The Longest Flashback 4

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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

The Longest Flashback 3

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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

The Longest Flashback 2

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Jetroid wrote:

>I decided to flirt with her. To get her to trust me.

I decided to play a little role. She was pretty, and would be expecting someone to hit on her. Someone oblivious to her identity, skills, and crime. Possibly someone of average attractiveness at best. If she played along I might be able to get her alone, but I didn't really expect her to be that gullible..nor particularly interested. But if I could annoy her long enough it would force her to leave. And then I could make my move.
So I eased my way up to the bar, the seat next to hers. And I looked over, pretending to notice her for the first time. "Hey, if you're here every night I might have to come here more often."
She smiled ahead of her own joke. "If I were here every night you'd have no reason to be interested."
"Huh. Guess not." I ordered something stiff. I needed to be able to concentrate tonight, but I could handle a glass or two, and I needed to keep up appearances. Once the bartender left to get my order I said, "In that case what are you doing in a place like this?" I didn't expect her to confess anything outright--again, clearly not that stupid--but I could hope for a few hints at least.
"Guards won't let me out of town," she said, taking a small sip of whatever she'd ordered before punctuating that with, "D--- racists."
"How's that?"
"Saw 'em nearly arrest the last Fox to try and leave town. Poor girl was just a merchant selling some wares from out east. You know, one of us robs the Count and all the rest suffer for it." My drink came and I took a long pull on it, thinking. This was impressive: Playing a victim of her own actions. Not techincally telling any lies, either.
Two could play at that. "Ah, well, I ain't from town. Been a lot of places, seen a lot of different people. Don't want to cause any trouble, though. Hard to get jobs if people don't trust ya."
"Hm..but surely you're open-minded enough to take a well-paying, discreet job? Hypothetically, of course."
"I guess that'd depend on who was offering it."
"Well, we might need to get to know each other then. Let's start with names, hm?"

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From: http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?49134-The-Longest-Flashback-Fantasy-Text-1-Catching-the-Fox

The Longest Flashback 1

(This is the first one!)

Catching the Fox
She was beautiful, but I knew that before I took the job. I was warned, in fact. But I am a professional, after all, and rightly trusted with not falling for a pretty face. Especially with what else I knew about her.
It took me a while to track her down, had to pull a few strings the count wouldn't have appreciated knowing about. Didn't need to know about them, either, even if things didn't go so smoothly from here. She was standing at a seedy bar near the edge of town, but she couldn't get out. I knew that much; the town watch was searching every woman who left town for anyone who matched her description well enough. Like it would be hard to identify a Fox amid nothing but humans and elves.
Sure, I understood why she didn't stand out here. Long, hooded cloaks were in fashion that month, so she hardly stood out using that kind of attire to hide the more vulpine features. She knew just how to arrange things to look perfectly human, but I knew her by the rest of the description. Bright red hair, dark blue eyes, a little on the short side, tanned complexion. There were a lot of other details I committed to memory at the time, and forgot once I didn't need them anymore. Which wasn't right after recognizing her at the bar, mind you.
She noticed me coming in, but no more than anyone else did. I looked like some freelance soldier in leather armor, one of the many sorts that were common in this kind of bar--and that's what I was. That's why I was right for the job. Because I'm trustworthy, and I wouldn't arouse suspicion from the outset.
She wasn't just pretty, like I said before. She was fast. Real good at hiding. They only knew what she looked like because the count had his mages perform some complicated scrying ritual around the crime scene, so they could literally look into the past. But apparently she wasn't completely invincible; there were holes she couldn't slip through, or she'd be out of town by now. Then again, the count wasn't desperate to catch her until the deed was done. Obviously didn't know she existed before then. Why attract so much attention in the first place?
After all, for a thief in that town there was plenty of money to be made without stealing three of the ruler's priceless magical artifacts. But the reasons weren't so important to me. Not near as important as getting 'em back. The only question now was how.
I couldn't just jump her in the middle of the bar. She would react too fast, dodge any kind of sucker punch, slip out of my grasp. Declare a barfight or call me an old ex-lover, get the whole place up against me. No, I had to do something a little less straightforward than that. I could try to talk to her, maybe lure her outside somehow. Or I could wait for her to leave, follow her to somewhere a little more isolated..maybe expose her ears in view of some guardsmen. No reason I couldn't stay here all night, this was my only job at the time after all. After some thought, I decided to...

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From: http://mspaforums.com/showthread.php?49134-The-Longest-Flashback-Fantasy-Text-1-Catching-the-Fox