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Jacelyn Michel: Tales of a Freelance Larcenist
Topic Started: Jun 26 2016, 12:47 PM (4,064 Views)
Areial
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Et'Ada
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:face: someone need's to practice! but whatever motivation works for some training... poor Vorstag's bum...
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Grits
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Thane
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She felt really bad about it, but probably not as bad as being shot in the rear!
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Rick
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Jarl
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Oooooooh Jace, soooooo SEXY, but demure with it. She make flirting an art form.
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ghastley
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Jace, the correct answer is "if yours wasn't such a large target ...".

And then hope yours isn't.
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Kane
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Ah, that's all meat in the rump, no big deal! :teehee:
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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Ouch! LOL, poor Vorstag, he's going to be making her practice!
He better not be flirting with the wrong woman!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Great read, Grits! Jace is a lucky girl. I hope she eventually understands that....
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Grits
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Thane
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Thanks, you guys! Poor Vorstag, this was not her first offense. (This is the last update that I posted over on the Beth site.)


Jace: page 31

Jacelyn dreamt that she lay on scalding sands. No matter which way she rolled, her skin prickled and burned. She woke to find herself chafed from nose to knee.

“Godsdammit, Vorstag! Look at this! You spent an hour last night honing a brand-new axe. Can you not spend five minutes with your razor?”

Vorstag muttered something, his head still under a pillow.

“Did you really just say ‘heal it’?” She smacked him on the backside, then shook her stinging palm. I might as well have slapped a rock. A moment later the golden light of her healing spell soothed the irritations away.

Vorstag moved the pillow. “See, practice makes you better. We should go see the mages at the College of Winterhold.”

That panicked feeling fluttered in Jacelyn’s stomach. “I told you, I don’t have any schooling. None. I was a kitchen maid, remember? All that mage and alchemist stuff I tell people, it isn’t true.”

“It’s true now. You just cast a fast healing spell, and you can knock a charging troll down with your poison. I don’t know any kitchen maids who can do that.”

Jacelyn snorted. “How many do you even know.”

Vorstag rolled onto his side, propped up on one elbow. “None. But I know this mage who is also an alchemist. You studied those tomes you stole until you could cast from old Sam’s staff without making a sound. That makes you at least an Adept, I’d wager.”

Jacelyn gave him raised brows.

“I used to bed… er, I used to work for an Illusionist,” Vorstag explained.

“Slut,” Jacelyn giggled. She kissed him on the shoulder.

“Don’t try to change the subject. You should apply at the College. You’re a Breton, don’t waste it.” Vorstag let her push him onto his back. “Ah, all right, go ahead and change the subject.”

They didn’t get started toward Riften until Alvor was leaning on the porch rail for his mid-morning break, but the roads were clear all the way to Helgen. Jace halted Midnight and waited for Vorstag to stop alongside her.

“I haven’t been back since the dragon,” she murmured. A shiver ran through her. “And the near beheading.”

Vorstag did not offer a reply.

“I guess now’s a good time,” Jacelyn said.

Flayed body parts hung near the locked gates, claiming the ruins as bandit territory. Such a warning was merely bait to Vorstag. Jacelyn unlocked the gate. While Vorstag dragged it open and began his assault, Jace used the Sanguine Rose to summon the dremora Krethuzet from Sanguine’s realm.

Nothing happened. Cursing, Jace dug through her pack for a filled soul gem. She heard Vorstag’s taunts as the bandits raised an alarm, then the clash of their meeting. Dammit, someday I will get my skitt together before the fight!

“I SMELL WEAKNESS.” Krethuzet charged howling from his portal and into the fray.

Jace followed more cautiously, searching for a target, remembering Faendal’s teaching, and trying not to trip.

An arrow thumped into the dust at her feet, quickly followed by another. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a hedge mage run at Dammit, spewing frost from his palms. Vorstag moved to intercept him. Screams informed Jace that Krethuzet’s blade had set someone on fire.

Jace’s eyes snapped to the tower. Another arrow was already whistling toward her. She stepped back until she had an angle and engaged the archer in a deadly dance.

Her first shot went high. The second knocked him back, but he pulled himself up again. Her third arrow put him down.

Krethuzet made the gargling howl that announced his departure from the realm.

“That’s how a true Nord fights,” Vorstag declared, presumably to the dogs.

Jace knew that meant they had survived. “Look!” she called out, pointing at the tower. “Did you see that? Did you see me get that guy?”

Vorstag made it across the abandoned street in a single blink. He gripped her shoulders hard enough to hurt. “Do you have a death wish, Jace? Out in the open like this? You’re not wearing any armor!”

“Put me down! I want to show you the tower. Look, that’s where I jumped across while the inn was on fire.” The memory of blood and smoke filled her nose as if she was back in rags, her hands bound in front of her. Vorstag let go an instant before her breakfast splattered on the ground.

“Hey,” said Vorstag, more gently than she could have imagined. He wiped her mouth with the heel of his palm.

“Sorry. I guess I’m not ready to… No, screw it. We’re here. I want to know if Vilod still made that mead with juniper berries mixed in.”

They picked through the ruins until Jace’s desperate fear retreated back to its place. She stood beside the headsman’s block for a long time, looking up at the stones and slice of sky that she had thought would be her last sight in this life.

“You’re right,” she finally said to Vorstag. “Let’s go back and buy a spell tome for some mage armor. Once I’ve learned it, we can get back on the road to Riften.”

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Rick
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Jarl
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Yay, Jace is listening to her natural Breton instinct at last....shame Vors had to shout it into her face before she realised that magic is a natural part of her. How much will she turn to the arcane in the end....who knows....thats the delight of watching Jace unfold.

Fabulous Grits :rose:
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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Rick's got the right of it. :D And Jace may be Breton, but she has the stubbornness of a Nord, lol. Maybe Vorstag will manage to get her to the college, who knows, but I'm having a blast reading! Love it Grits!
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Areial
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Et'Ada
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:clap: Awesome! and Vorstag is correct, she made a nice juicy target of herself...mage armor is a great idea!!
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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I really appreciate the ins and outs of the relationship - and especially Jace's unhappy stomach as she relived her nearly-disastrous introduction to Skyrim.

VERY well done, Grits!
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Kane
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Yuck, I hope she didn't get any on Vorstag's boots! Poor girl, Helgen must have been Hell(gen) for her!
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Grits
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Thane
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Rick, thank you! You are so kind to Jace. I’d love to see her use a conjured bow someday, but the girl drags her feet.

Andra, thanks, Vors has been a star lately. Well, he’s been a star from the start. Yeah, when Jace gets those brows down and her chin up, watch out!

Areial, she wouldn’t buy a tome for the longest time because she thought it was too much like “work.” Argh! Thank you!

Sere, returning to Helgen was a big deal for Jace. She is not one for introspection, and it hit her hard when they got there. Thank you, Jace is lucky that Vors is capable and willing to see things through with her.

Kane, I’d guess Vorstag has had worse on his boots, but yeah, yuck! :D Thanks, Helgen was harder than she thought it would be, because she didn’t really think about it much.

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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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None of us think about the hard things - until we have no choice....
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Grits
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Jace: page 32

Jacelyn stood in the middle of the road, staring at the mountainous dead creature. Her breath came in painful gasps. “Why in sixteen hells are there so many bears?”

Vorstag shouldered his axe. He made a vague gesture. “We’re in the woods.”

“No, I mean in the whole entire world why do there have to be so many bears?”

Flies began to arrive. Jace took a few steps backward.

“There are five less now,” said Vorstag. “If they had their way, there would be less of us.”

“I think it’s fewer.

Vorstag gave her a cheery salute. “You’re practically a student already.”

“I didn’t agree to go to Winterhold. We haven’t even gotten to Riften yet!” Jace looked around for her horse. “I wonder how many fewer there will be by the time we get there.”

“There would be one fewer Breton if you hadn’t learned that spell.”

Jace had practiced casting her mage armor until it was almost a reflex. It had saved her neck when two wolves had jumped her while they were fighting a bear. The only problem was that now once she had cast her armor and drawn her bow, it was difficult to remember her healing spells. Dammit, he’s right. “We can go after Riften. Why are we going to Riften? I can’t even remember.”

Vorstag shrugged.

“Oh right,” said Jacelyn. “I wanted to be warm.”

They began to pass small farmsteads just as Jace wondered if they would make the city by nightfall. Her head swiveled like an owl’s as she took in the lake view on their left and the flowers and fields on their right. When they passed a strange-looking fortress set against the base of the hills, Jace pointed it out to Vorstag.

“That’s Largashbur, a stronghold for the orcs,” he told her.

“Isn’t the lake beautiful,” Jace sighed, turning back the other way again. “Look how the sun sparkles, like a giant’s hand all full of diamonds.”

Vorstag grinned at her. “Aye, just like that.” But he wasn’t looking at the lake.

By late afternoon the city of Riften appeared, built low along the lake. When Jace approached the gate guard to ask about a stable, he called her riff-raff and directed them to the North Gate. Jace attempted to sweet-talk the man. Vorstag stood bare-chested from the heat and blood smeared from the bears at her side, ready to draw and glaring straight at him. Jace privately could not blame the guard for his assessment. She mounted up and headed for the North Gate.

The guards there were just as friendly. “Hold there,” one said as they approached. “Before I let you into Riften, you need to pay the visitor’s tax.”

Jace was determined not to start off on the wrong foot with Riften’s law enforcement. Sweet hadn’t worked before. So she stepped close to the guard and glared up into his helmet’s eye-slots. “Are you seriously trying to shake me down?” she hissed.

“All right, keep your voice down! You want everyone to hear you? I’ll let you in, just let me unlock the gate.”

Jace gave the other guard a cool glance while they waited.

The guard shifted his feet. “Take my advice,” he blurted, “don’t listen to that talk of the ‘face sculptor’ down in the Ragged Flagon. ‘Face butcher’ is more like it from what I’ve heard.”

Jace had taken a dozen steps into Riften before the light dawned. “Oh my gods, sculptor?! They can sculpt people?” She whirled around and called back to the guard. “Do you think they can make my boobs bigger?”

Vorstag erupted in a fit of coughing. Several passersby paused to give Jace a once-over.

“All right, show’s over,” she mumbled, flushing. “Unless there’s no chamber doors at the inn, then you’ll all get to see them.”

The folk loitering near the North Gate all seemed to have a story to share with visitors. While Vorstag spoke with a woad-painted warrior woman, Jace was addressed by a dark-haired Nord in heavy armor.

The man lounged in the shadow under a porch, leaning against a post. “I don’t know you,” he growled. “You in Riften looking for trouble?”

Jace kept one ear on Vorstag’s conversation with the warrior. “Just passing through,” she told the thug.

He spilled enough names to identify himself as one of the warrior’s enemies in town, then finished his presentation by offering to sell Jace more information. “I’m your guy,” he said, “but it’ll cost you.”

Jace tilted her head to the side and gave him a smile. “What do you know that’s free?” Idiot.

Quite a lot, it turned out. Maul pushed off the post and sauntered away down the street as Vorstag returned to Jace’s side.

Jace raised her brows at him.

Vorstag lifted his chin in reply.

“Let’s drop off our packs, buy some mead, and go out to the lake to watch the sun set,” Jace said. “Then we can talk all about it.”
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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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OH MY GODDESS Grits! I spit wine all over my keyskin! At least my keyboard's clean and working fine.... thanks to said keyskin.... Lordy - that was HYSTERICALLY FUNNY. I'm still laughing, and husband's giving me "that look"....
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Andra Hawksdaughter
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Jarl
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Oh Grits, you ran me through the mill with this one, all of the emotions, until I was roaring! :rofl:

And Vorstag made me :wub: and awwww, so sweet!!

I loved it!!! :aww:

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Serethil
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Et'Ada
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Eh.... btw.... you have to realize that the business about the boobs.... I don't want mine bigger thanks very much. I want to be a nice.... um.... FLAT.... 32 A. That would work for me....
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Areial
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<grinning> Oh boy did I get a good laugh... and a romantic chit chat on the lake shore...or not
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