Seether
07-13-06, 08:45 PM
A small piece of parchment, resting in the gloved and hooded hands of a bone weary traveler, rustles noiselessly as a small gust of wind catches its corners. Dark splotches of ink mar the edges and spaces of the words on the parchment, as if it was written in a hurry but it is still legible.
The eyes that gaze upon the parchment narrow, their golden yellow iris' sparkling in the low light of the dark alley. The pupils widen as they draw in more light, an easy task for these eyes, even in a dark alley.
The words on the parchment grow more clear and a soft whisper forms at the tip of a mouth, moving in accordance with the words syllables.
Your mission is simple and is expected to be followed to the letter.
Find the suit. Find it, and bring it back. By any means necessary.
The whisper fades and the eyes remove their gaze from the parchment. The hand clenches and the crackle of the parchment being mashed between its fingers is the only sound in the alley. The hand opens and the parchment falls away.
It falls with a rocks grace, straight and fast. It lands with a soft whisk on the grey cobble stones beneath it and bounces for a few inches before finally coming to rest on one of its wider, more balanceable, edges. A shadow shifts in the dark and the eyes, the hand, and the mouth that moved, disappear into the heavy black of the alley, leaving behind the crumpled form of the parchment.
A few moments later a spark ignites and the parchment turns to crusty ashes as its flammable ink catch and burns the rest away. Another gust of wind blows down the alley and the ashes float away, lost forever in the alley, and the night beyond.
**
Johnny "The Warden" James sat idly twirling an ancient diamond powered pocket clock, staring with lost eyes into its shiny golden surface. Beneath the golden pocket clock was an equally old oak table, three inches thick, scuffed and marred to a point where its once brilliant golden shine, was now reduced to a dull, bleak landscape of gouged grooves and tearing canyons. Each caused by a unique circumstance, in a unique way, at a unique time. Bar fights or table dancing gone bad.
He stopped twirling the clock and gave it a swift tap against the dilapidated table and returned his gaze once again to the cloaked and hooded figure sitting before him. It wasn't an odd sight to see a figure dressed as such in Knife's Edge. The place was as bleak and dull as the table, but four times as cold and six times more deadly, and a table could be a deadly thing in a bar fight. The clock tapped the table a second time before swiftly, and deftly, vanishing up Johnny's left coat sleeve. It had taken him years to perfect that move and it had since served him many times when bartering for various services and goods. A man didn't much like to be sitting safe one minute, then having his neck threatened by a knife that had come out of nowhere the next. A small trick, but a useful one when the other didn't know you had it. Johnny sensed that this man knew though, so he played it that it was just a fancy trick to do with his watch.
He smiled and leaned over the table a bit, cris-crossing his fingers together so as to lean his chin on them like a pedestal, and smiled at the figure. "Sooo," he said in a slow northern drawl that he used on first encounters. "Let me get this straight. You need," Johnny uncurled his fingers and began ticking off points with them. "A well and able-bodied group of individuals to travel with you into hell knows where in Salvar. You need a guide to help you along the way. You need supplies enough to last you at least a month. You need enough equipment to crew a full expeditionary force and to top it all off, you need me to find it all for you!"
Johnny crossed his fingers once more and replaced the smile that had dimmed on his face. "Did I leave anything out?"
The figure across from him stirred and Johnny instantly went stiff and alert. He had seen that shifting before and every time he did, it involved either someone getting killed or a great deal of money being spilled out in front of him. Many a time he had thought the ladder was going to happen only to have the first occur. He learned long since to never get too uppity when this part of the discussion came along so he readied the knife hidden in his sleeve and prepared for the worst. Only to be surprised when the figure pulled a very large sack, filled with a great deal of a lot of little somethings, from beneath its cloak and set it heavily onto the table top.
It clinked when it hit and the smile turned to an outright grin as Johnny relaxed. The figure then gestured with a gloved hand toward the sack and spoke in a southern accent of high pitch vowels and short clipped syllables.
“Your payment for performing what I ask is here, but only in half. It’s a get half now, get half in the end deal. I’m sure you know the type.” The figure waited for Johnny to nod before continuing. “I also ask that you be the guide.” This came as a shock to Johnny and he sat back to punctuate the matter.
Guide? He thought. I’m not a guide. . . The figure spoke again.
“Judging by your middle name, I’m guessing that you are quite familiar with the regions of Salvar. Am I correct?” The figure reached for the sack of money. “Or should I seek my requirements else where?”
“No!” Johnny said before he had time to think, holding up a restraining hand, staying the figures motion. Dammit, dipshit! What the hell was that about?! Before he could answer his own question, his mouth spoke on its own accord, again. “I’ll be your guide. My name, “The Warden” wasn’t earned from just running the show. We all have to start somewhere, right?” His mind grumbled as his mouth spoke but finally settled and fell in line with the rest of him, while his mouth offered a sheepish grin to the figure.
The figure seemed convinced and moved its arm away from the sack and leaned back. Johnny could almost see the smile on the figures face as it tucked its arms back into its robes.
“Good. Then I will let you get about your work. Gather the supplies and required equipment and meet me at the Yellow Stag at sundown, three days from now.”
The figure nodded and rose from its seat. Johnny nodded as well and was just about to turn away from the figure when something it had said finally clicked in his mind and he shot straight up from his seat, so quickly that his chair was knocked onto its back.
“Three days?!” He shouted. His words echoed off the walls and he coughed, then lowered his voice. “Three days, are you crazy? It will take me at least five to get the damn equipment alone, not to mention food!” The figure lifted a hand and dropped another sack of money onto the table. This one wasn’t much smaller than the first and Johnny eyed with hungry eyes.
“Consider it danger pay, to get what you need in three days.” Johnny could again feel the smile and laughed mirthlessly for a short second before sighing deeply and running his hand through his hair.
“It’ll be tight. Very tight, but I think I could do it.”
The figure smiled again; it was making Johnny’s skin crawl.
“Good,” it said before turning to leave. It stopped for a moment at the door and turned to face him one last time. “Remember, three days.” And then it was gone. Swallowed up by the darkness of the hallway beyond, letting the door click silently shut behind it.
***
And that was how Johnny “The Warden” James found himself sitting at a bar in the Yellow Stag, staring blankly at his pocket clock, wondering absent mindedly if his hastily drawn recruiting posters had done their jobs as he had hoped. Specific instructions and requirements had been placed on each but Johnny had a sinking feeling in his gut that that wasn’t going to be enough.
He reached up to his coat pockets to feel the nearly depleted sack of money, the remains of the second one, and sighed. He hoped it was enough. The door to the bar opened and Johnny sighed again, doomed himself to a frozen death somewhere deep in the forsaken reaches of Salvar, and turned to meet what would probably be his first, and last, expedition companions into the Frozen Wastes of Salvar.
((My PC characters formal entrance will be last and I will be Rping from both the view points of Reann and Johnny. So just consider this his introduction post. :p))
The eyes that gaze upon the parchment narrow, their golden yellow iris' sparkling in the low light of the dark alley. The pupils widen as they draw in more light, an easy task for these eyes, even in a dark alley.
The words on the parchment grow more clear and a soft whisper forms at the tip of a mouth, moving in accordance with the words syllables.
Your mission is simple and is expected to be followed to the letter.
Find the suit. Find it, and bring it back. By any means necessary.
The whisper fades and the eyes remove their gaze from the parchment. The hand clenches and the crackle of the parchment being mashed between its fingers is the only sound in the alley. The hand opens and the parchment falls away.
It falls with a rocks grace, straight and fast. It lands with a soft whisk on the grey cobble stones beneath it and bounces for a few inches before finally coming to rest on one of its wider, more balanceable, edges. A shadow shifts in the dark and the eyes, the hand, and the mouth that moved, disappear into the heavy black of the alley, leaving behind the crumpled form of the parchment.
A few moments later a spark ignites and the parchment turns to crusty ashes as its flammable ink catch and burns the rest away. Another gust of wind blows down the alley and the ashes float away, lost forever in the alley, and the night beyond.
**
Johnny "The Warden" James sat idly twirling an ancient diamond powered pocket clock, staring with lost eyes into its shiny golden surface. Beneath the golden pocket clock was an equally old oak table, three inches thick, scuffed and marred to a point where its once brilliant golden shine, was now reduced to a dull, bleak landscape of gouged grooves and tearing canyons. Each caused by a unique circumstance, in a unique way, at a unique time. Bar fights or table dancing gone bad.
He stopped twirling the clock and gave it a swift tap against the dilapidated table and returned his gaze once again to the cloaked and hooded figure sitting before him. It wasn't an odd sight to see a figure dressed as such in Knife's Edge. The place was as bleak and dull as the table, but four times as cold and six times more deadly, and a table could be a deadly thing in a bar fight. The clock tapped the table a second time before swiftly, and deftly, vanishing up Johnny's left coat sleeve. It had taken him years to perfect that move and it had since served him many times when bartering for various services and goods. A man didn't much like to be sitting safe one minute, then having his neck threatened by a knife that had come out of nowhere the next. A small trick, but a useful one when the other didn't know you had it. Johnny sensed that this man knew though, so he played it that it was just a fancy trick to do with his watch.
He smiled and leaned over the table a bit, cris-crossing his fingers together so as to lean his chin on them like a pedestal, and smiled at the figure. "Sooo," he said in a slow northern drawl that he used on first encounters. "Let me get this straight. You need," Johnny uncurled his fingers and began ticking off points with them. "A well and able-bodied group of individuals to travel with you into hell knows where in Salvar. You need a guide to help you along the way. You need supplies enough to last you at least a month. You need enough equipment to crew a full expeditionary force and to top it all off, you need me to find it all for you!"
Johnny crossed his fingers once more and replaced the smile that had dimmed on his face. "Did I leave anything out?"
The figure across from him stirred and Johnny instantly went stiff and alert. He had seen that shifting before and every time he did, it involved either someone getting killed or a great deal of money being spilled out in front of him. Many a time he had thought the ladder was going to happen only to have the first occur. He learned long since to never get too uppity when this part of the discussion came along so he readied the knife hidden in his sleeve and prepared for the worst. Only to be surprised when the figure pulled a very large sack, filled with a great deal of a lot of little somethings, from beneath its cloak and set it heavily onto the table top.
It clinked when it hit and the smile turned to an outright grin as Johnny relaxed. The figure then gestured with a gloved hand toward the sack and spoke in a southern accent of high pitch vowels and short clipped syllables.
“Your payment for performing what I ask is here, but only in half. It’s a get half now, get half in the end deal. I’m sure you know the type.” The figure waited for Johnny to nod before continuing. “I also ask that you be the guide.” This came as a shock to Johnny and he sat back to punctuate the matter.
Guide? He thought. I’m not a guide. . . The figure spoke again.
“Judging by your middle name, I’m guessing that you are quite familiar with the regions of Salvar. Am I correct?” The figure reached for the sack of money. “Or should I seek my requirements else where?”
“No!” Johnny said before he had time to think, holding up a restraining hand, staying the figures motion. Dammit, dipshit! What the hell was that about?! Before he could answer his own question, his mouth spoke on its own accord, again. “I’ll be your guide. My name, “The Warden” wasn’t earned from just running the show. We all have to start somewhere, right?” His mind grumbled as his mouth spoke but finally settled and fell in line with the rest of him, while his mouth offered a sheepish grin to the figure.
The figure seemed convinced and moved its arm away from the sack and leaned back. Johnny could almost see the smile on the figures face as it tucked its arms back into its robes.
“Good. Then I will let you get about your work. Gather the supplies and required equipment and meet me at the Yellow Stag at sundown, three days from now.”
The figure nodded and rose from its seat. Johnny nodded as well and was just about to turn away from the figure when something it had said finally clicked in his mind and he shot straight up from his seat, so quickly that his chair was knocked onto its back.
“Three days?!” He shouted. His words echoed off the walls and he coughed, then lowered his voice. “Three days, are you crazy? It will take me at least five to get the damn equipment alone, not to mention food!” The figure lifted a hand and dropped another sack of money onto the table. This one wasn’t much smaller than the first and Johnny eyed with hungry eyes.
“Consider it danger pay, to get what you need in three days.” Johnny could again feel the smile and laughed mirthlessly for a short second before sighing deeply and running his hand through his hair.
“It’ll be tight. Very tight, but I think I could do it.”
The figure smiled again; it was making Johnny’s skin crawl.
“Good,” it said before turning to leave. It stopped for a moment at the door and turned to face him one last time. “Remember, three days.” And then it was gone. Swallowed up by the darkness of the hallway beyond, letting the door click silently shut behind it.
***
And that was how Johnny “The Warden” James found himself sitting at a bar in the Yellow Stag, staring blankly at his pocket clock, wondering absent mindedly if his hastily drawn recruiting posters had done their jobs as he had hoped. Specific instructions and requirements had been placed on each but Johnny had a sinking feeling in his gut that that wasn’t going to be enough.
He reached up to his coat pockets to feel the nearly depleted sack of money, the remains of the second one, and sighed. He hoped it was enough. The door to the bar opened and Johnny sighed again, doomed himself to a frozen death somewhere deep in the forsaken reaches of Salvar, and turned to meet what would probably be his first, and last, expedition companions into the Frozen Wastes of Salvar.
((My PC characters formal entrance will be last and I will be Rping from both the view points of Reann and Johnny. So just consider this his introduction post. :p))