Stacking the Deck

[Woe]

Off Topic

80th of Ymiden: Market of Wonders: - Celebrated in the middle of the season of Ymiden. This is another event for folks to show off their achievements. But this is more like a display of wondrous items, crafts, inventions and talents, rather than a parade-like reward spectacle for the year's most over-achieving citizens. Some of these wares are found arrayed in the Crescent Arena, while others are consigned to the Citizen's Market. This event was originally conceived by former Chief Adviser Vuda, who hoped to see clues as to who may be dabbling in magic in "his" city.

This cycle, the market is held late in the season as it takes some set up without the direct administration of Vuda. It's still said that Vuda has agents with eyes on the market, especially now as Quacian refugees are rumored to harbor many mages among them.

Swill go up early the next morning in the squatter's hovel. He wore shabby clothing, and a red linen shirt beneath a brown suede vest, and a simple steel knife tucked into his belt. It was time to stretch his legs, and Swill wished to take a walk around the dirty old city, particularly around the CItizen's Market, which was said to harbor all kinds of interesting things on this trial.

The Market of Wonders was fully in swing there, as he arrived after a half break of walking. Peddlers hawking fake wells, trinkets, and poorly sourced artifacts. Swill almost was tempted to try their hand at spotting the fakes. It was always an entertaining pass time to see if he could find anything that was the genuine article. But for now, he was just idly walking along, browsing, collecting the sights and sounds for anything of interest.

Along his way, he came up on a row of fortune tellers. Soothesayers, bone-throwers, seers reading the tea leaves, and then card readers. This intrigued him, but many of the Etzori natives turned up their noses at those who put their fates in the hands of some poor sap's imagination or session of cold-reading. Etzori were nothing if not skeptical of someone else deciding their fate. Swill could admire their skepticism, on some levels. But he knew well enough the power and influence that could be gathered by reading the futures of those who came, hat in hand, to hear their future. Or in some poor fools' cases, their pasts, as if to get confirmation that there was a power that could search into the threads of fate itself, and pluck little truths out.

It was largely a scam, to Swill's eyes. Even Ziell's prophecies had been vague and hardly helpful when he was marked by the Immortal. Nevertheless, Swill found himself sitting at the empty chair across from a card reader, and gave them a twisted smile. "How many silver to get a read on my future, friend?"

His eyes glinted as he looked at the tools of the soothesayer's trade, the cards, the bones, the tea leaves. For his part, he knew of the Bones in Scalvoris, a successful business and source of intelligence for the Hollow Prince.

He was curious though, what the soothesayer here's angle was. Did he do this for the love of the game? Was he a true believer, or was he fishing for information? Either one of those possibilities intrigued Swill. He looked around him, searching the crowd for anything of interest while waiting for a price from the soothesayer.

[Jacen Kyros]

He never intended to make it big. Coin was an addon, a side-effect of the peculiar industry he had nudged his way into. How had his mother faired in this particular endeavor? When she was younger, fair, flippant in the way she spoke to men. Jacen did not have her confidence, nor did he have his father’s sense of calm in a crowd. He was misplaced, he thought, but pushed on anyway. Because this is what one did in a city where no one really knew you.

There were a lot of options for a young man far from home with his skillset, but he enjoyed this more. It made him feel closer to Nor’ah, holding her cards, fingering the velvet bag where the cards were nestled.

Plus, this was a chance to practice his Common, broken as it was.

Sure, the Etzori were a skeptical folk, but luckily for Jace, the market was bustling with tourists and travelers, and more than one spoke Xanthean as well as Common. As clients filtered in and out of his little space, he picked up a word or two more – added it to his internal library.

Janara was close by, circling the feet he had tucked under the table.

He could do this, he thought, if magic and medicine didn’t pan out.

In his head, he heard Janara tsk in protest, and Jacen lowered his eyes.

They would return to the realm of the wider world as the other appeared in front of him. Shabbily clad, devoid of finery, but no less worthy of an interpretative jaunt through the mystical arts. Jacen himself didn’t bother with more refined ensembles, not that his budget allowed for it. Presently, he wore a plain linen shirt tucked into a pair of black trousers, altered for his wire frame. It spilled half open at the collar, flashing his Sev’ryn ink. He wore his hair long around his ears, brushed and fluffed in no real pattern, but the dark contrast framed his cobalt eyes prettily – unless one looked too closely.

Closer still? The striations were there, the telltale sign of an attunement mage, though the youth didn’t carry his power in the way he sat.

It was very much open invitation, coupled with a side of nervous fidgeting.

Jacen cocked his head to the question, caught the “How many” and “silver” woven through a friendly tone. He smiled in turn, overly saccharine, but it was the only way he knew how.

The seer spilled his cards upon the table, face down. The design that revealed itself was repetitive pattern of black and white, indistinguishable from card to card, and mirrored the waif’s aesthetic.

Jacen was about to go into his usual spiel when Swill’s shoddy appearance made him rethink the math. Often, he’d name a price, then the other would haggle, until something befitting his station would be agreed upon. Some other more colorful characters would entertain him by demanding an answer to a certain question, upping the price if the answer was produced.

It made him crazy.

“Syayvi… No silver,” the Sev’ryn murmured, eyes aligned with Swill’s own for a time before skittering away. “Bayi…. Ff-five.. copper.”

Did the other soothsayers grumble in recognition of a low-ball pitch? It was crowded enough, and there was more than one pair of eyes pinned on him.

Maybe it was the dark whorls of ink traversing his flesh?

Surely no one had seen the double tongue yet…

“Five, for… ah…” Jace struggled through his speech, frowning severely, black brows tugged all the way down.

“A story?” He questioned the other, blue-bright eyes barreling up to reach Swill’s own again. Soft. They were soft, and they were kind, despite the sparks that needled at him, driving him forward.

“Ke’ua gbolohun,” he echoed, losing the translation before finding it again.

“Your future.. is.. a story.”

“Miu ọwọpọ,” Jace murmured, gesturing to the row of cards that awaited his touch to begin. “My mother,” he explained, gently grazing the last card in the line.

“Hers.”

That tidbit he’d offer for free.

[Woe]

Unlike many who came to soothesayers with a preconceived bias, knowing what they wanted to hear, Swill was a different sort of audience. A sort that perhaps this fellow might not be accustomed to. He'd seen all sorts coming in and out of The Bones, thinking they knew their destiny before ever Lacrima upset their expectations. Whether by augur or oracle their future was spoken, the bones did not lie. That was the consistent rule that he ran the fortune telling business under.

The goal there, however, wasn't so much to inform the people coming in as much as to sus their own motives for being there. People could tell a reader a lot through their leading questions and concerns, if they deigned to share them. Lacrima didn't always wish to hear their questions, but would only roll the bones for them, and tell them what they meant.

Often enough, they left satisfied and assured of the 'story'.

And that was an apt description of what a fortune teller sold. It was a story, not of certainty, but aspirational at best. Swill looked into the young man's eyes, and noticed the telltale pattern of puzzles in his irises. He was a mage, an attuner. Swill had no defense against whatever notes he might dredge up, yet he almost wished to warn him against reading his frequency.

But then, letting it be known that he could tell the witchmark of an attuner might give the other man more information than he was willing to part with. Should the soothesayer try and gain his frequency, he'd find it quite uncomfortable, unless he was already exceedingly powerful in his magic.

He looked young, to Swill's eyes, not quite confident in his arts, although some were good at hiding it. Nevertheless, he refrained from biasing himself against the potential of the reader that was in front of him.

Five coppers, a low-ball offer, "Half price?" Swill grunted, "Fine fine." He laid down the copper nels. Then nodded at the other man, and waited for him to play the cards, and see what he could see from the unfolding 'story.'

"Sos' the past, and the now ain't shy of story either." Swill smirked at the young man. "But yeah, it be the future that is ahead of me."

"Your mother's? Her cards?" Swill asked clarification. The young man didn't speak common natively, that much was certain. Swill was tempted to test his knowledge of other language, he had the hint of a southern accent, Xanthean perhaps, although Woe couldn't be sure. He'd not spent much time among people from Desnind. But the young man was probably not from Quacia, although with the influx of immigrants to Etzos, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

He touched the deck, as bid by the other. Selecting a card from the middle. And so, having lent his touch to the cards, he waited for the opening chapter in this story.

"You ain't from around here. That makes two of us." Swill confided.