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Name: Alma Sehlama’im (Waterstone) bin q’Dosh
Age: 25
Gender: Female
Species: Human
Ethnicity: q’Doshi Sinai
Height: 5’4”
Weight: 129 lb.
Profession: Witch

Appearance: Alma Sehlama’im cuts a striking figure, with sharp and delicate features, large russet eyes, umber skin with coppery undertones, and thick black hair falling in loose curls to just below her shoulders. Her nose is broad and rounded, and her full lips curve naturally into a smirking grin. She almost always wears a dark violet dress, loose below the waist, but fitting close to her slim figure above, with lacing up the front, and bare shoulders and arms. Over this, she often wears her dark grey woolen hooded cloak. About her waist is a tightly cinched belt with dozens of small pouches and clasps. She carries a leather shoulderbag with her potion making tools and her Book of Shadows, and a special pouch designated for her rat familiar, Malakai. Her leather boots lace up to the top of her calves, and her leather fingerless gloves cover her hands and forearms. About her neck, she wears a pentacle necklace of worked iron, a symbol of her faith and status as a witch.

Alma can alter or augment her appearance with her glamours, either as makeup or as a disguise. A favorite disguise is the “old crone,” consisting of hair turned brittle-looking and white, skin wrinkled and covered with liver spots, joints swollen with rheumatism, and hunching over as she clutches her staff.

Vignette: One…two…three…now

“Whoa-ey, mo’ yer arse, drunk’rd,” slurred the witch through a mouthful of grass, pitching her voice up a harsh octave. She hunched as hard as she could, making a strong showing of nearly dropping her armful of britches. Pushing past her robed mark, she bustled into the shop door around the corner and deposited her load on an empty section of table before returning to the doorway. Her own spellwork whistled at the edge of her consciousness, a quiet hum of glamour on the inapparently empty room, as she peered out past the threshold at the oblivious mage.

Alma had seen him about town in the past few days, hobbling along with some dark-haired lady-friend, and sensed the magic about him immediately. His own energy, of course, swirled about him constantly, a current flowing through him not unlike her own, though more powerful and less subtle and refined. Of greater interest, however, was the thrum of power from his waist. Three artifacts, humming at his belt with a gentle, but steady pull. She recognized one at only a glance, as its patterns were all too similar to her own waterstones. The others, though, drew her attention: one for the powerful custom work, likely by the qosem himself, burning with otherworldly heat as her mind touched upon it; the other was not so powerful, but with her own eyes she saw the real intrigue. An azure sheen to the enchanted blade assured her the true value of the man’s knife, where the weak teleportation spell only brought her attention to it. She decided, then and there, that the blade was hers.

This wasn’t common behavior for the witch, by any means, but it occurred often enough that she hatched her plan quite quickly. A knife of similar style and a quality walking stick, bought. A bit of fortunetelling on a stolen hair to learn his eventual plan to visit the Citadel, though he hadn’t yet known it. Some snooping to find his lodgings. A shopfront found, and winsome shopkeep persuaded to sleep in (blessings to the goddess Qadeshtu for the fringe benefit). And finally, a few glamours about the place and herself, and a carefully crafted simulacrum.

And now, as she approached the crippled man once more, she spotted the one thing she’d forgotten. “Ye keep walking’ on ‘at, whatever it is ails ye, ye’ll regret it,” she said in her affected accent as she quickly reached out to the clearly marked sign reading ‘Holly’s Hoes and Gardening Supplies,’ and working the glamour even as she turned it to her mark.

Jack in the Green
Wood Goods, Britches and Hoes,
Seeds Sown and Tears Sewn

“In, in, we’re nah open, bu’ Jackie’ll see ta ye if’n Ah tell ‘im,” Alma crowed, ushering the young man into the shoppe even as she slipped the knife from his belt.

Only a short while later, the magician was walking out of the shoppe again, leaning heavily on a well built staff, and unwittingly a brand new steel knife. Alma waited until he was out of sight before drawing out a chunk of clay from a pouch with arthritic-seeming hands. With a thought, it took on the form of a small wand, which she stowed in her purse, next to her prize.

The worst part of the whole ordeal, as always, was the cleanup, she mused as she loosened a purse string and palmed a handful of small stones. She tossed them around the shop in a few corners, drenching the racks of rakes and trays of spades as they struck, to disrupt the illusory woodcarvings, bows, and staves that had stood there moments before. She pulled “Jackie’s” finger, causing the supposed silent woodcarver to collapse into a pile of sand. Squeezing one more of her waterstones out over herself as she walked, the witch fetched a broom from the corner to sweep up the remains of her golem.

A slam and a gasp drew her attention to the back of the shoppe, and with a sudden shiver of panic Alma turned to see a full-figured blonde standing half-dressed and disheveled in the residence door, a war between confusion, shock, and anger waged across her face. All the witch could think to say, with water streaming down her now crone-streaked face, her hair in patches of brittle white and softly curling sable, was this: “I don’t really know what this looks like, Holly. But this wasn’t part of the plan.”