(Bowling) Book Worms

[Epitaph]

"Yes, I have no further questions lingering beyond their time," Epitaph replied contemplatively, her eyes lingering upon the gleaming forms of the bowling bars. So many colors, so many patterns and designs. With great care, the Necromancer strode over and selected a ten pound ball from one of the racks, a sphere that looked like smoke shot through with trapped lightning.

It wasn't true what she had said. She did still have questions, but those questions were for Campanella's ears only. Even to hear them without the answers was privileged information, and the tall woman with eyes that reflected death had come to join them. What had she seen, Epitaph wondered. What tragedies had she witnessed? How many times had she seen that fragile moment, that filament between life and death, that veil between this world and the next?

"Are you an experienced bowler?" Epitaph asked, turning to Lacuna. "I'm afraid that I bowl like a grandmother bent with age, even if I wear the shoes of a man who bowled more than one perfect game. He was a well known mobster in Detroit, Stefano Milazzo. He was beaten to death with a bowling pin while wearing these shoes."

[Campanella]

"As you wish," Campanella murmured. His eyes drifted over Epitaph as she described the provenance of her shoes, yet the Moros said nothing.

Instead, his eyes fastened onto Lacuna. He'd give the Mastigos an opportunity to ask further questions as well. Anything to stave off fathoming the mystery of the bowling ball.

[Lacuna]

Like the Death's Bride chooses her own ball, the Stutter and Gap between things, chooses her own, seemingly at random, she grasps a lurid neon pink ten pound ball.

"I've Bowles my fair share of games. I needed to validate my purchase of my shoes somehow." articulate but lacking in emotional depth. There is no echoing ghost of memories of a blond girl with braces demanding one more game. There isn't.

Epitaph reveals the gruesome history of her shoes, dried blood has a distinctive appeance and the goth's shoes were spattered.

"How did you come to own your shoes?" because ruminating on the death of the bowler who'd worn them wouldn't do anyone good.

[Epitaph]

"I collect things that have been touched not just by death, but by a very particular kind of death. These shoes are a part of my collection. When I heard that there was going to be a bowling party, I decided that I might as well wear them. They are perfectly good shoes, after all," Epitaph replied, seemingly pleased that Lacuna had finally asked about them. It was, in truth, why she had complimented Lacuna's own bowling shoes in the first place. Fishing for comment, as it were.

"Since your own shoes were actually purchased for bowling, however, I suspect we shall be relying upon you to take us to victory," Epitaph went on, as though there was nothing at all odd about their previous conversation. "As I said, I do not bowl well. When I was fourteen I was so eager to get a strike that I forgot to let go of the ball and I was carried through the left bumper. It was an old bowling alley, and the bumpers were still made of wood. They took an 17 inch piece of wood out of my left thigh at the emergency room."

Epitaph looked down at her legs, frowning momentarily, and then looked back to Campanella.

"Have you done much bowling, Campanella? It seems like a rather low brow sport for you. No offense, of course," Epitaph added, offering the towering woman with her own bowling shoes a soft smile.

[Campanella]

Campanella makes a selection of a bowling ball. He holds it at arms length, as if it were a bomb or a wild animal.

"Not really. I must confess the last time I visited a bowling alley was many, many years ago. In another time and a different life. I... Did not account for myself well."

Then as now, he felt like he had been invited to make up the numbers.

"17 inches of wood? That can't have been a good experience."

[Lacuna]

"Specific ends..? Is it the murder that attracts you to the item, or the violence surrounding that end?" Lacuna asks, when it seemed the other Moros was disinclined to ask after the topic the goth so...loveningly brought up.

It has been years since Lacuna held a bowling ball, and the near gaintess still held her with more aplomb then the scholar who wielding the neon coloured sphere like it would bite. "Like this," said with a display, actions becoming reality before she could think. "It's just a tool. You use aproperate equipment for each specific task, this is just a unquie sitchuation that requires equally unquie equipment paired with actions." the explanation falls from her lips as she tries to help Necromancer and Alchemist both with the less then stellar skills at the game.

[Epitaph]

"Yes, it was a most unpleasant experience. Particularly when I had to return to the Bowling Alley a few weeks later for my cousin's birthday. I never liked him much, Epitaph shared conversationally, politely ignoring the dignified gentleman's distress over the bowling ball. Was there some memory that these spheres had brought up in him? Or was it simply extreme distaste at having to play such a boorish game?

Well, it wouldn't do to ask. Not when there were other, far more interesting topics at hand.

"Yes, I suppose you could say that it is the murder that creates significance in the items in my collection," Epitaph replied after a moment. "It is not because of a fascination with the psychology of the event, however. It is more metaphysical than that. More of a study of the effects of the event. The way in which they create a stain, a residue, that is unique all its own. At times, it can even be quite lucrative. But that's just a hobby, much like Bowling is, to some people. What of you, both? What hobbies do you have?"

Yes. Questions. Always ask a question. Always focus back upon the people you conversed with. Otherwise, the conversation, and the relationship, would easily die.

[Campanella]

"I see," Campanella attended to Lacuna as she ran him through the basic principles of the game. Having played before, he found himself starting to remember as the statuesque woman provided her refresher.

Then it was his turn.

Turning back to the group, he was flush from the adrenaline rush of simple pleasure.

"I collect art. It covers for my more... esoteric interests. You could say I'm lucky enough to land a dream job in my area of interest."

[Lacuna]

The mother that beat in her breast tailed at the knowledge that a poor injured girl was forced back to the very place where that injury accrued. "Bet you didn't like him much after, either." said as questions began to wrap themselves up, and settle into neatly organized mental boxes.

Nodding as she approaches the lane, setting up her stance and eyeing the pubs do she might strike them with her lurid pink ball.

With force she swings and releases the ball down the lane, smiling softly as it clatters against the lead pin toppling it.

"So," she says on her return, "Is that why you're an art collector? The metaphysical stain upon each unique piece?" echoing Epitahp's words. Did either gave interest in Space? Or was this more of the soul's inclination for those upon the Path of Doom?

  Bowling! 1suxx aimed!

Date		Action		Roll		Result
2018-04-06 11:30:51		Lacuna rolls 2 to Bowling! (Strength 3 + Athletics 2 -3 aiming) (10 Again)		6, 9		1 success

[Epitaph]

"I do not mean to be rude," Epitaph said as she picked up her own bowling ball, "but you have not said what hobbies you have, Lacuna. Though I, too, am curious what drew you to the world of art, Campanella."

That said, she approached the line to take her turn, her stride as grave as if she were walking to her own execution, which, given what she had revealed, was perhaps not too far from the truth. Nevertheless, instead of bowling like Campanella and Lacuna before her, she held the ball in two hands and rolled it slowly down the lane...only to have it drift into the gutter.

"Ah, well. Next time," she said as she walked back, examining her still pristine nails.