Re: A Town Called Clueless

[Elfie]

Biting her lip at the end of this long speech, Mandy wasn't quite sure what to say. Being a recluse of some sort hadn't given her much chance to speak to people, and besides the couple of people she did speak to - the magic shop owner, where she got her SO from, and the man she paid to deliver the necessities of life to her home, which wasn't more than a few words to either on the best days - she had no experience in holding a conversation. And this man was no ordinary man, and certainly talked more than the aforementioned shop owner and delivery man. So for a moment she did nothing but stare as the story and slips of words he'd used whirled around her mind, making her slightly dizzy as she muddled through it. She thought she understood the point - or moral, as he'd put it - of his story, but what exactly did the djinni, law firm, and metal golem have to with anything?

"You aren't a djinni though, or stark raving lunatic, are you?" She asked, then, not wanting to particularly know, especially if it was the latter, she quickly hastened to continue, "No, I don't want to be turned into a metal golem. As I said, I want to be famous and need your magicians skills." Becoming aware again of the crowd, though only a few people were nearby by this time, Mandy pulled Artur further away and lowered her voice. "What I need help with is, well, finding a use for... the SG," as she said the word, even quieter than the rest, she wondered suddenly if this was a good idea. What if he refused to help, then went and found a use on his own? It didn't occur to Mandy that this idea of hers was probably not a new one, and that Artur might very well have thought of it anyway. It was too late now to stop, however, so she plunged on.
"I've become quite good at using the SO, you see" - she held up her notes and packet - "but using something as mysterious and unknown as the SG is beyond me, I think, and I don't want to end up dead by accident, and remain a nobody. You would just have to help me a little, at first, and be a sort of... lab rat, and test things for me so I wouldn't end up the dead one." She stopped for breath, realized what she'd said and added nervously, "Well, a magician as good as yourself will probably know all about handling such things as the SG, so I'm sure no harm will come to you. Or me. And you'd get some of the profits, too! So will you help me?"

[Zip]

"Well Mrs. Geemer, I'm not sure what happened to your issue of Cloaks and Daggers, but I'm sure it'll turn up eventually," he said sarcastically.
"I wanted to see Wizard June's bea-" she began to complain before Jarvis cut her off.
"Listen. If you wish to file a complaint against Magsy's Mail, feel free to make the arduous journey to our main office in the capital city. You know, through the swamps, dragons, and spiced toast rain." Jarvis adjusted his glasses after saying this.
"I-uhm," the middle aged Geemer stuttered.
"That's nice," Jarvis said with his voice drifting away while slowly closing her door.
He turned to his floating companion. "That went well enough. Who next?"
"The wizard Mandy, awooooo!" Zop stated.
"Off we go then!" Jarvis headed back towards the burnt down cafe. He snuck away to do his mailing duties when he saw that locals had it covered. Granted, from his past experiences with them, he was afraid that they would make it worse. Meh. Not even those incompetent rabbit-out-of-a-hat-pullers could botch a rescue operation.
And he was right! The dwarf seemed to be alright. However, the white robed mage seemed to be in a middle of a soliloquy. He waited for him to finish.
Unfortunately, he died of old age before it happened before a passing insane person revived him. Jarvis depended on people like that for some reason.
He then saw his target talking to him.
Walking right up to her, he put his hand on the man and began to talk.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting something, Mandy, but I have your weekly delivery ready if you'll just sign here." He took out a small scroll and a quill. The quill came from the Inkaropa bird, so it would never run out of ink. Legend says that the savage writers of old would hunt them for years, so they could write their stories about an unwed wedding planner falling in love with one of her clients.
...Ironic.

[Nayaby]

Artur’s eyes glittered at the mention of the SG, he lowered his voice in turn, “You’re a curious girl, aren’t you? But you have all the wrong reasons for your curiosity… Fame, and glory, and profit. Humph. Nobody ever does anything adventurous for the thrill of it anymore! Quite sad really. Now me, I don’t aim for the glory. It’s just a side-effect of my sheer brilliance and natural charm. But again, I digress.” While he’d been talking, Artur had been sifting through the girl’s notes, spending no longer than half a second on a page. “It would seem you aren’t entirely incompetent after all. You’ve got neat writing.” He paused. “Your research isn’t half-bad either. I wasn’t aware adding a bit of SO to the soil would make snow peas grow to double their usual size. Now, you wanted to talk about the SG-”
He handed back her notes as the postman walked up to them and interrupted. Artur drew his wand and began polishing it with the hem of his sleeve as he waited to continue.

[Elfie]

Mandy felt indignant at what she perceived as a mild jab against her. I'd like to tell him off! I am doing this for the thrill! Just because it isn't my main reason doesn't mean it isn't a partial one! And profit - I don't care about that. It was only an incentive for him to help me. And the fame, well, I don't have to explain my reasons for that. But if I get mad now, he won't help me at all, even if he did find my reasons to be not so simple as he thinks. She forced herself to listen to the rest of what he was saying, standing a bit taller when he praised her.
When Jarvis interrupted, Mandy didn't hid her impatience, sighing heavily. She would have liked to tell him to just send it to her house next time if she wasn't there, but she knew she had to sign and he wouldn't do so. She took the offered quill and scroll and signed quickly, handing them back to him and taking the bundle he held. "Thank you, Jarvis. Now please, we are trying to have a private conversation." She said it as politely as she could, waiting for Jarvis to continue on his way so she and Artur could resume.

[Zip]

Jarvis took back the pen. "Thanks, I suppose," sensing her displeasure. Granted, most of the town reacted to him like this by now. Today, he seemed to be lucky that no one threw any produce at him.
He stepped away to deliver whatever else he had to deliver that day. While walking away, he took a quick a quick look at the man Mandy was talking to.
Oh. That guy.
When the wizard moved in last month, Jarvis had to take down his basic information. One event led to another and, as a slug, he was forced to combat a 9001 foot ice troll who fed on indecision.
Artur didn't remember it of course. He simply turned Jarvis back to normal(which, when compared to the rest of the town, wasn't very hard), and enchanted his sock puppet.
He realized he had been staring at Artur the entire time and hurried off to Zop, who was waiting for him by the Clueless' resident fruit vendor to deliver today's goods.

The crowd which fought for the issue of Cloaks and Daggers waited by the stand looking displeased.

The rest of the day was going to be difficult.

[Areada]

Theo hailed Jarvis excitedly, "HEY!" he cried, running over, "I say! Have you got that order of sappy romance novels for me yet? We're re-doing the crown molding in the living room, you know, and it's the cheapest source of paper for paper-mache. Not to mention the vibrant colors on the covers. But it's been so long since I ordered it! And Cardy wants you to get through an order of thirteen blue and orange roses, from Ko'erey's Fables and Flowers, you know the wax and metal ones. We've ordered them before. Think you could do that? I know some of our orders have put you in difficult positions, but we really do appreciate it so much."

Cardamon and Theo were a bit infamous in town for having a very strangely decorated house. They shipped out for almost everything, very often, and were on fairly good terms with Jarvis, most of the time, except there had been the one incident where he'd encountered a pack of flame wolves on one of his trips, and they'd apologized for not warning him that the place they'd ordered from was in the middle of the firewoods. A distant, eccentric relative, they'd explained. What could you do?

In fact, they mostly ordered from distant relatives. Almost nothing in their house was local, a point of irritation among some of the other townsfolk.

Cardamon was in an extremely awkward standing area. One and a half feet away from where Artur and the other lady were speaking, she could hear everything they said, but couldn't help it. Surrounding here were some other people, talking, etc. She could hear everything. Half of her wanted to stay and eavesdrop, casually, and half of her wanted to go away and hide somewhere and maybe scream about the bad day she was having.

Oh, the choices.

She finally settled for walking a little ways away, and sitting on a pile of rubble from the cafe, somewhat dejectedly, but mostly just looking sort of glumly bored. It was so difficult to choose an emotion, sometimes, that it just turned out a mediocre mess and ended up being simply generic.

[MozytheHealer]

Opal liked this young man's resourcefulness. Romance novel were horrendous. "I must say that that seems to be an extremely good use of the torture devices that are romance novels." She commented.

[Areada]

"Well, we actually read them first." Theo said, "I mean, might as well get more than just paper out of them, right? We've got our favorite characters, from paper mache projects long past. I was always partial to Rosalie and Derevan from Summer Days Long Past, and Cardy can't get her head out of the love triangle messes."

He sighed, "Ah, stories. The people you meet. Sometimes they just don't seem like they can possibly be real."

[Nayaby]

Artur had the faintest recollection that he had met the postman once before, but he put the thought aside.

“As we were then, Mandy,” he said with a smile, “You mentioned you were interested in the SG. Well, you may be interested to know that it’s the reason I’m here. The SG itself isn’t quite the reason I’m here, I’ve analysed it, I’ve cast spells on it, I’ve made it into a variety of potions which I’ve fed to my tortoise. And, as far as I can tell, it’s dirt. Green, sparkly dirt mind you, but still dirt. Isn’t that brilliant!” He beamed wildly. “I haven’t the slightest clue what could possibly be so special about the SG, and that’s exactly what makes it so intriguing!” Artur reached into his robes and extracted Tortimer. “This is my utility tortoise, Tortimer,” he shoved the creature into Mandy’s arms. “He’ll be a much better lab rat, er, tortoise than me. Feel free to feed him any manner of strange concoctions. He probably won’t die. He hasn’t yet. Of course, if I couldn’t manage to discover any magical properties in the SG, I have my doubts a neophyte like you will be able to find anything. Just toss Tortimer out your window when you’re done with him. He’s enchanted so he’ll always manage to wander back to me, no matter how much effort he puts into getting away.”

He wasn’t dismissing Mandy, though it certainly appeared so. But somehow he knew that the true properties of the Sparkly Green wouldn’t reveal themselves until the time was right. Better to let the girl have her fun before the real fun began. “Something interesting is going to happen quite soon,” he chirped, “That's the reason I came to Clueless. Let’s just have a bit of patience. A watched pot doesn’t boil.”

[Elfie]

"Well, yes, but... I mean, you're supposed to teach me, help me, let me experiment on you, a person. Not this - this - utility tortoise!" Mandy held the tortoise awkwardly, eyeing it distastefully. Not that she had anything against animals in general or tortoises in particular, it was just that she didn't have much experience with them, and since, she assumed, Tortimer could not speak to her, she did not see how she could perform certain experiments which required a 'yes' or 'no' response to certain questions.

Besides that, it was aggravating that Artur had, indeed, thought of experimenting with the SG, and had done so before she, Mandy, had allowed herself to think about trying it herself. She had honestly assumed herself to be the first, and she didn't like to have 'credit' she thought was 'due her' taken away, or given to someone else. And on top of that, Artur's cryptic message confused her, and made her wonder if he was telling the truth or not - after all, where would he get the idea that something was going to happen? Was he up to something? Mandy shook her head. Letting her imagine run wild, again, that was all.

"Well, thank you for lending me your tortoise." She told Artur, deciding not to be rude and graciously accept this offer, even though it was not at all the kind of 'help' she had expected. She turned and walked away, trying to figure out how best to hold the tortoise, the packet of SO and her notes as she did.

[Areada]

"Yes, they do." Cardamon muttered to herself about the watched pot never boiling, as she'd actually tried it once.
She stood up, "Theo! Let's get home, dinner? I don't have a job, and I'm starving!"

"I'm settling some business with Jarvis!" Theo hollered back, "Wait a minute or go back without me!"

People were looking at them, but the crowd had mostly dispersed to various corners of the town by then. The people who owned the cafe had come by, mostly concerned about the winecellar. Which had, happily, been somewhat saved.

"Miss Ko'erey?" the owner, Thelma Greystone said, apologetically, "So sorry about the job. Have a bottle of the Cornerstone, compensation?"

Cardamon thanked her very gratefully.

[MozytheHealer]

Opal decided to join in the conversation. "I once decided to watch a pot and see if the water would boil. I watched it for an entire day and it didn't boil. That is, it didn't until I realized that I had forgotten to start heating it."
Opal was a bit absent minded at times. She often forgot to do stuff like that, or she would put something down and forget where she had put it. That was what made her so bad at magic, apart from not understanding it at all.

[Lycanthrope]

"SG?! Sparkly Green dirt? The magically wonder talked frequently in the black market? That is exactly what I'm looking for!" though Doc. "What perfect opportunity to figure out its whereabouts."

Doc chased after the woman who stated she was experimenting with SG, as fast as his little legs could move. "Miss! M'Lady! Please wait up!" he yelled. "I too am querying about the possibilities of Sparkly Green and its location."

[Elfie]

"Miss! M'Lady! Please wait up!" a voice called. Mandy, being as unknown as she was, didn't expect herself to be the object of the callers interest, but since she was so very curious, she turned anyway just to see who was calling and what was so important. "Oh." she said quietly to herself as she realized the person was, in fact, calling to her. It was the dwarf who had been stuck in the cafe. Now what could he possibly want? she wondered, just as the man caught up to her and said, "I too am querying about the possibilities of Sparkly Green and its location."

Her brow furrowed, she started thinking. Did this man overhear her conversation with Artur? Had he decided to steal her 'plan' for his own? If she refused to tell him the location, he might follow her just to find out (after all, he was a very short person and could hide even easily than herself in dark clothes in shadows and nooks and crannies). But wait! What if he was a magician, who could help her? Maybe if she promised him partial profits, he'd be more willing to agree than Artur had been. She remembered the small box she had at home, filled with the Sparkly Green. Maybe if she told him she had some he could help her use to experiment with...

"The location is very far from here," she lied, "but I have a bit stored up at home. If you want to find out the possibilities, we could be of help to each other. Do you know any magic, perchance?"

[Nayaby]

"I once decided to watch a pot and see if the water would boil," a girl approached him and spoke, "I watched it for an entire day and it didn't boil. That is, it didn't until I realized that I had forgotten to start heating it."

"Oh dear, were you dropping eaves miss?" Artur said, "Some people would consider it rude. Not I, however. You never know when you might hear something interesting. I can respect that. And now that we've dispensed with the obligatory breaking of ice it falls upon me to ask what it is you need?"

[Harry685]

Xeo rushed down to the stack of papers, where his orange, green-eyed nuisance was waiting.

"Mrrow?" The cat wailed as Xeo picked him up off the stack.

"No Quill, no food for now. You'll simply just have to wait a while longer." Xeo muttered angrily to his cat. The day had gotten away from him, it seemed, and Xeo feared that he would miss his afternoon tea which was waiting for him back at the manor. As he walked back in the direction of his abode, however, he overheard a conversation that was going on between the white-robed man and another young woman. Something about....SG? In all of his vague studies over the past 4 years, Xeo had never heard of such a thing. Perhaps it's simply too specific of a subject, he thought to himself. Just as he was going to go over and ask them about that which they were talking, the robed-man handed his tortoise to the girl. After the transaction took place, the girl walked away, seemingly disgruntled.

Now is my chance to find out more about this SG!" Xeo thought excitedly. He rushed over, cat in hand, to the girl just as the dwarf Xeo uncovered earlier did as well. He heard them talking about the SG, and its location.

"Excuse me, sorry." Xeo said as he walked beside the girl and the dwarf, first outstretching his hand not occupied with a small mammal, then, on a second thought, retracted it quickly as the girl was probably in no state to both shake hands and carry tortoises at the same time. "My name is Xeo Von Zweig. I may not have much knowledge in magic beyond the vaguest of subjects, but I did find your conversation about this SG most intriguing. Could you perhaps indulge to a curious scholar just what this SG is?"

[Zip]

Jarvis somehow escaped the violent crowd surrounding the fruit cart and made his way to Theo, rummaging through his satchel as if the item he was looking for was actually there.

"Ahh, those novels," Jarvis said, patting his chin. He locked eyes with one of the women who attacked him in the crowd. He mouthed something along the lines of, "And your father smelt of elderberries!" He looked back at Zop who was just hovering along in his own little world.

"I'm afraid I've misplaced them, dear. Granted, I have Alonso Pendragon's funeral arrangements if you want them. The poor fellow was unfortunately devoured by magical bees who only kill people with the word 'Dragon' in their name. It shouldn't be a problem since it has no return add-Oh. Wait. There it is." He took out a quill and scratched it off.

"Now it doesn't," he said with a smile while presenting it to Theo.

Zop bobbed about. Zop loved bobbing. It was his favorite.

[Lycanthrope]

"Magic. Did you really ask about ?Magic... O dear. That might be a big problem," thought Doc.

"Mmmmkslhruaasdk? You ask? I cannot exactly perform MMMMbiutqknzk but I do know a great deal about Dddqhbyzltanms and how to design them. The harmony and chaos of the interaction of MMmmMqibmzienak in its many uses are almost second hand to me. Us dwarves have lived many more lifetimes than that of humans; I gained a lot of knowledge," proudly stated Doc.

"But enough about me," scoffed him. "And more about the location of SG. You have a sample of it? And its origin is far? Pity, but that small sample will do plenty good with experimenting! We can work in small scale and later obtain more, can we not?"

"Money, here I come!" He thought. "A couple of months, and I will make bank."

[Elfie]

"SG is Sparkly Green. We don't know what it's for or what it exactly is or does," Mandy informed the scholar who had walked up to her, reflecting that if she had known just mentioning SG would garner so much attention, she would have done it sooner. "But I am hoping to change that." She was liking the attention so much, that for a while she forgot her nervousness and her want to keep her plans for the SG a secret. Still, she didn't want to divulge too much, so she turned back to the dwarf.

For a moment, she was struck silent at his use of gibberish, and she had to think for a full minute before realizing what his gibberish meant. She wondered at his use of it, and if he would always use gibberish, but she waved that aside for the moment.
His lack of magic skills made her frown, but she brightened considerably when he mentioned his skills with diagrams. Sure, someone to guide her would be more useful, but she could always try to find someone else for that. With his help, she could focus on experimenting on the tortoise and perhaps herself, and have him work on diagrams.
"Oh, yes. I was planning on doing just that, myself. So you will work on my diagrams for me, while I experiment. Then I will get more SG when we run out." She emphasized the 'I' deliberately, not wanting this dwarf to get it in his head that he could plot against her. She started to turn, motioning awkwardly with the tortoise for him to follow, when she realized she'd forgotten about the scholar.
"You are welcome to come with us, and watch." She invited graciously, once again forgetting about her want for discretion and secrecy.

[MozytheHealer]

Opal was a tad flustered at the question. "Oh, I was...I was just interested in what was going on. I was also hoping I'd hear something that would help me understand magic more." She was a tad embarrassed to tell someone else that, and she hoped that Artur maybe would tell her something interesting. "Even the SO doesn't make sense to me at times, as I am rather absent minded, and there seemed to be quite a few people here who knew a lot about it, so I was hoping that someone would be able to explain it to me in a way that made sense. It's nothing, really."

[Areada]

Theo winked at Jarvis, "Funeral arrangements it is. We may use them for the guest room, though. Thanks ever so, and if the cafe was still standing, I'd buy you a drink, and we'd talk more business, yes?"

He sighed, "Cardamon-Cardy?" he called, then noticed his sister standing not too far away, examining a large bottle of wine with extreme interest. "Cardy!"

"Yeah?" she yelled, eyes fixed on the wine bottle, "Look what I got in compensation for the job?"

"You know," Theo said thoughtfully, "That drink could still happen, if my sister happens to be in a good mood..."

But as it turned out, the drink was not dependent on his sister's good mood, because the owners of the cafe had just set out a crate of their cheapest (but still good) wine, saying that such an event probably deserved a bit of alcohol to sober everyone up. This, Theo noted, was a rather silly statement, and not entirely accurate in the literal sense of the words, but he understood where they were going. It was like a really subtle half-joke. As the crowd descended, he noted Cardy grabbing two bottles. Greedy girl. She wasn't a huge drinker, she just had sophisticated tastes. She attended some sort of wine-tasting at least once a month. If she hadn't hated sitting around, he'd say she had a future in the taste-testing business. As it was, she had a bit of an inclination for magic, rather than for taste-testing. Not that she'd ever let anyone but him know that, however.

Theo looked back at Jarvis, "Drink, perhaps? There's a neat park and garden area around here, I'll wager that's where most of this crowd is going, to partake of this generous gift."

[Nayaby]

"Aha!" Artur beamed, "Artur Lore at your service miss. Explanations come naturally to me, as I shall now demonstrate."

It was at this point at which Artur launched himself into a rather obtuse tirade, the least confusing words spouting forth from his mouth being such phrases as 'latent magical potential' and 'billiards.' The second word was presumably part of some metaphor that ran away from itself, unless magic did indeed somehow involve pool tables, which didn't seem quite likely.

"... and that is how the SO works. Quite simple really," Artur smiled at the girl, "I trust that satisfies your curiosity Miss- I'm do apologize, I don't believe I caught your name."

After catching her reply, Artur tipped his imaginary hat, "Now, I do believe we're being offered a round of free drinks! It would rude not to partake, no? I haven't been offered a free round since I visited the Dragon's Flagon down in Highever. A different noble purchases a round for all the other nobles each day, and there are precisely three-hundred and sixty-five nobles. I wonder how they get by on leap years..."

[Areada]

Cardamon had snatched another two bottles. Hopefully this would get her by until she had some other form of income, with which to actually buy wine. That wouldn't be for a while. She followed the crowd to the gardens, where there were picnic tables, paying no attention to Theo, or what on earth he was up to.

It was as she was looking for the most remote table, or nice spot under a tree, that she accidentally backed into someone. Shoving the bottles of wine into a nice, sturdy bush, she turned around, smiling a bit too brightly, and realized it was the crazy magician guy, so she apologized very quickly, suddenly struck with her usual case of indecisiveness.

"Sorry for bumping into you!" she said, as politely as possible, "My fault, really. I wasn't looking where I was going. But, in all honesty, you probably weren't either, given the fact that you weren't there a second or two before. But I'll apologize. My bad. Nice job with the sky. I think. I still think the sun would have helped the flowers as well."

She noted a lady next to him, "Sorry! I guess I could have bumped into you as well! Did I? I didn't notice."

[Nayaby]

"Ah, I do apologize Miss," Artur said, "Have you tried the wine? It's not bad, is it? I'd add a few drops of sweat from a fire salamander, but that's venomous, isn't it? I'd be in a spot of trouble if my drink was swapped with someone else's then, eh? In any case, I was pondering that as you backed into me, so pardon us both then, yes? Now, I was considering asking a wind nymph to blow those clouds away this morning, but it's all for the best that it rained, no? Else our dwarven friend may have met his untimely demise under the flaming wreckage. And then I'd probably have to identify him and notify his family, and then I might have even been invited to his funeral. Have you ever been to a dwarven funeral? They drag on for days upon days. I suppose making it rain saved me that trouble then."

[Zip]

Jarvis' insides warmed up a little bit when he was offered drinks. At least, enough for him to accept. Granted, offer Jarvis any time with free drinks and two tolerable people and see what happens.

"Sounds nice enough. I'll join you and Carrie in just a sec." Jarvis turned to Zop and motioned him over. Jarvis wasn't much of a drinker. Albeit, Zop was. Zop was the heaviest drinker of any enchanted sock puppets that he ever encountered. Granted, that's not very many, but still.

"Oi! Over here Zop! Sock tonic!" Zop bobbed over and bobbed...to the side of those who got in the way. Zop wasn't a particularly well made sock puppet. He was a simple white tube sock with little button eyes wearing some of his old glasses. Simple. And nice.

He went over to Theo and nudged over to Zop. "Hope you don't mind me bringing a date."

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