at least gave them a sense of objective reference.
The next clue was the route. One would have thought that would make it easy, as they surely would just need to retrace the kappers steps, but unfortunately the route ran up and down the city centrer, with several points in between where the kapper wasn't even sure if he had stopped long enough to drop something or not. Not exactly a needle in a haystack situation, mostly because there were several needles, and the haystack spanned a few kilometres at least.
(3) Amonuro: 70 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:33:04 GMT -6
And all this took time to explain to the shijin as they walked towards the last known place the kapper remembered to have noticed the objects missing, before he had hurried over to the quest board. Amonuro nodded along, seeming to get the gist of it, although he seemed about as unsure of their chances as the sphinx was feeling.
But, one can't really know until they try, and so the two approached the crossroads between the Park and the Gardens. Made up mostly a dirt-lined path with packed earth for support, it held little decorations other than an old wooden fence and some signs to point towards the areas, as well as back to the city.
And yet, the two had hardly even begun to reach it when something gleamed in the grass, just at the base of the signpost.. A reflective surface such as, say, a round glass globe? With a little figure inside?
(4) Amonuro: 70 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:33:25 GMT -6
The two stopped dead-still, staring at the tiny little thing, just under the right angle to catch the light from above. "No way.." the sphinx muttered, and finally began walking again. When she reached the post, she knelt down and picked up the little orb, brushing some of the dust away. Sure enough, the styling of it seemed to match the rest of the kappers objects, though unlike most of the glass sphere ones, this one looked to have a figure of some graceful water creature sculpted within it.
Both sphinx and shijin exchanged a look, until Darky shrugged, "Okay, so.. maybe this won't be that hard after all? One down.. however many to go." She reached for the bag and carefully tucked the object in, making sure it was nestled well within the cloth she had stuffed there to offer some support.
Bring up the make-shift map, she consulted the directions, "So.. Before the crossroads was.. community centre."
(5) Amonuro: 71 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:33:53 GMT -6
It was a short enough trip there, but that didn't necessarily mean it made for an easy one. As the kapper wasn't very specific as to how said objects had been lost, the sphinx and shijin made sure to check every tuft of grass on the roadside, just on the off chance that it might contain a glass object of some sort. The qualities of glass were, in that sense, two-fold - on the one hand it's largely transparent which made it difficult to find, but also reflective which made it easier to find, provided they were looking at it from the right angle.
In Amonuro's case, the search was a might bit easier, considering he could simply phase through the grass and the ground, in order to search between the nooks and crannies of the terrain. It was largely only due to that that they reached the community centre as quickly as they did (though no richer in glass objects than before).
(6) Amonuro: 71 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:34:16 GMT -6
The centre, in turn provided a whole new set of challenges and problems. While the space was far more level with few enough grass tufts, it was instead filled with various planters, benches, fountains, buildings and all manner of other minor or greater structures. In short, far more nooks and crannies to check..
Fortunately, they didn't have to check the whole square. The kapper had mentioned passing through, only stopping near the fountain a moment. So the duo tried to navigate the most likely path from the road to the fountain, largely assuming the kapper hadn't really taken any detours along the way (and if he had, it was hardly their fault he failed to mention it).
Even so, the shijin drifted a bit more wider than the sphinx, trying to check their sides while she beelined it to the fountain proper, just in case any of the objects happened to fall out of the kapper's.. bag? Pocket? ..Container, along the way.
(7) Amonuro: 71 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:34:46 GMT -6
None were evident, at least none the shijin could see, but the sphinx definitely noticed something shortly after arriving at the fountain - a small little cat sculpture made from glass, just innocently sitting on the ledge of it. "Well, that was easy enough," the sphinx's ears perked as she picked up the cat and safely tucked it away in the bag. "Alright, where to next.."
But the shijin tapped her shoulder and pointed to the fountain, at the very water. Peering in, the sphinx was able to see what Amonuro had noticed, which was another of the spheres at the very bottom.
"..Damnit," she regarded the water with some fidgeting conflict. It wasn't exactly seemly to go splashing into a public fountain.. and that's besides her general aversion to water to begin with. But they needed to get the bauble out one way or another, otherwise the kapper could well count the finds one short and call the task incomplete.
(8) Amonuro: 71 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:35:13 GMT -6
The shijin looked between her indecision and the bauble in the water, instead quickly swooping into the fountain and pulling the object out with a bit of telekinetic force, emerging back out as it hovered beside him. Darky blinked, "..Or that, we could also do that. Thanks."
The shijin nodded and puffed proudly, as the sphinx plucked the glass sphere from the air and placed it into the bag among all the folds of the cloth. Depending on how many were left, things could get a bit crowded there, in terms of trying to avoid them touching each other.
"So, before the community centre was.. the marketplace," the sphinx murmured, as the make-shift map was pulled out again. The path to the market was a bit more winding, but otherwise didn't really have a lot of stops, so their best bet was to follow along and keep an eye open for anything odd.
(9) Amonuro: 71 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:35:41 GMT -6
Another thing to keep an eye out on was people, for if someone had found a bauble before them, well.. It would be quite difficult to tell who would have taken what from where. It was entirely possible some baubles might have already been lost to curious eyes and eager fingers, with no luck in tracking down their new owners.
But just as likely was the possibility that some finders could have set them aside, or returned them somewhere their owner might be able to reclaim them. The City didn't really have a 'lost and found' as such, for it's scale was much too big to handle something like that and most establishments were more likely to run their own, much smaller versions, so checking with a marketplace vendor or store front every now and again could have yielded results.
She just had to hope it didn't need to go that far, as not everyone appreciates being pestered constantly in such a manner.
(10) Amonuro: 72 (0/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:36:00 GMT -6
The two entered the first of the streets where the line of vendors began, eventually culminating in the marketplace and trade post proper towards the centre of the district. With the City being so central to the continent itself, one could find vendors from nearly every corner of the land, even so far as Tumai (Which created an odd sort of home sickness she really wasn't prepared for, seeing all the glass beads and woven jewellery laid out there on the tables).
But none of those glass objects were ones they were looking for. The subject of their quest would have been much larger, though still roughly palm-sized if the kapper was to believed. And this made the search all the more difficult, since the lines of tables were filled to the brim with all sorts of objects, while crates, blankets, sun roofs, chairs and similar were scattered around them. They were lucky the middle of the street itself was clear enough to walk along.
(11) Amonuro: 72 (1/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:36:18 GMT -6
As they passed a vendor selling glass sculptures, a strange thought struck the sphinx - How can they be even sure all these objects were the kapper's to begin with? While the vendor's work didn't have the same distinct qualities as the objects he'd shown, as well as the ones they've found so far, then they only had the word of the kapper to go on. For all she knows the kapper could have seen the objects in his path through the shops, planted a few for the start of the trail, and then hoped the others could be retrieved by anyone blue-eyed enough to pick up the quest.
While the sphinx wasn't often the suspicious sort, and generally trusted the questing service to have a sense of integrity towards the types of jobs they present, she still recalled that one case where the person offering the job sent the entirely wrong kinds of shivers down her spine
(12) Amonuro: 72 (2/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:36:47 GMT -6
It was ultimately a quest she never ended up taking, so only the spirits know what the consequences of that might have been. It was only months later when those initial suspicions had been proven true and the task instead was to track down the shady person and find out more about their dealings.
Although, perhaps in comparison the kapper hardly seemed shady in his demeanour.. Confused, perhaps, or even absent-minded, but not overtly something to be concerned about immediately.
Even so, the sphinx wanted to be sure, so she backtracked to the vendor selling glass sculptures and asked them about the general price range as well as whether they'd be interesting in buying some stock. The question, while not necessarily a great one for approaching merchants (as they were more focused on getting rid of product than having people barter product back) could have at least settled her nerves on the matter.
(13) Amonuro: 72 (3/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:37:15 GMT -6
The vendor was convinced enough to at least look at one of the sculptures (which was fair enough, as she hadn't the intention to actually sell it) and estimated the quality to be decent, but otherwise not worth more than what they had already sale. A factor which was actually good news, most likely causing some confusion in the vendor when they saw the sphinx's demeanour relax and a smile creep onto her lips as she accepted the object back, thanked them, and left. "Back to it," she told the shijin, putting the glass sculpture away, now able to feel confident in the fact it wasn't some priceless object they could be unwittingly stealing from people.
Scouring the ground and tables of vendors (for one could not truly know where an object was lost), the two managed to locate the next one shortly after - It looked like one of the spheres could have fallen out of the kapper's pocket, right into a pot of grain.
(14) Amonuro: 72 (4/5)
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Darky
Flea Market Artist
Veritas et Aequitas
Posts: 1,268
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Post by Darky on Mar 6, 2022 6:37:38 GMT -6
Now, while they wouldn't have been stealing the object, as it did not belong in the grain to begin with, it didn't seem as though the stall vendor had noticed so to them having the two suddenly start digging around the grain would have left much the same impression. The sphinx wasn't that great at lying, either, so making up a story that would allow her to dig the item out of the pot would have more likely fallen flat on its face.
She could be dexterous when she wanted to, but somehow trying to surreptitiously take the item felt wrong as well.. (Where was an ympe when you needed one, truly).
Instead, the two conferred with each other for a brief moment, before settling on a plan - The shijin would drift above the stall and try to lift the sphere out, while the sphinx was on lookout for when the vendor would be looking the other way.
(15) Amonuro: 73 (0/5)
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