[h2][b][color=black]The Book Keeper in Oldtown[/color][/b][/h2]
Much as he'd rather have had access to information on this city prior to entering, Motley had been rather disappointed to discover that no such information existed. Or, at least, that it refused to present itself to him, no matter where he'd looked. Eventually, he'd entered the City of Echoes proper, yet not five minutes had passed before he found himself spirited away by somebody who at the time seemed somewhat important, to a location very much like the inside of an educational building. Intent on examining it as he had been, he'd only paid the minimum of attention needed to parse the general rules of the tournament he was now part of - defeat whichever opponents you come across, either by death or other means, and in doing so take the soul of the victim into your phylactery. Gather all the souls in the city, find the wishing machine, and make your wish. And Crue certainly knew what he had in mind.

And now he found himself... here. He had no idea what the location was called, but it was certainly not very noisy as far as towns went. He'd argue "somewhat bizarre", given the strange combination of mostly-medieval architecture- straw roofs, clay brick buildings, cobbled road beneath his feet, and a largely open aesthetic revealing a dark sky threatening to storm (so no big deal if Heavy Fuel was somehow disabled)- with just a few modern oddities here and there to indicate otherwise, namely the panels of glass fitted well into at least one out-of-place windowframe, and the very obviously modern taps sticking out from every other building. Now what did the online folk call that sort of conflict... "schizo-tech" or something? Still, compared to some of the things he'd encountered in his time, it was nothing overly crazy.

As far as temporally-dislodged objects went, however, the hovering drone heading toward him was a tad more obvious. It didn't take long for the machine to examine him, before projecting a hologram of a man's head, his appearance and persona a dead ringer for a TV show host, or perhaps...

'Welcome to Oldtown! I'm working as the tourney's announcer.' There it was, both the name of his current location and the job this fellow was taking on.

'We've got our eyes on ya in this upcoming fight,' the man continued, oblivious it seemed to Crue's observation of him and his pet robot. If he noticed Motley's disgust after uttering 'Guess you could say a lot of people are sure you'll 'suck'-ceed,' he didn't say anything about it - Crue was an undead creature whose powers made him a semi-living nightmare for the vast majority of those who could oppose him, and the man's best shot at him was a bad pun? Then again, it wasn't like the vampire could do anything to an image...

And besides, if he tried, he imagined he'd not get anything relating to whatever was in the box on the underside of the drone. For half a second, he imagined snatching the thing before the drone could react, then decided against it. The machine was probably keyed to the powers of the contestants, and even with his substantial speed, a miss was more likely than not. It sounded like "little miss magic tricks" would be the one to deal with, then. Another bad pun saw the machine off, though after half a second it stopped, and the announcer informed Motley about the local smithy's non-participant status - in other words, let the man be. He could manage that. He'd managed it daily in New York for many decades. After a slight nod to indicate understanding, the flyer finally buzzed off, eventually moving out of sight behind a nearby row of buildings.

And like that, he was alone. At least, alone within visible bounds. Not that he knew who his opponent was, but he imagined she was both female and a mage of some form - if "magic tricks" was any indication, not a strong one either. Then again, given the announcer's bad sense of humor... he set the thought aside, and considered his options for where to go. Somehow, he imagined the direction might not matter so much as far as encountering his imminent foe went, so instead he focused on what the locations might provide him upon exploration: the tourist area northward was least promising, as anything of value would be safely sequestered away. More promising were the ruins to the south, though not desperately so - by standard logic, an old location like that contained relics that were either decayed beyond usability, or had already been stolen by archaeologists, explorers if you will. Sadly, the logic didn't necessarily hold up when considering the nature of this location's... eccentricities, he supposed. Perhaps a location of note, then. Less so, however, than the castle - not only was that rather likely to contain something extremely useful, said object would probably be both obvious and well-maintained, for in the real world, castles rarely contain hidden passages to hidden treasures... again, by standard logic, but again, he could be completely wrong.

And then there was the smith. If he paid attention, he could hear somebody smashing metal against metal, obviously a sign of the man himself at work. Reaching the smith would be as simple as following the noise, and that would put him in contact with somebody of potential worth. "Potential", not for what he was doing, but for what he might know - of course nobody had been told how the phylacteries might win a fight [i]non-lethally,[/i] because of course there hadn't been time to explain [i]that[/i] after bringing it up in the first place, but if this non-participant knew how to do it, it'd give Motley an immediate edge in the competition. True, he could zombify anybody he killed anyway, and that might or might not amplify their physical power beyond what they already possessed at the cost of their positive personality traits... but wouldn't that just be ever-so-inconvenient when it came to protecting them from harsher light than this? The Sun was merciless to beings of his sort, and whilst Heavy Fuel could guarantee him a good ten seconds of activity before he really started suffering from UV light's effects even without maintaining his breathing, any zombie who moved out of his Stand's range would disintegrate practically instantly, seriously limiting their mobility in those situations.

For now, though, it was a non-issue: the night was deep, allies were thin on the ground, and there was no obvious danger of Heavy Fuel or his steady breathing being disrupted for now. So, he decided, best to gather what information he could whilst he had the chance. Artifacts could wait; the fight might not give him a chance, And even if the smithy knew nothing of the phylactery round Motley's neck, he might still know something worth discussing about the tournament. Orienting himself to travel in roughly the direction of the smith's hammering, as the paths between buildings would allow of course, the undead humanoid began to walk toward the sound of metalwork.

[@Lugubrious]