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A well dressed man with a pack on his back and a sword on his hip stood on the ridge. The Reader looked down on the castle from his hillside vantage. Sure it was scenic and all, but what was with the red hearts? <Doesn’t matter,> he thought, <just get the girl and get out.> The slender young man shrugged off the pack he was carrying and set it next to a convenient tree. This job had required a lot more hiking than usual. It wouldn’t have done to appear in front of people before he could even begin, and the likelihood of that was rather high in this world. He idly noticed a caterpillar amble past wearing a top hat. Whatever, it was obvious that this place had a huge drug problem, but that was not his mission today. “Is she there?” he spoke to the empty air. <Yes, she is.> a voice spoke into his mind, <She waits in the tallest tower in the center of the castle.> The man grimaced <Of course she does.> Silly conventions were part and parcel of his chosen trade though. No use whining about it. Instead he made a final check of the contents of his bag and the set of his gear. The girl’s keeper was well known for violence but hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
He reviewed the plan in his head one last time for flaws. <Ok, enough stalling.> He pulled two bottles from the bag and began running down the hill as fast as he could. When he was just about level with the castle wall he drank the first bottle and threw the second at his feet. As his body began to feel the lightening effects of the first potion, there was a nearly silent ‘whump ’as the blast of compressed air from the second propelled the reader over the wall. <Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.> he thought as the walls and then roofs of the fortress flew past beneath his feet. “Wheee, isn’t this more fun than all that silly walking and climbing you do mortal?” The pixie flew alongside him, apparently enjoying the flight as well as his predicament. Fortunately this was part of the plan. He pulled a scarf from the pouch and snapped it behind him. Instantly the small piece of cloth expanded into a fair sized drag-chute. He looked down for his landing zone and saw something that was not part of the plan.
A squad of guards was standing in a loose group, seemingly on break. But that wouldn’t matter when he landed among them. It was time for a desperate plan. “Hey Pix, those guards look awfully tough and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt so you should probably go home now.” “WHAT?” the pixie exclaimed in her tiny voice, “How dare you suggest that a group of merely mortal guard beings is a match for me.” Immediately she shot away from his by now slowly falling body and zeroed in on the guard captain. “Hey moron, oops I mean mortal, why don’t you get out of our way?” And before the poor man could react to her presence or speech the little woman snatched the bottle from his hand and smashed it across his face. CRASH! ‘Thud’, he hit the ground and didn’t move. “Hey, what do you think your doing, don’t you know whose castle this is?” said a guard. “Who cares, you’re all a bunch of losers anyway.” and with that she flew off down the street. With a roar the rest of the squad snatched up weapons and ran in pursuit of the pixie. <That worked out better than I expected. Good thing nobody ask about that ‘our way’ crack.> mused the Reader as he flexed his knees for landing. With luck she would distract even more guards on her way through the castle town. He tracked her progress for a moment by the sound of smashed furniture and windows and Pix’s tinkling laughter.
The man paused to take the keys from the captain’s belt. Naturally one of them would fit the girl’s room. Sometimes these conventions worked in your favor. With a grin he trotted toward the inner bailey. He pulled out his bottle of climbing ointment and dabbed some on his feet and hands. Then after placing the bottle back in the bag he placed his feet and hands against the wall and began to scurry up it like the proverbial spider-man. Upon reaching the top he peered over looking for more guards. There they where, two of them, walking patrol on the wall. Both where facing the other way so he rushed across and started down the other side. There was no outcry from the wall guards so he climbed down to the ground and off the wall. He strolled down an alley and looked across the bailey yard to the highest central tower. There he was, the one inept guard left to protect the prisoner. He walked boldly out and headed straight toward the tower. The guard looked his way and immediately readied his spear. When the Reader was close enough he called out, “Hello my good man, I am a traveling peddler, looking to sell my wares to the owners of this castle. Do you know where I could find them?” He started to step closer but stopped as the guard leveled his weapon and growled, “You’re no peddler. You have no pack so you can’t carry many wares, you have a weapon even though traveling peddlers are forbidden from being armed, and you’re not dressed like a peddler; more like an adventurer or something.” <Ok, not so inept.> “You got me,” said the Reader, “I’m actually just the scout for an invading army bent on destroying your kingdom.” “Ha, I knew it!” said the guard turning toward the warning bell behind him. ‘CRACK’, the sap that the Reader had palmed felled him with one shot. <Fortunately just inept enough.> he thought.
He tried the keys in the door and sure enough one of them worked. He pushed opened the door and stepped through, closing and locking it behind him. He spied a chest of drawers and dragged that in front of the door as well. Then he looked up. And further up. Why couldn’t they install an elevator? The reader began to climb, and climb, and climb. The stairs felt like they would never end. “See, I told you all this climbing and walking was boring.” “Ahhh!” the reader almost fell off the stairs. “Pix! What are you doing here? What happened to the guards?” The little pixie shrugged,”How should I know? Most of them are flat on the ground where they belong but I got bored so I came back to see if you were doing anything interesting yet.” There was a crash from below as if a group of soldiers was smashing down a door with a battering ram. Quickly the Reader pulled an orange bottle from the pouch and poured it over the last five stairs. It started to smoke as the acid gel began to eat the stone. Hopefully that would slow them down. As he ran up the stairs he slapped a sonic buzzer motion detector on the wall. It would do anything to stop them but he’d have fair warning.
Just as he began to think that his lungs would burst from the exertion, the Reader finally reached the top of the stairs. <There’s only one door, so that must be it.> He threw some caltrops down behind himself as he moved towards the door. He listened for a moment but heard nothing. <I hope she’s alright.> The Reader tried the keys again and found one that worked. He opened the door and started to step through, ‘THWACK’. The first knife quivered it the door next to his ear. He intercepted the next two with his left hand and then his sword was out and he was moving. Two more knives flashed toward him from the shadows behind a wardrobe. He parried them with his rapier and threw back the two he had caught. It was a poor throw, off hand and two at once. One knife hit the wall handle first and fell to the floor, while the other stuck in the edge of the wardrobe. It was good enough to reward him with a screech of fear though. Wait, a what? He rounded the corner to find a young woman glaring at him defiantly and holding a steak knife. “I’d rather die than play one more game of croquet, you filthy pigs.” she said, “Why don’t you just get it over with.”
The Reader shook his head, <That close to ruining the whole mission, not to mention killing a cute and spunky girl. I need to be more careful.> He shrugged ruefully. “I’m not one of your captors Alice. I’m here to rescue you.” She squinted at the young man before her. “Are you sure? And who says I want to leave anyway? Yeah I know what I just said, and if I see another rabbit I’m going to wring its scrawny neck, but that doesn’t mean I want to go back home either.” The man laughed. “I won’t take you anywhere you don’t agree to go. I like traveling and adventure too much myself to deny it to another.” The buzzer went off in the stairwell and was almost immediately silenced. “Uh oh, sounds like trouble,” said the girl, “What now smart guy?” “Well I think I’ve had enough fun for one day. I feel like leaving. If you take my hand you can come with me.” He reached out toward her. Swearing erupted as the guards hit the spikes left outside. She peered at him and hesitantly reached her hand toward his and grasped his fingers. The guards crashed through the door and spread out to confront an empty room. A soldier swore, “****, the queen is going to have our heads.”
 Cedric Igor · Fri Jun 20, 2008 @ 08:50pm · 2 Comments |
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