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Dangerous Conversationalist
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 Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 2:57 pm
 ☆═━┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈━═☆☇ ☇ ☇【 The Building 】 In the far southwest of the Mahora, there sits a wonderful little house. A piece of antiquity from a long time ago, this place is the living space of one Ciardha Mikain. More than that, however, it is a place of business. Inside the main hallway is a place to hang one's coat, as well as one's hat. It conforms more to old English shop types and homes than Japanese, making it an oddity considering its incredible age. Regardless of when it was built, it's always been there, at least that people can remember. (This is actually a function of one of Ciardha's barriers, a powerful one that compresses memory and inserts existence, into living memory so that it seems like something was always there. This is mostly to keep him from drawing unwanted attention, though the Mahoran teachers know better, and can realize the truth). This is an A-Class effect.
Outside, a garage sits at the west part of the house, where Ciardha's Sil-eighty sits, waiting to be taken out for a drive. There are various pretty flower bushes and plants stationed all around the outer areas, all well taken care of, which add a quiet, welcoming mood to the entire area. The shop-house is positioned near the southwestern woods in far downtown Mahora; traveling there may take a little while, but it's well worth it.
The inside of the house-turned-shop is rather homey, and there is a single old register sitting on a mahogany counter on the far east wall, with a seperator and small door to prevent others from just walking to where the reigster is. The reality is rather interesting. While the shop has no actual physical security measures in terms of modern means, An anti-hostility field is placed on the place; mundanes find themselves unable to do any harm once they enter the building, though the effect is gone once they leave, unless they enter again. Magical beings can disperse this naturally, if they're strong enough. This is a C-Class effect.
If unauthorized magic is used within the shop, there are magical 'mines' in the form of glyphs scribed invisibly along the walls and celing; they immediately seek the source of the unauthorized magic, and impact it with powerful bolts of energy designed to render the target unconscious without fail. This isn't always completely effective, especially against higher class beings, but it's good for stopping low to mid level magicians and magical creatures. This is a B-Class effect. Once the glyphs are discharged, they take one hour to recharge.☇ ☇ ☇【 The Truth 】 The actual products are on display when one enters, and truth be told they're all breathtaking. Each piece of pottery and glass is handmade by Ciardha, Antique style tea sets, clay pots, glazed pottery, all of it done in the original and traditional style. Ciardha works with all kinds of glass and clay, and he can custom make anything given enough time. While the shop itself caters more to a discerning group of people, and much of it isn't on a student's budget, Mortal Clay is popular with Mahora's teachers and others, especially discerning collectors and adults. There are a few small and cute items that would be easily within a student's price range, but much of what Ciardha makes tends to be better for gifts to grandparents and other family members who are deep in tradition. Interestingly, Ciardha is able to make objects in just about any culture's ancient styles, proving he's a well read student of history. Additionally, all of the signatures he puts onto his work are a mild magical glyph designed to increase the durability and longevity of the work; a magic so minor, it is really mostly undetectable by mundanes, and ignored by wizards as it tends to be basic magic.
The apartment upstairs is mostly nondescript; there are two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a hall closet, and a study room. Currently, Ciardha has a student renting out the other room and working the shop downstairs. For the most part, the upstairs is of little interest.
It is below the shop that the most interesting things are kept. A seperate dimension is kept in the basement with storage magic. When someone who knows of magic and figures out his nature is bold enough to ask the truth, or, to the teachers of Mahora who are knowledgable about magic, he offers a special service. Upon command, magic transposition circles will appear under all of the shop's merchandise, and the merchandise underneath in the dimension will be substituted. A transfer.
Here, in this place, he stores the items he hand-enchants. Most of these things are simple. Magically enchanted elemental or empowered ammunition, C-class and lower spells stored in alchemy catalyst bottles for quick casting, magic scrolls for study and improvement, basic wands for beginner practice, one-shot Low to Mid Class barrier stones, aging or de-aging pills, basic love potions, and the like. A peddler of all things sorcerous, within reason that he can make. Naturally, he cannot enchant things with his opposing elements (Cold and Light), and he carries very little healing magic in the store. He offers the Mahoran teachers a substantial discount on his goods, and any of Mahora's students that are of magical nature.☆═━┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈━═☆
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:12 pm
Alitharia stepped inside, glancing around for a moment. Almost out of her whole time in Mahora, she had never really bothered to actually take looks around downtown. Though, this particular spot caught her interest, oddly enough. "Wow..." was all she could really say at the moment. For some reason, this building reminded her a little of her original home. It reminded her of her adopted father... and for a split second she remembered why she was even on this world... a fluke... it pushed her into deep thoughts... but she quickly snapped out of it. What's past is past...
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 6:55 pm
Ciardha was behind the counter as usual when his help wasn't here. He was polishing a pot today. Jade after all, was prone to gathering dust and looking terrible if you let it sit too long. He hummed a tune to himself as the door opened, and the little bell rang. His eyes rose to the incoming figure, and he put on his best smile, before offering a cheerful
"Welcome to Mortal Clay! How may I service you today?"
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 8:05 pm
Alitharia turned to Ciardha when she heard him, actually not even realizing he was there until now. "Oh! Uhm, well I'm not really looking for anything in particular... just kind of just browsing around. Sorry." She answered with a sheepish smile at the end. She then took another glance around to get a second look at what there even was. Well... she could always get something... but what exactly?
There was also the usual idea of fooling around with this guy...
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:00 pm
"Whenever we enter a new situation, a new place, we have to assess to see if we know what it is we desire. If we enter a new situation and know not what we desire, then desire perhaps..may control us. It is quite a turbulent wavelength..but that might be irrelevant."
He chuckled, and smiled. A rather disarming smile. He could be quite charming if he wanted, of course that was something he'd had a great deal of practice at over the many years.
"All of these crafts are handmade. Each and every one, I have made myself. It's a skill that in today's age is not in great demand, but then again, a supply can create a demand, if there are those that want it."
He mused for a moment, and sighed.
"I'm getting a buzz, I think. My distinct apologies, but I believe I must close up for a bit. As an apology, feel free to acquire any piece in the store valued at 3000 yen or less, and consider it yours. I am afraid this is a bit of an emergency."
He bowed to the lady, and headed into the back. Once there, he began his meditation. It would take some time, but he began the unsealing process.
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Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 9:05 pm
Alitharia blinked with a bit of confusion, but with hearing the guy's offer at the end, she simply shrugged and went with it. She took a rushed browse around and spotted a few interesting pieces. One had a familiar detail to it. Maybe... it could be something worth getting and using in 'his' memory. It was merely a darker blue teapot, but the designs and perhaps symbols on it gave her hints...
That guy... oddly enough reminded her of her adopted father's good friend...
She took a look at the price, and to her luck was within the offer stated only moments ago. Alitharia figured she could just take it, seeing the owner looked as if he needed some time for silence and solitude.
In seconds, she made her way to the door before stopping herself...
"By the way, thanks... and... expect me to come back to talk about something... specific.". She uttered before walking out the door.
(( exits ))
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 2:28 pm
There was, honestly, no time for Ciardha to waste. As the battle raged on, he allowed the first seal to snap off by focusing. Yes, it took time. But he needed them all off, and he didn't have time. If he blew four seals instantly it would be near fatal. However, unlocking one normally and blowing three instantly would, essentially, just put him out for a while. He'd do that. He didn't have much choice. His hands came together, and the barriers around his house/shop increased several levels in intensity. Not to keep things out; to keep his power in. And then he blew the last three seals. The entirety of the house shook, as the pottery inside rattled. Paintings fell off the walls, but the outpouring of power was contained just to the building itself. It was time. He knew his countdown was already ticking, and he's have to do this fast. Just like that, he vanished, and sent an incoming telepathic message to his counterpart.
[Exit to Ground effin' Zero]
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 4:00 pm
In a keening burst of energy and black fire in the shape of a phoenix, Ciardha appeared in his barrier'd off safe room. Immediately, he closed all of his four seals. He was a wreck. He didn't show it there, but..doing that was highly dangerous to his body. Already he could feel the effects starting, and there was no reversing it. He just let himself collapse in the basement storage. He'd go with the pain, and let it surge through his system, even as it damaged his body. No one would hear; this place was sealed off. But damn it all, he didn't have a choice. He'd talk to Konoemon later; the old man needed to double up on neuralizers.
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 8:51 pm
Ah, it had been a while. He returned here from the Nurse's office at Mahora, after talking to Yue. Everything was in motion. Soon enough, he'd be able to have it all going the way he wanted, and when that was done, he'd get to see the greatest battle of this age on this world. Indeed, there might actually be something worth observing, and even putting a hand in after all. He was quite pleased. But now, he had his shop to run; it was recently cleaned, but he needed to make sure the shelves were still stocked.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:29 pm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HyperxxxxxxxxWarriorxxxxxxxxArcherxxxxxxxxExorcist ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - [⒜⒱⒠⒧⒴⒩ ⒮⒦⒴] - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚ Avelyn hadn't been around Mahora long, but her mind was sucking up every detail of the city like a sponge as she traveled through it. She wasn't sure where to go exactly and after the trip in Osaka she really wanted to get to know this land better. Of course, the first thing on her mind though was to find a gift for her friend Nabi-chan. She hadn't properly thanked her for helping her the first night she had crashed into her dorm room. Well, with the damage to school property and several apologies later, she was on her own in the school. And of course her and Marc were the first two she had met and put a lot of trust into them. She could probably get something for Marc, but something told her that he wouldn't be the type to accept gifts. Heck, what could hurt her, right? Avelyn didn't have a lot of money on her, but with what she had in her bag a couple of small gifts wouldn't hurt her expenses too much until she could find some sort of part time job to earn a bit of money. Or find some other way to fund herself. Either way, this wasn't going to be something she would let slip by.
Much to her surprise, one particular building stood out amongst all the other shops in the area. And that was a strangely designed one that had a very... say stony feel to it. It most certainly didn't look very intimidating, nor did it look too friendly. It just looked cleaned and well-kept, something that attracted Avelyn's attention. Shifting her case on her back, she decided to take a peek inside to see what it held. Like the outside, the inside looked very well kept as the outside and on numerous shelves were various objects fashioned into ceramics, many of various sizes and shapes and - oh lord! Avelyn's jaw almost dropped at some pricing of the more elegant molds and even the less elaborate ones were still costly. As nice as they all were, she wanted something small perhaps to repay the two kind students who helped her through her first ordeal in this world. Which reminded her, she still couldn't remember how she managed to fall from the sky in the first place nor how in the world she came about. It was rather fuzzy up until her arrival here and even with that, she couldn't explain how she knew her Japanese or how to get around well enough. That was definitely a mind boggling sensation for her.✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 9:40 pm
One has to love the little ring-bells on doors that announce someone's arrival. The man with the unusually colored hair turned his eyes to the new arrival as he was taking inventory along his shelves. O~ho. A young girl. Always a pleasant sight. It wasn't really that he was too much into girls that young, exactly. But who wants to see a huge burly guy enter into your china shop? Young girls were always so much more well behaved. Except in some cases. But those were exceptions. Hm. He was mentally rambling. That was the case a lot lately. But ah well. He had plenty of time to ramble to himself in his mind, as long as it didn't extend to his speech. That would be embarassing. And it would prevent sales. Preventing sales was bad.
Ah well. He was dressed casually today. Black silk poet's shirt, black pants, black boots. Hey, that was casual for him. His hair was tied back in a ponytail, and he had that usual half sleepy look that made him seem a sly fellow. He approached the young lady and smiled his best smile. It actually was rather nice. He certainly didn't look his age. Not his physical one, or the one that was his 'attachment', as it were. Goodness, if he looked that old, it would really hurt sales. Though the thought did make him chuckle internally. He gestured with his left arm, a sort of sweep with the hand across the air. It was a rather exaggerated gesture, but hey. You had to draw them in somehow.
"Welcome to Mortal Clay, my wonderful young lady. I am Ciardha, the owner of the shop. Might there be anything I can do for you? Anything you're seeking in particular?"
He had a very soft voice, and a nice personality at least. He didn't seem all that pushy a salesman, and if nothing else, pretty approachable, even if he was a bit of a showman.
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 10:09 pm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HyperxxxxxxxxWarriorxxxxxxxxArcherxxxxxxxxExorcist ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - [⒜⒱⒠⒧⒴⒩ ⒮⒦⒴] - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚ If not for her curiosity as to where the store owner might have been, Avelyn would have been scared out of her wits when Ciardha approached her. He seemed friendly enough, a disposition she never failed to take a liking to despite his strange appearances. Somewhere in her mind she made a mental note to look up the style of this shop and his clothing. They might have a connection to each other and she was eager to learn new things as it seemed. His formal style of speech had no effect on her whatsoever however, only beaming back with a bright smile on her face. Obviously a good sign."I'm looking for a couple of small gifts for some friends of mine. They helped me out on my first day in Mahora, so I wanted to repay their kindness." It was a simple act of repayment for a good deed, at least in Avelyn's mind. Her eyes went back over the ceramics and sighed a bit dejectedly.
"These pieces are really nice, but they're too expensive for me." She really did like the beautiful pieces and wondered to herself who would have spent the time to make each one. This shop appeared small so it was unlikely there would be a whole crew of people to help make these pieces. Except, how were these pieces made? Avelyn had no idea how the process went in the first place so that was simply out of the question in terms of asking the shop owner about it. Perhaps some other time, since this seemed to be a nice place to visit from time to time.✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 10:32 pm
He listened to her attentively. He did seem an odd store owner for that reason. Most people who were trying to sell something pretended to be attentive, but he seemed genuine. He kept eye contact as she spoke, and tipped his head when she mentioned the reason she was buying things. He couldn't help but smile. Generosity was a lost thing in the world when it was genuine. How many had done such a thing simply to be polite? That was so odd to him about this country. Oh, he'd been in many like it, or at least 'that side' of him had. But this girl seemed a little different. She seemed to be honestly trying to do something nice, and that struck him as very unusual. It was a rarity. In a way, it reminded him very much of 'that man's wife. She was just as gentle. Maybe that's why he had these lingering feelings that he had when she spoke. It was troubling at times, not knowing who you were. Then again, knowing the kind of power that the being behind you had was so strong, it made one feel safe, in a way. Even if you were strong, the one who created you was so much stronger. And they needed you. Ah well, he was mentally rambling again. What a bother that would be.
"A gift of repayment. Hmm. Interesting. There are many things here on a lighter range of cost. At times, they are not often seen. The smaller, more beautiful things in life are always that way, are they not? The larger, greater things stare at us. Unapproachable, unattainable, they sit in our view. It's almost as if they're mocking us. But they encourage us to work harder, become better. Reach for that thing, until you grasp it in both hands. It's interesting how shopping can be a reflection of life. Ah, but I'm droning on."
He gestured for her to follow him. The shop was small enough, but there was always a back area here and there where the lighting wasn't as good, and things were shifted in and back that didn't necessarily sell too well, or that just weren't popular that season. Though, he had a shelf that looked like it was full of smaller objects. Little trinkets here and there, still in old traditional styles, but more..cute. He pointed to a few, here and there. There were dancers in kimonos, small buddhas, animals of various types, but all done in a style that looked hundreds of years old, as if they'd been passed down by a craftsman to another.
"These are smaller, lighter pieces. They also fall under a much lower cost range, and are perfect for gifts to friends and acquaintances, as well as small thank you gifts and general gifts. Much of what you see here is for a household, or display. I do hate to ask so much for a lot of them, but unfortunately, supplies are expensive, and I have to do all the work myself. I made all of these, bit by bit. I don't get many customers, so I actually have a lot of time to work, you see. But please, look at everything on the back shelves. I'm willing to round down a bit as well if necessary, for such a kind girl."
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:14 pm
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HyperxxxxxxxxWarriorxxxxxxxxArcherxxxxxxxxExorcist ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - [⒜⒱⒠⒧⒴⒩ ⒮⒦⒴] - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚ Avelyn listened intently to Ciardha, her mind processing what he said carefully. It felt as if it was directed at herself, but surely there was some more meaning behind what he said and that was a statement that would have been difficult to respond to, at least for her. Indeed she knew she had an entire past of God knows how many years yet for some reason could not remember any bit of it. And yet it was sitting right there in front of her eyes but she couldn't get it no matter what she did to try and trigger her memories. Of course she would work harder to try and regain all she lost but at the same time work to make the new ones if she ever failed to remember her old ones. If they even existed that is. This man definitely had wisdom beyond his years and these words she would keep to her heart.
Avelyn followed the shop keeper to the back area, her eyes adjusting to the lighting there and examined the figurines with great interest. Even though they were minuscule, there were evidently a great deal of care in adding the fine details to each one. They were all unique to each other in some way, whether it be the size or shape, the form the dancers were in, the faces of the animals, their designs, just something singled them out from each other and made each catch her attention. Even here it was a tiny bit difficult to choose which one would be a nice gift for Nabi-chan, and she observed each one carefully with great enthusiasm. When Ciardha mentioned that each one had been made himself, Avelyn stood up straight and looked up at him with awe and surprise. "All of these by yourself? It seems like an amazing skill to have, even if you do have a lot of time in your hands this would still require a lot of patience to make, wouldn't it? " Finally Avelyn selected a small puppy figure sitting up attentively, the eyes empty but gazing far as if it could see beyond what was presented to it. She also selected a sleeping bird of some type, unable to identify what it was but it reminded her of her first encounter with Marc. She wasn't sure if he'd like it, but hoped it would be enough to show him that she was just trying to be nice.
"I wouldn't mind paying a little bit more for them. If the supplies to make them are a bit costly, every cent would help would it not?" Avelyn grinned warmly towards Ciardha, showing that she wanted to help him in some way with his work. With the lack of customers, it might have been hard to maintain it but it seemed to make it somehow, probably from the higher priced items but if she could have some impact, even if it were a few yen more, by all means she wanted to do it.✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚ - - - - - - - ✖ - - - - - - - ✚
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Dangerous Conversationalist
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Posted: Fri Dec 30, 2011 11:43 pm
"There aren't many like you left in the world, you know."
It was a simple statement, but the way he said it. He sounded so..tired. The look on his face had gone from the half-sleepy look to something melancholy. As if he was reflecting on something from a long time back. Or maybe she just reminded him of someone. Either way, the air around him had become a bit more heavy. He had a wistfully sad feeling for a moment, and as he looked at her, it was there in his eyes, too. He couldn't be much older than his twenties by the look of it, but something in that look made him seem so old. And in a way, he did seem out of place in the general Mahora area. He reached over and ruffled her hair gently. It was odd considering he didn't even know her really, but it just seemed like the gesture fit him somehow. A truly generous human soul? How long had it been since he'd met someone who'd just smile and offer more of themselves than they had to? Oh, certainly in tense situations, a hero would sacrifice himself for his friends. But this was different. Someone who simply wanted others to benefit regardless of themselves. It was..saddening, in a way. Those people always suffered most. And while that was his creed, at times, he wished it wasn't so.
"Tell me, do you have any family nearby? Mother, father? Perhaps an elder in your family that might be interested in anything here?"
He had gone back to the look in his eye he had before. A simple gentleman, with a good foresight. He walked to the register, an old fashioned one at that. He would wait for her to approach, and once that was done, when it was done, he would start ringing the objects into the old register. Though, it would seem that he was searching for something under the desk as he did. He didn't seem troubled about it, but there was a hint in his motions that whatever he was looking for was at least a little bit important.
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