My Words | Your Words | My Thoughts
74th of Summer, 512AV.
He'd heard words around Safehaven. He was only supposed to be staying for one night or two while waiting for the next trailer to move out so that he could catch his next ride; that didn't mean that, during the few days he still had around the odd city, he couldn't have a little bit of fun and try out some local attractions. One that repeatedly kept cropping up was something called the Knocker. Since it was rather easy to simply stand around and remain completely unnoticed by the larger humans that wandered in and out, eavesdropping was effortless. "You heard about Matthew? He used that knocker a few nights ago. Poor chap. Woke up with no legs, but, that's the risk you take from that stuff." What could have driven people to using these things if they had such horrible outcomes.. the last thing Arch wanted was to end up losing legs, or worse.
At the same time, surely there was something unique to what could happen if people would risk their lives and their bodies for the chance of getting it. At the very least, it demanded a little bit of an investigation. A few questions to Vysia gave everything that he needed to know. "That knocker does things to people that nobody's ever seen. Some people it hurts, other people it helps. Depends on the person.. whether you're good or bad, it says. It can tell the truth in your deeds." She leaned closer with a critical eye swiping over the pottery squirrel, as though her gaze could see into his very soul. "Do you think that you have what it takes, hmm?"
True to himself, Arch stood tall and met the challenge with a harsh stare of his own, thrown straight back. "I know that I do." At least that got a half-smile in return from her; something he'd never really seen before. Then again, he couldn't tell whether she was happy he was going to try it or whether she knew that he was going to get hurt from it. In the end, as long as he tried, it didn't matter. The burning curiosity was just too much to put down and abandon now. After a few more words and directions, he was off. It didn't even take very long to find exactly what he was looking for. A crowd surrounded the little knocker, joking and pushing one-another forwards to take a gander.
"Ahem, step aside please.. sorry, could you move? Thank you.. yes, sorry." He slowly eased himself between and around the various legs of the crowd and the further he slipped inside, the more people noticed and backed away, until soon the group had grown near-silent and watched patiently for the squirrel to approach the unimpressive little knocker set in the wall. After a few ticks, he could hear small whispers passing around behind his back. Bets of Laat's on whether he would knock or not, accompanied with the rustle of passing hands and coins. It stiffened the small squirrel even more, as he took a step forwards and gripped hard on the knocker.
It wasn't light. He had to strain to bring the thing up until it finally reached a right-angle with the wall. Then, he let go and let it slam back into the wall with a resounding crash. Cheers rang up around him, and for once the squirrel actually felt pretty proud. Until, at least, he listened in a little closer and heard more bets running around - all of them being whether or not he'd still be alive tomorrow. A few in how he'd die. Oh. Perhaps it wasn't such a great idea after all. At least it was done now; no point trying to take it back.
