by Temperance 24th May 2020, 9:03 am
Hex glared at Faust with his response and reaction. While the Maid's behavior was odd, she felt Faust was even odder by association. Then again, the cat easily trolled most people she saw with the exception to Temperance. It was practically a cat's job to be sarcastic with her peers.
Even despite the explosive boom-- the maid still didn't respond. She continued to work... like she was in some sort of trance or hypnotic spell. Hex's ears went up with alert at the sound, though the jolt was not as bad. "Eh... looks like Tempy ran into some trouble, but then again she likes to cause it too..." the cat meowed as she remained perched on Faust's shoulders.
Likely they should go see where Temperance was, as she clearly got into a fight or something. That was up to Faust now unless there was more for him to do here. Either way, they had the book-- their goal and it was smart to regroup.
***
Downstairs, the room was filled with smoke as the Duke recovered from the explosive boom. Luckily, the blast was contained to where Temperance had laid out the cards. Even with that explosion-- the blast hadn't blown the door down. However, it did tear the lock apart, and the big, steel door was now ajar. Temperance remained calm, a small cough escaping her-- but her's wasn't the only one.
Other voices were behind the door...
As the smoke cleared, they could see through the crack of the now open door-- to reveal what the good Duke was hiding.
Inside, were young women, huddled in the room. They had their heads down up till now, stuck there in dirty, ragged clothing. At the sight of the open door, they looked up, scared looks on their face.
Temperance had glanced at them, able to tell they were relatively unharmed... then turned to the Duke with a cold, unhappy look on her face. "Seems like your in, what is it they say? Oh yeah... compromising situation here," she said, a hand on her hip as she addressed the duke, seeing the look of shock on his face.
It seemed the wealthy duke was involved in one of the worst kinds of crooked deals you could think of. "Human trafficking", which was a more modern-day term for the grossly used term of 'slavery'. Even among criminals, Temperance found such things disgusting, as was a good way to describe the expression on her face.
As the girls began to sense the situation outside their broken prison, The Duke looked with anger and shock. This woman had blown the lid off his scheme, literally. "You making a big mistake here... These women are--"
SHRIK!!
A single card slashed across the distance between them, grazing his cheek and leaving a papercut-- before it lodged into the door behind him. Temperance continued to glare at him crossly. "You pissed off the wrong thief, handsome," she said, part teasing, part angry. "I may be a criminal, but even I wouldn't steal lives. well... i suppose in this case, I am stealing THEM from YOU. " she added with a playful wink at him.
It was then all pretenses faded and the man grew angry as he glared at the witch. "You despicable b***h!!" he growled, and flexed his hand-- causing a glow of light. From there a great sword appeared. The man was a requipt user!
As he charged for her, Temperance kept still and welcomed the assault. She had to play this game for a bit... She hoped that Faust and Hex would show up, but not for her sake. She could handle this red hot-headed moron. However, she couldn't hold him off-- and help the captured women escaped.
At the moment the man charged, she tossed one of her cards forward, striking just short of where he was about to run-- "The Empress" card. The moment it hit the ground, a flash went off and from the card and ground-- tendrils of rose vines began to grow rapidly from it. The man looked in shock as the vines grew out of nowhere, blocking his advance and entwining around his body. The sting of the thorny vines pricked at him, as well as wind its way around his body, and sword-arm, making it hard to advance or cut through them.
"The hell?!" he shouted, which made Temperance smirk at his confusion. One of the benefits of card magic... it was unpredictable. Even as a child, she practices with her Witch's tarot and learned how to use it to its full abilities.
WC: 768