Today's prompt wrote:
"Happy Starfall!" " you too! " The young imperial smiled as she flew down toward the tourmaline archives. Starfall was so fun. She hung up the lanterns in the spot asked, then grabbed a book. Soon she was engrossed.
"Hello? HELLO? There's a tundra here!" A dragon called. She started. How long hae she been asleep?
Mandatory item wrote:
a tundra named Millie
When the explosion went off,
Independent turned to the mayor with a lazy grin. "Would you, ah, like me to—"
"Yes, yes!" snapped the mayor, waving angry claws at her. "I hire you to go take care of it!" They turned away, muttering about treasure, and Independent pulled herself to her feet. She yawped a summoning and scattered all down the city streets, dragons popped out of shops or market stalls or, notably, a barrel of old dead fish.
The Contractors gathered around Independent, asking what was up, what were they doing today, and Independent snapped her jaws for their attention. "Our dear client, Mayor—" she blanked on the name, and so barreled on— "of the city, has grown weary of our presence here in their town."
Mutterings and curses. The Contractor who'd been belly-deep in fish barrel shook their head, utterly unashamed.
"But before we go," Independent said, lifting her voice above the complaints, "we've got one last job."
"That explosion over there?" hollered one Contractor.
Independent pointed at them. "Bingo! That explosion over there! Let's take care of it!" She jumped forward and the Contractors followed, falling in line behind her, forming one large noisy pack pelting down the streets with the residents, all decked out in Starfall celebratory attire, yelping and hastilly making way before they could get trampled. Still, at least one market stall was overturned; Independent saw a stack of books go up in a flurry of loose pages out of the corner of an eye.
Maybe there was a reason the mayor regretted their contract.
Well, they'd be out of their scales soon enough. One last job before that, though. Independent skidded to a stop before the building the explosion had originated: the Tourmaline Archives. Dragons wheeled in confusion outside it, and pink smoke still floated through the air. At least it hadn't seemed to have caused arcane flame, or otherwise spread—
that was always a pain to clean up.
"Contractors!" Independent called. "Split into two-three teams. Three outside on perimeter, don't let anyone else inside, keep watch for anything amiss. Two enter from the roof, work your way down through each room, towards the explosion. Two through front entrance, another two through side and back entrances each, and do the same, search each room, go to explosion. Identify source of explosion, assess damage, determine what can be done to fix or stop it, don't be, eh, too risky! This is the Arcanist's territory, after all!"
Rough laughter bounced between Contractors, and one asked, "And you, boss?"
"My team! We're going through the hole." Independent showed her teeth, to yips and howls of delight from the mercenaries, and as they began to disperse, sorting themselves into teams, she leaped forward without waiting.
Decipher and
Torga flanked her on either side, and together they flew up to the gaping hole in the Archives' side.
Pink smoke billowed out from the crack still, sparkling and gritty to the teeth, and Independent held her breath as she dove down, her fellows close on her tail. She landed with a thump to polished tile, and as her regular vision eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, she swung her head around, scanning for heat signatures.
"Hello? HELLO!" She bounded forward, to a tundra sprawled across a cushion, but saw she was unconscious. The smoke rose faintly off her fur. "There's a tundra here," she yelled over her shoulder. "Seems a mage got too frisky with the scrolls. Nothing else of threat."
Decipher nodded and turned, jumping back out of the hole with fierce beats of her wings, to report back to the mayor.
"She's coming to," Torga said, having trotted over, and peeling back the eyelid of the tundra to stare at the blank pink eye gazing vaguely back. "Seems to be alright. Hey, what's your name?"
"M-Millie," the tundra said blearily. "W-what happened? Why am I—why aren't I an imperial anymore?? Is this—" a disgusted snarl— "Am I covered in
fur?"
"What sort of spells were you reading," Torga asked sternly.
Independent yawned, turning away to scan their surroundings, just in case. A short job, then. Hopefully the teams didn't break too many things during their search. She'd told them no pillaging, but . . .
Her heat vision caught a flicker of movement behind the pillars. Independent stopped short, coming to full attention, watching that spot. No further movement, but then. A flash of pink, then two thin glowing slits. Two more.
Four more. All glowing. Glaring.
Eyes.
"Torga," Independent drawled, interrupting an argument between aberration and imperial-turned-tundra. "It wasn't spells."
"What?" Torga said grumpily, turning to her.
Independent nodded to the monstrous shadow lurking in the darkness still. "Something's playing games."
A thunderous growl echoed through the hall, sending vibrations rippling down the tiled floor and juddering up Independent's body. She bared her teeth, flexed her claws, enjoying the sensation. Torga snarled and jumped up to stand by Independent's side, facing the beast.
"Let's hope those other teams get here quick," xe growled.
"For sure," Independent said easily, stalking towards the beast. "We wouldn't want them to miss out on the fun."
read before friending, blocking, reporting etc. Please! (Hopefully not the last one tho :)
(non-fodder) dergs from u are safe with me!
arcane is the best. Change my mind. (clan lore)
lore, art and more!
- 
