faderift | (Open) Catchall for the January

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(Open) Catchall for the January

WHO:Barnabas ‘Snake Oil’ Vilm
WHAT: Barnabas wheeling and dealing at his stall
WHEN:Now
WHERE: By the Inquisition HQ, at a market stall

I. At the Shop - Barnabas has a small storefront in the marketplace nearest the Gallows, where he buys and sells rifter artifacts. He also offers money changing. The exterior of the shop has small windows that have a few of the more mundane artifacts, with some large garish signs above the windows. They say "Barnabas Vilm - Seller of Fine Rifter Crafts". There's another logo that says 'We change your money! From wherever you come from!"

The inside of the shop is lit as well as it can be, with a string of lamps overhead, filling the room with light and a fog of smoke. The shelves line the walls, leaving a tasteful rug in the center of the room, with a counter against the back wall, where a door leading to a back room can be seen. On the shelves is a dazzling array of, for lack of a better term, things. A whip, a glowing green rock and a odd metal spring to name a few.

All of the items have a price and a huge sign over the counter says "We buy what you sell! All sales final, no refunds, Buyer Beware."

Engraved tastefully and subtly on the counter is a small Carta sigil.

II. After-Hours - Barnabas normally spends his evenings relaxing at a The Hanged Man, keeping his ear open to any new arrivals or new rifters. If he notices anyone talking of finding any odd artifacts will have him descend, offering a free drink and a very good price for it.

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Korrin is a regular at the Hanged Man, usually because she's working as a bouncer and tossing out disruptive people before they cause property damage. She's seated at the bar with a drink, engaging in idle banter with the barkeep.

"...weirdest rift item find? That's tough. I don't think anything can top the pile of women's underthings Alistair spoke about over the crystals. That was pure awesome. Someone else found a whole bunch of slippers shaped like various animals. They made vaguely appropriate animal sounds when you walk, too. I got a pair for Araceli.

I never personally found anything that silly, but a templar lady gave me a poster with a script that's definitely not ours. Less of a gag gift but still. I'm also pretty sure that vendor wasn't lying about my backpack, that's not magic that can be found here...."

There's a sliding sound and a Dwarf seems to appear by the bar. "Bartender, a drink, and one for the lady if you please." Barnabas looks up at the Qunari and gives her a winning smile, the kind of smile you'd be happy to lend money to.

"Hope you don't mind, but I overheard your mention of Rifter artifacts! Barnabas Vilm, pleasure to meet you." He hold up a hand in greeting.

Shaking his hand -her grip is firm but not overly so, she's not trying to crush his- Korrin smirks. "Korrin Ataash. I'm a bouncer, I already get free ale. But if you're buying something more than that, I won't say no.

And yep, you did. I guess you could call them artifacts, but most of them I'd just file under 'weird shit'. What else would you call shoes with wheels?"

"Well then lets get you something more than that! One of whatever she likes please." Barnabas nods at the bartender and places some gold on the bar.

"And shoes with wheels you say? Like...as decoration? On the sides or something? Can't say I've ever seen anything like that in my searching. Although I did find this amazingly garish red and white shirt. According to the label, it's made from Hawaiians."

"Chasind sack mead." Korrin knows he has an agenda but honestly, who doesn't? At least he's being honest about it, more or less. "No, more like some weird form of transportation. Fade Step, but without the magic."

She snorts at that clothing description. "Sounds classy. Yeah, I've seen weird clothes, all of it human-sized. It figures they're everywhere, eh?"

"I know right? It's like every time I look there's more of em. Eh, what can you do ya know?" He takes a drink from his glass and looks up at Korrin. "So, how attached are ya to those wheeled shoes? I'm kinda in the business of buying and selling Rifter artifacts."

He leans in a bit closer, not that it does much good with the height difference. "You would not believe what some nobles will pay for stuff from other universes. It's crazy! And I can help out the rifters who've been flung here, give em cash so they can stand on their own, not be beholden to anyone. So a real win-win."

"The wheeled shoes aren't mine, I just happened to see them at the Gallows." Korrin shrugs, though she still looks thoughtful. "I'm not so attached to the poster that I can't part with it, though. You should really ask Warden Alistair if he still has any ladies' underwear, while you're at it." Snicker.

Edited 2018-01-14 23:52 (UTC)

"Eh, there's no market for that stuff sadly. I may go talk to him later though, see if he has anything else. Thanks for the tip!"

Barnabas leans back a bit and takes another drink."So tell me about this poster. What is it? What's on it?"

"It has some weird rifter writing on it, with an orange background on half that's out of focus but lava-ish? I can bring it over sometime, then you can see what I mean. Maybe a rifter can translate, too. Though you could also have it say whatever the hell you want it to say, and no one here would know the difference."

"Sure! Bring it on over, I'll give ya a fair price for it. Or we can go in for a percentage of whatever I manage to sell it for, whichever you like. Next time a Rifter comes by the shop I'll try to get them to translate it."

Barnabas grins and lifts his glass again. "Course, if it'll make the nobles pay more, I may take creative liberties with the translation."

She snorts in amusement and raises her tankard as it comes. "Say it's some kind of sacred text, and they'll eat it up. Whether it is or not...eh." Hey, it's not likely anyone can refute that with any certainty, and messing with nobles is always worth it.

"Heh, true enough! Not like they'll know any difference. The trick is to make it collectable. Right now I'm telling a few of them that other nobles have more pieces of otherworldly currency then they do. No one throws money away faster than a noble trying to show off."

"Isn't that the truth? Any time my merc company had to deal with nobles, it usually had to do with them one-upping each other. It doesn't matter where they're from, nobles will be nobles." She takes an appreciative swig, then raises an eyebrow. "So, what are people saying about rifters now? Do they still believe they might be demons, stupid as that is?"

"Eh, you know how people are. Someone shows up who looks and acts diffrent and suddenly people start pointing fingers and calling them demons. From what I've heard, for the most part they're just ordinary people, trying to do what ordinary people do. Some good, some bad, but no matter where you go, people are just people."

"Me, I think they're some kinda 'visitors' to use the term loosely. Some other universe, maybe one that has diffrent rules. And now they're stuck here. I figure if I can give them a bit of a hand, well, all the better." Barnabas takes another drink. "The money that you can make is just a happy accident."

Korrin nods, a smile forming as the rifters aren't universally condemned by him. That may seem like a low bar, but so many can't seem to overcome it. Despite the dwarf's motives, it's still something. She stretches a bit, after setting her drink down.

"Hey, you don't have to justify it to me. As long as you're giving them a chance and not ripping them off, we don't have a problem. If they want to part with stuff that's no longer useful to them but might fetch a good price as novelty shit, that's their business."

"Ripping them off? Never! Course some of them are a bit more...shall we say, standoffish, but not had a problem so far. Think the big problem is that I've seen many in my shop. Most of the stuff I've got now I've picked up from rifts."

Barnabas takes another swig of his drink. "I don't suppose you could mention me to the other rifters? Some of them may be hesitant, and someone honest-looking like you, if you tell them that I can give them a hand, they may be more inclined to show up and get some help."

Korrin pauses, after another sip. "I'll at least mention it as an option. They're adults, they can make up their own minds on it, right?" She might also mention to them to bring along a native just to make sure they're getting good deals, but that's not singling him out so much as common sense anywhere in the market.

"Thank you! That's all I can ask, making sure that the option is known to them. I just don't want them getting caught by loan sharks or something like that you know?"

He comes by a couple of hours after being invited, having had a good deal of healing to get through but still being interested. The scattered things around the shop confirm he's at the right place.

"Barnabas Vilm? I'm the mage you spoke with on the crystal about seeing if any of these items are magical." The Carta symbol gives him a little pause... but he's worked with Carta when it came to smuggling mages. This should go all right. It does mean he's not volunteering his name quite yet, though. "I'm with the Grey Wardens who are working with the Inquisition."

"Ah, good to meet you! Always nice to meet another face of the Inquisition. I'm no mage, but some of this stuff, well, I suppose it'd be useful to have a mage take a look." Barnabas leans back , folding his arms across his chest.

"Course, I don't think most of this stuff is magic. I mean, take this thing. Light comes out after you shake it, but no need to cast any spells, no nothing. That green rock is glowing all on it's own, and this thing..." Barnabas takes the odd spring and places it on top of a pre-made set of wooden stairs.

With some dramatic flourish, he pokes the spring. It proceeds to walk down the stairs, step by step until it stops on the bottom step. "Ever seen anything like that before?"

He looks at the shake-for-light thing, pretty curious, but his attention is just as quickly drawn to the spring that practically glides down the stairs.

"I haven't," Anders has to admit, carefully picking it up. There's no sense of magic to it. That doesn't have to mean anything, though, and he casts spirit on it, seeing what he can detect. A moment later he's shaking his head. "It's metal, just metal. No magic. Made very well, if it's meant to do that."

For what purpose? Is it a tool, or a toy? Anders holds it back out to Barnabas as he looks around the shop in full. All of this speaks of so many worlds and so many possibilities and he's fascinated.

Barnabas takes the spring back and places it on the counter. "Amazing isn't it? But by all means, take a look around, just to make sure that nothing is going to start acting weird."

The items are all odd, but possibly the weirdest are the ones that are actively glowing. There's the small rock, glowing bright green, a bottle with a red liquid, also glowing. There's also a small device that has one end glowing, looking like a small metal wand, and more oddly, there's one thing that's in a case, with lock on it. Past the thick glass is a clay tablet, with a odd bas-relief carved in it.

He's a little nervous to start casting around the glowing things, but that doesn't stop him from picking up the bottle and turning it over slowly.

"The Rifters can't tell you what any of this is? There are no clues?" Despite himself, he carefully reaches out with Creation to see if the substance inside is living at all.

"Unfortunately, all of this is stuff that I've found. And no rifters have come in so far to explain anything. I mean, I'm still starting out here, so the flow of customers is a bit lower than I'd like. I mean, some stuff I can make educated guesses, but most everything else, no idea."

Barnabas gestures to a green metal egg resting on a stack of papers. "Take this thing. No idea what it does, but it is oddly heavy. Good for paperweight, but for all I know it may open up and play a tune if you tap it just right."

As for the glowing red bottle, the reading on it is odd. Like as if you tried to get a reading on a vat of yeast, or perhaps a plant. Alive, perhaps, if you stretch the definition of life.

Anders looks at the heavy egg and frowns. With his luck, tapping it would hatch a massive metal dragon. He'll pass. And the bottle... it's not blood like he'd thought a slight possibility, but there's a response to the Creation magic anyway. There's a lot to take in.

"I'd prefer to not risk setting a metal dragon loose on Kirkwall. Maybe there's no such thing, but the chance that there is means I'm not going to touch it." The Rifters have opened his mind to a whole lot of possibilities, some of them not comfortable to think on. Spirit magic doesn't help him any more with the bottle and he sets it down carefully.

"I've no idea what that is, but I'd be careful about letting people handle it. Other than the egg, is there anything you specifically want me casting on?"

Barnabas pauses, the friendly smile on his face falling a bit. "Yes...There is. This...thing."

Barnabas comes form behind the counter and walks over to the locked case. "Everything else I have here? No big problem. They don't get twitchy, they all stay quiet. This...Didn't."

He looks in the case at the clay tablet, maybe five my six inches, strange hieroglyphics drawn into it, and looking over the words, a strange pulpy figure, tentacled head and small wings on the back. "This thing...was not quiet and calm. May have just been some kinda side effect of the rift, but well...better safe, you know what I mean?"

Barnabas unlocks the case and opens the door. "Take a look..."

"Not quiet and calm?" he echoes, looking a little taken aback. It's just a tablet, by the look of it, but anything can be enchanted. At first Anders just peers at it. If there's something going on with it he isn't sure he wants his hands on it, so after a few moments he sends a careful thread of spirit magic in, just to see if he can get a sense of it.

What he gets is... fuzzy. He's not certain of what he's getting off of it, and he shakes his head. "I have no idea right now. Maybe after it's been in Thedas for a time it will... either settle down more, or become more energetic, and then I'll know."

"Well, fair enough. I'll keep an eye on it, if it starts doing anything weird I'll let you know."

Barnabas relocks the case and heads back over to the counter. "Now that business is out of the way, Anything I've got here caught your eye?"

He contemplates the collection before shaking his head with a small smile.

"I'm curious about many of the things, I'll not deny it, but I don't have the money to spend on things I'm curious about. Between feeding two pets and running a Clinic in Darktown I'm... well. Not exactly the type of person a shopkeeper might want around, I fear. But I'm certainly going to be dropping by regularly. Both to offer help figuring things out, and to see if there's anything I'd find practical, if you don't mind."

Even if he wanted trinkets, he's never lived a life that had room for them and that's not likely to change any time soon. That's all right with him, though.

Sometime after their conversation on the crystals, a tattooed dwarf (tall for his kind, anyway) rolls up to Barnabas' stall, already turning a couple of coins over in his grasp. He flashes Barnabas a wide, lopsided grin.

"Hey, I'm Kit, we spoke over the crystals," he starts--and if his smile freezes a little when he notices the Carta sigil on the counter, well, maybe that's just because it's cold outside.

"Kit! Nice to meet you at last. How's things? You find the place alright? I know it's a bit small, but gotta start somewhere, right?" Barnabas's eyes catch on the coins Kit is rolling over his fingers and smiles wider.

"So, what can I help ya with? Looking for something special, or just checking out the random stuff I've got here?"

Better to ignore the Carta symbol for now, he decides. His host seems friendly enough.

"You mentioned something about a... a wire, that--" He does a very poor impersonation of a slinky, but maybe it's enough to get the message across. Hopefully. "That sounds like the kind of weird shit I need to own," he adds, grinning.

"Oooh, that thing! Yes yes, come on over, check this out." Barnabas walks over to a small set of stairs on the counter and places the odd metal spring on the top step. With a bit of a flourish, he knocks the spring and it starts to walk down the stairs in a halting step with a noise that can only be described as 'Glink' As it reaches the bottom step, Barnabas makes a Ta-da! motion with his hands.

"Neat huh? I have NO idea what it's actual purpose is, but sure is interesting to play around with. So, make me an offer!" Barnabas grins widely, the dealer coming to the fore.

Kit watches it with bizarre appreciation, a slow grin spreading across his face. At last, he lets out a burst of laughter. "Shit, salroka, that's the most useless thing I've ever seen--ten bits for it."

He's no wheeler and dealer except when he's playing cards, but he knows to make a low bid first.

"Oh Kit! You wound me, ten bits? This is a artifact from another universe! It walks on it's own! Look at the machining of it, this would've taken skilled artificers who knows how long to build. I'm afraid I couldn't possibly let it go for less than 30. Or...perhaps we could talk about alternate payments?" The friendly smile never leaves Barnabas's face as he starts to get into his element.

A playful "pfft" answers that assertion, and Kit makes a vague gesture with one hand. "Walks on its own like I do if someone shoves me down the stairs first, more like," he laughs, but he's into the game now, smiling back at Barnabas.

"Fifteen bits," he allows. Then, raising his eyebrows to show he's game, he adds, "What kind of alternative payments did you have in mind?"

He's game--to a point, that is.

"Well, I'm just starting out here, and my stock, while interesting, is a bit sparse. If you can help spread the word, let people know that I'm here and interested in buying whatever rifter artifacts they may have for sale, and maybe even let me know when new rifts open. Most of this stuff I've found around rifter sites, the things just dump out this kinda stuff."

Barnabas leans against the counter with a smile. "Help me get the word out, and you can have the spring thing, no charge. What do you say?"

It's almost closing when Melys slinks in, slips the glove from her hand, and raps it — once, twice, hard — against the counter and its little icon.

Carta, and maybe she ought to know better than to go sticking her dick in that mess no more, but there's more muscle at her back than there ever used to be, and she's never met a bad idea she didn't decide to call friend.

"Hey," She croaks, green glimmering up eerie from the anchor. "You th'one buying things?"

That's a stupid question. Of course he is; she's been lurking about this street long enough to tell.

Barnabas smiles at the newcomer. "Hello, and welcome! Barnabas Vilm, and yes indeed, I am a buyer and seller of strange and unusual artifacts."

Barnabas gestures around the shop. "Take a look around, everything's for sale! Just be careful, some of the items may be a bit dangerous. What can I offer you, or rather, what can you offer me?"

"'S rocks, see," Sure enough. Polished stones — junk, no crystal in them, but smoothed up nice enough. "Rocks, from another land. Th'very, fuck is it, firmament . Of th'world beyond the Fade."

They look more or less like any other rocks.

She props her elbow to lean in, seems to be gearing up for a very bad sales pitch of her own.

Barnabas raises an eyebrow and takes one of the rocks. He then procures a jeweler's loupe from a pocket and affixes it to an eye and starts looking over the very ordinary looking rocks.

"From another world, eh? Your home world? Tell me about it. Maybe I've been lucky and I've already got something from your world. Worth more as a set, after all..."

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(Open) Catchall for the January

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