In which Matthaus hears his fortune,which may or may not be useful to him.
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Center of scholarly knowledge and shipwrighting, Zeltiva is a port city unlike any other in Mizahar. [Lore]
Empty gray eyes stared unblinking at the boy from deep within the large burgundy colored hood that covered his head, obscuring most of his face in shadow. His silk robe was also burgundy and flowed gracefully around his feet when he walked. The light blue silk sash around his waist was more for decoration than utility. Anselm kept himself covered as much as possible when out in public so as to avoid shocking people with his appearance. His current body had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer practical to try to disguise it. A touch of peach-scented perfume obscured some of the smell of death that hung about him, but even that was becoming increasingly difficult to cover. He would have to obtain another body soon. But that was a problem for another day. This child was the problem for today. Anselm didn't often get children as customers. His general demeanor and hideous voice tended to scare them off. Not so this boy, who exuded confidence.
Anselm did a cursory visual inventory. The boy looked to be ten or twelve years old. He had a slightly jaundiced look about him, as though he was or had recently been ill. An odd, disjointed walk. Arms hanging disproportionately long for the rest of his body. But the thing that really stood out were the eyes. The were distinctly purple and seemed too big. Anselm guessed he had some Symenestra blood in him, but he couldn't be sure. When the old Nuit spoke it was in a deep, slow voice that sounded like he was trying to talk and gargle gravel at the same time. It had been known to frighten children. And some adults.
“Yes,” he growled. “You may ask anything. Of course that doesn't mean you'll get an answer. I do not know everything there is to know, so don't ask me for the winning number in the Zeltiva lottery. Nor can I predict the future. That is better left to the gods, if they are indeed such. Nor can I tell you who you should marry or whether you should travel to this city or to that city.” His hand went to his face and picked at something. “What I can do is speak an ancient oracle that will reveal to you something about yourself, if you are able to hear it.”
He paused for a moment. “What is your question?”
Last edited by Anselm on September 9th, 2012, 6:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He would be the perfect customer. Glean some information stealth-like on how this man played his tricks, however his hopes dimmed a bit when the man spoke of what he could do. But the scrunch of his nose was not only from the lack of the man’s real ‘fortune’ but the sickening stench of perfume and only the Gods knew what else. Pulling his own hood off completely he sat upright in the chair and stared at the other for a few moments, choosing his words carefully, “People pay you to tell them about themselves?”
Matthaus hadn’t meant for that to come out so nasal or condescending but his fingers interlocked and his lips pressed into a thinner line. He wouldn’t take it back either. Still he was a bit curious…but it would be better to conduct his business and be gone, especially since the man would have nothing for him. Or should he stay and get a few tricks of the trade. After all if this was all he was doing it was even better. An entire miza on learning yourself!
“Well, how do you do it then?” Matthaus waved his hand airily before letting it fall to the table loudly. Then he bit his tongue to keep childish words, taunts and other unsavory thoughts to himself. Leaning back away to get away from the smell. It reminded him too much women who thought he was ‘adorable’ and insisted on prodding him in the most unpleasant manners. He wondered if the man used auras to tell, that would be a disappointment. It was only after these musings that he realized he had not asked a question, “My question is simple, what will I be like in the future. A week from now or a chime from now doesn’t matter. Tell me something about myself I don’t know.”
He words chocked off a bit and he made no more hidings of his gaze, peering underneath the man’s hood but having enough sense left not to ask him outright what ailed him. He didn’t want to get kicked out before he learnt this trick.
The old Nuit ignored the child's flow-of-consciousness questions and focused on the last one. When he spoke it was again in a slow and raspy voice.
“That is not a simple question at all,”he countered.“The future is a vast intertwining of infinite possible threads, some highly likely, others not so likely. Pull on one thread and you change the probabilities for all the other threads, making some that were likely unlikely, and others that were unlikely likely. It is a great kaleidoscope of constantly shifting probabilities. So many possibilities, so many variations, so many choices.”He fell silent for what probably seemed like a long time to the boy.
“But there is one thing that remains constant,”he continued.“That one thing is you. Your essence. The real person you were born to be. The unfolding future does not change that. It merely provides you with opportunities to see yourself more clearly and to make choices that will bring out one aspect of yourself or another.”
He reached into one of the pockets of his robe and pulled out a small cloth bag tied with a thin leather cord. He carefully untied it and poured the contents into his right hand. He held his hand out so that the boy could see what he had. What he had were eighteen tiny carved bones with complex designed etched into them.“Let us see what we shall see, shall we?”He turned his hand over so that the bones fell to the table with a clatter. Were the boy observant enough he might have noticed that Anselm gave his hand a slight twist as he turned it over, causing the bones to fall into a more-or-less rectangular shape comprised of six rows of three bones each. He studied them for a few moments, translating the elements in his head.Solid, broken, solid: Fire. Solid, solid, broken: Wind. Fire above, wind below.
He searched through is memory to find the oracle that corresponded to this particular pattern. Then he reached out with his left hand and placed two fingers lightly on the back of the boy's right hand. Anselm always wore thin cotton gloves to spare his customer's the touch of cold, dead flesh. He intoned the words of an ancient oracle:
Fire above, luminous. Wind below, penetrating. Producing illumination by following an initiatory process, The mind becomes daily more humble, while illumination increases daily. Therefore it is called The Cauldron.
Anselm withdrew his hand from the boy's. There had been a small disturbance in the boy's emotional aura when he spoke the words “following an initiatory process.” The inner self often knew more than the outer self, and the emotional aura often revealed things that the person himself was not consciously aware of. He thought it unlikely the child would be able to grasp the significance of the oracle, but he offered an interpretation anyway.
“The cauldron is a vessel for refining by heat, whereby something new is obtained,”he explained.“You cannot avoid the cauldron. But what new thing will you obtain from it? That depends entirely on what you do when you find yourself in the cauldron.”
OOC :
The 'oracle' comes from the I Ching or Book of Changes, an ancient Taoist text. See bibliography. I use a random number generator to come up with an 'oracle' for each fortune Anselm does.
Matthaus only smirked a bit, “It is simple then, basically you tell me something about myself and I decide whether its right or not. Seems more like piety to a God than anything else. We believe what we want.” The boy recoiled when the old man reached out to touch his hand but then held it stiff as there didn’t seem to be a weapon before he moved his own hand to touch one of the pieces, “What are these made with? Where did you get them? Can you make them yourself?”
But he didn’t really wait for an explanation, assuming the fortune teller would simply keep up. He didn’t doubt he had received similar questions before.
“I take no great meaning from that but I will assume it eludes to change being inevitable and what I choose to do with it is my choice. Obviously.”
It wasn’t sarcasm or true rudeness he simply wanted to make sure the old man gave him everything he needed to know or could possibly tell him. But it was important to see how he broke down the words and what he inferred from them. Personally he found it a bunch of lies but whatever the old man chose to believe was his choice. What he really wanted with this venture was knowledge on how to work this trade and use it as his own though he doubted his would be as helpful as this mans. If his was helpful at all.
Pulling out another coin he set it on the table with what he hoped was a pleasant look. The words the pieces gave him could be anything but it was the meaning in relation to the person. His auristics could come in handy there. He would tell them what they wanted to hear and get something out of the people as well.
“May I ask another question? If you have time that is.”
It is as I feared,the fortune-teller thought.The boy's flippant attitude irritated him and he suddenly felt old and tired.So sure of himself, so certain that he knows everything that is worth knowing when if fact he has not lived long enough to know the difference between a diamond and a piece of coal.Master Ahn always said that his job was to reveal, not judge. But there was not enough here to reveal anything. The boy needed to come back in ten years or so.
“It would appear that I have been pouring water into a jug with a hole in the bottom,”he said.“A futile and wasteful exercise. Keep your gold. I have nothing more to offer you.”
Matthaus frowned, he didn’t enjoy be brushed off and made no move to stand. Rather he took his coin back and stared at the old man silently for a few moments before speaking, his voice being carefully kept flat. “If you don’t answer questions how could you expect the jug to retain water? You cannot fill something with nothing. Or have I offended you by implying I believe you are lying to me and given me nothing I could not discover on my own with ‘time’. What new thing can I expect from a cauldron or do you assume that as a child I do not understand what is said.”
“I may not entirely understand your words but the meaning is there and I do not care to look deeper. I am interested in your trade not your advice,” his hands curled around the edge of the table and gripped it tighter as his speech became heated, “Or are you simply so full of ‘wisdom’ that it is within your right to judge what I do and do not know?!”
He bit back the rest of the words, an angry torrent that was meant to spill secrets. It was childish to treat the man so, if he did not wish to help Matthaus in his questions he could find another. He pursed his lips. Curiosity was not a crime even if its use of the knowledge in the future would be. Pushing back his chair he gave a low dip of his head.
“It seems I have lost my temper. My apologies. I will come back another day.”
The child in him said not to come back, to spit out horrible things about rip the man’s hood off to find out what decrepit being could spew whatever he did. But instead he went his usual route, lies. “Or you could simply answer my final question and never have to be bothered with the broken jug again.”
He would simply have to come in disguise over and over until he learned the man’s trade.
Lores Matthaus the Irritating child Matthaus' Oracle: The Cauldron
Miscellaneous Ledger: +1gm
Matthaus :
Experience Points +1 Interrogation
Lores Anselm the Irritating Fortune-teller Matthaus' Oracle: The Cauldron
Miscellaneous Ledger: -1gm
In Conclusion That was... an abrupt ending. I'd have preferred to see more of Anselm's explanation and application of the oracle to Matthaus (which is the true essence of Anselm's brand of fortunetelling here), but I suppose he might be irritated enough to not do so
by Anselm on September 4th, 2012, 3:43 pm 
