[hider=Debt Owed to Giselle Rainwalker] (All due respects to Gael Baudino)
Her name was [b]Giselle Rainwalker[/b], and you just had to look at her to know she came from a magical place.  A place of glamour and spectacle.  A place known as the 80s.

The blonde hair goes up and back, and she's obviously trying to bring back the hole in the ozone layer by herself.  The hippie skirt and wrap clash with the AC/DC tour t-shirt.  She came into Corvus Bay five years ago, playing with a band called "Pixies from Hell."  The band rolled up, blew up, broke down and then everyone but her blew town.  She's now forming a band called "Gossamer Axe" playing classic heavy metal.  Tonight they're going to be playing at The Moon's Gift, and she wants Aliyah to be there.

She is human on a technicality.  She spent two real-world decades - 1991-2011 - in the Fairy Realms, and due to the time dilation effect of the Fea realm she experience a century or more.  She soaked up so much magic and music - synonyms to some of the distant Fae - that she's mostly fae herself.  She's a shit-hot guitar player, and that's all on her, playing an axe carved from the wood of a fairy harp.

She wants to be better.  She left someone behind in the Fairy Realms, and she's honing her craft to get them back.  Someday she'll smash the gates of the fairy castle with the power of epic metal.  She just needs the right songs, and the right band to play them.  Someday.

Two years ago Aliyah was investigating a Faun who was seducing his way through the younger female portion of the community.  Aliyah finally confronted him at a club, but found herself not as immune to his glamour as she'd thought.  Then Giselle took the stage and hit the Faun with some riffs from Randy Rhoads-era Ozzy.  It shredded his glamour, smashed his enchantments to powder and shipped him out of town on the Crazy Train.  She doesn't acknowledge the debt herself - kicking out douchebags is just one of the perks of the job - but Aliyah feels it keenly.  

Not enough to show up at her gigs, though.  But if Giselle is reaching out, she must want to talk about something.[/hider]

[hider=Debt owed to Aliyah by Dray Dominic]
The person who put Aliyah onto the trail of the Faun was [b]Dray Dominic[/b], a Tainted, but from the other direction.  Dray is not a human who sold his soul, he's a demon who settled on earth.  He's an Imp -- pretty much the lowest of the low in the ranks of Hell.  He wriggled out of his assigned duties in Tartarus and made a place for himself committing low level mischief in Corvus Bay.  

He's an independent drug dealer, selling fairly benign party drugs and MJ at low enough prices that he doesn't attract the attention of any big players.  Sometimes he'll buy one of Aliyah's concoctions to sell.  Aliyah considers him the least of the evils in Corvus Bay and so hasn't hassled him.  

Dray met the Faun at a party when the Faun tried to pick up a woman that Dray was trying to sell to.  They butted heads.  Literally, since they both have horns in their natural form.  The Faun won, and Dray got pissy and asked Aliyah to get rid of the guy.  Aliyah did - for her own reasons and with the help of Giselle - and now a debt is owed.[/hider]

[hider=Dwelling]Aliyah lives in a small but well-made house in the south-eastern corner of Corvus Bay, just south of the Bay itself.  It sits on land that was once used to grow rice, back before the Civil War.  It has belonged to the Schilling family for over a century now, but Aliyah is the first to have built a house here.

Most of the land is turned over to a massive herb-and-vegetable garden.  A sprawling ranch house - no basements this close to the waterline - sits wrapped in fencing and honeysuckle.  The outside looks simple and inviting, with a long porch complete with rocking chairs and windchimes.  A chicken coop is off to the side with a trio of frizzle chickens and a frizzle rooster named Bocephus.

The inside is bigger than the outside.  (you saw that coming, didn't you?)  There's a extensive kitchen just for processing herbs and other ingredients, and a smaller kitchen for food.  A summoning room, a library, and a room just for Imani the cat.  Aliyah's bedroom sits in the middle, warded straight to hell and back.[/hider]

The fact that the card was slid under the door was in itself alarming.  Aliyah had carefully chosen the door and frame to prevent any vapors from getting in, or out.  The whole area was sprinkled with goofer dust - a sort of all-purpose Hoodoo hex powder - which prevented anyone with mischief in mind from getting close to the house.  

Drying her hands on a kitchen towel, Aliyah studied the card as it lie on the floor.  The front - the part she could see - showed a darkened room with an image of the full moon projected on the ceiling.  The Moon's Gift.  But they weren't the sort to advertise, were they?  If you were the sort to go there, you already knew about it.

She flipped the card over with her toe.  Huh.  Not too many people would be writing her in sparkly purple ink.  Or signing off with a sketch of metal :rock horns.  Giselle then.

So Giselle had a new band together?  Third this year.  They were playing at The Moon's Gift.  Normally Aliyah would have made up some conflict and apologized, but if Giselle was sending a physical card then it must be more than just "Hey, check this out!" And if it weren't for Giselle Aliyah would have ended up in a janitor's closet with that faun.

Time to hit the wardrobe and see if she had anything suitable for clubbing.

[hr]

A few hours - and some hasty laundry - later, and Aliyah was in front of the Moon's Gift.  It was tucked away in the trendy district, crunched between a fusion restaurant and an art gallery.  The bouncer at the door was a troll.  A literal troll, although he just looked like a big, ugly man.  Amazing what you could do with a charcoal suit and a good tailor.

[color=92278f]"Hey Keith!  How are things?  You still with Chrishell?"[/color]

The troll's face split in a granite smile.  Sometimes it was nice to be a local fixture.

Aliyah shot the breeze with Keith for a minute until a line started to form, then paid the cover charge and slid down the stairs.  The club itself was dimly lit - duh - with most of the light coming from the image of the moon projecting on the ceiling.  It waxed and waned thought the night, giving a feeling of time slipping by.  

Aliyah was early enough that the moon was still a waxing sliver in one corner of the room.  She'd just grabbed a table - really, a frisbee with legs - and ordered the mandatory rum-and-coke when Giselle made her appearance ...