Walk On Gilded Splinters
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_Typical day in Peltarch. Look around. You have the merchants, the 'nobles' (Who gave them their title? Wasn't Tidus, mate), the laborers, and that element which doesn't really have a job in the usual sense…
Oh, and the guards.
Lisa's on her beat. Usually she's parked in the commons but sometimes she walks down a street because one thing she learned the hard way was you never, ever get too predictable.
Casca's got her nose in a ledger, which she's holding in one hand. The other hand's got her very expensive cup of Maztican chocolate, when the wagons rumble past she ducks aside so her finely tailored suit isn't splashed. She's hustling. Gotta hustle to stay in business, gotta move.
OK Charley offers to shine her shoes as she strolls past, and when she doesn't even look at him he offers to sell her a dog. When that doesn't work he tells her he can set her up with a- we'll never know with what, because she's already past him. That's how it goes with OK Charley, he's used to it.
The elf in white and his black-robed human friend are walking down the center of the gutter. The elf has a sack over his shoulder. It has 'SWAGGE' written on it. They're arguing over something. From the looks on their faces, it's an old argument. They walk past Casca and OK Charley offers to set them up with his sister.
That's when the armored man falls out of the sky and lands smack in the middle of them.
The elf in white sets his sack down. His coat has blood splatters on it now. OK Charley gives a strangled yelp, like a beagle being throttled. Across the way Lisa freezes, not quite believing what just happened.
Casca is swearing in an unknown tongue. There's blood in her chocolate, and her stockings have been RUINED.
As Lisa dashes over, the elf in white looks at his friend, who looks back at him. Then, in unison, they look up.
On the building site above, there's a cloaked figure receding behind a pillar.
"Right." The elf leaps, and with a hugely improbable and probably magically aided series of jumps and bounces works his way up the side of the building. His friend meanwhile starts casting some sort of spell. Lisa reaches the body just as OK Charley has the body's boots off and scarpers.
Lisa considers putting a bolt through him, but only for a second; she knows where he sleeps and there's bigger things going down than a pair of boots. This guy is seriously dead. Quite aside from falling off a building in full armor, he's got a damn gilded sword through his heart.... looks like he actually landed on it. Neat trick that.
"He's dead," the black robed man tells her.
"No shit, genius," Casca interjects, coming over, idly pricing the blade in her mind.
Lisa doesn't answer. She's looking up, where suddenly two figures dart back into sight, balanced on a wooden beam. The elf and a cloaked figure in black leather, holding a rapier and main gauche in a high guard position.
The two are frozen for a second, then blur into motion.
Lisa stares. She's seen people move this fast, but not often and not while balanced on narrow struts several dozen feet over stone cobbles. The fact that the elf hasn't drawn a weapon doesn't seem to make his strikes look any less deadly. Of course, he isn't managing to land them. But the flickering, serpentine rapier stabs aren't going home either.
The mage starts incanting another spell. The cloaked figure seems to hear this, realizes that they may or may not be a match for their opponent, but not if they have to deal with whatever magical bullshit this fellow is about to unload. They flip backwards, out of sight into the construction site.
The black-robed mage swears. Lisa stands, and begins ringing her bell and yelling. Casca turns on her heel and walks off.
A minute later the elf appears from the building. "Got away."
"I expected as much."
They eye the huge mass of converging guardsmen with interest, and the black robed man makes a few gestures. Then they just aren't there. Lisa swears again, and starts to run after the footsteps she hears. Damn invisibility!
She skids to a stop seconds later, as the footsteps merge into the pounding flow of a busy Peltarch street.
Behind her, next to the abandoned sack of Swagge, the object of attention of many, many guardsmen, an armored man stiffens in death, a gilded blade hilt shining in the sun from where it blooms from his chest._
