player npcs. (citizenries) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-10-05 02:12:00 |
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In the room behind the altar two women in flowing white robes sat on opposite sides of a table. The first arranged the small purses before her in rows, sorting them according to a system of classification she knew like her own name, moving them with such delicacy that the gold coins inside barely jingled. The other scribbled chickenscratch numbers and names in two lists, on a small leatherbound book, glancing up only occasionally to track the sorting of the purses. The evening's rite was over, and the faithful had filed out of the darkened sanctum in the same reverent silence that had seen them in; now, the two women were the only ones left in the basement of the cult's hideout. Alone as they were, they may have spoken freely if not for the unheimlich feeling in the air that always lingered after the rite and the display of Dark magicks that invited the presence of the Lord Zoamel. They both knew that magic was just magic and there was nothing to the Lord Zoamel but a well-spun tale and the coin in front of them, but sometimes the lie was given such a sublime performance that it felt real to them. In any case they did not need words for their task. It was a familiar routine taught to them by a prophet of manipulations and falsehoods spiced with boundless charisma and the mystique of the Kerwonian Feywoods, over a decade ago. He had taught them how to take the human need to believe in something and turn it into a steady profit at the end of every quarter, how to keep the spiderweb he had spun resilient and growing and always ready for new prey. He had taken his own shadow and distilled from it a substitute to carry on his legacy of lies and taught her how to speak and how to worship and how to be worshipped, and even what her name should be when Kiyoko Matsudaira was an old suit to be discarded in a rite of passage to a new life. He had built Ran Matsuura in the image of himself and loved her like an artist leaning back to admire the masterstrokes of his own work and then he had left their lives never to be seen again. Now they counted the tithes to his fake god by themselves but left an extra chair in the corner because it was too heavy to carry up the stairs and in the shadows it looked like the throne of an absent king. In their task time passed indeterminate in the scratching of the quill and the rustle of fabric and sometimes a metallic clinking. When those sounds stopped, Ran Matsuura took out a wooden box from underneath the table and opened the lock. She peered inside, saw three transparent glass vials filled with clear liquid and said, "You need to make more of that solution. We seem to be almost out." The other woman leaned across the table to look inside and sighed. Her face was mostly obscured by the hood of her robes, but there was a note of annoyance in her voice. "You used too much last time, Lady Matsuura. One vial would have been sufficient." The priestess' words were almost a whisper, as if the magic in question were a living being in the room with them. She could feel its cold tendrils still lingering in the air like the breath of a deadly beast, and it made her heart beat faster to know it had been born of her. "My magic grows stronger, Bethelda. It renders the target faster than before. I needed two vials. If the sacrifice had screamed out in agony during his salvation, that would have been our damnation." The older woman sighed again, and then nodded. "I will bring you something stronger next time. But if you use two of that, don't expect a peaceful smile for the audience. They will overdose before they reach the al--" Outside the door, there came a sound of glass shattering. Both women were at once on their feet. "Enter," called Ran Matsuura. The young man pushed the door open with a whimper and stared in terror at the two women before him. He wore the black robes of an initiate in the church of Zoamel and the trembling of one who would like to run away if he could only figure out which direction to choose. "Jason," Bethelda breathed, with a fear like that in the initiate's eyes, and took a step forward as if to stand between her nephew and the church leader, but Ran held up a hand to stop her. Jason flinched at the gesture but stayed glued to the spot. "I hope you were not waiting on us too long," said Ran in a conversational tone, as if welcoming a guest to tea. "You should have come in earlier. There is an extra chair in this room. I am sure you would have been more comfortable had you been sitting down." "I didn't know there was a room." His voice shook, but he continued, like he wanted to stay silent but was unable to stop himself. "I forgot my rosary in here after the rite so I came back for it, and then I heard voices coming from behind the altar." Ran constructed a benevolent smile. "I see. That must have been quite concerning, if you did not know of the existence of this room." For a moment it seemed as though the initiate might cry. He clasped his hands in front of him as if praying. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, my Lady. Aunti--Bethelda," and the older woman shook her head to stop him, but he could not stop, "you know I didn't mean to, I don't even know what your conversation was all about, I heard but I don't understand and I am so sorry --" Ran held her hand up and he stopped talking at once, but too late. "You could not have meant to eavesdrop, Jason. You did not know the door existed, after all." The initiate nodded feverishly. "I believe you dropped something on your way in. Our glass basin, I believe?" Her smile remained firmly in place, and the young man nodded once more in reply. "I see. Would you be so kind as to throw away the fragments before you go spread about this conversation?" "I won't tell anyone!" It was halfway between a vow and a cry. "I'm loyal to my Lady, and the Lord Zoamel, I would not whisper a word of His secrets to anyone!" The patina of friendliness flickered underneath Ran's hood, but soon an even brighter smile took its place, and she moved forward to envelop the young man in her arms. "Your devotion is a treasure," she said to him as she held him and he relaxed against her with a sob of relief. "One with a heart so pure and kind can only be saved. Our Lord has chosen you well, Jason." Behind her back, Bethelda received those words like the dark promise they were, and hardened the terror in her heart to a determination from which there was no turning back. |