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[DRYH] Shopping Trip (12)
Following Ubert up from the Warrens, you step onto the cobblestone streets of the Mad City in the Bizarre Bazaar just after the last gong of the Clock Tower declaring it is thirteen o'clock. Again you see a dizzying array of people plucked from dreams and inspirations, from the man with a top hat that serves as a home for a miniaturized version of himself, to the conjoined man and monkey, both attached at the brain so the monkey balances itself atop his head as he walks around, to the three triplet young ladies with flamingo legs. All colors of the rainbow, smells to delight and worry, all found here. The yammering of hawkers to buyers and sellers, the hustle and bustle that if you closed your eyes, you might imagine yourself on a movie set for a Middle Eastern epic yarn.
Ubert leads you to the Seekers, "Come along, the merchants who can help you find what you wish to find are here." How do you appear, Benny? Regardless, Ubert makes a fine lineman, pushing his way through the throngs until you reach a small cul de sac. In this pocket are six stalls, all what appear to be permanent fixutres even though they arrived here only minutes ago.
A very normal-looking man with a long mustache sits on a stool whittling on a piece of soft wood. He looks aged and lean, like a younger Sam Elliot. Ubert says to you low, "That's Edwall. He's the finest Seeker in the City, but his prices are high. If you can afford him, he's the best."
Next to him is an older woman in a very poofy dress with a wide-brimmed hat. She is busying herself with a old hardbound novel that looks to be centuries old. She reminds you of Angela Lansbury, really. Oh, and just around the corner of her very pink stall, you see something jet black and lightly fuzzy coming out of the bottom of her dress, where legs should be. "If Edwall's too much, best to settle upon Lady Dandywine. She's an excellent Seeker, but quite particular about her clients."
Ubert leads you to the Seekers, "Come along, the merchants who can help you find what you wish to find are here." How do you appear, Benny? Regardless, Ubert makes a fine lineman, pushing his way through the throngs until you reach a small cul de sac. In this pocket are six stalls, all what appear to be permanent fixutres even though they arrived here only minutes ago.
A very normal-looking man with a long mustache sits on a stool whittling on a piece of soft wood. He looks aged and lean, like a younger Sam Elliot. Ubert says to you low, "That's Edwall. He's the finest Seeker in the City, but his prices are high. If you can afford him, he's the best."
Next to him is an older woman in a very poofy dress with a wide-brimmed hat. She is busying herself with a old hardbound novel that looks to be centuries old. She reminds you of Angela Lansbury, really. Oh, and just around the corner of her very pink stall, you see something jet black and lightly fuzzy coming out of the bottom of her dress, where legs should be. "If Edwall's too much, best to settle upon Lady Dandywine. She's an excellent Seeker, but quite particular about her clients."
Comments
Still black-and-white, but without Anita Louise.
I still don't understand what the Wax King meant by, "Have you ever tried to influence someone else with your control?" I'm mulling on that as we travel, trying not to gawk, wishing I had the right equipment to record this ambient sound. I stop mulling and pay full attention to Ubert when he speaks up.
What the hell. Interested in whether I'll be up to Lady Dandywine's standards. I walk up to her, hoping Ubert follows. "Lady Dandywine? It is my understanding that you are among the finest Seekers in the City. I wonder if I might engage your services?"
Lady Dandywine offers you a polite, tight smile and an incline of her head, "Why hello, good sir. I am she, and yes, I am a very fine Seeker indeed." She pauses to look over to Edwall, offer him a different kind of tight little smile, smug satisfaction.
"If you would come here and sit for a moment." she reaches for a small stool near her little stall, scoots it over to you while still remaining seated. You get a better look at her, ahem, lower half. She has at least two spider's legs beneath that dress and petticoat, probably more. Large ones.
Sir Ubert steps behind you, but he's letting you handle this. She waits for you to sit, then looks at you with slight interest, "I would like to know who I am working with as much as what we are seeking together. Please, dear sir, do tell me a story." She folds her hands over her lap and waits patiently, her eyes fixed on you with unsettling precision.
If you wish to impress Lady Dandywine, that's Pain Two.
Exhaustion: (Rolled: 2d6. Rolls: 1, 3. Total: 4)
Madness: (Rolled: 2d6. Rolls: 5, 1. Total: 6)
"How should I call you, good sir? And who or what do you wish to seek?"
"Ah, but I am ahead of myself!" she says this suddenly, eyes focusing again on you. "Dear Mister Castle, we must agree upon a price, then I shall ask you more about Amanda so that we may find her trail. I require, as advance payment, the memory of your very first love. I wish not to share it, but to own it. It is, to me, the most delectable morsel in all of existence!"
You hear Sir Ubert move up behind you, a hand on your shoulder as he leans down to your ear, "Ware, my ally. What she takes is true and permanent. While you will not forget your first love, the price she asks is that you give up all of the emotion, good or ill, related to them. They will forever be a familiar stranger to you. This is... a very high cost. Yet still smaller than that of Edwall."
After the Janie debacle the summer before Freshman year, I moped around for a month or so, eating junk food with Eileen and avoiding any place I thought Janie would be. One place I could pretty guarantee I wouldn't run into Janie was the library. I hung out there, reading graphic novels and looking through the crappy DVD selection for something I hadn't already watched.
Marissa was a rising Junior, and had a summer job working at the library, shelving books and such. So pretty, and she was apparently susceptible to the patented Benny charm, because she'd find reasons to stop by the table where I was reading or playing on my laptop or whatever.
One day I happened to be heading to look for a book on film history when Marissa was shelving in the 700s. With a smile, I brushed past her to grab the book I wanted and suddenly it was like I was in one of those Penthouse Forum letters. "Dear Penthouse Forum, I never thought this would happen to me..." She grabbed me by the collar and pulled me in for a kiss.
For the next three weeks, until school started, I was in heaven. Stolen moment after stolen moment of hot makeouts, long conversations face-to-face and over the phone. Total la la land.
Then the first day of school, and she walked past me like I wasn't there. I was stunned. When I finally caught up with her, her explanation was, "Look, Ben-ben, it was fun, but it was a summer thing, you know? I'm a Junior now, I can't date you..." And me, I was the kid that tried to stay friends, and it eventually worked. She's a freshman at Duke now, and we email occasionally. Never quite forgot those three weeks, though.
"Lady, you can have the memory of my first love. What is the full price?"
She sits upright, looking down at her nails, "I may never call upon them. But Mister Castle, it is always good to have friends who owe you."
Sir Ubert shifts behind you, not objecting or urging you otherwise. And this was the "cheaper" price.
"Lady Dandywine, I agree to your price."
"Ware this practice, Mister... Castle. It can open the door to more than you intend." Sir Ubert warns.
I start with a physical description. Move on to her penchant for gossip and backbiting, but also mention the time I saw her ice-skating over Christmas break, the freedom and joy of that. I tell a few stories, about the evil genius she had for making the right revelations at the right time, her fierce loyalty to the few people that were her actual friends. I describe her, eyes bloodshot and puffy, telling me that she just understood how things work, now. Locks, other things. Even her plea to let her stay in my room, the night whatever happened, happened.
"Is that enough?"
She takes particular interest in the attack, and there's a little "a ha" moment. She catches Sir Ubert's eye, there's a silent communication between them. You weren't able to catch Ubert's side of that non-verbal communication, however.
Finally, she says, "I know where we should start, Mister Castle. But first, my payment." She holds out her hand, waiting for you to place something in it.
Ubert leans in, "Mister... Castle, you must take that memory and form it into something solid. That thing, you give to her as payment."
Marissa. The moments of longing, possibility, in the first days before we kissed. That first kiss itself, and the few weeks of blissful ignorance that followed. The sharp sting of betrayal. I close my fist, squeeze. When I open it, there's a small hard candy, wrapped up in plastic. I know, somehow, that it tastes of roses, soy sauce, and unsweetened chocolate.
"His minions burn hot with unquenchable rage. It is likely that Amanda is there. But we should hurry." she starts pulling items off her stall counter and putting it into her bag.