[INTRO; OPEN]

[bokor]

The tall thin man was standing more or less near one gathering of gravestones in the evening dusk. Most people would be avoiding a place like this, and truthfully so should Facilier have been, if defiance hadn't temporarily overridden his common sense. He reasoned that the place wasn't so frightening even to a man who'd so mightily pissed off the spirits and so deeply overdrawn his finances that they'd dragged him off when he'd made the mistake of blurting that he couldn't pay them.

Maybe this was payment, or punishment, or maybe it was a third thing altogether, but Facilier knew second chance when he saw it and he knew landing on his feet when he had to. He could flourish in the sidewalk cracks like a weed, or he could... spend his time outside the castle assessing it nervously from a graveyard in which he paradoxically just felt more comfortable. That was right. Plenty of room around here to see anyone coming, plenty of space to escape if he felt uneasy, and no bokor had anything to fear from the dead that they didn't owe.

When he'd calmed his racing heart enough to actually pretend to be casual, he decided to make his way closer to the castle proper. Maybe there'd be a newspaper. Creepy Gothic Herald, with a date, which was about all he was interested in. He bothered with nothing like brochures, and this was far from New Orleans, but the same rules applied. Talk to people. Get friendly, pick up whatever unbiased, usable information presented itself and pick up the biased stuff too, but it might be harder to sift through that here.

He'd have to hope folks here were friendly enough to avail himself of their hospitality, a fish completely out of water as he reluctantly left even the shadow of familiarity with the graveyard and went people hunting.

And what that meant was lurking in shadowy halls, shuffling his tarot deck and keeping a look out for people who looked like suckers. Or at the very least like they wouldn't just attack him.

Comments

[bokor]

"Bet you're hoping it wears off." Facilier mused, not as sympathetic as he could have sounded at all, but not seeing any particular help for the situation in being sympathetic, either. Whether it wore off or not, and he didn't see much reason for it to, it wasn't like his being there was going to change it. The castle's abilities or tendencies or whatever they were easily trumped his own skills, even with the lwa assisting him in whatever endeavors he sought. And he was okay with that, for now, but only because he wasn't actually in danger or personally thwarted.

Kubo's situation was no skin off his back.

"I'd offer to help you out, for a fee, but this is a little beyond me, right now." Probably forever, honestly, but why undersell yourself. "Shame you can't tell me your name or how this happened, or... anything else about yourself. ...Do you write?"

[ifyoumustblink]

He shakes his head, considering. Can't write. A little embarrasing, but illiteracy is A Thing in backwater villages like Kubo's. Not that he'd be able to read modern-day English.

He does, however, bring the shamisen back to his front to play. His fingers roll over the strings, and the chord he plays shivers in the air.

A sheet of paper flies from somewhere behind his back. In the air it folds into a little red samurai, who points his tiny tword at Facilier.

[bokor]

"Shame." Facilier offered, "Not unheard of where I'm from, but..." But he was already getting more of a sense that people here might have been very different from what he was used to even before arriving at the castle.

"Oh..." He couldn't help but look delighted at the trick. "That's nice. That a magic thing?" He was careful not to say 'magic trick'. He knew how annoying it was to have his business reduced to parlor tricks, worked hard on what he did and even despite the chameleon cover, it'd be nice to be taken seriously.

"I imagine you could keep even a tough crowd entertained with this."