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EarthDawn: A Brave New World - [ED] Arcata


SalmonMax

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"No," Arcata hissed at her accomplice, a younger Windling named Cobble that most folks just called Cob. "You have to make it bigger! Even elves write bigger than that!"

Cob gazed wistfully at the stone wall of the human-owned shop. Scrawled across it in bright red paint was the slogan, "Wee be free!" But even using a large brush meant for painting walls, the words were obviously too small to be anything but windling work.

A sigh escaped the windling as he realized he'd have to start all over. Arcata was pretty, and he liked that going around vandalizng buildings gave him an excuse to be around her, but his passion for her cause had run down. Mostly because, despite Arcata's ardent claims, the humans ruled the kaer with a fairly light touch. He didn't feel oppressed. He didn't know anyone else who did either. Anyone other than Arcata, at least.

"It's okay," she assured him. "Just paint over it and make it into an underline, then fly up and write it in letters as big as me! Make them think a TROLL wrote it!"

Cob snickered. "Trolls can write?"

Arcata considered, then giggled. "Okay, letters three-quarters as big as me. And remember the flourishes and little angry faces we talked about!"

Cob dipped his brush and started wiping out his work. Arcata laughing at his joke had re-energized him a bit, and he already was thinking with some relish of what deformities to inflict on his latest 'angry faces,' when she called, "I'm gonna go keep lookout!" and headed to the the mouth of the alley and watched to make sure no nosy human noticed what they were doing prematurely.

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Cob sighed as Arcata announced that she wasn't going to be sticking around. He wouldn't be out here if it weren't for her, but maybe if he made his 'angry faces' angry and grotesque enough it would be another step on the road to impressing her...

...a windling could always hope, couldn't he?

As Arcata neared the mouth of the alleyway, the sound of Cob's paintbrush on the stuccoed exterior of the wall faded and the normal, everyday hustle and bustle of the market district picked up. A seat big enough for her to perch wasn't that difficult to find, as the roofs weren't extremely well crafted down here, where water never fell from above. (Arcata had learned stories about what they used to call rain, when water fell from the sky. The way it was described it would be like bunches and bunches of trolls dumping buckets of water over the edge of their airships (also something that she had heard about but never seen), all at the same time, and all over the place. Some of the really old elves said it was a wonderful thing, but the thought of that much water falling and soaking her and her wings didn't do anything but make Arcata shudder.) Anyway, point was that there were beams and ledges sticking out all over the place, and most of them were the perfect size for a windling to take a load off.

The unfinished wood beam was rough beneath her, worn gray from age. From on top of it, well above the heads of the crowd below, she caught the occasional whiff of the animal pens, not but a couple hundred yards away from where her and her accomplice were trying to make their statement to the world.

Despite her feeling that everybody in the kaer must know what they were up to, nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the alleyway or the windling at its' mouth. Everybody just seemed to be moving along in their usual unhurried pace, getting this or that, or more often just going somewhere to chat and catch up on the latest gossip. In fact, the only thing that stood out, were the two people in the middle of the street, a couple of buildings down.

It appeared to be two humans, but one of them could've been an elf, their finely embroidered cloaks hid much of their features, and their backs were to Arcata, so she couldn't see their faces. There were several things that immediately caught her highly trained troubadour senses. First, they weren't moving; everybody around them was on their way somewhere, but these two were like an island in the middle of a river (she assumed from how they had been described). Second, they were huddled over conspiratorially. Third, they were too well dressed to be in this part of the market. Lastly, if her memory served (and it always did), the cloak of the guy on the right was exactly how the cloak of the kaers only nethermancer had been described.

Just as Arcata made that connection, he turned and looked directly at her. His gaze was as chilling as an open grave. That was most definitely Groon, the human nethermancer. The look seemed to last an eternity, but in reality it only lasted a moment before he turned back around and the two separated, each walking his own way. Groon walked off down an alley on the other side of the street, and the other person walked down the street away from Arcata.

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In an instant the graffiti was wiped out of Arcata's mind. Groon was up to something nefarious! She just knew it! But who was that other human? What was more important...follow the Infamous Groon back to his lair? Or discover the identity of his co-conspirators and lackeys?!

She dove off the roof, soap-bubble wings blurring in the artificial sunlight as she pursued the man Groon had been speaking to. All she had to do was get ahead, then look back to see his face...

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Get ahead of him she surely did, and easily too, but just before she turned he turned to go into one of the shops. So all she could see was his profile. He had brown hair that came down to the nape of his neck and unfortunately covered his ears, thus masking the easiest way to tell if he was an elf or human. His face looked full and he had a wicked crook to his nose.

And then he was gone.

The lighting wasn't the best, and it was only a profile at best, but Arcata was sure that she'd be able to recognize him if she saw him later. It was only then that she noticed the couple, up by where she had just been, giggle as they held hands and then duck quickly into the alleyway that she had left Cob in.

It was shortly after that she heard a squeal (one that she recognized and another that she didn't), a metallic clatter, and saw a column of red rise above the roofs and then fall back down.

This couldn't be good...

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Arcata's winced and slapped a hand to her forehead. Cob...right. Cob.

Still, that'd been a pretty impressive splash for windling arms. Had he thrown his paint in surprise, with the momentary strength of a madman?

Curiosity suddenly aligned with sense of duty to a fellow revolutionary, Arcata zoomed out of the alley and towards the spot she'd left Cob painting their bold and forward-thinking message.

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Arcata flew back to the alleyway quick as a thought. Cob was flying as fast as he could with red soaked wings away from the human couple that was probably as red without the paint as with it. Lady luck was apparently on the windling's side today, as both walls were also covered in red, thus masking what Cob was trying to do from this new set of prying eyes (Arcata didn't know there was that much paint in that little can).

The male was shouting obscenities at Cob's back that even Arcata had never heard (surprising since she was a troubadour), and would have gone after him had the female not grabbed a hold of his arm. "Come on, let's just try and get cleaned up before there are too many questions about what we were doing in an alley, ok Mark?"

Mark aquesised, and settled for muttering about 'stupid windlings' and how they were given more freedom than 'those flying insects' deserved.

It didn't appear as though Mark nor the girl on his arm had seen Arcata, intent as they were on the retreating form of Cob, who was now nowhere to be seen.

There was however a trail of red dots leading away from the scene of the 'explosion'.

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Continued from here

Misthal stopped a moment and simply stared, then he noted the Windling that was was present. He then began to chuckle, having a hard time keeping his composure, he walked up to the hovering Windling. "What..by.. the.. passions.. is.. going.. on..?" Each word was carefully spoken as he tried to keep from simply falling the ground laughing.

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Arcata whirled at the laughter and spied an elf standing there, watching. Her cheeks heated to red and she blurted her worst fear.

"Don't laugh! Something terrible's happened! Cob's exploded!"

She dove forward then following the red dots on the ground that she sincerely hoped were drips from an intact friend...and not merely marking the passage of a major body part, perhaps flipping end over end from the force of the paint-based blast.

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Misthal, eyes watering from the effort of not laughing out loud was still able to see as Arcata flew down and further into the alleyway, before she disappeared from sight.

Once Arcata had cleared the sight of the initial paint splash, she could see not only the drips on the floor but also splatters on the wall from Cob's wings. Once she rounded the corner she could see him standing on the edge of a wooden garbage barrel. Every upper surface on him was completely coated as he danced around the rim trying to get a good look at his red coated wings.

He finally noticed Arcata hovering there. "What in death's name were you doing!?" Cob squeaked out. There wasn't any malice in his voice, just lots of excitement and adrenaline. "Where were you!?" He turned back to his wings, looking suspiciously like a dog chasing its' tail. "Aww, man, what are we gonna...?"

For his part, all Misthal could hear was high pitched squeaks coming from the alleyway.

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When Arcata said Cob's exploded, Misthal's face became red from trying to keep from laughing out loud. He followed her down the alleyway, to see and hear them speaking together, seeing the splatters of paint on the wall and the ground and the other windling chasing his tail, he couldn't hold it anymore.

Falling to the ground, he began to howl with laughter, not even able to stand up, he hadn't seen anything this funny in years, and later he would always be able to look back at this moment and chuckle, but at the moment, he was simply lost to anything but laughter.

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"Don't worry," Arcata instructs, and proceeds to effortlessly revise reality. "I brought an elf."

She glances back at the helplessly laughing Namer on the ground and sighs. "He's not good for much though. We need to get you to some water before the paint dries. However did you get all that paint on you in the first place? I saw a sort of a splash...and there were some humans...and then you were gone!"

Abruptly an idea seizes her, and she turns to address the laughing elf.

"Bring us a bucket of water!" she commands in her high, piping voice.

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Misthal howled with pure, unfettered laughter.. it was perhaps impolite, but he couldn't help himself, this situation was so hilarious. The fact that Arcata had just claimed responsibility for his presence only made the matter all the more amusing. Her demand was more or ignored while he continued to laugh, still he managed to get himself under control after another moment or two.

He glanced at the windling still dripping paint, and back at the one beside him for a moment, then he started to laugh again, though this time not quite as much as he was before. "Alright, but in exchange, you owe me the entire tale of how this happened." He went to get the nearest bucket, still chuckling as he did.

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Cob waited until Misthal was gone before responding to Arcata. "I was there, painting BIG letters and this couple just barges in on me." He paused there, momentarily, and Arcata could see the storyteller gears turning in Cob's head. "So, to hide our actions, I splashed paint all over them, then all over the wall, then I splashed myself so that it would look like an accident." He nodded, proud of himself, "Yeah, that's what happened."

----------------------------

On down the alley, Misthal realized the full scope of what had been asked of him. Water, like food, was a strictly controlled commodity here in the kaer. There were the public wash rooms, and everybody had their daily ration. There was a complex sewer system that transported most waste water to the reclamation facility, but some places, mostly businesses and the stables.

So, Mishtal could either lie and pose as the waste water collection agent and steal their waste water, or he could go to the other side of the kaer, to the public bathing room and bring back a bucket of water (which would draw no end of stares, and possibly get him stopped by police), or he could go all the way back to his house and get what was left of his daily ration and bring it back.

Either way, it looked like he had quite the quest in front of him... if he decided to actually come back.

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Arcata grins. "Wow you must be so strong then!" she purrs. "Because I saw the paint splash up higher than the ROOF! And here I was thinking, the paint must have been sitting on a board or something, and one of those giant humans sat on the other end because they weren't paying attention. And under their colossal weight, the paint was sent flying up and it got all over everything."

She shrugs and tries to carefully strip some paint off of Cob's wings with her hands...scowling as she shakes the thick red liquid off her fingers a moment later.

"But you threw it. That's much better."

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For a moment he considered all of his options, and then he nodded slightly, heading all the way back to his home, sense he couldn't bring himself to steal or lie in order to get water, after all, someone might need it. Instead, he walked all the way back to his own place, filled a bucket half-way full with part of his daily water ration, and started to carry it back to the alleyway.

Click to reveal..
Went just a little far in having him leave and come back in one post. Here's the rest of what you posted, as I don't like destroying anybody's literary work.
Quote:
He was still somewhat amused as he returned to the alley, stopping to put the bucket down before the two windlings when he returned.
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"You better believe that's how it happened" Cob retorted. He was much more defensive than he should be if what he said was really true... but Arcata already knew that he was simply trying to make a better story.

After his outburst, Cob let Arcata try and get the slowly drying paint off of his wings with alternating shouts of 'Careful!' and 'Are you getting it all?'. With the latter, he also tried to turn around and see if she was, thus jerking his wings out of her grasp and eliciting the former response.

--------------------

The walk to his abode was fairly uneventful, but on the way back, with his partial water ration in a bucket, he was stopped by a pair of human police. "Are you Misthal Thorn? Come with us please."

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Arcata lightly smacked the back of Cobble's head and said, "Quit fidgeting. Your wings are fragile when they're wet, even with paint. If you keep twisting around like that you'll break them. Then you won't be able to fly for weeks."

Despite the impatience of her words, she was very gentle with her attempts to scrape the worst of the paint off. Red drops streaked down his wings and dripped like blood onto the ground as she slowly scrubbed a cloth along them. Arcata's hands were red with the sticky stuff from when she had to hold onto him.

Stupid elf! Where's that water?!

As she worked, Arcata hummed a melody under her breath, a common windling lullaby. When Cob settled down some, she asked, "Okay, what really happened? You know I won't tell anyone."

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Before Cob had a chance to answer, voices echoed down the alleyway. They both sounded like twenty to thirty-ish human males. "Yeah, this looks like the place."

"My word, where did they get this much red paint!? No wonder that couple..."

One of them cleared their throat, followed by the sound of wood tapping on the side of the building. The first voice spoke again, "Hello? We're looking for a... uh... red windling"

Both voiced snickered and careful footsteps came slowly down the alleyway. Because they were around a corner, whoever the voices belonged to hadn't seen Arcata or Cob yet, but that wouldn't last much longer.

Under the red paint, Cob's face had gone white. His wings were still wet, and though streaked, still partially covered in paint. He wouldn't be able to fly far or fast, and neither of them could fly silently.

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He glances at the officers a moment, still carrying the bucket. "Actually, I would be delighted to go with you, give me just a moment to finish this task, I only need about a minute, then I'll go with you wherever you like, sirs." If they allowed it, he would return to the ally with the bucket of water so that the windling could finish cleaning off his wings.

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"Sh!" Arcata hissed at Cob. She then rubbed her hands on his head and shoulders, and spattered the red paint over herself...leaving her wings pristine, of course. "Get down and hide," she then urged the windling. "Hide until the elf comes back so you can get your wings clean. I'll go with them."

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Filled with the valor of love, the bravado of a swordmaster (even though he wasn't one), and the racial recklessness of windlings, Cob puffed up his chest in reply. "No! I'm not letting you take the fall for me."

And without waiting for a response, he shoved Arcata away from the corner, further out of sight. He strained to take flight as he jumped off of the barrel, but he did, and winced as he flew around the corner.

"Here I am! Red enough for you?"

----------------------------------------

The officers looked at each other, then shrugged. "I guess that'll be ok, just don't try anything!"

Misthal agreed and the officers followed as they made their way back to the red alley. As they approached, Misthal heard some snickering coming from down the alley that was stopped by a familiar squeek.

"Here I am! Red enough for you?"

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Cobble's push sent Arcata backwards, wobbling until she finally fell flat on her rear end just as he was taking flight. She watched him for a second, dazed, then jumped to her feet as reality crashed back in.

"Cob!" she hissed after him in a stage whisper. When he didn't so much as look back, she fluttered to the ground and pattered to the corner on foot. Cautiously she peeked around the corner to see how bad things were. Though she wanted to save him, she knew instinctively that it wouldn't do for them BOTH to be caught. There'd be no one to get them out of jail if they were BOTH caught.

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He frowned at the guards for a moment, wondering why he would be starting anything, that would not get him to any of his goals. He stepped into the allyway, and was going put the bucket down for the windling, only to see the crowd a moment, and he raised an eyebrow slightly. "Ok, once again, I have no idea what's going on, but..." He considered a moment, then he shrugged and empty the bucket of water over the windling, taking a moment to target the wings so as to clean the red paint off him. "Don't forget, I still want the full story."

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The officers, Arcata, and Cob watched as Misthal blew past the officers, and they all gasped as he dumped the bucket of water on the poor red windling. It took the water a moment to soak through the paint and the wings underneath, and even longer for the ignorant elf to realize what he had done. Arcata and Cob, however, realized right away; especially when the already abused wings tore.

It was a sound Arcata had hoped never to hear again, and a pain that valiant Cob had never experienced. Arcata let slip her hiding place, as he started to fall and before the officers could move against Misthal, a cry arose from Cob, the likes of which the kaer had never heard from a windling.

”A-R-C-A-T-A!”

Arcata watched Cob fall in slow motion, unable to do anything, except notice that he was unconscious before his cry had finished passing his lips. The officers were trying to take the bucket from Misthal in a belated attempt to save the red windling, and so no one could stop Cob’s plummet. As the officers wrested the bucket from Misthal, Arcata was the only one to hear him hit the ground with a sickening thud, bounce once, and come to rest unmoving.

The officers who had wrested the bucket away from Misthal handed him back over to the ones that had brought him. Then one of them knelt down and picked up Cob’s limp body while the other one approached Arcata.

“You Arcata Phaedran? We need you to come with us. We’ll take your friend here to the healer, see if anything can be done, but the Magistrate needs to see you right away.”

With that, the officer grabbed Arcata’s hand, leg or body (depending on how much of fight she put up), and they, Misthal, and his escorts all headed off towards the center of the kaer.

Click to reveal..
First, just want to point out that ignorant means 'not knowing' and isn't used in any derogatory way.

Second, I'll give each of you a chance for one reactionary post while I get the next thread up. Just try and not do anything that would require me to add another post.

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