Thread: The Miracle of Defiance (Starring Lorelai Dannehur and Erit of Eastcris)

RE The Miracle of Defiance To say Lorelai was familiar with hardship would be an understatement. Her parents had died when she was only seven, effectively leaving her an orphan. Shortly afterwards, a kind-hearted middle-aged man had found the girl wandering the streets and took her in to raise as his own in spite of the fact he had fallen on hard times himself. He treated Lorelai as he would have his own child and taught her everything he knew about being a top-notch thief. Unfortunately, Lorelai once again found herself alone in the world at the age of eighteen when her elderly guardian was captured and dragged off to prison for his crimes. After that she cut down drastically on her pickpocket habit and stopped breaking into houses altogether, doing her best to keep on the straight and narrow path of the law. She liked working with her hands and became pretty good at fixing up the buildings around town. There was always work to be found as someone usually had a small favor to ask of her from washing windows to patching up a drafty hole in their house. It was only occasionally she went back to thieving as a way to make quick money, and only once she was certain there was a good chance she wouldn't get caught. Two years had passed since she'd lost her guardian, and Lorelai was currently only a month into her twentieth year. She'd found work where she could during the day, but at night she was stuck sleeping in a back alley when she couldn't work in food and shelter into the bargain for fixing up a building. Sadly, there were a few stingy folk in the town she was stuck in. She'd had to spend last night under a makeshift shelter she'd put together with four wooden poles and the corners of an old abandoned tablecloth tied to each end. She'd only acquired one work request that morning for repairing a hole in someone's roof which hadnt taken her very long to complete. Once she'd finished her work and collected her pay, Lorelai headed into the pub where she paid two coins from her carefully guarded stash for a small meat pie and some cider. It was there she ran into a rather shifty man who had gotten wind of her thieving skills and was in need of them. Not for anything too difficult, he'd told her. All he needed her to do was break into a certain house and do a little snooping to find a sword. She didn't have to take it, Lorelai only had to make sure the sword was there then nip right back and tell him. In return, he'd give her a small sack of gold. The gold had been the clincher as with that much money, Lorelai could live comfortably for years. Perhaps she could even give up thieving altogether, maybe buy herself a carriage and leave town to go adventuring while living off the land. That certainly sounded like a much better plan than staying stuck in one place where her freedom was limited. It was just a little past midnight when Lorelai crept like a silent phantom up to the assigned house dressed all in black hooded cape to cover her fox ears and tail, loose fitting long-sleeved shirt, baggy pants for freedom of movement, gloves, even her long curly red hair had been done up in a tight braid and wound around her head with a black handkerchief over it to keep her hair out of the way. It was also easy to be mistaken for a young man the way she was dressed, and tended to wear men's clothing instead of dresses as she felt a young single woman wandering about on her own at any given time would most likely be hazardous to her health. Lorelai had no need for a lockpick to force her way in. Instead she transformed into a beetle and squeezed through a small crack in the window. Once inside she fluttered to the floor where she turned into a small black cat and let her eyes get used to the dark before silently padding around the room until she came across the sheathed sword hanging on the wall in plain sight. Lorelai tilted her head to the side and twitched her tail in suspicion as moonlight from a nearby window played over the sword. It definitely matched the description, but Lorelai still had to check to make sure this was indeed the sword her employer had sent her in to find. The hair on the back of Lorelai's neck stood on end and her tail fluffed out as something told her so far this had been too easy. Only a fool would leave something so valuable out in the open...unless for some unknown reason they were confident nobody could easily walk away with it. Unfortunately, Lorelai still had a job to do if she wanted that sack of gold her employer had offered. She carefully morphed back to her true form and reached for the sword to see if the blade was as black as the sheath like the sword that had been described to her, but before she could even lay her fingers on the sword there was a loud popping noise accompanied by a bright flash of light that sent Lorelai sprawling on the floor completely dazed. She must have activated some kind of anti-theft spell which meant this was the home of a wizard, something her employer had failed to mention when he'd hired her. Her last thought before her vision faded to black was, Wizards! Meddling with wizards isn't worth all the money in the world! and vaguely wondered just what sort of mess she'd gotten herself into before she fell unconscious.