Acquisitions for Others (solo)

[Avari]

Season of Spring, Day 3, 512 AV

Rarely in her life had Avari felt anything like gratitude for the divination abilities of any Konti sisters who weren't her, but she had certainly felt it during the two maddening, frightening days at the beginning of the new year. The first day, she had woken from a sound sleep to hear howling, shrieking winds outside and a strange, tingling feeling of electricity in the air, as though a bolt of lightning was poised to strike the entire world. Overhead, the roof groaned as fierce winds the likes of which it had never experienced before assailed it, and Avari heard shingles tear free and clatter against the chimney into the wind. She longed to pull the boards and planks she'd lamely propped in front of the single window in her cottage aside and see what was going on, but she feared that if she did, the thick glass would fly apart and shred her face into bloody ribbons.

Zeltiva was no stranger to high winds and powerful storms, and Avari had watched many dramatic and awe-inspiring storms at sea through her cottage window and clapped her hands over her ears to drown out their thunder. This storm, however, was different. No less than the champion of Avalis had warned the city that the storm was divine in origin and would change the face of the entire continent. The walls of her cottage shuddered ominously, and Avari went flying back to bed with a whimper, huddled under her blankets and prayed to all the gods she could think of to help her survive.

When the gods war, it's always the mortals who suffer, she thought grimly, trembling beneath her blankets and trying not to hear the scream of the wind and the crumbling of shingles on the roof.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep despite her pounding heart and the terrible clamor outside, exhausted by unrelenting worry and fear. She remembered waking up and reaching under her bed for a waterskin to take a sip of water. Ever since the Lord of Council had made her speech and informed the city of disaster, Avari had hoarded as much water and nonperishable food as she could get her hands on and stored them under her bed. She had also braced her door and window with wooden planks dragged in from the docks and piled up against each entrance. After that, she couldn't think of much else to do but take refuge indoors and pray for the best. In the dark, Avari couldn't see much, but from the fact that her cottage wasn't torn apart and the wind seemed to have quieted down a little, she guessed her precautions had done their part. The Konti breathed a sigh of relief.

She had just uncapped the waterskin when a deep, earth-shaking rumble caught her attention and held it. It was an oddly familiar sound, as though she'd heard something similar to it in the past. It had been on Mura, she thought, and she seemed to recall getting drenched from head to foot.

The bass rumble came again, and Avari had it. It was the sound of waves building up toward shore, while she had played hooky from divination classes and was building sand-monsters on the beach.

Avari only had time to wonder for a moment why she was hearing that noise in Zeltiva, but much louder, before the massive tidal wave crashed upon the shore with an impact as ear-splitting as a thunderclap. In the distance, she could hear wood creaking and cracking apart as the sea swallowed Zeltiva's famous piers. Her cottage walls shook and buckled as the wall of seawater smashed against them, and the Konti bit back a scream when she heard her chimney topple and break off entirely, landing with a clang upon the roof. The roof bulged inward with a sickening groan. Water poured in through the hole the chimney had left and through cracks in the masonry, the door frame, and the window frame, washing away the planks she'd propped up as a makeshift shield with an almost disdainful ease.

After a moment of shock, Avari twitched aside her blanket and cautiously stuck her hand out to assess the damage. At least half a foot of water covered her floor. Her blankets and pillow were damp. Faintly, she heard a sucking noise and then a bone-rattling murmur as the water receded back toward the bay, no doubt wrecking even further havoc on the already demolished docks.

A tidal surge, she thought, her mind working with surprising clarity. Of course the storm stirred up the sea. I should have been more careful. Then another, more disturbing thought occurred to her. My provisions!

Swift as a diving bird, she reached under her bed and scooped up her waterskins and the stores of food she had so carefully hoarded. The waterskins, thank goodness, hadn't been breached, and a taste of the water inside reassured her that their contents were safe and sweet. Avari's food stores, though, were ruined, except perhaps for a few bits of dried fruit. She laid the fruit and waterskins carefully atop her pillow and tossed the rest back under the bed with a disappointed sigh.

Slipping her bare feet into the cold, salty water, Avari winced as she padded over to the window and foolhardily pulled aside the drape. She didn't know if the storm had completely died down yet, but she had to know what was going on outside. Had the entire city been destroyed? What damage had been wreaked by the storm? Was there anyone else alive out there?

[Avari]

As the shadows of nighttime receded and the sky brightened over the city of Zeltiva, Avari watched as daylight shone on the ravages of the storm with a mixture of shock, amazement, and relief. Her cottage was still mostly intact, praise Laviku and her own wisdom for choosing a dwelling located a safe distance from the harbor, and through the window she could see the city was still standing. Her expression fell, though, when she saw the extent of the damage on the docks; at least half the piers that were Zeltiva's pride had crumbled partly into the sea, unfastening many ships from their moorings and setting them loose amid undulating waves. The clanging and hammering from the shipyards, a sound so familiar that Avari had ceased hearing it on a conscious level, was stilled, no doubt because the timber and half-built ships therein had been warped and ruined by the tidal surge.

Avari gulped, wondering how badly the city proper had been hit. Wading through the water flooding her floor, she opened the cottage door with difficulty, wincing as the hinges creaked with rust, and quickly clapped a hand to cover her nose. The stench! It was unbearable. The rancid stink of fish filled the air, and the Konti's eyes widened when she saw fish, eels, and other marine creatures she couldn't even name flopping and dying on the shore.

Around her ankles, the water pooled inside her cottage slowly emptied out through the door, turning the ground even muddier than the great wave had already left it. Avari cautiously ventured outside and turned toward the back of the cottage, stepping carefully over the remains of her toppled chimney. To her relief, the well was in one piece and still held fresh water, though the well cover had been blown away and the pulley to help lower a bucket into the water was crumpled into splintery sticks.

A quick glance inside her cottage told the Konti that her cottage still need some time and plenty of fresh air to dry out completely. Feeling fairly certain that no one was about to break into her home today, she left the door open and wrestled the window a few inches wide to let in the breeze coming off the bay. Pinching her nose shut, she glanced from side to side and decided to investigate the city proper, partly out of curiosity but mostly just to get away from the dead, stinking fish washed upon the shore. Pulling her cloak around her shoulders and her hat low over her face, she started toward the city.

Along the road to the downtown area, Avari met a number of workmen coming the other way, carrying saws, hammers, chisels, and other tools. Only a few days after the storm and they were already ready to make repairs to the damaged docks; the Konti marveled at the resolve of these Zeltivans. Thinking of her broken chimney, she approached the workmen.

"Excuse me, but I live near the harbor, and my cottage has sustained some dama--" she began.

One workman snorted rudely. "Yeah, you and everyone else in the city, lady. Our priority is the docks right now. We'll get to everyone's homes when we can, though Laviku knows when that's going to be possible."

Avari opened her mouth to blurt something equally rude in return, but managed to restrain herself. The docks were certainly in far worse shape than her cottage. "Move along, then," she told them, though in truth the workmen had already walked past and hardly needed her to tell them. She called after them, "Do be sure to take all those dead fish away, at least! I've never smelled such a stink in my life."

Their retreating backs offered no response, and she continued along the road further into the city. While the great wave apparently hadn't reached this far, the Konti was astonished and slightly saddened to see the damage that the storm had wrought, especially on the ancient and proudly preserved architecture of the Old Quarter. Crying women and children seemed to be everywhere, as well as injured citizens on stretchers or swathed in bandages being taken to the University infirmary. Again, Avari thanked Laviku in her heart for sparing her the worst of the storm, grateful not to be among those moaning masses. She caught sight of a fair Konti head bending over a patient and shuddered, turning away and hiding her face with one hand.

The Fish Market was empty and many shop doors simply hung open, making Avari wonder whether their wares were free for the taking. As she meandered toward an open storefront, looking this way and that, she was nearly bowled over when a shouting man ran into her. Avari cried out, more from surprise than from hurt, as she fell solidly onto her rump and her hat fell off her head.

"Look where you're going, you fool!" she snapped, trying to catch her breath.

"Oh, yeah? What about you, you blind bumbling..." The man's words trailed off when he turned toward her. Avari squirmed under his gaze as he took in her pale hair and the pearl-grey scales on her forehead. "Hey!" he exclaimed, his voice and expression changing. "You're one of them Konti, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am," she said automatically.

Before she could say more, the man reached imploringly for her hand. "Ah, thank the gods! I've been looking all over the city for someone to help me, and finally I run into you. Lady Konti, I need your help. Please. It's a matter of life and death."

[Avari]

"Everything is a matter of life and death right now," Avari retorted, trying to brush away his hand. "I doubt I can do anything to help you. I'm not that kind of Konti."

Despite her efforts, the man latched convulsively onto her hand, his fingernails digging into the back of her hand through the thin canvas of her gloves. Plainly, he hadn't heard a word of her rebuff. In vain, she tried to tug her hand free, but his grip was so tight and vise-like that she might as well have tried to sprout wings and fly away. Desperation and wild hope had replaced the momentary annoyance in his eyes as he gazed down at her like a drowning man at a lifeline thrown out to sea.

"Please," the man babbled, "you've got to help me. I've asked everywhere if anyone could help me, but everyone's been so occupied with the damage and the wounded from the storm that no one will even look my way. I've got nowhere left to turn. I know you white women have special powers, and I thought, surely, you could do something. Please!"

"I told you, I'm not that kind of Kon-" Avari grated out.

"It's my little brother," the man blurted out, the words seemingly spilling out of their own volition. "He's been sick all his life. He's the smartest, cleverest person you could ever meet, but he's not even strong enough to leave the house and without his medicines, he would've died long ago. I've watched over him and taken care of him all my life, and if I could die for him, if that would help him in some way, I would."

As though his knees had turned to water, the man sat down abruptly in the middle of the street, utterly ignoring the people who swerved around them. "But I can't," he groaned despairingly. "I can't help him. The philterer's shop where his medicine came from is in pieces, and the philterer who ran it died in the storm. All I wanted to do was protect my little brother. All I wanted was to stand beside him in life and be with him."

Avari could hear the note of sincerity and passion in his voice. Unbidden, his words stirred something in her, and she found herself imagining this man standing patiently at his invalid brother's bedside. Only, in her imagination, the man looked toward her, and the color of his eyes was not their usual dark brown, but her cousin K'Sondra's steel-blue.

To her own surprise, she spoke up in a soft, distant voice. "Let me take off my gloves and give me your hand, please."

Perhaps because the change in her tone had surprised him, the man obeyed without a word. When he let go of her, Avari slipped off her worn, somewhat grubby gloves, rubbed her webbed fingers together, and reached for the man's outstretched hand with the same fearful caution as though she were about to take hold of a burning brand. Focusing her gaze upon his calloused and sun-browned palm, the Konti let the very tip of her bare finger brush the tip of his.

In a flare of inner brightness, she saw an emaciated boy's face like a younger version of the man's own, tired and smiling tenderly. In his lap, he held an open book whose pages were covered with diagrams so complex that Avari couldn't even begin to guess what they meant. In her heart, as ill-fitting as trying on someone else's shoes, she felt the man's emotions for this afflicted boy in faint but needle-sharp stabs: affection, admiration, pity, and an intense, consuming protectiveness. She wanted to wrap the boy in a warm blanket, to give him the best things in life, and to give him his medicine so he could get better.

With a gasp, the Konti let go of the man's hand and sank back, almost colliding with someone's foot. At once, the man reflexively tried to pull her up, and Avari had to hold her breath lest the vision come back. Her gift was unpredictable and presented visions on physical, skin-to-skin contact most of the time, but not always. This time, mercifully, his touch gave her nothing but the texture of rough skin. She let herself be pulled to her feet.

"Don't touch me again," she told him harshly.

"Sorry, sorry." The man dropped his hand from her arm. For a moment, he was silent, but his gaze swept upward to meet hers. "I...don't rightly know what happened just now. But I've got to ask. Will you help me?"

Avalis help me, what am I doing here? Avari thought. Yet, she had been a child once and had had an older sibling -- or something close enough as to make no matter -- who protected and watched out for her. I never said thank you to her either. I never did. Would this be enough? Would anything be enough?

"I'll do it," she burst out. Her words came out louder than she'd intended, and a few heads turned her way briefly.

The man cried out joyfully and instinctively reached to grasp her hands, before remembering at the last moment. He bowed his head instead, his shoulders shaking with release. "Oh, thank you, thank you, my lady! I can't thank you enough! I knew you would agree to help!"

"I'm not like the other Konti," she broke in. "I can't heal him. I don't have that kind of power. But," she pressed on, as his face fell, "I can get his medicine for him, if you tell me about it and if you can pay."

His relief was palpable. "I can pay, oh yes, my lady! Our parents died many years ago and left us all their money and jewelry. It's not very much, but it should be enough. I can pay."

"All right," Avari said, raising a hand to stop him. "I'll do it. Tell me about the medicine he needs. What is it called, what goes into it, and where was the philterer's shop where you used to get it?"

[Avari]

A few moments later, Avari was bidding the desperate older brother goodbye and promising to visit him at his home in the city when she had made some progress toward obtaining his brother's medicine. The more questions she had asked about the philterer's shop, the more she could see the man realizing and understanding that she was indeed not like the "other Konti." No Konti healer would ever need to know about a shop's layout or exits, let alone what sort of locks guarded the shop entrances and whether its windows were barred. Whatever qualms might have flickered through the man's mind, though, his love for his ailing younger brother must have quelled them, for he gave Avari her answers without quibbling.

Now, Avari walked casually along the half-crumbled street where the philterer's shop had stood before the storm, with her hat shoved low on her head and her nondescript grey cloak billowing loosely around her body. Most of her attention was focused on investigating the collapsed remains of the philterer's shop and its surroundings, though part of her mind couldn't help questioning what she was doing here in the first place. She was Avari Kore, selfish and self-interested to a fault! Perhaps even the most selfish Konti that'd ever lived. What was she doing here, risking life and limb to help someone else?

There was something in this for her, she reminded herself. The brother had agreed to her price for obtaining his brother's medicine without blinking and even paid half the amount up front. The jingle in mizas in her breech pocket reconciled Avari to reconnoitering the deserted shop.

The street was relatively busy, with citizens milling about trying to repair their property or themselves. Avari looked at their tired, weary faces and tried her best to match her expression to theirs, letting her eyelids droop with weariness and keeping her movements slow and heavy. Glancing furtively from left to right, she hoped that everyone was too preoccupied with their personal aftermaths to the cataclysm to give her any trouble. Trying to seem casual, she drifted closer and closer to the philterer's deserted, deteriorating shop. The roof on top was askew, giving the impression that it only needed a light drizzle to fall inward, and the front door was closed but hanging by one hinge, courtesy of the storm. When Avari pushed at it, the door nearly fell off the hinge. Quickly, she slipped into the darkness of the shop and pulled the door, such as it was, as close to shut as it could manage.

The smell of the abandoned shop made Avari wrinkle her nose in distaste. Pungent chemicals and elixirs competed with fragrant, sharp-smelling herbs for olfactory dominance, and in the still, close air of the shop, it was clear that some of those herbs had gone bad since the storm and the philterer's death. She fumbled in the dark until she found and lit a lamp, striking a spark on her pocket flint and tinder. As the lamp flared to life on the store counter, Avari was able to surmise almost immediately that nothing was missing. Indeed, nothing seemed to have been moved or touched since the philterer had last left the shop on the last day of winter.

And no wonder, she thought, cupping one hand to her nose to block off the powerful herbal aromas. A cloud of dust arose seemingly at her slightest gestures, and the floorboards creaked audibly under her feet, much to her chagrin. Curiously, she investigated the shelves of boxed herbs, medicines, and liquid solutions, wondering if fulfilling the older brother's "commission" would be easy as swiping some boxes off a dead man's store shelves.

"Izanhydribide, izanhydribide," she whispered to herself, reciting the long and complicated name of the medicine that the older brother had given her. The name came from the combination of herbs and other substances mixed into the medicine, but that didn't help make it easier to remember or pronounce.

Moving along the shelves of Medicines and Healing Supplements, Avari's eyes brightened when she saw a number of corked vials in the row marked "Izanhydribride." Her smile quickly fell, however, when she saw how few vials remained on the shelf, only three in a container with twenty slots. She didn't know how long the younger brother would live on only two vials of medicine, but she was willing to bet that it wouldn't be very long. Probably not long enough for Avari to collect on that generous fee that his older brother had promised her. Even as she swiftly picked up the vials and carefully tucked them into a small pocket sewn into her cloak, making sure that they would neither rattle nor fall out and shatter, the Konti knew she had to do better than this.

Pushing aside the swinging door that separated the shop from the backroom, Avari pinched her nose even tighter and crept deeper into the shadows of the philterer's shop. In some ways, she mused, this job was much easier because the philterer who originally managed this shop was dead. No one was here or was likely to enter and catch her sneaking around the storeroom where the merchandise and profits were kept. On the other hand, no one was here, which meant no one could guide her through this dark, pungent-smelling warren of shelves, cabinets, and cupboards and help her find the medicine that her "client" had requested.

In fact, there were so many shelves, cabinets, cupboards and drawers confronting the confused, hapless Konti that she simply had to stop and stare once she opened the back room door. It didn't help that the ceiling had caved in slightly, many of the shelves had collapsed, and a cabinet had actually fallen onto its side, knocking several jars loose and sending messes of scattered herbs and medicines sliding across the floor. Even if it had been perfectly organized, Avari knew that her complete ignorance of medicine and herbalism would have doomed her. But now? Now she could probably spend her entire life in this nasty-smelling, disorderly storeroom looking for a clue on what might possibly help cure a sick young man of a disease she didn't even recognize and had never heard of before.

Avalis help me, she started to think, instinctively, the words What am I going to do already half-formed in her mind. But then she stopped herself in the middle of the thought and repeated the first part to herself. Avalis...help me. Yes! Avalis could help me. Avalis is the only one who can help me.

Merciful mother, she continued to think, kneeling on the storeroom floor and clearing a small space amid the dust and spilled dried herbs, please help me. Please guide my way.

With that simple prayer resounding inside her mind, Avari took out her precious set of whalebone dice from Mura from deep inside her breech pocket. Even in the dim light from the lamp in the other room, the small cubes gleamed softly, showing how lovingly they had been cared for and polished by their owner. She cradled them in her hand, letting the dice take on her warmth, and asked the question she most needed answered in a quiet whisper.

"Can I find more medicine for the ailing younger brother in this disaster of a storeroom?" she asked aloud.

At the same time that she asked, Avari let her dice fall from her hands and watched as they rolled across the small cleared space on the floor, landing as they might. They seemed to take a long time to come to a rest, and she found herself catching her breath just a little. She hoped fervently that the answer they gave would be a positive and promising "Yes," or else her venture was well and truly doomed.

[Avari]

The dice rolled and clattered across the grimy floor, some bumping against the clutter and flotsam that littered the floor thanks to the tumult of the great storm. As Avari watched avidly, the six dice came up two, four, two, four, and two and four in quick succession. Squatting low on the floor, she squinted at the results of her throw and tried to interpret exactly what the numbers meant. Past experimentation with her dice reminded her that, when so many numbers matched each other, it meant the answer was "Yes," while irregular patterns typically meant "No." The fact that the numbers came up in alternating order made Avari wonder if the dice were saying something more like, "Yes...perhaps" or "Yes, sort of."

She cast a few doubtful glances about the shadow-ridden, dusty storeroom. According to her dice, there probably was medicine in here, but somehow its existence was questionable rather than absolute. Avari scratched her head and made a face at her dice, even though it was hardly their fault that they yielded such an unclear set of numbers.

Sometimes, I wish my aptitude was with something simpler, like runestones, she thought ruefully, considering they only have two sides, not six. Oh well, I suppose it could be worse. I could have only been able to use a scrying mirror that shows me exactly what I don't want to see, or I might have to cart around some cumbersome crystal ball that everyone would want to steal and sell off.

Somewhat cheered by these thoughts, she gathered up her dice and held them in her palm, wondering how to interpret the results they had given. Avari had been an indifferent student of fortune-telling at best, and she was never sure whether to trust her readings. Still, she refused to believe that her dice would give such a useless answer to a direct question. "The medicine might be in this room" or "It might not be in this room"? That couldn't possibly be what they meant.

A sudden moment of clarity lifted her thoughts as she thought of the vials of medicine she had scooped off the shelves in the store. Surely, all the medicine the philterer had concocted would be on sale in the front, especially if supply was so high. Thus, perhaps her dice were saying that the medicine could be in this storeroom because this is where the philterer mixed the herbs and ingredients into medicine. The potential was here, though not necessarily the reality.

This time, as she threw the dice, she asked, "Are the ingredients for the sick brother's medicine in this room?"

The dice came up with six sixes.

Elated with her success, Avari swept up her dice again and cupped them lovingly in her hand, reaching for the presence of her goddess-Mother in her heart. Rarely had she ever been fortunate enough to experience these precious, fleeting moments of clarity. Quickly, before it faded away, she thought about how to frame her next question. Her dice were best for answering yes-and-no questions, but they did not have to be restricted to only those questions.

Closing her eyes, she envisioned in the darkness behind her eyelids the layout of the store, from the floor and low shelves on the bottom to the cupboards and cabinets at the top. As the dice took on her warmth, Avari mentally labeled the floor and shelves "low" and the cupboards "high" and connected them to the high and low numbers on her dice. Then, running her thumb over her dice, she asked aloud, "Where are the ingredients stored?" and tossed her dice across the floor.

The first four dice came up fives and sixes, the fifth a four. The last, surprisingly, yielded a one.

"What?" Avari exclaimed aloud, feeling confusion again as the moment of clarity faded.

Thinking again of her mental picture of the storeroom, she decided that most of the ingredients must be in the high cupboards, though somehow something must be either missing or located on the floor or a low shelf. The Konti grimaced as she looked at how high some of the drawers were positioned. Telling herself that surely the older brother's promised reward must be worth it, she rose on her tiptoes and extended her arm as high as it could go, until her hand brushed the handle of the cupboard door and pulled it open.

Inside were half a dozen jars and flasks of liquids and dried herbs. Not knowing which belonged to the medicine she needed, Avari gingerly collected them all, doing her very best not to drop anything. She started to wonder if this was such a good idea, after all. In short order, she opened another cabinet and another and was relieved to find that most of them were empty or contained nothing that looked like medicinal ingredients. The floor at her feet was already littered with sealed jars, some of them cracked but otherwise intact. In the gloom of the storeroom, she looked from one jar to the next, wondering how she could possibly tell which jar held what and whether they had anything to do with the medicine she had been tasked to obtain.

There was still that one die with the one, though. Frowning in distaste, Avari lowered herself onto all fours and began exploring the low shelves along the walls. To her mild surprise, the shelves held not jars or flasks, but thick books bound in peeling leather or rough cloth. She ran her hands over the cracked spines curiously and felt her hand "sticking" to one book, either because molasses or honey had been spilled across the covers recently or perhaps hopefully because the goddess Avalis was guiding her hand toward it.

Avari pulled out the book and stood up, holding it to the light that seeped in through the cracks in the walls as best she could. Leaning forward and all but pressing her nose against the dusty cover, she read the first words. "Gu de to Mixin C mplex Remed es for Illness, Pa t 3,"read the worn letters.

Mixing complex remedies? A recipe book for medicines, that was what this was! Excited again, Avari flipped hurriedly to the index and laboriously ran her eyes down the tiny listing until she found the long and complicated word "Izanhydribride." It took her some time, as the word was spelled very differently from the way she had imagined from the pronunciation. She then flicked through pages rapidly until she arrived at the page listed for the medicine.

Leaning back against the wall, Avari began to read the elaborate process described in the book about the making of Izanhydribride and what ingredients went into it.

[Avari]

As might have been expected, Avari's eyes had already glazed over by the time she reached the second paragraph of the instructions on mixing and brewing the medicine that the older brother had requested. The procedure started off sounding straightforward enough, but quickly devolved into arcane, enigmatic references to herbs and other substances with unpronounceable names, illustrations of dizzily spiraling glassware, and ominous-sounding warnings about side effects, allergic reactions, and common mishaps. Fully aware that she'd come here as a thief, not a philterer, Avari ran her finger over to the page listing the ingredients and sidled over to a shelf laden with racks of neatly labeled vials of dried herbs, brightly-colored liquids, and soft powders.

A noise from outside made the Konti glance quickly toward the door to the storeroom. When nothing happened, though, she turned back to comparing the names on the vial racks to the ingredients in the recipe book. Whenever she spotted a name that matched, Avari plucked the vial up from the rack and slipped it into a pocket of her cloak. Avalis only knew what could be made from things like pennyroyal, bloodroot, mint, and powdered zinc, but the book said it would make izanhydribride, and Avari trusted the book.

Just as she started running out of pockets, Avari arrived at the end of the ingredients list. She grinned to herself. The brother was sure to pay well for all this, if the vials of actual medicine didn't suffice. As an afterthought, she took the book as well, stuffing the cumbersome thing down the front of her tunic. She winced as it weighed down the waist of her breeches and banged against her stomach, but she hoped the final payment would make up for the bruises.

Fastening her cloak tightly around her shoulders and walking very slowly to avoid jingling noises or, the gods forbid, breaking the glass vials, Avari carefully turned around and maneuvered her way out of the storeroom. To her intense relief, the front of the store looked as musty and empty as it had been when she first arrived. No one seemed to have come investigating the lamp burning on the counter or raised an alarm about anyone sneaking inside. Avari was just about to turn the corner and scurry toward the door, when the Konti's eye fell upon a sturdy-looking lockbox under the counter.

Like a bee to a flower, Avari found herself irresistibly drawn to the metal box beneath the counter. The philterer who had owned this shop was dead; surely no one would mind if she delved a little into his finances. She fumbled through her jam-packed cloak pockets for her roll of lock-picks, while her eyes squinted through the lamplit gloom in an effort to study the lock.

By touch, the Konti found the smallest, finest lock-pick she possessed, as well as an equally delicate little tension wrench. As she had done a hundred times or more, Avari slid the tension wrench into the lock and the small pick on top, where she attempted to feel out the pins and tumblers. If she'd had more time and less baggage to carry, Avari would probably have tried picking the lock in the traditional way: poking and prodding at the pins and lifting them one by one while applying torque to the plug of the lock until the pins fell into place above the plug. Now, though, she didn't want to linger in this pungent-smelling philterer's shop any longer than she needed to, especially not while loaded down with stolen medicine and ingredients.

Instead, she rapidly pulled the pick out past all the pins in the lock, hoping to bounce the pins while she applied constant force on the tension wrench. She repeated the process over and over again, listening with all her might to hear the pins springing up and landing on the plug of the lock. This was how Avari had first learned to pick a lock, by "raking" the pins instead of picking them individually. It was crude but required less skill and time, and it generally worked just as well as the traditional way on simpler locks. The only real trick to it was skillfully applying constant torque with the tension wrench.

Keeping her wrist steady, Avari continued raking the pins, sliding the slender pick in and out of the lock to keep the pins bouncing. At last, she heard the tiny, almost inaudible clicks that meant the pins had fallen atop the plug. She turned the tension wrench, and the lock sprang open.

Eagerly, Avari rifled open the lockbox and grabbed at the handful of mizas inside. With one hand, she gently slotted the roll of lock-picks back into its particular pocket. Her other hand hurriedly shoveled the mizas into whatever crevices of empty space she could find in her pockets. For once, she was grateful that there wasn't much money to be had, or else she'd be overflowing with vials and mizas.

Taking laboriously slow steps, she meandered through the rows of shelves back to the front door, still hanging precariously by its single hinge. Her eyes watered as Avari stepped back in the sunlight, having grown accustomed to the shadowy gloom of the philterer's shop. She pulled her hat low on her head and chose a path that took her near the buildings along the street, doing her best to avoid walking into or getted bumped by something else. For someone used to sidling close to strangers in a crowd so that she could pick their pockets, this simple-seeming feat proved quite a challenge.

After a few minutes slogging down the street, Avari took a breather beside the fallen awning of a once-proud high-end hat shop. The older brother had agreed to meet her near the center of town, beside the Laviku Monument or whatever remained of it after the storm. She took a tentative step in the direction of the Monument, and nearly every pocket jingled with the sound of glass and mizas.

This was going to be a long, long walk.

[Avari]

Normally, the walk from the street with the philterer's ruined shop to the Laviku Monument took about twenty minutes at most. Laden with pockets full of medicinal vials, a ponderous book shoved down her tunic, and a handful of mizas from the philterer's lockbox, though, Avari made the journey in an hour or more. She spent most of the additional time trying not to jingle as she walked, brush up against anyone, or bump into any obstructions. In addition, the Konti couldn't help pausing every few minutes to fiddle through her pockets to check that everything was intact, slowing her progress even further.

Along the way, she saw a number of citizens trying intrepidly or desultorily to rebuild, while others were helping the rebuilders or the wounded. It gave Avari a shock to realize that she was one of them. She too was, of all things, helping someone else.

Of course, she was doing it for personal gain, considering the older brother had promised to pay her. That made her feel a little better. Still, the last time that Avari could remember helping someone out on honest pretexts, it had been…

Why, it had been her older cousin, who had been like a big sister to her.

The memory of how the older brother had reminded her of her cousin steadied Avari and made her steps come a little quicker toward the city's center. Running her hands down the front of her cloak, she finally arrived at the Laviku Monument. Miraculously, the heroic sculpture of the sea god didn't seem to have sustained any damage as far as Avari could see. Lowering her eyes, she scanned the milling people at the sculpture's base, looking for the older brother who collided with her just this morning.

"Konti! Konti!" The very man she was searching for came running toward her, causing a few curious passerby to glance their way. He at least had the presence of mind to lower his voice when he reached her. "Did you get…the medicine?"

"Yes," she answered equally quietly.

"Oh, praise the gods! Praise…praise Avalis, your patron lady!" the man burst out, sounding relieved and jubilant. He made to reach for Avari's hand, but the Konti flinched and pulled back.

"Not here," she hissed. "Somewhere more private. Do you have the money?"

"Yes! Yes, of course," the older brother replied, calming down a trifle. He motioned for her to follow him. "Come with me. I'll take you to my brother."

Startled, but not about to voice any objections, Avari trailed after the man as he led her into the middle-class portion of the city. He stopped at a lean grey house with clean-scrubbed front steps and opened the door. The Konti couldn't help noting that the lock looked old but well-maintained, probably not too difficult to pick if given enough time,but when she entered, she decided that it likely wasn't worth the trouble. In the common area, the brother bent over a stained old desk in the corner and took out a small cloth bag. He tossed it on the table between them, and Avari couldn't help smiling to hear the clinking of mizas inside.

Feeling the man's gaze on her, Avari looked up into his expectant eyes and hastily slipped her hand into one of her cloak pockets. With a flourish, she produced a vial and placed it on the table betwee them. The man leaned forward eagerly to examine it, and his brow furrowed in confusion.

"I…thought I asked you to get that…that medicine…Izanide," he stammered, lifting the small glass vial. "Why'd you come back with a li'l tube full of…of…" He squinted at the faded label on the side. "Zinc?"

Avari's hands flew to her mouth. "Scry me for a fool, that isn't what I meant to show you. I got pockets all full of swa- no, I mean plun- that is, I mean, medicine from the philterer's shop. Here, this" and she reached into the correct cloak side pocket for the younger brother's medicine, "is what you hired me to find."

She placed the vials of Izanhydribride on the table, and the older brother grabbed one more cautiously. A slow smile spread across his broad features as he recognized the label on the vial. Then he looked at how few vials there were and immediately held out his hand, shaking his head sternly.

"This ain't enough, not for what I paid you," he barked. "Give me back half of what I gave you, Konti, or else I'll…"

"Wait!" Avari interrupted hastily. "Wait. That isn't all I got. Look here."

She took out the other vials she'd stored in her breeches and cloak pockets, breathing little sighs of relief to see the glass was all intact and nothing seemed to be missing, and arranged them neatly atop the table. The man followed her gestures hungrily. For the final display, she pulled the thick book of philtering instructions out from under her tunic, careful to avoid smacking her chin with it, and dropped the heavy tome onto the table with a loud thud.

"There!" she said proudly. "Not just the medicine, but the means to make more, a lot more, for your brother. See, this," she tapped the book with a gloved forefinger, "is a recipe book for making all kinds of medicines, your brother's included. The instructions don't look too difficult: just some mixing, some mashing, and boiling. But even if they were, I suspect that a motivated man like you would find a way to make them work anyway."

Avari waved her hand at the vials and tubes arrayed on the table. "Here, these are the ingredients you need to make the medicine. I grabbed all of it that I could find in the philterer's shop. Now you have the means to make a lot more of that medicine your brother needs, enough for him to stay alive a very long time. Perhaps not forever, but Zeltiva will recover long before then. Another philterer will come and set up shop in the city, and you'll know what you need to order from him. Your brother won't be dying for a long while." She smiled at the man across the table. "Not while you're here to take care of him."

For several moments after her long speech, the older brother simply stared at her with his mouth gaping open. Then, all of a sudden, he leaped in the air and bellowed for joy. The roar he gave and the impact of his landing made the floors tremble beneath Avari. He might even have come around the table to give her a joyous bear-hug, but the Konti stepped back hurriedly before he could.

"Konti," he breathed, "you're a godsend! A godsend! I don't know what..." He looked down at the vials on the table as though searching for words, before finally saying, "What things you did to get all this, but you earned every miza that I gave you from what my dear mother left us. Now I can make him medicine myself, and he'll live! He'll be all right! I don't know how to thank you, Konti lady..."

"See to your brother," Avari told him, surprising even herself with the intensity of the emotion in her voice. Tears prickled in her eyes. "Take good care of him, help him when he needs you, and cherish your time with him."

"I will," the man vowed solemnly, bowing his head. "I swear, I will."

With nothing more to be said between them, Avari wordlessly reached for the small bag of mizas on the table between them. At the same time, the older brother picked up a vial of a medicine. Before she could stop it, their hands brushed against each other, and his knuckles briefly touched the bare skin at the base of her glove.

Once more, Avari gasped as she found herself engulfed in a dizzying wave of visions. She saw the same emaciated boy sitting in bed, reading his book and smiling sweetly when the door to his room opened. She felt again the exact same emotions that she had before, the love and protectiveness this brother felt for his younger, afflicted sibling. Nothing had changed in the vision. Truly, the older brother wanted only the same thing ever in his life and nothing more: to care for his younger brother and keep him alive and happy.

There's no more profit to be made here, she thought, withdrawing her hand.

She looked at the man opening the door to another room and heard his voice change into gentle, tender tones as he spoke to someone else, presumably the younger brother. A wave of wistfulness overcame her for an instant. For an instant, she couldn't help seeing her older cousin K'Sondra opening the door to her room, as she had done a thousand times, and speaking to her in that same tone, just as rough and just as affectionate.

Had it been worth it to help someone else just this once, for the sake of someone she hadn't seen in almost a decade? As Avari turned to leave the old grey house, fastening her cloak tightly around her shoulders again, she thought with all her melancholy yet contented heart, Yes.

[Echelon]

Adventurer's Loot A Gift Experience is it's own reward. Avari's Loot : Avari Kore Skill XP Reward Larceny +3XP Fortune-telling +3XP Investigation +2XP Acrobatics +2XP Bodybuilding +1XP Rhetoric +1XP Interrogate +1XP Negotiation +1XP Sociology +1XP Observation +1XP Organization +1XP Philtering +1XP Lore: Djed Storm of 512 Pleading The Gods True Fear Inefficient Preparations Visual: City In Ruin Phrase: "I'm Not That Kind of Konti" Requests of The Ignorant Touching Request Goodness Within Brother's Love Relying on Avalis Look On The Bright Side Fortune-telling: Know What You Want Fortune-telling: Phrase It Right Lock-picking: Time or Luck? Deeply Proud Motivation of Memories Items or Consequences: Small cuts on the knees and hands from brazen glass. Will heal in a week. +15 Mizas from the lockbox +35 Mizas from the job. Need to fix cottage to make it comfortably liveable, or commission artisans to do so for 150 Mizas Notes: Love grading for thieves because their skills are all over the place. If I missed anything please let me know. I especially enjoyed reading about the fortune-telling, so she got a little bonus in that. I decided to pay you for the job instead of making you wait for seasonal wages because I want to encourage you to do more threads. Keep being creative and I'll keep paying you. ^^ (This was a fun story with a great moral insight into Avari. This is the kind of thread I love to see, not only does it show you Zeltiva in it's time of need but also lets you see Avari from the outside, AND the inside. Keep it up.) - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, please PM me.