Ped stared at the woman with a level look, then pulled his hood deeper and backed away into the shadows. "My strength does not lie in combat." his voice called out from the shadows. There was a minute of silence, and then his voice called out again. "My size and natural agility allow me to go places where you large folk cannot, and the shadows are my friend. A person who does not wish to be followed, a cut purse here, bit of something slipped into someone's drink...these are my strengths." Ped said from the other side of the woman, stepping from the shadows into the pool of light. He threw back his hood and grinned impudently, revealing his dimples. "Something you tall folk take for granted."
The woman smiled at the cethar. Between the shadows and the little man's position, she hardly had time to differenciate him from the common child or adolescent. Then again, he was hardly three feet tall. She shrugged inwardly at the thought but her smirk remained. "I see, so you're some kind of spy?" she teased "suppose you're here to spy on us?"
Now that was an interesting comment. What did she suppose 'us' entailed? Her smirk grew to a grin again and she absentmindedly toyed with the fireflies gathered to the side of her head. The sparkle of the light-emitting insects was ensnaring to some races, fae folk particularly, but for Ped it was more of a spectacle that became less amazing with time. "Say I was to tell you where to meet the right people" she ventured on "what are you interested in anyway?"
Ped's grin slipped, and his look became blank. He knew full well this woman could kill him as soon as hug him, and he danced a fine line with his bantering. But if there was one thing his harsh life had taught him, was that even the mightiest of mountains could be worn down with the determination of a river.
He pulled his hood back up, hiding his face in darkness. "I seek to learn magic. My path is my own choice, and you are far from a trusted friend to learn what path I will take. Suffice to say my interest in no way will harm this city or those that live in it. I am but a humble student seeking the way." he said, bowing slightly. "Because even the mightiest must fall. And someone will always be there to take their place."
The woman raised her brow as soon as the cethar dislpayed some wit and courage. "Fair enough" she replied without pause "you may seek them but if do not find you worthy ... well, that is your fate." Her smile also waned but her features darkened suddenly before she turned and opened the door leading back into the inn.
"Be careful, watch your step, and do not be followed" she added quickly "and to find the forgotten wizards you must enter the Chateau called Mavloix, somehow enter into its forbidden upper floors, past the guards and security, and climb to the highest tower -- yes" she threw a grinning glance over her slender shoulders "the clock tower. Au revoir."
She stepped into the doorway, closed it behind her, and was gone.
Ped watched the woman go, then stepped back quickly into the shadows and walked down the street. His heart was racing from excitement. Now, finally, after so long searching, he was taking the first step toward his ultimate goals! The halfling couldn't help but grin as he moved quickly, darting from alley to alley, stopping occasionally behind trash bins to look behind him. He doubled back multiple times, once even clambering up a conveniant drain pipe and moving across the shadows of a roof.
Finally he saw there, the sprawling mansion, and at the top, his goal, the clock tower.
OOC: great post. I love the detail and the action For the record, you should try to avoid ‘moderating words’ but instead say things like ‘if this happens, then Ped would do this’. Why? Because Ped doesn’t know how things will work out – he can only attempt things and anticipate the events that follow. The moderator tells you what succeeds and what happens exactly based on your actions Also, consider the sling shot added to your SOF. You just have no real skill with it yet (though it’s possible that you get some xp somewhere along the way) I’ll let that go for now *high fives*
The Southern Quarter was a maze of architectural landmarks, posh estates, and the marvels of Jaedaxia – along a single magnificent boulevard that ended in a roundabout that graced the Chateau Mavloix itself. The castle was an artifact of Jaedaxia’s rich history as well as a crown jewel of the entire city. No other structure stood as grand or as well known as the chateau. There was even a common Jaedaxienne saying that went: “All avenues lead to the Mavloix”. She was a testament to Jaedaxian architecture, gothic with spires and statues masquerading as demons, gargoyles, dragons, and other spectacular beasts. They stood there, on her battements like immortal guards, ready to spring into action should their fortress come under attack.
But no hedge or Iron Gate could keep the aspiring Mystic from his prize. In his mind, there was only one way to attain his goal: he needed to breach the chateau’s exterior defenses, somehow climb to its highest peak unnoticed, and seek out the mystery the lay waiting for him. Several blue and gold guardsmen spared the cethar a glance but none paid him any notice. The traffic along the boulevard was a little thicker even in the winter as carriages, wagons, and mounted riders and patrols trotted along the cobblestones. This was the side of Jaedaxia that rarely slept, and the blur of movement and activity was enough to dazzle even the most hardened locals – given the right amount of Ice Wine that was.
Merchants, vendors, guards, mercenaries, aristocrats, and beggars all mingled here. Whether they liked it or not, however, remains a different story altogether. Those nobles or aristocrats and their wigged heads and flowering garb were easily distinguished by the number of servants they leashed among their entourages. A particularly pale old woman with several adolescent maidservants was pushing along a narrow expanse of cobblestones near Ped and he watched as she nervously eyed each commoner for fear of loosing her purse.
A light drizzle overhead soon shifted into a misty shower while dark clouds alluded heavily to rainstorms. Spring was just around the corner but Melora was still Winter and thus it was likely that those shower would fall as snow in the next few candlemarks. Ped quickened his pace when he realized this and he followed the back alleys soon afterward, aiming a zig-zagging path toward the chateau with only its peaking Clock Tower which rose over the roofline of all the other structures as his guide.
Soon, he’d execute his plan: using the hedges as cover, his old toy slingshot as a diversion, while he sprinted easily through the clearing and toward the nearest stone face of the Clock Tower. The chateau looked a great deal more immense as the cethar neared it and it was a humble thought to attempt a climb at this weather. Even at the foot of the structure, fresh frost kissed the rock and stone. The continuous freezing and melting cycle of the past two months of Winter had produced a glaze-like sheen on the structure. It was a thin layer of ice. Ped took a deep breath and tossed his grappling hook skyward. It sailed some twenty feet and managed to imbed itself on a viewing ledge that housed several statues of gargoyles and other demons from Jaedaxian folklore. He tugged once, and the hook stayed.
Several dozen paces to his right, he could still hear the whines and groaning of the aristocrats and art-enthusiasts as they demanded what had caused such commotion. No thanks to Ped’s skill, the two stones he used had shattered random window planes along the ground floor and dented a nearby carriage door – that was occupied by an important looking man in a thick overcoat, crimson scarf, and a balding top. Several moments later, Ped realized that he had triggered some type of protocol among the chateau’s security – and reinforcements were being called in.
Fortunately, by this time, the cethar was already on the first battlement, far above the normal line of sight of the guards beneath him. Now it was only a matter of climbing the rest of the stories above him … and it was getting cold, despite his stealthy gear and equipment.
Ped shivered as he climbed higher, the thin outfit fantastic for making him invisible against the dark stone of the tower but utterly useless for retaining body heat. He continued to climb however, his will giving him the strength to ignore the cold permeating his bare feet. When he slipped and only his suddenly iron grip on a spike saved him from a very long fall, he took a break and rested on a small ledge that stuck out from the wall.
Sitting down, Ped tucked his legs under him and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing in with steady breaths. He sat like this for several minutes focusing his mind on his goal and banishing all other thoughts, including pain and discomfort. When the the sensation in his feet returned, he began climbing, taking each step one by one.
Slowly Ped climbed. His stealth gear provided him with increased traction and an affinity for the shadows but by the cethar's own admission, it was damn useless against the cold. The late winter winds whipped against him mercilessly. And before long, he was numb from the tip of his nose to the ends of his furry feet. There was no forgiveness here, well above the pompous aristocrats of Jaedaxia. From the height, he could see the streelamp lighters begin to arrange a network of stars along the boulevards of the city; but Ped had to focus now. He looked up, noticed how far he still had to go and kept on climbing.
The cethar took three more breaks and climbed for more than a candlemark. He was nearing the mid-point of the Clock Tower when he heard a shuffle on an adjacent window. Then it opened. By now, Ped was nearly kissing the cold, frosy stone in front of him to keep the 'bump' of his figure as low as possible. Then a head poked itself out of the window.
It was a guard, helmed and in uniform.
"You sure there was something?" he called back to someone presumably behind him.
"Oui! We saw it!" came a second, more high pitched voice "it is a giant spider, non?? I read about it in the Sentinel not a fortnight ago!"
The guard looked up, down, and his gaze barely grazed Ped's position. He did a double-take. Narrowed his eyes but shook his head. "Nothing here. Let's try the floors below." There was more to the conversation, but Ped's heart was beating too hard for him to hear. Phew. That was a damn close one. Looks like he has been spotted. It would only be time before they finally saw him.
As soon as the window closed and light faded from it, Ped began climbing as fast as was safe. His whole being focused on the wall above him, and every finger and toe hold it provided him as he climbed.
In this semi-trance, Ped no longer felt cold, no longer felt pain, no longer felt fear. He became an animal fighting the weather, grim determination marring his features as he gritted his teeth and continued pulling. In his mind words rolled through, the mantra by which he had been living for the past several months.
I control my own destiny. Fate cannot stop what I will become, for my will can carry beyond pain, beyond flesh, beyond boundaries. The will is the might of magic, the fire by which it is forged, the fire by which all impossible actions become possible.
Like a furious rodent, Ped continued to climb until his numb fingers, limbs, chest, and back began to cry silently. The adrenaline the close call provided gave the cethar several dozen more yards upward until Ped had to rest at another platform shared with gargoyles, beasts with wings, claws, bird heards, and lions teeth. He panted as his eyes adjusted and shivered lightly against the slowly falling flakes of snow. The dark skies above gave no promise of stars that darkening and the Suns in the west were already mere fractals of purple, orange, gold, and crimson as they descended beyond the Great Mountains farther than his eyes could see.
"Oho" a sharp voice came -- and Ped nearly dropped the whole way down if not for a foreign hand's grip on his left arm. "Watch it" came the same voice, this time more muffled and tired "not the best way to die, I assure you." After the initial shock, the cethar would note that a frail looking human had taken a spot directly next to him on the stonework. His crooked back kept him at a stiff forward angle and his loose robes flapped noisily against the torrent of cold air. He had a thin, beak like nose, hallow eyes, and sunken cheeks. He was in no way a capable climber, nor a sneaky enough assassin to have cornered him so quickly and silently.
Gazing at the city below, the strange elderly man sighed before shaking his bald head. The edges of his robes looked old but far from worn. And when he turned to face Ped he gave a toothy smile that may have been friendly had it not been for the faint smell of onions that seemed to permeate the air around him. "What do they call you, cethar?" he asked in curious tones "haven't seen your kind up here all these years. Usually bandits. And thieves. Sometimes museum staff. They like to keep me up here, of course, but don't really want me to die and stink the place up. Heh."
Ped took several deep breaths as the man spoke, trying to slow down his pounding heart. After his long climb up and several adrenaline rushes, bringing his heart rate down left Ped feeling exhausted. He knew that at this point, he was at the mercy of this old man, so he settled down in a cross legged position facing out to the city and pulled his hood down to reveal his curly brown hair and serious black eyes.
"I am known as Ped of the Swiftfoot clan, Honored Elder. I have traveled for several months to this city in search of a legend, and I was directed to this point. Now that I have reached it, I am at a loss at what to do. Though, due to your sudden appearance in this precarious position, I think you might be able to point me in yet another direction." Ped said calmly, staring out over the city.
"Honored Elder eh?" the old robed man grinned "that's another first. Are you sure you're not an illusion?" He grinned, showing a row of straight teeth before he raised his hand and produced a silver rimmed goblet. It appeared quite suddenly and if Ped had been less tired, he would've sworn that it simply materialized out of the cold air around them. The elderly fellow drank deeply from the goblet and tossed it away, allowing it to sail lazily down toward the cobbled ground stories below. A crash indicated its touch-down and Ped flinched slightly as a hail of shouts and muffled cries came from below them.
"Well Ped of the Swiftoot Clan" the sage began "I am Lord Eddiseth Windstorm, Keeper and Wizard of the Clock Tower" he beamed humbly then motioned for the cethar to follow him. He rose, his feet as easy on the stonework as any lad one-sixth his age. The man was nimble too, able to withstand the cold torrent and the random windlashes without much effort. Finally, they rounded the spire and happened upon an open stone-framed window guarded by two angry-looking gargoyles. The sage patted each of them on the head and slipped into the darkness within.
Ped looked over the edge as the goblet fell, gritting his teeth when it hit the roof below with a loud clatter, shattering several tiles. He ducked back when heads poked from windows below, looking up to see where the goblet had come from.
"Wha-" he cut off when the old man got to his feet and walked away, moving with swift ease despite his age and crooked stance. Ped had no choice but to follow as he heard more yelling from below, though he slid to a stop when the stone gargoyles both turned their heads to glare at him. He took a step closer and they did not move, giving him the courage to resume his walking.
The two stone heads swung around and followed his trip until he was safely inside the warmth of the tower. He shivered and rubbed his hands together, jumping up and down to get his blood pumping and warm his extremities. He was standing on a landing with stairs that wrapped around the interior of the tower going up and down. Lord Windstorm was just vanishing up the turn of the stairs, not waiting to see if the cethar would follow.
Hearing a door open below, Ped sprinted up the steps after the old man, puffing with each step as he was forced to almost leap from step to step. They had obviously been designed with humans in mind, and he began to tire quickly.
Ped entered the dark window and immediately felt the ground beneath him disappear. He landed with a thud."Oh, watch your step" the sage chuckled softly. Judging from the faint foot falls, the elderly wizard was just several paces in front of the fallen cethar. It took some long moments for Ped's eyes (and sore body) to adjust to his new environment.
At first, everything was inky black as if he was painfully blindfolded. But then, there was a hiss of light produced by a match kissing a nearby stone wall. And then, abruptly, there was light near the farthest corners of the spire. The light gave birth to new sights even smells. The faint smell of oil against wood was most evident, followed by metallic scents, of rust, and copper, and moss. Looking around, Ped found himself standing at the foot of an iron staircase which spiraled and snaked upwards toward the Clock Tower's silent face.
"I light her up you know" the sage said, suddenly appearing beside the cethar "they don't bother me so long as I keep the candles there lit up." He pointed at the Clock's huge circular face. The symbols and the numerals looked faintly surreal from this point of view, on the opposite side of Jaedaxia. "If I run out, I make some noise, they come back up here and leave more candles at the door. It's a give-and-take relationship." He laughed, a little more wildly than Ped expected.
Slowly, the magician seated himself along the second step of the stairway and motioned for Ped to do the same. With another flick of his hands, he produced a small flame -- and this time, the cethar was certain that magic was at work. He floated lazily in the air before settling just in front of Ped. It cast light and warmth against his shivering body, comforting him somewhat. "So tell me, monsieur" Lord Windstorm began in mock Jaedaxienne "why do you seek the Wizard of the Clock Tower?"
For the record, you should try to avoid ‘moderating words’ but instead say things like ‘if this happens, then Ped would do this’. Why? Because Ped doesn’t know how things will work out – he can only attempt things and anticipate the events that follow. The moderator tells you what succeeds and what happens exactly based on your actions Also, consider the sling shot added to your SOF. You just have no real skill with it yet (though it’s possible that you get some xp somewhere along the way) I’ll let that go for now