Jetroid wrote:
>"Bill Dougal - Freelancer."
"Bill Dougal."
Jetroid wrote:
>Amelia LeRogué
"Amelia. For another few hours, at least."
I have to admit that caught me off guard. But it wasn't a problem--saying that kind of thing could surprise anyone. "For..?"
"Yeah. I suffer from a curse that arbitrarily changes my name every day, at local midnight."
"Couldn't you just keep telling everyone the same name anyway?"
"I could, I suppose. But it wouldn't feel right. Like calling a tomato an apple."
"And you haven't gotten it broken by a priest or something?"
"There are many levels of curses. Some last only a few minutes, some go away with this or that god's blessing, some at least become more bearable if you wear a certain magic charm. But some are so tied to one's identity and existence that any actual success in breaking them would probably kill the victim in some respect."
I guess I just had to believe her about that. I don't know much about curses. Not that it really mattered--her description was more important to the Count than her name anyway. Still, I had to have something I could call her if I needed to. "What about nicknames? It effect those?"
"I doubt it. The curse is most targeted towards confusing official records." If it wasn't real, at least she'd put some thought into her story.
"Now..'s there anything about this job you can't talk about here?"
"Not really. Even if I thought someone here cared to listen to our conversation I could just write down the more secret bits."
It was a test, and I knew it. There isn't much education to go around for people who can't pay for it. Random, common riffraff aren't expected to be literate--it's why most shop signs have symbols representing what's sold there. But if I went as far as claiming I couldn't read anything, to try and get her somewhere more private quicker, she could use it as an excuse to not hire me--not intelligent enough. "I, uh, don't read much," I said, trying to sound embarrassed about it. At least I'd sound smart enough to want to know how to read.
"I'm sure you could sound things out, though."
And from there she outlined a plan. Apparently she'd found an abandoned shop with a trapdoor in it, that happened to go down into a tunnel that some smuggler used to use. The only problem was that the gate at the end had a bunch of rust in the works, so the lever that was supposed to open it didn't work. There were a few leftover guard elementals in there, too, that she'd managed to avoid on the first trip. My job would be to protect her from the elementals--by taking them out, of course--and then just push the gate open manually, which she wasn't near strong enough to do.
Jetroid wrote:
>Tell her you'll consider the job - but where can you find her to contact her once you decided? (Lure her into telling you her location. (Though she'd never tell))
"Seems simple enough, but they all do, you know."
"Oh, I understand," she said with a smile. "There's no such thing as a simple job. It's as elusive as your own shadow. But I don't promise you it's simple--I just promise you'll be payed what it's worth."
"I'll think about it, okay? How about we meet somewhere a little later and I'll tell you if I'm up for it."
"I understand there's some risk involved, so I'll give you some time, sure. But I am in awful hurry, so how's an hour sound?"
"That should be enough time." I didn't hesitate. If she suspected me of working for the Count, she'd expect me to want more time to call some of the town guard. Thing is, if she kept her word, I wasn't gonna need the town guard.
"Very well." She stood up to go. "Meet me outside The Leaky Alembic if you plan on taking the job. If I don't see you in an hour I'll go looking for someone else."
"That'd be a d--- shame, wouldn't it."
"Indeed it would," she said with a final smile, and left.
After I stuck around a few minutes to make sure she was definitely gone from the bar, I got up to leave myself. I had a little under an hour to get things ready for our..meeting. So in that time, I...
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From: http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?49134-The-Longest-Flashback-Fantasy-Text-1-Catching-the-Fox
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