The Diary of Lissa Quicksilver

I've been chatting with this being named Tip, who calls herself a 'kitsune', on this magic journal in between daily life. She sounds like a ton of fun; kinda like me if I had mad magical powers and could turn myself into a fox.

Soooo... I was on my way back to my place from the Dragon to get the map and stuff for Vendince. Met up with Patch on the way. (I let him roam the streets during the day when I don't need him. He's got a mage-collar that keeps him from going more than a quarter-mile from me, makes him immune to mind-affecting spells, and it'll shock the daylights out of anyone who tries to remove it. Between that and his size, he's safe enough. A dog Patch's size needs his exercise.) Just as we were rounding the corner to my apartment building, a gate opens up! Not a normal gate, a magical one! And who should come strolling out but a bright blue fox.

"Tip?" I asked uncertainly. Patch immediately started growling at the unfamiliar smell.

"That's me!" She eyed Patch a bit nervously. "Heard ya weren't lookin' forward ta bathin' yer dog, so I came ta give you a hand! Speakin' of that, mind callin' him off?"

I blinked, devoutly wishing for a mug of the Dragon's finest to calm my nerves. "Um, hi. Nice to meet you in person." I turned to Patch. "Patch, li seerano." (That's Gnomish for "they're safe/a friend." He was trained in my language for the commands you really don't want an enemy giving.) Patch immediately stopped growling. His hackles went down, ears went up, and he trotted forward to give our visitor a thorough sniffing. Much to my amusement, Tip returned the favor.

"Whew, you were right! He does need a bath." She sat back on her haunches, blue-and-white tail curled around her feet. "So, ya want me ta start now?"

I looked around. The streets were pretty empty, but there was always the chance of a passerby, and I really didn't feel like explaining Tip. Or any visible effects of her magic. "Not quite. We were on our way to my place; it's not too far now. You should be fine there as long as you don't shift into a tallfolk form. Go ahead and hitch a ride on Patchie-boy if you can hang on bareback. He won't mind now that you're properly introduced."

Tip nimbly jumped onto Patch's back, where a saddle with complete tack- all the same shade of blue as her fur- formed underneath her. Patch woofed, looking around at his new passenger in astonishment. It's hard to tell expressions on a fox's face, but I'm pretty sure Tip was smirking. "Tack ain't a problem fer me. Lead on, MacDuff!"

I gave her a strange look, starting my jog home again. "My name isn't MacDuff, you know that."

The blue fox-being waved a paw dismissively. "Just a sayin' from my homeworld."

Weird. But then, by definition a talking blue fox riding a dog with full tack is weird. It was only a few minutes before we reached my door in the rather dilapidated apartment. "Okay, stay back until I give you the all-clear, Tip. I've got a whole lot of traps in here to discourage would-be burglars, and I need to disarm them before anyone else can go in."

Tip bounced off of Patch's back, the blue tack dissolving into thin air. "Hey, cool! Can I watch?"

I shrugged. "Sure, just make sure to step where I tell you to and don't touch any closed containers or windows. Otherwise you might get anything from an arrow to poisoned spikes in your paws to a thunderstone going off right in your ears." Said ears flattened back at that one.

"Owwww. Y'sure all this is necessary?" I began disabling the poison-needle trap on the door lock.

"In Scardale? You bet your furry blue tail. I've been here nearly a year, the local underground knows my skill with traps, and I can still count on at least one attempted break-in per month." Having finished with the door trap, I unlocked and opened it. Tip looked up at the five-foot ceiling.

"I see why ya warned me against a human form here. Must be right cosy for you, though, eh?"

"That's why I rented it." Tip and I chatted all through my normal routine of trap-disabling. She wanted to know about me, gnomes, Scardale, Faerun... anything and everything, really. For my part, I found the kitsune immensely entertaining, although I did have to call her away from traps a couple times.

I stood up and dusted off my hands. "Okay, all done! The window and container traps are still active, but other than that, it's safe to walk around." I whistled for Patch. A black-and-white blur came galloping into the sitting-room, immediately flopping down on the worn rag rug for a good roll.

Tip wrinkled her nose. "Okay, definitely time to do something about yer dirty dog there! Get him ta hold still for a sec, will ya?"

I still wasn't quite sure of this, but it's rude to refuse a gift. Besides, I was curious. And I like Tip. "Okay. Patch, sit!" Patch sat, panting and wagging his tail.

The kitsune walked around Patch in a circle, studying him intently and muttering under her breath. Finally she stopped and sat up on her haunches. "Right, I think I got it."

"You think?! Wait, you're not sure about this?" I was getting alarmed. Tip, however, was into her spellcasting and oblivious to the outside world. She waved her paws in a complicated pattern, muttered more odd words, and a sparkling white cloud that smelled of mint descended on Patch. A moment later, the cloud vanished, leaving behind a rather confused dog.

A perfectly clean, perfectly white dog.

"AUUUUGGGGGGHHHH!" I threw my arms around his furry neck. "Patchie, baby, is that you? Did she hurt you, puppywuffums?" He slurped an all too familiar tongue across my face, and I felt the distinctive tooling of Patch's leather mage-collar. "It is you!" I released my hold on Patch (who now smelled faintly of mint), wiped my face, and turned to glare at Tip. "What in the Nine Hells of Baator did you DO to my dog?!"

"I cleaned 'im! See, spotless!" She gave me a bright, innocent smile. I wasn't impressed, having used that smile many times myself.

"He's supposed to have spots! Black and white patches- that's why he's called Patch!"

"Well... he's clean, ain't he? An' it won't hurt nothin' ta have him white instead of black an' white..." Tip's voice trailed off under my glare. "...will it?"

"Let me make this crystal clear. I am a professional thief. I work at night. Many times, Patch works with me. A white dog will stick out at night like an orc in the Elven High Court. This is Not Good, Tipster. I warned you earlier about side effects. You've got 48 hours to turn him back to his proper colors, or I start in on Revenge." With that, I stormed into my bedroom to find my map of the Zhentish embassy. And let off some steam in my journal.

A picture can be found here, courtesy of Tip. Artwork won't save you from Revenge, Tipster! (Although it is a pretty good rendering of events.)

Current Mood: irritated

Next part of the tale is here!
( Read more... )

(OOC: This turned out a lot longer than I had planned, so I'm posting it in pieces and lj-cutting the pieces. Special thanks to snowelf for the comment that inspired this detour, and for guest-starring! For the original inspiration, see snowelf's comment on this thread. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming!)


Ahahaha! I just got the best idea for a joke I've had in a looong time. The Zhents will never know what hit them!
( Read more... )

Current Mood: mischievous

Gods. I think my head will fall off. I wish it would, then it wouldn't hurt. When am I going to learn to refuse a challenge?

No, not a drinking contest. I'm not that stupid; just about any of the tall-folk can drink someone my size under the table without a problem. No, someone started an impromptu dancing contest at the Dragon last night while I was there. I love to dance. That's where I got the name Lissabella- lovely dancer. And Chandra plays an irresistible jig, even when she's not putting magic behind the music. So I joined in, got hot and thirsty, downed a mug of mead, danced some more, got more thirsty... you get the picture. I did make it home still conscious, albeit extremely giggly. The memories get kind of hazy after the fourth set. I just hope I didn't totally humiliate myself. Don't think I let any job details slip though, I'm pretty good about that even when I'm drunk. And of course there's the fact that I got home alive.

Hmm, I seem to remember writing in my diary last night. What did I write?

Oh, dear gods.

Um, Morrie? I apologize for that. Normally I have a bit more class. And discretion. Arrgh, I'm only making it worse.

Time to go walk the dog, I think. It's snowing out there. Maybe the chill will help my poor head.

Look, I have a picture now! I noticed that the other diaries I've seen through this weird diary have pictures, so I asked a talented local artist to do one of me. I'm quite pleased- it's a very good likeness.

I haven't been up to anything very exciting lately. The first stages of a job are usually rather boring. Watching the household, getting friendly with the staff, learning the routines of the homeowner and everyone else who lives there, making a mental map of the layout. All crucial to a smooth robbery, of course, but boring all the same. A lot of burglars don't bother, which is one reason why a lot of burglars get caught. My employers know that I don't get jobs done quickly, but I get them done reliably where others have failed.

In my observations of Wenderan (I don't think he's a real lord, and he doesn't act like one), a number of interesting things have come to light. Chief among them is the fact that yes, he really is training with the monks of the Long Death! He's quite discreet about it, but not discreet enough. I tracked down One-Eye the other day, gave him a tongue-lashing for not telling me about that aspect of the job, and demanded more gold for the combined hazards of the Long Death/Dancers feud and having to deal with a homeowner who can fight unarmed. He argued a bit, but gave in once I really started getting shrill. (Gnomes and halflings can reach truly ear-piercing notes; smaller voice-boxes, you know.) Hah. Now I feel somewhat better about this job. It may be dangerous, but at least now I'm getting adequate compensation. Baravar willing, I'll be able to slip in and out with neither the Long Death or the Dancers knowing who did the deed.

I think I'll head down to the Dancing Dragon. I'm feeling a bit lonely tonight. Haven't had a steady lover since Sathin signed onto a ship heading north into the Moonsea. Hope he makes it through all right, the Moonsea is even worse than the Dragon Coast in my opinion. They're both dangerous, but the Moonsea is as cold as Auril Frostmaiden's breath. Brrr, I hate being cold!

Wonder where Nell's been? Haven't heard from her in a while. Eh, she's probably been working hard to find a cleric who'll resurrect that doppelganger friend of hers. Best of luck if you're reading this, Nell!

Well, things have been busy since last I wrote.  First, I decided to go find Reneire the Red Wizard and ask her about the strange new capabilities this diary is developing.  Not only am I getting... well, comments, for lack of a better term- from a "nazgirl" on another plane, if I open this thing backwards I see other people's diaries!  And I have yet to see a diary from a place I recognize!  Too weird.  It's fun, but one of the tenets of the Sly One's faith is never to trust blindly.  For all I know, that Thayan put some sort of mind-affecting curse on this thing.  So I rode Patch down to the Thayan enclave, only to be stonewalled by the flunkies.  'Honored Reneire isn't receiving visitors... no, we don't know when she will see you, madam... the master of the enclave isn't here just now, would you like to leave him a message?'  Hmph.  That wizard had better get back to me within the fortnight.  Or, once I'm done with the Wenderan job, I think I'll take a good look at the Thayan enclave's security; there's got to be a hole somewhere.

And that gets me back to Wenderan and his magical kukri.  I surveyed his house over several days and nights, nothing insurmountable.  Human and half-orc guards, nice locks on all the doors and windows, alarm spells on the first-story windows.  None on the second story or attic, though.  Tsk, tsk!  A conversation with Chandra, a half-elven bard and friend of mine, put a different light on this job though.

I ran into her at the Dancing Dragon, predictably enough.  She's the entertainer there six nights a week.  I walked in and sat down towards the end of a set...

I finally managed to find a diary to replace the old one! It wasn't easy; I'm not about to write my secrets in anything that doesn't have a good lock (complete with needle-trap), and isn't magically warded. What's the good of writing in code if a wizard comes along and casts comprehend language? Well, the Red Wizards got a new arrival from Thay last week who has the skill to cast the wards I wanted, and I picked up my journal today. The wizard (Reneire) even threw in a nice little sepia snake sigil, discreetly tucked in with my name and all the 'keep out or else' warnings on the first page. The Red Wizards may be slaving scumballs, but they do solid work.

Why all the precautions? This is Scardale! The most wretched hive of scum and villainy you'll find this side of the Dragon Coast (or the Sembian court). And even if it weren't, I do not want anyone to know what I do for a living unless I tell them. I, friend Diary, am a thief. To be more precise, I'm a burglar; street robbery is for thugs and those without ambition. I lighten the cashboxes of the wealthy, relieve them of the burden of too many jewels and ornaments. I mean, really, nobody *needs* two chests of jewelry. And if I teach them to be more careful of security, all the better.

Whoops, must finish this later. Patch (my dog; companion, guard and steed, all in one) is whining and putting his head in my lap. Probably wants supper. Come to think of it, so do I.


* * * * * * * * * *
Later
* * * * * * * * * *

Well, my luck is in today! While I was out buying dinner for myself and Patch, I ran into One-Eye. (No, that's not his real name; and no, I don't know what it is. Older human man, neat gray hair and beard, missing an eye. One of my contacts for jobs.) Evidently one of the local 'nobles', Lord Wenderan, has a magical kukri, and somebody else wants it. Pity I never learned to use the kukri, but it's a rather exotic weapon- a sort of heavy curved dagger. Oh well, maybe this lord has a magical dagger or short sword. In any case, I took the job; the pay sounded good, and One-Eye always follows through. So, after supper's settled a bit, Patch and I are off to do some reconaissance!