The First Thing Delilah Did

[delilah_dirk]

Character Name: Delilah Dirk

Who: Delilah Dirk and You
What: She's an adventuress in a strange land. So she acts like it.
When: All over!
Where: Cassandra



Cassandra - A Square - OPEN!

She dragged the large wooden box into a prominent place, with a stone wall behind her. And then, she got to work. Where she'd gotten a hammer and nails was better off not asked. The word 'absconded', after all, would eventually feature; though she'd prefer 'borrowing for a good cause.' Which sounded better while being only technically correct.

She Worked with other pieces of wood, erecting a sign over the box. When she was done, she pulled one of the two elegant swords from its sheath on her back and got to work carving. She could have also absconded with paint, but, well, why not swords?

And finally, with satisfaction, she nodded at it and then took her seat on a barrel behind it, delicately, and in a very lady-like manner, crossing her legs - a movement only somewhat detracted from by the heavy leather boots that go halfway to her knees.

And she waits, under the sign: "DELILAH DIRK: WRONGS RIGHTED. CHEAP."

Odd End - OPEN!

The shop was a delight. She didn't recognize thoroughly half of what was in it. No, more like two-thirds. And that was exciting. And so she moved, her mass of chestnut hair done up but still flapping about like a tail, peering at each object and - on numerous occasions - asking 'what's this?' of the staff.

This blood magic thing had her a bit...well, what was between worried and confused? Something like that, because Delilah Dirk had no fears.

But she did get very enthusiastic about adventure - so...whatever doubts and worries were pushed aside. Who knew, after all, what might happen next? Oooh, or what was this on the next shelf?

Comments

[imaglyphwitch]

It was going to be an interesting month for the youth, and today was no exception: Luz was, after all, on the hunt to make things nicer for the people in the house. She decided to poke her head into Odd End and was looking through some of the objects they had when she bumped into someone doing the same thing.

"Oh! Sorry, I was just-"

And her eyes focused on the woman. "Hello again! Delilah, right?"

[delilah_dirk]

"Oh, hullo," she replied, looking away from a vial of...something. She gave it a slight shake. It bubbled.

"That's right. Delilah Dirk. The one and only," she added, with a proud nod. "It was...Luz? Oh, yes, I remember, it was - a Spanish name. I came here from Spain. I think."

[imaglyphwitch]

Cool vial. She could imagine her former instructor Miss Hardbroom looking at her with a calm yet stern glance, to remind Luz never to judge a concoction she didn't know the contents of.

Well it still looked neat anyway.

"Oh wow! I'm from America, but my national origin is Dominicano. Find anything good here?"

[delilah_dirk]

She peered at it for a moment, gave it another shake, then set it back down.

"Oh, the Americas! I went all over those, once. The native peoples were the best part, you know. Especially the Sioux, did you know they taught me-"

Behind her, the vial cooked off with a little puh-thwee sound, ricocheting off into the store with a trail of purple smoke behind it. Delilah was silent for a moment, the sounds of the vial making increasingly urgent impacts as it flew. Then she moved her hands, urging Luz to move away from that particular area of the store and rapidly assuming the countenance of an innocent bystander.

"Soooo. That's originally...Santo Domingo, yes? Well, in my time, anyways. You're from a bit on, I gather, names may have changed. When I'm from the Spanish have just taken it back from the French. But where in the Americas do you hail from now?"

[imaglyphwitch]

"Oh man, really? Natives? You must have been there a very long time ago! There are a LOT of different people living in America now, and its probably much bigger than it was then."

Luz certainly knew that the Sioux was an American Indian name, and that in her current time many of those native peoples and their ways were all but wiped out. The vial seemed pretty temperamental and Luz, seeing it was starting to become unstable, concentrated and formed a bubble around it, hoping that would do the trick.

"Dominican Republic, actually! Santo Domingo is just the capital. It's sort of its own country shared with Haiti, where the French have more influence. As for me, I'm a simple Connecticut girl! That's a state in the Northeastern part of the United States."

[delilah_dirk]

"Well, once one got into the interior, at any rate. Past the Appalachians the country was..."

She sighed, smiling. "Beautiful. Untamed. And the people were...proud, and talented. But good for them! A Republic, even. And Haiti I know well. Detonated small parts of it on the way out, alas, but that's just because Napoleon's soldiers got in the way."

[imaglyphwitch]

"I'll take your word for it!"

Luz was not super great at geography. Not Earth geography anyway.

"Sounds interesting, but definitely before my time! I live in the twenty first century now, and for the most part, we're living in a very fast paced quickly changing technological society now! This place is...well, definitely something out of a fantasy book."

Luz did sound too distressed about that.

[delilah_dirk]

It didn't sound all that different, really. Her world didn't seem terribly slow to her. Then again, she'd been talking into a crystal, so.

"Not one of the classier ones," she said. "More the 'cautionary tale' sort."

[imaglyphwitch]

Luz would love to know more about that if you ever mentioned it.

"Classy? No, I wouldn't say classy either. It's more of a...hmm. Kinda like a role play campaign with a rich backstory, only for real?"

[delilah_dirk]

"A role play campaign," she says, slowly, understanding precisely none of that, which shows on her face.

[imaglyphwitch]

Now how would she even go describing this?

"Ok, so in my time, these sorts of worlds and situations don't exist. But there were times where parts of it did, so people now play a game where you pretend you are in that time, in a specific situation playing a character restricted by the specifics of what they have. Basically, all of this? It would be that sort of fantasy situation with no chance of it happening in real life. Now we personally, I know first hand that these situations can happen. I've lived in a world completely different from my own before."

[delilah_dirk]

She looked more than a little bit weirded out by that, to use a modern phrase.

"They don't find...actual adventures?"

[imaglyphwitch]

"They roleplay them because there's no way they get to do all that cool stuff in real life. People lack expertise, or they don't have degrees or even the all around body configuration to have their own adventures, but they love to play them out...with the appropriate dice rolls, of course."

Odd End

[subject_013]

She might spy a tall gentleman in a black suit peering through blue-tinted glasses at a set of cards vaguely resembling a tarot deck except that the suits aren't the usual cups, wands, swords or coins.

"These will be tricky to read, thought it's not like I'd be peering into the future anyway," he murmurs, turning them over thoughtfully. He might not seem like he's noticed Delilah, but he's glanced in her direction without lifting his head.

Re: Odd End

[delilah_dirk]

She's used to being noticed. Not in the way one might thing, but more in the "hey, you, stop right there! Guards!" sort of way. Delilah Dirk was more than just a name she'd chosen to safeguard her family name - it was a reputation.

Not here, but, well, old habits.

She assumes he's talking to her.

"Oh, like fortune tellers? Never understood the appeal. Who wants to know the future?"

Re: Odd End

[subject_013]

The gent in black finally turns his face in her general direction. Accustomed as he is to monologuing to an empty room, he didn't much care either way if anyone heard him, though someone taking notice of his observation certainly pleases him. "There's enough of those in Cellar Door that if I desired their services I'd consult them. Besides, I'd seen enough of my future to decide I had no interest in looking for more," he says, sliding the cards back into a neat pile held in his gloved fingertips. "I was looking for a deck that could help me tease out things from the here and now that elude my notice but could prove crucial. Sometimes there's nothing more vital than information and realizations.

"Looking for oddities of your own, or simply browsing the shelves?"

[delilah_dirk]

Her brow furrows as she tries to reason that one out. Fortune tellers, right, she's on familiar ground there - historians and philosophers for the past, that makes sense.

But why would one need cards to read the present? Ah well, not her thing - but who knew, in a place like this, what was real and what wasn't?

"I might, if I knew what half of this shop did." She pauses. "I was hoping for smoke bombs."

[subject_013]

"It's probably odd to speak of the tarot outside of fortunetelling, but there are some systems of reading them that lean into the psychological. Everyone has their blind spots, and sometimes it takes something otherwise oracular to reveal them." He wraps the cards in a bit of black silk embroidered with silver moons and golden stars, then tucks the bundle into a small wooden box with a similar design before tucking the box nonchalantly into a pocket of his black leather coat.

"Well, you aren't the only one who's puzzling over half the stuff on these shelves. I'm a scientist, rather than an occultist, though in this place, it pays to have a working knowledge of the esoteric," he says, glancing about them. "An adventuress, are you? I might be able to help you acquire some smoke bombs, if you don't mind the scent of Vileblood smoke."

[delilah_dirk]

She shrugs.

"You're not supposed to inhale the smoke," she replies, with a nod. "A bandana will be your friend there."

[subject_013]

"Or a plague doctor's mask," he replies, with a jaunty lilt. More serious, he adds, "The problem with Vileblood is that it's scent is extremely pungent, even if you're taking countermeasures to avoid it. But it;'s highly effective. Besides creating a thick smoke cloud, it can also baffle whomever you're trying to conceal yourself from.

His gaze comes to rest on a nearby glass jar full of eye-like objects that might be some strange berries preserved in a clear fluid. "Please someone tall me that isn't a jar of literal eyes of newts."

[delilah_dirk]

Useful enough to cover your tracks, too, she's willing to bet - especially as here, the normal ways of tracking are probably augmented here.

She looked over at it, making a face.

"I don't think anybody has that much patience. Or that many newts."

[subject_013]

"Sound like a possibility? I won't even charge much, just the low price of information as I need and request it. I can't have eyes in as many places as I'd like.

"Call me Wesker. And you are?"

He might snerk lightly under his breath. "If someone wants or needs something seriously enough, they'll find a way to get it. And what does anyone use newt's eyes for?"

[delilah_dirk]

"Delilah Dirk, and my work doesn't come cheap in any regard," she replied, offering a hand.

"Probably not the taste," she guesses towards the latter."

[subject_013]

He accepts her hand, pressing it firmly. Likely she can feel strength well-tempered in his grip, and he might feel cool to the touch, even through his glove. "I have a feeling that would be the case. You seem like a young person who takes pride in your work, Delilah - an adventurer, I take it?"

"Perhaps a spell for far-seeing or creating keener sight? There are some of us whose eyes are yet to open," he muses. "Regrettably, I wouldn't know much. I'm a scientist, rather than an occultist, though I have an amicable relation to the matter."

[delilah_dirk]

"The best of them," she replied, with a confident nod.

"And you say scientist," she added, "but talk about spells."