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 Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 4:11 am
[For those who talked to the guard:]
The guard-tree did not look up. He was digging a coin out of the mud with his long, twiglike fingers. It shone gold underneath its overcoat of dirt, and he opened one of the pouches at his waist (or what passed for his waist) in preparation to drop it in. "Lost," he said to the two girls, and put it in the pouch. "I'm the guard of the Marketplace, and holder of the lost and found. If it's lost it's mine. If you lost it it's yours. But until you lost it, it's mine. When you lost it it was mine, but I'll lose it if you lost it -- "
The tree looked irritated. "I'm messing meself up," it said. As it straightened with a creak it found Rosalind, Eos and Azzo looking up at it.
"East," it said again shortly. "The real fairy's east. Thataway. I told you once, I told you again. You ask another question and you pay for it."
The guard was there. One might tell the guard something, or ask it a question. You may also investigate a particular word.
[For those who investigated the stall:]
The stall was made of old, dilapidated wood, rusted at the legs. The cloth that covered it was faded with age. It all looked old and grubby somehow, at odds with the birds singing and the sun shining and the breeze whispering the scents of flowers to them all around. They saw the seller's wares, spread out on the table or hung on poles behind him: flutes of all sorts, harps made from everything to gold to turtle-shell, a plastic hanger of the sort you'd find in a cupboard hung with bells. There was a flower of Canterbury bells that really rang as the wind nodded its heads.
There were no prices on the harps, bells or flutes. Some of them were pretty enough, but it all seemed a bit tawdry and some of the instruments were obvious junk.
The windy seller was there. One might buy the instruments if you had anything to pay with, tell the seller something, or ask it a question.
[For those who talked to the instrument seller:]
"Instruments of music," it said, with its breathless voice. "Not instruments of war, medicine or building. All of them guaranteed to lure the beast for the Hunt! Try not spears or words of flattery, but song! Will you buy, cat-man?" Now it turned to Aphrodite. "Or you, with your pretty hair? Or you, boy," now Scheelite, "a baby tooth that hasn't fallen out, or the blood of your finger."
The last was directed at Selenite, and the instrument seller had outflung its whirling arms as though it was in the midst of a sales pitch.
The windy seller was there. One might buy the instruments if you had anything to pay with, tell the seller something, or ask it a question. You may also investigate a particular word.
The Straggling Marketplace consists of the mouth, the east stalls and the west stalls. You are at the mouth. You may go in two directions.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 6:25 am
Scheelite was more than a little disappointed. These weren't instruments he really had any experience in (not that one could call the few songs he could struggle through on an actual guitar 'experience' either, but it was better than none!). Maybe a small part of him had hoped to see his missing weapon here. ...Actually more than a small part had hoped such a thing, but alas it wasn't meant to be.
The windy seller was speaking, and having satisfied his main curiosity of this stall he forced himself to listen. This...Hunt, what was it? People kept mentioning it in passing which meant that most people would have a clue what was being talked about. They didn't, which didn't sit well with Scheelite. There was also this whole thing about being blind. The raven had said something about not trusting one's eyes because here they were most likely lying. Why was it that this stand stood out so well against the scenery? Everything around was beautiful and perfect. This....well...it just wasn't.
"Hey!" Scheelite offered a wave and a bit of a smile to the windy seller. There was a part of his mind rather cautious about this and wanting to just get away and maybe find a place to hide since the guard had said most people were inside..maybe they should be too? But for now the more aggressive part of his mind was in action and this one wanted some answers. He figured the best way to get some would be to ask the seller a few things.
"Sorry to be rude, but I don't quite understand? I'm gonna venture a guess that luring this here beast is a good thing...or at least the goal?" Goals were good. Goals in games were like achievements. Maybe if they did a few they'd get closer to their main goal of getting out of here?
"So buying an instrument sounds like a -really- good thing to do..." Here he let his acid gaze wander back to the flower of Canterbury bells as something about them seemed really special. Not that he knew much about bells. If those weren't for sale he'd settle for something else, but he figured walking away from the stall with something was for the best. "I'm just not sure what I can offer you in return, unless you're really serious about teeth and blood as payment?" It...sounded odd. But parting with a bit of blood or that somewhat loose tooth nagging him from the back of his mouth wouldn't be so bad. Especially when the only other thing on his person was the dead glowstick hanging from his uniform.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 6:44 am
Azzo was more than a little displeased by the way Rosalind busted up in there. He sighed rather heavily and shook his head as he glanced at both directions.
He just really wanted to get out of here. Hell he could just start walking, maybe he'd end up where he needed to be, he had a compass. He pulled it and the clear crystal hypnotism rock from his pocket as he started to retreat.
Pausing just a second debating on questioning if the compass would lead him where to go, he'd followed it here hadn't he? But then compasses only point north...
He was getting flustered with the whole ordeal. Azzo was looking at the two directions wondering what he should try next. He paused, stuffing the rabbit's tail back into his pocket for now. He pondered, closing his hand around the hypnotism rock.
He made his way from the tree since Rosalind was busy trying to attention hog and over to the seller. He stopped near by long enough to listen to what the seller had to say, "I have two questions sir, if you have the time." He stated, and made very certain it was stated before continuing to ask the seller his questions.
"First what is this hunt about, like what's been hunted? Also would we know the real fairy when we saw uh... him?" He was unsure the gender and questioned gained a 'is that right' tone when he spoke. He was both hoping that the seller knew something and wondered if the seller would tell them.
He halfway wished the raven was here. At least you got some sort of lead, even though he left you questioning things as he left you high and dry.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 9:58 am
Rosalind did not appreciate the vagueness of the creature's answers, especially since she took the time to lay the formalities on. Proper etiquette was lost on fairy beings, apparently. She wondered if any darn thing could give a direct, layman's terms answer to anything.
"Ohoho, so I see that money talks here, too," Rosalind said with a smile, "well, if that's the case..." She was about to mention her Father's vast amounts of wealth, but recalled that one, she lost all of her money when falling into this land, and that two, credit cards probably weren't an acceptable form of payment amongst the fairy tale creatures. If there ever were a time she hated money, it was when she didn't have it-- and this was the first time.
It was a foreign feeling, and she didn't like it in the least.
But then Rosalind recalled that why fret, she had the powers of Wealth. She could just rain coins down, problem solved-- then she could ask as many questions as she wanted. Rosalind did her cute little pirouette and snapped her fingers, to no avail. She then remembered that she also lost her ability to use Sterling Silver Volley for whatever reason.
Surely Sailor Eos had no money, she looked poor. Azzo wouldn't either, but he had trudged off to bother someone else (thankfully). Sailor Rosalind traipsed over to the tree guard, and phrased her wording so as to tell the guardian rather than ask, "actually, I seem to have lost an abundance of coins. You see, I was very rich before I found myself here. Very, very rich. It's all lost, and you must have them, Mr. Tree, since you know all there is about lost things."
She hoped that this would result in a straightforward answer or some information about anything.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 12:37 pm
The guard was...speaking nonsense again. Eos frowned, trying to make sense of it, but there were too many of the same words in the same sentence and it all blurred into one - something about lost and found and being lost and finding it and UGH. She was getting a headache.
But there was one bit of sense - the real fairy, who they'd been told to search for, was east. Eos looked up, trying to remember her norths and wests and the like. What was that phrase? - Never Eat Shredded Wheat. North, East, South, West. Turning around, she eventually managed to face east, giving one last glance to Rosalind with a smile, before she headed towards the east stalls, following the lead she'd been given by the guard.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 1:55 pm
Selenite's eyes roamed over the stall's contents curiously, though there was really nothing that caught her eye or caused her to feel anything other than slightly disappointed. Everything here seemed real, at least in the sense that things appeared used and worn, instead of the movie-like nature of the rest of the forest. The flower of Canterbury bells were unique, at least; Selenite was fairly sure that the blossoms didn't typically make noise.
The strange looking senshi and her companion had followed the Negaverse agents over to the stall, though the bluenette continued to ignore them. Or at least not make any overtly welcoming gestures. "How much blood?" she asked suspiciously. That didn't sound like a good bargain. There were old stories of deals with fairy-folk gone wrong in some of Selenite's favorite books. Trading her blood for something was practically screaming for the situation to end badly.
But...well, they might need some help for the Hunt, whatever that was.
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:29 pm
"Would you have rather pissed off the angry-looking guard? I'd like to keep my skin inta- oh for Christ's sake, I am so sick of this Hunt business."
Her whisper was hissed in Grendel's direction after the seller addressed them, the cat all-too aware of the senshi's earlier frustration with the vague and aloof satyr they'd been unfortunate enough to come across. Eyes scanned the wares of the seller as she thought over his words. Her eyes as well fell across the flower of Canterbury bells, their beauty going unnoticed as she questioned the practicality of the instrument.
Her patience was wearing thin, something abnormal for the Captain. Then again, it was also quite abnormal to find oneself stuck in a strange new world with little to no clues to go by, accompanied by strangers who seemed just as perplexed.
Overall, she thought she was handling it reasonably.
"Why would we want to lure a beast?" She finally asked the seller irritably, "I assumed the satyr we ran across was the beast chosen for the Elf King and Queen's Hunt."
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Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 7:03 pm
The Hunt again--and as the blonde senshi hissed in his ear, Grendel did his best to swallow a thin smile. They were on the same page as far as their exasperation went, but Grendel wasn't about to toss the opportunity to learn more information away. His thoughts were similar--the satyr was likely the quarry, and he'd certainly been fond of his panpipes enough that music was a very probable lure.
From the sounds of it, they could buy the instruments with... pieces of their own body. Clicking his tongue against his teeth for a moment, the cat finally sighed and seemed to nod to himself. He decided to ask the vendor another question, letting his eyes wandering over the odd bells, the harps--all the elemental's baubles he was trying to sell off on them.
"Yes, what exactly does happen if we manage to bring the beast down in the Hunt?" Was there a prize of some sort? Why, perhaps they'd even be taken to see the King and Queen.
He wasn't exactly sure that would end well for any of them, if so. "What price would I have to pay for those?" He asked, gesturing to the flower of Canterbury bells.
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:08 pm
[The Canterbury bells:]
The bells were a cluster of white flowers, with powdery yellow stamens inside and filigreed green leaves decorating the stem. They looked exactly like real flowers. As the heads nodded, a different clear note came from each. It was either an exceptional piece of craftsmanship or real, enchanted flowers.
"Ah," said the seller. "You have good taste. A most gratifying item. By rights it should not be able to be bought by anyone but royalty, but because I like the look of you I would let any of you buy it at a pittance. A pittance! Your heart's blood, perhaps, or something so simple as your song? A lock of your hair. Or your name, are you using that? Something of yourself.
"How much blood? We can negotiate, but this item is not cheap."
The windy seller was there. One might buy the instruments if you had anything to pay with, tell the seller something, or ask it a question.
[For those who questioned the seller about the Hunt:]
Now the seller looked vague. "A satyr?" it said. "I wouldn't know. Perhaps that's the saboteur from the Court of the Fairy Queen. There's no reason to hunt a satyr." Otherwise it seemed to dismiss Aphrodite as ignorant, and a note of impatience had entered his voice. Turning to Azzo, the impatience was more pronounced. "The Hunt is the Great Hunt. Do you know nothing? Real fairy-- pfaugh, are you calling me unreal?"
It was truly contemptuous by the time it turned to Grendel, but tried to soften its voice. "If you take down the beast," it said, "you'll have the favour of the king or queen before tomorrow night is through and the love of all of Elflands."
The windy seller was there. One might buy the instruments if you had anything to pay with, tell the seller something, or ask it a question.
[For those who questioned the guardian:]
"Then you'll tell me how many there were," said the guard immediately. "You'll tell me what they look like, what the millin' was, whether they was gold or silver or electrum or not, when you lost 'em, and why you was so foolish as to do so. Then I give you lost things."
The guard was there. One might tell the guard something, or ask it a question, or try to claim an item from the lost and found.
The Straggling Marketplace consists of the mouth, the east stalls and the west stalls. You are at the mouth. You may go in two directions.
[THE EAST STALLS]
Eos goes east.
The east side of the marketplace was much the same as the mouth -- still trod in by dirt, closer to the riverside now and huddled up against the impassable wall. The stalls here were grubby as the stall was at the mouth, and the stall-owners seem bored -- a few perk up at the sight of customers, and some don't seem to care.
There are four stalls in all. A lovely green-skinned woman with flowers in her hair stands in front of a selection of Tupperware containers all filled with sweets and sweetmeats. A few fire-skinned men lounge around another stall, laughing and joking amongst themselves, their eyes like burning coals and their half-naked bodies glistening with oil. Their stall seems to sell powders and alchemical goods. Another stall is guarded by a wizened, hideous wraith with a thin wasp face, each rib showing, next to a bubbling cauldron and a table full of papers. The last stall has an assortment of beautiful clothes laid over a dirty trestle table, and a pretty butterfly-winged child sits on a stool behind it looking bored.
The sweet seller, alchemy sellers, cauldron man and tailor are here. One might examine a stall, tell a seller something, or ask one a question.
The Straggling Marketplace consists of the mouth, the east stalls and the west stalls. You are at the east. You may go in two directions.
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:41 pm
Royalty? In Schee's mind he was royalty. He was totally awesome damnit, and if those flowers were for royalty then it simply made him want them even more.
"I'll offer you something for them," he began, gesturing to the flower of Canterbury bells. "Unfortunately I'm using my name, even though I'd rather not..." God did he hate his name. Hate it. But this wasn't the place to go blabbing it, WAY too many people around that could connect his two identities later down the road. "Annnd my hair isn't something I like to play with...heart needs blood...so how about a song?"
It was odd sometimes how his mind worked. Actually it was odd almost all the time how his mind worked. So here in this moment of great importance where he needed to impress this seller so he could be the one to walk away with the flowers, the first thing that popped into his mind was a song from a great Disney classic.
"The men up there don't like a lot of blabber, they think a girl who gossips is a bore! Yet on land it's much prefered for ladies not to say a word and after all dear, what is idle babble for? Come on, they're not all that impressed with conversation, true gentlemen avoid it when they can. But they dote and swoon and fawn, on a lady who's withdrawn. It's she who holds her tongue who get's a man!"
Though his voice could grate on one's nerves when he was screeching in their ear or singing just to be annoying, when it really counted his voice could be quite pleasant. Unfortunately his song probably wasn't making much sense to a wind elemental in the middle of who -knew- where they were, and the rest of his little 'party' probably wanted to facepalm or kill him at this point. But at least it was SOMETHING.
So he offered his song as payment for the flowers, though inadvertantly he was also offering his voice as the real piece of himself.
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:01 pm
He started to talk before pausing as he watched Schee sing getting cut off, his brow lofted quickly. Head tilting, "Didn't know you could sing." He said softly, though it wasn't a 'keep it up boy' type comment but it was interesting, at least to Azzo.
Azzo was playing with his hypnotist stone by now. He was pondering as it switched from hand to hand and was walked over his fingered. He was watching the the flower of Canterbury bells though had no real interest in them.
"The favor of the king or queen? Meaning that if we wanted out of here, we have to... hunt a saboteur?" Azzo said more to himself than the fairy or the others though it was loud enough for those around him pondering.
He took to pacing a second after, looking from the seller to the tree, then he told the instrument seller "You see Mister Merchant, I'm not the one that called you the 'unreal fairy', Mister Tree finder........" He paused something seemed to have clicked in his head as his eyes darted back to the tree.
"Anyways, Mister Tree finder said the real fairy in the east. I thought you might know more, you look like a much smarter fellow than him." He had lowered his voice as he told the seller this then shrugged, "But I can see you obviously don't, which is a pity. I suppose I should try asking the tree for more information." He was trying to use the two against each other, though if that didn't work, he'd just have to go plan b...
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 8:33 pm
She thought about what she had lost exactly. Well, there were many things-- her ability to summon a barrage of silver coins, her way home, her patience with Scheelite, pieces of her skirt-- but at this moment, Rosalind was in need of coins.
"Well," she started to tell him matter-of-factly, "I actually seem to have lost my description of the coins. And since I have lost it, then you must know exactly what it is that I lost in the first place." Rosalind flipped some stray curls behind her shoulder and arched her back. This was starting to get tedious.
Then Rosalind heard the most awful caterwauling she had ever had the displeasure of hearing. And she knew exactly who it was. Rosalind crossed her arms and peered over her shoulder-- it was Lt. Scheelite, as expected. She was going to be cute and say "oh, and that boy over there's lost his mind," but decided against it since the tree man did not seem like he had much of a thing for jokes.
Plus he had a giant club and she didn't want to joke with someone like that.
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Posted: Sun Jun 06, 2010 9:36 pm
Her eyebrows arched as she listened to the blonde haired boy sing. From the looks of his attire, he definitely wasn't a senshi. Civilian? Negaverse? She was in no position to judge his character (not now, at least), so instead she judged his voice. Harshly.
"If your singing wasn't bad enough to kill us all, your sense of irony is."
As she spoke, her hands rose to unfasten the golden earrings dangling from her ears. She could feel Selene's disappointment, wherever she was right now, but aside from body parts and hair follicles, there was little else she had to offer than that of her uniform - or that she was willing to have the others offer in sacrifice. Thoughts flickered towards the heart pendant clasped around her neck, but only in the most extreme of situations would she be willing to part with that. To others, their uniform was their uniform and nothing more. To Aphrodite, it was a part of herself, it was a part of her identity and the hearts that adorned her accessories matched those of...
Well, that didn't matter right now. What mattered was getting out of Elflands, out of Tartaros and back home.
"I have these," she offered the seller in exchange as payment for the flower of Canterbury bells, "And my friend here also has some jewelry he'd be willing to sacrifice in exchange for the instrument...as well as instructions for the Hunt."
She nudged against her feline companion, breaking her glance with the seller to motion towards Grendel's piercings and accessories.
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 1:06 am
Okay...this wasn't helping.
Eos wasn't exactly sure what she'd been expecting - in all honesty, she'd been hoping for a bit, neon sign pointing towards something or someone with 'THE REAL FAIRY' printed on top of it. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case, and she was instead faced with four stalls.
Okay, the one with the half-naked men was out. That was disgusting, they were all...sweaty and oily. She didn't want to be anywhere near them. The man - was it a man? - by the cauldron also freaked her out a little bit. She could see his ribs, and it was so unnatural and...weird. No, she wouldn't be going to him. Which left the sweets, or the beautiful clothes. Both of which Eos was quite fond of. But no, she had to think logically - what would the real fairy like? Did fairies like sweets? Or pretty clothes? There was that story, about some little people making shoes...but she had a feeling that was elves. The child beside the clothes stall had beautiful butterfly wings - perhaps she was the real fairy? But fairies didn't have butterly wings, did they?
Giving another glance to the clothes - they really were beautiful - Eos decided to move towards the tailor, examining the stall for a few moments so as not to seem rude, before turning and asking the child, "Excuse me - do you know where the real fairy is?"
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Posted: Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:54 am
Selenite eyed both Scheelite and Aphrodite sidelong. That was...well, great. They were negotiating prices whenthey probably didn't understand just what they were supposed to be offering, or what would actually be taken. But they'd offered, and that rather neatly let the bluenette off the hook. "Thank you, but no," she said with a nod of her head. "You've got offers for the bells, and that was all I was interested in." No sense making this some kind of competition.
Azzo had tried to talk to the seller, and in doing so offered Selenite some information as well. The 'real fairy' was in the east? She looked over that way and saw one of the senshi wandering in that direction; Eos, not Rosalind. Probably for the best. "I'll be over there," she murmured to Scheelite mostly - he was the only one she was willing to trust beyond the basics needed to survive and get out of here. Nodding her head once more, this time at her other erstwhile companions, Selenite headed towards the east side of the market
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