[Flashback] A Use for a Gift

[Avari]

Season of Spring, Day 12, 509 AV


Avari had only been in Zeltiva for only a season, but she already knew that she loved the city. She loved the smell of the city: sharp and penetrating, with the brisk salt wind from the sea mixing with the clean scent of fresh-cut timber and the acrid odor of tar from the shipyards and the unmistakable stink of fish and seaweed from the docks. She loved the sights and scenes of Zeltiva, so much more vivid and varied than the serene pallor of Mura, from the great piers stretching to the ocean, the diverse and beautiful ships docking at and casting off from the harbor, the imposing Sailors' Guild headquarters, the narrow streets filled with wagons of cargo both exotic and mundane, and the mountains rising all around Zeltiva like a woman's hands cupping a precious jewel. Most of all, she loved the energy and chaos of the city, the ever-changing populace that flowed in and out of the city, united by their love of commerce, trade, and learning.

As the crimson sunset gradually darkened to a misty violet twilight, Avari found herself simply standing at a street corner drinking in the city with all her senses. There was so much noise, so much activity, and above all, so much color! Accustomed to the white buildings, white flowers, and white women of Mura, Avari still found a human's brown eyes and hair eye-catchingly exotic, and even the shabbiest old shed presented an interesting novelty to her. In Zeltiva, when the moon showed her luminous face, her pallid glow only made the city more colorful, instead of rendering it into a bleached, ghostly shell. Avari watched with delight as slanting beams of moonlight mingled with golden lamplight, ruddy bonfires, and inky shadows in a kaleidoscope of light and shadow.

But there was no profit in standing still, especially in so lively and busy a city. Now that night had fallen, most of the sailors and shipyard laborers who thronged Zeltiva headed to the Kelp Bar to drink and, well, presumably relax and entertain themselves. Always ready to be in the center of the action, Avari headed that way as well.

She had been inside the Kelp Bar only once before, in the daytime. It was the only time she had ever felt homesick in Zeltiva, for the bar's meager offerings made Avari yearn for the delicate, savory dishes and fragrant herbal teas of home. Ah, for just one more taste of the Pearl Divers' Inn's delicious curry-spiced scallops! In any event, Avari's single venture inside the Kelp Bar during off hours had not prepared her for entering it at the height of business, with locals and visitors occupying nearly every rickety chair in the place and queuing up at the bar for mugs of foul-smelling kelp beer.

When Avari pushed open the door and stepped inside, she was immediately aware that she'd neglected to garb herself in a concealing hat or gloves for this temperate spring evening. Nor had she smudged her skin with mud or soot to darken her complexion. As a result, her bare, ivory-pale skin glowed in the light of the sputtering oil lamps like an unwanted beacon, and her uncovered hair shone as if she had brought a swathe of moonlight with her indoors. Grimacing, Avari tried to pull the collar of her cloak higher and tucked her hands inside the long sleeves. Still, a number of locals had noticed her entrance and eyed her warily. No one looked particularly hostile, but their faces showed their caution and curiosity toward all strangers, including lone, frail-looking women who were almost certainly of Konti descent.

However, when she did nothing more than sidle toward the bar and wrinkle her nose at the rank odor of kelp beer, like any tourist, the locals relaxed and turned back to their business. Avari felt herself relaxing as well. At several tables, she heard the clattering of dice and the rustling of cards being shuffled.

Slowly, a smile crept across her face. Avari craned her head to catch a glimpse of the games going on. She wondered if she could gain a place at one of the tables. Men often fretted about playing with a Konti, but if she could lull them with some early losses and wait until they were properly drunk...

"What's your order, miss?" she heard a weary female voice ask her.

"Water, please," Avari said distractedly, still watching the groups of men drinking and dicing.

Unexpectedly, a loud, slurred male voice interrupted. "What's a, right, what's a lady like you wanting to drink that nasty water for? What I'm saying, here, what I'm saying is, lemme buy you a real drink, lady? Bring some color to those cheeks of yours?"

With an expression verging on a snarl, Avari swerved toward the interrupting man. He was big, wore a grimy ship crewman's uniform, carried a sword like a butcher's cleaver, and looked very drunk. His smile was ingratiating, his breath utterly foul.

All this she took in with a single glance, before she hissed, "You're bothering me. Leave me alone."

"Now, look here, lady, all I'm saying, I mean, all I'm saying is," the man rambled on, as though her words had barely penetrated his drunken haze, "that is, why don't you have a drink with me? C'mon, it'll be a treat." He reached for her with one clumsy, paw-like hand.

Fiercely, Avari swung at his hand to slap it away. Vile, interfering beast, why wouldn't he go away?

As soon as their hands touched, though, she let out a gasp and went still. This was what she got for not wearing gloves whenever she went out in public. Whenever Avari touched someone, skin to skin, she could see into their heart and glimpse whatever they loved most, whether she wanted to know or not. Images from the man's mind flooded her vision. She saw a rusty strongbox with mizas from his ship's last voyage. A grey-green tinge of guilt in the vision led her to discern how the man had stolen the money from his captain. It was enough money for him to jump ship and make his way to Ravok, to buy a night with a courtesan he'd met there once who did this amazing thing with her tongue...

Avari shook her head rapidly and dropped his hand, clearing the images from her vision. She stared at the man, who swayed and smiled at the bar with only the slightest look of surprise on his thick features. While she had met people who valued inanimate things over friends or loved ones, she was startled that he cherished the money so dearly. There was a good amount of it, to be sure, yet his plans for it were so wasteful and foolish.

It would also be enough money for Avari to comfortably spend at least another season in Zeltiva, learning more of its wonders, its mysteries, and all the things it had to teach her. Another season or two of its tall ships, vibrant streets, and ever-changing populace from all over the world! Surely she would put the mizas to far better use than frittering it all away on some woman. The thought came to her: why should he be allowed to keep the money? He hadn't earned it, and he'd only waste it on unimportant things.

Now that she knew of its existence, didn't she deserve to have it, just as much as he did? She didn't owe this lout anything. If he couldn't keep it, then it was just his fault and not her problem.

Avari let her face go still, all the anger replaced with calmness, and forced her lips into a guileless smile.

"Yes," she said to the drunken man, still swaying and smiling before her, "why don't you buy me that drink? Let's talk together, you and I, and learn everything about each other..."

[Avari]

As the night wore on, the drunken man continued buying drink after drink for himself and Avari, and Avari just kept smiling at him and encouraging him to drink, relax, and share more stories about himself. Now and then, her fingers would brush briefly across his free hand, ostensibly in an unconscious gesture of interest or flirtatiousness. In fact, she was using the slight physical touch to help anchor herself as she drew upon the power of Avalis' mark and tapped into the Chavena, the flow of ever-shifting energy that housed the experiences of all living creatures, to find and read this man's individual chavi. From blink to blink, her vision flickered between seeing the grimy reality of the increasingly inebriated sailor and the luminous Chavic outline of his body surrounded by spiraling, undulating ripples that represented his thoughts, memories and experiences.

Absently, she listened as the man volunteered that his name was Harvin and that he was on shore leave from the trade ship Suvan Princess. Most of Avari's attention was focused on his chavi, rather than his words. Finding it had been easy enough, with the stinking man right before her, but interpreting his chavi was more difficult. With only one seer's lily imprinted upon her shoulder, Avari lacked the power to read all the possibilities of the man's present or future, which swirled and swam before her Chavena-gazing eyes in unsettled, erratic configurations.

Thankfully, it was the sailor's past actions that Avari was most interested in, anyway. With only a small effort, she delved into the patterns woven by his life, ignoring the sound of his mother's voice calling him to supper and the memory of bedding his first prostitute to find his recollection of stealing the rusty strongbox full of money and stashing it away. Eddies of emotion surrounded the box's image, confirming what her touch had already told her: that he loved this money as much as he loved life itself. Where had he stashed it? Ah, there it was...wedged into a crevice underneath one of the smaller piers in the harbor of Zeltiva. But which pier...

"Hey! Hey there, li'...li'l one," the sailor named Harvin mumbled at her, giving her a generous helping of his kelp beer-scented breath. "What...whatcha lookin' at? You, uh, you looked a li'l, whassatword, uh, you looked, yanno, uh...distant. Pr-preockerpied."

Avari nearly jumped, before she managed to calm herself, refocus her eyes on the man, and arrange her features into an expression of smiling attentiveness. She realized that she must have sunk too deeply into the Chavena, causing her face to go slack to the point that even this drunken lout noticed. To give herself a moment to think of an answer, she lifted her glass of kelp beer and tilted it, but not enough to actually let the fishy-smelling substance ever touch her lips.

"Yes, I'm so sorry," she replied with what she hoped looked like sincere contrition. "It's just that it's so very late, and I'm getting ever so sleepy. You understand, surely, don't you?"

Cringing inwardly as she did so, Avari flashed him a charming smile. Her hand brushed his again, and she dared one more peek at the man's chavi once more to find the last answer that she needed regarding his stolen money. All she wanted was to know which pier he had hidden his money under...

Aha! There it was! She saw clearly through his eyes as he slipped under the second northernmost pier among the twenty smaller piers that stretched out from Zeltiva's harbor and shoved the strongbox into a safe hiding spot. Well, it wouldn't be safe for very much longer! Avari exulted in the thought.

However, her joy turned quickly into displeasure when her concentration was broken, when Harvin the drunken sailor suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him.

"What do you think you're doing, you great oaf?" she snapped without thinking.

"Oaf?!" Harvin fairly shouted. "I b-bought ya all them drinks a-and, you know, I acted all chivalry-like for ya, and now yer, uh, yer, um, yer callin' me an oaf? What I'm sayin', right, whamsaying is...I jus' wanta get to know ya better, li'l one. I jus' wanna make friends with ya...real, uh, you know, um, real close friends, ya see?"

Avari wriggled and twisted and tried to tug her arm free, but she weighed perhaps half what this man did and possessed no more than a quarter of his strength. There was no way she could fight her way out of his grasp. Against him, she felt as weak and helpless as a tadpole. But if she couldn't outsmart one sloshed sailor, then she might as well sail back to Mura right now and submit herself to Grandmother Eunoe's untender mercies forever.

With her free hand, she flailed about until her finger found the handle of her still-full mug of kelp beer. In one swift gesture, Avari swung the mug around and about in a wide arc. It connected with the man's nose with a satisfying impact, sending streams of the grey-green brew all down his face. The drunken man gasped and coughed as the stuff ran into his eyes and nose, and he let go of Avari's wrist to wipe it away.

Gratefully, Avari leaped out of his reach and dropped the mug on the floor. Her hand still tingled slightly from the blow, even though it hadn't even broken the man's nose. She heard a few snickers around her as a few customers turned to see what had caused the commotion. A faint grin curled her lips, and she decided to give them a good finale to the show. She brushed herself off with an air of dignity, drew herself tall, and addressed the inebriated dolt in ringing tones.

In her best impression of Grandmother Eunoe, she said to the visibly wavering, beer-covered sailor, "That was for treating me like a common doxie. Don't ever try to lay hands on me again...oaf."

As she finished her little speech, the man finally succeeded in clawing the greenish muck out of his eyes and started to stumble toward her. Suddenly aware of his size and strength again, Avari forgot all her dignity and backed away, hugging her cloak close to her. If he made another swipe for her and she couldn't dodge him, she'd never be able to get away. Besides, she'd gotten what she wanted out of him this evening, and there was no need for her to linger here. As apprehension and revulsion gave her feet wings, she unashamedly turned and fled, to the accompaniment of more snickers and laughs from the bar patrons all around them.

[Avari]

The next day, fearful of running into the drunken sailor who had forced her to make such a spectacle of herself the previous night, Avari decided to avoid going anywhere the Kelp Bar and self-consciously kept her head low as she walked through the city. She had no desire to encounter him again and run the risk that he would remember her or, worse yet, cause him to remember her and the beer mug she had swung at his head. Moreover, she most certainly did not want him to be able to draw any connection whatsoever from the pale girl that he met in the Kelp Bar one evening to the strongbox of mizas that she was sure would go "missing" very soon.

Of course, she was so very sure that it would go missing only because she was contemplating stealing it from him. As soon as Avari touched the man's hand and inadvertently seen just how much money was inside the strongbox that represented his heart's desire, she felt a surge of acquisitive greed that almost shocked her with its strength. If she had been in Mura, surrounded by empathetic Konti, her unseemly emotion would have been perceived immediately and someone would have chastised her sternly for it. Among these untutored, ungifted humans, though, no one noticed that she wanted the drunken sailor's secret cache for herself.

It still surprised her a little that someone would love a pile of money with the intensity that that man did. Usually when Avari touched someone and saw their greatest love and innermost desire, it turned out to be a person: a mother, a sister, a daughter, or sometimes a father or brother if she was looking into the heart of a traveler to Konti Isle. Sometimes, it was a place: a beloved home, an inspiring studio, a peaceful garden, a view of the ocean in all its majesty, or a snug little berth on a sailing ship. Rarely did she see an inanimate object, like a precious jewel or a favorite book, and even those were generally more significant than a box full of cold, impersonal money. Yet, this man loved that money, loved that he had stolen it, stashed it away, and could do whatever he wanted with it. And in her own mercenary heart of hearts, Avari could almost understand why.

There was so much money, and she wanted it all. The supply of mizas that Avari had brought with her from Mura were running out faster than she liked to think about, and she had little other choice for finding a way to feed herself and stay warm and clothed. She had no desire to seek out ordinary work, humbling herself before some greasy employer, or to set herself up as another mystical Konti fortune-teller and beg for copper mizas from illiterate passerby who thought the gifts of Avalis could tell them everything they needed to know. Avari was determined to survive on her own, by her own wits, not by depending on anyone else for her daily sustenance.

Besides, she reasoned with herself, that loutish sailor...what was his name? Marvin?...had stolen the money himself from his captain, so it wasn't as though he had any more right to the mizas than she did. And the use he was going to put the money to...ugh! Men were no better than animals, letting their base appetites lead them into wanton stupidity and wastefulness. She would put the money to much better use, giving herself the opportunity to learn every day about the wide world around her rather than throwing it all away in one night of carnal gratification.

Yes, Avari had just as much right to that money as he did, and she possessed far more wits than he ever would. Walking through a great thoroughfare, she made up her mind. If she could take that money, then she deserved to have it. She needed it to survive, and if she could get away with stealing it, then that was all that mattered.

She had come a long way from the teachings of Mura and Grandmother Eunoe, she knew. But what could she do but make the most of her opportunities and chances? If she was more fortunate than the average thief because she could see into the very hearts of men, shouldn't she take advantage of it?

If only she could be more sure of what she had seen when she'd touched his hand and peered into his chavi! Glancing left and right, Avari ducked unobtrusively under the awning of a small shop-front and stood facing the display window, as if studying its wares. However, as her eyes glazed and her attention wandered, Avari began gazing into the very different world of the Chavena. She searched again for the chavi of the drunken sailor whose money she had decided to steal, hoping to verify her earlier vision of seeing him wedge the money under the second northernmost pier in the harbor.

After a few moments, though, she had to give up out of frustration and refocused her eyes back into the material world. Her skills were just too rough. With only one lily of Avalis, finding the chavi she wanted could be maddeningly hit-or-miss, without having the man there before her to guide her search.

Avari sighed. She would just have to trust what she'd seen before and hope she hadn't misinterpreted the drunken sailor's chavi.

She turned away from the shop-front, still keeping her head down and the brim of her hat firmly shading her face from prying eyes. Rather than continuing to wander purposelessly around the city, Avari moved on an eastward path with determination and resolve, heading toward the docks that faced outward from Zeltiva into Mathews Bay. It would be a simple matter to go unnoticed among the busy travelers and dock workers that continually thronged the harbor. Once she located the second northernmost pier among the twenty lesser piers at which smaller ships could dock, Avari planned to slip beneath the waves and swim beneath the length of the pier until she found the strongbox full of the sailor's stolen money.

[Avari]

It was early afternoon by the time Avari made it to the docks, pressing her way through both the crowds that thronged Zeltiva's streets and the doubts that kept arising to batter her heart with uncertainties. Pausing by the train of wagons that would carry the ships' cargo into the city, Avari caught her breath as she beheld the vista before her. The long, slanting rays of the afternoon sun had transformed the waters of Mathews Bay into a silken swathe of molten gold, undulating slowly with the receding tide. She found herself wishing that she could scoop up that liquid gold up in handfuls and live comfortably upon that glittering, inexhaustible wealth for the rest of her life, instead of having to scrounge for coins and count every copper-rimmed miza. Silhouetted against the golden expanse of the Bay, the tall masts and white sails of the proud sailing ships at port looked as magnificent as oceangoing palaces, rising and falling with the waves and tugging gently at their mooring ropes.

Her heart contracted inside her chest with a fierce sensation that felt almost like love. In that moment, it seemed the city was worth any hardship she had to endure, any struggle she had to overcome. Staying here and enjoying everything the city had to offer was all that mattered.

Certainly, it was worth robbing one drunken, loutish sailor.

Avari balled her fists at her sides and walked casually down toward the docks, which were alive as always with sailors and traders from dozens of different cities crowding its many piers. In her grey woolen cloak, floppy wide-brimmed hat, and rough canvas gloves, she might as well have been invisible, for many of the sailors and dock workers were similarly heavily garbed against the early spring chill. Few gave her a second look as she proceeded along the walkways that linked each pier to the others. She moved quietly and with purpose, never taking her eyes off the second northernmost pier.

As she arrived at her destination, Avari was relieved to see that the small wooden pier was deserted. A single fishing boat was tied up, but presumably the others were still out to sea, filling up their holds with fish. Her boots rapped sharply on the well-worn wooden planks as she paced back and forth along one side of the pier, wishing she could tell if this was the right pier. All she'd gotten from that stupid sailor was one split-second chavic image of him swinging under the pier and wedging his strongbox between two beams.

She could do the same, she supposed, except that she hadn't the faintest idea where exactly that box had been wedged. And Avalis knows how many beams supported this pier, no doubt intertwined with seaweed, encrusted with barnacles, and warped by salt and sea to be capable of hiding anything out of sight. Thoroughly searching underneath the pier could take forever. There had to be a quicker way.

More methodically, she began walking slowly down the length of the pier, stopping every few steps to tap the sole of her boot against the wooden pier and listening closely. Avari wasn't quite sure what she was listening for, precisely. But she figured that if the rest of the pier didn't have a metal strongbox hidden underneath, they were bound to sound different from the one section that was hiding that box. Most likely the plank above the strongbox would sound more muffled than the others.

At least, that was how Avari figured it. Not for the first time, she wished devoutly that Avalis' gift of divination extended to inanimate objects as well as people. It was difficult for someone accustomed to seeing beyond to feel so blind.

So, she walked down the pier, not daring to look and see whether anyone was watching her or finding her actions suspicious. She walked, and tapped, and walked, and tapped, and heard nothing different. But Avari stayed patient. It was the only way to be certain.

At the end of the pier, she turned around to make a complete circuit. And then, suddenly, instead of the hollow echo that she had grown accustomed to hearing when she stomped on the wooden planks, Avari heard the sweetest sound in the world: a dull, subdued thud. Something was under the pier right there, dampening the sound. It had to be the sailor's strongbox! It just had to be.

But how was she to get down to it?

Avari glanced hastily about herself. She'd have to get down in the water and swim under the pier itself to find the strongbox. With a gulp, she regarded the dark, rippling water with trepidation. It looked so different from the serene, pleasant waters of the Silver Lake in Mura, where she had last swum. And yet, if she wanted to get those golden mizas...

Taking a deep breath, Avari looked around one last time and hopped lightly over the side of the pier, into the waters of the Bay.

[Avari]

Only after Avari had jumped into the water did she realize that perhaps plunging headlong into the bay might have been a foolish idea.

The first shock of the cold water was awful, and her grey woolen cloak, usually such a warm and sturdy protection against the elements, gave no help at all against the swirling, chilly seawater. Even once Avari had caught her breath and found that she could bear the cold, the cloak's sodden weight proved a great hindrance, pulling her beneath the surface and catching in every current that flowed past. She could also feel the leather of her breeches tightening and shrinking in the salty water. Truly, Avari hadn't thought this part of her theft through at all. With quick, decisive gestures, she unclasped her cloak and tossed it onto the pier. Ducking underwater, away from prying eyes, she also stripped off her breeches and boots. Those, she also left atop the pier, hoping they hadn't been utterly ruined by their contact with seawater.

Feeling very exposed in only her long cotton tunic and underclothes, Avari cautiously paddled her way underneath the wooden planks of the pier. She found herself gratefully remembering the many times she had swum through the silvery waterways of Mura and even the few occasions when she had been ordered to dive for pearls. Never would Avari have imagined back then that those hours of serene, soothing submersion would ultimately serve her so well in a situation of true urgency. Her bare legs, adorned with the iridescent, fish-like scales that marked her as a daughter of Laviku, churned as she eased herself into the dank, enclosed space between the pier and the water's surface. Neck-deep in water, with her chin barely bobbing above the surface, Avari craned her head to peer upward into the shadows beneath the pier's beams and planks, searching for a telltale metallic glint or dull gleam that would betray the presence of the sailor's hidden strongbox.

At first, she saw no such glint or gleam, despite several minutes of searching. As Avari began to swim away, however, an errant reflection from the slanting sunlight upon the water briefly caught a dark corner protruding above a beam, flecked with reddish rust. Avari gasped. That had to be the strongbox! That sneaky devil, she thought with a hint of grudging admiration, he hid it between the beam and the pier. No one would ever be able to find his strongbox if they weren't looking for it!

Avari had been looking for it, however, and her heart rejoiced at the discovery. The only problem that remained now was getting the box down from its sheltered perch and claiming the money inside. Grabbing a pillar for support with one hand, she stretched her other arm upward as high as it would reach, closed her hand around the box's corner, and tugged hard. The strongbox refused to budge at first, but slowly it began sliding out of its hiding place an inch at a time.

She gritted her teeth and pulled even harder at the box, straining the muscles in her uplifted arm. With a faint hiss of rusted metal brushing against wood, the strongbox finally came free. It was much heavier than she had expected, and the momentum of her eager efforts flung Avari backwards into the water, throwing up an enormous splash and spraying her face with stinging, salty water. The box plummeted out of her hands and fell into the water like a stone.

Brushing seawater out of her tearing eyes, Avari gasped when she saw stray mizas trickling slowly out of the submerged box. No doubt the hasp of the metal box, which must have been as rusty as the rest of it, must have given way on impact with the water. No sooner had she come up with this explanation than she was diving beneath the surface and feverishly grabbing every miza that fell from the box. After all this effort, she'd be damned if she let the sea swallow her...well, the sailor's...well, someone's hard-won riches.

In the midst of gathering up escaping mizas, Avari also recaptured the strongbox, which was floating carelessly in the water, and lifted the lid. Her eyes glittered with pure avarice when she saw the pile of brightly colored, gold-rimmed stones inside. It was somewhat less than she had expected, but more than she possessed now, and that was all that mattered. Reflected light from the water illuminated the mizas in a specious halo, causing them to glow with the same light that shone in Avari's unabashedly avid eyes.

For a moment, she thought about taking the mizas and the strongbox together, but dismissed the idea at once. The box was truly too bulky for her to handle, and she dared not risk dropping it a second time. Thinking quickly, Avari lifted up the hem of her tunic to create a broad, improvised pouch and poured handfuls of mizas into the center. She held her breath as she felt the cotton stretch to accommodate its burden, but thankfully the fabric held and did not split. When all the mizas were collected in the hem of her tunic, Avari bunched it up at the top and clenched the gathered cotton firmly in her fist in a grip as tight as if she were holding onto life and happiness itself inside her tunic.

She thought for a moment as she considered the box and then grinned. In an impish gesture, she put the strongbox back where she'd found it, hidden between the beam and the planks of the pier. If that oafish sailor ever came looking for it someday, all he'd find was an empty strongbox. It would be as though the gods or the spirits themselves had taken his money, in punishment for his stealing it from his captain!

Avari paddled one-armed back to the open air in high spirits. Keeping a firm grasp on her tunic, she laboriously lifted herself back atop the pier and huddled there, shivering as the late afternoon air chilled her wet skin. She was glad to see that her cloak had mostly dried during her underwater escapades and draped it around her shoulders, shielding herself from the breeze and concealing her ill-gotten treasures at once. Picking up her breeches and boots in her other hand and twitching the cloak tightly closed to keep it from flapping open at the wrong instant, she rose to her feet and began walking down the pier as if nothing at all was the matter.

If she had dared, Avari would have started swaggering and whistling blithely as she left the harbor and made her way back into the city. All her life, she had thought her Konti gift would be useful for nothing, for she'd believed that everyone in the world valued the same immaterial, abstract concepts like love, contentment, and prosperity. How tedious and, even worse, how utterly useless!

But now, look at it had gotten her! A tunic bulging with golden mizas and nothing at all to tie her to its theft. All she had done was touch the man's hand, perceive his innermost passion, and read in his chavi where she could steal it. Furthermore, that sailor surely wasn't the only person in the world who loved money and valuables above all else. Merchants and traders swarmed through Zeltiva every day; Avari was certain that their touch would give away their love for their fortunes and treasures just as easily as this fellow's had.

Perhaps there was a use for her gift, after all. And a very lucrative use, no less. As Avari turned into the gloom of a quiet side street, with her hair still wet and her arm aching as she held tightly onto the mizas bunched up in her tunic, she began humming contentedly to herself. This could be the beginning of a very profitable career indeed.

[Oracle]

Name: Avari

XP Award:

• Intelligence +2
• Swimming +2
• Larceny +1

Lore:

• Understanding Zeltiva
• Kelp Beer (Smell)
• Dealing with the Drunks
• Reading the Chavena
• Courtesan - What she Does with her Tongue
• Divination - The Memories of Others

Notes:

Items/Rewards: 75 Gold Rimmed Mizas

Once again, blown away by your writing! Grading your threads and reading them always puts a smile on my face.

As always though, I tend to go a bit crazier with lore than other ST's, feel free to pick and choose if you want.

I know some people like practical while other's eat up all the silly lore too. So feel free to do with it as you like.


If you have any concerns with this please PM me and let me know.

A.S. Oracle