Mercurial Rising [Lunaris & Mnemaxa]
<h1 id="title">Elliquiy Role Playing Forums</h1>
		<h2 id="linktree">Play-By-Post: Bondage, D/s, S&amp;M =&gt; Bondage: Exotic Solos =&gt; Topic started by: Mnemaxa on 07-07-2009, 09:43:01</h2>
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				Title: <strong>Mercurial Rising [Lunaris &amp; Mnemaxa]</strong><br>
				Post by: <strong>Mnemaxa</strong> on <strong>07-07-2009, 09:43:01</strong>
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				The city - and that was how shi always thought of it, <em>The City</em> - was a wondrous and dangerous place.&nbsp; The world had progressed, in some ways, but in others it was still woefully backwards.&nbsp; Here, in the City, there was enough advancement and sophistication that shi could make hir way freely through its streets without fear of being caught.&nbsp; Or, at least caught onto.&nbsp; Clothing was still a difficulty, though not as much of one as it could have been.&nbsp; Again, sophistication bred weakness.<br><br>The sound of the tram screaming its pain as the Herder forced the bound elementals to work warned those who might be on the tracks to vacate them at once.&nbsp; Clouds of steam joined the dusky, cloying smoke of the sweat-houses and alchemics, where industrious peoples of all kinds worked for their meager pay and sought to better their lot.&nbsp; They would fail of course, for the gentry did not wish those of lesser stature to rise up and demonstrate that there was no difference between blue blood and red.&nbsp; The autonomous looms and fabric makers were half alive, sorcery and mechanics and elementals and steel combining at the behest of the Herders and guided by the workers to produce their wares for those who could pay for them.<br><br>Mercurial paid for very little, if shi could help it.&nbsp; <br><br>Between gentry and worker, between noble and peasant, there lay three sorts: guildsfolk, serving their masters with skill and guaranteed wages; wanderers, seeking strange thing in stranger places and doing great and evil deeds for their own reasons; and the lost, who were more poor than serfs, masterless, landless, worthless, save to those who knew secrets.&nbsp; Mercurial supposed she fell into the middle category, though shi was certain the Guild of Acquisition would dearly love to sink their claws - or knives - into hir.&nbsp; <br><br>Not that they could ever catch hir.&nbsp; <br><br>At the moment shi had just finished walking through the markets, apparently dressed in thick breeches of heavy leather, a bulky woven tunic of coarse burlap.&nbsp; A thick leather belt with many pouches and containers rested about hir hips (though most of these were stuffed with pits of colored paper, sand, useless bits of wire, and buttons), and shi was a he.&nbsp; A he with dirty blond curls that fell into his dirty face, rough hands, and a beaten, unhappy look to him.&nbsp; Under these clothes he wore other clothing, and the knife hidden in his sleeve would make loosing them very easy.&nbsp; <br><br>The gates were open, it being early morning, and the people who had been camped near the outer walls were slowly streaming in, the guards going through their carts of wares and gathering their information about who was coming and going.&nbsp; In addition, of course, to collecting their bribes to overlook certain people, things, and carts, naturally.&nbsp; Beggars and children thronged here as the travelers gathered their wits and spoke among themseves, or sought out those who were waiting for them.&nbsp; And Mercurial looked for all the world like some guildsman's apprentice, waiting for some traveler to come along so he could help the lost soul find his way through the maze that was The City.<br><br>Which shi was, of course....but shi was waiting for small groups or lone wanderers, to help enrich hir pockets.&nbsp; That is what an enterprising thief did, after all.&nbsp; And of all the thieves in the city, shi was the best.
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