RP:Seeking the Girl, No Longer a Stray

Part of the Repairing the Irreparable Arc

Summary: Kang solicits help in finding his lost (and very dangerous) daughter.

The Correspondence

Dear Lady,

I seem to be in the market for one who can decipher enchantments upon some items crafted by me, my apprentice, and those who work with us. None of us are spell-casters, magic-users, or know anything of such strange symbols and procedures.

Also, deciphering the strange runes and scripts may lead to the rescue/apprehension of my daughter, who has been missing for close to a year now. I'm sure we all will sleep easier knowing she's being treated for her mysterious malady.

~Kang, Master Tinker, Architect

~

Dear Master Kang,

Of course. Let us meet somewhere where we can discuss your needs. I can frequently be found taking my lunch at the restaurant off of Kelay Way, or we can meet elsewhere if that is your preference.

Rachelle Fournier

A Quiet Restaurant

Rachelle sat in a corner booth, hands tightly wrapped around her teacup. She kept it pressed to her lips, letting the soothing vapors rise past the rest of her face as she peered towards the doorway. She’d be nothing much to look at if not for her manner of dress, which was… rather extravagant for this establishment, to say the least. Her silk, cream-colored blouse and long violet skirt were accentuated by what was almost a ridiculous amount of jewelry. A loose golden chain belt rested at her hips, a handful of crystal pendants hung from her neck, and more golden bangles lined both wrists; her curled brown hair was pinned back in a bun by an ebony, gem-encrusted hairpin. To one side of her rested a sizeable travel bag, and against that was perched the cherry red parasol that she went nowhere without.

Kang enters the bar under the shadow of his cloak. Once he identifies the person he was to meet, he taps a subtle rhythm on his everpresent walking stick and puts it under the fabric, where it coat's his body, right up against the skin. He then tips his hood back and reveals that he is roughly the same race as the woman he is to meet. "Miz Rachelle? I brought copies of the runes we could not identify. Didn't bring the originals, cuz they be so heavy and clanky." The disguised preklek sits across from the enchantress and orders himself a cup of tea. He is confident in his disguise. The enveloping cloak masks his movements when not disguised, the shifting staff that is his main disguise is not an illusion, but completely organic second skin. His armor, however is quite unique, not by it's design or weight or anything of the sort, but by the large chunks that had been bitten off by something no one ever wants to face.

Rachelle was disturbed from her reveries by the arrival of the cloaked man, not entirely unexpected. Hmm… human. Apart from the strange armor, he struck her as already less suspect than her usual clientele. She tried not to think too much about where and for what some of her work was finding its use; easier to sleep at night that way. “Hello, Mister… Kang, I presume? A pleasure to meet you.” She didn’t extend a hand for a shake since he’d already sat, instead preferring to simply nod her greeting. “I shall do my best to find your answers for you -- though I warn you that runes are not particularly my expertise. I know a fair bit, but I tend to favor other methods of enchantment.”

Kang pulls a waxy sheet of vellum from his pocket. He places it on the table, carefully. A waitress brings him his tea and he sips it gently. "Any help you can provide would be much appreciated. None of us could make heads or tails of them. These things are not my forte." Certainly not, since preklek can't use or even fathom the arcane arts. He sets the porcelain cup down gently. Even such a small disturbance causes the runes to glow. Apparently the shapes themselves hold power, even without the magic to power them. "See, my daughter's life and safety could rest on deciphering this bit of rubbish. Perhaps the life and safety of others as well."

Rachelle drained her tea further as she pored over the parchment, brows knit together. Her expression went from a careful, professional neutral to one of confusion, and then to mild irritation. Why, most of these were some of the simplest runes known to her! He would dare waste her time with such nonsense? Rachelle cleared her throat and composed herself before setting her cup to the side and addressing her client. Crimson painted nails, precisely and painstakingly manicured, pointed from one rune to the next as she spoke. “These few are your basic elements: fire, water, earth, and so on. These ones further down the page strengthen different physical attributes, such as a person’s strength or speed or nimbleness. And next to those, similar runes best suited for mages. Beyond that, we have a rune for returning... for divining the location of valuables or of people… a few protective charms... and this one here is for, er, enhancing desirability, shall we say. Was there any in particular you were hoping to know more about?” It was the last one that held her interest, being that it was a bit more advanced and, well, he hadn’t so far struck her as the type to care about such a thing. Rachelle pursed her lips to try to hide her bemusement.

Kang has to brace himself so as not to spray the table with tea. "These were all printed on the side of a giant chicken. Why would a giant chicken need to be desirable? Water, Earth? None of this makes any sense." He examines the runes, and marks them with the interpretations the arcane expert had delineated. Curiouser and curiouser. He suddenly perks up. "Returning? Divining location of valuable people? Can we somehow reverse engineer these to find my daughter. I believe that the same creatures who tampered with our chicken corrupted Cass' healing and sent her into a. . .I don't even know, but I fear the worst." He sketches the runes in several different orders on the back of his sheet. His frustration and worry is made clear by the constant chewing of his lip and the frantic scribbling of his charcoal stick. "May the gods have mercy on whomever she finds."

Rachelle cocked a brow and tried very hard not to laugh. A giant chicken? Preposterous. She’d never heard of such a thing, much less one with runes all over it. Surely he was making up some tall tale, in an effort to obscure his true designs. Still, a paying customer was a paying customer. With a faint sigh, Rachelle leaned forward and, with her own pen and paper, drew out her own arrangement of the necessary runes in a shimmering spring green ink until she had a large oval with a blank space in the center. “What is your daughter’s name?”

Kang was not lying, and the Bokbok debacle had taken it's toll on all: those the clockwork automaton had ravaged as well as the tinkers tasked with repairing it. "My daughter? She's always been Cass to me. That's how she was introduced. Her parents had passed when I adopted her, so I don't know her birth name." He eyes the new collection of runes displayed by the woman, and copies them on the margins of his own paper. They'd do nothing for him, but perhaps he could run them by another spellweaver. Something wasn't adding up. "You think you can find her? From my understanding, she's being masked by powers that no one so far has understood."

Rachelle shrugged. The personal details didn’t really do anything for her. “Perhaps. It will increase your chances by a fair margin, anyway, though I’m not sure what mysterious powers you’re contending with so I’m afraid I can’t guarantee anything.” She pushed her parchment over to the man’s end of the table, pen tip hovering over the blank oval. “Write what you call her by, or use an image of her. Regardless, it’s important that you have an image of her in your mind while you’re marking the center of the page. That’s what brings it power.” Rachelle leaned away and finished what was left of her tea. “Otherwise, you could just as easily end up finding some other Cass.”

Kang licks the pen nib, drawing blood because it's necessary, Chthonic demands blood, and it will not be denied. He carefully, steadily, and deliberately writes the name he calls her. The entire time his eyes never drop to the paper, locked on the enchantress. As he writes, he calmly says, "Don't look too closely at the writing. It's a language that is detrimental to all lifeforms, but it's the only way to guarantee that we find the right Cass. No one else can say these words, let alone take them as a name." He slides the sheet back to Rachelle, and closes his eyes, visualizing his daughter in action. Bowstaff in her tiny hands whipping through the air, screams of rage in a language she barely understands, mumbles in the common tongue that she understands even less. He looses a long exhale as he adds the last image, her as she was when the corruption took over. Glowing red wings, scars pulsing with dark energies, metallic edges searing themselves into shapes that the Tinkers could not possibly imagine. "Do what you must."

If Rachelle was disturbed by Kang’s description of the language, she was determined not to show it. “I’ve never heard of such a thing,” she said as he wrote, “though it sounds like not the sort of thing I’d like to take a risk on.” Heeding his warning, she kept her eyes on the interior of her teacup until the writing was complete. When he returned the parchment to her, she removed a handful of polished stones from her bag and meticulously placed them in formation around the runes. “Before I complete the final step, we should discuss and exchange payment. For something of this high a caliber I usually ask for no less than four thousand's worth in coins or through bartering, but I’m open to discuss what you think is fair.”

Kang drops a bag of gold on the table with a loud clank, drawing the eyes of a few patrons. He opens the bag and carefully, yet quickly, counts out two thousand. The remaining balance in the bag is slid over to the enchantress. "There's four thousand, right there. If you can find her, I'll give you another four. I will not put a price on the safety of my daughter." He waves his hand at the gawkers, and asks that they return to their business as he would in their shoes. They politely accede to his request. No need to be uncivil. He finishes the tea, ready to leave. Perhaps she'll find the lost girl, perhaps she'll fail. Either way, the preklek has other things to deal with. If she has a location, that would take priority. Otherwise, he'll return to the tinkers to show them what he's learned.

Rachelle opened up the bag and eyeballed its contents before tucking it away inside the larger bag she’d brought with her. “Very well. Let us see how far this gets you…” A finger rested upon each runed stone around the parchment in turn. As she touched the last stone in the circle, the runes upon both the stones and the parchment lit up, growing brighter and brighter, almost blindingly so -- and then abruptly it all faded, leaving the topmost rune on the page softly pulsing in and out and the rest dimmed. “There’s your beacon,” Rachelle stated, indicating the blinking rune. “Take the page with you and go where it points you. The stronger the rune’s heartbeat, the closer you are, barring whatever interference you said you’re up against. Hopefully this is strong enough to pierce through all that, however. It’s certainly as strong as I know how to make it.” Rachelle returned the stones to her bag now before fixing Kang with a faint smile. “Best of luck to you.”