The materials suddenly sink back into the ground, right out of reach. The young woman who has been trying to carefully coax them out curses, letting out a streak of words indicating disgust at herself and her carelessness.

She moves back a bit and plies her craft again, slowly teasing the materials back up.

The beast springs up from nowhere and sinks its fangs into her upper arm. Cursing, she springs up and manages to fling it away. Cursing more, looking infuriated, she throws down her tool and whips out a sword and longknife from her pack. She bears down on the ragus. The sword falls from her hand in moments.

The knife stabs, stabs, stabs into the creature's chest time and again, until eventually it weakens and falls over. Her hands move to its neck and the life still left in it is slowly strangled away.

The young woman strips the carcass of all usable materials, a smile playing around her lips.

The barman hands her another note. It's vellum; rolled up, scented, and sealed with an important-looking seal. She stares at this one too, then sighs and heads off at a strong pace. After some searching through the many-roomed buildings of Yrkanis, she finds the person she was apparently looking for.

She hands him the note, and dappers change hands. He reads it to her, aloud. She stares at him for a while, an incredulous look on her face, then rolls her eyes and heaves another sigh. After a short conversation, she hands him back the vellum, and he scribbles a short note on the back. More dappers change hands. As she exits the building, she rolls up the vellum and ties it closed with a piece of ribbon.

The young woman entrusts the note to the barman, and ambles around Yrkanis for a while, perusing the wares of local merchants, and eventually heading for the city gates. A short-haired man approaches her, and they talk shortly a little way outside of the city and to the side of the road. After he leaves, she sits down along the fence near the gates, and waits.

She watches as two Matis men stand opposite eachother, talking. Their faces express dislike of eachother. Sometimes one sneers, laughing derisively. After a while, one leaves, saying a few words to her before walking off. The one that stays wears a pleased expression, and she walks with him to the stables of Davae. He gives her dappers, and she buys a packer mektoub after looking the ones on sale over for a while.

A Fyros man comes walking up, looking angry. He speaks to the Matis man, voice hard. After looking from one man to other, she walks over to her mektoub, and takes the reins. The beast stands still as she pulls on the reins, then pulls harder. Walking around to its backside, she pushes it instead. It does not move. She takes out a large sword, and slaps the flat of the blade against the mektoub's backside. It starts walking. During all this, she exchanges a few words now and then with the Matis man who had gifted her the packer.

She nods at both men, then walks off leading the mektoub by the reins. Underneath the gate she goes, following the road for a short while, then going cross-country until Yrkanis. She walks up to the stables there, and finds a free spot for her new beast of burden.

Last edited by Norah (2008-10-11 19:04:05)

The young woman is standing not far from one of the buildings in Yrkanis, the kind that contains homes for homins. She turns her head to look at its many windows and outcroppings. Then she holds up the small bag she had been carrying, weighing it. Her expression turns wistful and a little pained.

After tucking away the bag somewhere deep inside her pack, she stalks off in the direction of the Karavan Altar. Once there, she stands some ten metres or so away from the place where homins are teleporting into the city. Her face intent, she scans the crowd of people coming in. About fifteen minutes later, her expression turns resigned and a little sad, and she walks away.

Now she stands near the Yrkanis gate and the city's official welcomer, some hope still shining in her eyes. Again her eyes move over the crowd of people coming into the city, head and neck straining slightly this way or that. Some time goes by before she heaves a sigh, shakes her head, and heads out of the city.