City of IF

[DJ]

SKYFALL: Foolproof Planning


"Explain to me again why this isn't the stupidest job you've come up with so far?"

Lithiria looked up from her plate of bacon and toast at the squat, bright yellow imp perched on a low hanging branch across from her, just above their tent. The suns had just come up and were shining through the branches, giving the imp an even more pallid coloration than usual as the sunlight shone through his stubby outstretched wings. He'd just woken up after a three day nap; she was glad to see he was already in such high spirits. And it had been so quiet, too.

"Mmf? Whaachrmeen schtupid?" she asked indignantly through bits of bread and meat.

Citrus hopped off his perch and glided unsteadily to the side of the log she was seated on, digging his hind claws into the wood and standing upright.

"I mean, okay..." He paused for dramatic effect, clearing his tiny throat and gathering himself up to his full ten-inch height.

"Lemme understand you here. You're getting paid -- we think -- to break into a Magelord's Tower -- a Magelord who's probably a traitor too since he's working with what I believe you said is an invading army, again, we think -- and steal a bunch of secret military weapons he's got up there, which we don't even know what they look like, and then we're gonna carry all this potentially-dangerous and probably-really-heavy magical weaponry back on a four day hike to some random scumbag fence in Bridgeport who we don't even know is reliable and may be setting us up!"

Cit caught his breath. Lithiria had given him the gist of their next contract when he woke up, but her explanation was doing more harm than good. It did sound a little iffy when you strung it all together like that, she had to say.

"That about right?" He squawked. "Steal magical weapons from a Magelord on really dubious information and sell them to a guy we don't know. And this isn't ringing any we're-going-to-be-instantly-killed-for-attempting-this bells to you? Any hey-this-sounds-like-a-setup bells maybe? No? Any bells at all? I guess that's just me." The imp scratched his head and gave her a look of mock concern

Lith munched thoughtfully on her bacon. "You keep saying 'Magelord' like it's some kind of big official title or something." She waggled her fingers at the imp and washed down the bacon with some tea. "Relax, would you? This isn't gonna be hard. It's easy money and then we can lay low for a couple months."

Cit blinked at her. "What, they just hand out the title of Magelord now? Whaddaya, just go to the census office and be like 'Hey buddy, make me a Magelord' and they go 'Sure! Here's your certificate! Enjoy your tyrannical rule of a fiefdom by exploding the heads of the peasantry!"

"No. You're taking this way too literally, Cit." She dusted some crumbs off her lap and turned to face the agitated imp. "Here's how it works." Lith looked around for a moment and picked up the wooden spoon she'd used to cook breakfast, using the handle to sketch a rough approximation of their continent into the dirt.

"Okay, we're here." She jabbed the handle into the eastern edge of the map. "And this is where all the actual civilized people live" she said, indicating a wide swath of land along the southern coast. "This is where you've got your big cities with lots of culture and trade and actual governing bodies and all that. Now, if you don't feel like living out here and want to pretend to be a big shot without all the actual work of bribing your way into the social elite, you move up here, to Meloria, where we are." She moved the handle again to point out the entire northeastern end of the continent.

"Meloria isn't really a country, or even a state. The real name of it is, erm...'The Inland Empire of Meloria' I think, but it's not an empire, either." Lith scratched her copper-haired head and studied the dirt-scrawled map as Cit looked on, feigning himself feigning interest.

"It's really just a big, ungoverned, forest-covered no-man's-land that none of the other states feel like dividing up because it's just super dense forest. So, you got your high-born mages and your independently wealthy businessmen who decide they've had enough of the anonymous city life and want to go up here and start their own little towns. They usually bring a bunch of people with them, cut some trees, start some villages, and if it lasts a few generations, poof! Easy mini-kingdom for your family to enjoy for as long as it takes for someone near you to amass a small army and conquer you. Which is what usually happens." She took a long sip of her tea as Cit gave her another blank stare. "No, really! They don't even bother to map out all the territories anymore for records back on the coast because they change so much."

"Anyway," she continued, pouring herself more tea and grabbing a second helping of breakfast, "You get a lot of these guys who get up here and then call themselves whatever they feel like. The more grand the better. Our 'Magelord' here is actually a former botanist who used to work for the Triplehorn city council." She Jabbed a dot in the dirt, to the west, along the coast. "Big port town, as you know. Lots of money going in and out, figured they needed some good tourist attractions."

"They hired this guy to do some hanging gardens for the city's arboretum about twenty years ago. I remember hearing about it when I was really little, 'cause everyone wanted to go see them. He knew how to make these big trees that float in the air and sprout red flowers every month that would rain petals everywhere and look really pretty. Anyway, it was so successful that all the neighboring cities had to have a bunch of these floating trees too, so they hired him to do the same thing, and next thing you know the guy's got more money than he can throw away."

"So after his head gets suitably big, he goes out and hires a whole bunch of mercenaries and some woodcutters and settlers and stuff, gets a small pilgrimage going, marches 'em all along the beach..." Lith drew a line in the dirt leading from the dot of Triplehorn along the coastline and up to their original location."...And founds his own town up north in the wilderness. Titles himself 'Magelord Thaddeus DeCorin IV, Founder and Lifelong Leader of Cleft Pointe' and goes about pretending he's king of something besides a backwater shantytown." She tossed the spoon back in pot and admired her map. "He built a little tower and everything."

"So this guy isn't a real Magelord?" Cit asked her dubiously.

"There's no such thing as a 'Magelord'!" She sighed at him. "He made it up! It's just some meaningless title he calls himself to sound impressive! The guy grows trees. He's not a real mage anything." She snorted derisively and picked up her cup of tea. "You can just get away with that up here because nobody's around to stop you and none of the other nations care what goes on up here. If push came to shove I don't think he'd be able to cast any spells besides 'pee myself' and 'cower in fear'".

"You sound awful sure."

"Believe me, I am. I'm not stupid enough to try to steal from an actual magi. This guy's a pretender." Lith finished off her tea.

"So why is he suddenly entrusted with storing and guarding what I've been led to believe are top secret magical military weapons at his crappy little tower we are so cheerily mocking here?"

"Well," Lith furrowed her brow. "That's the part we're not real sure on. But! I've got a theory."

"Ooooh! A theory!" Cit clapped in obviously false glee.

"Shut up and listen." She pointed at the map in the dirt and sketched a sizeable island off the eastern coast. "This is Dorem. They're the invading army, and they're the ones whose weapons we're supposed to get a 'sample' of. They set up military garrisons at these little kingdoms they take over, and usually they're not very well guarded, so this is the perfect opportunity to snag some. Magical Doremic weapons will sell for a ridiculous amount of money if we can get some. We can snag one for the fence and maybe keep one or two for us, since we're gonna be in there already." She grinned at the though, then paused and regarded the imp. "You do know about Dorem, right?"

Cit stared at her blankly.

"You've never seen Dorms before? With the..." Lith gestured to her pointed ears and made a scissor motion with her fingers. Cit just shrugged.

"You all look exactly the same to me. You know that. Remember how I kept calling you 'sir?'"

"Okay", Lith sighed, "If you ever see people from Dorem, you'll know it. They've got rounded ears and are taller and more bulked up than normal people." She puffed out her chest for emphasis. "Big, sturdy looking people. They talk kinda slow and they like to sing a lot."

"Gee, they sound terrifying."

"No, really, they were always putting on their plays and operas and stuff in the coastal cities, it was like all the rage down there a couple years back. The things are like eight hours long and last for weeks at a time, it's completely ridiculous. Anyway..." Lith lowered her voice a bit and thought back to what she'd heard over the years.

"Nobody'd really heard of them up until a hundred years ago or so. There'd been occasional meeting parties and adventures would go over there to trade, but no sailing routes or seaboard charters with the other cities established or anything like that. They were pretty much cut off and did their own thing."

"Then,", she continued, "Out of nowhere, a landing party arrives from Dorem at one of the settlements someone had set up along the coast. Was the first time they'd ever ventured off the island. The Dorms bring a bunch of goods and people and things with them, and help turn this little wannabe-kingdom into a serious city over the course of a decade or so, and eventually the Dorms kinda just take it over. After a while they build two huge bridges connecting their island to the mainland, and the city gets renamed Bridgeport."

"Weren't we just there?" Cit cocked his horned head. "Didn't seem to be under siege or anything. Not that I could see a whole lot what with the being crammed upside down in a bag for most of it."

"We were 'just' there almost four days ago," Lith flashed a toothy grin. "I've been lugging you around this whole time, Cit, try to keep up."

"Don't try to sell me on your weird linear perception of time! We've had this discussion!"

Lith just sighed. "But yeah, even with the army around now, the city hasn't changed much. It's too big. You barely even notice. It's the little settlements we're more worried about."

Lithiria got up and began to break down the camp, rolling up her bedroll and pulling down the tent as she spoke.

"About a year ago -- around the time I found you, actually -- the Doremic soldiers showed up at the end of the bridge and put the whole city under military rule. Up until then nobody even knew the Dorms even had an army. Kicked all the diplomats and vacationing nobles out and set up a garrison there like they were gonna push forward. Scared the crap out of all the state towns down the coast because now there was this huge army a week's march from their borders, so all the rest of the coast starts scrambling up their state armies." Lith rubbed out her dirt map with a booted foot and dumped the bacon fat onto the coals of the fire with a hiss and a flare.

"Instead of marching down to Itaria or on to Triplehorn, though, they declared that they were annexing the wilderness lands of Meloria onto Dorem and began marching up the small roads, stopping at every small self-ruled little kingdom they found and offering the landlords a choice: Let us station our troops here and we'll leave you alone, or we kill you and take your land."

"And the rest of the states just kinda....Let them do this?" Cit was seated on his log, taking all of this in as best he could.

"Well, what were they going to do about it, really?" Lith shrugged. "Meloria isn't really controlled by anyone. It's surrounded by mountain ranges and huge forests. It's a nightmare to get a sizable army through there. Most of the coastal states openly disapproved and there was a lot of saber rattling I guess, but nobody actually did anything. The Dorms opened Bridgeport back up like a week later and now everything's pretty much back to normal there. "

"And then -- and this is the part where we come in -- you've got the fact that the Dorms supposedly had some pretty unique weaponry on display. Magical weaponry. There were only rumors, no battles were fought, but it was enough to keep the states from acting hastily. They've supposedly got entire regiments of archers who can fire arrows made of lightning, blades that can cut steel like it was cheese, and huge weapons that can throw fireballs and level castle walls in seconds."

"You started getting survivors trickling into the coastal towns," she said, "Claiming to be refugees from some Melorian village that the Dorms had blown up because their landlord tried to put up a fight, all telling stories of entire castles being razed to the ground in an hour."

"As you might figure, some of the Triplehorn Overseers would love to get their hands on whatever it is it the Dorms are using. Overseers with a lot of money to throw around." Lith grinned again and her blue-green eyes lit up at the prospect.

Cit turned this over in his small head. "So...You've got a bunch of giants who came off an island and started capturing villages using some crazy magical weaponry they seemingly got out of nowhere...And now we're gonna steal some from some guy calling himself a Magelord who got taken over by them?"

"Pretty much, though I dunno if 'taken over' is really what you want to call it. The Dorms will station troops and stuff if you surrender, but from what I've been able to gather, as long as you capitulate to their demands they leave you pretty much alone." Lith shrugged on her backpack and teetered a bit. "Wooah. But yeah.You sign your land away to them, they stick some troops there, use your castle as a storage point and a barracks when they need it, and then they move on. As long as there's no resistance, they just set up and go on to the next place. It's like they're burning all this military power claiming a bunch of little castles way out in the wilderness and nobody's really sure why."

"Why spread your invading army into a land nobody else wants?" Cit furrowed his brow and scratched at his chin with a claw. "There's gotta be something up here they want? You generally don't just start throwing armies around for no reason." Military strategy was one of the few points Lithiria and Citrus found themselves able to converse on without arguing. Lith was deeply fascinated by the various campaigns and battles fought by the state armies all along the coast and read about them voraciously when she got the chance, though Cit suspected it had more to do with her weakness for hard bodied soldier types than any real interest in Farn's military history.

"Well, I guess that's what we're off to find out." Lith began marching back across the leafy forest floor, in the direction of the road that would take them to Cleft Pointe, about a half a day away.

Cit took to the air clumsily and followed alongside, stopping occasionally to scamper up a tree and hop off a branch. His weak wings didn't let him gain much altitude, but he was able to glide easily enough from trunk to trunk and keep up with Lithiria's brisk pace. In the months they'd been traveling together he has slowly learned to never question Lith's judgment of direction (and also to keep up with her, lest he get lost). All these roads and woods looked the same to him, but she didn't seem to have any problem knowing exactly which heading to take to get them to their next job.

He had to admit, all the moving around was a lot more exciting than being cooped up in a basement for decades under his previous owner. Lith had "liberated" him one cold night when the master had been out entertaining guests -- along with several spell scrolls, a handful of expensive materials, and a bunch of assorted knick-knacks that looked valuable but turned out to be completely worthless, prompting much colorful language on her part when she attempted to fence them. She'd originally tried to sell him as well, but after being informed she'd have to pay the fence to take him and not the other way around, she'd let him tag along begrudgingly, and eventually they became tolerant of each other, if not exactly inseparable. She'd even stopped complaining about the sulfur smell, provided he agreed to stop complaining about his new name.

* * *

They reached Cleft Pointe a little past midday, and right away Lith knew this wasn't going to be anywhere near as easy it she had been told.

She was expecting maybe a smattering of occupying soldiers holding down the fort, hopefully drunk, bored, and easily distracted. Instead, it looked like half the Doremic army had set up camp in town. The tower alone (and it was quite small and unimpressive, she was pleased to note) was surrounded by a sea of black and blue tents, and guards had been posted on the main road leading up from the town. The Dorms themselves were imposing, carrying foreign-looking curved blades and curious cross-shaped bows at their sides, their amour composed of large plates of what appeared to be thin stone layered in sheets and attached to leather straps. They seemed to be everywhere.

The citizenry seemed to have taken all this as a cue to stay indoors; save for the soldiers and the occasional villager scuttling about, the streets were virtually deserted.

Sneaking in had just gotten a lot more challenging, a fact Cit was gleefully pointing out to her in growled quips from inside her backpack. "This isn't gonna be hard!" he squeaked in his best Lithiria imitation voice. "It's easy money and then we can lay low for a couple months, right? Yeah, lay low in prison getting tortured to death. Are you insane!?"

"Shut up," she growled over her shoulder as she trudged down the deserted street in the center of town. "Just let me think for a minute." Her target was in the tower, she had been told that much. Probably in the basement, from the look of it. The problem, of course, was she hadn't been told what to get, just to bring back a sample of some weaponry that was being stored here. She was guessing this didn't just mean a sword or a few arrows -- her fence had implied it was something unique and she'd know it when she saw it...But what? It had seemed easy enough when it was explained to her, but now she was kicking herself for not bothering to get more specific. Never take jobs drunk she thought to herself. I say that every time.

"We might as well get a room, I guess," She mused to herself, to a guffaw from her backpack. "Gotta be an inn around here somewhere, and I need to think."

"A what? Oh, yeah, that's an fantastic idea, captain!" Cit hissed behind her head. "What ever happened to not letting everyone see us running around town? Why yes, let's trot our not-at-all conspicuous red-headed ass right past an entire platoon of gigantic invading barbarians and grab a drink at the bar. Brilliant! Why didn't I think of that? Oh right because I'm not in any particular hurry to die!"

Lith absentmindedly drove an elbow into the side of her backpack, eliciting a yelp and a rude word from the hiding imp. "Ideally nobody's gonna see you at all, unless you want to explain to a roomful of highly confused and very superstitious villagers and their occupying-army buddies here what exactly you are and why they shouldn't kill you and eat you."

"I'm just saying, it'd probably be a lot more prudent at this point to back off a bit!" he squeaked in reply. "This isn't a Triplehorn! This is a small village and strangers stand out here. You stand out here! With all these guys around watching everyone, you're gonna stand out even more. If they don't think you're suspicious looking now, they sure will when some of the stuff they're probably here to keep an eye on goes missing, yeah?"

Cit did have a point, she had to admit.

"We've just gotta get in, find what we came for, and get out..." She mused.

"And not let anyone see us," muttered her backpack.

"Well. Nobody knows what we're here for yet. We can probably walk right in the front door and I doubt anyone will care overly much. It's gonna be getting back out again with our stuff that's going to be the hard part."

* * *

How does Lithiria get in Cleft Pointe Tower to make the heist? Waltz in brazenly and lie, hide out, gather information and sneak in at dark, or something else?

[Jack_D.Mented]

Quote: Enjoy your tyrannical rule of a fiefdom by exploding the heads of the peasantry!

Lol! That's priceless. :lol:

Great work. I like it so far, and welcome to the city.

I might suggest a disguise on her part. That may work out best.

[Chinaren]

Oooh. I'm liking this so far. Haven't finished reading it yet, havta goto work, so I'll comment later.

Welcome to IF DJ! :D

[DJ]

Thanks guys!

[Lilith]

Welcome to IF! ;) And..

Ooooh,.. I like! Well written and crafted to be a intriguing fantasy tale indeed.

I can't wait for the next installment! Keep up the good work!

PS Contrary to popular belief, IFians don't bite as hard as you think we do! You're safe!

[Chinaren]

Right! Read it through and enjoyed!!

Mmmm. Tricky really, without more info on both the target and the protagonist. However, how about she goes in pretending to be an entertainer or somesuch? (If she can do this of course).

I don't think breaking into the tower is the way to go, but blagging her way in sounds more feasable. So, if she pretends to be an entertainer/other, she can either wait for an invitation, or go and visit the magelord and offer her 'services'. :shock:

Very nicely written Dee Jay.

To advertise your SGame I would recommend sticking a link in your sig (go to profiles). Also if you play some current SGames on the site, people tend to reciprocate. (Mine are in my sig if you care to subject your eyes to a lot of rambling gibbersish).

[OldJoe]

Ahm impressed Ms. DJ. Ah mighty fine start ter this tale. Ah reckon yer need ter hole up in the inn like, an' do some scoutin' around. Yessir.

[DJ]

Ms.?

I am male, I assure you!

[Chinaren]

Ah ha! Glad someone else put their foot in it this time! ~Files information away for future reference~

Sorry.... :off:

[DJ]

Now I'm a shade worried I came off as really feminine. Which my girlfriend is either going to think is cute, or never let me live down, ever. Hooboy.

[Kalanna Rai]

*raises eyebrow*

Tough decision. Sometimes just waltzing in is worth it since it puts your foe off guard...usually though it only works for a high level personage. Since our theif doesn't strike me as such I'll have to suggest the whole sneaky approach.

She's a theif after all...shouldn't be too hard.

[Mephistopheles]

you know, for the sake of time and safety, I would suggest sneaking in. It would take a while to build enough reputation and such to be invited to see the magelord. Sneaking would get her in fast. And redheads do stick out. if no one sees her though, they won't remember her, and then hunt her down.

Excellent read. i found it most enjoyable to visit your governmentally challenged land.

[Masterweaver]

How about we just suck up our pride and run? Do we really need the money?

Or there's the ever popular method of sending the Imp in, shouting "MONSTER!", and stealing what we want whilst everybody else is running rampant?

A good read. And welcome to IF, may you bankrupt Chinaren.

[Crunchyfrog]

If she thinks getting in is easy but getting out will be difficult, it would have to be something that would make getting out simpler.

Perhaps she could disguise herself as someone who is selling something, or as some kind of structural inspector, perhaps. Something that will allow her to be on her own for a short time with minimal suspicion before being escorted out.

Sorry that's all I could offer... o-)

Welcome to IF!

:D

[Lilith]

Quote: And redheads do stick out.

Did you really think I wouldn't see that Messy!!!!????

*smoulders*

And DJ! You've got a bunch of really great suggestions here! Don't forget to put up a poll when you feel you've got enough!(I'm not trying to rush you or anything.. just a friendly tip!) (Edit your first post in the thread and add it.. make sure to click "add option" after each one... I have lost some lengthy poll options because I forgot before!)

Anyway.. gonna toss in my own while I'm here! Can't she "waltz in brazenly, lie her arse off, get hot and heavy with a few of the hard-bodied soldier types, get them to let her in, and charm her way out"? And if she can't charm her way out, smash a couple bottles of liquor over their heads and RUN!

;) Have fun!

[DJ]

I'lll give it one more day and then toss the poll up.

And man, Lith trying to do the seduction thing would be an exercise in amazing failure. The girl has all the romantic wiles of a pregnant wildebeest.

Would be amusing as hell to write, though. Hm.

[D-Lotus]

Woah! Neat story. You have taught me something in this chapter- dialogue is an excellent way to give a history lesson, especially if it is natural and doesn't appear contrived.

Small complaints:

Quote: entire regiments of archers who can fire arrows made of lighting

Lightning?

The name Cit is short for Citrus, but it sounds like zit when you pronounce it.

Also, this isn't a complaint, but I've heard the name Farn before. I can't remember whether it was in one of Chinaren's stories, or if it was part of Enchanted Realms.

As for the decision point... I like Masterweaver's suggestion: Citrus creates a distraction and Lith runs away with the magical weapons. The appropriate time for Citrus to create the distraction would be when Lith needs to escape, of course, since getting into the tower doesn't seem to be a challenge for her.

Anyway, great beginning, DJ, I'll be keeping an eye on this one. :)

[DJ]

D-Lotus wrote: Quote: entire regiments of archers who can fire arrows made of lighting

Lightning?

Gwuh! Good catch.

[Crunchyfrog]

It's a good idea to post that there's a poll... ooh, I just did it for you.

;)

[Mattheus]

Probably should of posted before voting.

Anyway, great story, looking forward to the next part.

I was going to go for the walk in brazenly option but upon going back and reading again I think the whole idea of disguising herself woul work better.

[Lilith]

;) I say get invited in. If you're invited in then obviously you're supposed to be there.. so the soldiers can stick it!

(No! No dirty thoughts.. please! Crap.)

[Novelest_Ninjagirl]

I reallt like it! I'm still laughing, just to be honest. I like the fact that the main characers don't get along very well, it adds a bit of spice and humor to the story. As for the DP I have to go with thepretending to be a entertainer, and sneaking in. But- at the same time, I like the suggestion wehre she has the imp come up, screams monster, and runs off. See if you can mix them, that would make it really cool. BTW I read back and I must admit, at first you cmae of as a female, but that's from jsut reading your story. Your username makes me think male however! OOPS! I just went off topic, sorry!

[DJ]

Okay! I guess, according to the polls, we're brazenly walking in (nobody picked the "sneak" option? Oi).

New chapter up soon.

Er...What's the best way to post this? Make a new thread, stick it in this one...?

[Crunchyfrog]

Write the second chapter in the same thread, DJ, just hit the reply button as normal. :)

When you've posted your new chapter, you can also alter the topic title to show that Chapter 2 is up. All you need to do is edit your very first post in this thread, and change the Subject heading.

:cool:

[NeverNeverGirl]

okay i am up to date on this one too now... and just wanted to point out that becuase she isnt particularly a romantic sort of gal doesnt mean she wouldnt know how to utilise her femme wiles...

trust me on that


so i wait for the next chapter so that we see if you can maintian the high standard!

YAY!

[Crunchyfrog]

9 votes - that's very good for a first chapter!

Is DJ still around? :)

[DJ]

Dwuh. Hi folks! I haven't actually forgotten about this (I've actually got a second chapter more or less ready to go), but as tends to happen, real life yanked the rug out from under me around Feb. and things just piled up massively.

I've got a bit of free time this weekend -- I'm home from work with the dreaded Strep Throat, bane of office environments everywhere. So! I was thinking about picking up where I left off, if people are still interested? Hopefully now that my schedule is slightly less insane, I'll actually be able to do this with some regularity.

Just as a quick aside, if anyone was wondering what's been chewing up all my time, I'm currently employed at Namco working on Tales of Vesperia (any Tales fans in the house?) -- so in a way, I'm still doing the IF thing, just, uh, console based! And slightly more time consuming. This also means dirty game-industry crunch time sometimes, so if we discover some enormous pressing issue that needs to get fixed like yesterday, I can kiss my free time goodbye, strep throat or no. I'll try to keep this more or less regular since people seemed to like the first bit (and I liked writing it), but no guarantees unfortunately!

[Crunchyfrog]

Good to see you back!

:)

[Christalnightshade]

Wonderful, I like the story. I want to draw the picture of Cit and Lith. Hope you don't mind... can you discribe as in the two characters more so that I can have a mental picture of what they look like. I really want to draw them... hehe

[DJ]

Christalnightshade wrote: Wonderful, I like the story. I want to draw the picture of Cit and Lith. Hope you don't mind... can you discribe as in the two characters more so that I can have a mental picture of what they look like. I really want to draw them... hehe

Oh hey yeah! Please do draw them!

You can email me at deusjester [at] gee-mail [dawt] com (name obviously changed to deter spambots but I'm sure you can work it out) if you need more detail on them. Just mention who you are in the subject so I don't direct it to the spambox. It's no problem to give it so don't hesitate to ask! I'd love to see some artwork of these guys. I stink, terribly, at drawing so anyone who can do them justice, I'd really love to see the results.



Poking around my computer a bit and hey, I had an early draft of some of the worldbuilding I did. I'll cut n' paste this and adjust accordingly. Note: All this stuff is really rough and was intended for personal use more than anything, and I haven't proofread it so just take a mental red pen to it. It's pretty rambly:

Lithiria Mayellen Waleraan (nobody ever calls her this, it's just "Lith"): The lead. From a small coastal town named Prodan near the border of Emeris and Ismith. Late 20's. Fled home at a young age to elope with an Ismithian boy, Mihlo, who eventually left her to fend for herself in Triplehorn when he eloped with someone else. She took the perilous journey home as a stowaway on a ship only to return to find that her family had left, and their house had been bought up and converted into a pie shop. Destitute, she wound up trying to steal one of the pies which landed her her first night (of many more to come) in jail. She keeps telling this story and everyone thinks she's completely out of her tree. Who gets jailed for stealing pie?

Mihlo had taught her the basics of roguecraft, however, and as the years wore on Lith became an accomplished thief, able to bold-facedly lie her way into many places she never should have been able to get into, and acrobatic enough to get back out again.

Despite many years on the street, she's an atrocious fighter, though she can bluff fairly well. She is, however, extremely skilled at running away and hiding and usually employs this tactic at the slightest opportunity.

Age: 27
Height: 5'4"
Weight: ~90lbs.
Eyes: ~green/blue
Ears: ~short point*
Build: skinny, slightly underweight**
Skills: excellent juggler, actress, curiously terrible dancer
Training: can pick locks with some proficiency, excellent mimic, good at riddles and languages
Weapons: Lith is a horrible fighter; if anything, she prefers to attack from a very, very large distance

*compare to "long point" ears more frequent in other peoples on the coast, where the ears extend quite far beyond the head in a slender point. Lith and her people's ears stop well below the top of the skull, which is a minority occurrence and an easy way to differentiate east from west (real-life analogy: Think asian eyes versus rounded eyes but far more noticeable).

**Lith isn't malnourished so much as she has a high metabolism, but eats like crap. Hence, she's shorter and a bit more blunted than she should be, thanks to a childhood of downing immense cups of tea and occasionally smoking fairly large amounts of "Red", a mildly hallucinogenic flower that roughly emulates the effects of caffinated beer. While the red is an on-and-off habit, the tea has been a consistent addiction her entire life and she has no intention of cutting back. She dislikes actual alcohol, however, as it tends to make her violently ill, a fairly common symptom among the western folk and not mirrored with the eastern tribes -- everyone in Triplehorn is virtually a raging alcoholic but suffers little ill effects from it. The Dorms are even less effected and can drink truly massive amounts of booze before they are effected. One puff of Red will usually be incredibly potent, however!

Basic description: Lith is a fairly average girl for her tribe. She's short, somewhat stumpy, but not unattractive in her own right. She doesn't have the hips or boobs to really be a seduction object, but she's got a slender feline grace in her own right and while she wouldn't mind some more male attention, she's not at all dissatisfied with her own appearance. Her short, ponytailed hair is bright red and thick, and she has an impish grin and large almond eyes that shine green when she's happy and blue when she's otherwise. She has a bit of a dental problem in that her teeth are quite crooked (lending a curious but sort of charming snaggletoothed visual effect when she grins), but she's a clean girl and is well groomed besides.

She does, however, wish she could dance better than she does. She's an atrocious dancer, truly terrible, and tends to get intensely jealous of those who are able to perform her favorite art form with apparent ease while she looks like a dying fish flopping around on a riverbank every time she tries it. She makes up for this by being a truly talented juggler. Lith can juggle 3, 4, 5, 6, and 10 objects all at once (don't ask her to do 7, 8, or 9!) with remarkable grace. Her manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination are second to none, and had the thought occurred to her she probably could've made a comfortable living being a court jester for a minor house lord.

Lith loves tea, meat, and bread. She's a meat-and-potatoes girl, despite her build. Rare meat is better than overcooked!

Her clothing is usually very practical and covers neck-to-ankles in some kind of leather, usually with cloth over it, weather permitting. While Lith doesn't get in very many fights, she IS aware that her occupation is more hazardous than most and her clothing leans towards the useful rather than the showy. She has a large backpack on at all times that has clearly seen a lot of wear, and usually a long cloak over that with a deep hood should she need to hide her face (she generally does not put the hood up except in high-population areas). She keeps a slim (and expensive!) dagger in her wrist sheath at all times, though has yet to need to use it for combat. Generally she uses it for cooking. She also has a slim crossbow she HAS used for combat, but very rarely and never fatally. She has a small, fat, lavender vial of sleeping poison on her to coat her crossbow bolts with, but again, the need has never arisen to actually use this (and she's not even sure how to go about it otherwise).

Citrus (Agkandazz Zxaphrasiz Pxaschachizwaqn omd Fphaxchsziz Mkgazbae ys Gazx Bngjka Gaa, aka "Cit"): Cit is a mid-level demon familiar summonable (against their will) by some of the higher-level mages of Farn. In order to summon them, you must acquire their full names (not easy) and be able to pronounce them without error (even less easy) and have several astoundingly valuable reagents onhand to tempt the demon into listening (usually the easiest if most expensive part of the process), and even then the chances of the summoning being effective are fairly low, so having one as a familiar is a fairly big deal among the elite magi of Farn.

Cit was stolen by Lith a year or so before the first chapter takes place, while she was acquiring several other artifices from a mage's house for resale. At the time, Cit was hibernating a small, round, lumpy egg on the desk Lith was rapidly sweeping into her bag, so she took him along quite by accident, but the two have since become fairly inseparable.

She asked him to tell her his full, proper name once, and he did so, even pronouncing it correctly, which infernalkind will generally not do when asked this question (they'll pronounce it phonetically). She didn't stop laughing for almost 5 straight minutes at the resulting sounds Cit made and thus he has since vowed to never repeat that mistake.

Citrus:
Age: 91 of his 199 year Abyssinian-allotted lifespan (so roughly middle-age for an imp).
Color: Sulfur Yellow, with orange highlights on the tip of his tail and his face and extremities. (think the color points on a Siamese cat).
Weight: ~20lbs. He weighs more than he looks like he does considering how bony he is.
Height: 1'9", not counting his tail, which is almost as long as he is, though he keeps it curled up like a scorpion would, arching over his head most of the time. With his wings extended he looks even larger. He's too heavy to fly efficiently but can glide well enough.
Eyes: Cit's eyes can be whatever color he wants, including florescent and glowing (a neat trick imps have known since the dawn of time), but 99% of the time he leaves them by their default color of bright yellow with pitch black pupils. He's been known to turn them glowing red when angry to appear intimidating, but he generally forgets to do this.
Build: "Cat Skeleton covored in wax with bat wings and a scorpion tail stapled on" would be a nice way to describe Cit. Despite this, he has a considerable beer-belly.
Skills: Cit can sting with his tail, though he doesn't carry very much venom in his body and has to replenish this between full-bore stings, which takes a number of days. The sting, however, is incredibly lethal if administered all at once and will kill its target within a second or less; Cit can control the dosage, however, and prefers to inject a debilitating but non-lethal amount if he can, which greatly reduces the amount of venom needed. This is more out of the practical reason of not leaving him completely without his "natural" defenses for days as opposed to any particular regard for life. If he absolutely has to kill someone (or even if merely the convenience of doing so would outweigh the inconvenience of going poisonless for a few days), he's more than capable and willing to do it, provided he has a full reserve of venom in his tail glands.
Cit can also blend in with his background more or less at will, as a chameleon might. This illusion isn't perfect, however. Cit can replicate the general color and texture of whatever it is he's currently clinging on to, but the process takes a good 10 minutes or so and is very gradual. Once Cit's got a good feel for the material, however, he can blend in remarkably well, to the point where his physical shape will adjust slightly to make him harder to see. The longer Cit clings to a surface and actively tries to emulate it, the more convincing the illusion will be. Even his eyes will change color. The downside to this is that Cit cannot dismiss this color easily. If he decides to blend into a brick wall and then leaves it, he'll continue to look like he has bricks for skin for a the same amount of time it took him to blend into the wall in the first place.
Cit also has a bizarre sleep schedule, in that not even he knows when he will be tired, or for how long. It just "happens" and he is prone to dozing off into complete stupor mid-sentence, and then staying that way for days on end, during which he will compress to roughly 1/3 his normal size and assume a round egg-like form. This has to do with the phases of the abyssian moons, the chronology of which are so complicated that not even Lith is sure what's going on with them. Suffice to say, when he sleeps, he sleeps hard.

[Christalnightshade]

Wow you gave me a whole book. Now by your email, do you mean that it is deusjester@g-mail.com or deterspambots@g-mail.com or is it gee-mail as in one I never heard of before...

[DJ]

Just regular gmail.