[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] Brindleton's Woodworking [color=9932cc][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [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/kJ2BTjD/Victoria-HF.png[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] Victoria gave a lingering look back to Rickard as he suddenly had someplace else to be. Had he found something that was more pressing to his personal task? This and a few other questions pressed into her mind until a simple fact about her situation came alight within the Half-Elf's awareness: She was alone in a building which did not belong to her, where someone was likely taken against their will, which was hastily and sloppily covered up. Victoria was no great pillar of sage wisdom (elements from her history led to to this painful but obvious conclusion), but even she could figure out that, were there nefarious forces about, she would be an obvious target for their attentions. No, it was probably best to get herself out into the public eye with measured haste. Sometimes her ability to draw attention to herself kept her safe. Safer, anyway. The noble-born Elf had left before he divulged any information about what he might or might not have found throughout his investigation, which left the now quite solitary Bard at a disadvantage. This thought was blunted slightly by the logical understanding that she was technically not alone. Her eyes dated briefly down to her undead companion, Morty, who was standing very still with an vacant expression on its burlap-wrapped, hickory-smoked visage. Okay, so the creature was as dumb as a sack of hammers and had no initiative on its own aside from following the standing orders of its creator, but the poor mockery of life had its uses. A meatslab bodyguard with tusks was better than nothing at all. There was also the fact that Rickard was the only one with a key to the woodworker's shop, so if she left without securing the place somehow, there would be no whisper of a guarantee that more wouldn't happen in their absence. Victoria looked about, annoyed at the obvious and poor job of cleaning which was done. It was insulting, really. And if anyone with nefarious intent showed up to complete the job, then what clues might have been left stood a greater chance of disappearing. Sighing, Victoria crossed over to the work area of the shop and snatched up a piece of furniture fabric. She carefully used it to gather up the bit of scraggly hair which was caught on the interior door lock. There wasn't a thought as to what she might do with it later on, but it seemed like it could be used as a comparison piece, provided they found something similar elsewhere. Victoria's grasp on divination was simply not suitable to the task otherwise. Movement from the other side of the slightly ajar door caught Victoria's attention. She mentally summoned [color=black]Morty[/color] over to her in case it was something more dangerous than a local shopkeeper or laborer and slowly pushed open the door a little bit more, ready for whatever might come next. Her careful expression turned to something more pleasant when she saw that it was Marita. The door opened more fully and she exclaimed, [color=9932cc]"Why hello there, Marita!"[/color] Victoria continued, [color=9932cc]"However did you find this place so quickly? Well, no matter. I couldn't find a whole lot in here..."[/color] A thoughtful look crossed her visage as she debated saying anything else in what was open public, even if foot traffic was sparse in the area at that point in time. The Half-Elf dropped the volume of her voice a little and stepped closer, informing, [color=9932cc]"The dressmaker's place is supposed to be around here, I think. Unless you would prefer to put a fresh set of eyes on this place?"[/color] She carefully produced the hair wrapped in fabric to show briefly before putting it back away, her voice quieting even more, [color=9932cc]"All I found was this, whatever it means. And I think someone has been in here since yesterday. I might ask the Lord High Elf about the implications, but I believe that he might have parted ways with us."[/color] The undead pig remained quietly at Victoria's heel, awaiting orders. She glanced down to it, then back up to Marita. With a whisper and mischievous smile, she quipped at a half-whisper, [color=9932cc]"Oh! Morty says 'Hi'."[/color] Morty, well... he just stood there.