World of Warcraft®

((If you want to participate in this, let me know (Kyalin on Alliance, Sihung on Horde) ))

Flanked by armed guards, a handcuffed spy was then ushered into the room. He was a Sin'dorei among Sin'dorei - clad in torn black leather, matching his swept-back hair, and deprived of his weapons. The scabs building on the small cuts across his face and arms betrayed his recent, but not so-recent injuries, yet he entered the elegant chamber - nestled somewhere in the towering white spires of Silvermoon - with his nose turned up, like an official on business as he approached the blood elf and the pandaren arranged around a small table.

Between them lay a wooden board, perhaps a foot and a few inches wide and equally long. Upon it, nineteen perfectly straight lines had been carved horizontally and vertically, forming a grid upon which lay - in a peculiar pattern - small black and white circular ceramic stones.

The blood elf at the table looked up at him - he was clad in the finest red silk, interwoven with hundreds of golden streaks which formed the most graceful and beautiful patterns down his chest. His expression was less graceful, curled into disappointed frown. "What happened?" He said simply?

"The residence was a trap." The spy said simply. "She wasn't there, but an army of sentinels was waiting for me. The Warden let me live though and I escaped."

The other elf frowned, placing a white tile next to a black one. The white stones looked as though they were surrounding the black ones, with the bunch that was currently being added to being pushed to the edge of the board. The black tiles were running out of room to expand into, which was problematic because without the benefit of an open intersection, they would be taken. The Pandaren seemed calm though, lounging back into his chair. "She's fond of that, my friend."

"Check him" The red-robed elf commanded to the spy's escorts.

Rather than stripping him down or checking his pockets though, they merely lifted the hair covering his neck, and nodded to the blood elf. "He's been marked, and it's protected."

The elf in red shook his head, burying it into his left hand. He gestured flippantly with his left and the escort cut the back of the spy's neck - not enough to slice an artery, but through a line which connected two runes that had been seared into his skin. The one below lit up, and within but a moment, the spy burst into flames.

"He was my best, Sihung... my best... " The elf muttered, placing a white tile to cut off the nine black ones forced into the corner.

As the blood elf removed the black tiles, the Pandaren set a black one nearer to the middle. "Remember that no piece is more valuable than the other, sometimes sacrifices must be made for... shall we say, a greater play, Mister Veno."

By now the Blood Elf had a handle on what was going on. He quickly placed a stone on an outer diagonal where he assumed that Sihung would move, but the pandaren instead filled in one of his own intersections. The center of the board, one that Veno had tried so hard to surround, had just become protected with two eye formations, leaving only three of Sihung's tiles still vulnerable, and leaving the grinning Pandaren with an unconquerable hold on the middle of the board.

Watching the Blood Elf's eyes scan the board in search of another move, the Pandaren spoke again. "The spy was not the only play. He was like that set of nine you took there. I planned to lose him."

"What, pray tell, was the distraction for?" Veno demanded, not bothering to look up.

"We've set up a transistus shield in the wilds of Teldrassil" The Pandaren replied.

"Mr. Faust?"

The Dwarf looked up from the table where he was being kept - somewhere deep underground by a couple of sentinels. He was suddenly being greeted by a woman in a giant blackish fur-cloak that surrounded her completely. Beneath a her dull steel mask, she smiled and extended her hand, and cautiously the dwarf shook it.

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Faust. My name is Warden Kyalin Raintree."

"I see... and are you here to straighten whatever this is out and send me on my way?"

Stepping back, she nodded. "Of course, just a few quick questions and we'll have this all taken care of."

Mr. Faust didn't look convinced - something perhaps that this flippant elf couldn't understand as she turned away to get something from a nearby table. One of those, he could tell, flowers and leaves dotting her cloak and entangled through her hair - a voice vapid, airy and cheerful - she wasn't even wearing shoes... "Well.. I'm hopeful for that, though, i can't imagine why I'm here in the first place."

"Are you an engineer, Mr. Faust?" The elf said suddenly, her back still turned.

"Er... what?"

"An engineer?" She repeated calmly. "You know, do you construct machines?"

"Um.... no, Ms. Raintree, I'm not."

She turned around with a look of surprise and a small cup in her right hand. "Oh? Well... I thought." She paused for a moment to regain her thoughts. "Well, perhaps you have friends who are? Or... maybe a budding entrepreneur, selling wares to engineers?"

The dwarf shook his head.

"Maybe you're a plumber then?"

"No..."

"Friends or associates?"

"Warden!" The dwarf demanded. "Why am I here?"

"Is that a no then?" The elf pressed.

"What?"

"Are you saying that you are not a plumber?"

"What do YOU think, Warden?"

"I think you're trying to skip the question."

"No! I'm not! Satisfied?"

"Well, yes you are, you just did."

"No! That's not what I meant!"

"You mean you didn't just skip the question?"

"NO! You daft, air-brained, long-eared baffoon! I'm not a plumber! I'm not an engineer, and while we're at it, I'm not a zepplin conductor, the ringleader of a three ring circus or barber! Neither are my friends, and I don't sell wares to such folk! Now are ye' through with yer inane questions!"

Smirking, she nodded. "Yes, Mr. Faust, save for one." She said flatly, her voice dropping in pitch. "Do you know what annoys me more than anything else?"

Dumbfounded, the Dwarf looked as though he was incubating another rant before the Warden spoke first. "Its someone who insists on insulting my intelligence."

"Insulting yer intelligence? Warden, ye deserv- "

"Mr. Faust, allow me to remind you of your activities about... I want to say, four weeks ago. You visited the Bank of Darnassus to draw up a letter of credit, permitting one Marcus McFoy of Ironforge to create drafts there, not to exceed a cumulative total of eight-hundred gold pieces."

The dwarf just sat there - half in shock and half in confusion. The Warden's previously airy and bubbly voice had given way now. Beneath it lay the calm tone of ... perhaps a seasoned barrister - hintedly wry and sarcastic while at the same being time clear and pointed.

"I have it here." The Warden continued, producing an official looking scroll. "Along with a set of explicit instructions to Mr. McFoy, instructing him to purchase six reinforced bronze tubes - three inches in diameter, three and a half feet long, expected price between a hundred and fifteen and a hundred and thirty for one tube - a standard crate just large enough to contain them, as well as passage aboard a reputable vessel for this cargo, to arrive in Rut'theran harbor no more than three weeks after the receipt of these instructions. McFoy was to be compensated for the balance after he made these purchases. Now... I've heard some interesting stories about Dwarven salesmen, but a hundred and fifteen gold pieces? They'd be stripping it from monuments before they would sell bronze so dearly."

"Well, these were of very high quality." The dwarf countered.

"I admit that I'm confused by that.... I wouldn't expect someone of your non-engineering, non-plumbing, non zepplin-conducting, non three-ring-circus-leading, and non hair-cutting background to understand the fine nuances of what constitutes quality in a reinforced bronze tube, but I'm afraid, more pressingly, I must inform you that he cheated you. You see, after he wrote out that eight-hundred gold piece draft to himself, he travelled not to the Blastwhisker engineering emporium of Ironforge but instead to the Copperbeard Rifleworks of Thelsemar! Where he bought the reinforced bronze tubes for one-hundred and twenty seven gold pieces each!"

((Continued in the next post))

((Continued from above))

Her voice grew more dramatic and more sarcastic as she revealed a beautiful hunting rifle. "But look! The tube is much too narrow! ... and look! It's not formed from pure, noble bronze but from an exquisite cocktail of metals and composites - why it's a mutt of a tube I tell you! And look!" She continued, her hand moving over the elegantly crafted trigger guard. "Deformities! Some bronze tube this turned out to be! But this is the worst of all!"

She drew the dwarf's attention to a lovingly chiseled cherrywood stock. It was covered in carefully etched pictures of beautiful landscapes. Her opinion? "Scrap wood strapped to the tube! Why, this is unacceptable! After all, you don't use tubes for your own selfish ends like an engineer or a plumber! You're a tube man! You enjoy bronze tubes for their own sake, and this!" She concluded as she threw the rifle to the ground "is NOT a bronze tube."

The Dwarf sat there in horror. Competing notions of lucidity and insanity swirled around in his head as to what this woman must represent with this show. The Warden merely ruffled her cloak.

"All of this aside... what insults my intelligence is that not only did you think you were going to fool me, knowing that I'd see the instructions, but that you thought that you were going to fool me with this... as for the rifle.... it's of too high of a caliber to be used here in Teldrassil for anything but nightsaber hunting... and our restrictions are quite clear given how much they're needed in the army... and not on your wall."

"But I haven't shot one yet!"

"No..." Kyalin said acknowledgingly. "But you did perpetrate fraud and we do take that very seriously.... so, I hope you enjoy your new residence and... as for the rifles, the Sentinel army gratefully accepts your donation."

Defeatedly, the Dwarf hung his head. "Just one question, Warden..."

Kyalin raised an eyebrow.

"How did ye know where he bought the rifles?"

"Come again?"

"He drew up the draft, ye said, before he went to Thelsamar, meaning he conducted his transaction in gold.... and Copperbeard's ne'er kept books... How did ye know he bought the rifles from 'im?"

Kyalin didn't say anything for a moment, but she just shrugged, her look of surprise turning flippant. "Some methods I keep to myself. That's one of them... Good evening to you Mr. Faust." She said, turning away. In the corner of the room, however, Faust spotted another elf, taking notes silently in the corner - garbed in dark silken robes. She looked up at him once and in turn vanished from sight, leaving the dwarf in the care of the two sentinels.