• Solo • The Mad Mapper

[Yrmellyn Cole]

The Mad Mapper

Trial 15 of Vhalar Arc 717, Ne’haer in The Golden Flask

Continues from: Illustration of a Map

Yrmellyn Cole had witnessed a robbery in The Bank of Ne'haer in the end of Saun 717. It had included a failed attempt to open the vault by tuning into the lock with attunement magic ... a madness which ended when an eídisi associated with the bank triggered a safety mechanism which destroyed the lock and sealed the door. Alas it had also made attunement backfire and Yrmellyn had been knocked-out. Later she had been told that robbers disappeared with some valuables and a huge ledger, the client records of the bank.

The painter was at home, which was right now just a rented room in an inn. The days after the bank robbery in late Saun 717 had been a blur of migraine. Yrmellyn hadn’t done much more than resting and praying to Vhalar, who was unfortunately not an immortal of healing. It hadn’t seemed to help any. She had felt tempted to turn to some other immortal, but she had felt unsure of which one of them were worth the while to pray to really. Vhalar was at least interested in art, even if he didn’t seem to care about his follower’s headache.

By now she had recovered sufficiently for being able to work, even if she took care to not overexert herself. This day she decided to make pictures of the robbers while she still was able to remember some of the things she had memorized in Saun. Nobody had asked Yrmellyn to do this. She hadn’t heard a word from the Bank of Ne’haer. Still, she supposed there could be a business opportunity for her if they would want the information she could provide. Her plan was to paint the pictures and then approach the bank with an offer. Some would perhaps have tried to get a commission firts, but not Yrmellyn, not in this case. She didn’t want to offer something just to find that she wasn’t able to make it, because she didn’t like to break promises. (Vhalar wouldn’t like that either.) For this reason she was going to paint the portraits of the robbers first, and then try to sell them if she found them good enough.

Yrmellyn started by planning a bit. She was going to make three cards, the size of relatively big playing cards, or somewhat bigger. After thinking a bit and experimenting with a piece of parchment she settled for making the pictures four times the size of playing cards. She would paint them on canvas so they could be folded and carried in a pocket. This seemed like a convenient material and format. Canvas could be folded (or rolled to a “tube”) many times without breaking and it was lightweight and would be easy for people to carry with them, if needed. She also decided to only use coal. Colors could smear. Coal would be more durable.

After fetching the painting kit she prepared the pieces of canvas and started to work.

Yrmellyn thought of her memories and tried to recall as many details as possible. All the robbers had been shirtless and their upper bodies had been heavily tattooed. They had all worn spectacles with metal frames and blackened glass lenses, so it had been impossible to see their eyes. Their wide brimmed black hats had shadowed their bearded faces. The men had been armed with crossbows. As far as she was able to recall their pants and boots had been plain and practical.

In order to be effective she started by sketching three similarly attired tattooed men on the upper parts of the three pieces of canvas. The tattoos, the spectacles, the hats and the beards were in place. When she was done with this it was time to add the individual details. She was about to start at this, when someone knocked on her door.

Maybe it was just one of those annoying peddlers who kept sneaking in everywhere in order to try to sell a lot of crap she didn’t need and didn’t want to waste money on. It was probably so. The painter felt vary these days though. If I was something important she didn’t want to just send the person outside away, but with the three pictures of what she supposed was wanted criminals on the table she didn’t want to just let someone step right in either. Come to think of it, she really hoped said criminals didn’t know anything about who she was or where she could be found.

She rose, walked the short distance to the door and stopped without unlocking it.

“Yes?” she said in what she hoped sounded like a neutral tone. “What is it ?”

[Yrmellyn Cole]

"Yrmellyn? It's me, Grant Chapman ! The mapmaker. You said you were interested in more jobs, but as you didn't come back I decided to seek you out. "

Yrmellyn was surprised, she was even enormously surprised, because Grant was the last person she would have expected to come and pay her a visit. Their acquaintance had been brief. She had met him first time at the market, where he had been selling maps in a stall. The second time had been the same evening, when she had foolishly visited him at his wagon, a wagon she still didn't know if it was a home or something else. The spark of attunement had made her go there, with a little help from all the market mead she had bough during the day. Yrmellyn had agreed to do a job for the man, but she had soon enough realized that the wagon was too small for two ... so she had quickly decorated a map for him and then she had left the tricky situation.

Despite this she had agreed to come back for more work. She had felt an irresistible urge to learn more about cartography and maps. There was no special reson for it, except for the spark of attunement and the curiosity and hunger for investigations and knowledge hoarding it inspired in her. Knowledge didn't need to be important or useful in order to make her desire it. Knowledge was like art, valuable for the sake of it.

Around twenty trials had passed by, and new events, knowledge and art had claimed Yrmellyn's attention and she had forgotten the mapmaker. Fist she had been hostage in a bank robbery, then she had been down with a long, long attack of overstepping migraine that had blocked her out from most anything bar the basic survival. The headache had only recently fade out . Her first thoughts when she finally had been pain-free and able to concentrate and think clearly again had of course not been to embellish the maps of Grant Chapman with treasures and monsters. It was still a really secondary thing. Yrmellyn had bank robbers to paint portraits of and sell for good money to the people in The Bank of Ne'haer.

She hadn't heard a word about the robbery, so it seemed like they were keeping it secret. Even if she was in no way professional at intelligence she had made an educated guess that the bank wanted to do their own secret investigation. No, wonder, as she had heard the robbers cheer about having grabbed the bank records. No bank would want that to become public knowledge. They were probably going to be prepared to pay generously for good information and what information could be better than pictures of the criminals?

"Well, greetings Grant, I'm sorry but I'm a bit busy at the moment. "

That was where Yrmellyn should have stopped and returned to her ongoing work, leaving the visitor to their own devices. It was not where the spark of attunement wanted to stop though. Unfortunately Yrmellyn wasn't the kind of mage who had seen much reason to hold the spark and it's ideas back, because as an artist she benefited from giving in to it and finding out new interesting things to paint. To her there was no meaning with refusing it's impulses. It had been the same with Mariuz, her mentor. He had warned her and told her that it was best to watch out and not get totally carried away, but he had also admitted that being carried away was part of their profession. She was mostly not interested in suppressing the spark's urges. As a consequence the spark part of her mind was quite headstrong and accustomed to being allowed to take command.

"I guess we can have a chat though Grant. What jobs are we speaking about?" Yrmellyn unlocked the door even as she spoke. The mapmaker beamed at her. His somewhat rugged handsome appearance were just like she remembered it and so was he man's enthusiastic spiel which started the moment their gazes met and continued without pauses as he promptly stepped in and closed the door behind him. He carried a trunk in his right hand. It was a big trunk but it didn't see to be particularly heavy.

"They told me you were ill and they refused to let go upstairs until now. Anyways, I have some more maps I want decorated. That first job you did for me in Saun was just a test, of your ability to illustrate my maps, but also of your ability to shut up about the jobs you do. You may recall that I made you promise to keep it secret that I had hired you? That's an important criteria when I choose people to collaborate with! To my knowledge you haven't told a living soul about our previous contact and the job you did for me. So, this is the real stuff, Yrmellyn. We are speaking about maps of enormous value, with information some people would be prepared to kill for getting their hands on. As you understand I don't want to draw attention to myself. I'm sure you don't want to draw attention either. We shut up and stay safe, right? I really hope I can trust you to shut up and honor your business deals! The dangers of telling people about these maps are no joke. So. Well. Let me see ... "

He was already opening the trunk like he took it for granted that Yrmellyn had agreed. She realized that she would very soon be made a woman who had seen too much if she didn't manage to stop him and send him out before it was too late.

"Grant ..." she began.

"Ah! Here it is. The Treasure Map of Bones, as I call it. " Grant unfolded a big map and held it out in front of her. "Here you can see Yrmellyn. This map shows the way to a legendary pirate treasure. Barry Bones's treasure to be exact."

Yrmellyn was trapped now, and she knew it. In addition she felt extremely curious.

"Okay then" she said. "Tell me more."

[Yrmellyn Cole]

As so often before, Grant Chapman answered with a massive wall of speech.

“Barry Bones! Well, perhaps it’s like some say and his name was something else, but people called him by the nickname Bare Bones? It’s always a bit unclear how it really was in pirate legends, but that’s neither here nor there as we can’t know anyways so we’ll just go for Barry Bones. The man wasn’t a captain and commander or such, just an average sailor and pirate, but one trial one of those arcs in the vague past turned out to be his lucky trial. It’s a bit unclear how he got over the treasure. Some tell stories about how he robbed and killed some rich nobs, others say he betrayed and killed a group of other pirates and took the whole booty himself, others again say he won it by cheating at the gaming tables or that he just happened to stumble over it when he was sailing drunk and made a major navigation mistake. Whichever it was, the legend has it that he wound up with a big treasure in is possession and hid it in a cavern somewhere on the coast between Bayward and Ne’haer.”

The mapmaker had to stop speaking in order to draw breath. Yrmellyn jumped on the opportunity to get to say something before he was ready for next round.

“A cavern?”

“Yes, a cavern! Imagine the spelunking that followed after he had died without telling people anything no matter the efforts they put into making him speak. Nobody have found the treasure yet, and some say it doesn’t even exist, but there’s still a few hopefuls who set sail and head to that coast once in a while. Nobody has found the treasure. They say. Treasure hunters tend to disappear. Well. That’s where the monsters come in. The treasure of Barry Bones is said to be guarded by some kind of monster. Some also believe it’s the ghost of Barry himself, but you know how people fantasize. ”

The mapmaker drew breath again and Yrmellyn got a new chance to speak. “But Grant. How can you have a map that shows the way to that treasure if nobody knows where it is? I mean, if nobody knows the place you can’t know it either. And if you knew, why would you make a map instead of just taking the treasure and be a rich man?”

“Good question, Yrmellyn, good question! The answer I that I have mastered the art of cartography. Do you recall that when we first met in Saun I told you that maps are variable pictures of variable reality which remains unknown to us as everything is always in constant change? That means a map can never provide an exact knowledge about the real terrain.”

“Yes. An interesting insight, but you can still not make a map of the way to some totally unknown place nobody has ever been to.”

Chapman’s smile grew wider. “So? And do you also believe that a painting cannot be a picture of something totally unknown that nobody has even seen before?”

“Well, yes, it can, but that kind of paintings are drawn from the mind and imagination of the painter and ...”

The man didn’t shy away from interrupting her: “A map is a picture just like a painting is a picture. Why wouldn’t it be possible to make a map by reaching into one’s mind and imagination and charter an unknown terrain as well as it’s possible to make a painting that way? A picture is a picture is a picture! Painting or map, who cares and what's the difference? None!"

The verbosity of the mapmaker had started to feel like an immaterial but lethal weapon.

Yrmellyn felt like the migraine was awakening again.

[Yrmellyn Cole]

"Look at these for example." The mapmaker had spotted the three cards Yrmellyn had been working at when he had arrived and interrupted her. He put the map on the table and picked up the small pictures instead. "Three bearded beings with big hat-like things on their heads and huge round black eyes ... and bare upper bodies covered by tattoos and arrows for hands. They can seem unreal, but we can't know. Perhaps they exist, just outside of the reality we know. Would you say that the beings on these pictures can impossibly exist and are just pure figments of your own imagination? Or is there a chance that they do exist somewhere out there?"

"They are ..." She had nearly said that they were bank-robbers and not "beings" but she stopped in time. " ... insectoids."

"Insectoids. How do you know that's what they are ? What are insectoids ? "

"What they look like. Beings with huge round black eyes. Can we drop this topic now? It has nothing to do with maps."

Chapman wasn't done with the topic though. "The core question is, do you think there's a chance those three could exist for real? Chance is what I'm speaking about. I reach into my intuition when I make special maps, just like you reach into your intuition when you paint things you haven't seen with your eyes but which could be totally exact and real for all we know, given that reality isn't limited to what people already know. "

Yrmellyn didn't want to say yes and seem totally nutty. She didn't want to say no and risk that the extremely chatty mapmaker would spread the world that she was painting cards of imaginary beings. If people started to take interest in it - as they often did when something seemed entertaining - they could start to tell stories, and stories could soon gain a life of their own and all kinds of made up stuff could be added. Gossip had a tendency to fly everywhere in a city and was bound to also reach the Bank of Ne'haer. If they would think that she just made up pictures out of the blue she could kiss the idea of earning money on the portraits of the bank-robbers goodbye. Something must be done to stop the mapmaker from being detrimental to her income.

She knew how much he babbled. He would probably do anything in order to make a customer stay another trill and give him one more opportunity to sell something to them and it was easy to imagine him telling a story about a mad artist and her "insectoids". The only thing he seemed to be able to shut up about and keep totally secret was his own "special maps" which he hadn't showed her until now and only after first testing if he could trust her to keep a secret.

"Those are just vague doodles I made on some leftover scraps of canvas, but as you think they may exist for real I get an idea. Grant! What it insectoid monsters are guarding the legendary treasure of Barry Bones and that's why nobody has come back after they went out to search for the it? I could use the doodles as inspiration and decorate this map with way more developed and elaborate version of them, with big globular facet eyes, antennas and shell covered torsos with intricate patterns ... those beings, still unseen but possibly existing, leaning over the treasure. When I reach into my intuition I feel that this could be it. I feel it's the best idea I can get for that map. As it would be totally secret, you can say the pictures are made by an unknown artist, if you compensate me for the loss of renown I could get for this unique idea."

She mentioned a price twice as high as reasonable. The mapmaker vinced. "You're ruining me. Do you think I'm made of money? You'll get half of that price. The ordinary payment for artwork. Not a nel more."

Yrmellyn shrugged. "Sorry, just a habit as some people seem to think art is for free. But I see that you are aware of the ordinary price level. All right then. I will not try to cheat you. You are too smart to get ripped off. Just pay me in advance and then I'll do the job at once, while you watch so you can comment and tell me if there's something more you come to think about when you ask your intuition. "

The mapmaker laughed, pulled out his purse and payed up. Yrmellyn opened a button on her shirt, pulled out her own purse, added the money to it, put it back and buttoned the shirt again. The mapmaker followed the procedure with more than a little interest. The painter didn't care. It often distracted people from getting second thoughts about how much they had paid.

"Let's start". Yrmellyn didn't want to repeat the close up and person kind of experience she'd had in his wagon, so she pointed at a chair. "Please have a seat Grant. I'm going to use water-colors. They dry quickly, but while I work it can be messy so it's best that you don't get in the way for them and happen to get them all over you. A brush with water-color in the eye is no joke. Just saying."

The mapmaker looked at her. Yrmellyn looked back.

He shrugged and sat down on the chair she had pointed at. Yrmellyn smiled approvingly at him and went to fetch the colors, brushes, pens and water she needed for the job. It actually felt inspiring. She took the tree small pictures she had been working at before the mapmaker had arrived, looked briefly at them and tossed them into the garbage bin near the table like they really were just doodles on scraps. She would retrieve them later, when she was alone.

Then she started working at the map decorations. As there was nothing whatsoever she needed to make realistic she could just follow her whims - or intuition - and do as she liked. She used the pens to outline the beings and then she wetted the paper a little bit, just enought to enable the colors to spread nicely without flowing out too much. The brushes she choose were fairly thin, and she in addition to using strong colors she went for an abundance of detail and put a lot of effort in the insect-beings eyes and the pattern on their shell covered torsos. The mapmaker watched without comments as the illustration grew and finally a quite unique picture emerged. It looked like a gang of insane mantises dancing around a small mountain of gold and jewels which glowed like a golden fire.

She had been working in a state of dreamlike inspiration and it seemed like the mapmaker had immersed in the show and shared the waking dream.

"Shouldn't there be something more ..." he said hesitantly. "On the top of the heap, I mean. "

Yrmellyn shook her head. "No. The top is empty. There is nothing. And that emptiness is what the picture is about, if you reach into your intuition and try to see beyond what meets the eye. It's not about the treasure of Barry Bones. It's not about the insectoids. It's not about the dance that they perform and not about the glowing light reflected in the gold and in the facets of their black eyes. It's about what isn't there. And that's the important thing. There's nothing."

The mapmaker was silent for a while. Yrmellyn was silent too, because her own words had surprised her.

The map dried. Grant Chapman folded it carefully. Yrmellyn declined his offer to decorate all the other maps he had in the trunk. She had recently been ill and she was tired now and had a head-ache. Perhaps later, some other trial? He left. Yrmellyn fetched the small pictures from the garbage bin and sat there staring at them. It had been enormously hard to say no to more jobs. Her spark of attument burnt like a pyre in her mind and demanded to get more, more information about most anything, for the sake of it, more, knowledge, more insight, more understanding of it all, one more piece to add to it's picture of reality. For once the painter fought it and forced it to succumb and obey her. Some things were better left unfinished.

[Alistair]

Yrmellyn

Knowledges
Painting: Preparations for miniature portraits
Painting: Choosing the appropriate material to paint on
Painting: Reaching into your intuition for imaginary motifs
Investigation: Asking for the identity of a visitor before unlocking the door
Tactics: Make them shup up by adding your stuff to their own secrets
Negotiation: Accepting the right price when people know it

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 10

Comments: Same as the last one, Yrmellyn; stunning work. You really go all out, especially for these being job threads, haha. Enjoy your rewards!

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