Fairy Meets Assassin 101

[Poison]

Far out in the Coronian countryside, three covered wagons lumbered down a dirt road. Each was being pulled by teams of two horses each and were surrounded with armored men. The men driving the wagons kept looking at the escorts nervously, as though they might suddenly find a spear in their gut. The guards, however, did not return those looks. They concentrated on one thing only, getting the three wagons to the manor that lay just ahead.

Another figure followed a short distance behind the wagons. The figure moved gracefully without a sound. It wore a long black cloak with a deep hood. In the failing light, one would barely notice the cloaked stranger. The men that were supposed to be guarding the cargo on the wagons certainly did not realize they were being followed.

Idiots, I’m not even seriously trying to hide from them. Fools! Do they really think that they can just walk away with three wagons like that and not be seen?

Sighing, the stranger slipped ahead of the small convoy. She flitted from shadow to shadow until she reached the large manor. Here, she waited in the buildings shadow, using her shadow melding abilities to keep out of sight. She had no need to find an alternate entry to the building. She just needed to be sure that no one saw her slip in behind the wagons.

As she waited she went back over the conversation she’d had just two days ago with her latest employer...

Two days ago...

Poison watched the dark-haired man in front of her. He had gone to great lengths to find her, thus she assumed he must have a need for her capabilities. The job he’d offered seemed easy enough, but he went back over the details anyway.

”So here’s the deal, Miss Poison, kill that thieving bastard, Ricardo Grunson, in any way you want. I don’t need you to bring me any proof as I’m sure the local paper will cover his mysterious death. For payment, you may take as much of his latest steal as possible. My client will just be pleased to find his jewel shipments are no longer being intercepted. Is this satisfactory?”

“You said that the next shipment is supposed to coming this direction from Radasanth in two days? This Ricardo Grunson is a tall man, with blonde hair and blue eyes. He dresses like a lord although he is not. This is all correct?” she paused to wait for his nod then continued, “Then I accept. Good night.”


Present...

Looks like he was right. Those wagons are definitely headed here. This might be easier than I first anticipated.

Grinning smugly to herself, Poison waited for the wagons to cover the last 100 feet of road.

[Crystal Suncrest]

I think you forgot to put (Closed to Crystal Suncrest)
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2 days ago
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"Ooooh Pretty. I wonder if they would mind if I took one." Crystal said as she stared at a wagon full of jewels. She looked around for someone to ask, but nobody was there. There was nobody that stood out as the incredibly rich type she imagined had to own these jewels, so she figured she would just wait for someone to arrive.

Sitting on the side of the cart, crystal saw a man with blue eyes and brown hair and a man with green eyes and red hair approaching, but at that moment her fork fell off her back and into the pile of jewels. Crystal dovedone to get it, but it fell further beneath the pile. Crystal wasn't one to give up easily, so she dove underneath the pile of jewels, planning on coming up as soon as she got her fork, but as the men started wheeling the wagon, the jewels shifted a bit trapping her.

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1 day ago
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Crystal was still in the wagon, but for a totally different reason. She had overheard a conversation as the wagon was being delivered to it's destination that seemed to indicate the jewels were stolen goods. Crystal knew almost nothing about the outside world, but she knew right from wrong, for the most part. Of course, she would have to steal whatever food and drink she could find soon. Crystal quickly thought back to the conversation she heard to try to get her mind off how hungry she was.

"Say, did you hear? That stupid old man is still trying to get shipments past us."

"Yeah, I can't believe how easy this has gotten. I love the life of taking what I want"

"I personally don't like it much, but after we get enough jewels, I'll be able to live the rest of my life clean"

Crystal's stomach growled as she remembered the conversation. She needed to eat. It took her a while to find the lunchroom, but being small meant she was not easily noticable, so she didn't worry too much about getting caught.

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Current day
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Crystal sighed as she looked over the food. Yesterday she had grabbed two grapes, and it went unnoticed, today she was not oing to be so lucky. Someone had eaten the rest of the grapes and there was nothing else she could carry back to her hiding spot without a lot of effort. The smallest item was an apple, but lugging that around would be suicide. The structure she was trapped in was huge, even by human standards, and the basement where they stored all the jewels was even bigger. Deciding it was not worth the risk Crystal headed out of the lunchroom, which was the only small room in the warehouse. From there flew up to a horizontal beam near the ceiling to spy on the jewel thieves and try to figure out what she could do to stop them.

[Poison]

As the wagons passed her, Poison slipped in behind them. She didn’t follow them across the courtyard. Instead, she slid into the shadow of the large wall, using her shadow melding ability to become nearly invisible. From here she could see that the building was more or less a large square, with the middle cut out of it. Directly opposite the gate sat the manor itself. On either side stood a large number of wagons and horses. The wagons carrying the current shipment of jewels stopped at near the end of one line of stalls. There was a large, cellar door there that appeared to lead to wherever the jewels were being hidden. That information, while useful, was not currently pertinent. She watched for a few minutes while they started unloading the wagons, then carefully moved on to a better vantage point.

By now, darkness had fallen and Poison moved quickly through the long shadows. She did not dare walk right through the front door. The only time that had ever worked in her life had been when she proved herself to her trainer years ago. She would need to find a different way to get into the manor. She already had a plan in mind for how she would accomplish her mission, that part had been relatively easy. She even had a plan to implicate his own soldiers in the murder of Ricardo Grunson.

As the last few soldiers not on guard duty went inside to their rooms, Poison darted across the courtyard. She was careful not to startle any of the horses and was soon standing near the cellar entrance. She waited and watched the guards atop the walls for several long minutes before pulling open one side of the double doors and disappearing down the stairs.

The stairs were not very long and she soon found that the so called cellar was a vast storehouse. Literally millions of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and many other gems too numerous to name, sat in large piles, or in tubs on the shelves. The vast wealth that many jewels in one place represented astounded the assassin.

With that many jewels, I could retire. I could make enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life by simply selling all these jewels!

Having once been a thief, the idea was more than fleeting. However, she was not here for thievery just yet. She would take her share of the choicest of the jewels when she was leaving. Right now, she needed to see if there was a way into the manor from down here. No guards roamed the storeroom. Ricardo probably didn’t see putting guards down here as a necessity. Poison took her time meandering through the storeroom, admiring the vast array of jewels.

[Crystal Suncrest]

Crystal watched from the beam she was resting on as she continued to try her hardest to come up with a plan of attack. There was nothing she could do at the moment, seeing as there was likely no way she could even move back to the cellar where all the shiny multicolored gems were without being caught at the moment, Crystal decided to wait until the room was a bit less crowded before heading back to her old hiding spot.

That was the plan, at least, but as she waited and stared down, an ant began to crawl up her body. Crystal quickly shook it off her body, but in doing so fell off the beam and the fork fell off her back. knowing that if the fork hit the ground, they would realize she was there, Crystal quickly swooped down and grabbed it. Unfortunately, this sudden movement caught the attention of the guards too.

"Hey! Somebody's here! Get her!" came the cry of one of the guards. Crystal decided there was only one safe place to escape to, so with 4 guards on her back, she quickly flew back down to the cellar and dove into a pile of bright colored gems on the shelf. At least in there, she would be harder to find.

[Poison]

Poison froze in her tracks as the yells and thunderous fottsteps of men racing down the stairs reached her ears. Cursing her licj, she searched quickly for a place to hide. Seeing a small space behind a large barrel, she slid into it and melted into the shadow.

A moment later, several large guards poured in the room. They were obviously looking for someone, but POison had not seen or heard anyone else come down the stairs ahead of the men.

Surely they aren’t looking for me. The only person that knows I”m here is my employer. Unless...

The idea that she might have been compromised was not a pleasant one. It meant that this had been a trap; one that she had fallen for hook, line, and sinker. Wondering who they could possibly looking for had Poison’s teeth on edge. She waited for what seemed an eternity before the guards gave up their search. They would simply beef up the security on the walls and at the gate to prevent the departure of whomever it was that they’d seen.

After a few more minutes of absolute silence, Poison slid out of her hiding place in the shadows and walked to the center of the room. She stood there with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. She called out in a loud, clearly unhappy voice, figuring that whomever it had been that had nearly blown her cover was still there.

“All right, I know you’re in here. I don’t know you are or why you’re here, but you almost blew my cover. Now come out here where I can see you!”

[Crystal Suncrest]

Crystal blinked a few times. Did that woman really expect her to come out? Instad crystal decided to judge her and whether it was safe to come out on the woman's reaction to what she was about to say.

"You know, you are kind of cute when you are angry." It was a good start, but Crystal felt obliged to say more.

"Before I come out, I've got a demand or two of my own. First, I would like to know who you are, and second, I wish to know what you are doing here. If you answer my questions, I'll come out." Crystal said all this while watching the woman's face. It would tell her all she needed to know about the woman..

[Poison]

Poison rolled her eyes impatiently.

“You do not need to know the answer to either of those questions. They are none of your business.

As she spoke, Poison walked slowly toward the stairs. She looked around as she did, trying to locate the small voice that had answered her. By the voice, Poison guessed the person to be small, possibly even a child. She also assumed that the speaker would have gone into hiding as quickly as possible, which put the speaker close to the stairs. She knew she was wasting precious night hours, but she could risk the chance that this mystery person would seek to redeem themself by telling the guards about Poison’s presence.

“You might as well come out, small one. I know you’re here somewhere. If you cooperate, I may even be able to get you out of here alive and in one piece. If not, when I leave, I’ll just let the guards know that they’re looking for someone small and that they could probably flush the intruder out if they blocked off all the exits from the basement.”

She stopped and looked around once more.

“This is your last chance. I have a job to do and you are wasting my time.”

[Crystal Suncrest]

Crystal wasn't about to let the woman have her way quite yet, but she was running out of options. While it was true that because of her size, posting a guard at all the exits wouldn't be enough to flush her out, the lady who was searching for her was coming way too close to finding her. She needed a new place to hide, but as she watched the woman search, she realized there was no place she could go that wouldn't get her caught.

Just as Crystal was about to give up on this little game of hide and seek, a new, interesting opportunity presented itself. There was one place the lady was sure not to search, as long as Crystal landed softly. That place was the lady's body. Up to this point, Crystal had thought this option to be quite impossible, mainly because of the fact that all the clothing seemed to be skintight. However, there was one extremely loose piece of clothing that Crystal had somehow failed to see up until this point.

Quickly taking off, Crystal flew underneath the cloak of the lovely woman and grabbed onto the woman's back, extremely tightly, making sure she was in the hardest to reach spot, so that if the woman could feel her clinging on for dear life, she would have an extremely hard time reaching her to pick her off.

More footsteps started coming down the stairs, and Crystal could hear the guards talking about how they had seen something fly down into the huge storehouse and some other guardsgiving them quite the earfull for not doing a thorough search of the room. There were eight voices total, and Crystal was extremely nervous about this situation. So nervous, in fact, that she decided to reveal her position to the lady by speaking one last time.

"If you want to reveal my location, you'll have to reveal your's first. Your call, help us both escape or get us both caught. What will it be?"

[Poison]

Poison scowled but did not remove her cloak.

"You do realize that I could simply crush you between a wall and my body, don't you?"

Before Crystal could give a proper answer, the first of the guards came through the doorway. With no time to hide again, Poison had to hope her story would be believed. Smoothing her hair back, she faced him and his comrades casually.

"Can I help you?"

The large man glowered at her and motioned for the rest of them to surround her.

"I was looking for something that flew off down here, but you'll do for a consolation prize. Boys...?"

Poison looked at the men around her disdainfully as they came closer.

"Well, I didn't see anything fly down here, but if any of you lay a single finger on me and your boss will miss out on the biggest deal he'll ever see." They paused in their advance so she continued, "I'm an advance observer for my boss. He's a collector, but he's very particular. I was to slip in and see if the gems were of the same quality at which they were advertised. If I were to tell my boss that I was injured, all deals would be off...permanently. Do you really think your boss would like that?"

At that, the men stopped entirely, thinking about her claim. The leader wasn't sure what he should do. Ricardo Grunson didn't like to miss out on any deals, especially if they were going to bring in a particularly large amount of money. On the other hand, he also didn't like to be bothered with thieves. The lead guard thought a moment more, then motioned his men to stand down.

"We'll take her to see Mr. Grunson. If he believes her, then she lives, if not, then we get to have some fun. Let's go."

The whole way up through the manor, Poison kept a close watch on her surroundings, making notes of possible escape routes and the locations of various valuables to snitch in addition to her pay. She offered no resistance as the led the way. Fighting them all would be pointless and only draw more attention to herself than she already had. Soon enough, they came to a set of large double doors. Two heavily armed guards stood out front.

"Found an intruder in the basement, she claims to represent a buyer, so I brought her to talk to Mr. Grunson."

"Well, you can't," the guard on the right answered sourly. "Mr. Grunson has already retired for the evening. Find somewhere to keep her for the night and post a guard. You can talk to him in the morning."

Poison grinned, {i]If he's still alive in the morning.[/i]

Grumbling the lead guard led the way to a small room equipped with a bed and a washstand. Once Poison was inside, he closed and locked the door behind her with barely a word. He left two men to act as guards to make sure that she didn't get out and wander the halls. Poison waited a few minutes then shook her cloak, trying to dislodge Crystal.

"Out! That went a lot better than I expected. I may still be able to achieve my mission despite having been seen by so many others. Now, stay out of my way. The next time your antics get me caught or seen, I'll hand you over to them. As it is, we're fortunate that they didn't do a search for weapons and the like and were uncertain enough of what to do to risk Grunson's wrath. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get to work."

Pulling her hood up, Poison went over to the window to prepare to get out of the room and up to Grunson's room.

[Crystal Suncrest]

Crystal attempted to hang on for dear life, but ended up getting tossed across the floor. Her left wing wing was bent at an odd angle, but after flapping it a bit, she was relieved to find out that it still worked. There were bigger issues on Crystal's mind, though. Who was this mysterious lady? What was this Mission she was talking about?

"You aren't very nice, lady. I mean, I thank you for helping me out of there, but I honestly don't see how almost breaking my wing is any better than being squished against a wall." Crystal said, getting to her feet, her fork clanging to the floor.

Seeing the lady start to leave, Crystal flew up in front of her face.

"I don't know what your mission is, butI am not going to leave your side until you've helped me out as well. All those gems down there are stolen, and it seems they keep piling up. I want you to help me stop these thieves from taking any more jewels then they have to. I promise I'll help you out as best I can, but I need you to help me out first." Crystal said, already feeling the offer would be met with a cold shoulder, if not worse.

After looking around to make sure no guards had come in, which, by some miracle they hadn'nt given the noise that her fork made when hitting the floor, Crystal continued in a whispered tone of voice.

"I may not look it, but I am quite strong. Also, if you need someone to use as a distraction, I can help with that too, because, unlike you, I can fly up and out of reach. In fact, I could have done that instead of hiding in your clothes, but your cloak seemed like more fun at the time." Crystal rubbed her bent wing, it still felt a little painful.

Knowing full well, that that may not be enough to convince her, Crystal put a plan forth.

"Why go out the window, when I can help you get out the same door you came in? You said you had weapons, right? And we both know they are looking for me, right? What say, I get the door guards to chase me in here and you take them out as they enter. There's nothing that says we can't work as a team, after all, and as long as a door has a keyhole, or a crack underneath it, I can get to the other side and trick someone into unlocking it for you. So, what do you say? Partners?"

After a bit of thought crystal decided to introduce herself first.

"By the way, my name is Crystal Suncrest."

[Poison]

"I don't do partners. I'm getting paid to deal with Grunson, not his goons. I want them to think I'm still in here. If I had had it my way, they wouldn't have ever known I was here to begin with. You messed that up for me."

Poison stuck her head out the window and was pleased to find a narrow ledge.

"I got you out of the basement alive. That will have to satisfy you. I neither need, nor want, you or anyone else's help. Now leave me alone."

That said, Poison slipped out of the window, placing her feet on the ledge. It was just wide enough for to slide along facing the wall. Using her vampiric shadow melding ability, Poison sank into the wall. She had found that if she concentrated hard enough, she could actually become part shadow. Confident that she would not fall, she made her way toward a balcony. She wasn't positive that it was to Grunson's room, but she figured it was as good a place as any to start.

Stupid little fairy! I never should have helped her. Now I have half a dozen or so people to ID me. She just better not get in my way!

Poison was now nearing the balcony. In just a few moments, she slid silently over the railing. There were no guards on the balcony, which pleased Poison immensely. This would be easier than she had hoped, even with the set backs she had already endured.

[Crystal Suncrest]

Crystal stared in disgust at the mysterious woman as she climbed out the window. She was very tempted to draw the enemies towards the woman, but there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that there was a deeper reason behind the woman's actions. That, plus the fact that even though the woman didn't need her, she needed the woman, gave Crystal reason enough to reconsider this option.

Instead, Crystal decided to follow the woman in secrecy to see what this mission she kept talking about was. Question was how? If she followed the woman directly, the Woman was sure to notice. She wasn't about to attempt latching on to the woman's clothing again, though, as the woman had likely caught on to her wiles by now, so Crystal decided to take the risk that the first option presented.

Although Crystal could have followed the woman from above, she decided to run follow on foot instead, that way the lady wouldn't hear her wings flapping. Crystal just hoped the woman didn't think to turn around.