Local Man Suspects Foul Magic in Thanalan

[cuideag]

Citizens suspecting ill of the local Thaumaturge's Guild isn't exactly new news, but one citizen in particular claims he's seen proof of a darker side to the prestigious group.

 

"It wasn't right," researcher Gogoshu told reporters. "I've seen magic. We've all seen magic - but this just wasn't right."

 

Gogoshu was resting from his ongoing work investigating ruins near Highbridge in Eastern Thanalan when a hyur woman invited herself to share his campfire. "She offered to help with some pests," says Gogoshu. "I didn't say anything. But then she snuck off with a miqo'te, and that's when I saw it."

 

The researcher claims the woman proceeded to attack the man using magic "unlike" the normal Fire or Ice spells employed by guild acolytes. Burnt grass and singed stone near the researcher's camp were evidence enough of an encounter, but more curious was a large ring of dry, dead grass. Nothing was burnt and there was nothing to suggest it had simply been trampled or crushed. It was as if the life had been sucked out of it all at once.

 

"That woman was using something forbidden," Gogoshu says. "Someone should know. This could be bad news for everyone if it isn't stopped."

 

The man was unharmed in the attack but locals living in or near Highbridge are warned to be on the look out.

 

The woman is described as being a hyur, likely a Highlander, with dark hair wearing dark clothes. She is missing an eye and is said to have been wielding a staff that looks like a flame. Any information regarding this woman, or other suspicious activities including but not limited to possible uses of unapproved magic, should be brought to the attention of local authorities.

[TK Hikaru]

Chouwa pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she hadn't gone sober. A bottle of whiskey would've cured the oncoming headache easily. Or at least allow her to forget for a few bells.

 

"S'if I don't already have issues at the Ossuary." She grumbled, setting the paper down. Finishing her tea, Chouwa gathered her things.

 

"Drybone's quite lovely this year anyroads."

[cuideag]

[Askier]

The miqo'te wasn't trying to read the flyer of ink covered paper. Rather, it forced itself upon him with a fury as a gust of wind tore it free from its resting place and slapped him in the face with it.

 

There was much swearing and cursing as the grumpy male tugged the paper free and looked down.  He kept walking as he read the parchment. As his eyes swept the page, his frown split into a smile and eventually he began to chuckle as he rolled up the paper and threw it over the shoulder, happy to be littering.

 

"She's lucky I like her. Bet some info be worth a fair gil."

[Caspar]

A soft step. Hands roughly plying densely packed pockets. She knit soft and firm fingers around the edges of her apple, a small, thoroughly feral bite ruining the red sheen. Too ripe. The cloying flavor disagreed with her, but its moisture far more with the scornful Thanalan sun. Heedlessly she continued to wear her tattered coat, a frayed banner of dhalmelskin and patches too miserable for a beggar. The skin under her eye patch grew damp, the first reminder of its presence she'd had in quite some time. Don't let the heat show. To be unable to endure this much would surely send tremors of raucous laughter through that woman. 

 

She found herself hunting in the fry pan of Ul'dah again at the behest of her coin purse. The tavern she had found residence in had restrictions on taking individual contracts without consultation. She'd signed herself over to them in exchange for a room to stow her body in when it could no longer endure training. (Really a smallish store room emptied for a cot and table, a few learning books, a collection of jars and their occupants...) In the early morning, she'd slip out without word or sound to exchange, but she'd occasionally find a familiar face. Bottle Man stinking like that woman, nursing a glass at the counter. Sky Lady playing with her odd moving toys. Wherever she found herself, a new, unfamiliar roof rose over her head, and strange voices and sentiments confounded her. In the time she had spent abroad, Eorzea remained foreign ground. Anything outside the cramped houseboat, the four musty longhouse walls, now waterlogged and rotten, the island's hot sand and wet leaves, was foreign, and would always be such. A maze of contradictions and puzzling, unpleasant questions that addled the mind. Unwanted stimulus. 

 

This was the world of the -vulgar,- and it was full of distractions, equal parts remarkable and useless. The other denizens of that world used their natural tools in a perverse, heterodox way. Virara understood it differently: Hands were for exchanging blows. Mouths were for forcing air from the lungs. Eyes were for tracking a foe, their dominant hand, the comfort of their stance, the trembling flame of a searching gaze. Much to her displeasure, Eorzea had a habit of waking her into this parallel world whenever Virara grew too productive. On a certain day she would stand amidst a mountain of firewood and splinters, what was left of her wooden sparring partners. A rising mass of black pretzels wrought from iron and leather at her feet only served to remind her of the medicine her stiffening hands demanded, the yawning void at the center of her stomach, and the occasional chip or hole in the masonry. She'd become aware at that moment that her gil purse was lighter than it ought to have been. Work came in, occasionally, at the behest of the house, but Virara's expenses were her own, and constant. To demand more of them was unthinkable. When the well dried up, she wandered. She was a stray, after all. 

 

Ul'dah was far enough away to make the air ship ride a worthy expense, assuming she hadn't managed to sneak on. Less familiar faces meant more freedom of employ. Further south avoided a certain other complication as well. Virara's ears twitched at the metallic whine of a local bard on Pearl Lane stringing his lute while chatting up a modest crowd. A street juggler fumbled his third bottle and scuttled to pick up the fleeing glass. His left hand had been an ilm too high, Virara noted. The Levemaster's board would often be depleted by the time she got there; Eorzea did not want for sellswords and hired muscle. With her stature and appearance, she made for an unconvincing bodyguard. The most common employment, crude labor, rarely ended well. Push too hard, scrub too fiercely, polish too vigorously, lift in a hurry. The yelling would soon follow. They didn't make things to last in Eorzea, Virara often thought. She couldn't steal, of course. She'd done enough of that to the refugee fishermen with their long nets, their aching backs and teeming fish pots, until her Master purged that excess from her with a hard bamboo switch.

 

A soft step. A not so soft step. Her normally near-silent footfall crunched loudly in protest beneath her. Irregular. Her hot little palm tossed aside its rapidly warming apple core and pried at the balled-up parchment beneath her feet. She plucked it flat, creased it against the stone wall twice. A conspiracy of shapes emerged from the posted notice. A dark mass of hair, the curve of a long cheek, an asymmetrical gaze not unlike her own. Names were as air, but the properly trained mind could recall with precision anything as simple as a mess of straight and curved lines, and a collage of light and shadow. Virara's carmine stare flickered at the shapes peering up at her from the parchment surface. These were shapes that she knew. It was in passing, during her wandering of the North, when her body was left in that miserably cold city and her mind was a thousand malm away. With her training, a glimpse was enough. Burn a complex series of forms into the mind, the interplay of arms, the tilt of a chest, the pounding of advancing feet. Do it within a couple minutes, upon pain of death. Succeed and memorizing a face would become trivial. 

 

She studied it for a long while, seated upon the Steps of Thal like an abandoned doll, parchment clutched between black-gloved, round fingers. In natural silence she slides her fingers along the notice, creasing it and slipping it away where her apple had once been. The fringe of dark hair shifts about before her forehead. Two nods to herself. She feels inside the coat for her long, heavy brace of iron hora, insinuating her fingers within one's cotton sheath. The metal surface remained strangely cold to the touch.

[T'shina]

The paper came to her as usual. Mayu giving a small nod to her retainer before she opened it up and started reading it over her morning tea. She'd pause on the story of the Foul Magic. and she'd tilt her head.

 

"Curious... perhaps I should go take a look."