Jetroid wrote:
>Decided to gather some equipment which could be used to help capture her, as well as to be used as part of the 'disguise'.
I had to get some things. First, I bought a length of rope, and used about half of it with some rocks I found to put together some crude bolas. I kept some other rocks, and bought some darts for throwing. I'm no good at darts, but I figured it would do in a pinch, and maybe I'd get lucky. I also got a few bear traps. Other than that, I'd been given a special dust by the Duke that I was specifically ordered to throw at the criminal at first opportunity. They assured me its magic was too complicated to explain, but I'd seen something similar, so I had a good idea what that powder was and would do--nothing helpful. It was part of the contract, so I'd have to use it anyway.
Finally, I needed some help to deal with the elementals. Sure, I had my broadsword on me like usual, but when your enemy is literally water or fire the conventional wisdom of 'cut the neck, pierce the heart' isn't exactly helpful. You have to coat the sword with something that renders its cutting power metaphorical. Sever the magic holding 'em together. My choice of meeting place wasn't random. Potion shops come in all shapes and sizes, but it's not often an alchemist who knows he's good will keep offering reasonable prices for his goods. This one was known for it..again, according contacts of mine.
"So why the name?" I asked the owner, while he was doing some of the less delicate work on the potions. "Doesn't inspire much confidence when something leaks."
"Oh, but that depends on who you ask," he said. He was a short little man, maybe around fifty..though his profession showed more than his age, with the stains all over his hands. "Pickpockets love a leaky purse. Starving children are ecstatic when a noble's cook allows a feast to..leak."
"Are there any potions finished while still in the alembic?" I asked.
He responded with a brief chuckle. "Heh. You got me there. But a flask or barrel can hold lots of things an alembic don't. What's this for, if you don't mind me asking?"
"Clearing some elementals out," I said. I had my suspicions that claiming it was for the duke, or for a Fox, could lead to trouble.
"Oooh, extermination is it? I remember old Marge got real paranoid when she thought this was turning into a 'baaaad neighborhood,' set a bunch of them up to guard her shop from imaginary assassins. Fat lot of good it did when she died of a heart attack, heh! Normal pests are bad enough without d--- magical ones hanging around after someone's death."
"What did she sell?"
"Marge? Tomes, scrolls..mage stuff. You know, folk say alchemy is complicated, but they ought to take a look at what all goes into an incantation for something as simple as a little light! Stick to lamps, says I. Not that I ain't got my own business in mind when I say that."
I realized I'd forgotten to buy a light source. The entire place was abandoned and underground; Amelia or whatever she was going to call herself next wouldn't expect me to be able to see down there, and hadn't said anything about being able to make light herself. Sure, she probably could and had, but that she hadn't said so was more important. "You sell some kind of lamp here?"
"Suuure! See on that shelf over there?" Without turning around to look, he pointed to a shelf with a bunch of small flasks on it, all half-full of a faintly bluish glowing liquid. "That's Glow Water--harmless byproduct of making a simple healing potion. At least, the way I make 'em it is. The magic and glow wears off after a couple of days, and then it's just normal water again. Good for lighting things up and putting out fires instead of starting 'em."
"What happens if you freeze or boil it?"
"Glowin' ice or steam, of course! Latter's great for tellin' ghost stories, I hear."
"Hm. Could you add a couple flasks of that to my order?"
"O'course. Just take 'em to the counter. The severing solution's just about done, too."
Once I had the potions, I waited outside the shop for a few more minutes before Amelia or whoever showed up. She was still wearing the cloak for the moment. "Glad you could come," she said with a smile.
"Me too. I got these," I said, offering her one of the flasks of glowing water.
"Oh, don't worry about me. I can see in low light--part dog, you know?"
"..Right." I pretended to not know that already. "And I got some potion to kill elementals with, too." I showed her the severing solution, still in its own container.
"...You do know you have to put it on your sword for it to do any good, right?"
"..Yeah, I know that. I put some on already."
"Okay, good." She looked around, probably expecting to find the town guard around. There weren't even any regular nightwatchmen in this part of town, though, so she could look all she wanted. "Follow me."
She didn't go straight there. I had already guessed that the shop "Marge" used to own was the one with the trapdoor in the bottom, and I was right, but the Fox took pains to make sure our route there was as convoluted and nonsensical as possible without turning it into a literal obstacle course. I stuck with her the whole time, never bothering to look around for landmarks or anything to tell me where we were. It didn't really matter to me whether she was lying about where we were going, as long as we ended up relatively alone at the end of it.
But she wasn't lying, we did eventually get there. She actually had a key to the shop's front door, and it wasn't a skeleton key. I figured she might have lifted it off of Marge's next of kin, or maybe they gave it to her willingly because she promised to help get rid of the elementals. At any rate, soon we got to the trapdoor and headed down the ladder to an old, disused tunnel.
My original plan was to get rid of as many of the elementals as possible, get to the part where she needed my help and then attack her. But she'd been telling so much of the truth lately that I was getting a little nervous. Maybe there wasn't any gate she couldn't open herself and she just wanted to bait me into trying to catch her. Maybe the elementals would be more trouble for her trying to escape than they'd be for me.
Either way, I needed to wait until we were at least a good way into the tunnel before I tried anything. Didn't want the ladder to the surface close enough for her to just scramble up it and run away, after all.
In the end I decided to...
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From: http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?49134-The-Longest-Flashback-Fantasy-Text-1-Catching-the-Fox
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