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This one takes place in the same universe as the following (Don't ask me how that works)

[Immortal Warrior captures their reincarnated arch enemy](https://www.reddit.com/r/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/14eum5g/immortal\_warrior\_captures\_their\_reincarnated\_arch/)

[Slow dancing with a mysterious stranger](https://www.reddit.com/r/ASMRScriptHaven/comments/10n4g8q/a4adancing\_with\_a\_mysterious\_stranger\_intimate/)

IDK where this came from. I sat down to write a totally different thing and two hours later I had this instead. I'm fascinated by esoteric stuff like tarot cards, ceremonial magic and syncretic religions. I don't believe in the supernatural, but the symbolism and stuff inherent in that just tickles a certain part of my brain. My roommate is really into tarot and I find something inherently absurd (in a good way) about taking a bunch of cards that were printed in a factory somewhere on the pearl river delta and bought from a Barnes and Noble in a dead mall. And using them to try and get some sort of spiritual experience. I guess it makes as much sense as anything else.

This script is about that absurdism. Its about accepting fate, fighting fate and letting other people into your life.

Script Start

Dialogue

CONTEXT

SFX

Context that changes the audio

The listener is a traveler who has just entered a small but very very old city. The setting is like the old silk road but with mostly modernish technology. They're on a mission of some form that's only known to them and that not even they really understand. They've entered a caravanserai (sort of a mix of a dive bar and one of those seedy motels where all the doors lead outside). In the corner is an oddly striking fortune teller.

Speaker calls out to the listener.

Traveler! Traveler!

Yes you! The stranger who’s trying to look as if they've been here before! Get over here!

Listener nervously obeys to avoid attracting attention.

Oh trust me I can tell. I've been here a long time. You’re looking around too much and trying too hard to look like you aren't. Trying to observe the other travelers and figure out the rules. Come sit with me, it's the only place around anyways. I'll be your guide.

They sit with her by the window

It's lovely in this city this time of year is it not? The summers always last a little too long in the city of Samandar if you ask me, but the way the sun shines that rusted gold color as the shadows of the old town slowly converge together. There's nothing like it anywhere in these cities of spice and silk.

And to make it all better there's nothing quite like sharing a drink with an interesting stranger in a little dive bar on the thirty third day of August.

Would you like to be that stranger for me? Drinks are on me.

They fill two glasses from a pitcher of some strange wine and take a sip.

Like it? It's a specialty of the city. Legend says that when the city was under siege during the great war of mourning the great king Iskandhar chose to spare the city his wrath after a single sip of this nectar of the gods. It's something that's greater than the sum of its parts, like any good city ought to be.

They take a plain red wine, good, but nothing too special and they boil it down with some anise, ginger, grains of paradise and orange peels until it's rich and sweet. Then they chill it. They used to use snow from the mountains of Zin, a strange place where the sun shines blue and the snowflakes all have seven hands.

Whisper Now they just chill it in the fridge.

Laughs

May I have your name?

No?

What brings you to the city? You dress like a trader, but you carry yourself like a pilgrim. And you have the eyes of a lost soul.

Oh? Being mysterious are we? Do I seem dangerous to you?

You're smart to not tell me such things. I'm simply addicted to gossip. I want to know all the little things about everyone that comes down the trade route.

You see that guy right there? That handsome old man with the salt and pepper hair? He's a widower. That carpenter who just fixed that hole in the door is his son.

The lady at the bar, the pretty old woman with the silver ringlets. She's a widow as well. The younger barmaid is her daughter.

Both those older people promised that they'd never remarry after their loves passed away, but in secret they've been having a little tryst together.

Oh it's very scandalous. Every night once the caravanserai closes down and the lights go out, they meet by the fountain and share a single kiss.

Then they run away from each other like nervous little schoolchildren. It's adorable.

They're trying to hide it from the kids, but the kids are smarter than they let on. The whole situation is really sweet. It warms my little old brass heart.

So I ask again, what brings you to town?

A trader of textiles eh? I'm not sure if I should buy it, but I'll accept it for now. I've been in the market for a nice Novgordoan rug, perhaps later you'll show me your wares?

Laughs

As for me, I'm a fortune teller. A sage of sorts if you like. Not quite a scholar, not quite a priest, not quite a sorcerer and not quite a thief.

Listener is suddenly interested

Ooh I see you're intrigued now. Would you like me to read your fate? I promise, I’m magic.

It's free for as long as the sun shines orange and the shadows are longer than the things that spawned them. Especially for something as little and cute as you.

Let me take out the pantheon deck.

Shuffling

This is a deck of cards that will tell your future. Or at the very least attempt to. Each card depicts one of the Ninety nine gods of these cities of spice and silk. They're strange gods. They hail from different lands and are known by different names. Unlike most pantheons they have no ties beyond convenience. Our gods are weaker than the gods of other lands, it's why we've collected so many. They're greater than the sum of their parts.

Each god is limited but this deck will allow me to consult four. Those that are interested will make themselves known to you. And I will dispense their wisdom upon you.

Cut the deck and shuffle the cards for me.

Don't be shy, they're meant to be bent and jostled like that. The gods of our land are a rough and tumble sort.

Shuffling

First rule of fortune telling: All that is profane is sacred. And all that is sacred is profane.

Shall we begin?

Flip

Your first card of four: The Scarecrow. The god who stands alone.

An odd one to be true. This god is lonely and unmatched to the others, but it has been living in our lands the longest of all of them. It was first cobbled together out of sticks and stones by an ancient people who lived in the caves that form in the hills of tishbar. They are long gone to us now but the scarecrow lives on. In the old days they were worshiped by bandits and slaves.

There are no slaves now, and the bandits of our time are too respected to turn to the scarecrow. But every once and a while someone truly desperate and truly heartbroken, somebody with nowhere else to turn, will be overtaken by madness and cobble together an effigy to the scarecrow and they will be remembered once again.

You are seeking something but do not know what. Not really. You cobble together a facade but do not truly know what you're doing or why you are doing it. You’re lost, and to some it's obvious. You need help.

Shhhhh, I merely interpret the cards.

If you attempt to argue with me during your reading only misfortune will befall you. I might have to steal your soul and eat it for dessert. I've done it before. Just ask that ginger over there, he used to be blonde.

Shuffling

Flip

Your second card of four: The Dancer In Starlight. The third disciple of the stars.

Almost the opposite of your first card. The dancer is young for a god. She appears in a quiet beautiful place, long dark hair flowing down her back. Her blue dress sparkles in the starlight. She lifts her hand and beckons the lost towards her for a dance. And she steals them away for some purpose, known only to her.

You're being called somewhere, by something you don't truly understand. I'm intrigued. There's something gnawing at you. Deep deep inside there's a longing for something and it's eating you up. But you don't even know what it is. That's dangerous, you know. Who knows what kind of trouble you can get into if you're out looking for something you don't understand. Yeah, you may need a guide.

They notice the listener staring at their mark.

You keep staring at my face. Are you truly so transfixed by my good looks?

Ah the old mark over my left eye. No no it's no mere birthmark. There is indeed a story there.

Many years ago when I was younger I studied medicine and philosophy in the city of scholars, during the reign of the nameless queen.

She was stunningly beautiful and wise beyond all knowing. She was the only mortal living or dead to master all nine and ninety spells written in the seven books of Serket.

Oh if you could have seen her in her splendor, you'd have thrown yourself at her feet in adoration, for she was almost as a god compared to humble folks like you and I, but she had her demons just the same as anyone else.

And her most vicious demon was the demon of jealousy. She kept nine scholars as her prisoner-husbands in the city's great library-palace. After I had studied there for a long time, one of them struck up something of a friendship with me. We began to spend many long evenings together. He taught me the wisdom of the old sages while unknown to me she observed us from afar.

All was well for three hundred and thirty three days. Unfortunately after a while I suppose she got it in her head that he had fallen for me.

She intended to place a curse on me, to make me into some sort of gorgon. A beast with snake hair and a vulture's claws and perhaps even the wings of a bat, but I tricked her. I said do whatever you wish to me, just don't put a mark over my left eye. Oh anything but that I said. It would devastate me, my left eye is the same as my mothers.

She ate it up! I don't know why my left eye would be any more like my mother's than my right, but she bought it!

I don't even have a mother. We fortune tellers are born when a statue whose subject has been forgotten by time gets struck by lightning.

She exiled me from her city and cursed my tongue so that when I spoke of her those who heard me would think she was just a tall tale.

Yeah I see your skeptical look. It seems there's no escape from her curse. Alas.

Perhaps I should have let her make me a gorgon, I'd look rather striking with snake hair don't you think? I got the better end of that deal either way. While her husband let me into the palace in secret I stole three of her spells. She was so blinded by jealousy that she never realized my true motives. You gotta be careful about that. Your demons aren't your friends. They'll always mislead you in the end.

Shuffling

Flip

Your third card of four: The Blind Sailor, Herald of the seekers of fortune. His ship has red sails and each piece was carved in a different port.

He is man of a thousand places, devoted not to any one island or king, but to an ideal of some sort that he holds dear. Hard work will lead to results, knowledge is nothing without the will to apply it, and weaknesses may be strengths in the right circumstances.

This sign means change and constancy. Imagine a mirror that reflects whatever looks upon it, but does not truly change its own essence. You should be more confident in yourself, find strength in who you are, not in who you want to be.

They shuffle the cards again. Unknown to the listener they cheat so that a certain two cards reach the top of the deck.

Flip

Your fourth card of four: The White Rider, president of the Dark Thirty.

Spooky storyteller voice

She rides alone on the shadow touched road, pursuing her quarry relentlessly. Enemy of the traveler. Wrapped in her white cloak the wind has blown down her hood and revealed her horns. Her mount has row after row of jagged teeth and eyes that burn like red coals. She rides out on one of hell's horses and those she chases seldom escape.

tongue clicking.

I don't like the look of that. If the White Rider has cast her eyes upon you you may be in trouble.

They act like they see something behind the listener

Shhhh can't you see her? Just out of the corner of your eye?

Listener tries to look and the speaker grabs their chin.

Don't look! Your one advantage is that she doesn't know you know. Stay calm, look me in the eye instead. There. Get closer. Until our noses almost touch.

That's it, let me see those pretty little things.

You're lucky you met me. I can correct this. I can save you. I can't do it for free though. I'll need something of yours. something special.

A kiss.

Oh trust me, that is special. Very special indeed. A kiss is one of the most valuable things I can ask for. It can unite a nation, or tear apart an empire. Or place you forever under my spell. Don't take it lightly, but it's your only escape. I can change your fate, but only if you kiss me.

Smooch

One final card can be drawn, in these most desperate of circumstances. One god to intervene on your behalf.

Your fifth card of four: The Fortune Teller. Exile of the dark thirty.

Looks a bit like me don't they? It's a funny coincidence. It seems they've agreed to protect you from the White Rider.

I'll have to come with you on your quest now I'm afraid. It seems that's my fate as well. I am to be your companion. You'll need to explain it to me though.

Why are you laughing?

Listener starts to think this was all an elaborate plan to steal a kiss.

This was not an elaborate excuse to steal a kiss! I would never “steal” something so precious! And if I wanted to I could do it far more efficiently!

Now I need you to tell me everything. I'd prefer for you to do it voluntarily but I can use my backup plan if I have to.

You see the minute you sat down I started weaving a cute little spell on you.

Oh yeah I'm really tricky like that. Not quite a sorcerer, not quite a thief. like I said.

The nature of the spell is that if I ask you a question and punctuate it with a finger snap. You will have no choice but to answer me, and answer me truthfully.

I know I know that's rather rude of me, but I promise it's only to keep you safe. I wasn't lying about the White Rider. She's not in the room. But she's nearby. I need to know everything.

Now tell me. What is your name?

Snap!

Oooh I like it. It suits you in a weird way.

What is your quest?

Snap!

Woah really?

You just want to watch the sun rise in that one specific spot? That's so subtle. I was expecting something more dramatic. Like you're hunting down your father's killer or stealing the stars for the one you love. Something silly like that.

No no I’m not judging. It's odd, but nonetheless that sounds like a worthwhile journey. I don't understand it, but I'll help you get there. Pro Bono.

Gulps down the rest of their drink

I'm really glad you came along. I was dying of boredom out here. I needed an excuse to go on a trip. I need some danger! Some excitement! I'm too sexy and dangerous to just laze around in a booth all summer.

You can stay with me tonight. And tomorrow we'll hit the road. I know the right way to get where you're going.

No not a shortcut, if anything it's longer. But it's the right way.

​

Sorry, but you have to listen to me now. Your sweet precious little destiny lies in my capable hands. I suppose if you insist on a different route I could just shrink you down, place you in a bottle and carry you on the proper path the hard way.

Is that a thing I can do? Perhaps. Perhaps not. You want to risk it? I've just shown you that I'm awful tricky. Who knows what else I've got up my sleeve?

Hey what's that on your forehead? Right there, yeah. Let me get a look.

Smooch

Now that, that's how you steal a kiss.

-30-