[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 5[/color][/b][/i]
[color=9932cc][i][b]HP:[/b][/i][/color] 33 / 33	[color=9932cc][i][b]Armor Class:[/b][/i][/color] 16	[color=9932cc][i][b]Conditions:[/b][/i][/color] N/A
[color=9932cc][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] Coach House (Taproom)
[color=9932cc][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] Skill Check - [i]Arcana[/i]
[color=9932cc][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] [color=black][b]Morty[/b][/color], [color=dimgray][b]Familiar[/b][/color]
[color=9932cc][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A
[/cell][cell]
[right][img]https://i.ibb.co/ZzgLdXRt/Victoria-Alt-8-ss2.png[/img][/right]
[/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]

	Kosara asked questions that Victoria, frankly, did not have direct answers to. She then spoke words that she never liked to utter, [color=9932cc]"I don't clearly know."[/color] It was accurate, as distasteful as it might be to her. [color=9932cc]"I poured over one of my books; a classic tome that covers various Undead creatures and basic habits - as useful as a [i]text[/i] can be in this situation. What I found was inconclusive."[/color] Victoria took a light sip from her drink and explained further, [color=9932cc]"If this is truly Prince Farid, who was Human if memory serves, he would have been long dead or had extended his life in some way. Let us assume it is with undeath. He has kept his mind, and is able to speak through his thralls. Sense through them, too. We have evidence of spell use."[/color] Victoria was counting off points on her fingers in what amounted to a thinking gesture rather than a true tally. [color=9932cc]"I can see why this would make one think of a Lich. But I'm not seeing other signs that would point to that. All of his thralls were lesser, corporeal undead, that we have seen so far. Other common types might have made better spies or messengers. I just... don't know. The bad deal with Arnaud, the gifts, the fact that he hasn't moved from this plot of land in all this time? Something seems off about this. If we find out more, I can try to eliminate more possibilities. Innate control over lesser undead is a factor, as long as it is intrinsic to the creature and not an example of spell use."[/color]

	Then her Tiefling associate said something interesting. [color=9932cc]"What do you mean by that, Kosara? About old faces, I mean - not being out of place in the south?"[/color] 

	Victoria mulled this around in her mind for a bit, carefully pacing her way back to her recently vacated chair. Near to it, Morty stood like a preserved, burlap-wrapped cairn, less than attentive but quite ready to take a command from the right person. Her Raven made a quiet croaking sound as it hopped from the back of said chair and landed on the table, deftly moving to one side as its mistress settled back in. She took her recent acquisition, the sharp shard of steel-hard volcanic glass, from its temporary resting spot and gripped the silver wire-wrapped handleas one might either a wand - or a knife. [color=9932cc]"[i]Obsidian Fang[/i], this one was called. It's quite the dramatic name, isn't it? "[/color] Then as a complete non sequitur, she said to her Raven, [color=9932cc]"We really must come up with a name for you..."[/color]  

	Baronfjord's words stuck with Victoria for a moment, which prompted her response, [color=9932cc]"I agree. This isn't something that will be bested with a fair fight. If the dreams are accurate, whatever fight we get into needs to be as unfair as possible."[/color] 

	The subject of child brides came up, befitting hopefully rare avenues of conversation. While the idea that this might have been what was originally meant in whatever agreement was made, Victoria again found herself reveling in disappointment. She did not know, [i]in the slightest[/i], how that piece of oddity might have fit into the grand puzzle of the Vineyard, and thus kept her mouth shut. Suboptimal, as a descriptor, simply did not cut it. Nevertheless, the Bard placed this idea into her mental notes of "maybes." Past this, Victoria quieted down a little in contemplation. She disliked not having all the answers.