gloriouslygood | Open RP Post

"It's not a terribly entertaining story, I'm sorry to say," she prefaced, "But I'll tell you, certainly." She didn't mind people knowing how she'd come to be enslaved, though no one before had ever asked, nor seemed to care overmuch about the particulars. Just the wishes.

"I used to travel with my people," she began; the story was easy enough to suss out. She had served the head of the tribe that lived around the oasis she occupied, and for quite a while it had been fine. Years, in fact. But there was one son, set to succeed his ruling mother, that chafed at the idea of having a powerful and beautiful creature like Sooraya so close, and so inaccessible. She had refused his advances one too many times, and he had cursed her to be confined in a bottle he'd kept nearby him at all times. The spells were powerful, rendering the bottle unbreakable by normal means, and tethering her to it and thereby its owner.

"He wanted power to control the neighboring people, and...did not take kindly my refusal of both that and marriage. I didn't want to be tied to anyone. I thought as long as his mother was alive she could talk him out of it, or sway enough people to keep him from acting on the desires he had. I very clearly underestimated him. He murdered her take power, and bound me to keep it."

The point of the story wasn't to be entertained. It was to figure out what he might need to do to free her. He listened politely, occasionally sipping his tea. It wasn't a tragic story more a cruel one about the typical power hungry prick not use to hearing no.

He nodded. "He's dead. My friends killed him and took your bottle. He didn't bind the spell to his own life, if what I'm saying."

So, it would take untangling the spell itself, possibly layer by layer to free her. It would be a long time, probably, since he still had his own business to run.

"Ah," she says on a sigh. "I'm not sad to learn he's dead. But...that makes unraveling those spells quite a lot more difficult." He hadn't been the kind of man to write down precisely what curses he'd used.

"Thank you for...everything you're doing, I suppose. Preemptively."

"Magic speaks more truth than the caster anyway." He would much rather figure out the spell than the disgusting man who cast it. Vox Machina had done the right thing ending him. He would have only caused more trouble left alive.

He waved a hand. "No one should be bound by magic. It should set people free and help them, not enslave."

Shaun had very strong views on the uses for magic. It was very dear and very important to him.

"Hasn't stopped centuries of people doing it up to now," she says lightly, looking down for a moment. Whether or not she felt anything in particular for the man that had captured her, it did take a moment to process the information. "I wish I could help. Unfortunately...my own magic is useless in breaking these particular bonds."

Not to say she couldn't research for him, or gather any ingredients necessary, but the actual spellcasting power would have to come from Shaun. "Thank you for telling me."

"I imagine if you could do something about your imprisonment you would've done so by now. Don't worry." Shaun didn't think she was the sort of enjoy serving a madman all these years.

He would do his best to get her free. He would also do his best not to ask her for anything. The choice would always be hers and he would not demand anything. She had choice taken away from her too many times.

"You can relax up here while I work. I'm going to go back down and get to work on helping you get established and taking a look at that bottle in more detail." He got to his feet with his tea.

"I may go exploring the city a little, if you think that's advisable," she murmured; she certainly didn't want to be in his hair all day, or just lazing around upstairs. It was nice, and she appreciated beyond measure his willingness to help free her, but she felt like she needed to be doing something to repay him.

She just didn't know what. Yet.

"Certainly. If you get lost ask anyone for directions to Gilmore's Glorious Goods and they'll get you here."

Emon was a large city but almost everyone knew of his store. They almost always knew of him as well since the fight with Thordak. Shaun Gilmore was a good man.

He brought his tea back down with him and let Sherri know he was back and ready to help if there was a picky customer.

"I should return before dark, or not long thereafter," she said, and kept her face covere as she went out; she could with very little effort look perfectly passably human, legs and all. Most of the time she barely had to think about it. Technically Sooraya didn't have a physical body, not the same way a human would, but few people knew that. Few people at all bothered to try learning much about djinni other than the rumors that spread from people unhappy that they weren't granted wishes. Or whose wishes hadn't turned out the way they wanted.

She wandered for several hours, merely exploring the city, though she did make it to the docks and the markets, collecting a good number of stares and questions along the way for her dress--it being far more suited to the desert than the coast. About an hour after sunset she came back, wisps of hair curling free of her veil and smelling like saltwater as she looked around the shop, taking in what the front of it looked like. Sooraya picked at the colorful golden bangles around her wrists as she explored, rubbing her skin where the thicker bracelets--manacles, really, but they were elegantly worked--sat and chafed.

"Shaun?"

"In the back!" He called from his workroom. "Through the beaded curtain."

Sadly, he wouldn't have much good news for Sooraya. The magic was difficult to untangle. The man who cast it was very good at his imprisonment. He needed more time to unravel the layers of magic. Possibly a lot of time.

However, he did have some good news for her. She'd have something to do while waiting for Shaun to work his magic.

She stepped through the curtain gently, stilling the swing of the bead strands with a wave of her hand. "Your shop is lovely," she says. "And the city is too. What happened here, though?"

"Thank you. I've put a lot of work into it over the years." Shaun gestured for her to sit down at another stool in the workshop. He didn't usually have many visitors back here.

"Besides selling to the lovely adventurers of Emon? Not terribly much. I did get you a position with my friend Allura to help in her library, if you'd like it." It would be very simple work but it would still be work for Sooraya if she wanted it.

"And your bottle will be more of a challenge than I thought. It'll take time, my apologies."

"You don't have to apologize," she said lightly, sitting down and unpinning her veil. "I'd very much like having something to do, and I quite like libraries."

The mention of the bottle's enchantments being difficult was, sadly, not much of a surprise. "I thought it woul take more time than...just one day."

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