A Day's Pay (Open)

[Vapis]

Summer, 2, 511

Vapis strolled casually through the streets, finding an appropriately busy street corner and sitting down. He pulled his flute out of his backpack and, stretching briefly, began to play. A few passing patrons paused to listen, but none stopped very long, and the sound of the flute wasn't punctuated by the sound of coins clattering on the pavement as Vapis had hoped.

Time to get risky he thought grimly, allowing a small amount of gaseous res to trickle out of his mouth as he played, working itself through the body of the flute. He stopped after a moment, and abruptly blew a long, low note on the flute, igniting the res as he did so. Suddenly, to accompany the tune was a flame bursting out of the flute's end! As the instrument trilled, the flame flickered back and forth, and a high note made the flame flare.

Fortunately, Vapis didn't need to keep the flame up for long, as many spectators were already watching in awe. Already feeling the sweet whispers begin, the nuit decided it would be best to stop, and soon. He finished the song with a quick and high note to fuel the flame before quickly stopping and bowing to the crowd assembled before him. His performance had attracted a large crowd, and he hoped his reward would be forthcoming.

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

The day had started typically enough for Quelen. Leaving from her little resting spot in Silver Lake she had ventured out into Mura wondering if she could find something new and interesting this day. The longer she spent in Mura the more familiar it became, but there were still plenty of things that could surprise and interest the curious Charoda most any time she looked.

Today produced something very interesting though. First came the sound of music being played, which drew Quelen through the streets and towards the source. Then, just as Quelen caught sight of the man playing, flames spouted from his flute! Quelen gasped loudly, her eyes going as wide as they could, and she stared in amazement at such a sight. She'd seen fire occasionally before, but never anything like this!

When the man completed his performance and bowed Quelen cheered loudly, unable to clap with just one hand, and then began making her way through the large crowd. She had to know what the man had done, how he had produced fire from his flute! When she finally reached him she bowed quickly, and then gave him her widest, warmest smile, "Hello! I'm Quelen, and that was an amazing performance! How did you make the fire come out of your flute?" she leaned close and peered at the flute, which had no fire anymore, "Is there something hidden in the flute to make the fire?" she suddenly gasped and turned her attention back to the man, "Is it a magic flute!?"

[Vapis]

As he finished the performance, Vapis noticed a rather surprising sight. A one armed...thing. At first glance, it seemed more like a fish on a human body, but with grey-ish, smooth skin reminiscent of the dolphins Vapis had seen on his way here. He thought he remembered reading a small mention of carnivorous fish people called the Carodae, though the book was pre-Valterian and, while interesting, was almost certainly out of date. This one seemed extremely excited at his performance, and if he was any judge, female.

She, if it was a she, was rather bold, coming up to him right after he finished. Soon after introducing herself as Quelen, she bombarded him with questions on what he had done, how he had done it and something about magic flutes. Not wanting to get involved in something that could very possibly get him run out of town as a sorcerer, he did some quick thinking and responded, smiling.

"Don't be silly!" he rejoined "I simply use a flammable gas hidden in a special compartment of the flute. Nothing as dangerous or crazy as magic!"

[Keyta]

Wandering about the forest, a small kelvic girl was looking for a new selection of fruit to hold onto, almost every fruit in her bag had become rotten and it was well past time to gather new ones. With a slight hop in her step, Keyta jogged through the forest, feeling free and happy to be rid of the horrible casts that were once forced one her limbs. Feeling even more spontaneous, Keyta felt like stretching her little bats wings since it has been so long and she couldn't stop enjoying the feeling of the air around the thin skin of her wings. She reached for the bottom of her shirt when she suddenly heard a strange squealing like sound. The pitch of the sound was enough to make the little girl flinch as she listened, but then this sound continued to change, almost mesmerizing, but then it stopped for a moment. In a frantic sprint, Keyta started toward the direction she thought she heard the sound. The noise began to pick back up and was becoming louder and louder, and the sound of people nearby as they cheered for something. Keyta quickly made her way toward this sound and found herself against a wall. Without thinking, Keyta quickly threw off her tunic along with her shirt and began removing her shorts and shoes at the same time. When everything was removed from her pale skin, she changed into a bat and flew up the wall and landed on the top using her wings like arms and held herself upright looking down. What Keyta saw was a group of people surround this single man who was blowing into this strange stick, and from the tip of this stick was a small burst of fire. Never before had she seen anything like this, when the man stopped, the flame disappeared from sight and one of the people nearby walked up to him, began speaking to him, and made Keyta curious. She only listened as no one seemed to have noticed her yet and wondered what she might be able to learn from these strange two people.

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

Quelen tilted her head slightly at the man's explanation of what made the fire from the flute, "Flammable gas? What's that? Flammable means it can be burned, right? Could you show me how it works?"

As she waited for the man to respond her eyes wandered a little, and she caught sight of a strange little creature that landed on top of a nearby building. She'd seen birds before, but this didn't look like a bird. It seemed to have hair instead of feathers, and the wings looked almost like the webbing Charodae had on their hands and feet. She wanted to go get a closer look at the creature, but it would be rude to stop talking to the man suddenly to chase after something.

Instead Quelen began slowly taking steps towards the building the creature rested upon. Hopefully it would stay put until she could get a better look at it. Turning her smile back to the man she offered, "You're human, yes?" he looked human, but her time in Mura had taught her that someones appearance couldn't be relied on to tell her what race they were.

[Vapis]

Vapis smiled wryly at her look when he lied about how he had made the flame appear. She obviously knew little to nothing of magic or science, which he supposed was to be suspected. The majority of the world didn't have the oppurtunites to learn that a nuit did. They simply didn't live long enough. If a 20 year old spent 40 years doing nothing but reading and learning at Sahova, he would likely die soon after, hygiene and medicine being what they were.

"Of course I'll show you how it works!" He said, his mind racing "I simply put this gel into the flute like so..." as he spoke, he reached into his backpack and generated a small amount of gel-like res from his fingertip, so that it appeared he had simply taken it from a container in the bag, then rubbed it inside the flute. "And all the heat from my breath in the flute vaporizes it, then it ignites!" With a flourish, Vapis ignited the res, a small flame appearing on the end of the flute.

At her last question, Vapis hesitated slightly, wondering whether to admit his death. Might as well He reasoned It would have come out sooner or later. But even with this thought, he still didn't speak too loudly when he answered
"No" He admitted "I am a nuit, a dead being that has been brought back to life with a very specific ritual. Right now I'm in the body of a human man, but I could just as easily be a woman, or even an animal"

[Keyta]

When the grey looking fish person looked over at Keyta, she froze up, tried to not even be notice even though she was already spotted, and kept her eye on this other pale figure. Watching carefully from a distance, she watched as he reach into his bag and pulled out some kind of gel. The pale man ran his finger along the inside of his instrument and brought it up to his mouth. Keyta was intreiged, What is this man about to do? she thought. She crept closer to the edge of the structure she was resting on, leaning over trying to get a better look. Suddenly a blast of flames bursted from this flute and a high pitched screech filled the bat's ears. Startled and disoriented, Keyta lost her footing and began to fall from the building. Instinctively the little bat was falling back first and transformed into her human form. Unable to protect herself, she fell on top of a crate on the side of the street, breaking it and utterly destroying it. Remembering the day on the beach and the amount of pain she was in that day, Keyta was able to shrug away most of the pain from the fall and started trying to stand back up. Emerging from the box, she was tiny, she was naked, and so pale that she lit up the street. Looking around, she could not see anything wrong with her but unfortunately she had collected a large bruise on her back. Mostly dark gray with marks of blue, purple, and red, the bruise was easy for others to see, and probably frightened some. Unsure what to do as Keyta began to realize she was naked in public again, her eyes grew wide and her face began to blush from being so shy around so many new people. Keyta put her hands together and lowed them and bowed to the people and was about to just turn around and run for her clothes. She didn't even want to meet this fire breathing person anymore, but she knew she hated being stared at by people she didn't know.

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

Quelen watched intently as the man demonstrated the process by which he spouted fire from his flute, and when he played the note she gasped and took a step back for a moment. After the fire vanished again she gave a bright musical laugh and a round of applause.

She had so many questions she wanted to ask the man now, not only about his fire spouting flute, but before Quelen could she noticed some movement from where the strange furry creature had been. Turning her wide eyes over quickly she saw the creature falling for a moment, and then it vanished in a swirl of lights and color only to be replaced by a small girl.

With a loud gasp Quelen ran towards the girl, but she was much to far to try and keep her from smashing into the crate. Luckily it seemed the girl wasn't terribly hurt as she managed to get up fairly quickly. Still Quelen rushed up to her, and then knelt down so she could better see the girl's face, "Are you alright? That was quite the fall you had! I bet it hurt. You can cry if you want."

She smiled warmly at the girl, wanting to make sure she was ok and comfortable before asking any of the questions that were now burning inside her head. So many interesting things to see in one day!

[Vapis]

She fell for it sighed Vapis in relief for a moment I thought I was in trouble.

But then his attention was distracted from the strange fish creature and onto a strange girl. He turned to look a bit slowly, so all he saw was a flash of lights and a naked girl falling off a roof. How bizarre he thought She does look slightly Konti, but what was that flash of lights? Is she a fellow magic user? These questions whirling through his head, he followed Quelen toward the girl, striding forward purposefully. Kneeling down to get a better look at her, he tried to smile, but it probably looked rather frightening when coupled with hs pale skin and black eyes. He quickly stopped, hoping she hadn't seen his tongue.

"Who are you...?" Vapis asked quickly, getting the question out just before Quelen asked.

[Mireldis]

Mireldis was walking around when she saw the little girl with a big bruise on her back. She saw her standing with a man and a fish-looking girl.
They all appeared to be talking together about something. Mireldis was still very concerned for the girl, so she decided to walk over to make sure the little girl was okay. She walked over to this poor girl and said, "Excuse me, um, I saw the bruise on your back. It looks really bad; are you alright?"