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Non EVE Writing Project
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Roland Cassidy

KarmaFleet

Goonswarm Federation

Likes received: 153

#1 - 2015-07-26 17:40:07 UTC

So I've been working on something out of the game, fantasy based- trying to expand my scope of writing really. I'm open to criticism, not on spelling or grammar as I have an editor who gladly whips out the red pen and reminds me I'm terrible at my own language. Concept, flow, and tempo critiques welcome.

The Joker and the Thief

Chapter 1- The Thief
"I don't understand."
The thuggish oaf stated as he stared in admitted confusion at the rogue; stopping for a moment as he followed the blue eyed man through the streets of the market. The city was bustling with morning activity as usual, and traders were moving to and from the dock district with predictable fervor. Each wanting to get the best stall to hawk their wares, mornings like this were a fairly standard sight, but this pair had a mission in particular.

"What's to understand? One doesn't crash a banquet inconspicuously to liberate the wealth of maidens without dressing the part." The handsome, blue eyed rogue looked over his shoulder at his protégé with a sly grin as he spotted what he'd come to find, a ship bearing textiles and clothing unloading its wares with a dock hand plainly keeping an eye out.

Xander Tiox had paid this particular dockworker off often to funnel some of the best bits of finery his way, luckily the fool had no clue what the fabrics and clothing truly cost. Xander could have made a pretty penny on the resale of such goods in and of itself, but there was no style or prestige in such base mercantile theft. The real money was made amongst the witless nobles who offered their jewel adorned hands to him in their arena of choice. The balls and courts of the city offered him limitless marks, filled with hapless young maidens and bored noblemen's wives- the latter of which he was quite sure knew exactly the game at which he played, using him as a convenient way of irritating their inattentive husbands.

Xander had risen well through the ranks of the thieves' guild here in the city, beginning his promising career in poverty on the streets of the dock districts as an urchin and child of poverty, his own apprenticeship had been a painful affair, with a cruel master who had not been careful in his display of his own treasures, and even less care in maintaining proper alibis. The kicker was really that he hadn't been providing ample opportunities for a promising urchin to progress in a depth that matched his skill, idle hands and the devils work and all that. A quiet tip off of the constabulary and the child was free with a name in the guild, no master to tithe and a pocket full of the more choice items in his former trainer's collection. The rest had been slightly boring really, steal a bauble, have drinks to gloat, sell off the item in question for a bit of jingle but never so much as to have anyone else make worry about his own fortunes. In time the street rat had come into his own, fine with a blade, better with his tongue, doubly so for the ladies. All was well.

"Come on you lout, there's still business to be on with." The rogue snatched the collar of his considerably larger companion. "We've got to procure a carriage for the night... and you need to bathe..."
"Bathe?" The brutish adept scrunched up his face in distaste. "But I had me a bath last week Tiox... besides, the other blokes always have a laugh when they notice... it's mortifyin... is what it is."
Huron was good at what he did well, the old smash and grab. The intimidation bit, the insurance scam, but a thinker he wasn't.

Still, as far as neonates went; he was more apt to listen to the plans of the more seasoned cutpurse, and in turn he'd turned a better profit working as Tiox's muscle than any other adept he'd known. He'd complain about the bath for a few more minutes but relent. After all Xander was teaching him about the things he didn't know so well, that's what this was supposed to be about.

"Well they can laugh at you smelling of roses while you and I split the wine after earning our shares on another handful of gems. Besides, I can't be a proper wastrel if I'm seen with a smelly footman."
The pair disappear in the crowd of the docks.

"Watashi no Tao wa magarikunetta michidesu. Watashi wa toraedokoro no nai, heiwa o motome, samayoimasu."

(Trans) "My Tao is a winding path. I wander, seeking an elusive peace. "

浪人

Roland Cassidy

KarmaFleet

Goonswarm Federation

Likes received: 153

#2 - 2015-07-26 17:40:46 UTC

Chapter 2- The Joker
Her eyes glinted almost malevolently in the low dusk threatening sunlight, her wild blonde hair spilling out from beneath a battered horned helmet, unkempt and dirty. She seemed to stare a little too intently at the man's left ear as her smile (that of a toothy maddened grin) scoffed in a gleeful manner. This wild looking woman-girl could only be described as a collection of twig-like limbs graced with angular knees and elbows with a long expressive, but manic features. Eyes wide and her brow with an amazing range of mobility, she looked as though she had practiced making faces as a child and had one for every occasion and syllable in her repertoire. Her hand wound around the grip of a massive great-sword she seemed to drag around with slight effort, yet flailed around with wild abandon (at times singlehanded) with no problem.

The small gathering of ruffians that currently surrounded the girl seemed none too friendly, and the man in front of her still stared threateningly at her as his gang encircled her.
"A might far away from home ain't we now little miss?" He tapped at his hand with a wicked looking spiked mace as he confronted her.

"Home is where you hang the heads of your defeated enemies..." She chuckled in reply, her voice sing-song and whimsical, as if she'd been commenting on the chance of rain.

The man furrowed his brow. Was this runt of a girl making fun at his expense? Did she not know what a mess she was in? No two bit child was going to speak to him in that manner. He motioned for his crew to restrain her... but that's when his world went all to hell.

The girl stepped forward and swung wildly as she brought her great-sword over her head in a flash, swinging it down into the ground with a thick sound of impaled earth on steel. The crowd of malcontents backing up for a moment to watch as this girl who was no taller than the very sword she was dragging around leaned contently against the broadside of the grounded blade. Her face scrunched up in consternation as she studies the leader. He was angry... so many people were unnecessarily angry.

"Ooooh I see! You want to fight..." the girl nods vigorously in presumed understanding and gestures her thin finger at the man before regarding him again verbally in the very same sing song voice.

"I really wouldn't recommend dying on a Tuesday... Tuesdays aren't a very good day. You know what happened on a Tuesday? Nothin... that's what they'll say. No one remembers stuff about Tuesdays... and the folks who die on Tuesdays? Man I bet no one even comes to their funerals... I'd rather pick a Friday...."

The man was red with fury now as he shouted at her and wound back his mace. "YOU KILL ME??! YOU MUST BE KIDDING!" and with that, he lunged at the dismissive twig of a girl. Insane or not, no snot nosed brat was going to get away with speaking to him like that.

It was in a flash of motion and violence in which that one could see this girl quickly spit into her hands, grip the great-sword two handed and rip the blade forward out of the ground at the man, spattering dirt into the air and dust into his eyes before swinging wildly around the small circle of men who'd regained the idea to follow their leader into this 'glorious' battle of 7 men against a small girl, they were rewarded by severe gashes across their leg's and chests and the sight of their leader choking on dirt and on his knees with her blade laying heavily across the back of his neck, a bit of blood trickling down the side of his face and his left ear laying in the dirt several steps away.

"Ear.... heh..." The grinning girl blew some hair that had fallen across her eyes as she giggled maniacally again upon seeing the severed ear on the ground. When she finally swung her gaze towards the wounded circle of men they were already scattering back to beat a hasty and humiliating retreat. The once proud leader reduced to a sputtering and horrified creature who clutched his wounded head and screamed silently as he felt the cold steel of the great sword readied at his neck.

"You're still here? You can go now..." She paused upon consideration of something then kicked him over onto his back as she continued, "Leave the ear though... that's mine now."

The fun was gone after that, what a shame... the night had been far more entertaining with fisticuffs... or "swordicuffs" or whatever type of cuffs effectively got the job done. Ledzo Blackcloak plunged the zwei-hander sword into the ground again and twirled around it by swinging off its handle in the same way one of those dancers at the whore houses the sailors went to might. She gingerly inspected the ear after a few moments of swinging around. She immediately noticed that it had several earrings and her eyes lit up.

"Loot!" She exclaimed in a level of excitement that seemed inconsistent with the simplicity of having found a mismatched set of earrings.

"Watashi no Tao wa magarikunetta michidesu. Watashi wa toraedokoro no nai, heiwa o motome, samayoimasu."

(Trans) "My Tao is a winding path. I wander, seeking an elusive peace. "

浪人


Roland Cassidy KarmaFleet Goonswarm Federation Likes received: 153	#3 - 2015-07-26 17:41:53 UTC Reserved 1 "Watashi no Tao wa magarikunetta michidesu. Watashi wa toraedokoro no nai, heiwa o motome, samayoimasu." (Trans) "My Tao is a winding path. I wander, seeking an elusive peace. " 浪人