usir | this is an illegal library

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this is an illegal library

Character(s): Billie & Daud
Status: Closed
Location(s): Abandoned House, City of the Free Peoples
Date(s) Early April
About: Billie has an odd taste in reading material.
Warnings: Discussion of dead things, necromancy probably.

"Red, that isn't food," Billie says quietly, tiredly, as she nudges the dragon away from the cover of one of four books sitting on the table next to her. The hatchling has been puttering around the tabletop, nosing what she's brought home with her, making sure it isn't actually food before sprawling out by her arm and stretching wings out with a curious chirp.

So far, having the damn thing is turning out to be like having a kitten around. That's something she can tolerate, seeing how Red isn't actually a cat at all and, speaking from the perspective of a cat, that causes less stereotypical irritation. Prodding at the dragon isn't what she's up to, though.

What she's actually down here for, at a ridiculously early hour of the morning, is paging through one of the books in particular. The first three are professionally bound and well-cared for but the fourth one, in front of her? Handmade, hand-written, and clearly something worth losing sleep over at this hour.

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"They're omnivores, not bookivores," Billie disagrees absently without looking up. Red, on the other hand, does look, lifting his head up to track Daud's movements curiously. So far, he's been kept away from directly interacting with the tiefling, but that's only proven to make him more curious.

"Dragons can read if they're taught," Daud disagrees mildly, pushing off the floor and to his feet. Dispelling another myth, the tiefling actually does step out of his coat sometimes, meaning he's only wearing simple linens as he rises. If it were elsewhere, he might not, but the house has proven safe, for now. Recent circumstances notwithstanding. As he does every morning, he goes into a series of short, simple stretches to keep himself limber for the day ahead.

"It's a good way to keep children occupied," he adds mildly, mid-stretch.

Another joke, horribly wasted on the Knife of Thalassa, but that he's willing to comment at all is better than a chilly silence.

"Yeah?" Billie will say if only to prove, yes, she's listening. It's pointless to say she knew dragons can read, thanks, so idle conversation it is. "I'll try to pick up a few children's books from the black market the next time I'm robbing it, then."

You know, in case Daud was wondering where she may have been that night. It's been rare so far that she's left Red solely under his watch but last night was definitely one of those nights. For the most part, the hatchling had slept, but with Billie back, is well awake. Seeing how this isn't the first time Red has watched Daud do his stretches, too, it shouldn't be a huge shock when he sits up and tries to mimic the tiefling. It involves a lot more wing stretching than anything else but if this is what people do and Red, being so young, has to assume he, too, is people, then this is normal, right?

There are a lot of inane responses Daud could make to that pronouncement, but he actually takes the time to digest the words, if only because he won't be hurried through his morning routine now that he actually has time to go through it, and because movement takes up breath. He assesses the information he has: Billie was out late last night, stealing from those who were arguably on their side if only by necessity, meaning whatever she was up to was either of more value than she had money to spend or something she didn't care to let people know she was looking into. She visibly hasn't gotten any rest, so whatever it is, it's sufficiently compelling -- or disturbing -- that it hasn't let her sleep.

As he thinks, Daud carries on with his slow, deliberate movements, stoically ignoring he small dragon imitating him, stubby baby limbs and lack of balance and all. It's not much different from younger Wolves who'd surreptitiously imitated his swordplay on the ship.

"Learning more about dragons?" Is what he ultimately comes out with, evenly. It's a safe guess for topics she might be looking into, though he doesn't know what she could be looking for that Strange -- assuming she has, in fact, taken the elf up on his generous offer of dispensing knowledge -- hasn't already told her.

Edited 2019-04-07 00:29 (UTC)

"In a way," Billie answers. She does look up briefly if only to watch what Red is up to for a second or two before she turns in her chair and holds the handwritten book she's been perusing up.

"Daud, I've found the ritual from the pit. At least, I'm pretty sure of it. A dealer in the market had this and Strange's book tucked away in the back."

If Billie was looking for an efficient way to catch Daud's attention. The tiefling immediately straightens in a fluid motion, the corners of his eyes pinching slightly, before he takes the gesture as an invitation to come over and look at the book for himself, reaching out to take it.

"Should I be worried something that elf's written was next to something like this?" Since they're in private and there isn't anyone else to hide his rarely-spotted sense of humor for, well, he can't help but comment dryly, but he's already skimming over the page, turning to the next and back to make sure he's gotten a good sense of the information.

Given everything Billie told him about the pit, he wouldn't be able to sleep either.

"Dangerous stuff to have in a market," he rasps, quietly. "If dragon rituals are this easy to get ahold of, no wonder there are cults running around."

He's right about it being an invitation to take a look at the book himself. Billie lets it go for now, though not without a faintly amused sound in reply to asking about Strange's writings.

"I think it only rated to be next to it based on how dangerously dull it is in comparison," she says, similarly in jest. Though with that book in mind, she'll reach over to pick it up while Daud goes through the handwritten journal. There are rituals like the one she'd mentioned but that's only scratching the surface of what's written there; dragons and necromancy, excerpts about dragon magic, dragon souls, what bits and pieces of dead dragons are capable of, detailed documentation of dragonborn, dragon blood, and how it all ties back to the massive beasts themselves.

Whereas Strange's book? She cracks it open, finding the page she'd left off on. It's mostly about what dragons are known for eating. That actually makes it a lot more useful to her right now, considering the little red dragonet who's trailed off in trying to mimic Daud and settled back down to watch the two.

"Weird that this book is as illegal as that one," is Billie's initial two cents on that before she turns back around to look at him. "Well, at least that one isn't up for grabs anymore, but I have no idea if it's copied down from some other source or someone's own personal research."

"I suppose they wrote it off as soon as they saw the word 'dragons,'" Daud answers, absently, finally stepping over to pull up another rickety chair and sit at the table to properly read. It's not really the sort of thing one would consider a light morning read, all told, but he shakes his head at Billie's comment.

"And I don't suppose whoever wrote this conveniently left a name or cited sources," he comments, turning it over in his hand to check the front page, just in case. "It's obvious at least a few other people know about this. Using dragon parts as magical components, though ... that would have been heresy even in the old days, wouldn't it."

"It would have been," Billie agrees and then trails off on that thought, brow furrowing as she remains turned in her seat, staring at the book in Daud's hands like it's suddenly offended her somehow. Dragon parts for magic. In all her rush to look for a matching ritual in that damn thing, another had slipped her mind.

"Dragon parts like scales..."

At the way she trails off, Daud glances up. He assumes she'd already perused it thoroughly, but...

"You said you found scales in the Courier, didn't you?" He asks, rifling through the pages more actively now, absently skimming for information on dragon parts. Logic would dictate something about scales might also be found with anything to do with claws or horns, but it's a journal, not a book, so that might be asking much. It wasn't something he'd pressed her on, given his already evident unhappiness about the dragon everything, but now's as good a time as any to find out what it could be. That being said...

"If that's the case, then perhaps it means the couriers are from the dragons after all. Or associated with them." And then he looks up at her, briefly. "Is how you've gained an affinity for enchanting your sword?"

Just because he didn't bring it up the first time it came up doesn't mean he didn't notice, Billie.

She would have been fine leaving that as some assumption that she had picked up an enchanted sword on purpose rather than imbuing it herself but with the book, obviously that time for keeping secrets has come to an end. Billie turns back to the table to set Strange's book down.

"Not only that," she admits in a rather lackluster reveal. This entire conversation on top of a long night is drawing her attention to how, really, she should have gotten sleep at some point. That doesn't stop her from getting up and going to dig around through her own stuff — what little there is — until she finds where she's hidden the scale itself away.

That, she brings back to the table. In her absence, Red has taken over Strange's book, though he clearly has no idea what he's meant to do with it. Flop across it and look at the squiggles on the pages, he supposes, though he does look up to trill at Billie when she returns. That earns him an idly brush of fingers over feathery spines on his head and neck, even if she knows she shouldn't be encouraging him to make noise whenever she approaches.

That'll just be something to work on later.

For now, she's reclaiming her seat and putting the scale on the table. It's black, the alchemical symbol for fire etched into it. Some magic may linger on it, residual, faint, but whatever spell had been placed on it is long gone yet eerily similar to what Billie had done to her sword back during the full moon.

Daud looks at the scale, but he doesn't touch it yet, the odd flicker in his vision recognizable as him using his magic sight, though he only maintains it long enough to confirm his suspicions before he huffs quietly and drops it.

"Hm," is all he says, in typical Daud fashion. She only brought the one over, which makes him wonder... "And you're not the only one who got one of these?"

He asks mostly like he's confirming a fact.

"Strange has one from Logistykon," Billie can answer that much. "Supposedly from, anyway. If there's anyone else, I haven't heard, but pretty much everyone else happens to be better at keeping secrets than he is."

Because he sure did tell her a lot of additional details beyond just the scale he ended up with.

“Did he mention it granting him any other elemental affinities as well?” Daud asks, with no commentary on relative skills keeping secrets or otherwise.

"He didn't," Billie admits. She hadn't even thought to ask and now she's mentally kicking herself about that. "He didn't seem surprised about the scales, though. I've asked him to help me find a way to track them back to where they came from, which is why I was looking for any of these—"

She waves towards all the books. The other two on the table are much more mainstream, one about dark magic and monsters and another about empathic spells.

"In the first place."

"Shouldn't mistake talkativeness for a lack of things to hide," Daud says, but it's not scolding -- more an observation, than anything else. The mage's proven useful before, and he has no doubt in his mind he will again, but a fixation on dragons like what he possesses? Can't lead to anything good.

"Be careful what you let him see. He may not be inspired to imitate that ritual, but there's enough in here that I'd be worried what he might try to do with the dragon's corpses, given the chance."

He pauses, looking at her shrewdly.

"What do you plan to do, if you find out where they're from?"

"You mean besides cry over it?" Billie sounds less concerned over what Strange may or may not do with a dragon's corpse, mostly because she's seen the fixation towards them as more akin to reverence than anything else. It isn't an observation to dismiss outright, however.

"But I'll keep an eye on him."

Hard not to when she's stuck working with him even without this dragon scale mess. That, what her plan is if she does find them? That's a very good question. She considers it for a moment. Having dragon magic — or whatever it might turn out to be — thrust upon her unexpectedly has been an unwanted, if useful, happening thus far.

Red is a fate she chose, however haphazardly that may have been. This? Different. A little off-putting.

"That's going to depend on the who and the where. If Strange is right and it is the dragons, that's out of my league." Daud's, too. There's no better assassin but taking down what's practically a god-tier dragon isn't going to happen. "If it's something a little more our size yanking our chains, I may see about tracking them down in person."

“I see,” is Daud’s impassive, likely infuriating answer. He could comment further on the matter — has more than enough experience to — but it seems wiser to keep his opinions to himself for now, focusing on skimming through the book. It’s a plan that Billie came up with and began to execute without his input. If she wanted to know what he thought about the matter, she wouldn’t be shy asking, though there was a time he could have taken that as a matter of course. The days he was trying to shape her in his image.

Of course, that belligerent obstinacy is something she comes by naturally, not something he taught.

Billie waits for a tic or two for Daud to expand upon that but, of course, he doesn't. She's not surprised. She imagines it's pointless to prompt for more than that, only she's tired and finally trying to talk about all this weird shit.

"And? That's it?"

That slips out in a very flat tone of voice. If he's looking for belligerent obstinacy, he's getting it.

All that aside, he does finally come across a few pages based around usage of dragon scales. The one that is most likely to catch his eye is titled "Breath of Idan". The spell is a complicated one requiring an extensive list of materials, a few of which seem near impossible to collect: basilisk venom, elemental tears, phoenix ash, dragon scale, unicorn blood, and stardust.

The spell is alchemical and from the looks of it could be considered dark magic by the current laws of Idan. It creates a touch transfer of magic called an "echo" that grants the first person to touch the enchanted transfer charm of choice an echo of an ability of the original source. The source is the reason for the dark magic connotation as it is specifically defined as heart's blood.

"Were you expecting something more?" Daud asks, glancing up at Billie briefly. "It's a matter worth investigating. I assume you've considered the risks and decided the benefits outweigh the possible costs. If you started it, then you have to see it through."

Because that's how I taught you.

But even as he says that, his expression changes -- not because of what he's telling Billie, but something that's obviously caught his attention on the page. As he reads, he only looks more concerned, but rather than explain what he's found, he turns the book and pushes it closer to Billie.

"I think your scale was enchanted with this."

If she was expecting more, she won't say what. Advice, maybe, or to know whether or not he disapproved of this, too, though he isn't wrong in what he does say instead. She started it. She'll follow it to the end. Anything else she may have said dies on her lips the second Daud actually has any kind of expression on his face.

That it's a concerned one makes it that much worse.

She'll take the book back when he offers it over, picking out the passage fast enough. It's a quick glance over the words at first but then she's sitting up straighter, backtracking and rereading it all a second time, how she holds herself growing tenser by the second.

"Who would have all of this?" She asks at last. A pointless question. Neither of them can answer it but it's hard not to wonder aloud when every ingredient for the enchantment is wilder and rarer than the last. "Why would they waste it on a total stranger?"

"Someone with a lot of magic," Daud surmises, hands folded together on the desk. He can't help glancing over at Red as he says it, though he knows the little dragon can't possibly be the source of the enchanted scale -- he can barely figure out what's edible and what isn't, some days.

"And they're either desperate enough to take the risk, or have enough power that this is nothing to them." Which one is more dangerous to them in the long run? Hard to say. "Perhaps they simply thought it would be interesting."

No keeping the touch of bitterness out of his tone, there. Daud's not heard from the Outsider since he came back to life, but this feels uncomfortably similar, being kept blind and in the dark.

Edited 2019-04-14 07:37 (UTC)

Red, who's apparently gotten tired of watching the adults look stressed and has fallen back to trying to figure out if Strange's book can be eaten. He has a corner of the cover in his mouth, though his jaws aren't even remotely strong enough to cut through leather. Therefore, he's mostly just drooling on it.

He'll stop when Daud glances at him, perking up immediately and lets out an inquisitive little chirp. Is the conversation about him again? Yes? No?

It isn't, but the chirp draws Billie's attention away from the book and back to the hatchling briefly. She looks less than impressed with the slobber and toothmarks now marring a few pages but she also doubts Strange will care. If anything, he'll consider it a blessing, knowing that guy...

"All the more reason to track down where the scales came from," she sighs and turns back to the page in question. "I don't know if I'll get my answers but I have to try."

Which is funny. Daud isn't the only one who's mind strays towards the Outsider when that hint of bitterness comes out in his words. She'd always wanted to find him, same as Daud had, probably too curious about the spirit for her own good, and now she has her own Outsider to hunt down, only she has no name or idea of who they even are.

Edited 2019-04-14 17:42 (UTC)

“Be prepared for whatever you find,” Daud answers, simply. He could offer inane advice about any number of things pertaining to the matter at hand, but that, in his view, is the only insight that matters. Being ready for the consequences of your actions.

“Or the attention you attract,” he adds. Is distinguishing herself a good thing? He highly doubts it is, in the long run, but he’s curious too.

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