Raw Talent

[Alydia Ettermire]

I'm going to have to beg indulgence from all the people I owe posts, but I'm going to try a quick and dirty solo to boost my writing mojo. As a test, I'm not going to edit this thread. I have a sequel planned that I'm going to edit to death, as the other part of the experiment...but this is the control

Alydia Ettermire is best known as a thief of the unusual and rare. She travels all over the world of Althanas, biding her time until the right moment to make a heist and then vanishing away with only a single, cryptic clue as to where she's vanished with her prize.

More often than not, when her pursuers follow her to the end of her journey, they manage to reclaim the object she stole, and even more importantly, they have a little more awareness and respect for the world in which they live. She has only been captured once or twice, but no cell is ever able to hold her after nightfall.

A fugitive from the law, Alydia lives her life on the run. If she is seen in one place at dawn, rarely will she still be there when dusk settles. If she is seen walking the streets in the moonlight, she will be miles away by the time the sun creeps sleepily over the eastern horizon. She is a woman on the move, and that is the way she likes it.

With so much of the world to see and not many centuries in which to see it, a mobile lifestyle gives her the chance to know and experience more in a single year than most people do in a life time. She has experienced the terrible wondrousness of a Fallien thunderstorm, heard the gentle sighs and threatening growls of the heart of the jungles of Luthmor, witnessed the startling clarity of a sunrise from the very top of the Citadel and the sleepy subtlety of sunset in Salvar.

Her travels also let her know many interesting people. In every nation Greater Althanas can boast, she has at least three friends whose loyalty she has won with her wit, grace, charm...and with her skill at her chosen profession. She knows their names, their language, their culture. If they have a family, she knows them by name and face, knows their favorite color, hairstyle, and food. If they have children, she loves them without reservation and becomes an extended member of the family, a favorite "aunt."

But Alydia Ettermire has not always been a globe-trotting cat burglar with a bent for chaos. She has not always been a fugitive. She has not always fled the law.

Everyone has a past that defines and shapes them. Under different circumstances, Alydia may have become an ordinary woman with a few extraordinary talents; maybe she would have children of her own and a normal job. Or maybe she would have been a deadly assassin, using the stealth she's honed for thievery to sneak up on victims and snuff out their lives before they knew they were even being watched. Any number of things might have occurred to prevent Alydia Ettermire from becoming a precocious rogue with a big red fedora and matching trench coat.

But they didn't, and whenever a museum piece goes missing or a building vanishes, people are left wondering "Where in the world is Alydia Ettermire?"

This is not a tale of a heist, nor is it the story of how Alydia became one of the greatest thieves ever born. It goes back farther than that.

This is a portrait of Alydia Ettermire del Ettermire, a young detective with a lot of potential.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Sunlight streamed through the window, catching the motes of dust floating in the air and making them glow while they made their slow waltz across the room. A small circle shone in different, fragmented colors, caught in a suncatcher that had hung there for years. The creeping rays of morning first kissed a sturdy wooden bookshelf packed with well-loved volumes. Each shelf was dedicated to a particular country, and had tomes on everything from its language to its geography, its history and its greatest works of literature, more often in its native language than transliterated into Alerian.

Next, it brushed a small desk. A mess of papers covered the entire surface, leaving no hint that beneath the piles of notes and little watercolors was a delicately worked and beautiful engraving beneath a thin pane of glass. The light circumvented a small armoire and the chest of drawers beside it that were tucked into the corner of the room; there wouldn't be light there until late afternoon.

Minute by minute, the solid beam of light inched its way across the hardwood floor and the faded blue and green rug that the room's owner had picked out as a child and that just hadn't ever made its way out during spring cleaning. Not that much spring cleaning ever happened in that particular domicile.

The last thing to be illuminated by the dawn was the bed. A bright scarlet trench coat was slung over the foot, and a floppy red fedora hung from a post at the head. The middle of the bed was dominated by what seemed to be a heap of rumpled blankets. The only sign of life beneath the mess of a nest was a delicate black foot peeking out at the very corner.

"Alydia!"

The dawn silence was broken by a deep, slightly rough baritone call, and the mound of blankets stirred and let out a slight groan of protest at the call to rise.

"Wake up and make breakfast. Unless you'd rather I did it." A wry humor invaded the tone, and the young woman entangled in her bedclothes sat up, emerging and letting a mass of hair fall over one of her eyes.

"Anything but that, Chief," she called back, still half asleep. "I'll be right down."

Her tone carried a lot less levity than his had; it wasn't that his cooking was inedible...just almost inedible. She hadn't understood why he spent so much money every month on eating out...until she'd experienced a few of his attempts at a home-cooked meal.

She'd taken over cooking duties as soon as she was tall enough to reach all the way back on the stove, and that had been that.

Aly stood up, making her way across the floor in her bare feet. Reaching her chest of drawers, she pulled the ceramic jug and basin on top of it toward her, pouring tepid water into the oversized bowl and dipping a cloth into it. Pulling the cord on her blinds and immersing the room in shadow, she slipped out of her loose shirt and shorts, then scrubbed herself off quickly. Clean and more awake, she opened her armoire, putting on a casual pants suit.

Dumping her dirty nightgown in a hamper by the desk, she grabbed her coat and hat, pulling the latter over her face just before exiting her room and padding downstairs to the tiny kitchen that faced the street. Dumping her coat over the back of her chair at the table, she pulled on an apron and got to work.

The Chief already had a fire going hot in the oven; that was his contribution to breakfast. Cooking and cleanup fell to her. Within minutes of the Chief's call, Aly had mixed up some flour, milk and butter into dough and was popping the biscuits into the oven to bake.

That done, she made her way into the living room to brush out her hair while the Chief read his newspaper.

"Hat off in the house, Aly. I've told you that a thousand times." How he even knew she was wearing her hat when he was completely hidden behind his paper was a mystery to her...some day she'd have to not wear it down and see if he still admonished her out of habit.

Obediently, the eighty-something detective hooked her hat on the back of the chair and finished getting ready for work, just like she did every morning. Just like she had done every morning for the past thirty years, and just like, she supposed, she'd be doing every morning until she retired from the force. She was a detective, just like her mentor, and had one of the best solve rates for her age bracket - if not the best.

Twenty minutes later, hot biscuits and honey eaten and the leftover ones set aside for dinner, the two made their way out of the house and to the station, the Chief dressed in his drab brown trench coat and well-worn fedora, and Aly as gaudy as ever in her red set.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Ettermire had always been a rough town. Alerians in general were not famed for their goodwill to anyone, even other members of their own nation, and they were not unjustified in the resulting suspicion of - and even hostility toward - people that were not part of their own social group. The army, which would normally be called on to keep the peace, had been gearing up for and fighting intermittent war with Raiaera since Alydia had been a young urchin wandering the streets. The Mazzara were sometimes aggressive and domineering toward the ordinary citizen, and the splinter militias weren't much better. Add in the fact that civilians were still responsible for the majority of homicides, thefts, kidnappings, rapes, and other crimes, it was a wonder that anyone managed to let go of their suspicions long enough to even make acquaintances.

That was what made her job so important. With a group of highly-trained investigators bringing criminals into the lower courts, the detective agency helped to safeguard and reassure the public against crimes from within. And as for crimes from the militia...

Aly had spent her early years watching the Chief conduct interrogations. She had seen him make hard-bitten warriors break down in tears, had silently watched him bully their commanding officers into cooperating not only with his investigation, but with bringing their men to justice.

All she could say is that she would not like to end up on the wrong side of his interrogation table.

The building from which they worked was small, barely bigger than a house. A little less than half of that was storage for evidence collected in the course of investigations. A tiny, closet-sized room was where they conducted interrogations, and there were a couple of rooms, only slightly bigger, where they held suspects prior to questioning. No suspects from the same case were ever held together; it was the discrepancies in the stories they told that were most informative, so they were never given a chance to straighten anything out with each other.

The last separate room was a bit bigger than the holding cells, just enough for a desk, a chair behind it, a file cabinet, and two chairs in front of it. When fully occupied, there was barely any room to move around. That was the Chief's office, it was where he ran his group of detectives. It had been exactly the same as long as Aly could remember, and one of the team's veterans, who had been the Chief's first protégé, told her it had been the same for more than a hundred years, without exception.

The rest of the building was separated into airy cubicles, where detectives sifted through their notes, evidence, statements, and did their followup paperwork. Aly's cubicle was in the center of the room; it had been the empty spot when the Chief had accepted her into the force more than twenty years before, and it allowed him to sneak up on her when she was elbow-deep in a case.

There were already several members of the day team sifting through new cases that the night shift had either just received or had left behind as low-priority, trying to figure out which ones the Chief would send them out on. Aly could already hear her usual partner, Aonar Kenate, bantering with one of the other women of the force about this or that; it was his personality to flirt and tease. He was older than she was by a little bit, and had invited her out to dinner once, but...

Well, she'd have been too intimidated to not withdraw as well, after the withering glare the Chief had given him. Even if Aonar was one of the brashest men she'd ever known.

The banter died down as one of the group members spotted the Chief come in with Aly, and Zezrar Aleanzynge stepped forward with a sheaf of papers. He was the most senior member of the team, and had worked with the Chief for well over a century, even before they'd helped found the Agency. Aly envied that the two of them could practically read each others' minds; despite having been reared at the Chief's hand, so much of her mentor was still a mystery to her.

"What do we have, Zez?" The Chief looked at his second-in-command with sharp red eyes, his chiseled face set in a decidedly neutral tone, but the thin line of his mouth was set in a determined line. He always tensed up when he came in to work; the tense way he held his body at work was all but absent when they were at home. Aly knew she did it, too, that she'd picked it up from him. At work, or out on the streets, the weight of their responsibilities hit them hard enough to make relaxation impossible.

Zez was one of the fairer members of their race; he had deep olive skin and brown eyes, as compared to the inky black of his old friend, and he didn't waste any time in going through the files in his hand.

"We have a homicide down by El'inssring, a double at the river docks, and a kidnapping down past Ankhas, reported just a few minutes before you arrived, Chief. A little girl....went missing some time between midnight and six this morning. All the rest are petty crimes like minor theft, pointless to pursue."

The Chief took the files from Zezrar and skimmed over them briefly, nodding ever so slightly. A slight frown etched across his face, showing in the lines long years of service had worn into them.

"Zez and Phyra, take the homicide. Noquval, you're with me on the double. Kenate, you and Aly take the kidnapping. Anyone else who doesn't have a current case, take the petty crimes and see what you can do with them."

There was a chorus of "Yes, Chief," and a flurry of movement, but everyone was headed out the door to begin another day of fighting some of Ettermire's worst crimes.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Aonar Kenate was a good looking man and knew it. His features were clean and almost perfectly symmetrical. His skin was so fair that he could have almost been mistaken for a Raiaeran, but for the most attractive sepia tones in his complexion. He had a confident swagger, both from the knowledge that he was attractive and from his three decades of exemplary service on the force telling him he could solve just about any case, take down just about any crook, and still be at his mother's house by dinnertime.

Aly would have given him flack about still living with his mother despite being a grown man, but...she still lived with the Chief. She just rationalized it as he wouldn't be able to live without her. The man was a genius when it came to investigations and interrogations, but he could burn water and she was STILL trying to figure out how he'd managed to get so much soap into the sifter on his last attempt at doing laundry. It had taken her a couple of tries to fix it.

How they'd managed before she got old enough to do some of the household chores was beyond her, but nowadays, she took care of the Chief and he took care of her.

"So, Stickyfeet," Aonar started, propping his elbow on Alydia's shoulder as they walked, "what do you call the Chief? I mean, when you aren't at work? Like...at home."

Alydia cocked an eyebrow at her partner, shrugging him off before pulling the brim of her fedora low over one eye. "Why?"

"Well, everyone knows that you're like, his daughter. Have been for always. So what do you call him? Dad? Daddy? Father? Oh, I know! You call him by his name, don't you?"

"No." The word was dropped so swiftly that it made Aonar chuckle and prance around Aly to get a good look at her face.

"You have a pet name for him, don't you. Come on, Aly...let's hear it."

"I call him Chief at home. Have since...oh..." the scarlet-clad detective reached into her coat, fishing out a little mirror and a tube of lipstick. She forgot to apply it more often than not, but the splash of rouge on her face was part of the image she was trying to cultivate.

"I was about twelve or thirteen."

The gleeful grin fell off of Aonar's face. "But Aly...that's when you met him. When he adopted you. You're legally his kid. And you still call him...?"

"I call him Chief. And while he adopted me, my name remains Alydia Ettermire. You might even remember that I used to be Alydia del Ettermire."

"Yeah..." Aonar frowned. "I always thought that was weird. How come you never took the Chief's name?"

Aly just grinned. "When I am the greatest detective in the world, aside from him, then I'll be worthy of the Chief's name. Not before."

"Did he tell you this, or..."

"It's something I decided when I was quite young. I'm not his own blood daughter, I have no right to his name. So I want to really deserve it first."

"You're a weird one, Aly."

A smirk crossed her face, one that was swiftly becoming part of her signature. "But always, Aonar. But always."

[Alydia Ettermire]

Alydia hated kidnapping cases. They were worse than any other type that she had real experience dealing with. She hated that anyone could take a child from people who loved it, hated the nagging knowledge that every minute's delay was another minute something terrible could be happening to an innocent, terrified young one, hated that it could all too easily be a case where someone else who cared about the child had taken it because they'd seen no other way to be in its life.

But most of all, she hated how little help the parents were.

The man of the house had opened the door for them and let them in, showing the detectives a small but comfortable - if tackily decorated - living space. Furniture crammed most of the available floor, from the table and chairs stuffed into the spare corner the family used as a dining room to the hutch, couches and coffee table that consumed the den. Only at the junction was there any sort of space, and faint traces of wax colors on the wall told Aly that was probably where their child played.

The mother was curled up on a couch covered in a blinding white and mauve floral motif. Her face was hidden, but her sobs told Aly that the shock of waking up to find her daughter missing was wearing off and giving way to the worst kind of fear a parent could know. With a sigh, the detective sat opposite from her on a rather hard couch upholstered in a dusky pink material.

The woman was a total mess, clutching her daughter's favorite blanket and wringing it anxiously through her hands. Her eyes were red with tears and she was babbled incoherently; Aly hadn't been able to understand anything more than that she had no idea where her child was.

Aonar was with the father at the table. He sounded a little calmer than his wife, but was just as much help as the mother - that was to say, none at all. He and the mother insisted they both were his daughter's biological parents, they had no reason to suspect any relative, had checked at the homes of all her little friends and were certain she wasn't running away.

Unable to stand the mother's incoherency any longer, Alydia tucked her notepad and pencil back into her coat and stood up. "May we see her room? We might find something in there to help us find your daughter."

The mother looked up and sniffled, then her grief-reddened eyes traveled over to her mate, who nodded slowly and rose to his feet. "This way."

[Alydia Ettermire]

The child's room was rather unremarkable. Stuffed into a toy box were all sorts of things that a little girl would want, cheap little paintings adorned the walls and cute figurines danced at the front of her bedside shelf, which was just as well because the few books there were indicated that she either couldn't quite read yet or was just starting to learn. Aly dimly remembered the Chief reading her a few of those same books when he'd first taken in the suspicious little streetrat she'd been.

If she hadn't been in that room on business, Alydia might have reached out to examine one of the stories. Through them, the Chief had won her interest, and finally her trust and admiration. But she had no time now for nostalgia.

The sheets on the bed were rumpled, but not so much that it would indicate a struggle between the kidnapper and the victim. To Aly, it actually looked more like the little girl was a restless sleeper.

Aonar had gone further into the room than his partner, and his sharp eyes caught something crumpled up on the floor. He bent down quickly and grabbed the little handkerchief, then sniffed it cautiously and held it out to Aly. "She was sedated."

Alydia took it and also smelled it, and Aonar was right. It smelled quite strongly of a liquid commonly used to subdue kidnapping or murder victims; its legal use was in medicine, to make sure that patients undergoing surgery would feel no pain and remain still for the surgeon so that he didn't inadvertently cut anything he didn't mean to.

Lowering the cloth, Aly let her gaze drift over to the window. She instantly noticed that it was unlatched and not completely closed. The mother had mentioned, brokenly, that the last time she'd seen her daughter she had shut the window.

"She was taken, Aonar. And everyone slept right through it."

[Alydia Ettermire]

"Detectives!" The scream from downstairs had both Alydia and Aonar rushing down the steps, only to nearly collide with the mother who was on her way up. In shaking hands, she held a piece of paper, and hurriedly shoved it into Aonar's hands.

"It's...we just...it just came. We...we have to...we must..."

"Calm down, ma'am. Please." Passing the note to Aly without even having opened it, Aonar put a hand on the distraught woman's shoulder, giving her his most compassionate look and smoothing out the tone of his voice to help the girl's mother relax.

Unfolding the note herself, Alydia had to admit to herself that her partner, for being such a cocky jerk most of the time, had it in him to be both kind and reassuring. Maybe it was an act to make his job easier, but time and again she'd seen it genuinely help people in distress. It made up for a weakness in her; she had little regard for how people felt so long as they gave her what she needed to finish the job quickly.

"What's the note say, Alydia?"

The scarlet detective opened the letter and frowned, trying to decipher the crudely scrawled letters that sprawled over the coarse scrap of paper. "It's a message from the kidnapper. He wants two thousand gold, in assorted currency. He wants the payment at the old depot in what he calls the 'ghost town' by noon."

She didn't say what he threatened to do to the child if his ransom demands were not met. The fear blossoming on the mother's face said that she knew without being told.

"We...we don't have that much money. But...we..."

Aonar squeezed her shoulder gently. "Don't pay the ransom. Don't go to your family or anyone else seeking to borrow the money. If you pay the ransom, the kidnapper will have no reason to keep your child alive. Detective Ettermire and I will be working this case diligently. We will find your child, ma'am."

He looked over his shoulder at Aly and tilted his head toward the door. "Come on. The sooner we solve this, the better."

[Alydia Ettermire]

They were barely out of sight of the house before Aonar let out a vehement curse and kicked a piece of brick that had fallen from the nearest building, sending it skittering roughly down the walk. He continued to mutter, raking his hands through his perfect hair and pulling, mussing it up in a rare display of both anger and frustration.

Before Alydia could ask what had him so upset, he turned to her, a mad glam in his eyes.

"Damn it, Aly. Damn it all! I've been after this guy for more than a year. In the last two years, he's been responsible for the disappearance of eight little girls. None any older than twelve. And we've never caught him, never even seen him. When we tried setting up the ransom money to lure him in and catch him, he never even showed up. All he wants, as far as we've ever been able to figure, is...gah. By the Thayne and the accursed Raiaeran star gods, I can't even say it. I'll show you the case files when we get back.
"He's escalating too, Aly. The latest three before this have been in the last six months. I'm not surprised the Chief sent you with me this time; with your record, hopefully we'll save this one from turning up in the river."

He sighed, and Aly had to feel for him. While Aonar could be an arrogant jerk, and while he was possibly the most annoying member of the force, he took his job seriously and had a lot of compassion for those he'd sworn to protect. Aly could see his frustration and easily imagined the amount of guilt that must be running through him over the thought of the children this monster had murdered and he'd failed to save.

"We'll get him this time," she told him. "And save the little one, too."

He nodded, then picked up the pace. The sooner they were at the station, the sooner they'd be able to review the evidence. Aonar had been over and over each piece of that evidence, maybe Aly, with her fresh eyes, would see something he'd missed. Maybe the new case would add something he hadn't seen before.

Maybe they'd get him this time.

[Alydia Ettermire]

As soon as they'd breached the doors of the station, Aonar had raced off to the back room after barking to Aly that he wanted her at his desk. With a shrug, she pulled her chair over to her partner's cubicle, then took out her notes and the ransom demand. A foul odor hit her as she opened it again, and she wrinkled her nose. She hadn't noticed it back at the house, but then again, the house had reeked of worry.

The smell could have been from any number of factors, though. The paper the note had been scrawled upon may well have been subject to an unusual or incomplete milling process, it may have been exposed to a foul environment, or even the lettering could be something terrible, even though it looked more like charcoal to her.

She studied it more, wondering if the terrible handwriting was born of a poor education or someone trying to force the detectives to underestimate him by writing with his off hand. She suspected it was the latter, but there was no guarantee that their unknown criminal was educated at all. You didn't need a formal education to be wily and wicked.

Aonar returned with a small box, dumping more letters and notes onto the desk. He took the letters, since they all said nearly the exact same thing, and let her scan the case notes. They read almost identically. A little girl was always taken in the middle of the night from a house that should have been safe. She was subdued with a common sedative, then carried off without anyone seeing her.

Twenty-four hours later, the body was found in the river. There was always evidence of mutilation, and it was always hurried, as though, not having gotten what he wanted, the killer just wanted to brutalize the child and then get rid of her.

Having taken in all of the evidence, what little there was, Alydia stood up. Aonar looked at her, raising an eyebrow. "Where are you going?"

"Walking. There's no way this guy could have gone all the way through these neighborhoods with a child that wasn't his and not have been seen. And there's no way he should have been able to get to the river without someone noticing. So I'm going to look at the environment."

Aonar stood up and grabbed his jacket. He'd been through the neighborhoods, many times, and hadn't seen anything. But he'd grown up with every advantage, his family was fairly affluent and he'd been able to think of only how easily the perpetrator could enter the childrens' rooms once there. How he'd gotten there in the first place...Aonar Kenate had never been able to figure that one out.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Hours later, Aonar and Alydia circled the block around the last house where a kidnapping had taken place, just as stumped about how the kidnapper had gotten to the area as they had been at the beginning of the day. They'd scrutinized every detail of every area, but there wasn't a good way to enter. They'd discussed everything about the case, from suspects Aonar had interviewed to the parents of the children to the childrens' autopsy results, and there was nothing.

"We have his pattern down, Aly. All of it. We just don't know where he comes from. If we knew where he came from, we'd have taken him in months ago." The olive-skinned detective sighed, pushing his hair back from his eyes for the hundredth time that day, and the small grate that led down to the sewer resonated loudly as he trod on it.

"It's like he's a ghost, Aly...in and out with no one ever knowing until it's too late." He looked up at the sky, at the delicate peaches and lavenders creeping over the horizon as the cloudy sky above started darkening toward night blue. "Damn it...no closer now than we were this morning." Aonar let out a frustrated growl.

"I've given this to the night shift," sounded a rough baritone from right behind them. "It's time for the two of you to go home."

"Chief!" Aonar whipped around to confront his boss. "You can't do this! I know this guy better than anyone on the force! Anyone! We can still solve this, and if we don't, a little girl will die tonight! A little girl! Chief! She's the same age Aly was when you took her in. What if that had happened to you? To her? You wouldn't have rested one moment until-"

"Kenate." The name was snapped sharply, but not shouted, mostly to bring the younger man to attention, and the Chief looked levelly at Aonar with his piercing red eyes. His thin lips were set firmly, and his face looked a little more gaunt than normal; he apparently hadn't had a very good day, himself. "You and Alydia are tired and frustrated. You aren't going to save any child like this. Go home. Get some rest. Night shift is competent, and if they don't get him, it's one more to get him for next time. We will get him someday, and we will bring him to justice. Home. Both of you. That's an order."

Aonar cursed and kicked, but he went. If he didn't, the Chief would have grabbed him by his shirt collar and dragged him.

"Chief..." Aly looked at her father figure. "He's right, Chief. If this had happened when I was a kid...if he'd gotten me, you would have tracked him down no matter how long it took and killed him. And I'm not even a child you raised from a baby, that you saw born and caught her first steps. The child that's missing is someone's baby, Chief."

"And tired minds go in circles, Alydia." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. "I know it isn't easy for you to give up a case, and yes, it's tragic, it's terrible. That's why we do what we do. We'll get him. Just...maybe not this time." He patted her on the back and pointed her in the direction of their house. "Now...go on. I know you won't be hungry, so just get some rest."

Aly sighed and headed home, the taste of defeat bitter in her mouth. This was not a good ending to the day.

[Alydia Ettermire]

When Aly got back into the house, she locked the door and then shuffled up the stairs. On the wall that led up to her room were various projects...some of her favorite paintings dating back from the earliest days of her education, various academic certificates she'd won, from the time she was a young child to the congratulatory note she'd found on her desk the day she'd solved her hundredth case.

She hadn't put up any of them, it was all the Chief's doing. They were so routine to her that she rarely saw them, but tonight she paused and looked at them. It was so weird; the man used his own awards, more solid awards for valor in service, for paperweights or other ridiculous, mundane uses. But that tacky purple and orange painting she'd done at fifteen that vaguely resembled a house was still in the same place it had been for the last seventy years. It was crumbling with age, but still there.

She had to shake her head. She doubted that even her biological father, had he stuck around to raise her, could have been nearly as proud of her as the Chief, even for things that didn't really deserve pride.

Like today's failure.

Frustrated, Aly reached out, taking the old painting and crumbling it, tossing it down the stairs. How could she miss the clues? There had to be clues just glaring to be noticed, begging to take a worthy investigator right to the kidnapper and his victim.

In her room, Aly kicked off her boots, tossed her hat aside, and then threw her coat at the foot of her bed, flopping down on the mattress and glaring up at the ceiling. How could she be incompetent enough to doom a child to death?

A jumble of lights on her ceiling caught her eye; her suncatcher was throwing purple and blue specters of the light it stole from the streetlamps. When the lamps had first been installed for the benefit of the humans who did business with the technologically advanced nation, they'd annoyed Alydia to no end. How was she supposed to sleep with all the light? But eventually the panorama of shadows it sent scurrying across her room had become entertaining, and then soothing. And the light cast off of the delicate piece of glass in the window had always comforted her, no matter what.

Except tonight.

There's got to be something...in his pattern...

Suddenly a burst of inspiration struck her in the form of the shards of light dancing on her ceiling, and Aly sat up straight. There had been something in common in all of the areas, something so minor and mundane that she and Aonar had automatically dismissed it. But what was it?

She thought back to her conversations with her partner over the course of the day, and remembered one particularly annoying tendency her partner displayed. He made sure to step on every single sewer grate.

That's it. The sewer has access to all those areas, and to the river. It's how he remained unseen.

Hopping up, Aly hurried to put on her coat, hat, and boots, scribbled a quick note for the Chief, then grabbed her whip off the side table and was gone into the night.

[Alydia Ettermire]

The houses from which children had been taken burned as bright spots in Alydia's mental map, and she overlaid them with the sketchy mental image she had of the sewers, based on where she knew grates were and the little bit of time she'd spent in the wretched darkness when she was a small child. They formed a sort of fan around an area of town that had long since been abandoned by industry and had gone largely to the street rats and the scum of society, people that anyone on the force would put away without a moment's hesitation. The river formed the fan's handle, and the nexus point was right under the old depot, the area where the kidnapper - the murderer of children - had demanded his ransoms be paid.

Going into the area alone at night as a recognizable member of law enforcement wasn't the most intelligent of actions, but that didn't matter. If she could get there in time...if she could just get there in time.

The scarlet-coated detective chose a sewer grate about a block away from the area she hoped would reveal the criminal and his victim and bent down, prepared for a monumental effort to pull it off. She braced herself, then pulled as hard as she could...only to find that it popped off easily. That just confirmed Aly's suspicion that the underground waste tunnels were being used to conceal someone.

The young detective hit a maintenance ledge when she jumped down, but almost slipped on the slick layer of mildew and sludge that coated the smooth stone.

The first thing that hit her, even before she caught her balance, was the smell. The roiling stench of thousands of gallons of waste, gathered from all of Ettermire's people and complemented by the stink of rotting rats created a terrible miasma in the small, enclosed tunnel, and Alydia choked and gagged, just trying to breathe, but there was no such thing as fresh air in the sewers.

Shunting it to the side and reminding herself that she'd be able to breathe again when she got back up, Alydia closed her eyes and listened, trying to get her bearings. The loudest sounds that rang in her ears were the sloshes of waste through the troughs and the drips of moisture off the walls and back into the sewage, but faintly, in the direction she hoped she'd hear it, were the terrified whimpers of a child.

YES!

She was in time. Either that, or she was going to witness the death of a child she could have saved.

Wheeling around and taking care not to slip too badly and fall, Alydia ran toward the sound of the cries, moving with all the agility she could muster. She didn't even notice the stench anymore, she just wanted to save the little one.

The cry turned to a terrified scream as Alydia burst into a bigger cavern. She saw two bright figures, one bigger and standing over the other, bright with anticipation, the other, smaller one - the little girl - bright with fear and fever. Blood already dripped from her arms and face, meaning that Aly had arrived just in time.

Alydia saw the big one, the man, just a little larger than she was, raise a dagger, and she rushed over, leaping across a tunnel and cracking her whip. She meant to actually hit him, but the whip just wasn't long enough and cracked beside him. Still, it was enough to distract him, and he let out a surprised hiss. No one had ever come close to finding him before, and now a woman shows up at the eleventh hour!

The kidnapper snarled, whipping his knife around and stabbing at Aly, but just as he thought she was to be his first adult victim, she vanished as the darkness congealed around her. Behind him came the sound of boots on stone, and he turned around just in time to see the woman pick up the child.

"I am Detective Alydia Ettermire, and this child will LIVE!"

Without wasting any more time, Aly started running away. She didn't have any real combat capabilities; she'd always had backup for that and she depended on being able to get out of danger without violence. She abhorred violence.

The criminal was right on her, though, and before she was even part way down the tunnel where the grate was, he rammed into her, sending her sprawling. It was all she could do not to fall into the sewage and take the bleeding child with her, but she managed to land on the ledge. She shoved the child roughly, hoping she'd get to her feet.

"RUN!"

The child hurried to her knees and started scampering away as fast as possible, and Aly rolled over to face the knife-wielding maniac. If she didn't take him on now, he'd definitely go after the child. She kicked out, and was rewarded with a cut on her shin. The pain lanced through her leg briefly, but she couldn't afford to focus on it. She lashed out with her whip, and its tip dragged across her attacker's face, leaving a long welt. He screamed in fury, then raised his blade high over the still-prone Alydia, starting to slam it down.

There was a soft click, and then a loud report echoed through the sewers. The kidnapper froze in place just after a tiny hole appeared in the middle of his forehead, and without another sound crumpled into the sloshing waste he'd made his home in.

Alydia got up, looking behind her, and what she saw filled her with relief. The bright orange barrel of the gun was lowering, and on the other end was the fedora-covered face of the Chief.

"Good to see you, boss," she said with a relieved grin.

"Come on, Stickyfeet," he told her, picking up the little girl. "Let's get this one home."

[Alydia Ettermire]

The child, Ilmuit, was returned to her parents at just past midnight. The mother started crying again, but Alydia found her happy, relieved tears a lot less irritating than the tears of fear and worry that had choked her voice that morning. It took the two detectives nearly half an hour before they could leave the house.

Aly was looking forward to getting home. Her clothes and boots were covered in sludge; she smelled like the sewage she'd nearly died in, her leg hurt where it had been cut, and now that the job was done and the child was safe, she was beyond exhausted.

"Never," started the Chief, his voice nearly a growl, "never ever go to hunt down a perp alone, Alydia! I have told you this a hundred times. You don't fight, you don't even carry a baton! You recklessly endangered yourself, and I had given you explicit orders to go home and to bed! If I hadn't come home when I did...if I hadn't gone to the kitchen for a glass of water...Alydia..." he sighed, exasperated, and took off his hat to rub at his forehead.

"Will you never learn?"

"That couple there almost lost their only child tonight, Chief. I'm not going to repent saving her life." Aly took a deep breath, savoring the clean night air. For a moment, a terrible moment in the sewer, she'd thought that her last breath would be more of that horrible, stale, polluted fumes that called those tunnels home, and it was good to take in a clean breath.

The rest of the short walk was spent in silence, and the Chief let them back into the house, taking off his coat, hat and boots in time with his protégé. "Go get some clean water and bandages, Alydia. We'll take care of that cut."

He started for the living room, but kicked a piece of crumpled paper on his way. With a frown etched on his lightly lined face, the Chief bent down, gently smoothing out the paper the young woman had discarded in her earlier frustration. Wordlessly, he carried it partially up the stairs and tacked it back into its former place.

"That man and woman, those parents whose baby we returned to their arms...they weren't the only ones who nearly lost their only child tonight, Alydia. Now...take care of that cut and get to bed. We'll take tomorrow off. Do laundry."

Aly let a weary smile creep across her face.

"That sounds good, Chief."

[Taskmienster]

Story -

Continuity (7)

Order of play is timely and consistent, I didn’t lose my place reading, but the compounding of time between posts disjoints the reader. If you’d combined it with your well wrought ability to maintain pacing and progressively develop the story without the need for ‘a moment later’ or ‘a few hours on’ gaps this would’ve been top marks. Well done either way, it’s well constructed.

Setting (6)

Although you make a point of describing the generic features of the setting, with some close and descriptive detail of character props - hat and whip of Aly and the like, there’s not a great deal of detail here in general. There is plenty of opportunity to expand the setting, the fetid conditions of the swamp, the sulphurous crack of the pistol, or even the cold icy twang of the night air. Obviously, you run the risk of turning a technically sound piece into a verbose monstrosity, but getting the balance right is making a huge step to improving your talent. I liked this line in particular, A jumble of lights on her ceiling caught her eye; her suncatcher was throwing purple and blue specters of the light it stole from the streetlamps.

Pacing (7)

Well paced and constructed, not much to add that has not or is not already mentioned in other sections. Doesn’t change tempo too dramatically.

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Character -

Dialogue (8)
Action (6.5)
Persona (8)

All in all the dialogue is mechanical, but methodical. I don’t expect everyone to master natural dialogue overnight, I know I’m a million miles away from it, but trying to push through character traits into a character’s speech is something that can give great rewards from very little effort. Something so simple as missing every -ing ending so she speaks ‘Winnin’ is all I’m about, singin’ and winnin’,’ is already a huge step to giving her a distinctive presence, with an accent or character traits and mannerisms, there’s less of a need to constantly say ‘Says Aly,’ as the reader will quickly identify with her. I definitely got the impression she was a hard working, stubborn, never give up hard ass with a heart, everything she is intended to be and I went over the bio afterwards - you’ve played her well, set her in a world, and nailed it. One final comment would be to refine your action, make her a dynamic and vibrant sort, describe her, not her weapons, and see where it takes you - ‘she cracks her whip and the whip hits’ replaced more with ‘her arm came down, the crack signalling the loss of his teeth’ etc.

Perhaps give trippling or assonance a go, the hard repetition and rhythm of solid, swift steel or dainty dangerous damsels is an effective way of listing, as well as spitting out words and ideas - the sorts of speedy quips a whip cracking fedora wearing thief might be making.

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Writing Style -

Technique (8)

Good strong clinical technique, vocalising ideas and the background of your character is half the writer’s battle, and you’ve surpassed the boundaries. You’ve made sporadic use of mechanical techniques, as noted below, and although your descriptive ability Is either not intended for this character idea or simply not jingling your mojo at the minute, it’d be something to work on in the future. One point was deducted for the repetition of words throughout, which aren’t drastic measures or ‘mistakes,’ but they do blunt enthusiasm and are hard to spot yourself, various is one word you’ve bunched together, and vanished and vanishing, together describing the same action in the opening descriptive paragraph. If you do catch these, swapping one word for something similar can add a dramatic flair and compose a sort of, juxtaposition between extremes, ‘where’s she’s materialised with her prize would be a good example, as well as adding that extra hint of the extraordinary, you’re avoiding the same word.

Mechanics (9)

Everything mechanically here is sound, nicely taught simple sentences and well punctuated dialogue, all mingled together into the thread with very little deviation. The only things I picked up on I thought would be beneficial to note were "Wake up and make breakfast. Unless you'd rather I did it.", which appears to be missing a question mark - as the intended impact comes across as rhetorical? Comma instead of full stop mid sentence too would’ve eased off the sardonic and give the Chief’s reaction a more natural edge. Sporadic but well applied use of hyphens, semi-colons, and a flawless use of conjunctions - credit where it is due, a technically sound piece. A point deducted for it’s methodical cleanliness, perhaps you could experiment more with the punctuation, to give your characters more prominence on the page, implement accents or more disjointed/contemplative speech, just a suggestion.

Clarity (8)

The dialogue does trail well generally, but with the quick exchanges and the lack of ‘stage direction’ or indication of action, emotion, facial expression and the like in some parts of the thread, it’s easy to lose any sense of involvement with the demeanour of the characters. It’s a very minor gripe, granted, it’s technically sound, as noted above, but could benefit more from ‘descriptive buffing.’ The relationship between Aly and the Chief is very well constructed, and the time and events are presented clearly, well done!

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Wild Card (6.5)

A point coined for overall clarity and technique, but one lost for using the word Chief far too many times - in future works giving these characters you’ve been working with more of a presence or identity and their own secret thoughts will give you new avenues to explore Aly and to set her place in Althanas.

Score: 74

Rewards:

WitW: 2230 exp | 200 gold

((Side note, this judgment was done by Duffy for his test judgment upon approval. I have not edited any of the content said, but instead edited the numbers just a little bit. The thread was well done, but not perfect, and I hope the score reflects that… Thanks for your patience! We, meaning me and the staff, love you. :p))

[Taskmienster]

Exp and gold rewarded!

"god, you suck worse than Garthabel." ((as you said, and whoever the hell Garthabel is you are more terrible than them. SO there. :p))

Where in the World is now level 3!