Miscellaneous Buildings

[Vanitypirate]

"He... I wasn't-- neither of us thought we'd be able to bear children. Nothing came of... ehm, neither of us have been very fruitful."
It was a difficult and impolite subject to broach, but this friend of hers was responsible for her mortal soul. Honesty would benefit her here...

"I found out about the bloody curse before I found out about the child-- he says he was only aware of it recently, but... I don't think he knew the mechanics of it all."

She watched the fingers on her hand flex and unflex, and made to insist on the question that still remained unanswered.

"What does this mean for the little one, though? To come about without a soul?"

[azmoham]

Jacques stared into the water, studying the man who stared back. He looked thin, bony and frail where before he had seemed so vigorous. He lifted his face and gazed towards one of the murky windows.
"I can't say for certain, but I rather think it depends on where the soul is, or who possess assuming the child does not. The only cases I know of that are similar to your own are in those in which the child is being used as a vessel of some form, typically for some cult or another seeking to resurrect this god or that one."
His sounded eerily casual to be discussing the concept of a child's soul being torn from its body and replaced with that of some ancient deity.
"It, whatever it is, may wish to do the same with your own child, I would have to discover its identity before confirming as such. Do you have a name for it? Or a description?"

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly mimed out the shape of a diamond with her hands after raising her head from them with another sigh.

"He... had his robes in this shape when I saw him; they weren't natural at all. The thing had a white-mask where his face should've been, with a red gem in the center. No eyes or mouths, but...-- it sounds bizarre."
She slowed, pausing, before starting up again.

"All he was was just bone; no meat or anything. I don't... know his name. But I see him when I dream."

Her fingers tapped anxiously at her knees.

"The first time I saw him, after I got the Curse, I could feel his hands searching around in... er, my insides. I saw what he saw. That's how I knew I'd a little one, too-- and he asked about it. It confused him. It made my nose bleed..."

[azmoham]

As she spoke, the scholar's face remained neutral and focused, watching her form a diamond over her face where she indicated the being had the same.
"Hmm, that doesn't sound like the named forms of any elder god I can name off the top of my head..."
He put a finger to his chin, squinting into the water again, this time reviewing his mental notes regarding the various beings and entities he'd read about and encountered. 
"I won't dare hazard a guess as to the thing's name or nature until I've had the chance to do some more research. Do you know, perhaps..."
he pursed his lips, crossing his arms and sinking down in the tub some, his knees cresting over the top of the water a half-inch or so.
"Could I meet it somehow? Make contact with it via the amulet?"
He sat up, looking towards Tilly with an expectant expression.

[Vanitypirate]

"I would... assume so. Florence has met the bugger long before I'd known about it. She has a big stack of notes about the thing." Tilly pinched her fingers, leaving a gap about an inch wide between them to represent the sheer width of Florence's notes.
With some dissatisfaction, and the time to think on it... there was much information withheld from her by the two.

She would address that later, perhaps.

"But... be careful, would you? You're already coughing up enough blood as it is. You don't need a major nosebleed on top of it."

[azmoham]

"Oh wonderful! And here I was concerned I'd need to start from scratch, this will greatly aid in my research. And I can assure you, I will not even think about speaking with this entity until I have as full a knowledge of it as I possibly can given the circumstances, I anticipate no trouble however in discovering the nature of this being given Florence's help."
The fact that he wouldn't have to attempt to decipher this puzzle from square one was alone enough to buoy his spirits, surely with Florence's assuredly exacting notes, plus whatever knowledge he could find in the Abbey archives and his own small assortment of scrolls and books he'd taken along, there was little chance this thing's nature would elude them for long. He smiled, most pleased with the turn of events.
"How is Florence, by the by? Still pottering about with that mask of hers?"
He mightily regretted his actions against the solemn woman, madness, damnable madness, flailing, mean little beast that it was, had nearly driven him to actions he'd surely never be absolved of. After all, killing a clown with an attitude problem and a nasty habit of un-death was one thing, murdering a friend in a malaise of insanity and meanness was quite another.

[Vanitypirate]

"Oh, she still is, yes. And attached to Lekalis by the hip, too. They're as thick as thieves."
There was the question, then, whether to mention the happenings with Roderick and the like. Especially before he could hear the rumors.

Yes, she supposed it was fair.

"I don't know if you remember Roderick, but he'd gone mad and tried to murder Lekalis in his own tavern room. Florence cut him down before he could do anything else." She informed him, dryly; what news was unspeakable then was now dry and trite.
"He was rather popular, so... she's in a bit of a sore spot with lots of people."

[azmoham]

"Hmm, I don't recall meeting him, if I did it must have been only in passing. A pity, he sounds like her was quite the gentleman."
His words practically dripped with sarcasm, reminiscent of the man before he'd been saddled with an ailing body, ailing sister, and ailing soul. 
"Well, I suppose its good to hear she hasn't absconded yet, quite the pity it'd be to have to make sense of all this without her."
He'd always valued her impartial view of things, intense focus and ability to parse complex ideas, all traits invaluable to any scholar, and one Jacques, loathe as he was to admit, occasionally found himself lacking in. 
"I shall need to meet with her, and Lekalis, as soon as we are able, perhaps breakfast tomorrow?"
he proposed.

[Vanitypirate]

It wouldn't do much to defend Roderick, as much good as it would do to defend Florence.
With some resignation, she stayed quiet on the matter.

"Oh, yes; it'd be easy to go and find her, I think. 'Specially if I ask Lekalis." She tapped a long finger at her chin.

"Where should we all meet?

[azmoham]

"Hmmm, the inn is the obvious choice of course, but given its rather lack of privacy and the sensitive nature of these things which we plan to discuss, it may be best to find somewhere mildly more private."
He leaned forwards in the water, so his hand rested on his knee and held up his head as he thought.
"There is of course, your house, or indeed even the abbey archives if we want to have the proper research materials at hand. But ahh prying eyes and listening ears hound us even there...If we wanted true security we could think on meeting on the edge of town and finding a more remote space in the woods in which to converse."
The woods, dark and foreboding as they could be even in the perfect light, still held less menace than the threat of overzealous townsmen dragging them from wherever they were and seeing them dance at the end of a rope. It was a fate he'd sidestepped once already, in this very town in fact, and he had no wish to risk meeting it again. 

[Vanitypirate]

"We could try one of the abandoned houses? There's a few on the outskirts of town." Tilly proposed with a small shrug of her slender shoulders.
She knew of one such place... so many years ago, when she had cut down a witch in the basement of one of the homes.
In a way, it was ironic: one could argue this was a form of witchcraft.

Tilly had no talent for gambling, but she would wager that such a place would still remain uninhabited.

"I can pick the lock-- and we'd make sure nobody we don't want can run into us."

[azmoham]

The man nodded, content with that option.
"Quite good, I like it. Secure, secret, and no risk of nosy villagers raising the alarm on something they don't understand. I doubt any layman, or lawman for that matter, would be terribly partial to a group of mercenaries and a sorcerer plotting to tinker with souls."
 He pointed out, sitting back upright and putting his arms around the rim of the tub, leaving the tip of his scar peaking out above the water.
"Do the others know of this house?"

[Vanitypirate]

There was the scar, mirrored to Tilly's own. Both testaments to one of the most dangerous predicaments she had found herself in... elsewise, she might not have believed it; her memory faltered on most of the happenings, down in the Warrens.
What she remembered was awakening in the tavern, in pain, and finding her compatriots in a much more dire state than she was.

"Not that I know of; I don't think anyone's had need for an abandoned little basement." She slid her thumbs beneath her lapels. "I'd probably have to lead you lot there, but it's not a terrible walk. Just a bit out of the way."

[azmoham]

"Anywhere not within earshot of the church is out of the way." 
He replied, arching an eyebrow.
"Better a long walk than a short drop."
He had little cause to ever think his proclivities would nearly end in his execution, but he'd since learned that there were few enough who cared for or understood his arts, and even fewer who would want to even try. Most were content to put him in the same category as that which crawled and crept through the ruins and slunk through the underbrush of the warrens and Weald. Tragic as it was, this was a world inured to the unknown by virtue of said unknown typically trying very hard to kill anyone who made contact with it. 

[Vanitypirate]

Tilly nodded in agreement; she was rather pleased with both of their respective ability to avoid the so-said 'short drop.'

Between the two scholars she knew closest, Jacques and Florence, she was confident in their ability to right the predicament she'd found herself in.
They were equally capable in different fields-- a valuable trait to have in this endeavor.

More mercifully, at least to the comparatively under-educated Tilly, they were some of the more tolerable scholars in the Hamlet.

"I'll find the materials tonight, and we'll have breakfast tomorrow." She planned aloud, and then looked to him once more,

"Where should I find you?"