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Post by Faustus on Mar 25, 2014 1:33:13 GMT
Off Topic: This is an earlier thread I created on another forum. Given its mysterious nature, and given facts about Faustus, I felt it would serve as a nice entrance into Guardia.
Edzren, the aged tailor and proprietor of his own business, was your common man. This is not to say that Edzren was indistinct or particularly forgettable, but merely that he fit comfortably inside of the bell curve. He was neither tall nor short, thin nor stocky, and only the thick knots of gray hair alongside the deep cuts of age across his face offered deviation. He was old and getting older.
Still, despite his age, no one had hands quite like Edzren. The man was a psycho with the seams, and a genius with the needle and thread. His single impediment being that the quality of his work took a nose dive when it rained and his joints ached too much to contend with the rigors of a day's work. With his children grown and moved away, his wife taken before her time, Edzren could make a living even if he skipped out a few days a week. He wasn't a banker, but spent his money wisely and could live as comfortable as the next should the rains tarry.
Today was a rainy day.
He spent an hour or two watching the rain drops slide down the window, collect at the base of the sill before the tension broke and the whole thing spilled over the edge. The pain in his hands, though constant, was dull compared to more vivid episodes. When it became clear that no one had use for him today, and fed up with the ache, Edzren slid out from behind the counter with a squeak of wood on wood and made his way to the front of the store. He'd extinguish the lamp, flip the sign out front so it read as closed, and retire to his bedroom for the night.
He got maybe halfway to the door before it opened, a gust of wind chilling the interior of the tailor's shop and rain splattering on the entry way. A slim silhouette filled the frame of the door, moved inside, and closed the door with a clatter. The man's black hair matted against the side of his face, too wet to move, and gold eyes seemed to shine. No doubt a trick of the light.
"Hello there." The stranger smiled. His general demeanor warm and friendly, but beneath the thick layers of amicability something lurked. Edzren wasn't quite sure what, and was caught off guard.
"O-oh, h-hello."
"You're just the guy I set out to find. Tore my dad's suit at the elbow while I was borrowing and I just can't let him know I was out wearing, especially not right before his gala. And it's raining, you were probably off to bed. Name your price and I'll triple it."
Edzren's eyes widened and he shook his head feebly, the stranger's fluidity of speech sweeping him up and taking him for a ride.
"Great, great. That's just great. Knew you'd be just the guy I need. Think you can take a look at the damage right now?"
The stranger held out his hand, and custom drove Edzren's hand into accepting the handshake. He felt something odd on the stranger's palm. Something like a series of buds that irritated his skin. Edzren drew back and took note of the dot-grid peppering his palm moments before his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell to the ground unconscious.
Faustus' smile vanished. He reached into his sleeve and slipped his finger under the cuff of the glove he wore, peeling it off his hand, turning it inside out and depositing it into his pocket. He stuck the buds of a plant hybrid, of his own creation, along the outside of his palm. Pressure exposed the pins and they drove the sedative directly into the bloodstream.
He stepped outside, blew the lamp out and flipped the sign around. Closed the door and locked it. Then took Edzren by the collar and dragged him to the backroom.
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Post by Faustus on Mar 25, 2014 1:37:47 GMT
"I don't want you to pray to your God."
Edzren stirred out of his artificially induced sleep. He lay on a table, arms bound at the wrist, forearm and bicep; legs bound at the ankle, shin and thigh. A band across his torso and one across his forehead as well. This ensured absolute stability. It was the voice that stirred him from his fitful respite. A voice he gradually grew to recognize as the voice belonging to the last man he'd seen, the stranger that barged into his shop while the rains poured.
He could not speak, as his mouth was gagged by cheeks stuffed full of cotton and tape drawn across his mouth. He struggled some, but the bands were strong and his own body, wizened by the years, not in the best of shape.
"He or she won't help you. Not because they don't love you, if they exist that is, but because they have nothing to do with what's about to happen. Don't blame yourself either. Fortune, fate, destiny and all that have nothing to do with what's about to happen."
Faustus stood over Edzren's prone, inert body. The light behind and above his head, sterilizing with its brightness, shadowed his features. His eyes though. They shone through the darkness. Faustus reached out confidently to his side, wasting not even a sidelong glance, and took hold of the scalpel. It glinted menacingly as he drew it up over the table with a tender grip of its base.
"It's an odd kind of ambivalence, I'm sure. Relief that this isn't some manner of divine retribution or intervention. Fear that no matter how much you wish and pray and hope, nothing will change because this is all chance. Pure happenstance.
"Relief and fear, the pendulum swinging rapidly from one domain to the other and back again."
Faustus placed the scalpel tip against the point on Edzren's scalp where the forehead met hairline. He hardly pressed in, but what little pressure he did provide proved ample enough to part the skin and inspire a trickle of blood to run down the side of Edzren's temple.
There, he paused. Leaned over slightly more and stared Edzren in the eyes. Squinted. The aging tailor saw in those eyes something like . . . something like regret? Maybe the deranged stranger would change his mind. Maybe he saw his own humanity reflected in those old, wise eyes. Maybe Edzren's even reminded the stranger of some important family member that the stranger couldn't bring himself to kill.
After death, the cornea becomes hazy and the retina segmented and pale as blood circulation ceases. Edzren had been so quiet that Faustus was concerned that the old man died before he could be of any use. Faustus was just making sure Edzren's was still alive and awake for what was about to happen.
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Post by Faustus on Mar 25, 2014 1:39:49 GMT
"But Edzren, are you sure that this is the way to go? You've had this shop for years! Since before your lil'uns were born."
"Yes yes, I know I know." Edzren sat at a circular table in the back corner of the local tavern, hands cupped around a mug of warm chocolate milk. Anything stronger and he'd paid for it in the morning. "But the young man is offering more for it than it's worth. And he told me his plans too, sounds like it'll be a nice, neat lil business."
At the table, three of Edzren's friends joined him. They were all younger than he was, from 'just slightly' to 'quite a bit', but were all mature enough of mind to accept age as an artificial barrier. They enjoyed one another's company and gathered once a week to discuss life, love, and politics. Edzren had just delivered the juiciest piece of news the group's had for weeks now. That he was selling his shop, retiring, and using the newly gained funds to go exploring.
"I've always wanted to visit Rosinder," The youngest one of them, a 25 year old with sandy brown hair, chimed in while toying with the lip of his liquor filled cup. "Love the culture. They're all music and festivals and dance. But that was before the war. They're still open for visitors, but the people are off. Just . . . the whole place is cold, no matter how often they all smile. I'd say we can expect something big to happen in not too long."
The young one shushed himself up by filling his mouth with liquor and flinching, slightly, as it clawed its way down his throat. A man senior to him by ten years, either a warrior or a laborer by the cut of his frame, slapped the young one square on the back a few times.
"Oh come on Irah. I've personally seen you gulp down drinks harder'n this stuff. Maybe that's because you had a few to numb your throat a bit, ya figure? Who cares. Either way, maybe you could handle it better if it was in a bottle, right?! Ya big baby."
---- On the other side of town.
Ya big baby.
Faustus twisted the edges of his lips upwards in a gradual slope, stretching his expression into a smile; on the other side of town, Edzren did the same. Faustus brought his hands a little closer together, encircling some sort of invisible cylinder as he did so. On the other side of town, Edzren adjusted his grip on the mug of warm chocolate. Nobody noticed how dead his eyes were in the dim light and the haze of alcohol.
Big Ed, what are you going to do about the chill'run.
Faustus sat alone in an unlit room, positioned at the edge of the bed, eyes closed in concentration. The question floated into his mind and, near the same time, information began to scroll before him. This was Edzren's subconscious mind resonating in response to the question posed. It offered up all the information Faustus needed, but had to go through Faustus himself before it could be articulated.
So he took the information and put his own spin on it.
"Jirud and Emeel will be fine, they don't need an old man like me pestering them." Faustus spoke the words aloud, his lips, tone, breath and pace emulated perfectly by his living puppet. "They both have families, lives to attend to. I'm just a lonely old man. My one love? Gone. My two children have probably already forgotten all about me and I can feel death coming closer every day . . ."
Faustus paused for meticulously timed effect. He bowed his head one and one-quarter of an inch and cast his eyes down for melancholy. Edzren followed suit.
"I've worked all my damn life, and worked hard. Now all I want is some time to myself where I can do what I want, that's all. That's not too much to ask at my age, is it?"
Faustus and Edzren looked up at the three pairs of eyes, now slightly misted over with the impact of closely felt emotion. They couldn't help themselves, not around old man Edzren. Faustus brought his hands up and down on the air, pressing against an invisible counter. Edzren used the table as leverage to lift himself gingerly and cleared his throat.
"It's late. I'm getting tired and I've got a lot of packing to do. I've already made my decision, I'm heading off early in the morning. Tonight's been great, thank you all so much for it. I'll write you guys as often as I can, and will travel with your names forever near my heart."
Those three spread word around town, and the youngest one even wrote a letter to Edzren's children, informing them of his plan so that they wouldn't worry and that the shop was changing ownership.
So when Edzren disappeared completely the next morning, and when a strange young fellow made his way into the temporarily defunct tailor's shop, no one thought it odd or worth mentioning.
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Post by Faustus on Mar 25, 2014 1:40:54 GMT
The tailor shop hadn't been touched in weeks now. The windows had been painted black so that no one on the outside could look in and, presumably, no one on the inside could look out. The locks on the door had been changed, though the door itself remained the same and the quality of the shop as a whole had remained static. It's lackluster windows merely stared out, unblinkingly, across the stretch of open road that separated it from a restaurant with a hustle and bustle atmosphere.
Things on the inside were as they should have been. Dust, composed primarily from the feces and dead shells of dust mites and the loose fibers of the stale, unmoved fabric in the backroom, covered the counter, the model mannequins, the conveyor belt, and the tables. Faustus sat in the center of the room. Papers were strewn all about the floor, and held in place by anything ranging from a conventional paperweight to a mannequin's foot.
Most of the papers were blueprints, blueprints on which Faustus scribbled and sketched liberally, subtracting or adding angles or pillars or cross-sections of certain rooms. He had concluded a few things. Undoubtedly the shop would require a basement where the worker-puppets could drone away, stitching and mending and sewing the everyday items. Torn stitches or hemming dresses; that monotonous sort of thing.
It'd be large enough to accommodate 12 of them. Much more than needed, but as he didn't have to concern himself with things like air supply, food, bathrooms, or comfortable sleeping space, he could take liberties with space. The benefits of working with mindless automatons compared to the human variable. Granted, they lacked a certain adaptability and improvisational ability but that's not what Faustus needed. What Faustus needed were drones, so that's what he had.
The outside would remain the same. Faustus didn't want the shop to stick out to anyone. It had a habit of being forgettable, a quality easily changed with a few coats of paint and better placement but one that had appealed to Faustus in the first place. He'd need to reinforce the foundation so that the whole thing didn't cave in on itself when he wanted to make the basement, and he'd have to reinforce the walls and support beams to make sure the shop could withstand the added weight of a second story.
The second story Faustus designed to suit the purposes of an apartment. It'd give the outward appearance that whoever worked at the shop slept there as well. It'd have two bedrooms. One of them will be furnished with a bed, dresser and mirror, a nightstand and a lamp.
The other will have walls reinforced with Uru, strips of Dlarun overlaying the Uru at every half-foot interval, and the inside of it wrapped with so many wards that'd it make a Guardian's head spin. Inside was crucial. The Uru and Dlarun will shield prying eyes from discovering that there are even wards to speak of.
Faustus circled the second room. In that room will stay the suit-maker.
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Post by Faustus on Mar 25, 2014 1:41:22 GMT
The scene is set.
Sterile. Not the clinical white-wash of a hospital or a laboratory, but unnaturally clean. Not a speck of dust to be found anywhere. Not even if you looked really, really hard. No bugs. We're talking no flies, no ants, no termites, no fleas or ticks, no earwigs, or dust mites, mosquitoes or roaches.
One man.
Seated on a cushioned stool behind a birch desk. Aged. Streaks of gray through auburn hair. Slightly wrinkled skin with old-people spots. Though he cleaned up nice, but wasn't dressed as sharp as he could be. A freshly pressed jacket laid over a powder blue shirt, and professionally comfortable slacks. Leather shoes; the finest quality available. Sunglasses that betrayed nothing of what lay behind them; the frame gold and the pad mount silver. Elegance and opulence blended seamlessly.
He worked every day, and moved only three times throughout the work day. Once at the beginning, when he came down from the upstairs apartment to flip the sign and unlock the door. There he'd wait behind the desk until half past noon, where he took an hour long break for lunch. No one saw or heard him during that time. Ever. He returned promptly at one-thirty in the afternoon and did not move again until night, where he retired to his apartment. No one heard or saw him during that time either.
The man, named Edgar, resembled in part the original owner of the store. But it couldn't be him. The original owner had moved out long ago, when a stranger came from the West and bought the store for ten times its worth, or so the rumor goes. Now Edgar just sits in wait, day after day. His workers, who stayed in the back and lower rooms exclusively, handled all of the menial work. Mending skirts and jackets. Making dresses, shit like that.
But Edgar? Unless someone came by for the shop's primary purpose, unless someone came by for a suit of epic, astounding quality, he didn't move.
[end]
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