Basil Winters

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Basil Winter is a scrivener, thief, and former student at the Blue Heron Institute.<ref name=":0">“Basil Winters, scrivener, professional thief.  Based in London, Ontario.  He steals primarily from innocents who own the sort of things that they can’t claim for insurance, with means that baffle authorities.  Which is how I found him.”- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Personality

He lives and works in London, Ontario. It took him nearly a decade to get established there.<ref>It was only London, Ontario, not the actual London, but Basil could weigh that prize and the future potential it carried and then compare it to what Musser was offering.  London’s Lord was a bit persnickety, and it was very easy to believe that the Mussers were being frustrated by that fact.  It had taken nearly a decade for Basil to get established there.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Works as a scrivener and professional thief, stealing mainly from innocents.<ref name=":0" /> He manages his own team who act as his blackguards.<ref>I’ve got my team, I keep them in the dark, they’re my blackguards.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>.

Relationships

Alexander recommended him to become Ray's apprentice,<ref>A few years back, Alexander had recommended Basil as an apprentice for Raymond Sunshine.  A single miscommunication had soiled things, burning not only the bridge back to Raymond Sunshine, but to many others.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> his motivations having escaped Alexander's sight.<ref>“Yes.  Alexander vetted four prospects for me, a year or two ago.  One wanted to steal everything I had for their family, one would have tried to kill me, and two more were spies, one for a foreign group, another for a competitor.  It’s too hard to find good help, especially when practitioners are rare to begin with.” - Excerpt from Break 1</ref>

He used his position to get Others into Ray's system in an attempt to steal his information, Ray noticed and Basil was forced to confess his crime.<ref>He’d really hoped this would be his shot at Ray’s information.  Easily several millions were available in that.  He’d slipped up years ago, trying for much the same thing, with a bad turn of phrase tipping Raymond off that the entity in his systems was something Basil knew a little bit about.  The man had dogged that little detail relentlessly, not taking anything vague as an answer until Basil had been forced to confess.

He was a thief, after all.  It was the worst part of him, but the best part of him didn’t earn him enough to live off of.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> Later Abraham agreed to pass Basil's apologies to Ray in return for Basil's help.

Abraham proposed that Basil marry his niece, Raquel, when she turns eighteen and suggested sending her to stay with him in London.<ref>“We’ll try it.  There’s no obligation to accept Raquel if your interests fall elsewhere or if you have doubts, but we’ll all benefit from her visiting London, I think.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> For his part Basil has no interest in marrying Raquel and is simply going along with the idea to keep in Abraham's good graces.<ref>“I’m doing this more to maintain graces with my family than out of anything personal driving it.  I want this to be something where we both walk away satisfied with the outcome, whatever we end up doing when you turn eighteen.  Maybe that’s me asking him to ease up on you and let you make more connections, and if we break it off in a few years, that keeps?  You at least got that for your trouble?”

“Or maybe we marry?” she asked.  She didn’t ask it like it was what she wanted.

Of course she didn’t, really.

He didn’t want it either.  He wanted the things that came with it, but he was ninety percent sure he wouldn’t go through with it.  The problem was that he couldn’t tell her or even hint at that to her because then she’d tell her uncle.

Asinine ancient customs, political alliances, and the barbarism that came with those things.  How would he even pretend to avoid grooming her for marriage when she might well try to cleave herself to that position on her own?- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> He also tried to persuade Abraham to let Raquel spend more time with her friends.<ref>“It’s bad form to ask now, but… Raquel.  I noticed you pulled her away from friends and classes.  I’d like to ask you not to do that.  If she’s to be a rich and capable person… surely you could find an Other to serve you?”- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Abraham found him after hiring him to steal from others.<ref>“I found him and hired him to steal from others.  He did a fine job.  Once I realized he practiced I had Alexander find out who his mother was, and from there, we established a working relationship.”- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> He trusts, respects, and considers him an ally.<ref>“You’re all three, I think.  Ally, trusted, respected. - Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

He never got along with Braxton Hart's brother.<ref>“I remember you and the older Hart brother didn’t get along.”

“Bygones, if they’ll let them be bygones,” Basil replied.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Marlen Roy

He and Marlen are friends that almost became lovers.<ref>They’d been friends who’d flirted with being more when they were teenagers.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Appearance

He is much shorter than Musser.

Abilities

As a scrivener Basil works with various others such as fancies, mimeisthais, bugges, and buggane that can confound and poison information.<ref>“For your talents.  As a scrivener, you work with fancies, mimeisthais, bugges, buggane, and a variety of Others who confound and poison information.”- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

He is able to capture dangerous words and glyphs.<ref>“A lot of commonalities between capturing dangerous words and glyphs and handling an unknown magic item,”- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> He also did a ritual that made it easier to handle Others that took the form of words or images, this also makes it easier to read codes.<ref>He had done a ritual a while ago, to better prepare himself for the handling of Others who might take the form of words, glyphs, or images.  It had the side benefit of making it very easy to read coded words, distorted text, or, in this case, the note that Tanner was writing to himself when he thought nobody was looking.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

Basics

His implement is a small tome covered in a metal sheet which he uses to store his various Others.<ref>Basil kept a small tome with sheet metal covers as his implement, and held it over his heart for a second as he took it all in.  He closed his door and touched one corner of the metal to the lock of his car.  He relaxed the bindings that held the book tightly closed, rifled through the pages by instinct alone, and found one of his go-tos worming its way through the pages.  A stroke of his thumb gave it the cue to exit.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

These Others include

• The Typetap Kitty
• Countdown Cassandra
• The Turtle Queen

Chronology

Born into a family of practitioners that had degenerated into thievery, his first major act of magic was infiltrating the realm of the ascendent Turtle Queen and binding her, this he accomplished with the help of his mother.<ref>But Basil Winters, even in his teenage years, has worked with thieves and he knows how to get into places, and he knows how to stay undetected.  Avoiding security cameras is the least of it.  He walks up to the Turtle Queen, with forty minutes remaining on the clock, and uses his practice.

He and his mother earn the attention of better practitioners, with the start of an apprenticeship with Raymond Sunshine and invitations to a party with the Raymond’s colleagues, the Mussers.  The Winters family is elevated.

The Turtle Queen is bound. - Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.z</ref>

He attended the Blue Heron Institute during its second year.<ref>He’d attended not as part of the first wave, but the wave immediately after.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref> He was a good student but failed to make many actual friends and associates.<ref>Basil was a good student, but he’d been bad at the other half of things; part of the reasoning for attending a school like this was to make vital connections.- Excerpt from Fall Out 14.z</ref>

His prior binding of the Turtle Queen was part of what netted him a prestigious apprenticeship with Rad Ray Sunshine but his ulterior motives were eventually revealed and he was kicked out.

Many years later he was a part of Musser's plan to take as many Lordships as possible after the Carmine Exile ascended. After Milly Legendre was gainsaid he tried to claim the Lordship of Nipigon in her place. During the ritual he was injured on the wrist by some goblins and the wound festered, leaving him weak. Near the end of the ritual, an unknown oni approached him, too weak to fight he agreed to a contest involving guessing the contents of different boxes. One box contained an Other, one a trap, and one a poultice that will heal his wound. The first box he opened contained a Dog Meat, the second one contained Bridge the body snatcher hidden under the poultice. Bridge managed to take over his body and is now Lord of Nipigon.

He was released from Bridge's control after Bridge took over Milly Legendre<ref>The Turtle Queen caught the practitioner Basil Winters as he was freed from the body snatcher’s grasp.

Bridge, now possessing Millicent Legendre, picked up a dropped bracelet.- Excerpt from Left in the Dust 16.z</ref> and imprisoned on one of Odis's buses.<ref>- Wild Abandon 18.9</ref>

References

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