"Maybe. I'm prepared to make a generous donation." Translation: There's lots of money in this for you.
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"Oh," Paul blushes, hopefully convincingly, "No, no! Nothing like that. One of my ancestors died here, is all, and I was hoping to pay my respects. I heard you could take us on a tour of the catacombs." He pauses, dropping his voice to a whisper. "If I can, I'd like to take his bones with me... re-bury them in the family plot. We're a very religious family."
"No, not yet. Please, sit and order something! My treat." Paul is all smiles and teeth as he gestures to a chair opposite him.
Oooh, now this'll do... Snagging the piece of paper, Paul waves to the bored man and leaves. Once he's outside, he pulls out his phone and rings the number on the paper.
Nodding, Paul begins to thumb through the brochures looking for something interesting. If nothing's found, he'll wander the island looking for magical wards or unusual levels of mundane security before retiring for the night.
Paul will check the cork board first for any tours leaving today before talking to the man behind the counter. "Excuse me..." He gives the same excuse he gave to the monk, again looking for a guided tour of the catacombs.
"Oh, alright. Thank you for your time!" Done with the priest for now, Paul leaves the church to go find that visitor's hall they were talking about.
Finals start this week for me, so I'll be spending most of my time alternately studying and fantasizing about dropping out and becoming a Batman villain. Please bot me if I'm slowing things down.
"And where would I find one of those?"
Of course!
"The Mausoleum? I don't think the voice-guide had that as an option. Could you point me in the right direction?"
"Thank you. Do you know, or know who I could ask, about where he might have been buried?"
I'll be at relatives for the holidays, feel free to bot me if I'm slowing things down.
"Hello, yes, thank you, um... one of my ancestors, he died here when it was a gulag. I was hoping to find his grave, or what was most likely his grave, anyway, and pay my respects. Could you point me in the right direction? The audio guide wasn't very precise."
Before talking to the monks, Paul took a moment to do some research. He dug quickly into the listings of political prisoners who died in the Solovetsky Gulag, looking for someone insignificant who could be claimed as a dead relative.
That done, he walked up to the monks and spoke in deliberately imperfect Russian, "Excuse me, sir? I was hoping you could help me?"
Picking one at random, Paul decides to make for Savvatevsky Monastary to have a look around.
"We'll tour the monasteries first, I reckon - if somethin' interestin' is here it'll be underground. Given how much of a pain it is to dig graves here, they'll be the ones with catacombs." Paul says, half to himself, as he checks the GPS coords of the 'Monasteries of Solovetsky Archipelago'.
"Of course." He hands over one of his and, after she's done, goes to store his luggage in the room before throwing on another layer (it's cold up here) and making ready to go explore the town. "May as well take the tour - if someone's willin' to show us around I see no reason not to take advantage."
Of course not. Now, do I want the knife-wielding super-maniac to be locked in a room with me, or out of my supervision... He smiles his best saccharine, understanding smile. "Together, then, but separate beds please."
Patient one, yes... "Hi, we're looking for two rooms please, for... a week? Adjoining, if that's possible."
Figuring cheaper hotels meant fewer questions, Paul figured they could settle for one of the closer hotels. Hopefully, they wouldn't need to be here for long.
"First things first - lets find ourselves a hotel. Sleeping on the street this far north would be a dumb idea." And Paul goes to do exactly that.
Aside from a rather messy snack bought from a street vendor, Paul doesn't bring anything significant, or that would raise any eyebrows. Well, unless you count a backpack full of spray-paint, pencils, and paper - places with spotty wifi freak him out a bit.
Promising... "Er, what? Oh, if you say so. I should go grab my jacket and a change of clothes..."
"Solovetsky... don't suppose they're the monks of the beatific WiFi signal, are they?" He grins, weakly, before breaking eye contact and burying himself in his phone. "Bit outside my comfort zone, but doesn't look too bad... ooh, it was a prison camp! Likely as not that'll be where they're hidin' the thing!" He keeps searching, trying to find some old architectural diagrams or surveyor data from either the renovations, ideally, or the Soviet days, before an ideas crosses his mind and he blanches. "Will... will we be pretending to be tourists?"
I'm going to be out camping Friday-Sunday; please bot me as necessary.
Nodding at Maceo, Paul turned to Santa Muerte. "Right, sleeps a good idea. If y'need me, you can ca- you don't have a cell. Right. I suppose if you just yell loud enough, someone'll come get me. Anythin' y'need, before I turn in myself?"
Going fine; I thought 'What do you think' was directed at Muerte since they're her quarters and not Paul's.
Must... resist... urge... to... snark... Maceo had been good to Paul, him and the rest of .v, and, hell, the man was going to be King one day. Wouldn't do to piss him off. Still... Paul turned to look out the window, before he started tasting toes.
Nodding, Paul steps aside and waves for Santa Muerte to enter before following her in.
Paul grins, weakly. He knew better than to try and magic this one away. He also knew that there was about a snowball's chance in hell that Marco hadn't been watching them since they left. "Yeah, about that... turns out, Mexican death goddesses and cheap-ass 24/7 Russian cafés don't mix. Who knew?"
"Hm? Oh! Yeah, no worries there." Paul says as he whips out his smartphone and starts scanning for the web server that for some ungodly reason people a decade ago had decided needed to be in everything. Rolls:
"Find... Maceo? Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Lets go - quickly." He says, glancing around nervously and walking hurriedly away from the area. Rolls: Lets see if I have this right...
Paul follows, not that he has much choice, his head still trying to catch up to what just happened. "I... ah... what? What? Nothin'! He brought you coffee! An' yeah, it was s~%$ty coffee, but it's a 24-hour place - what'd y' expect?!"
"...И один с тремя сахарами." Coffees in hand, he sits across from Santa Muerte and watches her play at architecture with salt and pepper. "So... d'you have any questions? I'm new to the city, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to show you." Translation: "...and one with three sugars."
"Нет необходимости говорить по-английски. Один черный кофе, пожалуйста, и ..." He pauses, turning to Santa Muerte. "Mis disculpas, debería haberle preguntado primero. ¿Cómo te gusta tu café?" Translations: "It is not necessary to speak English. One black coffee please, and..."
"My apologies, I should have asked you first. How do you like your coffee?"
I'm assuming, given he's several thousand miles from home, Paul has his Understand Languages spell up. If you'd like him to have cast it this morning, that's fine by me. For future reference, he'll also keep Reality Pen (in the form of a smartphone) up pretty much constantly.
Internet is down in my area, no ETA on a fix. Please bot me if I'm slowing things down. Spooky, that goes for Deep Waters as well.
While Maceo scribbled on the concrete, spared him short glances as he typed frantically at the keyboard in front of him. This ritual wasn't just happening in meatspace, it was layered - all around him he was flicking routers on and off, killing power to street lamps and high-rises, and slowly twisting streams of data all across the city into the wardings needed. Somewhere, another member of House Sigil had left his body to do the same in the astral. The others checked their weapons, and a bead of sweat dripped off of Paul's nose. If this goes wrong, this is gonna suck... He hoped he could run fast enough. The air lit with fire, and Paul's laptop sparked and fizzed before dying with an ugly crunching sound. Oh, come on! a small part of his mind, the one not either entranced or gibbering in terror, thought. That's the third one this week! As the smoke cleared, and the lights returned, Paul stared half in awe, half in confusion at the woman suddenly standing in the circle. That's... it? She looks so... normal. Something echoed in her voice when she spoke, though, something that spoke of experience out of time. He gulped, then gulped again when he was called forwards. The laptop gets thrown to the side as he steps forwards, trying not to trip over the power cords. "Yeah? Um, alright. There's this 24-hour cafe nearby, we could go there I guess..." He didn't meet her eyes.
Quick check in, since I hadn't seen this was up.
I think Paul's good to go. At least, his sheet should be finished. If anyone'd care to audit it, I'd appreciate it. There's almost certainly something wrong in there. Two questions, neither of which are particularly pressing:
Whiskey, checking in. Profile has a link to his character sheet in it; I'll finish up his skills and spells as soon as I've the time. |