food police. (heritable) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-10-11 00:20:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, morgayne falk, ofelia zhou |
it runs in the family, i come by it honestly.
WHO: Morgayne Falk & Ofelia Zhou.
WHAT: Morgayne seeks help.
WHERE: Ofelia's office in the Commoners District.
WHEN: Afternoon, today (10/11).
RATING: G.
STATUS: Complete.
198 MANDRAGORA AVENUE. Morgayne stood outside the building with her stomach in knots, hands clutching tightly at the strap of her tote bag. Inside: all the things she’d thought necessary for the meeting. The torn Barnard family tree pages she’d “borrowed” from the University library. An old, worn newspaper she’d tracked down, about the fire. A memstone photo of her mother, the only one she had. And all the gil she could spare. It wouldn’t do to dally. She shook her head, sweeping her reservations out of sight and out of mind, then began to climb the stairs. There was only one door to choose from on the second floor, with a “Z” nameplate at the top. Morgayne knocked without hesitation. “Come in,” a voice called. She entered. The office was just the one room, with a window in the far wall and looking out onto nothing more than the alley. It had a desk, two comfortable chairs, a mini-fridge in the corner, and a metal coat rack behind the door. A place of bare practicalities, then. A woman – perhaps in her mid-thirties – lounged in the chair behind the desk, setting aside her network handheld in the drawer just as the girl entered. Zhou’s eyebrow rose slightly upon taking in the age of her new prospective client, but betrayed no other reaction. “Morgayne, I assume?” she asked. Morgayne nodded, and closed the door behind her. She headed straight for the empty chair and sat down, nervous enough to ignore the social niceties she usually would have partaken in. “So,” she began, maintaining her viselike grip on her bag, “How does this work?” “First, miss Falk, you relax. And then you tell me about your problem. Who’s this person you want information on?” The agent folded her hands atop the desk, her gaze darting briefly to the bag in Morgayne’s lap. The girl smiled ruefully—caught in the act. “Right.” Morgayne worked to ease the tension out of her shoulders, and took a deep breath. She opened her bag. “I guess it’s two people, actually.” The photo, first. She pushed it toward the investigator. “That’s my mother. Her name is Corinthia Barnard. She died sixteen years ago.” Then the torn family tree pages. “My mother’s family was disowned, some time ago, so she won’t be in here. But someone related to her should be.” Finally, the paper. Morgayne smoothed it out on the desk. “And I want you to connect her to this man—” she pointed to the cover story, where she’d circled his name in red pen. “—Ophion Barnard. He’s a mage in the city. I want as much information about him as possible.” She paused, then added, “And the fire. I’d like to know more about that too.” Ofelia’s hand froze on its way across the table to sweep the photo and clippings closer – but only for a moment, before she recovered and drew the paper into her hands. A crease had appeared in her brow, a thoughtful furrow that she’d never quite been able to excise from her tells. (When Fee was starting to apply her mind to a problem outside of the gambling table, it showed.) “The Barnard fire, you mean,” she said mildly, voice as calm as she could make it. Even if she didn’t keep her fingers on the pulse of the city and its news, of course Ofelia would know about this particular fire after the fact. Of course. “The Barnard fire,” Morgayne repeated, confirming. She worried her bottom lip as she waited. Her information requests had effectively jumped from just one to three—at this rate, she’d be in debt until she made her second class. Meanwhile, the gambler examined the photograph of the mother – pale, brunette, pretty – and looked through the other papers, shuffling them more for the sake of movement than anything else. It bought her some time to think, her brain churning away. “So, to repeat. You’d like me to find information on this man,” Ofelia’s index finger landed on Ophion’s name, spearing it on the page, “and his family, and find a way to connect them to your mother. Did I understand correctly? In matters such as these, it helps to ensure we’re absolutely one hundred percent on the same page.” And Ofelia already had some rather unwarranted advantages and cards up her sleeve. “That’s right.” “What do you know so far?” the broker asked. “Not much,” Morgayne admitted. “Just what the paper says.” That last bit of fishing complete, it was as if a switch had been flipped, and the woman segued into business mode. “My retainer is four hundred gil, for potential expenses and data research, primarily,” she said, pulling out a notepad and a pen from the topmost drawer. “I’ll have you know upfront that this case may go somewhat faster than you expect – the man you mention isn’t a completely unknown name to me. But drawing the connection between your families, that’ll take some more time. You’ll receive itemised receipts for my expenditures and hourly totals, and before I even start, I’ll draw up a contract detailing the exact services to be performed and send it over to you. Where can I reach you?” Four hundred gil. She had just about half saved up—but that had been a slow accumulation over months. Money was coming in faster, now that she had a job, but there was no way Morgayne could pay all of it upfront. “About the price,” she began, reluctantly. “I can pay you two hundred gil now, but I don’t have the rest—um. I don’t have much for collateral, but if you do loans, I’ll pay whatever interest rate you’d like.” The pen immediately stopped moving. “Hmm.” It was a thoughtful noise, an exhale through Ofelia’s teeth, as she looked up sharply and met her new client’s eye. Yet the pause for deliberation wasn’t as long as it perhaps should’ve been – before long, she was already scribbling again. “That’s fine. Same question applies: where do I reach you?” If there was a chance that Ophion Barnard still had family on this green earth, then Ofelia would follow this trail to hell and back — before returning armed with evidence, with proof, with a family tree glued back together. Morgayne released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “Right. I live in one of the guildhalls—Hellwyrm, by the Cathedral? I’m there most evenings, but my day time availability varies. If you send me a message on the network, I can figure out a good time and place for us to meet, though.” “Hellwyrm. Evenings.” Another scratch of the pen before Ofelia set it aside, then reached her hand out across the table for a shake, sealing the deal. “It’ll be a pleasure doing business with you, Morgayne Falk. Let’s hope to a happy ending for all, hm?” “Indeed.” Morgayne shook Ofelia’s hand, then stood up, swinging her bag on to her shoulder. She walked to the door, and opened it. Hesitated. Closed it quietly. “Actually. There’s something you should know.” It would come out, sooner or later. Better it be sooner. “My real name is Morgayne Vhawl.” Morgayne bit her lip, hesitated. “Please don’t tell anyone.” Ofelia made the gesture of an X over her chest with two clean swipes of her finger. “Client/investigator confidentiality. Rest assured, miss… Vhawl. Your secrets are safe with me.” A shrug of the shoulders. “It’s not the first nor the last time I’ve encountered pseudonyms. This sort of thing is fairly common.” “Good to know.” Morgayne smiled softly, and left the room with a small wave, descending the stairs with a great weight lifted off her shoulders. |