Video: UN - Runeseeker

[onerthes]

[Vira-lorr is relaxed in a small looking room saturated with baubles and accoutrement of a fortune teller. Anyone with even the slightest familiarity can tell that almost everything in the room other than the deck of cards next to her are just for show. Nothing there looks like it has power, but it definitely gives the feel of mysticism one would expect from one of the Rom or the like performing fortune telling. She's dressed in a black and red Ao Dai and clearly more at ease than she'd been early on.]

Well, I think I'm just about as set up as I can be. I know that a nice young tiefling lad has already offered his services as a fortune teller, and so I'll do likewise. I've set up shop, at the western edge of the Cellar Door, should anyone want their fortunes told. My second sight has returned, though it is vague at the best of times, in fairness. So, be careful how closely you rely on it.

And, should you wish, I can try to help with any matters of a mystical nature that happen along. My spells may no longer work, but I still know a bit about the arcane arts, so I can offer what insight I can glean. I might be able to help figure something out with you. And... lately I've been getting strange flashes when I touch certain objects, so it might be useful.

If you want fencing lessons, I'm available once or twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. We should all learn to defend ourselves, and for some? A light blade has its uses.

[There was a pause. She leaned to the side and rested her chin on her hand before sighing.]

And I don't think I need to warn most of you. Stock up on necessities before next month. October was always a difficult month. Until it proves otherwise, I'd just assume we prepare for the worse. It's been far too quiet so far and I'm not a trusting girl.

Incidentally, I have a special request if any of you have taken up artificing. There's no real rush, just... please contact me privately.

Comments

[onerthes]

This is almost certainly going to get me on the bad side of the Disciples, but if we can find ways to circumvent them in getting the incense? I am all in favor of it.

[Bootleg incense!]

Thank you, Eddie.

[klussy]

Anytime, Vee.

(There's an awkward pause, some hesitance flickering across his eyes before he finally clears his throat.)

So I uh. Learned some more about my weird vileblood. Turns out it's pretty appropriately named. It's really toxic. I have some pretty weird shit happening when I get really emotional too. Like uh- spores. (He scratches his cheek.) Have you figured out more about your own situation?

[onerthes]

...when you're emotional... you... produce spores?

[That made her a little nervous about Makoto, but she hadn't said anything like that, and that was definitely something Makoto would talk about. Anyone would. That was ... weird.]

Oh. I've noticed that when I touch certain objects, I've begun to have visions. Short ones. They're about the item being used, by the last person who made or held them. My second sight doesn't usually do that, so I think that may be the blood. Psychometry I think it's called?

If the coldblood seems to grant elemental powers, and Vile produces its own, perhaps mental powers are common to paleblood?

[klussy]

Something like that anyway? That's the best way I can think of describing it. It's like these black dots start appearing all over me and then start to come off. It reminds me more of what pollen looks like but I think when it's toxic, it's spores? Actually, I have no fucking idea.

(He was good with plants, but his terminology in that department was severely lacking. He knew enough to keep everything alive and what it could or couldn't do.)

I think some other stuff happens too but I've been trying to not be around people when it does.

(Which made it a lot harder to deal with. But you know.)

Really? (He's already writing this down.)

Never heard of psychometery. Sounds like some kind of shining to me. (Which, really, is the exact same thing.)

Do the visions come true or are they more like memories?

(Cause that's two very different psychologically driven abilities.)

Some variations of elementals, anyway. I don't think anyone has been manifesting with anything but fire and ice powers specifically. Richie's got the fire, but I know some people have ice. I wonder if people have both too...(He rubs his jaw, frowning.)

Vile seems to be pretty self-explanatory. If I'm a walking, talking, breathing toxin machine then I can see why people would have started calling it vileblood instead of like...greenblood or something slightly less offensive.

(Though he hasn't met other vilebloods with similar abilities. Maybe it really was just him.)

I have to eat blood too. To feel emotions at all. So it's...Weird.

(The struggle of not knowing anything about corruption yet and already being corrupt...He's currently just assuming it has to do with his blood and nothing else at all.)

Well, that kind of makes sense I guess. Paleblood seems to have some sort of relationship to the moon. Cynthia is Moon Presence, right? Kinda falls in line with her being the mother of a dream god when you think about it. So that leaves...the normal red blood people seem to have - which apparently most of those people aren't really going through anything at all. And the dark blood. The glittery kind. Not sure what that blood is doing for people yet though.

[onerthes]

Much more like memories of the item for its owners and its use. I do not see anything related to the future when I see the visions, which makes it very different from my experience with seeing the future.

I doubt it can only be the toxin. They also spoke of it being impure somehow, so there must be different powers? [She tapped her lips] That, and I know someone else who isn't experiencing venoms.

If the moon is associated with visions, then it does make sense. But that also doesn't explain the crystalline, powdery strange blood that sparkles at all. I don't know if either that or the red blood normally has powers.

We'll need, like you've hinted, to catalogue all of this.

[klussy]

That might be useful in the future.

(Especially if they were faced with more violent threats. This month had been contained to the Gate. To weirder, niche places. Eddie wasn't naive enough to think it would stay that way.)

No, it's probably not. Power sets are usually more complicated than that. (But there had to be connections, surely? Otherwise why the differences to begin with?)

Yeah. I don't really know anyone else experiencing it either.

(Which makes the experience all that much more isolating, but that's a Deer curse for you.)

No, it doesn't. There's...a lot to test. I mean. A lot. There's a reason that hematology is its own field of study and this place? There might as well be fields within the field. I can move blood too. But most Blood Ministers seem to be able to. There's so much to learn about this place. I'm trying to cross my wires with what I'm figuring out on my own, what other Sleepers are learning, and what this place has to offer in its archives. I'm not much of a scholar though.

[onerthes]

I would imagine every trick will be useful in the future. Mine might be helpful for identifying items, their purposes, users, almost anything. Information is power, just as power is power.

[She considered it for a long moment, running over the thought in her head.]

We're not going to get a clear list for months at this rate. there's a lot of risks until we know for sure what's actually going on with our blood. Get some sort of training protocols going. That sort of thing could be incredibly useful.

Next month we should do a public request. People with strange powers. Ask for them to list theirs. Not everyone will, but if enough give the information we might be able to connect the dots.