"Hey! Ye! Watch where ye'r steppin!" She blustered as she swiped a strand of russet curl from her face and glowered at the man who blinked owlishly up at her from beneath the rim of his hat.

He muttered something in return and she quickly closed her eyes, shut her mouth, pinched her nose and simultaneously stuck her fingers in her ears (It's difficult to do, but possible with a little torquing of one's nose). Just in case the old man retaliated with some kind of curse/spell/enchantment or blasphemy.

Thankfully he appeared to be of the benign sort if just slightly offkilter and left her to her odd pose muttering about the insanity found in RhyDin.

Ha! As if she were the one insane! Mmm hmm! Just a necessary precaution here, you never knew what people were going to throw at you. Literally. She was still peeling lime jello from her hair after wondering too close to a window. At least it tasted good, though according to the person who had tossed it, "it lacked good consistency." Eh? To each their own.

She needed to find a place to rest her weary feet and kept an eagle eye out for an Inn or Cafe that didn't look like it would eat her alive just for stepping through the door.

Her stomach growled; yep, it was time to find a sandwich or three.

And that's when she saw it. Rounding the corner, a north-westerly jaunt past the Marketplace. The perfect building for her plans. All thoughts of food and tired feet quickly forgotten. Now to find out who owned it...

"Damn the man!"

Where had he gone? Admittedly she had been pretty darn busy with the start of her realty company but when did the de Troyes disappear? He was always the center of attention.

She caught herself talking to his statue in the RDI. The gift from Icer was really rather therapeutic when one thought about it. She could stomp in here, kick it, pour stuff on it, dress it like a woman, any number of disgraceful things and all made her feel a tad better even if it was only a representative of the things she would really like to do to that man.

"Aymeric! Where in the hell have you gotten yourself off to?"

She couldn't maintain the twinge of worry. He was a loudmouthed, egotistical, hotheaded, moronic oaf, but, he was her only connection to her past with the exception of Draxcilian and look where he had turned up.

Was Aymeric in the hold of some succubus? drained of blood by some vampiress? held captive by an orc as a cabana boy?

She'd have to start looking for him immediately. Her dreams of a building could wait ... after all without the de Troyes money she had no way of realizing her dreams in the first place.

Damn Men. Nothin but Trouble.

The Baron DeMeur was a surprisingly charming fellow. Truly not what she'd expected but she couldn't help but wonder what the plumage hid, so to speak. Had she entered into a deal with a devil? Hell, it wouldn't be the first time such a transaction had gone down in RhyDin.

The Plaza was hers and at such a discounted price she was able to purchase construction workers of a technologically advanced quality. The place went up in a surprisingly quick fashion and within a week's time she was able to open the doors to both Jin and Shilo.

During said week she made the find of a lifetime.

************************************************** **

One of the delights of living in the WestEnd was the pure unadulterated unreality of it all. Predictable it was not. Somedays she exited her door to discover a rose-lined path and others she was just as likely to discover an alleyway that rivaled the infamous locale behind the Red Dragon Inn. The boardroom of the miscreants.

She'd learned early that the trick to navigating the West End was to pay it no mind. If you were attempting to keep track of landmarks and locations you were just as likely to find yourself miles from your intended destination in a very bad way. This sort of inattention to detail suited Fiora just fine, and the plucky realtor was a common enough sight bebopping along with her mind locked in some scenario of grandiose dreams of success. For the most part she was left alone. Nothing about her spoke of wealth and her tendency to talk to herself made many wonder at her grasp on sanity. You never knew what lurked beneath the surfaces in a place like WestEnd and it was the seemingly harmless ones that harbored nasty surprises.

Fiora's run of luck quite violently came to an end on the eve of her successful transaction with DeMeur. A celebration was necessary and she was admittedly a little tipsy when she maneuvered her way from the Red Dragon Inn that night to traipse willy-nilly toward home. The beckoning statues of Zen Gardens loomed reassuringly upon the horizon when misfortune struck.

"Hey! You!" The growled shout surely hadn't been aimed at her and Fiora had continued blithely onward when she heard the epithet that accompanied the threatening sound, "Zenner! I'm talkin to you!"

Oh.

See, Fiora had been here long enough to know that some of the local populace weren't too fond of the fancy Zen Gardens that had sprung up there in their midsts. Those who lived there had earned a nickname that ironically rhymed with Sinner and spoke to the apparent transgression of Flaunting oneself.

She turned with a disarming smile that quirked uncomfortably at the sight of the three men approaching her with angry scowls. A glance back at the building demonstrated the West End's inexplicable ability to play with its inhabitants as quite suddenly the Zen Gardens appeared to be a goodly distance away. A product of the tankard (or three) she had downed at the RDI? Or the misfortune of living in a capricious zone? Either way, there was no doubt running was no longer an option.

"Hey hey hey!" She gave her best rendition of the friendly Chubby Alberta. Her smile clearly singing, why can't we be friends?

She wanted to run. She really did. Her heart tripped up its beat to rival that of any hummingbird's wings. Her mouth went dry. Her knees went weak. And she really really wished she could say it was because of fear. But nope, the delicious scent was doing all kinds of gymnastic maneuvers with her libido.

This was bad.

Turning slowly away from the Three Floogies, she was presented with the sight of her fourth and hopefully final assailant. Granted she couldn't seem to really focus on him, only that she wanted him. Needed him. Nervous energy took over and her motor mouth launched itself into high gear, "Hi I'm Fiora. Fiora Shantalaine. I'm a Realtor. Basically I find houses. Ye know like places to live in and I sell em and it's great cuz I'm good at it. Unlike my other jobs, I sucked at bein an itinerant merchant and I was really good at bein an acrobat until I discovered it was a cover for spyin on people and eventually assassinatin targets. Which, by the by, I REAALLLLY sucked at. I made a damn good thief, but let's keep that between ye and me. Speaking of between ye and me, howsabout we divest ourselves of our clothing and get a little closer?"

"What in the hell?" The blurry figure before her that screamed Take Me Take Me Now on a purely primal level was obviously bothered by something as he looked past her at the other three figures.

Fiora promptly responded helpfully, "Yea, I mean seriously." Rolling her eyes and motioning to them, "What in the hell?" Nodding in total agreement, "shouldn't they like get the hint and walk on with themselves? I mean like a connection is about to go down right here, right now. We're gonna hit it and what, they think they're the audience? I'm really not into that kinda stuff, I mean ya wanna peek at me while I'm gettin nekkid that's one thing, but when I'm--"

"Shutup!"

Blink.

Angrily, he grabbed her arm and spun her about as he thundered, "What in the hell is she on?"

"Well I'd like to be on ye." She was witty when she wanted to be. Oh yea, score!

"Kip, I think it's your new enhancement." The explanation came sibilantly from the shadowy cloaked figure. "The human female appears to be aroused and quite nervous."

"Right-o!" Fiora beamed at him even as her befogged mind tried to analyze why that explanation made her palms sweat and somewhere a little voice scream at her to stop breathing.

"Huh?" It took 'Kip' a moment to understand the explanation, and if she'd been even partially capable of comprehension the interested look he sent her would have quite honestly sent her into a screaming paroxysm of disgust. But, as it stood, Fiora could only ride the high of her drug-induced interest. Dimples flashing as she tried to send him a come-hither look. With what she hoped was feline grace and the elegant mannerisms of a lady she tossed back her russet curls and promptly tripped. The broken cobblestones were a deterrant and, ironically, a lifesaver (and not the candy kind). Stumbling forward Fiora went face first on a Rake. Well, no, unless the rake was a half-orc with sweatslicked matted hair coating his body. The scent of his unwashed body was rancid, disgustingly putrid it burnt the delicate membranes of her nose and with it took the cloudy weight of the pheromone doused arousal with it.

She coughed. She choked. She gagged.

And she quite suddenly realized that the conversation going on around her about successful "enhancements" was a continuation of a really bad day.

She didn?t stick around to hear how he convinced his fellows that a little nookie in a dark alleyway was far superior to whatever beat down they had originally planned for the uppity Zenner. She?d seen enough women in action to know that if you threw an extra sway in your step and acted like your hips were a pendulum you were guaranteed at least a few drops in the good ol IQ of most men.

Kip?s eyes followed her as she sashayed her way in the direction of his desire. His motions growing more heatedly exaggerated as he argued with his comrades. She only needed about ten feet and with a squeak she tossed the gross talisman from her orc savior and sprinted for the alleyway in question.

?Hey!?

?STOP!?

Yea, right.
She was fast and dangerously agile. The WestEnd working with her for once as directly before her appeared the mouth of the alley and up against the barbed fence at the end was a trash dumpster. It was all the lift she needed. The muscles in her calves tensed as she crouched low and pushed off the balls of her feet, launching herself forward in a dive. The palms of her hands connected with the corrugated lid as her body whipped itself up and over, the momentum carrying her into the next flipping leap; small and compact, her form tucked itself naturally into a ball, the twist easily clearing the top of the fence. She hadn?t bothered to sleuth out the other side because here in this domain of trickery it wouldn?t have mattered. Sure enough, as she rolled up out of her flip she was presented with a Wall. A wall that hadn?t been there seconds before. A wall that quite thankfully had a window.

Tucking tighter she somersaulted right through that aperture, rolling up into the middle of what looked like a ... Daycare.

The children cooed, squealed, giggled, and screamed. The attendants whipping around with the fierce protectiveness of mothering creatures everywhere. Thinking fast, Fiora threw out her arms in a move reminiscent of her days in the circus, ?Ta Da!?

Off-balanced by the performer in their midst, they paused in their action and that was all the time she needed to sprint straight through their circle. A hurdled half-elf toddler here, a rapid tire-step over the kids coloring, and a diving roll over a crib and she was at the door.

She didn?t dare stop to explain her commotion as the rabid sounding growl of one of the nannies revealed a canine glint of glistening teeth. Nope, she bounced off the far wall and sprung off of it like a ricocheting bullet, racing for the end of the hall and the window that beckoned. She wasted no time diving through it, once again willing to take her chances with whatever was on the other side.

There were four.

Four whirling dervishes whipping through the air delivering death with the fervor of the damned.

Whatever flash weapon they had administered had effectively stolen her sight, she was only able to make out blurry dark shapes on the backdrop of searing light. The humanoid shapes moved with the speed and quickness of the otherworldly. They sped through the open doorway and into the four corners of the room in a trajectory both planned and merciless. Where they passed death was left an unwelcome visitor upon the visages of the fallen.

Fiora could only gasp back a scream and roll herself flat against the far wall as they descended. As her slender back, bruised from its recent kiss of a boot, pressed against the wall she felt it give beneath her weight and with the impulsiveness of the survivor's instinct she pushed further into it. The hidden compartment swallowed her whole.

The small hidey-hole was a little less than a man's length and Fiora had an easy time fitting within it with her tiny stature. An acrobat's compact body held taut and expectant as she waited for death to find her quivering in fear in her little burrow. The random image of the rabbit in its hole hiding from the fox flitted past her mind's eye as she clenched her eyes shut to allow them time to recover from the earlier blast. With no recourse left, she listened. Desperately. For the hint of the sound that would mark the end of her life.

The slickly wet sound of a blade stealing the life of its target was accentuated by the gurgling cries and the cursed scream of the dying. As silence fell in the outer room, Fiora was certain that none of those figures who had set in icy tyranny at the table were left alive.

It was quiet.

Nothing moved.

A slow measured inhale--long and silent--filled her small chest, causing the bruises of her aching ribs to loudly proclaim their agony. She ignored the pain as best she could as she expanded her lungs as fully as physically possible. And held. Suspended. Waiting. Trembling for the death deliverers to come a-knocking at her door.

She wanted to whimper. She wanted to cry. She wanted to pray. But none of these were an option for a self-made woman in RhyDin.

She was quiet.

She did not move.

The polite tap came again on the door.

It was a respectful sound.

A gentle rapping upon the door that spoke of peace, goodwill, and the patience of those born with manners: Knock, Knock.

When compared with the pillaged room around her one had to begin to question sanity. What would happen if she was caught in this room? What could she say? Would she be a suspect in these horrid murders?

As these scenarios wound their way through her hyperactive imagination that had her face plastered across RhyDin and her in chains to stand before a fiercely glowering Minister of Defense and a head-shaking Minister of Justice, the doorknob began to turn as whoever was on the other side tentatively began to push the door open.

She made her decision quickly.
After all, impulsivity had served her well so far...

Jumping forward with the speed of a scared rabbit she placed a trembling hand upon the fancy-doorknob and held it in place, poking her pale face through the small crack she administered, ?Yes??

Startled brown eyes widened in a face best described as matronly. Graying hair had been scraped back in a bun that had probably been worn in that style for decades. Her skin was creased and wrinkled with the stamp of time?s passage and the liberal dusting of some kind of cosmetic powder did her no favors. Garbed in a plum and magenta business suit that only accentuated the wideness of her hips and the stout shortness of her legs, the woman screamed ?Manic Mana Make-Over? contestant. Fiora was fairly certain that the delightful nymphs that ran the show would do wonders for this woman if they could just get their giddy little hands on her.

She swallowed fiercely, obviously unnerved and uncertain about interrupting and Fiora seized upon this discomfort with the viciousness of a piranha; furrowing her brows and narrowing her eyes in her best irritated Elessaria impression she imitated the frosted tones of the elegant elf when offended, ?May I help you??

?Excuse me for interrupting your meeting; I had a delivery that was considered most urgent by the Master.? Her breathy dismay revealed a smoker?s voice made rusty with nerves, as the woman gestured to a metal crate that easily stood six feet in height and waited in the luxurious hallway beside her.

Fiora nodded as if this was to be expected, ?I will take it to the Master from here, Ms...??

?Junan, Mrs. Denna Junan.? She immediately responded obviously uncomfortable leaving her name but more afraid to not concede such a small defeat.

?Thank you, Ms. Junan.? Fiora nodded her dismissal and watched as the unfortunate woman trundled down the hall in a rush to return to her vacated desk. As soon as she rounded the corner, Fiora jolted out of the room of death and made to head in the opposite direction only to be distracted by the stamped initials across the crate.

HGL.

HGL? She tilted her head in the manner of the quizzical. As in HGLowe? Wasn?t she supposed to be looking into anything to do with the gentleman for DeMeur? Was this a simple coincidence?

Maybe there was a packing slip? Some information to be delivered. Taking a tentative step forward she ran her hand over the metal box as she looked for an answer.

Fiora was pretty certain that an arm wasn?t supposed to bend in that direction.

Even as that odd thought flickered into being the man who owned said arm released a scream of agony and dropped to the ground beside her.

Yep, she congratulated herself on that accurate observation, ?See, I was right.?

He didn?t appear to be particularly thankful for her support of the obvious as he rolled back and forth holding the injured limb, his wand forgotten. It occurred to her that she should probably be concerned about his attacker when the long limbered form of the woman in the casket deftly inserted herself between Fiora and the screaming man. With another movement that defied Fiora?s capabilities of sight, the man was no longer screaming but unconscious, the blow seemingly delivered by the naked beauty.

As the other assailant turned to face the threat, his gun held before him as both shield and ominous warning, Fiora wondered why he was moving at such a slow pace. Or maybe it was simply that the woman was moving so incredibly fast. The erstwhile realtor was barely able to complete the thought process before the gun was flying upward and the crunching sound of cartilage crumbling heralded the connection of the woman?s foot with the man?s knee. A fluid spin delivering a secondary kick to the falling man?s jaw that snapped his head back and left him unconscious before his body met the floor.

?Wow.?

The ease with which the woman had dispatched the two men was a seriously frightening prospect when she turned to face Fiora and reached for her. Still dazed from the original blow, Fiora tried to squirm back but her speed was nothing compared to the woman?s. Flinching as she expected a quick end she was left flabbergasted by the gentle assistance that guided her to her feet.

?Are you alright?? The soothingly modulated tones of her voice prompted Fiora to respond without her customary intensity, ?Uhh...yea. I think so.?

It took a moment to regain her bearings and in that amount of time the warrior woman simply stood next to her patiently. Noticing Ms. Junan still lying on the floor with a look of dazed confusion that was probably the matched set to her own expression Fiora offhandedly remarked on the oddness of it all, ?Aren?t ye gonna help her up too??

?If you wish me too.? And immediately the naked perfection flowed forward to gently but adeptly assist the secretary to her wobbly feet.

?I didn?t catch yer name?wait, if I wish you too??

?I am called J9. And I am yours.?

?JhaiNein? Huh? That?s a pretty name...? Blink. ?Wait. Mine?? Squeaked, ?To do what with??

?Normally I offer my services as bodyguard.?

Fiora?s giggle was slightly hysterical, ?I don?t need a bodyguard. I need to get out of here before people start asking too many questions I really can?t answer.?

?If that is what you desire.? JhaiNein moved with liquid grace to assist.

?Wait! Ms. Junan. She needs medical attention and hold up on the desire and wishes stuff. I?m not into slavery or any of that! I can?t even own plant life and keep it alive. Ye definitely don?t wanna be thinkin of me as any kind of owner.?

?But you released me.?

Fiora could only shake her head violently at that idea. A mistake if ever there was one for her to make. The room started to spin again. Lightheaded and disoriented she blinked in desperation trying to stay focused, ?Yes. Released. As in freed. Ye can do whatever ye want.?

?So you do not wish me to serve you?? The general confusion that shifted over the perfect features was met with the chattering giggle of the quite nearly unhinged.

A violent shudder wracked Fiora?s diminutive frame as the events of the day were rapidly catching up with her, ?I don?t need anybody to serve me. Hell, I just need a receptionist.?

Ms. Junan's questioning look seemed to be asking the same question that was racing through Fiora's mind: Why was the floor rushing up at her like that?