Twenty-eight

Sylvie gave a faint smile, eager to get moving.

The rain outside was still steady, but had been worse earlier. Sylvie walked briskly, and soon moved close to Sebastian.

"So, is there anything I should know beforehand?"

He considered the question, raising his hood while he did so. Despite the severity of the situation, he looked remarkably like he had looked by the river roughly a week earlier. Placid, not restless. "There are few secrets in the House of Luck as Auker put... it if that's what you're asking. She knows already, so we can talk to our hearts' content in the shrine," he said as he walked, eyes half-lidded in the manner of a lazy cat or canine, surveying the streets. "Or was it something else?"

Sylvie shrugged, looking at him bewildered and somewhat amused. "I wouldn't know, that's why I asked. I have no experience yet with... whatever this business is."

"Ah." He smiled ruefully, looking humbled as he looked first at the ground and then momentarily closed his eyes. "It can only be learned by doing. There really are few tricks to it that work all the time. The best one can do is hope and stay vigilant, ask a lot of questions, seize any chance that presents itself and keep on going. Any special skills help."

"Ah. Life." She wasn't entirely sure if he was trying to cheer her up, or making fun of her, or just odd, but gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed the former.

Sebastian-Kai smiled, then thought for a moment. "It's there's usually physical or magical threat involved in... whatever this business is. Obvious, maybe, but I... wanted to mention that. Other than that, if strange things start to happen - and by strange I mean something akin to a streak of coincidences -, well, just... take it as it goes. It's just the Lady Luck," he said with a shrug.

A moment later, he said: "I'm sorry if I'm not much help there, but... this is pretty new to me." He looked at her thoughtfully. "Are you intending to follow this to the very end?" Sebastian asked calmly, hiding the bit of awe he felt.

She sighed at the mention of Lady Luck.

After a little consideration she answered, "I'm not sure I want to, but this seems too big to turn away from. I guess I'll just have to take things as they come.

"If it's new to you, why did you say 'usually' before?"

Sebastian smiled at her (in his opinion excellent) take on the situation, then... finally put his finger on the thing that was giving him so much trouble. It shook him a bit, and then some. "Because nobody's ever offered to help with the tasks given by my goddesses," he said frankly, blinking at the street owlishly. And because you're not Weft, or the hunter, or family... you could have just left, or not believe me.

"About time, then," she said absentmindedly, not looking at Sebastian. The idea of the life of a city and its surroundings being in greater danger than they had to be because some people wanted to keep the matter private did not agree with her, but she could not quite bring herself to act on her judgment in this case. For one, she did not know the people here that well. Then, a goddess might indeed know better.

Hopefully she, or they, were not primarily concerned with their own amusement.

"About time," he echoed, for his own reasons, looking wistfully at the clouds and the rain. Then: "Wait, how do you mean?"

"Hm? I thought you had been at this getting-tasks-from-your-goddesses-business for a ... while. And if it usually involves threats like this, which many people have interest in getting rid of, well?"

Sebastian tilted his head. "In a way. It's more along the lines of the Lady Luck pointing me somewhere where something stops other parties from taking care of it. Usually it's things like what I described to you by the river," he said, trying to ignore the nagging doubt that said to him: Look, what makes you think the Lady hasn't put you in the same place for a reason right now? "But you're right. It's about time."

Sylvie stopped short of asking him how often he tried to get help, and instead fell silent.

The half-elf didn't seem to have anything to add either. He walked on with a faintly contemplative expression that got wiped away the moment they found the street the shrine and the gambling lair were on. Normally Sebastian would have considered using the backdoor, but Auker would probably have killed him no matter who he was if he brought guests in from the back.

So the front door it was. He knocked first before holding the door open for Sylvie.

Inside stood an adolescent boy with a mop. He looked quite surprised and a little pained when he saw the rain try to invade. "Um. Hi."

Sylvie got in quickly, greeted the boy as she lowered her hood and had a quick look around.

The thought that this place could do with a marquee or vestibule crossed her mind.

"Hello lad," said Sebastian and closed the door. The boy - he assumed the boy was Rosz - looked a little startled when the half-elf tugged his hood down. "Sorry about the mess."

Rosz, a tall, spindly boy sighed and set his mop aside. "Um, that's... that's fine. Did you -- did you want to talk to the sister?"

Sebastian smiled, still apologetic. "Yes, that's what we came here for. Where can we find her?"

"Um, well, she's in the back... I'll go get her."

"Well, I'd rather if we could go in the back. We need to talk to her in private. Don't worry, I'm one of the faithful."

Rosz looked a little doubtful for the briefest of moments. "All right," he said, glancing at the floor. "Do you want me to show you the way?"

"I think we'll be fine," Sebastian said, "Fortuna provides."

Rosz smiled at that and visibly relaxed, took his mop and went back to work.

They had to go through two doors and a corridor to make it to the back, where sister Auker was presently lighting a fire. She looked vaguely surprised - especially when she looked at Sylvie. "Hello, Sylvie... Kai. This is a surprise."

"Hello Auker. I'd be surprised if it wasn't," Sebastian said right back at her.

Sylvie had meant to greet Auker, but hearing that made her head snap around to Sebastian.

"If all this turns out to have been a joke..." She shook her head. "Well, better in the grand scheme of things, that'd be."

"It would be, but it's no joke I'm afraid," Sebastian said, meeting Sylvie's look while Auker sighed.

"All right, I can guess what this is about... did I guess right?" Auker said.

Sebastian nodded, realising he was just too tired to be annoyed by what Sylvie had said. "The weather. Sylvie knows."

Auker blinked at Sylvie a couple of times before she pulled two chairs by the fire. "Grab a seat. Anything to drink, either of you?"

Sebastian shook his head.

"No, thank you." Sylvie draped her cloak over the back of a chair. When all three of them were seated, she took a deep breath and turned to Auker.

"So, we know the consequences, but we need to find out the reason, and how to stop it. We came here because neither of us are local, so we might miss something..."

Auker nodded and tossed wood into the fire. Then she regarded Sylvie again. "All right. I understand. I take it you've got something in particular you want to talk about this time as well?"