[Mkguild] First Steps (15/?)

[Nathan Pfaunmiller]

Continuing on.  New part, new twists.  Spooky!

-LurkingWolf

_______________________

<i>January 11, 708 CR</i>

	Lois slowly revived sometime late the next morning.  Thankfully, no
dream startled him awake as it had done so many times in the recent
past.  Still, as he awoke, he shifted in his chair so that he could
rifle through his pack which sat by the desk.  He sighed; the pipe he
kept in the pack was conspicuously absent.  He glanced at the papers
on the desk.  If the pipe didn’t turn up over the course of the day,
he would have to search for it later.  For now, he had other things to
do.

	The ermine prepared for the day a bit more methodically than usual.
While he was usually very informal whenever he walked about the Keep,
a tendency aided by his form’s increased resistance to the winter’s
chill, he wanted to be a bit more formal for today.  If he could make
a good impression on the tinsmith that he hoped to enlist for this pet
project, he would want to make a good first impression.

	It took him some time, but the white-furred assassin finally managed
to put together a presentable outfit from the few things that he had
decided to have tailored since he had been Cursed.  It did actually
look quite good if he was any judge.  He wore a loose white shirt with
long sleeves, the looseness allowing his thick winter fur some space.
Overtop he wore a vest whose blue color helped emphasize the deep
color of his newly altered eyes.  It was trimmed with faux gold thread
that, while not particularly expensive in reality, gave him the look
of a man of some means at the very least.

	Much of the rest of his outfit was function over form.  Although the
slacks he wore agreed in color and texture with the rest of his
clothing, they were also designed to give him freedom of movement in
case he had to move quickly.  He wore his weapons along with his purse
on his belt, a deterrent to any cutpurse who might assume that Lois’
formality suggested affluence.  Lois also wore his bracers on each
wrist, although their fine craftsmanship helped add to form as well as
function.  Finally, he belted down the sleeves of his shirt along the
forearms to keep their looseness from becoming excessive.

	In all, he still looked like a warrior, especially with the scars
that still ran through his fur around his eye.  Still, it was more
formal than he would wear for almost any other purpose.  The Duke
would be lucky to see better from him on most days.  That was, of
course, unless the Duke had some chance of helping him create a
replacement for Gerard’s leg, and Lois doubted that possibility.

	He finally left his room a little later into the morning than he
usually did, but his patrol had not yet received a new assignment.
With the chaos of the Duke’s wedding still freshly dying down, it did
not surprise Lois that no one had yet been assigned to fill in
Gerard’s position in their patrol.  While she had been training with
her for the past few weeks, Lois had taken to thinking of pitching
Paula as a potential replacement.  Since he had not seen her in quite
some time, however, that idea was quickly becoming irrelevant.

	He hopes that it would not remain that way for long.

	Lois allowed the halls of the Keep to guide him as he sought out the
tinsmith that the scout Misha had suggested to him the evening before.
 It was an interesting phenomenon to him, having to trust his path to
the whims of some spirit who inhabited the castle, rather than relying
on the directions of his guide, but as long as it worked with
reasonable speed he had no trouble with it.  Today seemed to be his
lucky day, as he nearly ran into a sign as he turned a corner.  It was
well high enough to be out of the way for most Keepers, but Lois had
kept most of his considerable height through his change.  It was a
fact that both gratified and perturbed him.  On the one hand, standing
so tall had proven useful in situations where long legs allowed him to
make longer jumps and traverse the tightly-packed rooftops of cities.
On the other hand, the Curse had shortened his legs while leaving his
height generally unaltered, and this was not the first time his head
had nearly clipped a low-hanging sign.  In this case, however, the
encounter simply allowed him to be certain that he had reached his
destination.  A snowflake stood out over an anvil as the symbol of the
smithy, with the words “Snow’s Tinsmithy” etched with care below it.
Misha had called the man Edward Snow, so he must have found the place.

	Ducking underneath the sign as he continued, he was surprised to find
the door ajar.  He pushed it gently, finding beyond the door an empty
room.  Coals still glowed low in the forge, but it looked like someone
had lit it and quickly forgotten about it.  Lois frowned.  It seemed
that he would have to come back—

	Strange, clicking footsteps were heard a moment later, and Lois found
his ears swiveling in the direction of the steps.  He identified the
odd clicking sound before he saw the man emerging from a door to one
side of the smithy; they were hoofbeats.  He seemed to be grumbling to
himself about something, but he halted one step outside the door,
staring at Lois for a moment.

	The man was a ram, of a rather average height and build with black
fur.  He was dressed as a soldier, although he was not dressed for
active duty for the moment.  Lois quickly appraised him and concluded
that he would present an interesting challenge if they were to ever
meet in combat.  He was clearly strong, perhaps moreso than some
others would realize.  Lois had seen others like him who hid their
strength well.

	“And here I thought it was impossible for there to be any more white
fur in this smithy,” the ram mused, chuckling to himself at the
intended joke that apparently he alone was privy to for the moment.
“I’m sorry, where are my manners?  My name is Wolfram.”

	He held out a hoofhand to Lois, and the ermine shook it without a
second thought.  He was getting quite good at looking past how his
fellow Keepers looked during their greetings.  The ram was quite
friendly at least, so that made it quite a bit easier.

	“My name is Vincent Lois,” the ermine replied.  Is Master Snow around?”

	Wolfram flicked an ear and raised an eyebrow at this.  “Master Snow?
Drift is right in there,” he said, gesturing back the way he had come.
 “Fair warning, though; unless you have an outstanding order, it may
be difficult to capture his attention for long.”

	“He is occupied, then?” Lois asked.

	“You could say that,” the ram mused thoughtfully.  “Still, if you
were going to talk to him, I’d recommend it.  He could use a little
bit of contact with humanity, however brief that contact might be.”

	“Thank you,” Lois said with a nod.

	The ram waved him off and continued out the door, wishing the ermine
luck as he left.  Lois shrugged and shook his head.  He pushed open
the side door of the smithy, and found inside a rather interesting
sight.

	The room was entirely filled with tools and models of various sorts,
stacked or stored in various places around the room in mostly
haphazard ways.  In the center of the room, however, on a workbench
that took up the better part of the room, was a strange bit of
craftsmanship.  At a quick glance, it looked like a set of gigantic
bat wings.  A closer inspection, however, revealed that they were
crafted from a variety of different materials, wood, metal, leather,
even some sort of canvas which made up the membrane of the wings.

	Leaning close over the strange contraption, one eye closed as he
tried to paste a portion of the canvas in a straight line, was a
canine Keeper, his own fur as white as Lois’ own.  The assassin
realized what Wolfram had been talking about now in regards to the
amount of white fur in the area, but before he could chuckle at the
thought himself, the Keeper acknowledged his presence quietly, clearly
trying to concentrate.

	“I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said in the voice and tone of a
man who was doing his best to focus on minute details.  Lois nodded,
keeping silent as the dog Keeper carefully pressed the material to the
frame, holding it for a few moments while the paste bound the two
things together.  After a few moments, he raised his hands from the
canvas and took a step back, acting like he expected the thing to
unravel at any moment.

	Heaving a sigh, he finally turned and gave Lois a somewhat weary, but
genuine, smile.  “Sorry for keeping you waiting,” he said after a
moment.  “I’ve been working on this for a while now, and everything
just seems to be going wrong.”

	“I hope I’m not interrupting,” Lois offered.

	“No, don’t worry, I think I’ve finally finished this step.  I cannot
do much else with it until after all of the glue has set, so this is
as good a time as any.”

	Lois nodded.  “My name is Vincent Lois,” he said by way of
introduction, stepping forward and offering a paw.

	“Drift,” the other Keeper replied, stepped up to meet Lois halfway.
Lois flinched to the side just as Drift reached to shake his hand.  At
first Drift was startled, but then he saw Lois rapidly trying to break
the fall of the strange, winglike contraption.  The Samoyed had not
noticed that, as he stepped forward, his tail had managed to dip
itself partially in the glue he was using, and it had caught ahold of
his invention as it went by.

	Lois was partially successful in preventing the device from dropping
to the floor, although both men winced at the sound of creaking that
indicated that parts of the frame were being strained.  “Don’t move,”
Lois cautioned.  “It’s caught on your tail.”  He huffed for a moment,
trying to catch his breath after having to unexpectedly deal with the
full weight of the device.  “All right, walk backwards towards the
work bench…”

	After a few moments of maneuvering, the two had managed to replace
the contraption on the workbench and detach Drift’s tail fur from the
side of the frame.  The Samoyed sighed as he looked over the damage.
“It isn’t as bad as it could have been, but that’s another few hours
of work for me to do,” he mused.

	“Should I return later?” Lois asked.

	“No, no, quite honestly I could use a break from working on this
thing.  It’s been giving me more trouble…”  He stopped, collecting
himself before continuing.  “I’m quite ready for something different.
What can I do for you?”

	Lois pulled out the sketches that he had made the night before,
handing them to the dog Keeper as the two stepped into the main room
of the smithy.  As Drift examined the sketches, Lois explained
Gerard’s situation.  The story was perhaps less dramatic than it might
have been if it was told by someone else, but Drift nodded and
listened as Lois told it nonetheless.

	“…And so I though perhaps someone could create a false leg for
someone using similar concepts to what I saw on Madog,” Lois finished.
 The two had since taken seats on various parts of the mostly-cold
forge, and Drift seemed to have finished his analysis of the drawings.
 He nodded at this last explanation and leaned back a bit.

	“It’s an interesting idea,” he mused.  He waited a moment, before his
eyes fell on the drawings again.  “Were you trained in art at all?” he
asked quietly.

	Lois shook his head with chagrin.  “I sketch for my own amusement.
I’m sorry if the quality of the drawings is not what you would have
liked.”

	“The drawings are fine,” Drift responded briefly.  He reached for a
pocket as though looking for something, only to realize that the
stitches on the pocket were long worn out.  He sighed and began to
search himself over for something, until Lois offered him a simple
charcoal pencil he had brought with him.  “Thank you,” Drift said with
a bit of a lopsided smile.  “I’m losing a lot of things recently,
pencils the least troublesome of all…

	“At any rate, the drawings were quite good,” he continued.  “The main
fault is that they would never work if we tried to cast any of your
suggested pieces in any metal.  Tin may be quite a bit lighter than
other materials, but it still has its weight.  The density of this
contraption would be such that it would, at the best, cause your
friend to walk with an extremely lopsided limp.”  He flipped one of
the few sketches that was not drawn on both sides of the paper and
began to sketch something slowly.

	Lois nodded at Drift’s assessment, while glancing at the
slowly-developing sketch in the samoyed’s paws.  “You have another
idea, then?” Lois asked.

	Drift was busy sketching by now, although he took several moments at
various points to take some quick, rough measurements with his claws.
He stopped several more times, looking at the paper with something
close to a scowl.  “It should be possible…”  He sketched a few lines.
“Madog’s design is specific to automatons; it isn’t meant for people,”
he mumbled.  “He’s built to be able to deal with the weight of the
metal, but a man is going to be different.  It’s going to need to be
strong, but mostly hollow…”

	The Samoyed scratched through his first drawing as he talked, finding
another unused section of paper and beginning to work with it.

	“So, you think you can do something with this?” Lois asked.

	Drift didn’t even look up.  “I think…”  he leaned back, turning his
sketch and looking at it from another angle.  He suddenly stood up and
walked quickly over to the forge.  He noted the few still-glowing
coals in it and began to work the bellows.  “I think we’re going to
find out,” he said, flashing a sharp-toothed grin to the ermine as he
walked back past him, collection equipment as he went.

	“Wait, already?”

	“No time like the present!” the samoyed exclaimed.  Lois watched him
move back and forth for a few moments before shrugging.  He had hoped
for quick result, but this was unprecedented.

*	*	*

	A room sat in the dark in an area of a ruined keep north of Metamor.
In times past, this castle had served as one of the early lines of
defense against the lutins.  It had fallen within the lifetimes of
many of the Keepers in Metamor, and had remained unused for just as
long.  Or, at least, that was what most people thought.

	A figure moved through the darkness, holding only a glowing crystal
to light his way, walking towards a half-ruined table set at an odd
angle in the large room.  It may have once been a banquet hall, but
everything that had been in the room at one time was broken beyond
recognition.  Even the table, at which sat another shadowy figure sat
silently, had been broken in the overthrow of the keep years ago.  A
corner had been smashed by a stone launched from a catapult, a leg of
the table completely splintered and rendered useless.  That corner had
been rested on a low stack of rubble, but the table still listed
slightly to one side.  The man who sat in what might have once been
the lord’s own chair didn’t seem to mind, however, even as he looked
up to see the man approaching him.

	“Sir, our man has recovered something that you might find
interesting,” he announced quietly.  He gave a military salute to the
man at the table, and then placed a small, leather-bound book on the
table before his superior.  The other man returned the salute stiffly
before picking up the book and leafing through it quickly.

	“The journal of Vincent Lois,” the man mused.  “Interesting.  I was
not aware that our mark was prone to self-reflection.  He is becoming
increasingly skilled at hiding things from us.”

	“Is this a problem, sir?”

	“Perhaps, or perhaps not.”  The man flipped back to the first page
and began to read down the page quickly, mumbling the words to
himself.  “Interesting…  He seems to have developed some moral
objections to his former line of work.”

	“Sir, isn’t that impossible?”

	“Theoretically, but remember he is the first that we have attempted
to sway in this manner.  Some imperfections are to be expected.”  He
continued to examine the book.  “I was also unaware that Lois was a
calligrapher.”

	“We have known for some time that Lois is a capable forger.  In his
career, I believe he has used that skill to great effect well over a
dozen times.  Some knowledge of writing is necessary to provide him
with the basic skills needed to perform that task.”

	“Indeed…  His writing is an interesting hybrid of styles.  The first
letter of every paragraph is stylized like a court scribe’s missives,
but his writing has a strange, informal slant to it in most places.”
He tapped a finger over a particular letter.  “Pronunciation symbols
over his vocals are also an odd touch.  I have not seen that in modern
writing outside of those courts who subscribe to truly ancient
traditions.  And those guides are not universal…  Not ever over those
vocal which call for the same inflection…”

	“Sir?”

	“Quiet.  Lois is doing something here; these aberrations are
intentional.  Here; an s written out of his regular script, orphaned
in the middle of a word.  Lois is a perfectionist; he would not have
left that as it is were it a mistake.”

	The man drew a parchment from within his jacket and returned to the
beginning of the strange manuscript.  He began to write down letters,
one at a time, forming them into words as well as he could.  Some
letters he missed at first but returned to verify, and other letters
he added at first and then decided that any aberration was truly by
accident.

	As he finished, the man leaned back and handed the other man the
parchment.  “Read this,” he instructed.

	It took a moment for the man to read past the corrections that had
been made on the page, but he finally began to read, slowly and
quietly.

“What you cannot control
Cannot touch
Cannot burn
Cannot harm
What will not bleed
Will not die
Will not sleep
Will not relent
What comes in darkness
Come in light
Comes in sleep
Comes between blinks of the eye
What you have given me I now refute
My dreams shall be my own.”

	The sitting man smiled at the last words.  “He knows his dreams are
ours.  How cute.  He feels his grasp on reality slipping, and so he
places these messages to himself in his writing.  He thinks he can get
away.  We shall see, Lois.  We shall see.”