lostcarnival | ⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 2

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⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 2

Who: Anyone, anywhere in Portland.
When: October 7st - 14th, 2017
Where: Portland area, in the new reality.
What: The week begins as the time of the Animal Fair finally arrives! Meanwhile, the truth of this reality starts to be revealed, and forces both human and celestial alike attempt to take advantage of a rare opportunity.
Warnings: Individually marked!

BY ANY OTHER NAME↴

Tensions thicken as various supernaturally forces react to the events of the previous week. Something critical is afoot, and it's only a matter of time before things start coming to a head. It's time to find out more about what's happened to this world, and what will happen in its future.

► A NIGHT AT THE FAIR: From the night of the 7th to the morning of the 8th, the Animal Fair is officially in town. There is a top level down below with more information, though you can also RP content from this elsewhere if you wish. The host, who is very likely something called a Wyld Fae (if you discovered that ICly), will be present, but they will only be appearing to you of their own accord and attempting to track them down by force will be ineffective. Just kick back and relax! Fairs are supposed to be fun.

► THORNS IN YOUR SIDE: Culminating in a full fledged attack against the Sanctuary, it would seem that The Rose Queen is declaring war on the changeling population of Portland. Though the vicious attack of thorns against the safe house was eventually stopped, it wasn't without damage, and the black roses that caused it are still popping up around the city and threatening the places where homeless and lost changelings would be likely to congregate. It's obvious now that this is a serious threat - will it ever stop without an intervention?

► HELL ON EARTH: As Anath's march draws near, the first waves of her demons will be entering the city. Primarily acting as scouts and foot soldiers, these demons will be attempting to secure loyalty from the local demon populace, as well as taking out any angels they can manage to catch. It's a level of aggressiveness against heaven's forces that hasn't been seen for years, and it's a foreboding hint of things to come. These demons can be NPCed by anyone, and will mostly be thugs or manipulators who don't know much about Anath's plans but do know that you need to join their side. They are also rowdier than most of the demons in Portland, and are a threat to the innocent mortal populace as well, if they decide to try to get their kicks here.

► THE WIZARD POLICE: The Enlightenment Council seems to have demanded control of the local Circle chapter, and now backup has arrived. These mages are being sent out into the city as if they are a police force, and will be attempting to demand control of various common supernatural areas, as well as questioning community members that they run into. Whatever is going on, it seems to have resulted in the Council instituting what is essentially martial law... of course, not everyone sees any need to heed their demands. If you are a demon, warlock, or other rogue element, expect to be harassed or even attacked by them. These character can be NPCed, and if you need additional information you can ask the mods.

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'Just hold the fort for an hour or so,' Alan had said. 'It'll be easy,' he'd said. And now there's people screaming? Squawking, anyway. Tallisibeth would like to go home.

"Please no one hurt each other with the merchandise," she says wearily. "The owner's not liable for that kind of thing, personal injuries, however the disclaimer goes. And no, I'm absolutely not going any cheaper. Not for this. If you just want a fancy thirty-dollar penknife, try Unicorn Faces down the lane. Theirs look very nice." Faced with that sales pitch the haggler finally goes and leaves, grumbling.

Next priority. "All right, I have Neosporin and Band-Aids... oh, it's you." The no following the oh as she sees the source of the familiar tone is unspoken this time. Tallisibeth frowns, tries to smooth the expression away, and doesn't entirely succeed.

What kind of a name for a stall is Unicorn Faces? The thought means that when Tallisibeth looks at Lambert, she'll catch him making an expression somewhat like he's just bitten into a curdled cream puff, although that's more or less his default state anyway.

Luckily, he's used to people not jumping for joy when they see him, though he will respond with a dry, "Hello, Tallisibeth."

Danger successfully averted, he releases the man's hand, waving him towards the girl to get that wound looked at, while he examines the stalls wares himself. Huh. It all looks pretty legitimate.

It's worse than that. It's Unicorn Hats, out of the strange free association that comes with horns -> knives and wands and heads - > hats. Tallisibeth passed it on the way here and is very glad that the vendors she associates with are not so far on the twee side. Nothing here is even covered in glitter. There is a selection of crystals glued to things and animal talismans complete with a poster explaining the deep symbolism of having anything from an inner swan to an inner moose, but clueless tourist dollars spend like anyone else's.

Great, he knows her name, she has no memory of his. Maybe the prices will scare him away. Tallisibeth washes down the man's hand with her water bottle and tells him about pressure. She knows she sounds more brisk than anything, but honestly, she's cut herself before, nothing major was damaged so it's not something to fuss about.

The man honestly seems as eager to wash his hands of this encounter as Tallisibeth is, embarrassed that there were any witnesses to him making a fool of himself, so as soon as he can, he clears out, after one hurried, unhappy gaze over his shoulder.

In the meantime, though, Lambert's attention is drawn by the knives. "You sell these?"

She assures the customer that this should be okay in a couple days if he keeps the wound clean, and breezily relates the "the first person to bleed on a knife is its owner" saying, but she's glad to see the back of him. Tallisibeth is not fond of retail work, any form of retail work. She does have a little power and authority here if someone gets... angry, but the prospect isn't fun, and anything extravagant will draw consequences.

Apparently the librarian-cafe guy has not been scared by the prices. "Yeah. Secondhand, refurbished. Some are mine, others are by a different supplier." Tallisibeth's cost more. The others tend to have more elaborately engraved blades, not just hilts or sheathes, and are more decorative. Some are bigger. They're also not sharpened so acutely, because the usual shopkeeper knows people sometimes decide to poke themselves with their purchases.

Lambert scans the assortment on the table warily, remembering Strange's advice -- if you could call it that. He's wondered about the girl once or twice, but he'd never really thought about it. Seeing her here, of all places, feels too serendipitous to consider a coincidence.

"Must be an interesting job," he murmurs, before he shifts his weight, considering the selection more carefully. He recognizes some of the patterns engraved on the blades, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything to him.

"Got any silver knives?"

"I gotta pay overdue fines somehow," she says, a touch of color coming to her cheeks. Tallisibeth is actually pretty conscientious about when she returns books. Even when she's been overdue it's never been by more than a couple of days. She's the sort to worry that people are watching her closely and remembering her each and every shortcoming, though.

Scout taps the central case, making her chipped coppery nail polish glint, and lets her pride in her work relax her. "Sure, two kinds. The sterlings are the most expensive ones, they're more than ninety percent silver. Very soft though. You have to sharpen them after each use and keep that use gentle." Now the other side of the same case. "There's also the silverplate, silver over another metal, usually that's bronze or steel. Still need care or the plating will come off but they don't bend so easily."

The knives in this case have blades with a more lustrous gleam than in the surrounding ones. They are also decidedly pricier. "Silver's not a great choice for knives, generally." She pauses, though there's a question in her eyes.

"So I've heard," Lambert murmurs, squinting at the knives in the display case and frowning. "I guess I'm looking for silverplate, then. I'm planning on using it for..." He trails off, grimacing as he tries to think of any way to not make this sound crazy. "Self-defense."

But then again, Tallisibeth wasn't as unpeculiar herself, was she? Though he'd never been able to pin it down for sure, her lingering in the library and that bird that seems to follow her everywhere is a bit suspect.

He waves a hand at the display. "No idea what I'm supposed to be looking for. What are my options?"

Tallisibeth nods, eyeing him guardedly. She's not a good judge for who does and doesn't know about the supernatural. There's a lot of supernatural to know about, of course, and most people aren't as obsessive about learning and studying as she, otherwise college campuses would be far more sober places.

The librarian does look like the kind of person who'd carry a knife just to make himself look more dangerous. As if he doesn't look like a faceful of cement already. It'd probably be easier and more masculine to get a hunting knife, something less on the fanciful end, though.

"These narrow thin blades are convenient for ritual preparation of ingredients or sacrifice, but torque wouldn't be very good for them. I guess... Slash or stab?"

"I'd prefer something good for both, but I'll take slash over stab," Lambert answers, with less hesitation than he probably should have, but he isn't really worrying about how he is or isn't coming across right now. "Something sturdy enough to disable, if I need it to."

Stabs are good for a killing blow, but only when your opponent was already too slow or too disoriented to attempt a counterstrike. It takes him a minute to even register where his train of thought's gone down, and his frown grows even deeper. When did he become so bloodthirsty himself, he wonders...

"Don't exactly have a lot of cash on hand, though."

Despite herself and her misgivings, she's kind of having fun. People don't usually come in and ask so much. The closest is generally those ones who like to sacrifice roosters, but they tend to have clear ideas of what they want ahead of time.

"Then of these, you'd want this one." Tallisibeth indicates an oddly plain knife off to the side, which has a pierced hilt carrying a leather cord with an amber bead on it. There are some inscriptions on it, all small and subdued. It doesn't glitter like a lot of the other pieces, though it does shine with a high gloss. "It's conceived as a survival knife, so it's definitely more for cutting, but it's heavy and the point is true. Probably the most versatile thing here." There's a long story about who made basically a hunting knife with silverplate, and for what, and how it ended up with her to be refurbished.

"Well, I can take checks. None of these are that great in a fight, though," she warns. "A bigger, sturdier silverplate knife would be crazy expensive. Custom work, not something to sell on the street. If I had anything like this knife's big sister, I mean."

"I'm hoping I won't need something that big," Lambert grimaces slightly, frowning. He will, however, pick up the knife to examine it, feeling the weight and heft of it in his hand. It still doesn't feel right, exactly, but ... it's comforting.

Which is probably a bad sign. Knives shouldn't be comforting, ever, except to certain kinds of people and Lambert is pretty sure (hoping) he isn't that kind.

"All right, then. I guess I'll take this." Hopefully she doesn't ask why he needs it, but... "What are the inscriptions for?"

"Those are usually very specialist uses anyway." Monster hunters are uncommon people and not everything that phrase makes them up to be. They're more inclined to bullets these days, for one.

"Traditional silverplate inscription to keep the blade true and strong. Or, you know, that's the official meaning. I've always read it as more swearing and saying the silver had better stay in place." Tallisibeth can restore blades and that's already plenty of work. Making them is, from what she's seen, an entirely new level of difficulty and tedium.

Yeah this guy is clearly suspect, to the point where she's acutely aware that her alarm bells should be going off. Somehow this guy, whoever he is, should be carrying blades, and that shouldn't bother her, though she doesn't really feel safe around him, either. What's with that? Tallisibeth stares at him like the answers should be tattooed somewhere, forgetting that she should really talk price.

Being blissfully unaware of Torchlight's existence, Lambert doesn't have an opinion of monster hunters outside of bad TV shows with tiny special effects budgets, so he has to briefly puzzle over what Scout means by 'specialists.'

And then she says that and he can't help snorting, a burst of amusement that has his nose and the corners of his eyes crinkling up. It's not an expression he wears often, and it settles quickly enough, but it lingers in his voice when he responds.

"Hey, if it works, sounds like it was worth putting on," Lambert shrugs. "Having it break in the middle of a fight would be the worst way to find out." Now that he's looking at her, she feels familiar, and not just from the cafe either ... and also, she seems a little perturbed.

"... Something wrong?" He feels a bit like he might have gotten horns on his head.

Tallisibeth grins broadly, fleetingly, involuntarily. She's too young to wrinkle but if she started, she wouldn't have smile lines. This version of her might have an easier life and less grief, but she also doesn't enjoy things as vividly. "You never rely on magic, sorry, on 'traditional inscriptions' to make up for terrible craftmanship. But hey maybe they help if it's made well. This one is."

He notices her staring and then she notices she's staring and immediately looks away, flushing red under her freckles. The ease she'd felt discussing the knives evaporating, along with that tip-of-the-tongue sense of familiarity. Damn. "Nothing," she mumbles.

Is he going to think she likes him after this? God, no, he's old and ugly, but that's usually what staring and blushing means in media. "I was trying to remember where I'd seen you before, you know, but uh. Duh. Librarian."

It's okay, Scout, it takes more than weird staring for the idea of someone liking him to penetrate Lambert's brain in this universe. Mostly, he's wondering if he has a big sign on his head that says something like 'I have dreams about killing things in super violent ways.'

Nonetheless, he's putting back the knife for the moment, but only so he can pull out a checkbook, though he won't resist ribbing Scout as he goes.

"You usually had your nose in a book, so I'm not surprised you don't remember. So, how much do I owe you?"

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⇨ The Tourist Trap: WEEK 2

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