The Case of the Purloined Pendant (Completed)

[Anselm]

The Case of the Purloined Pendant 82 Winter 511 Zeltiva It was raining. Hard. Fortunately I had arrived at the marketplace and set up my tent before it started raining. But then the heavens opened and the water came forth. The steady pummeling on my tent was surprisingly noisy. I had been there for three hours and not a single customer had entered my humble establishment. Not that I blamed them. I wouldn't venture out to visit a fortune-teller in weather like this either. The whole marketplace was pretty much empty. Besides, I had put down the flaps on the open side of the tent because gusts of wind kept blowing rain in. That would most likely convince people that I was not open for business. I was just settling in for some meditation when a quiet voice found its way into the tent. “Hello?” What with the drumming of the rain and all I wasn't altogether sure I had really heard a voice. Until I heard it again. “Hello? Are you open?” “Yes,” I called out. “One moment please.” I limped over to the entrance and threw open one of the flaps. Outside, standing in the pouring down rain, was a woman. Human I guessed. Short, maybe five foot three. Slender, almost to the point of skinny. “Please, come in out of the weather,” I said. She was wearing a full-length cloak and hood, which probably allowed her to stay relatively dry. This was confirmed when she took it off and laid it carefully on the end of my table. She wore a long white skirt and a floral-patterned blouse. A pair of sensible looking boots peeked out from under the skirt. Long dark hair cascaded down over her shoulders on its way to her hips. She had large green eyes, the kind that always look surprised. I found my way back to my chair and sat down opposite her. She had the look of a woman of means. Certainly the clothes were not cheap. And she held herself with a certain dignity that one usually finds only in the wealthy and powerful. I was intrigued. “My lady, what brings you to my humble place of business in such appalling weather?” She folder her hands on the table top and peered at me as though trying to get a better look at me under my hood. “I have lost something of great – she paused - sentimental value. I am hoping you can help me recover it.” “Hmm,” I said. “That hardly sounds like a job for a fortune-teller.” “That is so,” She said. “But I have exhausted every other course of action I can think of. And it is said that you have a knack for finding things that have gone missing.” “I see,” I replied, wondering who it was that had said that of me. Not that I was complaining, mind you. Word of mouth is by far the best advertising. But somehow I kept getting dragged into things that didn't pay anything. And even a Nuit has to make a living. “Tell me, my dear, what is it that has gone missing?” “No,” she said flatly. “I want you to tell me what I have lost.” I hate it when people do that to me.

[Anselm]

I thought about sending her away. But then it came to me that I didn't have anything else to do that day since she was probably the one and only customer I would see. “Very well,” I said in a resigned voice. I reached into one of the pockets I had sewn into the inside of my cloak, and withdrew the small pouch that held my casting bones. I carefully untied the pouch and poured the bones into my right hand. The woman looked with interest. There was intelligence and curiosity in her expression. My set of casting bones consists of eighteen small bones carved into rounded box-like shapes of varying length. Complex figures are etched into each side of each tiny bone. The etchings do not have any meaning. They are purely for dramatic effect. I know this because I carved them myself. They do, however, have a pattern that allows me to use them like coins being flipped. They are, in effect, a binary random number generator. When I throw them – and this actually requires a certain amount of skill – I try for an arrangement of six rows of three each. Then I use the six rows of three to compute a number between 1 and 64, which just happens to be the number of fortunes my master taught me. There's a little more to it than that, but that gives you the gist of the thing. The random number gives the “reading” that I then intone dramatically to the customer. Now I don't want you to think I am entirely a charlatan. The readings are themselves full of wisdom and have been carefully constructed to act as mirrors into the soul of the person asking the question. Each person will respond to the same reading differently, depending on what they have brought to the table with them. Hey, it beats paying a psychiatrist* obscene amounts of Mizas to do essentially the same thing. “Please give me your right hand,” I said. She hesitated but then extended her hand. I placed the two fingers of my left hand (I am missing the ring finger and the little finger) lightly on her palm and began tracing her life lines. Then I turned my right and over and let the bones fall on to the surface of the table. I studied the configuration of bones to derive a number. It turned out to be 34. I ran that through my memory and came up with the corresponding reading, which I intoned dramatically. Thunder above, active. Heaven below, strong. Strength within. Effective action without. This is called Great Power. I felt her surprise at the same time I heard a slight gasp escape from her mouth. I took my cue from that. “Dear lady, you said you had lost something of great sentimental value. But I believe you have sought to deceive me. What you have lost has much more than mere sentimental value. It is a thing of great power. Is this not true?” I waited. This was always the critical moment. Either I got it right or I didn't. There was never anything in between. “It is a pendant,” she finally said. “An enchanted pendant. And it has gone missing from my room. The room was locked. I alone had the key. It was there in the morning and gone in the afternoon.” Oh great, I thought despondently. Another locked room mystery. I hate it when that happens to me. * OCC : Yes, I know psychiatry isn't a recognized skill in Mizahar. But it's too good a line to NOT use, and it does capture the spirit of how Anselm sees his fortune-telling. He calls himself a seer, but in fact what he is really doing is helping people “see” into themselves.

[Anselm]

The next morning I stood in front of a great manor and pulled the rope that caused a bell somewhere inside to ring. A butler opened the door. The butler did it I thought, followed by, I've got to stop reading those trash mystery novels. He left me in the drawing room and went off to announce my presence to the lady of the house. She appeared a few minutes later. “Thank you for coming,” she said. “I wasn't sure you would.” “Well,” I said dryly. “You did say I would be well paid for the effort. That is often sufficient motivation for me.” “Yes, I did, didn't I?” This was followed by an awkward silence. “Perhaps you should show me the room in question,” I suggested. The room in question turned out to be a small drawing room off her bedroom. There was indeed only one way in or out and that was through the bedroom. I walked slowly over to the window. It overlooked a courtyard below. Beyond that was a copse of old fruit trees, most likely an abandon orchard. I opened the window and looked out. It was a significant drop to the ground and I could see no obvious way someone could have climbed up it. I turned back to the woman and asked, “Exactly where was the pendant the last time you saw it?” “Here,” she said, pointing to a writing table. “It was sitting on that table.” I walked over to the table. “In here?” I asked pointing shallow wooden bowl resting on the table. “Yes,” she said. “I always keep it there.” It was a beautifully carved bowl made from black mahogany. The outline of several birds had been carved on to its polished surface. I couldn't help but admire the handiwork. I touched the bowl with the fingers of my left hand and let my mind explore its aura. It had a lovely aura. I also detected the aura of the woman herself and one other. I focused on it and suddenly started to laugh, which apparently alarmed the woman. I need to explain. Have you ever heard a Nuit laugh? Probably not. Nuits don't breath. With practice they can learn how to talk although it often results is odd speech patterns. But laughing, that's a whole different matter. Laughing requires a great deal of air coming from the lungs. So when I laughed, it sounded roughly like a cat being strangled to death. “Are you alright?” She asked. “Yes, yes,” I said. “I'm fine. I apologize. That was an attempt a laughter.” “Laughter? What are you laughing at?” I turned to her and composed myself. “Was the window by any chance left ajar the morning the pendant went missing?” “Well, yes. Now that you mention it. You don't think someone climbed in the window and stole it?” “No, not someone. Something.”

[Anselm]

The copse was indeed an abandoned orchard as I had thought. I had to climb over a short wall to get to it. No small feat for a crippled man. I poked around in the orchard with my cane for a while and scanned the tree branches. Then I sat down and extended my mind out into the orchard, picking my way through the cacophony of auras that always exist in such places: trees, bushes, flowers, mice, birds. They all add their own unique aural presence to the mix. But I was looking for a very specific aura. My aural consciousness could only cover an area a few yards across, so I had to move several times before I found what I was looking for. It turned out to be a crow. I placed a suggestion in the crow's mind that it really badly wanted to look at the shiny new toy. The crow resisted at first, but when I placed the actual image of the pendant in its mind, it left its place on a tree branch and flew to a fork in the branches of another tree. And there was the pendant. I detached my astral left hand from my body and reached out for the pendant. It was a little outside my range, but by applying more Djed I was able to pick up the pendant and drop it to the ground below. The crow was so startled that it nearly fell off the branch too. Then I went over to the tree and poked around in the underbrush until I found the pendant. Even without trying, I could sense the presence of some kind of strong magic in it. I dropped it into an inner pocket and made my way back to the manor. Back in the woman's drawing room I produced the pendant and returned it to her. When I explained that the thief had turned out to be a crow, she was at first incredulous and then started laughing. I refrained. “How can I thank you,” she said. “Oh … I suppose I should pay you some kind of finder's fee.” I said, “I have a better idea. If you are willing to part with that mahogany bowl, I would consider that payment in full.” “It's yours,” she said. “With my gratitude.”

[Paragon]

Anselm : Anselm Skill XP Reward Fortune-telling +2 Investigation +2 Auristics +1 Projection +1 Lore: Basic Investigative Skills, The Aura of an Object Other: +1 Ornate Mahogany Bowl Nicely done, especially since I rarely see skilled use of first person. You should so be our resident detective, that would be fun - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, don't hesitate to PM me.