Solo Papers, Please

While trying to find a fabric shop to buy embroidery supplies, Yeva ends up getting lost and discovering a local newspaper... sort of.

Once an isolated and dying township, an influx of academics, adventurers and thrill seekers have made Scalvoris Town their home. From scholars' tea shops to a new satellite campus for Viden Academy, this is an exciting place to visit or make your home!

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Yeva
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Posts: 714
Joined: Thu May 16, 2019 1:23 am
Race: Human
Profession: Medic | Crytographer
Renown: 585
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Papers, Please

101 Ashan 720

The snake coiled around her throat, its tongue tasting the air as she slowed under the lamp post, "I don't know, Raa..." Yeva swallowed, brown eyes flickering up from the battered map, "I really thought the craft store would be right here.... We must have taken a wrong turn or... maybe... it could have been the last block."

White teeth sunk into a lush lip, followed by a puff of defeated air, "We should just ask for directions. Honestly, I don't know why I'm so bad at this."

After what had happened in Almund, Yeva had been more unsure in her travels through the city alone. More than anything she wanted to get back to the inn, curl up with an embroidery hoop, a hot glass of tea, and listen to the bards playing their music in the tavern below. Maybe this was it? She didn't exactly have a picture of the place, and the description the woman had gave her hadn't exactly been full proof... But here? In the alley? The building itself was not particularly inviting or well placed. Its walls were made with aged gray ship lap siding with a gutter that twisted and hooked in daggered angles giving its comically thin architecture an almost sinister appearance... that is, if it ddn't strike the viewer as so sad.

What Yeva noticed first, outside of the dreary presence or that she was once again hopelessly lost, was the lack of signage. On the building to her right, she knew it to be a butchery, and on the right, a cobbler. But tucked away, as if shoved around by the rest of the street and forgotten, was the two story nameless structure, "It could be as good as any other place if it doesn't have a shop front, right? And what would they need to display, anyway? Silver thimbles?"

Amused by her own jest, the red head regarded the map once more before reaching into her back pocket and producing a pencil. Turning it over, Yeva recorded the date beneath a number of other handwritten lines:
110 Ashan - Lost again. Shopping.


She tucked the paper away and made her way up the steps to knock upon the front door. Knock. Knock. Knock.

Behind the door was the sound of feet, and the door cracked up to reveal two dark eyes. Upon seeing her, it opened more, "Who are you?"

"Y-yeva?"


"Are you asking me, or telling me?"

"Um, telling. Sorry, I'm trying to find a store I heard about. They sell fabrics, colored thread... that sort of thing. Am I in the wrong place?"

"Obviously!" the woman who answered sniffed loudly, pushing up the round spectacles balanced on her cherry nose, "You're looking at PB Paper House! Can't you read the sign?"

"Sign?" the medic looked over her shoulder and then stepped back to try and see if she had missed one above the door, "I didn't see... There was no sign?"

The woman scoffed, stomping past the woman in a robe of canary yellow, "No sign!" she screeched and then paused, scanned the store front, "Hm... Must have been stolen. Come inside!"

Last edited by Yeva on Thu Mar 11, 2021 1:02 am, edited 1 time in total. word count: 539
User avatar
Yeva
Approved Character
Posts: 714
Joined: Thu May 16, 2019 1:23 am
Race: Human
Profession: Medic | Crytographer
Renown: 585
Character Sheet
Character Wiki
Plot Notes
Letters
Wealth Tier: Tier 6

Contribution

Milestones

RP Medals

Miscellaneous

Events

Re: Papers, Please

101 Ashan 720

Yeva wasn't sure she wanted to go inside, but squeezed through the front door, first craning her neck to glimpse into the room and her jaw dropped.

In the center of the room, like a shrine, was the largest piece of machinery Yeva had ever laid her eyes upon. Massive rolls of paper, bigger and fatter than she thought possible to produce were bound and leaning against the wall, kept in place by a chain bolted and wrapped round the grouping, and leaning against the structure was the woman, with a smug grin teasing her thin smile, "Amazed by Big Betty, eh?" she sniffed again, smacking the machine with affection, "Well close the door!"

"Sorry! Sorry!" Yeva spun to do as she was told, still starstruck, "Big Betty? W... What is it?"

"She," the eccentric owner corrected, stroking the wheel on its side, "Is one of the few printing presses to actually exist on Idalos. Got her from Rynmere," she smirked, "Those Andaris might not be able to pick a king worth shit, but they know a thing or two about the writing trade... You like her, don't you?"

"I..." Yeva tried to find the words. What was a printing press? "Um... What is it?"

The shock that adorned the other woman's face was reminiscent of being electrocuted, "WHAT?"

"I'm sorry-"

The cherry-nosed woman looked around wildly, as if searching for something within arm's reach to throw, "What do they teach in schools! Where are you from?"

"R-Rharne?"

"Yeva of Rharne!" she scowled, "Haven't you ever read a paper? A BOOK? Big Betty, and others like her, are the reason literature will take the world by storm! Knowledge won't be lost. There will be no secrets!" her fingers curled to grab at the air, seized with passion, and Yeva took a step back. Maybe it was a bad idea to come inside.

"You make newspapers?" Yeva held up a hand to placate her, but then frowned, "But I've never seen one in Scalvoris."

"Yet!" she gave a stern, hell-bent look across the room and then she sighed dramatically, pinching the bridge of her nose and resettling her glasses, "Yet," she repeated, softer this time, "My sister and I... we started this business, but it's been one set back after another. We can't get writers, we can't get artists. I thought..." she began murmuring to herself, the faint whispers filling the tense air between then. Yeva cleared her throat.

"I know we're probably past this point but... who are you?"

"Penny Bones!" the woman replied, snapping out of her reverie. She was a quick and passionate woman, "

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