[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h2][color=darkorchid][i][b]Victoria Belmont[/b][/i][/color][/h2][i][b][color=9932cc]Half-Elf, Bard, Level 3[/color][/b][/i] [color=9932cc][i][b]HP:[/b][/i][/color] 23 / 23 [color=9932cc][i][b]Armor Class:[/b][/i][/color] 15 [color=9932cc][i][b]Conditions:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=9932cc][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] Neil & Bob's Public House -> Exiting [color=9932cc][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=9932cc][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=9932cc][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/gJmht9Q/Victoria-Post-Funeral.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] The next few moments saw Victoria's psyche enter into a state of social self-defense, hoping that her natural charisma and senses of both performance and subtlety [i]in appropriate doses[/i] allowed her to separate herself a little from the new fallout of the previous few moments. Admittedly, the first bit was her fault. Her flair for the dramatic and desire to remove the harassing obstacles from her path kicked this off, to be absolutely sure, to the point of making herself an object of suspicion moving forward. Nothing that couldn't be smoothed over by public interactions over the next day or two (she hoped); spinning a good tale about the event while making her assailants look foolish. She was marvelously good at this. But what followed, funny as it was, reminded Victoria that while she craved attention, the [i]wrong[/i] kind of attention brought with it complications that might get someone like her run out of town or set ablaze, depending upon the overall mood of the community. This one seemed pretty laid back (mild paranoia because of disappearances notwithstanding), but she had already drawn attention to herself in a potentially very negative way. Be that as it may, it did give her an inward chuckle. It was just about time to get herself low and quiet until morning. When Kosara took it upon herself to explain the justification for her actions as well as launch into a tirade of misunderstandings concerning [i]everything[/i] that was spoken aloud, Victoria's ordinarily cheery yet reserved visage began to fray at the edges, curious as to whether the Tiefling was playing some sort of joke on them or if this was truly the extent to her worldly experience. Victoria was not a font of great wisdom by anyone's stretch of their imagination, prone to acts mainstream society might deem foolish - even naive - but this line of suppositions and conclusions truly threatened to break her brain. The extroverted smile remained, but her eyes widened in disbelief and secondhand embarrassment as more and more verbiage came careening out of Kosara's mouth only to crash clumsily upon Victoria's ears. She thought to say something, anything really, but no piece of sage advice from history nor any of the teachings she could remember of the various deities of her study bore any sort of weight here. Thankfully, this spell was broken by the expedient arrival of Victoria's order. One benefit of having an extremely limited, batch-produced menu was that minimal preparation was necessary. By extension, the wait time for her meal was also minimal. In this case, long enough to ladle it into a bowl and top it with a piece of coarse milled bread. A spoon might also have been involved, as the general consensus of the employees was that Victoria was a [i]fancy lady[/i], presumably of culture, who was probably accustomed to the cosmopolitan use of a spoon. To their credit, they weren't wrong. This wasn't the upscale sort of repast that the might have gone for in her home city, but an adult life spent on the road gave her some appreciation (read: tolerance) for varied qualities of cuisine, if this can be referred to candidly as [i]cuisine[/i]. But it smelled good. A quick sampling unveiled that it tasted pretty good, too. After that first taste, the lack of food she had consumed over the last several hours became apparent to her, evidenced to her by a sudden audible complaint from her stomach. She paused briefly to listen to Kathryn and her later plans for wine, and how this related to her money. This was the really expensive stuff, she realized. Well, it was only money. It's not like she couldn't find more. A silent shrug, that same smile but tinged with patience, and she nodded her assent. It was a brief agreement that, once made, allowed her to devote her attention to the bowl in front of her. The delicate young Half-Elf devoted the next few moments of time to destroying the contents therein, deftly using said spoon like a maestro conducting a meaty orchestra, its finale coming with gravy blotted away by rough bread and likewise consumed. When she finished, Victoria looked around to see if anyone had noticed her. An involuntary belch piped out of her, small and high-pitched, followed by a satisfied giggle. Thusly ended Victoria's desire to remain within the walls of Neil & Bob's Public House. The budding conversation about potential pregnancy was not one she wished to be a spectator of, let alone take part. V was done. She drained the wine in her glass, gave a lingering look back in Lea's direction, then addressed her group (plus Rickard). [color=9932cc]"This has been just a [i]lovely[/i] evening. Thank you all for being a part of it. But a lady needs her beauty rest and I have to feed Morty, so, I'm taking Marita's advice and retiring. Gentlemen, ladies; good evening."[/color] Victoria twirled her cloak about her shoulders, took up her oh-so-jaunty hat and placed it upon her head with a flourish, slung her violin case across her back like a seasoned professional, and made for the door with a confident gait. Victoria stepped over the once-again unconscious lump of a Human on the floor, unwilling to give him more thought than it took to avoid tripping over his limbs, and exited the premises. A brief muddling of colder temperatures drifted in as the door opened and closed, leaving the Bard seemingly alone in the foggy night.