WHO: Fitcher, Marcoulf, Bartimaeus (+) & YOU WHAT: Ye Olde Catch'all WHEN: Nowish WHERE: Kirkwall, The Gallows, le Misc. NOTES: Starters in comments; if you want something/someone who isn't here, just hit me up and I'll scrape something together.
"Ugh, no not the wailing shadows bit--" he complains entirely too himself. With a sigh an a glance to his wrist after the watch he isn't wearing, Bartimaeus slithers back into the darker shadows of the tunnel so he can prepare.
This would all be much easier if it weren't for the rift shard burning merrily away in his left hand. He might turn into a spider and clamber into one of the many cracks in the crumbling, old mortar. He might become a vapor, a mist, a creeping shadow. But the anchor piece jammed into the far margins of his Essence unfortunately demands something more substantial of him. So instead, deep in the dark of the quote unquote haunted tunnel, he makes a series of grisly modifications to his guise (flattening and pitching into a fetching shade of unnatural wraith-like sallow), relocates to a more appropriate location (latched into the ceiling of the tunnel), and tucks his glowing hand into his pocket.
It's not his best work, but he has the whole night ahead of him.
To be fair, this part of the tour is a rehashing of her original, which relied entirely on practical effects to spook the coin out of the patsies. So ultimately, even a second-rate performance from Bartimaeus is more than enough for a grand spectacle. The tunnel does most of the work, echoing every tiny sound and amplifying it, and hidden mirrors reflect light to create shadows, and, and, and.
His role will be much more important and dependent upon his talent later on, when he has to bend over backwards and crab-crawl out of sight.
"Be careful, now, don't get too close to the stone. We wouldn't want you to pick up an unwanted souvenir."
The one getting close to the wall of the tunnel is young--twelve, maybe thirteen--and shoots a sullen, skeptical look towards Athessa at her theatrical admonishment.
"It's all fake anyway," the child says, crossing their arms. Their parent tries in vain to shush them, looking more mortified about their offspring being loud than upset that they paid for a sham. "I bet nothing bad happened in this tunnel at all!"
Athessa cocks a brow at the kid and smiles. "Kid, there isn't a single brick in Kirkwall that hasn't seen bloodshed. Bad stuff happens here every day. But if you're wondering about this particular tunnel's storied history, allow me to enlighten you--" Thanks silently given to that perfectly timed shimmer from one of the mirrors, playing on her already shiny elf eyes, she launches into the only partly dramatized history of the tunnel. The structure itself is merely a set piece, the events described true, but editorialized.
In a place like Kirkwall you don't have to invent tragedies, they happen naturally.
But honestly, when you get right down to it, isn't it just the same old thing? Who hasn't spent some time in a blood drenched old city built on top of a summoning circle fit to fetch half of the Other Place through it? Give any place a few hundred years to rot in the general miasma of humanity and soon there won't be a single square foot that hasn't had some mortal thing kark over dead on top of it. Take this tunnel. There are at least a half dozen spider corpses stuck up here in this spot he's melded into it just waiting to be eaten up by a roosting bird.
(There's a difference between a spider and a person devoured by a bloody abomination, Bartimaeus!, you say. To which he thinks, Nonsense. You're just not that special.)
Anyway. The point is, he almost misses his queue and has to hurry to add a rasping, skittering noise of nails over slick stone halfway through Athessa's prepared monologue. To make up for it, he adds a ghostly 'ooOOOooo' for good measure.
The 'ooOOOooo' is almost too much, especially with this dubious kid looking for the strings in this puppet show, but luckily the quiet murmuring of the tourists nearly covers the sound.
"Did you hear that?" One of them asks the person to their left, who shakes their head.
"Nope, I didn't hear a thing," that one lies, looking delightedly spooked. And delighted at being spooked. Even if the kid ruins the tour for their parents, they'll still turn a profit out of the others.
Not that the money is what's really important here, anyway. Rule number 1 in Athessa Sulahnan's Spooky Ghost Tour is to have fun! Rule 2, get spooked. Don't ask about the other rules, she hasn't thought that far ahead. She's only thinking as far ahead as the crossroads.
"I think we're in for a very interesting night," she says to the group, leading the way out of the tunnel and down the old cobbled street towards the edge of town. "This close to Satinalia, the spirits are far more active than usual."
As the tour group files from the tunnel, the skeptic preteen glances back over his shoulder and sneers. Which: okay kid, you little brat. We'll see who's making faces at the end of this, you little punk.
Bartimaeus remains clinging to the top of the tunnel with his hand in his pocket until the sounds of Athessa's chatter fades around the next corner of the crooked Kirkwall side street. Once the coast is clear, the dark shape disengages from the shadow it previously lurked in and floats, feather light, to touch down in the irregular cobble stones. It brushes dead spiders from its shoulders and then, with a grumble, painstakingly changes shape into a great blackbird which promptly takes flight with a sporty wingflap.
Fourth crossroads. He'll beat them there with time to spare.
It's not that she hasn't dealt with skeptics, naysayers, and people-who-see-through-her-schemes before, but this kid...
Oh man does she wanna smack this kid something fierce.
Not only is it hard to get through a monologue with someone interjecting every fifth word, but this little brat keeps piping up about well my dad says that mages blah blah blah and spirits don't do such and such.
It's only by some small miracle that when they get to the fourth crossroads, he's blessedly quiet.
"This crossroads is one some of you might be familiar with, though not by name. It's featured in a song about a highwayman whose lover sacrificed herself in a futile attempt to save his life. Not many know this, but the song is based on a true event, and some say that when the moon is full, the highwayman's ghost will ride through the crossroads in search of his lost love."
Too complicated, Bartimaeus had drawled when they'd discussed this bit of the monologue beforehand. What do you take me for, a film projector? I'm not saying I can't be both horse and rider, but there's such thing as putting too much pepper in the pot, Athessa. I mean really. Anyway, you can't very well spoil things with a full apparition so early on in the evening. You'll get an elaborate shadow puppet show and be happy with it.
But that was hours ago and before being subjected to a snot-nosed brat and he's had a whole minute to prepare by the time the tour reaches the crossroads.
From somewhere in the night, a sound begins to resolve. At first, it mingles with the intermittent breeze cutting up from the water and humming through this thoroughfare, but after only a few moments the sound grows more distinct: the ominous clip, clop, clip, clop of hooves headed toward this place.
If she'd been given the option to choose clip clops over shadow puppets, she definitely would've gone for the clip clops. But it hadn't been an option then, and now it's simply a delight, which informs her surprised and delighted acting cues.
"Do you hear that?"
"It's someone standing by with cups or coconuts," the snot-nosed brat scoffs, arms crossed. You know that way kids look away to prove they're not interested in something that's clearly still got their attention? It's that.
"Then how do you explain the sound clearly coming from one point, and moving? A point that you can see, too."
It it not a mage throwing the sound, and neither is it cups or coconuts.
He's never really been all that big on horses, to tell the truth. While he'd once been very loosely acquainted2 with an Afrit whose favored guise had been that of a two headed stallion with brimstone red eyes and a coat so jet that it hurt to behold, he's also seen a five too many of the animals spooking at the word 'Boo!' and dumping crown princes into muddy fields to really get the romanticism. But sure. When it comes to making the painfully familiar a little spooky, a horse swimming up from out of the dark isn't the worst way of going about the business.
The horse that suddenly rounds into the crossroads doesn't look particularly ghostly, but it is a bright silver in the overcast night. It has no saddle or bridle, and for all the world appears to be just a loose animal - well timed, but hardly supernatural. Only, as it comes careening down the roadway forcing the whole tour to jump to one side or the other to avoid being trampled, it seems strangely high off the ground - pale hooves striking sparks against cobblestones at a level to which the street no longer rises.
And then it is past them and gone, evaporating into the dark of the night with a steady ring of hoofbeats. The road, with all its dust and pooled rainwater and general muck, is left undisturbed in its wake.
2. If by 'acquainted' one means 'watched from safely across the battle field while the Afrit in question literally ate its way through the left flank of charging enemy djinn', and he does.
What's a sure-fire way to tip your hand in a situation like this? That's right, acting like you've seen something before. Luckily, because Athessa is not expecting a full bodied apparition to come trotting out in mid-air, her reaction is appropriately shocked, awed, and so on. For a split second, she buys her own con, forgetting that this ghost horse must be Bartimaeus, and she's just one among the group with an expression of wide-eyed wonder on her face.
But then she clues in, and puts her astonishment to good use.
"This is truly a special night, everyone. I can assure you that that," she gestures to where the horse was. "Does not happen often." Hazarding a glance at the Little Shit that's intent on ruining the tour, she's pleased to find angry confusion on the brat's face. Coconuts indeed.
The next stops go by smoothly; the bridge over the canal, rumored to be the site of a tragic abduction of some half-dozen children (featuring the soft sounds of baby crocodile tears). Then, the gallows, simple and obvious.
It's at the burned tenement that Athessa and Bartimaeus' pre-teen nemesis pipes up with:
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no subject
This would all be much easier if it weren't for the rift shard burning merrily away in his left hand. He might turn into a spider and clamber into one of the many cracks in the crumbling, old mortar. He might become a vapor, a mist, a creeping shadow. But the anchor piece jammed into the far margins of his Essence unfortunately demands something more substantial of him. So instead, deep in the dark of the quote unquote haunted tunnel, he makes a series of grisly modifications to his guise (flattening and pitching into a fetching shade of unnatural wraith-like sallow), relocates to a more appropriate location (latched into the ceiling of the tunnel), and tucks his glowing hand into his pocket.
It's not his best work, but he has the whole night ahead of him.
no subject
His role will be much more important and dependent upon his talent later on, when he has to bend over backwards and crab-crawl out of sight.
"Be careful, now, don't get too close to the stone. We wouldn't want you to pick up an unwanted souvenir."
The one getting close to the wall of the tunnel is young--twelve, maybe thirteen--and shoots a sullen, skeptical look towards Athessa at her theatrical admonishment.
"It's all fake anyway," the child says, crossing their arms. Their parent tries in vain to shush them, looking more mortified about their offspring being loud than upset that they paid for a sham. "I bet nothing bad happened in this tunnel at all!"
Athessa cocks a brow at the kid and smiles. "Kid, there isn't a single brick in Kirkwall that hasn't seen bloodshed. Bad stuff happens here every day. But if you're wondering about this particular tunnel's storied history, allow me to enlighten you--" Thanks silently given to that perfectly timed shimmer from one of the mirrors, playing on her already shiny elf eyes, she launches into the only partly dramatized history of the tunnel. The structure itself is merely a set piece, the events described true, but editorialized.
In a place like Kirkwall you don't have to invent tragedies, they happen naturally.
no subject
(There's a difference between a spider and a person devoured by a bloody abomination, Bartimaeus!, you say. To which he thinks, Nonsense. You're just not that special.)
Anyway. The point is, he almost misses his queue and has to hurry to add a rasping, skittering noise of nails over slick stone halfway through Athessa's prepared monologue. To make up for it, he adds a ghostly 'ooOOOooo' for good measure.
no subject
"Did you hear that?" One of them asks the person to their left, who shakes their head.
"Nope, I didn't hear a thing," that one lies, looking delightedly spooked. And delighted at being spooked. Even if the kid ruins the tour for their parents, they'll still turn a profit out of the others.
Not that the money is what's really important here, anyway. Rule number 1 in Athessa Sulahnan's Spooky Ghost Tour is to have fun! Rule 2, get spooked. Don't ask about the other rules, she hasn't thought that far ahead. She's only thinking as far ahead as the crossroads.
"I think we're in for a very interesting night," she says to the group, leading the way out of the tunnel and down the old cobbled street towards the edge of town. "This close to Satinalia, the spirits are far more active than usual."
no subject
Bartimaeus remains clinging to the top of the tunnel with his hand in his pocket until the sounds of Athessa's chatter fades around the next corner of the crooked Kirkwall side street. Once the coast is clear, the dark shape disengages from the shadow it previously lurked in and floats, feather light, to touch down in the irregular cobble stones. It brushes dead spiders from its shoulders and then, with a grumble, painstakingly changes shape into a great blackbird which promptly takes flight with a sporty wingflap.
Fourth crossroads. He'll beat them there with time to spare.
no subject
Oh man does she wanna smack this kid something fierce.
Not only is it hard to get through a monologue with someone interjecting every fifth word, but this little brat keeps piping up about well my dad says that mages blah blah blah and spirits don't do such and such.
It's only by some small miracle that when they get to the fourth crossroads, he's blessedly quiet.
"This crossroads is one some of you might be familiar with, though not by name. It's featured in a song about a highwayman whose lover sacrificed herself in a futile attempt to save his life. Not many know this, but the song is based on a true event, and some say that when the moon is full, the highwayman's ghost will ride through the crossroads in search of his lost love."
no subject
But that was hours ago and before being subjected to a snot-nosed brat and he's had a whole minute to prepare by the time the tour reaches the crossroads.
From somewhere in the night, a sound begins to resolve. At first, it mingles with the intermittent breeze cutting up from the water and humming through this thoroughfare, but after only a few moments the sound grows more distinct: the ominous clip, clop, clip, clop of hooves headed toward this place.
no subject
"Do you hear that?"
"It's someone standing by with cups or coconuts," the snot-nosed brat scoffs, arms crossed. You know that way kids look away to prove they're not interested in something that's clearly still got their attention? It's that.
"Then how do you explain the sound clearly coming from one point, and moving? A point that you can see, too."
"Maybe it's a mage, throwing the sound, then."
no subject
He's never really been all that big on horses, to tell the truth. While he'd once been very loosely acquainted2 with an Afrit whose favored guise had been that of a two headed stallion with brimstone red eyes and a coat so jet that it hurt to behold, he's also seen a five too many of the animals spooking at the word 'Boo!' and dumping crown princes into muddy fields to really get the romanticism. But sure. When it comes to making the painfully familiar a little spooky, a horse swimming up from out of the dark isn't the worst way of going about the business.
The horse that suddenly rounds into the crossroads doesn't look particularly ghostly, but it is a bright silver in the overcast night. It has no saddle or bridle, and for all the world appears to be just a loose animal - well timed, but hardly supernatural. Only, as it comes careening down the roadway forcing the whole tour to jump to one side or the other to avoid being trampled, it seems strangely high off the ground - pale hooves striking sparks against cobblestones at a level to which the street no longer rises.
And then it is past them and gone, evaporating into the dark of the night with a steady ring of hoofbeats. The road, with all its dust and pooled rainwater and general muck, is left undisturbed in its wake.
no subject
But then she clues in, and puts her astonishment to good use.
"This is truly a special night, everyone. I can assure you that that," she gestures to where the horse was. "Does not happen often." Hazarding a glance at the Little Shit that's intent on ruining the tour, she's pleased to find angry confusion on the brat's face. Coconuts indeed.
The next stops go by smoothly; the bridge over the canal, rumored to be the site of a tragic abduction of some half-dozen children (featuring the soft sounds of baby crocodile tears). Then, the gallows, simple and obvious.
It's at the burned tenement that Athessa and Bartimaeus' pre-teen nemesis pipes up with:
"So do we get to go inside, or what?"