2020-02-14: The Hazards To Truth

• Log: The Hazards To Truth
• Cast: Josephine Lovelace, Seraph Clarine
• Where: Meria City - Central Commercial District
• Date: February 14, 2020
• Summary: Josie goes hunting around for leads in Meria's used bookstores and encounters Clarine; a little light conversation is had on the nature of history and truth, and Josie gives Clarine a few suggestions for reading materials about Filgaia.

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<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    Where else would one expect to find Josephine Lovelace but in a bar?

    Which may make it all the more notable that the archaeologist is not drinking away in some dive or another today. No, today sees her browsing the wares inside a cramped bookshop just off the main drag of Meria's mercantile row.

    She's tall for a human woman -- at least, compared to those around these parts. She has to stoop in the confines of the rather cavelike bookstore. Books are quite literally everywhere: crammed on shelves, heaped on top of the bookcases, in piles wherever the floorspace permits it. Even, if one looks inside it, in the fireplace (not to worry -- it has the look of not being used in half a century or more and seems to have been transformed into even more storage for old books).

    Somewhere in here is the wizened shopkeeper. Allegedly there is also a cat.

    Josie entered a good ten minutes prior and hasn't seen hide nor hair of either and has consequently helped herself to... browsing the shelves.

    She's an archaeologist, not a thief*!

    (*insert your own joke about the difference between archaeology and thievery here)

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

Clarine knew her way around Meria City. While she often went out exploring or during work for ARMS, this was the place she always returned to. She had friends who lived here, after all - it felt nice to have a place to come back to.

As a Seraph, she can come and go pretty much as she pleases without any real worry about what anyone thought of what she was doing. She's likely been in this particular bookstore quite a few times, chewing through books - metaphorically - to help familiarize herself with Filgaia and its history.

Usually, she doesn't have to worry about anyone spotting her and interrupting her reading. Josie may in fact spot Clarine before Clarine spots her, drifting casually from bookshelf to bookshelf before -

"Ah!" She gasps in acknowledgment. "Josie, I did not expect to see you. What brings you to Meria City...?"

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    There are a lot of books in here, ranging from 20-year-out-of-date travel guides, the latest penny novels (slightly dog-eared), medical textbooks (expensive, even used), almanacs (of varying use and applicability), cookbooks (handy, if you have a stove), and even the odd treatise.

    Josie slides one such treatise back onto the shelf ('A CASE FOR THE EIGHT-DAY WEEK') and crouches, scanning the next shelf down. Aha--

    She slides the small book from the shelf just as someone nearby gasps, having spotted her.

    Josie jerks her head upwards.

    Pale eyebrows lift.

    "Well, here's a sight for sore eyes! Clarine, yeah? ...Don't suppose you've seen the shopkeep? I'm inclined to think they went out for lunch and forgot to lock up, nearly."

    She's asked what she's doing, and at this she waggles the small book she's extracted from the shelf in front of the Seraph.

    "A little light research. Looking into stories of Meria and surrounding islands. ...Maybe you could say I'm tracking down a potential site." She stands, then offers the book over.

    'Legends and Rumours of Meria' reads the title.

    "Now the place I'm after ain't on Meria proper... but maybe I'll get a good hint anyways." She props her bad hand on her hip. "What about you, kiddo-- hmm. No, you're really not a kiddo..." she mulls, frowning as she considers her options.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

The books of Filgaia are strange, indeed. Clarine reads them all equally, though some she doesn't understand as well as others. ...It might have give her a rather unusual view of Filgaia.

"No, I am afraid not. But I must admit I did not particularly search for them..." Clarine replies apologetically, as Josie asks after the shopkeep. Was it stealing, to read books without paying for them? That's probably not the sort of question a nature spirit with only a tenuous grasp of business etiquette knows the answer to, or really things about.

"I see..." Clarine observes with a nod, as Josie explains that she's looking for a potential site. "What manner of site, if you do not mind my asking...?"

Clarine giggles, just a bit, as Josie calls her kiddo and then backpedals. True, she may be on the short side, but she's older than the establishment around them - and possibly even Meria Boule itself.

"No, perhaps not." She replies good-naturedly. "As for myself... I thought I would educate myself on Filgaia. I have learned much in my travels, but I find that when it comes to the day-to-day, I am still... a little clueless, perhaps. So, I have been making use of the literature provided here."

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    It's only stealing if you walk off with a book -- at least, this is the case as far as Josie's concerned. Money's tight as usual -- she's not putting down perfectly good Gella for anything less than a potential lead for the site she's seeking.

    Besides, it's not as if anyone is around to tell her not to.

    Somewhere in the shadows of a shelf, a pair of yellow eyes gleam.

    For now, Josie continues blithely enough. "Archaeological. Call it part of a... hm, a theory I'm working on? I got a hint recently that what I'm looking for might just be around the Meria Island area if I'm lucky. But I've not much else to go one than that! So, I'm doing a little research... because even searching every nook and cranny of the islands around here'd take me the rest of my life if I were lucky."

    She flashes a grin at that, brandishing the book before her still. "Probably a lot of ghost story nonsense in here. But I'll bet you a good ten-Gella coin there's at least one or two things in that'll match up to the local history. A grain of truth in every pound of nonsense, yeah? What the greybeards forget, the old wives remember."

    In a fashion, at least.

    "Oh yeah? Well, can't do a sight worse than browsing the stacks. There's some old guides in the shelf..." She cranes her neck, trying to see where the bookshelf she'd passed earlier was.

    "Next one over, I think. Some of 'em are older than me, so I'd dare say the locations have changed about a bit since. Still, some of those traveler's guides ain't too bad a place to start."

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

"Archaeological... I see." Clarine replies with a nod. She listens with interest as Josie explains her research. A site around the Meria Island area... "I will admit, you have gotten me a bit curious, as well. I wish you luck on your research."

Josie brandishes the book, and Clarine can't help smile a little.

"Indeed. Though the truth often becomes obscured with time, warped through superstition or exaggeration, very little tales are outright lies... It is something I have seen happen time and time again." She observes with a nod.

She pauses, though, as Josie gives a suggestion for her own area of research - when Josie cranes her neck to look for that bookcase, Clarine's gaze follows.

"Oh? Then I will be sure to investigate them. I appreciate the suggestion." She replies with a nod and a slight smile.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "I'm a Zeboim scholar, you might say," Josie says, as if it were a sort of point of pride. "It was a civilization from deep in Filgaia's past. Long since gone, but here and there some of their traces come cropping up. I've got good reason to believe there's a chance there might be one such around here, though it's the 'where' that's the sticky part, eh?" she says, smiling crookedly. "Anyway, my 'fellow scholars' are the sort that'd as soon stab me in the back as help me, hence the whole 'out-on-my-lonesome no-department no-assistants Drifter-lifestyle' I've got on. Bit of a rough deal, but I'm making do, sure enough," she adds, by way of explanation.

    "Speaking of, I can trust you to keep that little tidbit to yourself, Clary? I dare say most won't be able to hear you anyway, but loose lips sink ships! I'd be rather cross if I got scooped."

    The book dances in the air in the archaeologist's grasp.

    A black paw suddenly shoots out of the shadows of the shelves, striking the book and sending it floorwards.
    The cat pokes its head out after, quickly revealing the true form of the assailant.

    The archaeologist has but one long moment to bear an expression of shock, before it shifts into exasperation. "I see the cat's at home at least!" she remarks, shaking her head.

    "Let's add overexuberant felines to the hazards to truth," she adds. "Time, exaggeration, and cats." Josie stoops, aiming to reclaim the fallen book.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Clarine has posed.

"A Zeboim scholar... I see. I have heard that term a few times." Clarine considers as Josie explains. "The 'where'... I can understand how that may complicate matters. Though, I suppose if the 'where' were not a problem, then you would be out of work..."

But on the subject of work...

"Oh dear... that sounds like quite the hostile work environment.." She murmurs with a frown, and then a nod. "Do not fear - I will speak of this to no one... though, as you say, very few can hear me."

She watches, then, as the book is suddenly smacked out of Josie's hands.

"Oh!" Clarine gasps in surprise. "It is quite exuberant, is it they not...?"

She, too, leans down to pick up the book for Josie - but, pauses and lets Josie herself get it since she's already doing the same.

"Yes, indeed..." She agrees, with a grave nod. She turns her head toward the culprit currently poking its head out of the shelves.

...It's hard to resist the urge to drift over there and try to pet the cat.

<Pose Tracker> Josephine Lovelace has posed.

    "Yep. The civilization fell and was just about forgotten -- if it weren't for the ruins, probably completely." She pauses, regarding Clarine for the moment. "Actually... you Seraph types speak 'Ancient Tongue', yeah? You might be a little more familiar with one aspect of Zeboim culture than you think. Remind me to introduce you to Lily sometime."

    She knows why at this point -- or at least knows enough to fill in the blanks.
    At least broadly. As for the fine print?

    Yet another mystery of history.

    "You got it, kid-- Clary," she says, a rueful smile. "Never get into academia. Scholars get into skullduggery that makes a bandit look like a paragon of virtue. But once I get my thesis together..." She outright smirks. "They'll never know what hit 'em."

    It's into this that the cat intrudes. Even now it peers from the shelf, eyes glittering in the light.

    "Something about bookshops that attracts a cat. ...Probably 'cause mice eat books," Josie answers, standing to her nearly-full height.

    She still has to stoop.

    "So! I could keep looking to see if I'll get lucky a second time, but how about I give you a hand? We're partners in crime with this business with the Tomamond and the rest," she grimaces fleetingly, thinking back to that fight against K.K., "...and it'd be a shame if you got into trouble while out and about. Even if you're a Seraph, Filgaia's a rough enough place for the unwary," she says, pressing past Clarine and into the... well what passes for the main floor here. It's mostly books.

    "Now let's see, what's a good one..."

    It'll take a while yet to browse, let alone find something useful enough for Clarine's purposes.

    The cat hops down from the shelf and follows after the both of them when they move on.