[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] Silversmith's Shop [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/8r6nxVw/Victoria-FC-11.jpg[/img][/right] [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] Though Victoria's mouth remained in a sociable, warm smile, her eyes widened with some combination of emotions a little less genteel. Her head turned to her companion in their endeavor, Marita, with this look of repressed emotion squarely fixed. Proper control over her features (an effort refined by years of showmanship and performance) asserted itself, but her eyes still entertained some sort of more-or-less good natured retribution brewing. Finally, a quiet head shake and hint of smile revealed itself which seemed to relate, [color=9932cc][i]"Well played."[/i][/color] Fine. Victoria had been "gotten". She was gracious enough to roll with it for the sake of their mission. [color=9932cc]"Fortuitous indeed, Lady of the Faith,"[/color] started Victoria, the flourish common to her gestures somehow finding a spiritual sister in her voice, as if she was giving a tiny sample of her more public oratory works. [color=9932cc]"Robert's generosity and forethought to our needs bears remarkable fruit, of course."[/color] She smiled and reached into a pocket on the inside of her coat, producing the five gold coins she had taken from the table back at the Public House. Victoria stacked them neatly on the counter toward the center of the room, along with her sword belt which still contained her slim cut & thrust sword. The idea of keeping it on her was the initial instinct being as they were confirmed to be in the middle of a hostile situation. This thought was shattered by the realization that, if the enemy was indeed a were-creature, her favorite pointy implement would be useless against them anyway. She had her magic, a long, reliable dagger, and she had her Morty. Morty couldn't do much against them either, though it would be amusing to the extreme to command the animated foodstuff to chomp down on a wererat leg and run for it. Or bar a door. Or act as a smoked, salt-cured tripping log. Merely buying time for the group's survival made this poor, dead beast a worthwhile investment. For a half-second, Victoria wondered what other accomplishments could be had when her abilities blossomed more fully. A grim smile followed and she put it out of her mind. There were more pressing matters at hand - namely keeping herself and her present party alive. And [i]reasonably[/i] intact. [color=9932cc]"We've three more outside, Monsieur Mallard,"[/color] she informed, hoping that the additional numbers wouldn't throw off the timing of his work. Outside, regardless of whatever else was or was not occurring, Morty just stood there dumbly underneath the building's overhang, unmoving, like a sack of flour that lost its will to continue.