Dustown
Autumn 74
Bax
Bax had found another abandoned building in Dustown to use for training purposes. Other nearby buildings were vacant as well from what he could tell, but it wasn’t too far from the construction area he sparred with Vanja at the other day. This one had no basement however, which could prove problematic if Sav had any loud magic to share with him. Hopefully if anything loud did occur, the echoes of close construction crews and the hustle of the busy streets would drown it out some.
He waited on the second floor, keeping an eye out for any Swans or guards. While the building was vacant, the streets were still busy enough to hide within a crowd. The last thing he wanted was to summon an ally to a secret meeting, only for them both to be surprised by their enemies. As time dragged on, the sun rising higher, he became more anxious, hoping that Sav received his message.
Sav
Shortly before the time Bax had indicated for the meeting, a slim boyish youth wanders through the area and ducks into one of the abandoned buildings, taking up a post in a corner high up in the rafters to keep watch over the entry points.
Half a candlemark later, Sav, highly irritated, vacates her post after Aloysius smugly points out Bax’s presence in the next building over. More annoyed at herself for not checking than the mistake itself, she pokes her head out a window on the second story of her building, checks left and right for any too-curious eyes, and leaps right out of the window and in through the next. Landing lightly on the sill, she says deadpan, “Cogged ‘twas the other building. Sorry.”
From the top of the stairs, Aloysius squeaks and begins to groom himself, running his paws over his whiskers and back over his head in a silent I-told-you.
Bax
Bax has his attention focused on the streets outside when a light thump steals his focus to the window sill to his side. A light skinned, dark haired child seemed to have jumped into the sill. Startled, Bax jumps back and pulls a dagger from his belt before the figure speaks up, “Thought ‘twas the other building. Sorry.”
He pauses hearing the thick accent.
Difficult to forget that way of talkin…
Slowly, he returns the dagger to his belt, and notices the annoyed look this new person has as they look over at the stairs. A rodent appeared to be cleaning itself.
Okay I’m pretty sure I remember Sav had a rat too.
Keeping an eye on his suspected ally, Bax walks over to greet the small creature. “Well hey lil guy! Don’t think we had the chance to meet last time.” He holds out his hand and to let the rodent smell him, and tentatively it allowed Bax to scoop him up.
He gently scratched the creatures neck and head, walking back towards the boy who had climbed into the window. “Sav?”
Bax holds his palm out toward his ally, returning the small rat to its home. “Ya look…different?”
Sav
Sav tenses at the startled reaction from the young man inside, cursing herself again for not thinking. There’s been a lot of that this week, it seems. She relaxes fractionally as he seems to recognize her, and nods to him, rifling a self-conscious hand through the short dark spikes of hair and trying not to touch the layer of makeup that lightens her complexion. She hadn’t done anything but change some of her basic coloring, including swapping her cloak inside out, but she’d also only met Bax once—that wasn’t a lot to go on. “Aye, that brangle over i’ the sewers had me minded to change up me look a bit. They seemed to know to go after a girl, so I figured, why stay one?”
Aloysius leans happily into the scritches Bax offers, heedless of the offended look Sav levels at him, but scampers off obligingly once Bax nears her. She sweeps a hand out as he launches himself through the air between them, adroitly providing a platform for him to land on and delivering him to her shoulder in a smooth, automatic gesture that speaks of long practice. “So. What brings ye?”
Bax
“Ah yeah. Vanja had told me about that. A disguise makes sense.”
Resourceful. Good to know.
Bax leans against the wall beside Sav, arms folded, as he proceeds with the conversation. “I’m sorry about what you guys went through down there. And I’m glad you were able to make it today. Part of the reason I wanted to meet is actually somewhat related to what happened to y’all on your mission.
“I had been planning these meetings for lil bit, I just wish I had acted sooner now. But basically, I want to test everyone’s combat abilities.”
Okay, let’s learn from our mistakes with Van’s trial…
Pushing himself off the wall, Bax walks across the room to a small cloth bundle, untying it to reveal it filled with makeshift weapons made of wood and string. He holds up a sword and axe towards the young woman, “If you’re okay with it, I’d like to spar with ya. Get an idea of your fighting style and techniques. And maybe share your magic with me some. Maybe show an example is it isn’t too loud? And in turn, I’ll tell you about myself.
“Our group is still too new. So I’m goin around and gettin info on everyone’s abilities since we can’t all gather to train in one location. Once I have an idea of how we all operate, I want to call us all together to talk about it.”
Sav
Sav looses a small sigh and nods. “Speakin sense. Though if that time in the sewers said muck, it’s that we can haver on about what we can do, but nothin replaces actually scrappin in the same space, whether for practice or for real.”
She looks at the sword and axe and shrugs. “I don’t tend to get up close in fights, though. If I needtae use a weapon like those I’ve failed. I keep a knife on me for the real shite, and a crossbow or a sling for if I need tae pick someone off without being a flash-all. I guess if I were forced tae choose a hand-to-hand weapon I’d take a shield and spear, but I dinnae carry ‘em so I dinnae ken as that it’d do ye much good to see what I does with ‘em.”
She looks about the room, then—dusty, filled with debris, clearly abandoned but also clearly not always undisturbed. “Fortunately what I do wi’ the Stuff doesnae tend to be particularly loud, but I’m still itchin at the thought of doin aught in the midst of the day in a busy district, ye ken? ‘Sides going invisible. An maybe a little bit o the weight shifting stuff.”
Taking a breath, she pulls against the earth and leaps straight up, very nearly reaching her own height and landing again in a strangely soft, feathery manner. On landing, she reaches out to Bax with her right hand, words shaping on her lips, revealing a delicate bracer of some silvery-white metal chased with gold, with wires running over her palm and the back of her hand. If he allows her to touch him, a gentle fizz of electricity would run through him, perking up his senses and clearing his thoughts—and then, suddenly, a vertiginous lurch as the weight that pulls him downward suddenly seems to shift at right angles, drawing him to fall sideways for just a second, enough to pull him several feet away.
Bax
Weight shifting stuff?
Bax watches as Sav leaps into the air, almost her own height. But rather than swiftly returning to the ground, she instead gently floats back down right next to him.
As she lands, Sav reaches out, muttering to herself, barely caressing his shoulder. Bax feels a tingling sensation course through his body, but is too enthralled by Sav’s display of unusual magic to notice.
“No way…Sav that’s really coOOOL!” His body instantly lurches, his center of gravity pulled in the direction of one of the walls. It takes his full focus to keep from tumbling over himself as he falls sideways. There is a sudden shift and gravity returns to normal, and he falls to one hand and knee as his body readjusts from the odd sensation it just experienced.
When he stands back up, Bax notices that he’s now several feet away from where he just was. He claps away dust from his one hand, and approaches Sav once again.
“Okay, that was pretty cool! I think I understand what you mean when you say that if someone is close enough to warrant weapon combat you’ve ‘failed’…”
Bax holds a hand up to his chin and takes a moment to think. “Alright, forget the sparring. If what you say is true, weapon training won’t serve either of us any good. So instead…”
He whips his head around the room, snapping his fingers and walks over to some crates and bottles in the corner of the room. Lifting up the crates and bottles on top of a larger box he continues, “So instead! I want you to tell me how you fight with your magic! You can keep people away from ya, or disappear and avoid a fight altogether. But what do ya do when escape isn’t an option?”
He returns to Sav’s side. “Let’s say those bottles and crates are Swans who’ve tracked you down and cornered you in this room. Tell me how you’d fight or force an escape. And maybe show me an example if you can! The more I understand what you’re capable of, the better a partner I’ll be in a fight.”
Sav
Sav’s eyes brighten at this. Discussing hypothetical situations and coming up with tactics seems to be a lot more interesting to her, at least judging by the way she straightens a little, pressing her fingertips against each other as she considers. “Well.” She drawls the word out as she examines the box top. “‘Pends a little on the reason I’m there, how much I want to keep secret and how knackered I am.” She looks up overhead, gauging the ceiling height. Not tall—this isn’t built in quite the same way as the building next door, there’s no exposed rafters here—but there is a convenient hole in the roof where a beam of sunlight slants down, setting dust glimmering in its path. “If ma brain’s about to get slathered and it’s biggest option first, because they’re surrounding the building and there’s no way to escape—I’d fly through the roof there.” She points toward the hole.
“If they han’t sent up the alarm, or if reinforcements haven’t arrived yet, or if I’m too blown out to muster up the flight, I’d teleport past them. That’s easier for me to do, but it doesnae go as far—just to the top of the stairs, like. Then I’d probably throw down a grease-splat to slow ‘em down while I legged it away, or summon up some giant webs across the top of the stairs to catch ‘em. Those are flammable, though, and I can’t do ‘em at the same time as the invisibility, so I tend to stick to the grease-splat.” She ponders. “If I wasnae particularly fashed and keeping secrets was more important than using the unexpected, I’d probably hit ‘em with a work that slows their limbs and reactions and try to dodge right by ‘em. It seems to work pretty well. Spreading the grease in their way while they’re tired an’ draggin’ is a great way to get them so slow they cannae chase after, and the Inquisitors’ve seen all that in the sewers, so I wouldnae be giving anything away.”
She holds up another finger. “If, on t’other hand, I was meant to delay ‘em or wipe ‘em out if possible, and if I decided to study up on it that day, I’d try and get them all into a tidy pile wi’ something like the one I hit ye with—but bigger—tangle ‘em in that webbing or slow ‘em down, and then hit them with a big blast o fire.” She indicates a conelike field that pushes a number of the bottles into one corner, then lays a flat palm down to indicate the webs, then turns the hand palm-upward, fingers making an exploding gesture that she backs up with the sound of an actual (albeit tiny) explosion coming from, as far as Bax can see, her empty hand, followed by the sound of crackling fire.
She’s grinning now, not in malicious glee at the thought of roasting Swans so much as an apparent pleasure in thinking of and devising tactics on an imaginary playing field. There’s probably a little bit of braggadocio and pleasure in flexing her abilities in there, too, as she concludes with a slightly smug, “So I’ve options, generally. ” Her smile fades, then, and she adds, “‘Course, all that goes out the window if I’m plain loused. Or if I didnae think to activate some of my works, since I can only keep so many patterns up in the same day.”
She shrugs. “In general, anyway, I can do a lot o’ running and hiding, and I can do a lot o’ stalling and moving others. Most of my magic en’t designed to hurt people so much as trip ‘em up, slow ‘em down or move ‘em around, though. Makes them easier to run away from. Or for others to hit, I spose.”
She looks to Bax, then, suddenly realizing how much she’s talked. It’s nearly the most she’s talked to any of this weird rebellion, save for ‘Star, of course. “An ye? How would ye get outa this kind of scrap?”
Bax
As Sav discusses her abilities and tactics, the enthusiasm on her face becoming more obvious, Bax can’t help but become infected by her excitement. He watches her explain her thought process as well as some of her magics and is enthralled by her capabilities.
Completing her explanation, Sav turns the conversation over Bax, “How would ye get outta this kind of scrap?”
He seems distracted though, as it takes him a moment to respond, before he replies, “You can fly? Like ‘whoosh’?” He holds a hand up and pilots it through the air as either an example or demonstration for himself. “And teleport? Like, you’re here and then,” he snaps his fingers, “you’re there?” He points to the staircase enthusiastically as he tries to process what that would look like.
Bax has to take another moment to calm himself down as he realizes he’s letting himself get off topic. Turning back to Sav, he clears his throat to answer her question. “Ahem. Heh, sorry bout that. But what you described sounds incredible. I gotta admit that the ‘big blast o fire’ sounds terrifying though.
“Anyway! You asked what I’d do to clear outta here? Well, nothin quite as fancy as what you can do. I can make myself faster, so I could outrun most of these goons. I would most likely still take several hits escaping. But I’m used to that kinda thing.” He points to the scar under his eye that drags across his face, leading to a chip in his left ear.
“Now once I’m out of immediate danger and hiding, I can make myself quieter. Dull my presence so that I’m more difficult to find. And I think I can expand that hiding to my allies but I haven’t had much practice with it. Oh, I can also heal minor injuries, just not to the same extent as Vanja.
“But if escape isn’t an option? Well, I fight as hard as I can. If things get real bad, I can focus really hard on a specific target and hit them harder. But that doesn’t always work. I haven’t mastered that particular ability since I don’t use it often.”
Bax’s chin falls back into his hand as he closes his eye and contemplates for a moment. “This has been helpful. I can see this group comin together in time. Did you have any more questions?”
Sav
Sav smiles, a real one—she likes dropping that in, though a part of her is equally embarrassed at her enjoyment of showing off like that. The former feeling wins out for the moment, as she says almost shyly, “Aye, and I can make ye fly, too, if you were of a mind. Aloysius loves to take a bout when it’s quiet an’ there’s nae danger o someone seein him.” Aloysius squeaks enthusiastically in corroboration. She hesitates, looking up at the daylight, and says, “But mayhaps in the dark, when there’s fewer eyes to see and haver on about flyin’ witches.” She cocks her head. “Would that ‘presence dulling’ work in the air, too?” That might be a handy escape or stealth method, considering how much they end up sneaking around the Swans.
She hums, thinking. “What sort of weapons d’ye fight with? Swords, axes?” She glances at the homemade sparring weapons he’d brought. “Or do ye prefer to target from afar?” She arrays the bottles again, leaving one crate on the top of the surface they’re using as a makeshift war table in the center of the half-circle of bottles. “And what would ye do if there was a big beast of a Swan, like that Inquisitor, backed up by some lesser folk?”
Bax
The prospect of having the opportunity to fly immediately catches Bax’s attention. He tries his best to restrain his glee during their conversation, but fails miserably. He has to hold his breath for a second or two to calm himself and reply to Sav’s inquiry about his combat style.
Letting out a breath, he proceeds, “Not sure about using the ‘dulling’ in the air. I can’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work, but I also never considered that I could fly one day.” The very mention of the idea brings a smirk to his face that he tries to hide.
“I’m pretty decent with a number of weapons. Or at least I can hold my own, but I’m not specially trained or anything. I’m good with a shortbow and daggers, but what I’m best with is a spear!” Bax picks up a staff and spins it about himself absent-mindedly, walking over to the crate Sav set up. He takes position and thrusts the staff head toward the box twice before quickly swinging the haft of the staff around, stopping just before making contact.
“I’ll run in the front or stay behind and tag enemies with arrows. Wherever the group decides I would work best. Regarding how I’d handle a big baddie like this?” Bax pauses and leans against the staff for support as he stares at the crate pretending to be his enemy.
After a moment he turns back to Sav, “Well what’s the reason we’re after this guy?” He points a thumb behind him toward the target of interest.
“Are we aiming to take him down quick and hard? In a case like that I’d run up and get in his face while others in the group picked at him from afar. But the setting is likely more important than the target itself. Where’s he walkin to? With who? Why? Do we want to interrogate or follow him? Has he got any lackies tailing him and hiding in buildings or somethin?
“What makes a hunt successful is gathering as much information on your prey as you can before you strike. One or two pieces of info could completely change how we prep for a fight y’know?”
Sav
“Well then. Sounds like it’s a thing that oughtae be tested, aye?” Sav smiles back, appearing pretty excited over the prospect herself. It’s been a while since she’s had the excuse to use that working, and seeing another form of magic while doing it? Win-win. “Wantae wait till dark an’ have a go?”
She sobers a little as he answers, though she remains more energetic than she had been when she first arrived, and nods at the response. “All makes sense to me. Cannae disagree on any of those ideas—the Torch shines clearest through the details, as they say. An’ I always appreciate those who’d stand in the faces of people who could hit me.” She sighs, mulling over the tabletop. “It’s too bad there en’t some sort of codified system we could use to play out scenarios like this, figure out what we’d each do. Something that’d take into account all we can do and all they can do. Like a game, but about fightin’.” Her eyes go distant, the wheels turning in her head.
Bax
The promise of nighttime flying nearly had Bax bouncing on his toes. But the logical part of his mind, the part he wanted to ignore now, weaseled itself to the forefront of his thoughts. The giddiness sliding off his face, Bax replies with a heavy sigh.
“No. We probably shouldn’t practice flying in the city. Night time or not. We don’t want to risk attracting unnecessary attention right now, and rumors spreading of a ‘flying witch’ could only lead back to us…Maybe another time, outside of the city…”
Bax folds his arms and leans his back against the wall as Sav stares into the distance. She appeared to be in deep thought, considering an answer to her own question.
Rather than interrupt with his own thoughts on the matter, he figured it would be better to let Sav have a few moments of quiet. Whatever ideas Bax could offer, he felt confident that Sav could come up with more. He decided to patiently wait until she next spoke up and offer assistance if she asked.
Sav
After several minutes, she shakes off the diversionary thoughts and turns her attention back to Bax. “Let’s say we were wanting tae take him down, an’ he has a small squad of four people. There’s a point in Dustown here—” She smoothes over the disturbed dirt of the ground and draws a crude map in the dirt with the tip of one of the sparring swords, “where ye can get intae the sewers here—” A line forks off in another direction. “—and be unseen. How would ye get him there an’ keep him from sendin’ his lackeys for aid or raisin’ a hue?”
She’ll listen to his response and ask follow-up questions, then offer alternative wrinkles on the situation, working out how his mind operates and what his instincts are for this via the patient questioning. She’s happy to respond in turn with her own ideas for such, verging more on general tactics than her specific abilities (though of course she puts those to use in her offered plans). After a little back-and-forth in this vein, she drops the makeshift drawing tool and dusts her hands off, looking pleased. “That gies me a fair decent idea of your thoughts overall, thanks. Ye have any other ideas or questions?”
Bax
Bax enjoys the back-and-forth he has with Sav. Creating scenarios and finding a solution using limited tools or knowledge. It reminds him of when he was first learning to hunt, and his father would test him to try see what Bax could recall from their previous lesson.
He lingers on this lost memory; it becomes his focus and he stares blankly at the crude drawing in the dust on the floor. It’s only when Sav repeats her question that Bax shakes himself back to the current setting.
“Sorry, sorry. Um…oh! Yeah I do have a question!” he realizes. “You lived in the sewers for a time right? I’m running out of abandoned buildings I can meet people in and I don’t want to use the same spots too often. Could draw unwanted attention y’know? So do you know of any spots throughout the sewers that would make for good meeting spots like this? Somewhere to freely spar or demonstrate magic.
“Oh and I’m also looking for…” Bax pauses, blushing a bit. “Shit I can’t remember her name. The quiet, pale girl from the meeting. Dark hair. Was it Astrid? Do you know where I can find her?”
Sav
Sav wrinkles her nose, thinking. “There’s a few spots I could recommend, aye. I woudnae use them to stay in as safehouses, as they’re uncomfortable and sometimes get passed through or examined, but they’re rare-wandered and far enough from streets t’ catch any noise from sparrin’. I can show ‘em to ye now, if ye like.”
Sav smiles a little at the description. “Astarael, and aye, I do. I can pass a message on to her if ye like. But for future talks, maybe ‘tis best to keep contact to the messages we’ve been leavin for one another on the boards, though. We dinnae want everyone to know where everyone is, so as no one of us can give up all o’ us should one o us get caught. Did anyone go over the code with ye?”
Bax
“Oh no, I’m good. I’ve got the gist. I just didn’t know if she was like in The Farrows, or here in Dustown or whatever. But yeah, if you could let her know I’d like to meet that’d be great! Let’s head to the sewers while we can!”
As they turn to walk out of the building, Bax following behind Sav, he stops in the doorway. He recalls Vanja discussing their mission into the sewers a short time ago and remembers that Sav was part of that same mission.
Sav turns around to ask if everything is alright. Bax furrows his brow and forces himself to ask the uncomfortable question. “Hey, that mission down into the sewers you went on recently. Would you tell me about it? I need to know what went wrong.”
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