Miscellaneous Buildings

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly concocted an expression of pure and utter dismay, clutching her heart as though it were fit to break.

"'Unfortunate'?" She gasped, before the expression melted away.
She flapped a hand.

"My-oh-my, this dear hat's keeping me dry, while you look like as miserable as a cat in a bath in the rain." She chuckled, righting her hat atop her head in light of the assault against the wide brim of it.
The whole ordeal left her uninjured; she was still smiling.

"I should just walk veeery slowly, hm? Drag my feet a bit, enjoy the rain, smell the roses..."

[azmoham]

"Why you ghastly cretin, torturing a dear friend like this, just imagine if Lekalis knew what an utter beast he'd married!"
He responded with equal theatrics, lifting his nose high into the air, sniffing contemptuously to complete the effect. 
"Why I must believe he'd call the marriage off at once, and then where would you be?"
he asked, suppressing a smile as he looked back to her once more, a single eyebrow raised, a look of utter skepticism and overwrought contempt on his face. 
"Lost! Alone! Misbegotten! All because you decided to make me suffer through this awful downpour."
The rain continued unabated, a steady, light patter, with occasional bouts of thunder rolling over the rollicking hillsides and down into the Hamlet like the voice of an ancient god. 

[Vanitypirate]

"I'll just tell 'im you deserved it-- you'd insulted my bloody hat! That's worse than insulting my own mother." Tilly accused, swiveling around with ease on her heels to face Jacques with a grin that was all-too-wide to indicate anything other than a plan set to hatch.

She pointed upwards in apparent surprise and gasped.

"Wait!" Her tone turned singsong, "I think I spotted a penny down a step, there!"

[azmoham]

The look of comical disdain morphed to one of confusion as he followed her finger upwards, towards the grey sky.
"...Indeed."
He answered, chortling as he turned and continued on towards the abbey without her.
"Perhaps the stress of the marriage is already getting to you, poor thing."
He called over his shoulder to her, a cheeky smile on his face. The church was now perhaps a dozen steps away from them, the stairs leading up to its grand oaken doors slick with water, worn down by constant usage. He stared up at the hulking mass of stone and glass, eyes passing over those weathered walls just as they had when he'd first stepped foot into the town. 

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly scowled at the scholar who refused to join her antics.
She skipped up a few steps to close the distance between them.

"Oh, yes, it's the wedding." She nodded in apparent agreement, hopping up towards the upper landing and the doors waiting beyond.

"Not the big, crazy monsters or near-death experiences, no sir. What a wedding!"

[azmoham]

"You've seemed to manage alright before, I see no change now save the rather troubling lack of a soul. That however,"
He met her eyes full on for only the second time that day, this time not out of fear but out of duty.
"Is a matter we shall see to."
He nodded with confidence, refusing to now reveal his true doubts surrounding the trouble. There were things he didn't know and that as always bothered him, like a too-tight collar, he strained against the bonds of ignorance but here found himself quite well-bound, fettered by unknowns and a dark, creeping dread which wriggled like a live fish in his belly. He shrugged this aside as he mounted the steps, taking each one with deliberation, careful not to slip and fall lest he be unable to regain his feet.
"Damn, damn, damn."
He muttered to himself, hopefully (but unlikely) too quiet for the keen thief-ears of his companion to detect. 
An old man at two decades in, what a life...

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly's grin became pained, and she looked down at her two, gloved hands with a bit of surprise.

"Ah, l-let's not talk about that where any zealous nut with a hangman's noose can hear us." She chuckled nervously, her hands coming to wring themselves together.
Her smile waned at the less-than-promising cursing of the scholar. It was disheartening, but could be likened to a generally poor constitution.

But you're fine, aren't you?

Pushing open the door after hurrying ahead, she held it open for Jacques, avoiding his eyes.
She dropped her voice down to a whisper,

"You can't tell yet, can you...? If I've got a soul or not?"

[azmoham]

He climbed the steps as fast as he was able, which was still considerably slower than he would've liked. Once he reached the top, he approached the doors and stopped at the threshold of the church, staring straight ahead, considering her question.
"It is my belief, from what little I've been told thus far, that you still have a soul."
That same considerate, cautious tone slipped into his words once more, thoughtful and delicate as he sought to answer in a way that wouldn't raise further concerns.
"However, it may not precisely be in your possession as of this moment. From the sounds of it, it may be within the amulet, and if such is the case, then we merely must extract it once more."
How easy it sounded, when stated in such simple terms. But she was no fool, unlearned in the ways of magic and sorcery, but no fool. It would be a hard thing, trying to shuffle spirits about without causing them any harm or else losing them to the ether, a tricky business with little precedent, and that which did exist was primarily concerned with the act of taking souls and not restoring them, and given the nature of magic he highly doubted it would be as easy as simply doing those steps in reverse. But he wasn't lost, he had a place to start at least, and no doubt that there would be some lead or another that the ex-lord would be able to give him, the situation was not hopeless...just terribly dim. Stepping into the church, he couldn't help but feel a trifle uneasy, holy places always did that to him, made him feel as if something was peering over his shoulder with a look of stern disapproval, just as his teachers had done, and his mother before them. 
"Now then? Onto the baths?"
He made a conscious effort to lighten his tone, distract from the strange and unenviable trials they had before them. 

[Vanitypirate]

"It's that-a-way." Tilly hummed cheerily, closing the large church door as gently as though it were made of glass.
She gave a quick glance around, ensuring that nobody else was in eavesdropping distance... and then made with haste in the direction of the bathhouse.
From one door to another.

"Is there any way you can tell?" She looked sidelong, side-stepping to finish the jaunt towards the bathhouse door.
"Any rituals, spells, song-and-dance up your sleeve?"

She rapped her knuckles against the wood of the door and listened intently for a response before pulling it open.

[azmoham]

A look of mild discomfort crossed his face as he followed behind, scratching his chin.
"There...may be..."
he said, evidently still thinking about it even as he answered.
"I'd have to review my books, such a spell is likely to be slightly more complicated than a mere 'song as dance'."
As reluctant as he was to discuss it, she would have to learn sooner or later, so he best try and think of a way of telling her now.
"You see, matters of magic have grown...rather more complicated lately."
The words came even more slowly than before, not due to do rather obvious reticence and not depth of thought. He gestured for her to continue into the baths proper, slightly anxious to be out of the grand (and easy to eavesdrop in) halls of the abbey and into the more confined and private space of the bathhouse.

[Vanitypirate]

Whenever anyone mentioned things becoming more complicated, it was never a good thing. That much she knew.

"Ah... how so?"
No doubt it was in regards to the man's bloody cough, given that he wasn't afraid of being contagious; the man wasn't daft or careless.

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her, too, hastily scanning the room for other bathers and happily finding it empty.
Brushing off the front of her coat, again, ruminating on the subject of books... notably, plural books; a given, considering that his old one had been burned for good reason.

Her eyes widened with some revelation, but she held her tongue and looked expectantly to Jacques.

[azmoham]

"Well, as undoubtedly you've guessed...I'm not fine."
He stated rather lamely, entering the warm, damp room and shrugging off his bag, which he set near the door. Next, his jacket joined his pack and after he'd lowered himself to the floor, his shoes.
"I'm...well I very may well be dying. Slowly! Slowly, but still, my..."
He struggled, for once, to find proper words.
"Abuse of these, foreign powers has had, unforeseen consequences. More specifically, it has had a rather drastic and terrible affect on my health."
As if to punctuate this, a short, violent cough interceded, thankfully lacking in blood this time.
"My constitution has suffered, as given by my use of Solomon as more than a mere trinket now."
He tightened his grip on the staff, his eyes tracing its rough surface, running his fingers along its pitted face.
"I'm quite unable to do as I once did, that is to say, conjure these things out of thin air with the mere twist of a wrist and a-waggling of my fingers. I must resort to rather more tedious methods of channeling these arcane forces, relying now almost entirely upon scroll-work, rituals, potions and the like."
He went on, a look of shame and a warm-red blush coming to his face, coloring his tan cheeks. 
"I'm quite sorry."

[Vanitypirate]

The humor all but drained from Tilly's expression entirely; she stared in mixed disbelief and horror.
For him to die... it was an unnatural prospect. Jacques was indomitable, a phoenix that found rebirth in ashes.

But, looking at him now, this man-- who was, chronologically, younger than Tilly herself-- hobbled around on a cane and coughed his lungs up into a handkerchief. She'd thought it to be an aftereffect of repeated pummelings, not some retribution from a curse long since lifted.
She did not wish to believe it.

"But... you can fix that, too? You can run by Florence; she's been working with Lekalis and his curse. She'll know how to handle more magick-y ailments and the like..." She proposed, desperately, shifting anxiously with a finger scratching at her furrowed brow.

"Would... this... make it worse?" She inhaled sharply and looked to the ceiling, "Am I going to get you killed, asking you to help me?"

[azmoham]

He shook his head, waving his hand in a now all-too-familiar dismissive motion.
"I'm quite afraid this is the price paid for impudent tinkering with things I didn't-don't, understand. I deserve this, truly. After what I've done, who I was...It seems right that there be some cost."
There wasn't a hint of any insincerity in his words, he spoke as earnestly now as he ever had, perhaps more so. 
"This is a matter outside dear Florence's providence I'm afraid, the simple mathematics of the universe. There must be a cost to such flagrant and idiotic uses of this power, and here it is."
As he spoke, he removed his handkerchief and held it up to her, revealing it was spotted with blood, some dark and old, some still bright red and new.
"I don't anticipate further deterioration of my body should I be more careful with my magic. Some forms of channeling, indirect channeling its called, do not have the same price. They instead demand materials and time, sometimes special conditions or rare ingredients, not my life's blood."
He leaned back against the wall, pressing his head to cool, damp stone and shutting his eyes.
"Should I refrain from direct casting, that is, summoning from thin air using my own life as a powersource, I should be alright. But there is nothing as far as I know that can repair the damage that is done, even Florence. Perhaps, given time and rest, my body will put itself back into some semblance of health...quite likely in fact, but that may be years away. For now, I must simply be careful."

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly was quiet for a moment, struggling over this new, troubling information.
She shook her head, emphatically, and insisted, "You don't deserve it."

With some intensity, she looked to him, mouth pressed in a hard, determined line. Her knuckle pawed at the corner of one of her murkish eyes.

"We'll get you better, then. No matter what." As if it were so simple, but she was resolute.
She made a small sigh, not wholly content... but there was some purpose, now; something to do about it all.

"What... materials or ingredients do you need?"