Geraldine's Porch

Alric

The ritual continues and yet the rest of the town is trying to continue on, despite non-locals being unnerved by the scene.

"How many tsaan sadee'nee' (good dogs) have you lived through? And the number this one is?" Acolyte scratches Mal's ears.

As a pair of on edge Easterners passes by the porch they comment low, "Either off whooping in some ceremony or sitting around doing nothing..."

In that same studied calm the acolyte adds, "A tsaan sadee' is not easy to come by. But at least dogs are more observant of us beyond what we can immediately give them. A wonder why they are so patient with all of us, even those of us who forget about others." Heh, backhanded commentary inside a compliment; now what if he was really mad at those passing by?
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'Another Respectable Uptown Establishment'

Caden

The dandy leans in and gives an arched eyebrow and low whisper, "This isn't the service entrance. We're a respectable place here. You deliver the order of spirits through the side and back alley."

Pulling back, "And at least clean off the dust from the road next time. You might soil a patron."

"Why is he still letting him linger here? What, is he some lost and slow relation?"

"Tuck in your gown, dear. He's liable to brush up against you upon leaving and dirty your brocade." "Oh goodness no! Eww!"

"Well it's been an age since we had some gristle to chew around here. I mean just look at poor Leander there, the last one we had and passed around." "But you still must admit he's in fashion, darling."

"He is the first though I brought him up much from a pup." Alric answer absentmindedly.

"Yeah, Dogs give a loyalty most us people don't deserve but I am at least trying to earn mine." Alric says with a grimace.


"We all need are moment of peace especially after so much trauma."

Hanalee brightens up. "Aha! That last one--I think that rings a bell. Except the spirits were less about luring you to join them and more about forcing you. All the same, I think that's probably what my friends and I encountered. In your stories, what do they call those ghost lights?"

Caden pauses when he hears the dandy, sizes him up, locks eyes with him and gives a wicked grin.

His patience with this place is fading fast. He will give it a few moments to more, seeing if he hears any interesting bits of information and will approach anyone that looks like they may be of a more earthy sort. Otherwise he will head out to find the others.

Next 15 min til 12:30 pm

I know several of you are resting. However for those of you interacting with the environment I will continue. Nothing like free information while you are idling. Feel free to slip between idling and engaging during this social phase.

Geraldine's Porch

Alric

"Hmm, yes, a moment of peace. But the sun does not stop, nor the seasons wait. You would think at least the land stays settled, but not even that anymore." Reflects upon the boomtown.

"Did you know that we traditionally did not live exactly here, even though we knew about the underground sweet water just a quarter mile that way?" nodding his head in the direction of the Main Street Well. "We lived nearby, but avoided this place. You could say it is a sacred place of sorts.

"We came to settle here because the settlers came to settle here. Well, after the silver was found, of course. That was when the first Eastern settlers who crossed over the mountains returned to lay Livonia's grave monument.

"We, the People, sacrificed a lot to keep the spirits of creation placated and keep us all, the People and the Easterners, alive. But with all the digging and prodding it is only a matter of time..."
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Geraldine's

Hanalee

An older gentlemen who always seems to gather a crowd to listen tall tales catches tail of your conversation. Piqued by the tale of strange legends and creatures he stands to receive a beer being obviously passed to someone else at his table and jumps on in your conversation. A bit of a charming lush, this man is.

"Ooh, the will o'wisps! I tell you a tale, lassies, of a wisp of light that leads you to your doom in me yonder fair isle, far to the East. Across the great cold waters through the north, it is, and never a fairer land was told, as me gram said."

He proceeds to elaborate about a glowing light in the woods that would lead the curious to their death, and if not to finish them off itself. He then starts a litany of other monsters and horrors that surround graveyards and helps himself to a beer 'to whet his tell-tale whistle, you know'. [any interest and I will elaborate.]
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'Another Respectable Uptown Establishment'

Caden

Sizing him up you notice that the dandy does fill his clothes more than one would immediately assume. Strange he also has rough hands and steely eyes, a contrast to his 'livery', a good thing you took a moment. Seems like he's got a good thing going and is willing to break a few bones to keep it.

Of the people in the room currently, the grizzled middle-aged bartender, this dandy-cum-bouncer, and a man in black suit and grey silk vest (brooding card-sharp?) seem the earthiest. There is a moments hesitation in the dandy-cum-bouncer, as if he is about to close in fast and correct an errant employee but has sudden recognition that you do not work here. You have an opportunity to seize, to whom you wish to address.

"I hear a new shipment of silk and satin will be arriving soon. I do hope they carry one of my favorite colors." "But all of the pastels are your favorite colors."

"Remember my spare wampum belt, the childhood one with bison calf bone pipes? Traded for a half dozen strands of abalone beads. The trade runners from Last Unction should be here within the week."

"I hear the tailor advertising on the bulletin board is swamped with orders now. Buried in material. Can't imagine adding my sumptuous items to that poorly guarded pile now."

Hanalee grins. "Will o' the wisps? Heh--I suspected as much!" she boasts, knowing full well that she hadn't a clue. "Could you go back to those a minute, sir! In those stories, you heard tell of any way to disperse the things? Or if not defeat 'em, drive them quiet for a while?"

Caden extends a hand to the dandily dressed bouncer, "Caden Ironoak, it seems you have me mixed up for someone else friend. From the looks of it seems as if I don't quite fit the typical crowd round here."

Caden will attempt to make a friend of the bouncer if he can, it never hurts to have a rough friend connected to high society. If he can he will try to play on commonalities in background, he has found that men who make living by violence tend to understand one another.

"True the easteners do not look upon the land with the same respect that others do. The spirits need their spaces just as we do"

"The respect is lacking here, respect for the land, the spirits but still it is the world we live in and we must do as we must to survive. Angry spirits or not."

"It still saddens me" He continues to rub along Mal's fur, knowing that he is mostly likely past the episode he had but still it is a comfort to Alric now.

Quote"Ooh, the will o'wisps! I tell you a tale, lassies, of a wisp of light that leads you to your doom in me yonder fair isle, far to the East. Across the great cold waters through the north, it is, and never a fairer land was told, as me gram said."

He proceeds to elaborate about a glowing light in the woods that would lead the curious to their death, and if not to finish them off itself. He then starts a litany of other monsters and horrors that surround graveyards and helps himself to a beer 'to whet his tell-tale whistle, you know'. [any interest and I will elaborate.]

Bright Feather eyes the older gentleman..."please go on".

Karni: head down on the bar - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zebNO0flyzQ

Next 15 min. till 12:30 pm

Geraldine's

Bright Feather & Hanalee

"Ay, it is a tragic tale you know, of loose women and heathen ways bringing ruin to shriven souls." Sips lovingly his annexed beer with closed eyes, settling into another performance of 'his calling'. "Gracious, does that not quench the insides, like the Good Word does the fires of a forlorn heart. Now where was I?

"Yes, ye wee will o'wisps of the gloom of night and the wilds. Created from the lost souls of babes, snatched from the Guff but ne'er given the chance to be baptized — some not e'en a chance to be born!" He says this as if hinting a grave and unspeakable crime, hunched over, gesturing hands outstretched like claws for dramatic effect.

"Before the Fair Isle received relief of the Good Book, young lasses be dancing a fair lot with the lads unchaperoned-like, in the dim lit edges of bonfires if you catch my meaning," nudging and winking to a nearby seated listener. "And well, as nature is to wont, a blessing unasked came a'visiting.

"But did they obey the commandments? Well ignorant as they were, how could they. But even of the laws of basic hospitality? No, why bother a jot, for fun is fun and free from work!" He moves his head and flips his hands by his neck in turns, as if tossing make-believe long hair. "Well they must not have heard of a few inhospitable towns that are no more, where an excess of salt remains! Ha ha!" He cracks a joke that is obviously an inside one for those particularly knowledgeable and believing of Eastern ways — and a healthy majority of his listeners laugh alongside (some even natives).

"And with an as-you-please did their nefarious business at night, by the boundaries of the wilds, far from the safety and sight of town and cross." Open eyed incredulous look, as if scandalized, he shares among his listeners. "Well the angels were having none of this, and the hoofed-one himself saw an opportunity, and off to visit these lost innocents they went."

"A fair number were, and still to this day are!, tricked by Horny Nick himself to wreak havoc. To glow as little yellow and white balls, and fade in and out of sight, and whisper to those too open to follow them into the wilderness to die of exposure and join them in their fun of vengeance. These tend to be at the edges of towns, often by dangerous wilds, and come forth at night. Condemned by their new wicked ways, they torment the living and snatch good but careless souls from their travels!" A pause for the sudden shudder that goes through the crowd; he smirks a job well done so far.

"And then there's the Scourges upon Wanton Laughter, blessed by the angels of vengeance they. These tend to amass by cemeteries, even cloisters (because sometimes even the nuns have been known to lapse into the female failing of too much compassion, especially to a lass in trouble, amiright?). They follow soft, idle hands, hands that don't know or have forgotten swaddling and the secret language of mother's whispers to baby's cooing.

"Same like little yellow or white balls of light, but they come to bring the voices back to the betrayer — or those too loose and gay, and prone to betray in the future! They cry and moan, and tear out the heart's emotions. They whisper the lads' come-hithers and remind of the chill emptiness beside the bed. If the fancy-free lingers too long unsettled and forsaken, she gets the chills and fevers, speaks to phantasms, and remains lost inside herself, alone. Nary a moments peace to those who forget the work that is family and home, the bedrock of society upon which mankind is to toil this soil until our final rest..."

Satisfied, he then leans back to savor the reception of his work. Several listeners, notably all men, offer praise and agreement to such wisdom and storytelling. Of those most in agreement they tend to be more settled, and possibly married, if the symbols of marriage upon them are any indication.
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Bright Feather — you sense someone leaning into your ear, oh! its the weaver sent to watch by you, and then hear her whisper. "I know I have to watch you for today, but of what interest do you find in such Eastern nunnehi (native fey) bison-shit? And how much more of this do I have to endure without getting at least some fire water in me to make it dream away?"

?.

She's funny! After all that politeness at the ritual and the porch, didn't know she had such fire in her. "My ancestral spirit animal, how much nonsense would one have to accept to believe in all that vindictive hokum."

(Alric, Caden, I'll get back to you two ASAP. Momentito, por favor.)

12:15~12:30 PM

'Another Respectable Uptown Establishment'

Caden

"Huh. Well aren't you a dead ringer? My apologies, new customer..." takes your hand and draws you in; he's surprisingly a lot stronger than you anticipated (passive STR contest) and pulled you in easily into his embrace. "Show up towards closing one night all cleaned up if you want tips on how to blend in," he whispers, then releases the embrace and lets you again free.

"An innocent mistake for a new traveler," he says volubly, "you have just had the pleasure to grace one of the finest leisure establishments West of the Platte. But rules are rules, even the unknown ones." Pleased tittering passes among the posing crowd, elites they all seem to feel to be. He nods to you to finish up your drink and begins to escort you to the door. When he resumes talking to you as you walk together towards the door, he switches to a more private tone of voice.

"Name is Leander. Good to know there's two of you who look so similar, and yet don't seem to know of each other yet. Unless you're tricking me Frederico with your accent, which of course I'll have to break your legs later to make sure there's either two of you, or at least show the lone 'clever one' who is boss." Smiles at you friendly-like, dangerously friendly. "No one likes being made a fool, and this crowd is worse than most." Reaching the door, "Petty vengeance is enough to draw blood among them — and my laundress has enough of that to wash out as it is. I'm the nice one around here, remember?" Winks.

Lingering at the entrance with you distinctly outside of it, brushing off your travel dust from his clothes, "Don't take it personal, though. Strictly business, if you are Caden Ironoak. Which, if you are who you say you are, and you both clean up nicely the same, may be useful to me and my endeavors in the future." Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and with a smirk, "Unless you turned over a new leaf and are no longer game."

"Have a bath and visit at closing sometime, if you are game." Nods, turns, and returns back into the darkness and whispering gossip.

QuoteBright Feather — you sense someone leaning into your ear, oh! its the weaver sent to watch by you, and then hear her whisper. "I know I have to watch you for today, but of what interest do you find in such Eastern nunnehi (native fey) bison-shit? And how much more of this do I have to endure without getting at least some fire water in me to make it dream away?"

?.

She's funny! After all that politeness at the ritual and the porch, didn't know she had such fire in her. "My ancestral spirit animal, how much nonsense would one have to accept to believe in all that vindictive hokum."

Bright Feather glances over and whispers..."Information is always good and whether I believe it or not isn't relevant young one. I do know from my own eyes not all he says is lies or stories the question now is how much though..." looking thoughtfully at her glass.

Not hurting my feelings I am boring this scene

12:25~12:30 PM

Geraldine's Porch

Alric

"That was very well rehearsed native wisdom pablum. I'm glad you know how to speak the truth and still leave the Easterners looking like stupid children." He looks sideways at you with a mischievous smile, "My compliments to your elders. They taught the art of survival well."

A new batch of Easterners walks on by the boardwalk, they seem to be new aspiring miners. Their grasp of Shoshone is accented and halting. The acolyte waits a bit for them to pass on by, but they take a moment to linger to (as they whisper in Easterner) 'see a real live native! in two different sizes! sittin' around with a dog doin' nothing!'

Acolyte switches to accented and halting Easterner at you, Alric, "The song... speaks of ground squirrel crying. Too much silver everywhere, especially up mountain where there... no trees anymore. So much shiny rock, no space for tender roots. We cry sad tears with the ground squirrel..." This knowledge is obviously not for your benefit.

In a choked whisper, one Easterner of the pair says to the other, "Hush, partner! These simple men will spill the beans on the mother lode!"

The acolyte flashes a comic simpleton face at you, with full shit-eating grin, but you see the twinkle behind his eyes. He's having a coyote, or raven, moment. His eyebrows hint that you're welcome to keep the fun going.

"Well, what else they say? Should we ask them about the weather, too? They're like magically attuned to nature, y'know."

Ooh, acolyte got an eye wince and momentarily broken grin like he's about to do a real naughty trick, an 'educational' trick... if humans had rattles like Brother Snake.