[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] The Hayloft -> Neil & Bob's Public House [color=9932cc][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] Minor Illusion [color=9932cc][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] [color=black]Morty[/color] [color=9932cc][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [/cell][cell] [right][img]https://i.ibb.co/KW5Pyxx/Victoria-FC-3-II.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] A few dramatic waves, reminiscent of an orchestra conductor relaying the tempo of a strings section, and Victoria had set back up her illusory privacy screen. [color=9932cc]"You have approximately a minute, Kathryn. Make it count."[/color] The Bard might have stuck around to replenish the spell following this minute, except that her proclivities just then had her moving on toward creature comforts and getting their job in motion. Naturally, the former came first. Victoria had a desire for a little something warm that morning but did not hold out a ton of hope for the more sophisticated foodstuffs of her homeland. A lady might dream, though. Responding to Kathryn's expression of gratitude for the minor illusion cast for modesty's sake, Victoria reassured, [color=9932cc]"Think nothing of it, Lady Knight. It's no more than you would do for me, I am certain."[/color] Her smile was sweet, seemingly masking another choice phrase or two implied yet left unsaid. Morty (who apparently was popular the previous night), stood upon the lift with the same vacuous, unthinking expression as ever. Victoria lowered the not-quite-living beast to the ground floor and set back to her own belongings while the others talked. The discussion between Kosara and Kathryn honestly made the musical Half-Elf wonder if they were doomed to some horrible, Darwinian end in the near future. This was tempered by the reminder of the group utterly running roughshod over the Goblins. What they lacked in ...things... these people seemed to make up for in deliverable [i]ouch[/i]. To contrast, even if she didn't look like she was paying the rapt-est attention, Victoria was taking in the details of the conversation which Marita overheard. There were implications to this which she could not connect without further information; questions that she might want to answer were she so inclined to follow up on them. [i]If[/i] this even had anything to do with the disappearances. As opposed to their Cleric, Victoria gave a tiny shake of her head as she slipped her coat over her leather armor and buckled on her swordbelt. She was no great fighter, obviously, but was no stranger to either style or defending herself. A slim, elegant blade made by talented Human hands from a foreign land helped give her, she believed, an air of adventurous sophistication. And if she was being honest with herself, there was no way in any of the Hells that she was disarming when she didn't have to. And her primary violin? Most assuredly its case was being slung across her back. It completed the whole, bardy ensemble. Plans were being made, sort of, and Victoria had something similar to a plan, herself. Or an idea, more like. This idea revolved around her talking to people with practiced nonchalance who might point her in a useful direction and having a light breakfast. Probably not in the exact order. In any case, as plans that did not originate from her were being discussed, Victoria swung herself down the ladder to the ground floor and announced, [color=9932cc]"Whatever we get ourselves into, ladies, I'm having a light breakfast first. Best of luck."[/color] She stopped to give Morty a mental command to follow, and found herself wishing to voice a thought: [color=9932cc]"If you truly are going after the L'Roses first thing, they are located in a boarding house with a green roof, near to that boarded up silversmith's place. I saw them safely there myself last night."[/color] She went for the door, her tusked hog following, and suggested, [color=9932cc]"Perhaps we should meet back up at noon, latest. Just in case, of course. Oh, and good morning to you both."[/color] She departed, Morty keeping to her heels. Victoria wasted no time getting across the street to the Public House. This seemed to be her life, anymore. A series of public houses instead of her plying her trade as either a funerary overseer, scholar, or just musician. Her home accommodations were definitely more grand than to which she was subjected in places like Avonshire - not that it was [i]bad[/i], mind you, just not as haute as she was raised with. And she did tend toward expensive tastes from time to time. Upon entering, she made a beeline for Rickard's table and, albeit without express permission, settled into a seat on the opposite side. Her swordbelt hung neatly on the back of the chair. Yes, there were glances at her burlap-wrapped companions from the very few people in the taproom. This was nothing that she hadn't dealt with since her more morally ambiguous abilities manifested. But as the Elf hadn't seen but a parlor trick to represent who she was and what she did, bringing Morty along seemed to be an expedient way of shattering any misconceptions or misunderstandings on the outset, provided that the warrior could put two and the square root of four together. She smiled but didn't speak; not until Lea tottled over to take her order. Sweetly, Victoria found out what was on their limited menu and chose for herself something simple; fresh bread, butter, fruit and tea. She then leaned in a little and addressed the guy in a rather optimistic tone, [color=9932cc]"Well. Here we are."[/color]