Café de Nuit

Cyrus wasn't about to let his prey get away that easily. Besides, the smell of lunch attracted him and the Hazlani had not quite left the age where he could eat an entire buffet and still not gain a pound. His stomach rumbled quietly as he made his way toward the kitchen just in time to witness the old professor's introduction.

He raised a neatly-shaven brow at the sight of human-less cooking. Such sights were not common in Hazlan, but they occurred often enough. Generally, the Rashemi slaves and servants took care of the cooking. Cyrus recalled fond memories of his father tutoring him in arcane theory, history, and religion using floating books that turned pages by themselves.

"And what are you the professor of?" the Hazlani asked curiously. Then he paused and smiled his snakelike smile. "Dommer Cyrus Isfahani," he greeted and inclined his head politely, "A pleasure, Professor."

That's more like it, Tomas thinks as the act drops after Lia's dragged him into the room. Shaking his head-he promised himself years ago to get over that unrequited little crush-Tomas adjusts his hat and winces, feeling his right shoulder as Lia talks.

"Do you mind?" Tomas asks, already rolling his sleeve up and revealing, just beyond the wrist, ugly black stitches that hold patches of skin together. After pulling his shirt up to the shoulder blade, Tomas sets his back against Lia's door, puts his cap in his teeth, and pulls on a black and silver thread that was hanging a little loosely from the upper arm. Said arm reacts immediately, the flesh tightening, showing muscles that previously seemed to be hidden by a layer of fat, and causing a faint grinding sound that almost sounds like bone on metal on bone...

There's a POP, as Tomas realigns his shoulder, and the skin on his hands pulls taught. Tomas wiggles his fingers experimentally, and tucks the loose thread back into...into his skin, only wincing a little at the alien sensation.

Putting his hat back on, Tomas attempts to sound casual. "Well, I found Sascha's old village." Eisenwald trails off, his quest of the past decade being something he doesn't like to remember. "It...well, it was an experience."

"Feel free, feel free," Lia replies, waving Tomas' maintenance away without even turning a hair. "So, Sascha's village? How did his relatives take the news?"

"Well enough." Tomas offers in a weak sort of way, taking out his pipe to chew on, even though he won't light it in the cramped, easily flammable room. He lets out an enormous sigh. "They were dead. The village was infested with cannibals. Must have died years ago. But it was just like the description the officer gave..."

Tomas shrugs, a little. "Everyone said it. I don't know if I'd call the past few years wasted, but we're the only ones left to remember him." Tomas runs a hand through his hair, looking a little lost for a moment. "...but, how about you? You seem so much more...at peace, than when I last saw you."

"I've been arranging for music to be performed," Lia replies, shrugging. "The Featherflute's music. It had a few ... unexpected results, as you can see." The Mage sweeps a hand at her face, then drops it again, shrugging. "It's shallow, I know, but it ... helped. And perhaps my personality was also changed by the ... alterations." Lia shrugs again, a little uncomfortably.

"Well. If it was, there is nothing I can do about it. So. Cannibals, you say. I wonder how that happened ..."

For a moment, Lia contemplates her books, then heaves a sigh. "You're quite right," she continues in a lower tone of voice. "We're the last ones left to remember him, as best I know. I have not seen any of the others in years. Charles and Sarari are off in Darkon, last I heard. I've written to them, but I have not been free to travel over to see them. Andre's busy at the University, so I have not seen him, either. Otto's off in Lamordia or somewhere, Kuzan's in Sri Raji ..."

For a moment, Lia smirks and shakes her head. "I've been tied up in this damned city for too long," she states. "Too much to do at first even to go visit captain Harris where they're keeping him. We really should go see him, Tomas, just you, Devereux, Andre and I - if Andre and Devereux have the time. But definitely you and I. We owe him a lot as well.

It's unbelievable that I've stayed here this long. Apart from a few brief stays in Mordent, to oversee the family's affairs and the reconstruction of Mournswaithe Manor, I've only been here. There is no trace of my father's laboratory in the new Manor, by the way. Petty of me, isn't it? But my sister has a new laboratory for her own research in a different part of the grounds. A proper one, where she can work with greater powers than he could.

Ahh, I feel like getting out of here, Tomas! There's a great big world out there, and I haven't seen enough of it yet. Once my duties here are finally discharged, I might like to travel a bit. Maybe meet Charles' and Sarari's get up in Darkon, or give Kuzan a scare by turning up at that temple he was always going on about wanting to build. Heh. That ould be fun ...

Well, that's me," she concludes. "I've been keeping busy, getting the music to the people and reading and writing my books, writing letters to old friends here and there. It's been a bit quiet lately, to tell the truth, with Grimmric off on his own business. Business has been pretty good, to tell the truth. It's been taking care of itself more and more over the years, which leaves me more free to study the Art."

Kitchen, The Chateau Malchance, Quartier Marchand, Port-a-Lucine; March 9th, 770, 12:17 AM
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Cyrus wrote:"And what are you the professor of?" the Hazlani asked curiously. Then he paused and smiled his snakelike smile. "Dommer Cyrus Isfahani," he greeted and inclined his head politely, "A pleasure, Professor."

"Ah, a pleasure, a most sincere and profound pleasure to make your acquaintance." Professor Lemercier said, turning around with decidedly more speed and adroitness than his rotund frame would have led you to believe. He smiled warmly. "Why, I do believe I feel younger already, surrounded by so many delightful young people. This house was getting decidedly too geriatric with just myself and the utterly charming Seiglinde about. And you, my beautiful young mademouselle, are?"

Katja, who had been regarding the corpulent but vivacious academic with narrowed eyes, found herself unexpectedly thrust into the limelight. She opened her mouth, said nothing for a few beats, then merely answered, "Katharina Zweibach, formerly of Nartok. Most call me Katja. I moved here after being discharged for medical reasons."

"Nartok, my dear?" Lemercier's bushy brows rose above his homely face. "Ah, now that brings up memories. I was there back before the Reqiuem. The Old Baron had opened his halls to foreign scholars, and I was examining the most magnificent tapestries I have ever had the luxury of viewing. You Darkonians truly understand the preservation of art."

"Yes." Katja said noncommittally, watching Lemercier as one might watch a barely-tamed bear. "We do."

"That, as a matter of fact, is my profession." Professor Lemercier said, turning now back to Cyrus and bobbing his head pleasantly. "I am a chronicler of human creativity, a scholar of beauty wheresoever it may be found. In short, my good Dommer, I am an art historian. Of course, like any true scholar, Ἓν οἶδα ὅτι οὐδὲν οἶδα. Nevertheless, the University pays me to pursue Dame Beauty."

"You talk very much, Old Man, but say very little." A new voice now entered the discussion, a level voice emanating from a figure that stood in the doorway to the common room, behind Nerit and Mr. Agale. You realized that at some point just a little while ago, the haunting piano music had stopped.

She was of an age with Lemercier, a woman of average height but with a stocky and muscular build. Her silver-grey hair was drawn into a tight, severe-looking bun, framing two bright, hazel eyes. Her face was long and thin, though it might have been handsome were it not for the disapproving expression she wore. She wore an equally severe grey, woolen dress, with a black, muslin neck-cloth tied in a bow around her neck. As perhaps tiny concessions to prevailing fashion, the woman wore very high heels and kept her nails long, filed into rounded points. All this succeeded in doing, however, was in making her look bigger and as though she had claws.

"Ah, speak the name and the lady herself is summoned!" Lemercier said expansively, a cheerful grin on his round face. "May I introduce the exquisitely adorable Professor Seiglinde Petrik?"

The exquisitely adorable Professor Seiglinde Petrik sniffed once, then ignored Lemercier in favor of examining the rest of you, looking you up and down, one by one. When she was done, she sniffed again. "So. You are the new tenants?"



Upstairs Hall, The Chateau Malchance, Quartier Marchand, Port-a-Lucine; March 9th, 770, 12:17 AM
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Kerrian wrote:"Excuse me...but what's an abyssal lord?" One of those questions where once you ask, you really wish you didn't, but it appeared he didn't seem to know better.

"Better be careful you don't say their names." Cerise said, a perky grin on her face. "The abyssal lords are cruel and vengeful demons, and if you say their names without the right precautions, they might curse you. If Firahid curses you, you might not be able to straighten your back out for weeks."

Darius wrote:"No wonder no-one takes magic seriously in this country," he says, just loudly enough to ensure that the magician hears him. Having unburdened himself of this critique, he returns to his room.

"Ah, the followers of the Lawgiver. The only god to be bested by his own concubine," Thierri casually stated, to no one in particular. If the comment happened to be heard through the door to the twins' room, it didn't stem from any obvious effort on the magician's part.

Celeste wrote:“My dear flower goddess…ever so outré to see in our fair city, or so I am told, but I adore her just the same.” She patted the statue admiringly on its stone head, then wheeled it a few yards closer to the magician, stepping back and fixing him with an expectant grin. “I hereby entrust her to your care—and eagerly anticipate the manner in which she is to be transported to my rooms!”

Thierri picked up the statue from the handcart with some effort, giving Celeste a sidewise glance to ask her permission, and hefted it thoughtfully. He examined it for a few moments, arching an eyebrow but otherwise saying nothing. If he had any artistic criticism of the piece, he kept it to himself.

"A unique volunteer, to be sure," Thierri said, carefully putting the statue back. He idly tapped his cigarette, the ash vanishing before it hit the floor. "But Thierri Boucher lives for such challenges."

The magician waved his hands in the air, and a cloth appeared, wafting down through the air to neatly drape itself over the handcart. Thierri twirled his finger around the covered statue, causing a swirl of sparkles to form around the air. "Presto, chango..." He clapped his hands together, suddenly whipping the cloth away to reveal nothing underneath.

"But of course, we must not move your statue and leave it without its seat," Thierri said. He knelt by the handcart, whipping the cloth around it like a toreador. "Presto, chango..." The cart was gone, and so was Thierri, leaving the cloth wafting down through the air before it dissolved into a shower of minature fireworks. The cloth reappeared in a flash where Thierri and the cart now stood, over by Mlle. Viardot's doorway. He flamboyantly draped it back over the cart, spinning it back up into the shape of the statue.

"Appear!" he commanded, as the cloth flew into the air and vanished. Sitting on the cart, right where he had left it, was the goddess statue - flanked on both sides by twin, identical copys. Thierri presented them with a bow and an amused look.

"One can never have too much of a good thing, after all," he said, with a sly smile. "Come, mademoiselle, can you tell me which of these is yours?"

NeoTiamat wrote: "Better be careful you don't say their names." Cerise said, a perky grin on her face. "The abyssal lords are cruel and vengeful demons, and if you say their names without the right precautions, they might curse you. If Firahid curses you, you might not be able to straighten your back out for weeks."

Kerrian paused to consider this, the rather flamboyant way of moving in that Celeste was enjoying suddenly becoming the least interesting thing. "And..a demon is..what? I mean, I've heard of them...but haven't gotten much of an explanation..usually just puzzled looks." Kerrian said, having the feeling that this was something he should KNOW, and being unaware just made him more of a uncultured bumpkin than his heritage already did.

"The Martels are keeping their heads down." Tomas takes a look at the floor, wrestling with a memory. It's gone quickly enough. "You sound like it. Is that why you decided to move here? Trying to set yourself up to leave town in a year or so?"

"Ha. No," Lia replies. "I stuck around because this is the 'artistic heart of the Core'. What better place to launch a symphony to as wide an audience as it can reach? Marchand-Renier knows people in the business here, and he helped hook me up with the necessary people. I found the artists myself, though. None of the known and great would work with me on this, or if they said they would, they tried to rewrite the music to suit themselves. Well, I've done it, did the job to the best of my ability, and it's almost done with. When it's all over, I'm free to do whatever I want. And I want to travel again. Amazing, isn't it, despite all the horrors we went through, that I should feel longing for the days we spent on the road."

"Ah, the followers of the Lawgiver. The only god to be bested by his own concubine," Thierri casually stated, to no one in particular. If the comment happened to be heard through the door to the twins' room, it didn't stem from any obvious effort on the magician's part.

The door opens again. "Better," Darius allows, with the smallest measurable fraction of a smile on his face. "It is no fit use for the Art to imitate street mountebanks, monsieur, but at least you're clever about it. Give me a moment to arrange the room and I'll come out and throw coppers at your feet."

Richard blinked his pale grey eyes. "There is no better work than helping others," he stated simply, without reproach.

"Everyone at the hospice would have no trouble advancing themselves, Mr. Agale," Alice said, arching her eyebrows and faintly smiling back. "But then there would be no one to run the hospice."

"Ah, I understand. Philanthropists." Responded Agale. He pronounces the word deliberately as though he were saying something obscene.

“Yes.. we should continue the tour...” Devereux said, pulling his attention way from the patch of darkness only with difficulty. “The baths are over there... the kitchens next, I think... yes, the kitchens certainly.”

“Well, I'll have to join you later, as there's still things to bring up.” Alice said, her gaze resting lightly on Nerit. “Richard, could you help me with these roses?”

“Of course, sis.” The younger Blackwood said, nodding politely in turn to Mr. Agale, Nerit, and Devereux. “It's been a pleasure meeting you.”

He returns a stiff bow almost on impulse, adding a muffled "Indeed it has." before making a sharp heel turn to follow Devereux into the kitchen.

“Why Sister, M. Agale, what a delight to meet you.” The old man's voice was confident and pleasant to the ear. “Professor Evariste Lemercier, at your service.”

Suddenly, without any outside prompting, the lid of the saucepan lifted up and one of the jars floated over to it upon a wisp of smoke. A few careful pinches of spice floated up and into the saucepan, and then the wisp of smoke returned the jar to its place.

“My dear Favonius is at your service as well.” Prof. Lemercier said expansively. “Don't mind him, he is silent, but quite friendly.”

His manners responding on automatic once again, Agale returned the bow "A pleasure sir..." then stopped halfway to stare in amazement at the floating cutlery. "What a fascinating feat of thaumaturgy. Your own handiwork?"

The exquisitely adorable Professor Seiglinde Petrik sniffed once, then ignored Lemercier in favor of examining the rest of you, looking you up and down, one by one. When she was done, she sniffed again. "So. You are the new tenants?"

Upon hearing the new arrival, Agale takes a measured step back and to the side to allow her entrance. "Indeed madam, I am M. Agale, formerly of Borca at your service."

Delightful young people. Cyrus certainly never expected to be referred to as such here in Dementlieu. He always figured the Dementlieuse put the Hazlani a little lower on the totem pole of disgust than the Falkovnians and Borcans. He supposed his ethnicity's reputation was somewhat stifled by the relative distance. As a result, he felt a faint twinge of disappointment that his "bad boy" image was lost.

On the other hand, there was a Borcan nearby.

When one of those straight-laced, no-nonsense old women showed up, Cyrus watched her intently. People like her were usually competent and effective -- generally the people worth respecting. He bowed his head a little more deeply to the new professor than he had Lemercier.

"Dommer Cyrus Isfahani," he said, "My brother and I are staying here."

Professor of art indeed.

"From what I've heard, things have been worse here than on the road." Tomas points out, taking the proffered cup and sipping from it. "I hoped it was exaggeration...buildings burning, crime running rampant, the noble quarter turning into a group of armed camps..."

"...I was worried about you." Tomas admits after a long moment, making eye contact with Lia.

M. Boucher wrote:"One can never have too much of a good thing, after all," he said, with a sly smile. "Come, mademoiselle, can you tell me which of these is yours?"

Mlle. Viardot was no less enchanted by this performance than by the last—and rose enthusiastically to the challenge, crossing the hallway in a flash and kneeling to inspect the three statues. This took a relatively long amount of time, for Celeste, the inspection lasting twenty seconds or so; she seemed hesitant to touch them, for fear of breaking the illusion. Darius’ interjection was met by a curious upward jerk of the head, and then a return to her work. Finally, rising to her feet:

“M. Boucher, you have positively outmatched me! So harmoniously does the goddess conform with her sisters, that I should be utterly at a loss to tease her from her company. Why, if your Art did not provide you with avocation enough, I should think you fit to be the greatest sculptor in the land!”

She gave the magician an eager smile. “For lack of a more suitable stratagem, I shall pick the lady in the center: the symmetry becomes her. Please, reveal the solution at your earliest pleasure!”

Natural one on a Perception check. Whoo!

Nerit smiled at the sanguine professor, though the smoke known as 'Favonius' appeared to give her some pause. She put a hand to her heart and murmured, "Un fantôme?"
With a sideways gaze the nun then put her hand under one layer of her clothes at her collar and muttered something else.

Back at the conversation, she perked at the mention of Darkon and glanced to Katharina, or Katja. She hadn't thought there would be another Darkonian so near. In fact, she hadn't expected Devereux to give her up so quickly. But it couldn't be helped now.

Lemercier had a curious perception of Darkonians, as well.

NeoTiamat wrote:"So. You are the new tenants?"

The nun inclined her head again. "Ah, oui. You were at the piano earlier, Madame Professeur?" She kept her eyes downcast. "It was...très beautiful. Magnificent." Whether this would be taken as a compliment, she wasn't sure, like trying to impress the Mother Superior with propriety.