Interlude - Celeste

Celeste moves among the common citizens of Crossroads as you might expect from a queen. Though the very word is a bit of an insult. She's so much more than a queen. As the town's only three-star she is more akin to a god to these people, and she is pleased that they know it.

She is fertility goddess, healing matron, and wise protector all in one. In more primitive times there would be three temples in this city who did the work she did. All she required was a two story store.

She could if she so desires bound across the city in a few minutes, but instead she walks. She's been at this far too long for her to bask in the awe that the normal citizens provided her, but she does enjoy it. Ego is famously the 6th Star.

She is in an unusual place at this moment. Her destination is a burnt down little shack where the city's guards busy themselves turning over stones. The slums. Where the peons scrip and save for one of her life changing potions. For a bag of coins their husbands can get back to work, a certain horse can be more lucky, or a child can live to see this wretched world. It seemed that hard work an patience did not sit well with a certain citizen though.

"Madame Alchemist!" The head guard chokes in surprise as she sees her. His eyes can't help but linger over her alien form. His eyes are no more able to pierce the mystery of her skin than his sword could. "What brings you here?"

"I did this." She says casually, brushing her hand towards the destruction before her.

"You..." He gapes mouth sputtering. He takes a long and careful look at her, once again trying to penetrate to some truth at the center of this woman. Could he actually be considering how he'd arrest her, if it came to that? How just.

That was one of the displeasures she held with this world. The Star System was supposed to be a meritocratic agent, and yet scum and cream alike found their way to power, no judging for taste. If she were to decide to engage in vice and villiany no one in this town could stop her. Worse the few people who could stop her were far away and dealing with their own ventures. She tried imagining leaving Crossroads so she could risk her life punishing a fellow 3-star. It seemed dangerous and wasteful. It was even worse to imagine a 4-star doing such. Alas.

Lucky for the people of Crossroads Celeste always acted morally.

"Yes my familiar detected some illegularieties in my stocks. At first it looked like normal spillage but soon it becomes clear to me that someone was making potions with my stock without doing me the turn of paying me for the material. From there it was quite easy you see to craft a humonculous attuned to the scent of the potion I knew they'd be brewing from the materials they stole. Once they started cooking, my familiar flew in here, and blew the whole thing up. Self Defense you see, for goods stolen. I was quite within my right."

The guards renewed their look of awe. It was a ridiculous assumption but... what were they going to do about it? "Yes, yes I suspect you're right."

Celeste steps forward and inspects the rubble. The guards had uncovered Daliah, who looked shredded and dead, but Celeste could still smell it, the telltale scent of neurons firing slowly within a dying brain. "Oh Delilah." She tsked dropping just a pearl of a regenerative potion in the scorched girlls' mouth. "What delusions of grandeur snarled you?"

She then looks around some more. Scorched onto the rock beside Delilah is where a second figure stood. There's a separate blood splatter baked into the stone. The range of chemicals, the heat from the explosion it all burned away the usual scents she used to detect people. Though she thinks she knows who the second pool of blood is suppose to represent. the curious thing is that there's no body. No body or blood trail for a man slinking away with his entrails around his ankles.

How curious.

She wonders if a humonculous could be at play. A rival from the alchemist guild could have formed an artificial human to ... what? Poach her clerk? Spy on her?

No.

No fool who would call themselves her rival would think that could work.

Perhaps an assassin?

She had many enemies.

Many assassin's had stars that destroyed their bodies upon **** to protect their masters.

Curiously she crouches down and scratches a flake of blood off of the stones, and inhales it's scent. Her mind opening like a vault to the ssmell.

No hits.

Of course if this belongs to who she think it does, she’d never gotten his blood scent anyway.

She wishes there hadn’t been a second body. It would have left this all feeling so much less mysterious.

"Hmm." She stands and turns, it's pretty hard to surprise Celeste, but Delilah manages it.

When Celeste turns around the girl is completely healed. **** still, but there isn't a scratch on her.

Curious.

Celeste had only given her a drop to save her life, for later questioning.

Instead she was... whole again. That was not the correct outcome, more mystery. She can smell the potion on the girl, she was seeped in it. More was in her now than had gone in.

"Fascinating." Celeste snaps at a guard and points towards Delilah. "Take her to my shop I have some experiments to run on her."

"Yes ma'am." The guards snap out a salute, and drags Daliah away. Celeste doesn’t have any official power or position with in the city, but it's hard not to accumulate unofficial power on the road to 5 stars.