Long ago, far away

[Blobfish]

It was no more than a few days before the next large town was in sight. Not quite as large as the last, it still had enough houses to make it a good target. Having done no more robberies since the theft of the orb, Tim was already looking bored. As he rode slowly into town he kept looking around wildly, hoping against the odds to see the face of his friend.
The guards on the gate stared at him for a while before letting him pass, but Tim shrugged it off. Neither of the guards had had anything to say. Quickly, Tim made his way to the nearest half-decent looking inn, where he left the horse at the stables before setting off on foot into the centre of the town.
When he reached one of the larger crossroads, one with a square built around a huge tree, Tim dropped his small bag down and sat besides it, his back against a wall. Eventually, after watching the crowd, he stood up, face all smiles and nice comments, doing tricks. Before long he had a large crowd, but none of them looked even vaguely familiar to him.
A couple of guards started to amble towards, looking simply interested by the show. Smiling still, Tim continued.
~
Jake sat hunched in the corner of an inn, staring into a cup of wine. His face was gaunt and he had bags under his eyes. Few people came near him, though he attracted a lot of odd looks from some of the more respectable patrons of the inn. After a while a barmaid walked over to the table he was sat at and refilled the cup. Jake looked up long enough to place a small coin on the table, which the barmaid took with a smile.
The light from outside began to dim, and a fire was lit in the fireplace at the other end of the room. Slowly the room began to fill up with people who seemed mostly to be jolly, talking or laughing.
As more people entered, Jake pulled the cloak of his hood up further, shielding most his face.
More time passed, and Jake couldn’t help began to lean towards other, hoping to overhear what they were saying. Eventually he stood up and moved over towards the bar, where people were laughing about something.
“Sorry to interrupt, but what were you talking about?”
The men who had been talking went silent as they looked round at him. It was merely a second before they replied, but Jake’s hand went towards his pocket, his face worried. When the man closest to Jake did answer, he said “They say that that man who caused all that trouble over in the next town has been sighted. Apparently the guards had to get permission from higher up to approach him though. They say he’s killed dozens of guards in the last town he was in. I’m glad I’m staying here, but you never know where he might be. Looks really like anyone, from what I’ve heard. Nothing much about him makes him look special, so I’ve heard.”
Jake frowned, holding back a gasp “Where did you say they’ve seen him?”
“Out towards the crossroads near the cloth shop, the one with the tree. Apparently they saw him doing his funny magic, just as he was back in the last town. Apparently he can move through walls like a ghost, he can. And he can turn into a mist, reach down your throat and stop your heart. I wouldn’t risk going outside if he’s out there.”
Jake managed a weak grin “I really doubt that he can do all that. Still, whether he can or not, it’ll be an interesting fight, right? Sure you don’t want to join me?” the man shook his head, almost spraying beef at his fellows. “Too bad. I guess I’ll have to go by myself. Excuse me, gentlemen.”
Leaving his wineglass carefully on the bar, Jake pushed his way to the door and out into the fresh early evening. So Tim was here, making a fool of himself, about to get killed? Jake ran down the street looking for a wider road to turn onto. With all anger suddenly forgotten, Jake muttered prayers under his breath that his friend was all right.
~
Tim smiled and waved as the last of his watched left before looking down and picking up the small pile of coins that lay near his feet. Quickly putting these in his pocked, he walked to pick up his bags, slung them over his shoulder, and started off towards the inn. He looked tired, but his smile seemed genuine.
As he walked, he nodded slightly to a pair of guards who were stood, watching. One of them leaned closer to the other, and a few words passed between them. As a pair, the two walked forwards towards Tim. Seeing this, Tim let his smile widen and his eyes turn up at the corners, trying to look as friendly as possible.
“Excuse me, this won’t take long. Have you been doing those tricks long?”
Tim grinned “A fair while. It’s how I make money if I can’t get a job as a merchant’s guard or somesuch.” Tim took a slight step backwards as the guards approached, but they moved to stay within arm’s reach.
“That’s some neat tricks. How’d you do it?”
From behind Tim came the sound of running feet. The guards looked up suddenly, stepped back and drew their swords. Tim also moved backwards, spinning around to look behind him.
A dozen or so guards had spread out from a conjoining road. With one long, silken sound, they drew their swords and move towards Tim forming a circle around him, leaving him plenty of room should he be murderous.

[Jiin6]

This does not look good for Tim

[Blobfish]

It kinda serves him right though. Despite that he's one of my nicest and most innocent main charries....
I feel sorry for him now...

Man, I'm so mean to all my characters

[theasianguy]

Lol.

So Tim is the type that doesn't think too far ahead, and Jake is the tactical one.

[Blobfish]

Lol, indeed. Tim is a fool. Co-incidently, I know someone called Tim in real life and I will not forgive him for a while for turning me down. His namesake will go through a lot of hell

Introducing Elisa, the clueless enchantress:

“You’re under arrest for theft of the title deeds to many properties in the town of Gythyll. Put down any weapons you have and hold your hands out flat in front of you.”
Tim looked back at the first two guards, who were walking slowly towards him. Quickly Tim muttered the words and made the symbols and vanished, before the guards could even cast their own spells – he had had a long time to get good at turning invisible in a hurry.
There was a flurry of movements around him. Some guards were fanning out while others were casting magic of their own, hands making complex gestures. Tim couldn’t help but smile when nothing hit him, and trying to move quietly, he ran towards a gap in the guards.
Gaining speed, it was only a few seconds before he ran into a wall that he could not see. Around the circle, one of the guards pointed towards him, and suddenly a bolt of magic was flying towards him. Tim ducked and rolled away, back towards his starting place. Panicking, he looked around, and saw the guards making more gestures with their hands.
Suddenly he felt someone grab his arm, and swore, trying to shake off whatever it was. He turned to see a guard with pure white eyes looking at him. Actually at, not through him. Tim kicked out, but the guard was stronger and took the blow without flinching. Working slowly, the guard managed to get hold of his other arm, pulling them behind Tim’s back. Another few guards were running towards them, but only one stopped to cast a spell over both Tim and his captor. Slowly, Tim began to reappear and his captor’s eyes turned back to normal under the presence of a shield that stopped all magic too weak to resist it.
Tim tried to move his hands, but the blood was failing to reach past his wrists.
“I repeat, you are under arrest. I warn you that having tried to resist arrest will not act in your favour…But I guess since you’re going to be hanged, it won’t matter too much anyway.”
A gag was stuffed in Tim’s mouth and secures round the back of his head, and at the same time his wrists were tied behind his back. Only then did the shield-caster relax, dropping his arms from where they had been continuously making symbols.
Trying hopelessly to retain some dignity, Tim walked off – or was walked off – down one of the main streets, pinned between two large guards.
From the shadows on a roof, Jake watched with a frown.
~
Tim was pushed roughly into a cell, almost tripping. The doorway was filled with angry looking men, mostly guards carrying spears. They turned to leave, one reaching to shut the door behind him.
Tim dashed over towards the door. “Wait, what are you doing? What’s going to happen to me?”
The men turned round. “You’re to be hanged, at the order of the lord of Gythyll. Between you and me, that must’ve been a pig of a place to break into. And on that note, we’re hoping that your friend’ll turn up for your hanging and we’ll be able to catch him to. We got some nice descriptions of him from his lordship. Sleep well.”
The man pushed Tim again, who went falling over backwards. The door closed and there was a definite sound of a bar being put into place and a lock being turned. As he sat there, Tim struggles silently against what measures the guards had put into place. His arms were bound behind him at the wrist and his belongings had all been taken away. To make it worse, a magic shield floated around Tim, stopping even his best attempts at spell-casting.
The cell was well-furnished for what was essentially death row, with a small but quite soft bed at one end and a small table in one corner. A pot opposite the bed seemed the most likely form of toilet there was. Despite all this, Tim sat stubbornly on the floor with his back against the wall. His fingers scratched at the wall behind him. All the walls were made of stone, but the room was still warm enough thanks to a faint magic fire suspended above the table. No doubt it would go out if anyone but the caster touched it, so Tim stayed far away from it.
It was late evening when the door next opened. From behind the wood came a young woman, no older than Tim. Everything about her suggested great care had been taken towards looking attractive. She wore a short dress, hardly marred by the dirt of the prison, and her hair was tied carefully up into a tail. She smiled as she walked into the cell. In her hands was a tray with a two bowls and a cup, which she set down onto the table.
Tim sat up straight as soon as she walked in the door, watching her. Once she had put the tray down she turned around and locked the door behind her.
With another smile, the woman said “Hello there. Can I help you with anything?”
Tim, still staring, said cautiously “Let me out, maybe?”
The woman laughed, shaking her head. “Sorry, you know I can’t do that, or I’d lose my job. And I might be up on the gallows in your place. I’m Elisa, the jailer. It’s nice to meet you.”
Tim blinked rapidly. “Wait, you’re the jailer?”
Elisa laughed “Yes, I’m the jailer. Who were you expecting?”
Tim looked closer at her. Elisa was wearing a dress that was not only short but also low-cut. Everything she wore seemed to have been picked to enhance her features.
Elisa cut through Tim’s thoughts with a cheerful “I understand that they’re not even letting you have a chance to defend yourself before the gallows. Shame, isn’t it? It’s the only times when I actually feel like a proper jailer. You know, when I’m having to get confessions out of people.”
“Confessions…?”
Elisa nodded “Yes. You know, when you admit to what you’ve done wrong? Though I was asked to make sure you regret what you did before the morning.”
Tim paled, his eyes widening. “You mean…like torture?”
Elisa nodded again, though she looked less cheerful. “Well, yes. I thought you knew. Didn’t the guards tell you that that’s how we do things around here?”
Tim shook his head frantically as he tried to edge backwards, away from the ever-smiling Elisa. Elisa, looking less concerned at Tim’s reaction than at her own duty, took a piece of paper from the tray she had brought. Muttering a few words quietly, she traced a symbol on it. After a few second, the paper glowed with a bright white light before disintegrating into wisps of smoke. Another barrier flashed above the heads of the two, extending all around the cell and down into the floor. For one brief moment everything went totally quiet.
When sound returned, Elisa turned back to Tim, an apologetic smile on her lips. “Sorry about that but this town is so set in its ways. They insist I need to torture someone to get them to confess to things. They don’t seem to understand how things really work.”
Tim tried smiling back, but for once his fake smiles would not appear. Eventually he said “Ok, so I did break into the lord’s house and steal his gem. I smashed it to, but I had no idea that that would stop it from working, honestly.”
Elisa laughed quietly. “It’s no use. They know you did it. Like I said, I’m just here to make you see the error of your ways before you die. Luckily for you I don’t believe in that kind of thing. I put up the sound ward supposedly so that the kiddies of the neighbourhood won’t have to put up with the screams of my prisoners, but I don’t usually torture anyone. Especially not if they’re just a thief. I’m not really a trained to be a jailor. I’m an enchantress really. I’m just doing this to save up for a place to live. The great thing about this job is that they let me sleep in a cell when they’re not all in use.”
Tim frowned slightly “You’re an enchantress? You don’t seem…evil enough to be one, I guess…”
Elisa smiled, though she looked somewhat embarrassed. “It was the only place that would take me, the training place for enchantresses. I can’t afford to go learn anywhere else, and now that I’ve specialised it’ll be hard to go back. So I’ll have to do what I can…”
“I didn’t think the enchantresses’ was cheap.”
Elisa’s face was perfectly still “They gave me a scholarship. They said that somebody like me could go far as an enchantress…” she looked carefully away from Tim, her eyes somewhat duller.
Tim smirked slightly. “Is that exactly what they said?”
Elisa frowned, but eventually she turned back to Tim, her face once again happy “Well, no, they said that someone with a body like mine, someone that anyone would go for, could do well. But I never really understood what they meant.” Her eyes radiated complete and utter innocence. Tim laughed slightly, before seeing the honesty in her eyes.
“Oh dear…You’re serious, aren’t you?”

[theasianguy]

I wonder if that town has an elementary, middle, and high school or if you just go into collage and learn how to get a job....

Yeah, probably the latter. -_-

[Jiin6]

well, i guess she was lucky get a scholarship

[Blobfish]

Yep. (To be explained later, I think, but meh)

Generally the different magicians take different jobs based on their skills, and they formed organisations similar to guilds or somesuch. Now each guild takes in an teached kids. They get paid by the kid's parents in exchange for basically getting them into a steady, good job in the future. Sometimes they'll take kids just on a scholarship basis, if they've got the assets for the job. Either way, the guild'll take a certain bit of the person's pay for any number of years after they quit their tutorage.
Poor Elisa here has the body to be an enchantress but the brain and maturity to be a small cabbage. Not a good match.

[Blobfish]

Elisa frowned in confusion, but shrugged and laughed. “What does it matter? I’ve now got a job, and you’re going to be hanged.” She remained quiet for a while, and Tim just looked away, face set into a grimace. After a while, Elisa looked back at him and continued “Ok, so I wanted to spend my life making magical swords, but we’ve all got to accept the skills we’re given, right? Why did you start thieving?”
Tim rolled his eyes, but turned to face her and said, with a somewhat dull voice “I didn’t want to follow the family trade, so I snuck out and took to the road. My mother knew about it, but my father is probably still annoyed. Still, he’s got my two brothers to dote over, so he’ll be fine.”
Elisa laughed quietly. “And here’s me saying you can’t avoid the job you’re given. Still, I guess that’s why you’re here.” She moved closer and sat down on the floor opposite Tim, still smiling. “I always find it so interesting talking to the people I meet here. They make me want to leave and go make a better life elsewhere. I like talking to people.”
Tim’s eyes narrowed “You’re interrupting my final night’s sleep, but for all that I could be annoyed, you’re the only person here. It’s a nuisance. Still, it might be better if you left, either way.”
“Why? It’s not like you can hurt me at all. Oh, I get it. You’re waiting to be rescued, right? It won’t work. But fine, if you’re going to be unsociable, I guess I don’t have a choice. I’ll see you in the morning. And then you’ll die.”
“My friend wouldn’t help me. Honestly!”
Elisa smiled one last time at Tim before opening the door, stepping through and locking it behind her. Tim just glared at the door, trying to move his hands from the rope that held them.

~
Elisa hummed as she returned to the desk at the front of the jail. Quickly she gathered a length of rope from below the desk and left it near the door before sitting down behind her chair, hidden by the desk.
It was another twenty minutes or so before the door was cautiously opened and a young man peered in to look. With visible relief, he opened the door fully and walked in. Elisa, looking up from a book she was reading, traced a series of symbols onto the floor. A shimmer of light ran through the floor to the rope. Muttering a phrase, Elisa started guiding the rope with her hands, making it snake towards the intruder.
Before Jake could react, the rope wrapped around his legs, pulling them together and tripping him over. He hit the floor and started immediately trying to sketch a spell-symbol onto the floor, but the rope wound around his wrists and bound them together. Rolling over, he turned to look as Elisa approached, grinning.
Elisa smiled and crouched down in front of the intruder, just far enough to be away from any wild thrashing he might make. She looked quickly at his bonds, nodded, and drew another symbol, stopping her infrequent muttering. After a pause, she said “So I’ll go ahead and guess that you’re here to rescue that thief, right?”
Jake sighed, trying to get his hands in a place to move. “I’m here trying to visit a friend. I didn’t know there were restrictions on visiting hours.”
“Sure, your voice is sounding so sincere right now. What’s his name?”
“The man I’m visiting? Tim. I wanted to apologise for what I said to him before he got killed. I didn’t intend to break him out.”
“Tim practically told me you’d help him. But either way, you look just like the guy they’re after for that robbery. So I guess we can lock you up and kill you, too.”
“I just walked in here, legally and everything! You can’t prove it was me! You can’t sentence me by yourself, you’re a caretaker!” Jake shouted frantically, struggling now.
Elisa frowned, then laughed quietly. “I guess it must seem so, but I’m the jailer, and I can get the judges here if I need to…but I guess I should let you go.”
Jake froze. “Really?”
Elisa nodded, reaching down and untying the ropes. When just one rope – the rope round his wrists – was left, she said “It’s too late to be bothering anyone over a couple of thieves. But you have to let me join you for a short while.”
Jake frowned, sitting up. “What? Why?”
“The way I figure it, you guys must be quite rich with the amount you steal. And I want to make money quickly. And I’ve not seen your wanted poster before this business, so I should be OK. And then I can buy a huge mansion and be one of the leaders of the guild! And I can help. Really I can. I can charm people into letting you in and stuff.”
Jake smiled back. “Ok, you sound like you’d be great as our friend and assistant. And we’ll give you your fair share. Let me and Tim go and we’ll all go off before sunrise.”
Elisa laughed, undoing the last of the ropes. “I’ll bring your friend to the outskirts when I come, in a few hours, OK? I’ve got to make it look official.”
Jake stood up, as did Elisa, who took a step backwards. “And don’t even try to overpower me and help your friend. You’ll never find the key, and picking the lock will make you take too long. And you’ll never find the scroll for getting rid of his shield.”
Jake nodded “OK, OK. Meet in the woods to the South?”
Elisa grinned back at him. “In a couple of hours. Be there or I’ll have to bring him to his death.”
Jake, shrugging, walked as calmly as he could and left, closing the door behind him as he went back into the night. His face turned from smiling to frowning, and he immediately started scrambling over fences and water-butts until he was on the roof of the prison.
Tracing with one hand, holding himself steady with the other, he started trying to see what was going on.

~~

(Some of my characters are mad. I love writing mad people)

[theasianguy]

Mad people? LOL

Elisa didn't really seem dumb right there, y'know.... Oh well, still a good story.

[Blobfish]

I know, I know. It was difficult, since i only jhad a few hrs left, to make up something where it could all happen.

[kitini]

It works well, Blob, I can't wait to see what happens next ^__^ This ought to be interesting~

[Blobfish]

I failed. Didn't write anything last week. Been improving one of my main stories. I'm tempted to use the 'if I write 2k words this week...' thing, since easter just happened....so much chocolate....

[theasianguy]

2k of words? Well, at least try. If you can't then just stash the chocolate so no one will eat it.

[Blobfish]

You think I can't write 2k words a week? =p never said they had to be on this story
I've already written 1k on a ew project ^_^

I can write 2k words a day in the holidays =p

~~~~
Postponed due to sudden interest in a new story.