Game 1
The sun was high over the stone road. A light wind blew over the stalks of corn, just five feet tall. Deep wagon grooves had been cut into the road after centuries of travel. A lone figure, three feet tall, corn looming high over his head, walked down the road, ascending a high hill step by step.
As he nears the top he begins to see white towers which might have been clouds before but were clearly not anymore and as his head peaks over the top he sees first the roofs, lower than the towers, then the wall, lower than some roofs and then as he reaches the top he sees the moat and the little river which runs beneath the draw bridge.
He cocks his head at the sight of two figures waving their arms, as if in an aggressive argument. One in shining armor, the other wrapped in a cloak. He makes his way towards the pair, descending the hill and approaches them.
"What seems to be the problem?" he asked the guard, the shining figure from the hilltop.
The guard replied in a low, drunken voice, "This thiefff shtolle m-myie mone-" he hiccupped at the end.
"I did not! He just wants payment!"
A group of guards across the draw bridge eggs on their compatriot, each seems to be of a varied degree of inebriation.
"Is payment into the city required, now?"
"Well…no." The guard scratched his helmet and the visor came down over his eyes, he did not seem to care. "But I wants me mohney backs!" He waved his spear in the air. He turned the spear on the woman and said, "Gives it bakcs!"
"Watch where you point that thing!" the cried.
The hobbit cocked his head and noticed the slight blue tinge to the woman's skin. This spoke to him of silver blood, a fae-kin trait. Not many creatures possessed blood of a different color, more in these parts than others, but still not very common. Some fae-kin were allergic to certain metals, usually iron, but sometimes copper as well. "It seems to me that this woman is a fae-kin, and so is probably allergic to copper."
"Whah?" the guard asked. His jaw slacked open, revealing poorly looked for teeth specked with black and brown.
"Fae-kin cannot handle copper," he fidgeted in his robe a little and picked out some gold, silver and electrum pieces and pretended to pick them up off the ground. "You see, it seems the woman's purse was slit by a thief some miles back and it is leaking on the street." A cup was thrown from the battlements, white liquid spilled out of it. It missed its mark, the guard, by several dozen feet. "I do not see a single copper in the drippage from the purse. Also, her skin has a blueish tint to it, marking silver blood, a distinctly faerie trait. She could not handle your coppers."
"Coppers?" he asked.
"Yes," the hobbit smiled. "It seems I am more familiar with your own currency than you are."
The guard took a step back and said, "Nos one smeaks to me like that. BACK UPS! BACK UP!"
No guard arrived. The human woman, dressed in mottled green cloak, wearing leather gloves and leather boots, took out the bow on her back and knocked an arrow. The guards under wall laughed even harder and egged on their associate.
"Fuck you!" the guard chucked the spear at the hobbit, missing by several yards. The woman fired an arrow and it struck the armor of the guard near the neck but bounced right off. It was not a long drawn arrow. He turned his attention to her and took out his short sword, having wasted his only long range weapon on her. She fired another arrow and it glanced off of his arm.
"Have a sandwich." The hobbit retrieved a sandwich from his robe sleeve. The guard's attention turned to the sandwich and he took it.
A white haired figure in red coatage and black leather entered their ken. They turned to him, on his back were twin long swords and at his side was a sakaboto. He dropped a bag into his patch on his side, walked straight up to the guard. He looked the guard up and down, the guard looked at him blandly. The tall, white haired man took the sandwich.
At first the guard did not quite understand what had just happened, only registering that he should be unhappy about. And then the white-haired figure took a bite out of his sandwich, infuriating the guard because he soiled the beautiful sandwich, meant as a gift to him by a fellow warrior. He took his short sword and stabbed at the tall man, missing by a foot.
The hobbit and the woman ran across the bridge, the woman stepped too close to the edge of the bridge and fell over into the water. This elicited more eruptions of laughter from the guards. She swam downstream and climbed out of the water at the nearest bank. She looked downways and saw the guard and the man fighting. She made for the draw bridge.
The tall man took out his sakaboto, parried the next to stabs, missed a swipe at the head and continued to eat the sandwich.
The drunk took a step back, gazed at the red-cloaked man and lunged with his short sword. The man side stepped and swung his Sakaboto at the back of the drunk's head. There was a clang of metal. The drunk stumbled forward, but still was not unconscious. The man hit the back of his helmet again and the guard fell unconscious.
Red-coat stepped forward and began to rifle through the guard's pockets.
The guards across the draw bridge stopped laughing, they took their spears they had leaned against the wall and three ran out and surrounded their fallen comrade and the red-coat man.
"You're under arrest, miscreant." Guard Three stated.
"I was only looking for another sandwich," Red-coat smiled.
Guards one and two started to laugh at the irony of the situation, but they held their spears firm.
"Is this really such a crime?"
Guard one replied between chuckles, "One: you fought a city guard, a keeper of the peace. Two: You knocked the guard unconscious. Three: You rifled through the man's pockets like a common thief."
"Oh, that makes more sense," Red-coat beamed. "See yah." He leaped over the unconscious guard and ran between Guards One and Two, heading for the moat. Guard Three stabbed at him and nicked him the side, drawing some blood and slowing him down a little, but not enough for them to catch him.
Red-coat leaped into the moat and hid under the drawbridge. The guards ran up to the edge of the water looked around. The woman they had disturbed slipped past them and walked carefully down the center of the twenty-foot draw bridge.
The humor over, the hobbit ran away into the city.
The guards lost interest and Red-coat swam downstream and climbed up the city wall with some difficulty. His hands were wet, but his hands were strong, too and he could afford the right grip on the stones to climb up the thirty feet. He swung himself up over the last few stones. Guards were posted every few hundred feet. None of them seemed to care, one seemed to notice. He made for the stairs he came to the top of the wall by.
"Off to a seedy bar."
The woman, uncertain of where she was, walked into a shop where she hoped to find out. The sign had a shoe and a hammer on it. It was small, the building only ten feet across, but the building was long, she walked thirty feet just to reach the counter. One the walls were lines of shoes on shelves, some were grey leather, well-crafted but for poor people. As she approached the aft the shoes increased in cost and finery until they were middle class.
The merchant at the back said, "How may I help you, fair maiden?"
The hobbit, began to sing softly to himself as he weaved his way through the busy tall-people street. "Xe-eltho-or, Guardian of the Abyss, Keepin' things from goin' amiss, sit 'round 'im fo' a good store, it won't ever be a bore." Xelthor the hobbit liked to think he was good at immediate poetry. "Where am I?" Xelthor wondered.
He made his way out to the edge of the street where there weren't as many people. "I'll go in here." The shop he entered had a wooden sign with a grandfather clock and an old man with a lamp in his hand.
The store was twenty feet across and thirty feet deep. He opened the door and closed it. He looked at the piles of antiques, a row of clocks lined one wall, a row of lamps another, piles of wooden horses and old toys were strewn about, bookshelves with ancient tomes marked off one corner, open chests full of cloth and clothes made another aisle. He walked down the middle aisle with all sorts of kipple and mathoms atop old sofas and bedside tables.
He walked to the counter where there sat an old man with a pair of spectacles and in grey and green clothes, "How may I help you little…" he furrowed his brow and puckered his lips, and then he smiled a wide smile and unfurled his brow, "How may I help you."
"I would like to buy something, good sir." Xelthor said.
"What would you like to buy for your house?" the merchant asked.
"What do you have?"
"We have chests, troves, lamps, books, sofas, beds, tables, clocks, toys, little magic trinkets and lots of other things as well, here, I'll show you around." He jumped off his stool revealing him to be small and a hunchback. He walked slowly over to the door in the counter.
"I would like to buy a lamp," Xelthor smiled.
"A lamp, huh? Well then, let's go and look at them. Would you a magic model, a fire model, a luminescent model, from what era?"
"Fire magic, please." The hobbit had unhooked his wallet and his hood fell back from his head as he waved the wallet in the air.
"Yes, yes, kind sir, of course. Right this way," he opened and closed the door across the counter and waved for Xelthor to follow him to the wall of lamps.