[WFRP2e] The Power of One - Part 2 - "Transire Benefaciendo"

[MrAbdiel]

Bella doesn't need to close her eyes - she's all but blind down hear, pointing the blunderbuss back towards the stairs or, more specifically, away from your voice. Confronted with the obstructing double doors, you make do; using a roll of wadding cloth to bundle up a thick line of gunpowder and jam it in the crack between door and stone frame. You light the cloth and hustle with Bella to the corner, out of the arc of the blast and put your fingers in your ears.

As the blast goes off with a heavy bang, the flash lights up the skeletal swordsman descending the stairs to resume his post. The gust from the blast buffets his ragged rainment a little, but does not otherwise bother him - but seeing you and Bella, the lower mandible flaps and chatters in long-dead outrage; and lacking his spiritual enemy, he breaks into a run toward you.

But a rewarding thump of the door beyond falling inward as its rusted out hinges give way gives you hope. You feared the blast might just push out a corner of the door, forcing you and Bella to crawl - which would have been disastrous with a stabbing skeleton at your back! - but you rush around and crouch through the smoke, and the obstructing beam that was barring the door until its bracket was knocked loose by the burst moments ago, too.

Another cellar; more wine casks, and a slop that leads to a deeper, cooler area where cheese must have been left to age. The door and its bar must have been here as a kind of panic room, permitting the occupants to retreat into the cellar and lock themselves in while looters took what they wanted from above and moved on without endangering what is most precious. The door was not breached, until you came - but it seems to have failed in its job all the same.

Curled up on the ground by one of the winecask racks are a pair of skeletons; both in the crumbling remnants of night gowns; one skeleton smaller than the other. But you barely have time to observe them; you pull Bella off to the side and into cover behind one of the racks, as your pursuer clambers through the breach after you. Only it seems to have ceased pursuit - you heave the sword clattering to the ground and, looking back around the edge of the rack, see the upright dead man gazing down on the two remnants on the ground, nestled into each other in dead. You watch its skull loll on its neck as if hanging his head in defeat, or misery; and then the walking dead man lowers himself to the ground, careful not to disturb the other skeletons, and lays with them with a bony arm gently crowded over them.

A moment later, he is not alone in this strange reunion: the spirit, once horrific and ghastly, fades into visibility and grim luminescence overlooking the skeletal trio, permitting Bella to gasp at the spectacle by that light. Now, the spirit looks tired, and miserable, and mournful; and like a man climbing into bed to go to sleep, he gets down on his hands and knees, and then settles precisely into the bodily arrangement of the skeletal warrior that preceded him. The spook-light goes out; and everything goes quiet. And then a sound like a great heaving exhalation rushes from the house, and the grumbling creak of wood as a structure only partially subject to the rules of physical reality surrenders itself completely; and then quiet again.

And waiting a few moments to make sure nothing else befalls you and your friend, the next sound is less terrible - Signore Cestié in the cellar on the other side of the door, calling your names; a bobbing lamp's light preceding him.

"Taalia! Bella! Taalia! Bella!"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Remembering some pointers from when Rashabag had directed her into devising a make-shift bomb to blow open a hole in the wall of The Tower, Taalia hurriedly applied some improvisation to the door, the threat of the incoming skeleton warrior granting her efforts wings.

What lay on the other side, however, she was not prepared for.

Gaining entry into the cellar, "quickly!" she harkened to Bella, the smaller womans hand gripping between her shoulder blades, Taalia led the pair inside only to be greeted by the sight of tragedy long buried. Throwing themselves off to the side, using the corner as her means to place herself between the skeleton and Bella, Taalia was prepared to fight the skeleton, to disarm him and then somehow restrain the undead horror in a way that neutralized it as a threat, given that she could clearly not 'slay' it permanently.

But instead, she saw the remains of what was undoubtedly the former lady of the manor, the skeletons wife, and their daughter. The skeletal warrior was equally seized by this sight, his eternal vigil seemingly at an end as he paused in his advance and diverted his full attention to the grisly remains, kneeling down next to them as if to join them in still rest. The spirit too, a specter that had haunted this cursed house for so long, drew itself down to join them, its malice and hatred replaced with forlorn lamentation before the spirit merged with the skeleton and were finally whole once again in the peace of the grave.

"Taalia! Bella! Taalia! Bella!"

It took several seconds for Taalia to respond, as her eyes remained fixed on those skeletal remains and the sad story they had to tell, one it was likely she would never fully know. How the pair ended up locked in this room while their armed father, husband and guardian remained outside, who could say.

"In here!" Taalia returned Cestie's call, relaxing herself as she holstered her pistol and lowering her shield.

"Bella, are you okay? Cestie - is everything alright?"

The shepardess would fill them both in on what happened to her and what she had experienced. Naturally, she would chide Bella just a little bit for coming in after her, but it would be sumberged beneath a tight, affectionate hug and gratitude for her bravery at the unspoken understanding that Taalia probably would've done the same thing.

"We should bury them, and the robber," Taalia spoke, gesturing to the remains of the family.

"Give them all a proper burial."

[MrAbdiel]

Cestié joins you and Bella in this 'secure' cellar. He has rigged a slat from one of the wings of the flying machine to hold the lantern for him. The length of wood is bound roughly at one end to the belt above his backside, rests on Cestié's back as he crouches forward, and hangs a lantern on its end bobbling out four feet in front of him. It's not an elegant solution, and you can see a possible world where such a ploy results in a man cracking their lantern on a doorframe and splashing their shoes with burning oil; but he needs to hold the firearm you left in both hands, so he has little choice. Bella heard your pistols fire, and told Cestié to wait as she rushed in after you; Cestié heard the blast, and followed in not long after. However much you would like to keep them out of danger, neither of your friends can long be trusted to stand aside when you are imperilled. Their love for you will not permit it.

As you all look over the scene together, a more tragic tale of love seems to unfold in the blood marks and remnants of clothes, and the construction of the room. Between the three of you, you put together a theory that seems to fit the facts.

The man must have been minor nobility. The sword, a family relic. Your theory about a wizard, or a necromancer being here seems to have been close to on point - a robed figure without armor and three armored ones descended into this cellar in some kind of invasion. It would seem the man rushed his family to the secure room, ushered them in, and bid them bar the door behind them; presumably, expecting the wife to be able to unbar it when the danger was passed.

But the stain around the wife's remains suggests she took a mortal wound, and perished not long after going inside. Beyond the door, the man took a stand; killing his attackers with crossbow and blade; apparently visiting a mortal blow on the rogue wizard who crawled back to the steps and died there. But the man of the house did not fare much better; he lived long enough to smear the blood of his hands on the door, seperated from his dying or dead wife and lonely daughter by three inches of hardwood.

Evidence further in the cellar tells the tail end of the sad story. Old wax skins from cheese left to age in the cellar suggest the girl fed herself as best she could; but at some point, she nestled herself into her mother's cold arms and never got up again.

Something about this ghastly tale of division and a desperate need to reunite seems to have been sufficient to have caused a supernatural event. Perhaps it had something to do with the magical aggressor - a botched spell of grey magic, or necromancy, or witchcraft, gone awry because of a deathblow. Perhaps that had nothing to do with it, and it was merely the misery of the circumstance that was sufficient to cause a dead man's spirit and bones to rise up independently and, in some kind of mystical confusion, desperately defend the door to their loved ones from each other... and all interlopers. But permitting the family to reunite in death seems to have done the trick; the house seems to have lost its 'desire' to prevent anyone leaving, and seems now just a normal dilapidated villa... even if, because of your experiences here, you have no desire to stay long term. You spend the night in the shelter of the place, and spend a couple of hours digging the wet earth outside to bury the family and interlopers in separate, marked plots.

A search of the villa reveals a descent amount of reasonably valuable house goods - silverwear, crockery, some art pieces - but considering how light you are forced to travel, overloading on loot seems a bad idea. One thing stands out as a token to repay your traumatic efforts here, however - the bronze xiphos.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Make me a Perception (Hearing) roll, +20.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Forensically piecing together the final moments of the family was a little trial in itself. Sadly, it was a labour of tragedy, as each step of confirmation only shone more light on the sorrowful events that had been so traumatic and everlasting, they had mystically connected the material with the spiritual by trapping the mans spirit, or at least a fragment of it, here in the physical plane and tethering him to this house in an everlasting vigil.

What the rogue wizard wanted, who could say. But as Taalia sifted through his remains and came across a rusted ritualistic knife, she could tell that he had not knocked upon their door with benign intentions. A Necromancer, most likely, that was Taalia's guess. She had originally believed this entire house was the product of a wicked and possibly insane Grey Wizard who was protecting his private study with the most malicious means available. But, now, Taalia could see that she had been wrong. It wasn't a bad guess, given the available evidence, but it was the incorrect one.

However, she wished she had been right. Perhaps it was her slave instincts brewing beneath the surface, or maybe she was getting 'softer' and more 'normal' in the years of absence from the hellish pits of the Skaven, but Taalia showed particular care for the skeleton of the small girl. Maybe there was a personal connection, or familiarity that Taalia could see reflected in those small, boney remains. Trapped in this room, starving to death, alone with nothing but her mothers corpse. It was a bleak reminder that Taalia's sad story wasn't the only one in this world. There were millions like it, and not all of them had a happy ending.

The shepardess helped gather the remains, taking care to provide any little trinkets or memorabilia she could find into the graves of the relevant owner. She ensured the family were together. The robber was buried a short distance away, on his own. The rogue wizard and his goons...they received a grave each too, but it was further away. They were the catalyst for the tragedy that unfolded here, but so much time had passed, their souls had already been sent off for judgement at whatever divine court awaited them all.

Taalia spoke a few words over the graves and offered them all at least a one minute of silence. Once they had completed the burial, the girl would stay in the house with Cestie and Bella, though she would not partake in any grave robbing of her own. The cutlery stayed, the tapestries were upheld, any valuables or jewels (the ones that didn't get buried with, presumably the lady of the house) were kept in place. Taalia played her part in helping the spirits here find rest, burying the bodies and receiving a reward in the form of a serviceable house within which to wait out the storm.

She did take the sword though. The girl found the scabbard for it and brought its 'humming' frame up to her ear, her brow furrowed in confusion and curiosity.

"Can you hear that, Singore Cestie?" she would ask, holding the blade in such a way as to allow him to attempt to receive the low-key resonations. Bella too.

But neither could.

Taking it as a sign, Taalia cleaned up the scabbard and the blade as best she could. Perhaps this should find a place on a wall somewhere. Or maybe handed over to the Amethyst wizards? Or maybe kept as a memento, of that time she and Bella helped free a tortured spirit from its eternal vigil.

[MrAbdiel]

Trantio

Trantio is not so grand as Remas, or even Verezzo; atleast, not in scale. It is an inland city like Verezzo, situated on one of many hills in a region of them halfway between the Appucini mountains (and trade from the dwarf holds) in the east, and its port-dotted coastline (and trade from the New World) arrayed along the Gulf of Pearls. It was once the poor sister of Miragliano and Remas and Pavona around it; but that was many centuries ago. Since then, it has been profiting from being the single major beneficiary of trade and treasure expeditions to the New World where Marco Colombo’s adventures made it clear that intercontinental profit was perilous… but potentially nation-changing. Your trio wanders the massive Central Piazza, which is a larger market than any you have ever seen. With the flying machine safely tucked away on the estate of one of Cestié’s old Miragleanan friends who also moved south (though not as south as Cestié), he and Bella are free to walk with you on a day of indulgence, and also to pick up more maintenance supply for the machine after more days of flying. You and the old tinker are in agreement - wood is cheap enough to replace as soon as it shows sign of stress; and it’s much easier to do so on a clear day of strolling like this instead of when you are plunging out of the sky trying to compensate for a snapped wing.

Old Trantio is located inside the city’s inner wall, with New Trantio existing in the concentric ring around it, constructed during the centuries long age of prosperity that followed Marco Colombo’s successes. The exterior wall, its gatehouses and towers, are particularly intimidating in size and quality; made with help from dwarven castellans who themselves profit from Trantio’s trade power. Indeed, there are more dwarves here in Trantio per human than in the other cities you have seen, for sure.

“Gaulfredo’s family is from around these parts - not the city, I think; but if you listen you can hear his twang in their accent,” Signore Cestié explains. And you can hear it - you’ve known for a while that Gaulfredo (more even than his good sister) has a way of almost ‘swinging’ his emphasis from consonant to consonant, dipping down into the vowels and back up creating a certain meter to his conversation, where the Verezzan natives were more plainspoken, and not so different from the Remans. Cestié’s Miragleanan accent is distinct too - putting an odd little surrussive flush on the ‘s’ sound so that every ‘s’ is almost an ‘sh’. Bella’s Luccinian accent hasn’t lept out at you - but perhaps she has merely adapted well, or Luccinians do not have distinct accents.

Bella windowshops at the stalls, but has lived humbly and never really craved wealth. “We’ve a little time for some fun before we head back - what do you think, Taalia?”

Spoiler: Trantio Tourism

Show

Some options for your perusal - pick two!

Visit the Trantine Greyhound track!

Marvel at the Trantine Printing Press!

See what the Dwarf Quarter has to Offer!

Witness the Triumph of Marco Columbo - a Museum of the Legend himself!

Browse the Grand Statuary, an artistic in this city known for its marble quarries!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

There was something about exploring the cities with friends in tow that made the experience so much better! When she had first visited Verezzo all those years ago, she had done so as a lone figure with a clear set of goals in mind, going from one task to the next. But now, here in foreign lands with Cestie and Bella alongside her, Taalia felt a swell in her heart and wore a smile on her face as she would sometimes walk with her arm interlocked with either or of her companions. In some ways she looked like an over-grown child with her grandfather and best friend, her eyes bright as she took in the vast market-place around her.

After the events of the house, Taalia was feeling more lively, as if she were looking for something to remind her of the better things in life. The tale of the daughter starving to death in her slain mothers arms, the father unable to come to their aid, it was the bleak side of existence that was an unfortunate constant in the world. But here, the scents of food and cooking wafting through the market place as goods from a dozen local regions lined up in polished readiness to seduce the passer-bys to part with their coin - this was a more pleasant. And to enjoy it in the company of ones friends? Magnifico.

The talk of Gaulfredo and mention of the race track took Taalia's mind momentarily back to Bella Collina, to her adoptive family and Corvo. Her heart swelled up a little as the thought rolled through her brain, years of fond recollections stirred up by Cestie's mention. She wondered what they were doing now? How they were coping? For a second, Taalia pictured the grandest bottle of Bretonnian spirits being delivered to Gaulfredo's home as a treat after he completed the first half-year operations of the farm and received its rewards. Ariana would roll her eyes. Vitorrio would eagerly ask if he could try it, with Corvo and Elmo sensing their little masters excitement and prancing about him. Taalia snickered fondly over the imagined idea, as Bella posts the question of what they should check out.

OOC:
_____________________
Let's go to:
The Trantine Printing Press and the Triumph of Marco Columbo - a Museum of the Legend himself!

[MrAbdiel]

The Forefront of Technology

The smell is ink. You've smelled ink before plenty when you learned writing from the Madre Angeletta and taught it to Vittorio; but the scent was a chemical whiff them. Here it is heady, almost overpowering; burying beneath it the smell of olive oil lamps, parchment, binding glue and salt.

The whole operation of the printing press is just two rooms; a large 'factory floor' is the first, where two large wood and iron machines full of levers and plates are operated by apprentices with ink smeared aprons and black-stained hands. They rearrange typeface with swift, meticulous little movements; mechanically operate the pressing mechanisms, peel sheets of parchment away to set to dry, and a dozen other small but critical operations which you would miss if they weren't being pointed out to you.

The little business is remarkable, and seems to have three streams of income. The first is obvious - the mass production and binding of certain volumes at speeds unthinkable by a manual amanuensis. Currently they are creating a batch of volumes - a classic, four hundred year old philosophical treatise about the nature of the world and its denizens; Forma di Malevola by Marcelli Verdallo. Some book seller elsewhere in the city awaits this stack of nearly identical copies. A book written hundreds of years ago, suddenly proliferated today! What a marvel!

The secondary income is the small bookshop they run themselves; a small number of volumes from every print run, they keep for a library and direct sale from the shelves lining the walls of the second room; a kind of foyer-bookstore-viewing room for the factory beyond. From here, there is also access to a smaller, more prototypical press which has been decommissioned from major work and now serves only to print letters as souvenirs for visitors with silver to spare - the tertiary, tourism income stream. A helpful, fair skinned and ginger haired girl not much older than you explains these things as part of a penny tour Cestié paid for. Her name is Phillipa.

"...and with two machines, we can create over two thousand impressions a day! Depending on the size of the book in demand, that might be anywhere between one and four books worth of content. We are still limited by parchment supply, mostly - occasionally a wealthy client brings a shipment of paper from Cathay, which is even more lovely - but it will change the way information gets around the world. To think, one Sigmarite fellow in Middenheim conceived of this machine a couple of years ago - and now, we stand here in Trantio at the dawn of an age where all mankind will have books to read!" She does a good job of being very excited about this mundane process. Bella is interested in the books on the shelves; but Cestié is almost overwhelmed by the chance to look at the machines themselves. Near to giggling.

Spoiler: OOC: Behold! The Fuuuuture!

Show

Normally printed books are 100gc. Here, at the source, you can buy from a selection of printed books at a mere 50 duro - or with a haggle role, perhaps even cheaper on some damaged or misprinted stock!

You can also, if you want, have a letter printed on the small press.
Travellers often write a template, get the type set for it, then personalize several printed copies for family and friends, having them all sent home as a novelty. Having a bundle of letters printed in this way and delivered to Bella Collina would cost 10 scellini, plus 1 scellini per additional copy.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia felt back in her element when she wandered the magnificent printing press with Cestie and Bella. The scent of oil and ozone hugging the air. The clinking and clanking of machinery. The whine of great belts whacking around wheels and operating partially mechanized systems while a cotorie of specialized workers went about their sole task. It was a beautiful dance of harmony that was all intended to produce a single product: books.

What what a product they were!

Even before Taalia had been literate, she was smart enough to see the value in writing things down and keeping records. Rashabang had done as such relentlessly, his notes turning into madhouse cross-cross maps of notes and schematics that only his mad genius was able to decipher. So when the girl had finally learned from blessed Singora Angeletta, she did so both as a means of practicality and so that she could understand the various texts she possessed on alchemical and medical procedures. After that, well, she was within Singore Cestie's workshop, learning the gunsmiths trade and the rudimentary math that went along with it. After that then came her own farm, for which she kept ledgers, husbandary notes and contractual records that enhanced her efficiency.

And that was for her own immediate importance. What about the long-term consequences of the thoughts and philosophical inquiry of great minds who had lived centuries prior, whose works could not influence society of today with their wisdom? Indeed, had not Cestie kept schematics from an ancestor? And look where it was taking them...

Yes, yes indeed. Though not a weapon one could throw at an enemy soldier or blast into the ratsnest of a Skaven pit, the book was perhaps one of mankinds most far-reaching and powerful pieces of technology. To accumulate the experiences, knowledge and works of past generations so that future ones may build upon it. It was simply marvelous.

"It seems no matter where I go in life, I always end up in a workshop of some sort, Singore Cestie," Taalia leaned over to whisper to her companion with a cheeky smile.

When the young red-headed girl spoke, Taalia returned her enthusiasm. Perhaps it was ego speaking, but all this talk of 'changing the future of mankind' reminded the shepardess that she was flying across the country in an airborne machine, from Bella Collina of Tilea, through Bretonnia and to Altdorf of the Empire. It was a historical first, and the flying machine Cestie had made would be an engineering marvel that revolutionized travel.

And this girl, so excited about the future and where things will go, will get to honestly claim she spoke with one of the participants.

Keep your ego in check girl, Taalia silently mused to herself, having to correct her own behaviour and put a pin in that inflating bubble.

But, it was that spirit of hope and optimism that humans were known for, a force within them that pushed them forward when reason told them all hope was lost. Taalia made sure to tip the girl another few pennies with a sincere thanks for her tour.

While Cestie busied his curiosity with the machines and Bella browsed the books, Taalia chose to make good on her promise and have some letters printed to send back to Bella Collina, particularly to Vitorrio. He was growing so fast. He was only 6 or so years behind her, just 11 years old when she was a skinny 17 year old out of the slave pits. Now he was a teenager, and Taalia smirked as she recalled some of the trouble he was getting into and the fire it brought out in his mother, Arianna. Taalia, being the adopted big sister, was in a unique position of being both his closest ally but also voice of reason. And so, Taalia paid the coins necessary and had letters printed to Vitorrio, Ariana and Gaulfredo, with Vitorrio being the main subject (that should please him, she thought to herself), and one for Madre and Polo, as well as the boys, now proven young men, who worked her farm. With any luck, they would receive it around the time the prize-money from the arena fight arrived!

Once that was done, she would find Bella, taking note of what she was perusing.

"Any you like?" she asked her bestie.


ooc:

Spoiler

Show

With haggle roll, Taalia may buy Bella a <50gc book, using one of her gems as tender. I don't want to lose perspective, 50gc is almost 4 years of a peasants wages lol, but if she's found one she wants and really likes and if it's cheap enough, she'll buy it.

Alternatively, she'll pay for Bella to send printed letters to someone, as a gift from her.

[MrAbdiel]

Bella laughs.

"None that I like enough to deal out duri for! I think I'll send a letter back home; one I'll keep when I get back. Maybe a copy for Ernesto and Istuccio. But fifty duri for a book... I can't imagine ever wanting to pay more than ten, even for a very nice book!"

Signorina Phillipa laughs.

"It is so, yes; but I like to think that because of this invention, we will be able to have common libraries in all towns and cities - where you might read a book without needing to buy it, and do so without fear of it being so precious and irreplacable. Forma di Malevola, perhaps not so much - it's all very airy and strange. And banned in Sigmar's empire, for that matter - they do not permit discussion of the rat men there at all. But other books, books about great heroes and adventures, and the far places of the world... Why, with books, one might allow even the poorest child of a distant village the ability to travel in their imagination to far Cathay, or Kislev!"

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

With that haggle roll, you could buy a copy of Forma di Malevola for only 20gc - one which had a corner scuffed and crushed in a binding accident.
It's still perfectly functional, but the imperfection will make it harder to sell to suppliers abroad; thus the discount!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia smiled at the girls optimism.

"I think that is a beautiful vision of the future," she agreed. Knowledge and inspiration were truly some of mankinds most powerful motivators that had pushed them to great heights.

The shepardess considered the book in her hands: Forma di Malevola, or Malevolent Form. It was a textbook that catalogued (if guessed correctly) the strange and awful horrors that lurked in the world, including her former owners. Opening up the book, noting the crushed corner, Taalia drew her eyes over the inscriptions and drawings, all of the familiarity returning to her.

"It's a shame we cannot talk about the rat-men in past tense," she muttered, before swiping through a few more pages. She then remembered their encounter with the ghost at the vila, and how her ignorance of it had almost cost her life and that of Bella and Cestie's. Pursing her lips, tapping her index finger against a random page as she was visibly thinking, Taalia nodded and closed it. She'd take it.

OOC:

Spoiler

Show

Taalia will part with 20 smackeroo's and be the proud owner of a book. She owns 2 books now, the one that the Verena priestess gave her and this one.

And she figures once she's read it a few times and needs to part with it before entering the Empire (because they don't permit it, apparently), she can fix the corner up and, with the exchange rate, she'll get her money back anyway, and then some. Win win!

[MrAbdiel]

The Grand Statuary

The statuary holds little surprise - it is what its name suggests. But it does hold wonder! An open, publicly accessible park is filled with renditions in stone and marble and bronze; the things that will endure the elements. Dozens of granite plinths are spaced in the circular green; not equidistant, but artistically distributed based on their size and subject matter. Mercenary generals and crowd to one side, explorers and great minds to another; natural and divine subjects elsewhere still. The mind is left to draw artistic conclusions about why one piece might have a certain neighbour. The whole area is enclosed by a ring of hedges that are themselves topped with marvellous topiaries; trees sculpted into the shapes of rabbits, and birds, and lions. None of these hold the detail of the marble sculptures, of course; but they hold distinct shape and style in their fine, small leaved branches at all and that seems a treasure in itself, for those who appreciate such things.

In the centre of the green is a large wooden rotunda with stone benches that must see a great deal of use. A liveried attendant is on hand at all times to wipe down the stone benches and the wooden tables as folk drift in during the day to dwell in the shade and appreciate the statuary around. But from within the rotunda, following the glance of locals up, you see a similarly impressive series of wood carved murals in massive, purplewood panels fixed under the roof. The wood is a kind you have never seen before, but the murals reveal its nature; a sequence of scenes of Marco Colombo sailing the Great Ocean, landing in the new world, fighting lizards who walk like men, dancing with what looks like a primitive tribe of beautiful human women, and at one point marvelling at a particularly large tree, which is cut down and loaded by sections onto a ship in a later panel.

A great many of the stone statues in the green are made from a particularly striking pink marble; and many of these are the most exceptionally detailed sculptures, capable of creating stunning illusions like wet cloth clinging to a human form, or an elven prince with fire rippling up over his outstretched arm. These are the most 'high art' elements of the Statuary. You remember Sapienza at the Lucky Duck pointing out locations on the Verezzo map - one of them was a pink marble statue, supposely one of the greatest of its kind in Tilea. You hadn't the time or occasion to check it out; but it must be connected to the rare quarry of the stuff that Trantio enjoys.

To contrast, at the far south end, there is a small crowd gathered around a wide pit full of fine golden sand. Three men operate within it, performing some kind of show; you take them to be brothers, or perhaps cousins calling themselves brothers for the purpose of their troupe. With a variety of shovels and trowels, and a few barrels of water, they are taking requests from the excited crowd of modestly monied burghers on what to sculpt from sand; and they carry out the commands with surprising fidelity. There are children visiting with an older woman you take to be their grandmother, and it seems they have convinced the artists to render her likeness. Additional requests from the crowd have added detail; the signora wearing a breastplate and holding a spear; now riding a lion; now with a wave crashing behind her; now with an orc quailing in the foreground. It's genuinely impressive that they can get such impressions out of simple sand at all; and the impermanence of such a work is somewhat tragic. After a while, full of giggles, the family moves on and you are left there with a diminished crowd as the afternoon brings a rumbling grey cloud. Rain approaches, and the tourists toss silver and copper into a pail for the sand sculptors and start to flake off.

"Time for one more, maybe - or half of one!" The oldest of the brothers announces this, as his kin smooth down the sand into a uniform lump. "Who's next? Who wants to be part of the Grand Statuary?"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

The girl at the printing press had mentioned the fantastic idea of children in the countryside of Tilea being able to travel to distant lands in their imaginations thanks to reading readily available books. Taalia agreed. But while the printed text was a passage way through which one could conceive in their own mindseye, the Statuary was delivering a piece of those far-off shores to ones doorstep.

"Look at this!" the shepardess exclaimed, standing and staring in amazement at the statue of a lion. What even was such a creature? So majesty yet fierce, its enormous mane hanging like a wreathe of gravitas around the predatory cats great shoulders. From where did such a beast originate? What was its temperament? Though Taalia was technically the most travelled of their trio, having walked from Norsca to Tilea, such a journey had been hidden beneath the surface and deep within the bowels of that fetid Skaven Underempire. The world beyond was enormous and frightening, but also wondrous.

When the grey clouds began to coalesce across the sky above and the the three men maid their offer to recreate something in sand, Taalia, wearing her bright beaming smile, put her hand up.

"Me!" she announced excitedly.

"Or us?" she turned to Cestie and Bella, looking upon them and asking visually if they wanted to join her.

If they did, Taalia's suggested pose was soppy but sentimental. She would stand between them, an arm over each shoulder and wearing that bright smile of hers.

Otherwise, she would strike a much more heroic pose, self-aware enough to be humorous about such a self-aggrandizing moment later on.

[MrAbdiel]

The brothers eyes track to the sky, and consider the your trio; but they are up for the challenge.

"Well, we might have to skip the lions and the unicorns, but we'll give it a whirl!"

And whirl they do. They speak so swiftly to each other that they seem to be speaking in some sort of artistic battle cant; settling on the design. They settle on a threefold bust, 'cut' out of the sand mounted up into an upright heap. They put Signore Cestie in the middle above you and Bella as if you had crowded to peer into a window. They make their sandy renditions of your faces remarkably well; each brother fussing over one as they agree to forsake their goal of filling out the detail in the shoulders for more fidelity on the faces. They capture the waves of Bella's hair and the straighter fall of yours, and Cestié's beard; and after fifteen short minutes of frenzied work you are looking back and three very pleased look Bella Collinans rendered in sand.

You notice the lead brother, working on your countenance, regard you for a long moment toward the end. After a contemplative pause, you realize he is deciding whether he ought to detail on the rendition a copy, in some form, of the somewhat claw-like scarring from brow to cheek on your face. You can almost see the decisions popping behind his eyes. Is it kinder to pretend not to have noticed? Having noticed, is it kinder not to include the scar? Does failing to render the scar draw more, or less attention to it?

In the end, he takes a thin little wooden tool and traces the scar's shape over on your doppleganger's face. He does look to you shortly after, as if to determine if he has judged correctly - that you are at peace with such a marring to your countenance.

Spoiler: Unbidden Memory:

Show

The screams and shouts of battle woke many, and a thunderous town bell stirred the rest to action. The militia rallied. Aid was lent by a visiting Bretonnian knight and his retinue. The violence was terrible as steel struck shield on shield and ferocity against discipline. Her father...tall...very tall, broad, axe in hand...he departed, left. That's all she could remember, as flames licked at buildings, and she, her mother and siblings fled with the other civilians, but part of their house collapsed, with jagged wood catching her in the side of her face...

...But then comes the rain, less than a minute after. The raindrops patter around the park and begin striking the sand sculpture. Each impact leaves a wet little crater, rendering all the visages rapidly imperfect. But impermanence is a part of this particular medium, and the brothers can only laugh and throw up their hands, pleased they did as much as they did in the compressed timescale. They pack up their tools to end for the day, as the crowd scatters for cover.

"A shame we couldn't take it with us," Bella remarks as you shelter together under the rotunda; "They make such beautiful things many times a day, only to lose them!"

Cestie waxes slightly philosophical, as he gazes out at his melting, sandy doppleganger. "I suppose it's much easier to work in sand than stone; but one stands for hundreds of years, and the other won't last an afternoon. Fleeting beauty is no less beautiful; but enduring beauty pays back its greater investment. But those boys have mastery of shape and form, I think; I bet they have a studio back home where they are learning to translate those skills to marble or wood or clay, and use this just to keep the lamp oil burning."

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

For your appreciation of the literary and formal arts, you are... about halfway to earning the Artistic talent with no XP cost!

Next stop: Miragliano!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia posed happily with Cestie and Bella, though the shepardess did do a joking pout at the idea she'd be off to the side. Fair enough though, Cestie was the one who mostly created and built the machine and got them here, after all. Plus he was the senior citizen out of the three.

When the topic of her scar arose and a memory came rushing back, Taalia reached up and touched her face as if she was only remembering that she had it. All those years ago...it was hard to recognize herself now without it. Were her bust to become a statue and she had it removed...well, shed just be denying a part of who she was, where she came from and what made her. So when the sculptor chose to retain it in her reflection and looked to her for approval, she gave a small nod and a smile. Scars were impressive and attractive for men, but for women like her, they could impair the looks. But no, Taalia wanted to keep it, it was a part of who she was.

This point was emphasized when the rain finally came upon them. Taalia beamed and thanked the brothers as Cestie and Bella got undercover, the shepardess joining them soon after. As Cestie commented upon the fleeting beauty of the fruits of invested labour or quick effort, Taalia watched the sculptures slowly dissolve beneath the rain, each crater opened by a weightless drop before the integrity gave away entirely. It was...disconcerting, watching an image of yourself melt in such a way, but it hammered home Cestie's point: time was valuable, spend it wisely.

[MrAbdiel]

You leave Trantio behind, and carry on north toward the coast; the Gulf of Pearls, and the Pearl of the Gulf itself: Miragliano. From just this city, the legendary Leonardo di Miragliano emerged with his many inventions to change the world. Earlier still, it was from Miragliano that traveling merchants would set out to the uncivilized lands of the Unberogen and Tuetogen tribes, and build there a fortified merchant settlement on an abandoned elven foundation outpost; a settlement that would attract the local tribes and grow to become the prosperous and enterprising city of Nuln. You have set down this evening far from the city; though in the distance you can see the somewhat low-set walls and a constellation of torchlights clustered in its interior districts. You are once more landed on a rural property beyond the city's immediate limits; well to its east, in an open ground between a barn and farmhouse that remind you some of Gaulfredo's. Unlike the other stops on the journey, Signore Cestié seems to know the inhabitants; and has alerted them ahead of his coming.

"Maso! Maso!"

A portly man with a lantern in one hand jogs excitedly to your trio as you pile off of the machine. He has a lopsided beard, due to a ruinous clawmark scar that has genuinely thwarted much of his ability to grow hair on the right side; but he still grows as much as he can to partially shrouded. Perhaps ten years Cestié's junior, he is still a senior; even if this reunion provokes what seems like almost juvenile energy from the chubby man.

"Grifone! Grifone, aha!"

Matching the energy, Cestié almost stumbles off his machine's seat and crosses to meet him halfway. They hug, the hearty way old friends do with backslapping and mirth. So genuine seeming is it that Grifone seems almost completely uninterested in the flying machine as Cestié introduces you and Bella to him. This is Grifone di Padiglio; a friend of Signore Cestié's from almost forty years ago.

"The old man and I, haha, we got into much trouble; but we both had our fill of the city, in the end; I have gone from farm to farm, while old Maso has been down in Verezzo. With its army of senators and their color-ladies! How do they make decisions at all, with no princes? Ahaha! Ah, but they have fewer canals and thus fewer rats - so perhaps he was right after all! Come inside, come inside!"

Once the flying machine is secured in the barn (Grifone is appropriately impressed, but more interested in talking to Cestié and his companions), he takes you inside to meet his similarly plump wife, Laura; who knows Cestié only by her husband's stories but feels as though she knows him anyway. She fixes you some dinner with Miraglianan flavor - fried shrimp and anchovies, on a bed of soft polenta.

"How long are you in the city, Maso?" She asks, warmly. "I've got a friend who is waiting on me to tell him when I want some soft-shelled crab to fry up; and it'll take a touch of coordinating to get all the timing right - we might have to go down and make a day of it in the city, over by the Maid of Albion."

"Oh, just the night, in fact. Tomorrow we'll pick up a few supplies in the city, and do a little work on the machine - I suspect we'll be out of here just after lunch. We'll be in Udolpho by nightfall, and then heading through the pass the next day - and speaking Breton in Carcassonne shortly after! Hah!"

Signore Cestié seems mostly proud of how quick that all will be; but Laura and Grifone give each other a surprised look.

"...Well, accipicchia, Maso..." Grifone begins with a little delicacy in his voice. "You can't come back after so long and just blow through. What about your brothers, in town..? Aren't they expecting you?"

You see in Signore Cestié then something you haven't much of in him, before; discomfort, or shake, or.. familial awkwardness. He doesn't answer.

"Well, you have to go see old Peppe! Shallya's tears, Maso; he's your father - you might not get another chance."

This catches him even more off guard. "...He's alive? My papa? But how..?"

"If you find that out," Laura provides, "you let us know. I think he has such a grip on that shop that Morr can't pry him off. The dowager princess Dolchellata Belladonna wrote him a letter, asking for him to visit so she could ask questions of the oldest man in Miragliano. He told her if she wanted to buy something she'd have to come down, but he could have a runner bring her a catalogue. Hah!"

Bella leans to you and whispers. "I can't beleive it! If Cestie's father is alive, he must be more than ninety years old. But if he didn't know, he must not have spoken to his family in... in so long! Taalia, you and I know how precious family is - we must convince him to see his father, surely!"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

As they took off into the sky and left Tarantio behind them, Taalia rested back in her chair and exhaled. A new book was tucked into her little side tray and the memories of the printing press and statuary still fresh in her mind. But also her imagination wandered back another week to that lonely, forgotten villa and the ghost within whom they finally granted peace. It wasn't as exciting as Remus had been, what with jumping down into a gladiatorial arena and helping a team win against the odds. But when Cestie spoke about time and investment, she wondered just how long the spirit of that minor noble had lingered on in the lonely dark of his delipidated home, never knowing what became of those closest to him, and how now, finally, thanks to their little trio, his soul may find peace and reunite with his wife and daughter.

It was a pleasant thought and one she took to the air as the rolling green fields and tree's bellow them blurred into a collage of land.

But, ironically, the second treasure was during the departure. As pointed out by Cestie when he and Taalia had mapped the route out all that time ago, upon leaving Tarantio's borders they would need to head north-west towards Mariagliano, which meant crossing the Tilea Sea. Taalia's first six years were in a fishing and orchard village, the ocean was their livelihood. When the Norscans came, they did so across the sea, and when they stole her away, they did so across the waves. And when the Skaven finally received her and marched her into their Under Empire, it was deep beneath the vast waters. In some ways the ocean had always been a part of her, its prominence rising, falling and at one point becoming distant. But when Cestie and Taalia had looked over maps of the world one evening, speculating where she may be from, whether it be Couronne, the Wasteland, the border of the two, or maybe even Nordland, perhaps even Kislev or even Norsca itself, the single theme was always there: somewhere connected to the ocean. When she had been sold to the Skaven she had been taken below and disconnected from the waves, never to see them again

Until now.

It was likely Taalia was the second or third to spot the spectacle from their elevated position. She was peddling, absentmindedly and automatically, as she sat in that chair and read her new book, despite the clawing of the wind, but then the shout came out at her to peer off to the portside. Snapping her book shut and tucking it safely away, the Shepardess drew her head up and peered over yonder, the vast, bottomless blue horizon catching the afternoon sun in a bowl of glinting orange-and-gold. The girl grinned as she saw the sight once more, her primordial connection seemingly re-established in an instant as he felt a part of her reach out to that great, blue eternity, before soon they were passing over it and she could look down and see the crooked fingers of sea foam and froth marking the crest of each wave making its way to shore. The salt in the air, the cooler breeze brushing off from those waters, sailing across them in the sky as if she were a soul returning home.

Taalia was still daydreaming by the time they set down on the outskirts of Mariagliano, but she soon snapped out of it and to attention of what was going on around her. She received Cestie's friend with earnest warmth, smiling and shaking hands, offering his wife the usual embrace and kiss upon the cheek along with the offer that she should relax in her own home and let Taalia and Bella prepare something for them all as a token of gratitude. Nonsense, of course, such a thing would never do. This was a little social ceremony of offers, rebuttals that played out daily across Tilea, and soon the group were seated and revelations stirring.

Cestie's father was alive?! Taalia thought in wonder to herself, trying to picture a man who was 20 years even further along than Cestie himself. He must be a mark of fortitude to have persisted for this long! And stubborn too, but given the sound of their current estrangement, perhaps that refusal to yield was coming with a high price indeed. Whether this price had been paid by Cestie's brothers remained to be seen.

Nodding to Bella's whisper, Taalia spoke with her eyes: we certainly must!

"I would love to meet your father, Singore Cestie," Taalia spoke up openly and earnestly, her sonorous, smokey voice suddenly just emerging after a dinner-time of silence. It was clear by the accent that lined her speech that Tilean was not her native tongue.

And that's all she'd have to say for now. Sure, she could lay it on heavy and pull the slavery card, or a little lighter with the fathery roles he and Gaulfredo had played for her. But for now she'd leave it as just a seed planted to make the man think about it: Taalia wanted to meet his own father, which would, in turn, bring Cestie into contact with him once again. If there was something she'd learned about the male temperament here in Tilea, it's that the men needed time to dwell on these big, emotional dealings and had to come to the conclusion themselves. Simply pushing from the outside would only freeze them up.

[MrAbdiel]

With everyone in the room looking on him with concern, Cestié squirms a bit, but concedes.

"Well. I suppose we need to go into town, anyway..."

Miragliano

Miragliano is a city of a kind you have never seen before for several reasons. The first is that it is a city with a grand sea moat - a wide strip of excavated a ground forms nothing less than a river between the exterior and interior walls of the city. You see immediately why the walls struck you as low - both the lower outerwall, and the taller inner wall, are lined with cannons that naturally do their best work fired more horizontally. The walls are ingeniously zig-zag instead of straight lines - Cestié tells you this was a design of Leonardo as well - which must allow archers or gunners above to threaten the faces of the wall across from them, instead of relying on siege tricks like boiling oil to attack ladders and climbers. A great long stone bridge with high archways under which rivercraft can go leads from the outergate to the inner gate and the city beyond, but a very striking site catches you as you walk the bridge's length:

The bridge is lined with pikes, and the pikes are mounted with skaven heads. Ten either side of the bridge, spaced evenly, in various states of decay - but it seems the humans here are neither ignorant of the skaveni nor afraid to show their hostility to the creatures openly.

Bella is appalled - her first time seeing such creatures even partially.

"Goodness... Are the rats really so large, here?"

Cestié is quiet for the moment - lost in the thoughts of his coming reunion - leaving you to correct her.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Miragliano was a wonder for the Shepardess to behold, it's endless canals and little riverways running between the elevated architecture providing an oddly romantic and charming environment, despite the omnipresent threat of the disgusting ratman. Speaking of which...

When Taalia spotted those Skaven heads-on-pinks flanking the bridge, she froze for half a second and pursed her lips. Wiping her nose with her right hand, she continued to glare at them until Bella, sweet girl, opened her mouth.

"Goodness... Are the rats really so large, here?"

"Those aren't common vermin, Bella," Taalia corrected gently, though her voice was firm and her eyes remained on those grisly warnings.

"Those are the Skaven where they belong."

The Shepardess mock-spat before her.

<"Burn in the hell that spawned you, bastards!"> she hissed under her breath in her, regrettably, 'native' tongue.

[MrAbdiel]

Bella's revulsion magnifies at your explanation (and Queekish expectoration). Fortunately, you are not near enough to any of the mercenaries guards at the time to cause misunderstanding; and you are cleared to pass into the city proper with a few coins of gate toll Cestié pays himself.

Immediately on the way in you notice the signage - steady employment available to visitors and new citizens with a small price disparity. Gondoliers, mercenaries, and especially rat-catchers are in demand and with genuinely impressive wages and compensation. There is also a bid for laborers for the so called "Water Guild", which Cestié explains as a gondolier pushes you along a gently trafficked canal toward your destination.

"The river is salt, and there's no sinking a well, here - all you'd get is seawater and sand. Water has to be ported in from overland. I'm told ten or fifteen years ago, there was a kerfuffle with a certain merchant cornering the trade - I suppose they've created a guild to fill the gap he left after he was chased off. The Water Wizard, he called himself; though I doubt a real wizard."

You pass underneath many canal gates - raised portcullis mounted under the bridges over the canals. Beside most of them, you see barrels stuffed with nets, and twine with dozens of suspended little bronze bells; as well as the occasional mounted skaven head on the bridges above, near uniformed pairs of rat-catchers with typically one or two terriers between them. Alongside the canals, you notice that Leonardo's home town features dozens of his signature leaning towers, rather than one or two as a centrepiece for city architecture. There are many wonderful things to see in the city - Temples to Mymidia, Mathann, Mercopio; a great library devoted to Verena; the citadel with its dwarven runework gate; a small halfling district for an enclave of the wee folk; a huge and storied university, and school of medicine. But your destination is one of the middle-wealthier areas of the city: a great, big store with the kind of huge, painted billboard of frontage that makes it a landmark as much as a place of business. It reads, in tall letters of white over a huge black image of a padlock, "Signore Cestié's Fine Locks And Latches", and then smaller underneath but still easilly legible from halfway up the canal approaching it, "Quality Security Solutions For Storage, Doors, Windows, Coaches, and Miscellania."

When you and Signore Cestié (Bella Collina Edition) step onto the cobbles beside the canal and tip the gondolier on his way, the old man gazes up at the sign for a very long time, it seems. Bella touches his back with her hand, and invites you to do the same; and with a little fortification of these gestures, you head in through the door - a door with seven seperate latches and locks, all open presently - together.

Beyond is a kind of showroom with many chests, lockers, and standing wooden show-walls with great arrays of tiny hinged doors for the demonstration of their associated locks. A half dozen people peruse the showroom, attended by two young men and a young woman all doing their best to answer questions and upsell; monitored and aided at a short distance by a manager beyond his middle age, but young in comparison to another in the room. Behind the counter, finishing a customer's purchase of a wooden footlocker with a bright new iron lock, is a man about Maso's age, and about his build, and about his... well, about his everything. The shopkeeper is taller slightly, and has on a set of spectacles like Maso uses when reading. His glance and smile goes first to you as the tall oddity you are, then to Bella whom few gazes ever fail to go at some point, and then finally he almost chokes when his eyeline meets the man with you.

"Maso!", he says in instant recognition. "Maso, you're... here!"

"Franchino..." The prodigal Cestié breathes with a weak smile, rubbing his hand through his white hair as he does. "Yes - yes, well, we- the girls here and I were..."

"Papa?"

Franchino, Maso's sole older brother, clams up as everyone's eyes (even the customers!) track to the speaker. Past middle age, yes; more grey hair than the slate black it once was. A little thicker of build than Maso; shorter, but straighter of back with his relative youth - perhaps, in his fifties - leaving him a little taller. The shared features are as undeniable as they were on Franchino's face - though the look of surprise on this man's face is even more baffled... and hurt.

Maso swallows.

"Biagio - Biagio, how is this..."

A frozen, silent tension fills the shop for a second. Another. And one more.

And then Signore Maso Cestié animates with the spryness of a much younger man, turns, and bolts out the door.

Biagio is not as graceful as the old man. In his immediate, instinctive pursuit, he knocks over a standing wooden display of hinges and locks. "Wait! Wait! Papa! Hey!"

Franchino grimaces and raises his hands and voice to sooth the alarmed crowd - assuring that it's no trouble, just a surprise guest, and that the assistants in the shop will be happy to continue assisting - before he shuffles out from behind the counter and tries to grasp how best to arrest the chaotic situation that just walked in (and fled out) the front door.

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

To run, to stay, to ask questions, to task Bella - all these things lie before you. For clarity's sake, Signore Cestié may be "Maso" for a while!

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Bella glared hatefully at the mounted heads of the Skaven, Bella's horrified reaction what one would expect for those who had never been exposed to the walking vermin. They were a skin-crawling sight.

"That's what they look like, Bella," Taalia said firmly, but not harshly, more like a father inducing a necessary life-lesson to an unknowing child.

"They had me for 10 years I'll never get back: their society deserves that fate," she gestured to the pikes as if signaling her approval.

But where the road to the lock store was marked by the severed heads of the deserving, the contents within the shop spoke of lifes beginnings, and the ways in which it can go in unexpected directions.

Papa?

Cestie, or Maso as he was apparently known, had progeny? That he had left? Here Taalia was thinking that she would be meeting Sinogre Cestie Senior, not Junior - had Maso's old friend been deceptive in drawing him back to this region of the city, knowing full well that he would instead make contact with his own son?

Whether it had been well-meaning deception or an honest mistake, it was clear that Maso had walked into a situation he had not expected. Seeing him flee the scene was likewise unknown to Taalia, nor did she know what to make of it. He'd ventured into a potentially life-threatening house to find herself and Bella, yet this was what caused him to leg it?

Then Taalia thought back to the leatherworker lad that had eyes for her back in Bella Collina, and how she had felt less fear fighitng the troll than telling him the truth that she did not return his romantic intentions.

"Cestie - er, Maso!" Taalia harkened after the fleeing tinkerer, her eyes galncing about the shops and stares for a moment.

"Try to explain to them!" Taalia begged Bella, handing the poor girl the most socially awkward job - but one her looks and sweet demeanor might be able to diffuse, as best was able.

Turning on the heel of her boot, Taalia made flight after Maso and his equally determined son.

[MrAbdiel]

You leave Bella stammering her way to an explanation to Franchino as you bolt after the fleeing father and seeking son. They haven't gotten far before you catch up to Biagio, who is no sprinter. But to him, you might as well be invisible; he gives you a short glance that assesses you are not trying to hurt or tackle him, and continues down the way. His leather apron flaps wildly against his knees as he runs - you hear the jingling of fine locksmithing tools dancing on the cobbles behind you as he knocks them free from his gear. A little ahead, you see Maso break right around the corner of the street instead of crossing the bridge over the canal. You get to the corner before Biagio does a moment after, to find Cestie about two stories up a three story wall; scrambling up old windowsills and protruding mortared stones in what you guess is a climb he is specifically familiar with making. Biagio tries to climb after him, but immediately fails; his foot slips off a smooth corner of masonry he mistook for a good foothold and he plops a few feet back to the ground on his backside, wincing at the impact but seeming largely unharmed.

"Papa! Come down!" He calls in breathless exasperation, as the old man pulls himself over the lip of the roof above!

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

You just watched Signore Cestié do it, so you could give chase with a Scale Sheer Surface roll at +20%. Or you could try to appeal to his reason - but he does seem to be having some kind of panic response, so no assurances that will work.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia attempted to recreated Cestie's navigation of the wall but failed to replicate the instruction. It was all so unnatural for her - grip here, foot there, don't get the wrong angle or you'll slip and lose momentum. It was a totally foreign concept to her, and that it was still within the muscle memory of a man three times her age was testimony to the repetition required to master it.

"Damnit!" Taalia hissed angrily, having to jump backwards a couple of feet off the wall and brace her fall by bending her knee's. The girl straightened herself out and peered back and forth along that railing in search of evidence that Cestie had merely used the roof as cover, rather as the next stage of his continual flight.

"Singore Cestie, Maso!" she called up to him, desperation in her voice.

"Don't leave us! Don't leave him again!"

[MrAbdiel]

The silence that follows is almost supernaturally thick. You hear the calls of gondoliers in canals well beyond; the shuffle of a pair of cats in the window behind you; the wheezing breath of Biagio beside you.

...But you also hear what you hoped you would - some sign that Signore Maso Cestié has heard you, and has stopped running. Your keen ears pick up the scuffing of brings against a leather vest, as he slides against a chimney down to a sitting position; and the same stoically clipped suppression of a grunt that comes from him when he overexerts himself peddling the flying machine too hard. He has stopped, up there; trapped between a situation he is unwilling to face and your invocation he cannot flee.

Biagio at this point has intuited from your words and character that you are his father's friend. Puffed as he is, you see in the man's eyes nothing like venom or scorn. He doesn't seem to you to want ill for his father, whatever his father fears.

He also recognizes you are much more young and fit, and more able to climb.

"Here..." He offers spontaneously, stepping back to the wall and knitting his fingers to give his hands and then shoulder to you as the first couple of steps, to make ascent a little easier. Without the panicked rush, knowing Maso is still there, you pick your way up more carefully, while Biagio waits in the street below. There you find Maso as you expected; sitting with his back to a chimney on the shingled rooftop, eyes wide with shock; one old hand, knuckles scratched from scrambling up the bricks, resting on his chest, over the heart. He is settling down, slowly; and as he does, and as he sees you come over the edge, the old timer's emotional defenses begin to crack apart and he tries to explain in a hoarse whisper:

"I didn't know! I didn't know, I didn't, I swear..."

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

It was a strange thing for a young one to see an elder in a state of emotional vulnerability.

For Taalia, having grown up in an enviornment where such displays were a swift course to death, they had taken some getting used to. Gaulfredo was a man who wore his heart on his sleeve. But Cestie? He had always been stoic, more amused than excited. She could still remember when she had first mistakenly kissed him on the cheek at her debut festival, her ignorance of customs causing the older man to blush and laugh off what would have, had Taalia not been an unaware outsider, been seen as a flirtation from a woman a third his age.

But, in the following years, she had never seen him vulnerable. Madre had been, naturally, open with her feelings. Arianna and Gaulfredo too. Women were allowed this privilege, of open heartfelt displays. Men sometimes, but only if they were brave and stoic in other parts of their life. Men who let their emotions rule them, who turned to babbling, crying and hysterics as the situation overwhelmed them, Taalia had learned, were looked down upon. But to actually see it in personal, a stoic, grandfatherly figure who had 'seen it all', in such a state, was an alien and otherworldly sensation for the shepardess as she slowly approached.

Moving slowly, her heart moving up through her chest as she saw a grandfatherly figure in his emotionally susceptible state, Taalia couldn't help but wear concern and sympathy on her pretty, but scarred features. Swallowing gently, finally drawing close enough that she could move down onto one knee, her right hand coming up to Cestie's shoulder, she would speak gently with her sonorous, smoky voice.

"You do now..." she's remark affectionately, giving his shoulder a warm squeeze, "and take it from me: I'd be happy."

[MrAbdiel]

You sit with him for a few moments as his panic settles.

"Hello? Hey - is he... Do you need help?"

Maso closes his eyes at the voice of his son Biagio, calling up with concern for him. But the moment of first flight and fear is over.

"Can you... tell him I'll come back to the shop..? I just need a moment..."

When you lean over the edge to convey the message, you see the relief in Biagio's face. He rubs his cheeks with his palms, and nods a little. "Alright. Alright, I'll... Tell your friend you're on your way back shortly. Ah... Nice to meet you."

And off he goes, stooping to pick up the fine little tinker tools he has dropped on the way.

* * * * *

Signore Cestié explains, in the quiet few minutes you are alone on that Miragliano rooftop.

Cestié's father is the third generation of his family to operate the shop. The name is established and honoured for security and quality products, requested by the families of merchant princes all through the city and the petty merchants in the towns beyond. A good business, based on trust, which his father took seriously, and intended to pass on to his children. There are four of them, all boys. Franchino was the first; a few years later came Maso. After him came Salvi; and finally the youngest, Neri. Maso was eight years old when Neri was born. He remembers it clearly, because it is the year his mother was killed.

"It was the rats, as it often is. A bigger attack on the city than they usually muster - I never knew why. But my mother - her name was Tomisina -... well, she happened to be in a boat in the canal with Neri, on her way home. They took her, and left Neri - I suppose they have little use for infant slaves. The marsh rangers found my mother's body in the swamp outside the city. Papa had to hire a wetnurse for Neri, and otherwise raised us alone. Or.. we raised each other, maybe. I don't know."

But a several years into learning the trade like his older brother, alongside looking out for his younger brothers, Maso was enticed by a new offer - a gang of thieves called the Weevers, after a venomous fish in the Gulf of Pearls. He can't quite pick out why he fell in with them - some combination of slow grief, and fear of responsibility, and (you guess) maybe some misplaced resentment for his father who failed in his role that a father possesses in the minds of their children - a wall against all outside harms to the family. But the Weevers recruited Maso, and he learned their craft; and in turn he greatly increased their success rate. After all - he knew which homes in the wealthy districts had which locks, and just how to pick them.

"My father was furious when he found out, naturally. With every reason - a huge betrayal, when out family products were getting routinely popped open under the owner's noses. But the Weevers felt, stupidly, like a kind of family too. It wasn't until Lumi that I got my head halfway on straight."

Illuminata was Cestié's first real love - a young woman of wry glances and the kind of fearless taste to be dipping her toes in the water where the Weevers swim. They fell in love quickly, and quickly she was with child - and suddenly the raucous life in a thieves' guild seemed pale compared to the home he had forsaken.

"So I went home, hat in hand. It wasn't easy but we all ended up getting along. The Weevers harassed us sometimes; but never too sorely. Franchino and Salvi both went into the business; Neri was always the smartest, and soon he became a petty merchant in his own right, trading out to the border forts with Remas. Biagio was born a little early, but not troublesomely so; and Lumi was a good mother. But she never let me marry her, and that caused the family some shame and strife. I didn't find out why, until it was well late."

Illuminata was a con-artist. Whether she ever loved Maso was up for debate; but the fact was that she was the mistress of a merchant prince in Pavona who was Biagio's genuine blood father. She had become pregnant, but with her lover unwilling to discard his wife and nervous about having a mistress and a lovechild in his city, she scornfully fled to Miragliano and shacked up with a handsome young sap with compromised morals, but whose name was attached to stability and reliable wealth. Twelve years later, when her Pavonan lover's wife 'fortunately' died of the plague, he sent for her. She left Maso a note, took Biagio, and left.

This devastated Cestié. He worked in the family business while trying first to convince Illuminata to come back, and then to let him see Biagio, or atleast come visit. When denied, he tried to force his way into the merchant's home in Pavona and got kicked halfway to death when discovered by Biagio's father's guards.

After a few years, he gave up; packed up; and left. A blight on his family's name, a fool for a manipulative woman, a cuckolded non-father - Miragliano was a yawning gulf of regrets for him. Papa Peppe, Franchino, Salvi, Neri - all would be just fine, even better, without him.

"I went first to Remas, but couldn't break into the guild politics there. But it had been two years - I sent a letter home so they wouldn't worry for me, and headed further south, eventually to Verezzo and Bella Collina. I ran into Grifone by accident about six years ago by sheer chance, in Verezzo - he was a Weever back in the day, too. I thought we might just... stop at his farm and move on by. I thought papa would be in Morr's Garden by now, for sure. But I haven't seen Miragliano in... thirty eight, thirty nine years. And I never expected Biagio - he should be in the lap of luxury in Pavona!"

He rests his face in his palms.

"Taalia, he must have just... come back of his own accord, when he was a little older. And I never knew, because I never checked! My gods, Taalia, I've missed his whole life! How am I supposed to look him in the eye?"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia knelt down next to Cestie, Maso, and listened to his story. It was not a good one. He told her a history that was full of regret, wasted talent, deception, family shame, dishonorable conduct and exploitation that resulted in a man of his talents fleeing to the far end of Tilea and settling in quiet, beautiful little Bella Collina. Now the hike that Cestie had taken her on made a lot more sense in hindsight, witnessing that spectacle of the engineers with their flying suits and his words that she should be her own person in the world. In a way he had possibly been telling her: don't make the same mistakes he did.

It also put into focus this grand adventure they were on with the flying machine. At Cestie's age he figured that this was his final chance to really do something worthwhile, to give him a place, however minor, in the history books. To prove to future generations he had even existed.

The shepardess listened and just gave the man an avenue to own up and let it out. She didn't interrupt him or provide comments. No judgements or criticisms, they were useless by this point. Instead she just provided a a warm presence into which to reveal a deep and insecure vulnerability. Finally, when she felt it was the right time, she gave Cestie's shoulder another affectionate squeeze.

"You have to tell him," she spoke softly. Though, the more Taalia thought about it...what did Cestie owe him? It was a tragedy he had gone this far in life thinking Cestie was his father, but that wasn't the truth, nor was it Cestie's fault. That whore and her merchant were to blame, not Cestie. But still, that didn't take away from the devastation that was coming Biago's way. He looked in his 40s, thinking his whole life his father had abandoned him, now only to learn the truth: his mother was a lying she-devil and his actual father a manipulative opportunist.

"From the looks of things, he has been raised well. He has adoptive family looking out for him. That he's not yours won't change their fondness for him. Or it shouldn't anyway," she continued.

"He has a respectable life and position, provides a valued service to people, has those who care about him. He's done better than most. Be honest and tell him the story you just told me, and remember: you don't owe him anything. You're both victims of Illuminata's deception. Why do you think she told him you were the father instead of the merchant she was with? Inheritance, most likely."

Illuminata meant 'filled with light', in Tilean. Well, she was filled with something anyway.

[MrAbdiel]

Signore Cestié composes himself, and embraces you in gratitude. It's just a lot to be hit with, for an old fellow; like having a whole life leap out of the past and slap itself down in the present, with all its old demands and obligations and complexity. Cestié shows you how to climb down much easier - he has climbed most of the buildings in this district at some point, and make your way back to the shop perhaps three quarters of an hour after the initial dramatics.

When you arrive, you find Bella charming her way through not just Biagio and Franchino, but also two more Cestié's who have shown up: where Franchino is taller and bespectacled, Salvi is broader shouldered, possessed of a shape that suggests a life of more laborious work, and has committed to squinting rather than admitting defeat to his diminishing vision. Neri is the shortest of the four brothers, though everyone seems somewhat short to you; but also the best dressed.

They are ensorcelled.

"...And it has wings, yes; but four, working in pairs that revolve over each other while they flap. Sort of like a... dragonfly, if its wings were socked into wheels that turned according to the pedalling put into the gearbox. It's quite remarkable - we've come all the way from Verezzo. Oh!"

With Maso returning, the rest of the Cestié's turn to face him. All of their expressions share some form of gingerly affixed concern, not wanting to spook him again.

"Maso," Franchino begins, "...Did you build a flying machine?"

* * * * *

It takes a little defrosting, but the great Cestié family jamboree progresses from standoff to warmth. Bella finds a kettle in the back room and boils it to make tea from a pot of dried Indan Fancy which, Neri assures, is better than coffee or any of the local teas. All of them are pleased to meet you and Bella; and all of them seem to be as genuine and good natured as your first impress gave you of Maso.

'Young' Neri (68) lives with his wife and his eldest, widowed daughter just a few storefronts down, managing his small but well regarded trading concern for the northern states of Tilea. His two sons manage most of the day-to-day of it now, and he and his wife Imilia spend most of their time doting on Imilia's even larger extended family, though he always has time for his brothers.

Salvi (72) worked at the store for years before making a move of his own after Maso left - he too his wife Leonetta, and their three daughters, and moved outside the wall to do 'work you feel the day after' - farming oats and raising goats. They also had four more daughters, all while both Salvi and Leonetta were in their late 30's and early 40's. They moved back into the city after selling the farm to retire to cope with a plague of grandchildren.

Franchino (79) has been the primary operator of the shop for thirty five years. The lads and the young woman presently tending to customers while this meeting goes on in a comfortably back room are his grandchildren - all the happy progeny of the one daughter, Ginevria, he had with his first wife Gilia. Gilia died a few years ago, and Franchino married a second wife, Lisabetta, for her warmth and companionship in their later years.

As it turns out, Biagio" (51) returned to Miragliano a little over a year after Maso left. His mother spirited him off to live with his "real father" when he was 12; but by the time he was 16, he understood the situation and wanted no part of it. He ran away, crossing three hundred and fifty miles from Pavona, through the forsaken Trantine hills, over the great river Tarano and finally across the Miragleanan countryside to walk into the city barefoot down the same track you took to get there from Grifone's farm.

"We all thought something had happened, until we got your letter. But all it said was that you were moving further south - I figured there'd be another and we could send one back to wherever it came from, but if you sent one, it never made it. I held out hope for about ... I'd say, ten years. And then I was angry for the next ten. And then I decided I was just going to beleive that you'd found somewhere to settle down and be happy. And I decided that's what I wanted for you, anyway." Surrounded by Cestiés, there are familial features that are discernably not present in him. Different nose, particularly; and better eyesight. But there's also that funny trait present that makes members of a family who have been together for a long time look like each other; the same odd magic that makes old husbands and old wives look like matched sets is at work here, and Biagio doesn't strike you at all as out of place.

"Biagio, I didn't know; I didn't know. I tried to see you, but I there was no way - I just... thought you had a new life with better things. I didn't know you'd come back on your own!"

Biagio gives a frail smile, and a little shrug. "It's my family, papa. How could I stay away?"

This is the closest Biagio comes to firing any kind of shots back at Maso. Considering his own right of grievance, it's very mild, and Maso accepts it with a nod, and a grimace. But after that, it's all right; some long forestalled hugs, and tears, and decades of Miragleanan gossip. The tale of the "Water Wizard" who had monopolized water trade in the city only to turn out to have been drawing from tainted wells and responsible for giving half the city the Yellow Plague. The story of how Borgio the Besieger, legendary general and mercenary maverick, claws to Princedom in the city, fought off an invasion from Remas, briefly invaded Verezzo until concessions were paid to him, and encircled and forced surrender from a Trantine invasion... before ultimately being stabbed to death in his bath with a poisoned toasting fork, leading to the present and ongoing rulership of his widow, the Dowager Princess Dolchellata.

Then it's Maso's turn to off tales of his own. He talks up Bella too - including some stories from before you arrived, in which she once stalled the tax collector who had come to town by drawing out of him ninety minutes of talk about his horse, while Polo, Cestié and Nogrom scrambled about town trying to find the stolen tithe that was owed to the Republic; and another, where the Rampollo Damio's wardrobe had been destroyed in a saboteur's fire, leaving him with nothing of quality to wear for a visiting senator's stopover in Bella Collina to refresh horses. In that one, Bella lacked the time to make a full outfit - so she made the front half of a fine outfit and pinned it to a peasant smock, instructing the Damio to make sure he was always front on to the senator - and got away with it.

And there's plenty of talk about the flying machine - though of this, everyone is naturally a little sceptical, since it involves Signore Cestié improving on a design that Leonardo di Miragleano abandoned. They humor him, but will need a demonstration to really take it on board. Still, it's clear that the most pride he has for anything is not in the machine, but in you; for believing in him, and inspiring him to bother with it at all; going through the crashes and fumbles of the testing. He makes sure to talk about the Troll, and the mutants of Silo Road, and the pirates; how you saved Gaulfredo and Vittorio from the goblins after escaping from the skaven, and found your way in the world without a word of Tilean in your mouth, and how watching you find your feet after such a wretched decade of suffering underground gave him no reason to remain self-pitying and idle in his quiet shop in a quiet village, waiting for the final, unbroken quiet.

Then comes the last part of the puzzle.

"The old man's upstairs. He can make his way down when he wants to, but he's tired a lot.
I... told him you had come back," Franchino explains, "...but I don't think he listened. He's still mad, Maso. But he's ninety nine years old - if you don't make peace with him now, you might not have a chance to do so on your way back from Nuln."

Maso holds your hand with his right, and Bella's with his left, as if physically drawing strength from your dual youthful vaults of courage.

"Alright. Well. There's no art for it. This was a meeting I didn't think I'd have this side of the soil."

Spoiler: OOC:

Show

Imagine if you had just accepted Cestié's discomfort and just skipped the city. I'd have been... crestfallen.

Give me a charm test, so I can see how you impress Signore Cestié Senior. Have a +20%, because you are a survivor of the hated skaven.

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

Taalia smiled when she saw how, in the 45 minutes that she and Cestie had bene gone, Bella had turned on her charms and appeared like a maiden storyteller with a little circle of devotee's hanging onto her every word.

But, that was all the talking they were going to do for a while. For the following hours, Taalia and Bella sat quietly, listening and taking in Cestie's surprisingly complex and inter-connected history before he settled down to be the humble mechanic of a small, rural town. There was intrigue, wealthy nobles, family honor, regret and shame, out-of-wedlock children and fleeing ones problems to start anew in a distant land. Taalia enjoyed her tea, thanked Bella for the refreshment, and paid attention to the circle.

When it came time to finally encounter Cestie Senior, however, Taalia felt Maso's hands clasp hers and saw his other hold that of Bella's; they were his amulets of fortitude and courage to enter a re-union that was decades in the making.

Offering Maso a warm and reassuring smile as they stood at the base of the stairs, Taalia gestured forward for the man to proceed.

[MrAbdiel]

You and Bella go with Cestié up the stairs to the next floor, where a large, comfortable and warm living room awaits you. There, sitting in a padded chair in warming shafts of light from the near window, is Peppe Cestié. He looks very much like a man in his nineties; skinny, hunching, with thin skin and dull eyes. Still, he is possessed of some inner stubborn vitality that means his hands barely shake at all as he takes the last sips of soup from a bowl which he passes back a moment later to a middle aged housemaid. She looks at you first, and the old man waves her away with one thin hand; and she leaves the room.

"Papa... I'm speechless. I thought -... You're nearly a hundred years old. Ahm..."

Maso tries, but cannot find a good way to begin the conversation. His father watches him struggle, passively, before pursing his wrinkled lips.

"They said you were back, Maso. I didn't believe it. Come over here, where I can see you."

He heads over; the old man and the oldest man regarding each other before Maso offers a hand, and they give each other a shake.

The conversation doesn't come easy between them. Maso has shame for leaving; Peppe has anger; both are careful to keep those feelings somewhat under lock and key. Maso fills a lot of the awkwardness introducing you and Bella; bragging about how bright you both are, about the school in Bella Collina, the troll, and so forth. But you see Peppe's face chance the most when Maso tells him how you were taken by the skaven and escaped. The old man's wrinkly face goes from tight reservation to genuine shock and joy and then emotional tension again; the loose, thin skin on his face making the whole arrangement almost surreally expressive, like the cloth face of a hand puppet.

"Got one back, ah? Ah?" He grabs your wrist and pats the top of your hand. "Good for you, signorina; good for you. We don't normally get anyone back, from the bastards."

The oldest man seems quite taken with you and Bella, and that does a great deal to soften his regard to his returning son; which in turn fortifies Cestié for the discussion ongoing. After a few minutes, you give them a moment to talk alone.

From the bottom of the stairs, with the rest of the Cestiés, you can hear the muffled discussion ongoing. After a few minutes, it hits the confrontation pitch everyone was expecting.

"...I don't care about your machine! Your damn... machine! Always wrapped up in your own things, no regard to your family!"
"That's not true, I just couldn't stay, papa - I just couldn't! But I didn't know about Biagio coming back, or I would have done differently!"
"I thought the rats took you, Maso! For two years I thought the rats took you! Like your mother! Until you decided you'd stoop to send a message to put us out of our misery!"
"...Pape, they found her - you know-"
"They tell EVERYBODY they found them! Don't you know that? Don't you know that?! They have to tell that or people lose their minds and go running off into the swamp to get taken themselves! And the bloody thieves never left us alone, and now they have poor Augusto tangled up because of you, Maso!"

Their communion becomes quiet again after that. Biagio looks to you and Bella, with the kind of smile that knows, deep down, it is a frown.

"Augusto is my son. He's been caught up running with the Weevers for a couple of years, now - for reasons I can't understand. He's just... restless. He's good with the trade, but just..."
Franchino finishes, for him. "Just more inclined to pick locks than sell them. Like someone else we know."

Bella, who having only recently discovered Cestié has a son, is shocked again to discover he has a grandson, is appalled to hear this. As a young woman whose family walked away from her with no reason apparent, she cannot countenance a young man walking away from his family for the same senselessness.

"You don't have to become a thief just to make your own way in the world! I've been making my own way just fine - and Taalia even... Taalia had nothing, and now she's a land owner and on track to be Verezzo's biggest supplier of salted pork! He's just going to get himself in trouble... Taalia - Taalia, we have to do something!"

[BananaPhone]

Taalia Giovanni

The man looked so frail - Taalia had never seen someone who was so old! Almost 100! A century of life, 85 years of conscious, active life and thoughts sat before her in a thinning pile. Taalia herself was maybe 19,maybe 20, a fifth of this mans age, and to look at him now filled her with a sense of awe and wonder at the things he'd seen and done. Would she reach that age?

Well...there was the elven bounty hunter back in Bella Collina. But when you naturally live for thousands of years, Taalia speculated that ones perception on the passing decades would be rather different than one for whom every 10 years is a serious milestone.

"Got one back, ah? Ah? Good for you, signorina; good for you. We don't normally get anyone back, from the bastards."

Taalia smiled as she felt that weathered hand holding hers affectionately, as she returned it with her own gratitude and hand on top of his.

"I lost a decade living among them. They have no redeeming qualities. I hope they all return to the hell that spawned them," she answered simply, before the mans attention was drawn to sweet Bella.

However, they all knew that 'that time' would arrive. Tileans were a hot-blooded people. They could be cool and reserved when they wanted to be, but it was not their natural state of being. Tempestuous shouting, accusations and drama - that was their life blood. It was a show of emotion and what each sentence was might not necessarily matter as much as the overall heartfelt sincerity on display. Taalia could hear that as Maso and Cestie went at it while she, Bell and the others waited downstairs. For a moment she thought about her own biological parents, where she came from, and wondered how different the culture was there.

But then came the revelation: Augusto, Biango's son, had fallen in with the Weavers, some type of multi-generational gang in these parts. That they were still around after Maso had been with them when he was a boy was testimony to their longevity. Were they just a simple crew of street urchins they would have died out or been thrown into the slammer by now. But a criminal enterprise that lasted that long did not do so without doing some things right.

"You don't have to become a thief just to make your own way in the world! I've been making my own way just fine - and Taalia even... Taalia had nothing, and now she's a land owner and on track to be Verezzo's biggest supplier of salted pork! He's just going to get himself in trouble... Taalia - Taalia, we have to do something!"

Taalia offered a reassuring smile. But internally?

What do you want me to do about it? Kidnap the boy or something? she thought to herself. And what could she do?

How old would this Augusto be, anyway? Biago was in his 50s, and from her time with the troublemaker boys and the very masculine-dominated farming trade, Taalia knew that the key ages for criminality amongst men was in their teenage years to late twenties. That's when they'd get drawn into it and, if they survived, either remain in it and move on up or get out of the game. So what was Augusto, was he their age?

And if he was good at locks but preferred opening them instead?

"Maybe he's bored?" Taalia offered quietly.

"With respect singore, I do not know your son, but I know young men. I worked alongside and hired them for my farm in Bella Collina. Young men crave excitement and adventure. If he is restless as you say, perhaps it is because the Weavers offer him excitement and thrills?"