I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

[Starba]

Sorry to steal your idea Rhen, but I've been working on my Expedition novel lately and I'm really hankering for some visuals. I have the descriptions of five main characters written, but I really only want concept art for three of them. I'd do it myself, but like I said, I'm a lazy bum and not a very dynamic artist. Any takers? I'd PM you the descriptions and even pay a tiny commission (the remaining contents of my Paypal account) if you promised to be professional about it. ^_^

[Starba]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

Hey, Gloomy. Thanks for the quick reply! ^_^

I'll send you the first 15 pages or so of what I have written, so that you can get a feel for who the characters are rather than just what they look like. If you want to skip all that, though, the descriptions themselves are highlighted in bold. Feel free to draw what you like, but be reminded that you don't get my $13.38 unless you take this seriously.

[Starba]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

Bah, characters are limited by PM, so here's the post.

Sorry it took so long, but all my tabs were deleted when I pasted it, so I had to put spaces between the paragraphs. x_x

Like I said, here are the first 15 pages, character descriptions in bold. The main characters I would like drawn are Archora (the woman on the horse), Amaterasu (the woman on the ground), and Rogh (the manticor), but Roah Gin (the man with white hair) and Rith (the winged man) and maybe even the centaur (just to get a feel for the
dnel design) would be nice, too. Thanks again!



Expedition

It was spring on the small isle of Sen, in the south of the Iian Islands. The rolling, rocky hills of the seaside plateau were splashed with vibrant greens and siennas as the new mosses soaked up the remnants of the morning rain and released their earthy scent . Between worn and rounded boulders sweet shoots of grass sprouted to meet the rippling sun on the horizon. Bright red buds and patches of pale green lichen on glowed on the black bark of a few stunted, knotted dogwood. The open country was beautiful but virtually inhospitable, utterly untouched by the hand of man save for a simple, white crushed stone path which, like a glimmering stream, rounded boulders and trees as it meandered through the countryside. Not a breath of wind disturbed the verdant expanse, and only the sharp caw of seagulls rippled through the heavy air and drone of insects and distant surf.

As the sun crept ever so slowly into the morning sky, a long shadow glided smoothly and silently over the white road, joining the seagulls in lending the only visible sign of life to the remote landscape. Yet unlike the seagulls, this shadow, even without the illusion of greater length, was the size of a man with broad wings longer still. As if cradled by the heavy air, it idly swayed from side to side until it approached its final destination: the warped stilts of a modest rural retreat. The bungalow before it had originally been white with red trim and blond oak, but the stilts, foundation, sills, shutters, and stepped ramp had long since faded to a chipped and blotchy collage of beiges, peaches, and ashy grays, dampened to a dark brown from the early morning rain. When the shadow neared the faded roof of the retreat, it sharpened into focus with a whoosh of heavy air and a few lazy flaps, as a black man with black wings descended fowl-like onto the surface of the gravel stream.

Rith Balitra was a lean aelin with long limbs, calloused hands, salt-and-pepper hair, and twinkling eyes. He wore well-traveled black running shoes with no socks, faded to coal-gray and ground down with use and exposure, airy black pants worn to a silky thinness, and an untucked dark blue and white plaid, button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, exposing the flossy white cotton underneath. Smile lines and crow’s feet deepened on his face as he brushed off his shins and cast his gaze on the lonely bungalow. “Mail call!” he announced, slinging a pack off his shoulders and reaching in for its contents: a heavy, box-shaped parcel wrapped in brown packing paper. The announcement reverberated through the sparse country and straight through the unshuttered windows of the old house. A copper-toned face, clung to by a sticky stream of white hair pushed back with a long black strap of tied satin, appeared in one of the two front windows. The young man squinted for a second before a long finger pushed up the spectacles that had slid down his beaded nose.

“We don’t want any,” he said, and disappeared, “unless, of course, I’m supposed to forget all about what happened the last time you came through here.” He leaned out the one other front window with his elbows on the sill and emphasized his words by shaking a page-marked hardcover at the aelin. He was dressed in a traditional East Nlattan white, long-sleeved shirt that hung off of him like a loose roll of wet paper. The thick trim on the wide, cuffless sleeves and neckline of the shirt was inlaid with black, wedge-shaped marks characteristic of the island region and, unlike the house, was still a deep ruddy hue. The thin, airy cloth was stained dark around the neck from perspiration. The man began to fan himself with the book in his hand.

Rith chuckled as he kicked off his sneakers and strolled up the ramp into the house. “C’mon, you think a kid wants to stay cooped up in here with a bunch of old books and a bore like you? We had to do something. Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he said leisurely and with a smile. He laid down the parcel to grab onto the door frame and push his trunk inside to stretch the muscles in his chest and abdomen. The interior of the bungalow was indeed bursting with tomes of all shapes, colors, and sizes. Bookshelves lined two of the walls of the main room and a mass of books and papers spilled over the top of the oak table by the entryway. Cattycorner to the door a computer desk as well was barely visible beneath the source material for some mysterious unfinished bit of paperwork. All danced energetically under coffee cups, journals, and small appliances, strategically placed to avert certain disaster by way of humming fans.

“Play marbles! Catch frogs! Eat mud for all I care,” Roah Gin said with exasperation, poking the corner of his book in the aelin. “Just do something a little less likely to give my sister-in-law a coronary. You know, she’ll probably never bring those girls back here now ,” he added as Rith wandered in past the entryway.

“Oh seriously, you should have seen how much fun Su was having. I’m sure that ankle will heal up in no time,” he added, waving carelessly, and dropped a long, vinyl roll-up camping bag with a metallic clank.

“What in god’s name possessed you to put her on the roof, anyway?”

Rith walked into the deceptively spacious maroon-carpeted living room and spun around slowly. “I intended to catch her,” he said. “You know, you and your brother always used to get in fights to be the first one to be up there. Nothing bad ever happened then.”

“That we’ll admit to Dad ,” Roah Gin countered acidly. “Besides, sooner or later you’re going to hurt somebody, trying to keep up with the kids. You’re not young anymore. Hell, you were about my age when I was born and you don’t see me gallivanting around the countryside —what is that, anyway?” he asked, gesturing in the general direction of the package Rith had laid on the table when he realized he wasn’t paying any attention .

“Got me,” Rith shrugged, picking it up. “But I can make three guesses.” He rapped it with his knuckles near his ear, evoking a half-hollow, familiar sound.

“Who’s it from?” Roah Gin asked, feigning more interest in tidying up the table.

“Doesn’t say,” Rith replied. “You know, if you really don’t want it,” he said, pretending to slide the package back into his pack.

“Gimme that,” Roah Gin conceded, snatching it away. “But don’t think getting my mail for me absolves you of anything. I still expect you to apologize to—“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’ll do it later tonight. And I’ll bring cookies,” Rith said, making his way into the kitchen area, right of the front door.

“You better,” Roah Gin said, peering through his spectacles at the blank package. “How do you even know this is for me?” he asked as Rith helped himself to a cup of coffee.

“Would you believe this weather? Not ten o’clock and it feels like 80. Y’know, I don’t remember winter being that long ago,” he said, liberally pouring cream and sugar and clicking on a television back in the living room, propped on a flimsy metal stand between two looming bookshelves. The familiar voice of a local anchorwoman could be heard reporting on international politics. "Do you honestly doubt my abilities after all these years?" he asked, plopping down Indian-style across the room from the T.V. His long, sharp knees jutted out from either side of him. Roah Gin turned the package over and over skeptically.

“…The Empress was unable to appear at the post-ceremonial banquet, which was open to reporters,” the woman announced with business-like professionalism. “However, at today's press conference to report on the continuing Vedermarnes Empire and Dnel talks regarding the governance of the Iian Islands, it was announced that She continues to show confidence in the selection of Captain Torrin for promotion to commander of all armed forces on the islands…”

“You’re sure you got this out of my mailbox?" Roah Gin asked.

“Who else would want it?” Rith said flatly. Roah Gin cocked an eyebrow and began pulling at the corners of the brown paper wrapping. The thick book beneath was sturdy but old, bound in worn black leather. His eyes flashed with fired curiosity and he began flipping through the page upon yellowing page of sketches and heavy brown handwriting. He perused the book as the news program droned on.
“This isn’t at all surprising,” a pundit explained from the television. “Yes, Torrin is an unusual choice for such a prestigious and responsible position in the Empress’s army based on his experience, heritage, and political views, but we must keep in mind the state of the Empire's recent financial affairs. His hard-line stance against big business, especially the mammoth Mozarin conglomerate, may clash with the Empire’s position in the past, but for months the imperial government has been refusing to renew its overseas contracts with subsidiaries of Mozarin Industries. As rumors of corruption are increasingly becoming substantiated within the conglomerate, high-ranking officials in the Mikan government are left to either continue supporting the State's increasingly costly ties with them or to deny involvement in its more...unsavory practices--wait, wait, now let me finish--deny involvement in its more unsavory practices, then it will start off fresh with more promising prospects. I think Torrin’s promotion is an indication of the government’s decision, and if I’m right, and I think I am, we may be seeing the last gasp of the heyday of Mozarin Industries.”

"No more Mozarin?" Rith sniffed at the commentary skeptically. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” he muttered, flipping the channel. “What’s your take, Professor?” he asked Roah Gin.

“About what?” came the slow, airy response.

Rith glared. “Fenosian fashion,” he answered glibly , but returned his attention to the television with a furtive smile.

“Fur should have died with the ‘20s,” Roah Gin countered, still leafing through the new book. He made a quizzical expression and began cross-referencing with a blue book entitled Power Structures in Pre-Modern Nlatt from the bookshelf. “Rith, where did you get this book?” he asked again.

“I told you, it was in your mailbox,” he replied. “Why? Not in English?”

“No, it’s…wrong,” Roah Gin replied, “among other things.” He compared the two books, walked to the opposite wall and back, and compared the two again. “That couldn’t have been right ,” he mused.

Rith peaked over his shoulder at the black book. “Ooh, a diary?” he guessed. “Wow, 924? Now that’s old.”

“It’s an account…of something," Roah Gin contemplated, turning the pages. "I’m not sure what. But…”

“But?”

“But nothing,” he said, shutting the book hastily. “It isn’t accurate.” Rith picked it up and turned it over in the sunlight.

“It doesn’t look that old,” he said. “What’s one mistake?”

“It’s not a mistake, it’s an outright falsity,” Roah Gin argued as if speaking to a professional colleague. When it was obvious clarification was needed, he added, “there was a passage for the year 924 that read, ‘Negotiations for the Expedition were planned for the morning after the arrival of Council President Sachi of Atirion.’”

“President of what council?” Rith asked absent-mindedly .

“Exactly,” Roah Gin said , tapping the blue book from the shelf definitively. “'Council President' was the title of a high level administrative position of the old Nlattan city states when they were still autonomous of Eblisian rule. Eblis invaded and unified the city states as colonies in 709,” he explained, stroking his chin. “Council Presidents weren’t negotiating anything in 924. They didn’t exist, especially in a major metropolis like Atirion.”

Rith blinked. “'Among other things,'” he repeated , curiosity slightly piqued but amused more than anything.

“Well, yeah, there’s more, but…”

“Is it all wrong?” he asked skeptically.

“I don’t want to just assume that. But if I present it to my peers and it turns out to be a hoax…”

“Whoa, whoa. Present it to who now? You act like this is important or something,” Rith said tantalized, but Roah Gin was anxious. “ What?” he asked.
Roah Gin looked out the window and lowered his voice. “Rith, I’ve known you all my life, right? I can trust you, right?”

Rith reared himself up indignantly. “Of course,” he said.

“I need you not to tell anyone about this manuscript,” Roah Gin said bluntly. Rith’s left eyebrow slowly approached his salt-and-pepper hairline. “Somebody wanted a historian to read this book," Roah Gin said, pausing to let the weight of the words sink in, "but I don’t want to shake up the community until I can confirm who wrote it and why,” he added.

“You found something big in there, didn’t you?” Rith guessed with slit eyes and a smug, creeping smile.

“It’s probably just another inaccuracy,” Roah Gin said, “but I want to read enough of it to be absolutely sure. Can you do this favor for me, Rith?”

“Well, at least tell me what you found!” he exclaimed with a bark of a laugh , and reached for the tome over the younger man’s physical evasion.

“You won’t tell anyone about it until I tell you to?” Roah Gin said sternly.

“I want regular updates while you’re working on it,” Rith bargained , halting his advance.

“Whatever,” Roah Gin conceded. “Now look at this,” he said, opening the book and scanning the first few pages. “Here,” he said. “'Archóra Ngartal.’”

“The Empress?” Rith asked.

“Same name,” Roah Gin said, “but I’m pretty sure she isn’t the Empress in here, at least not formally. It seems to be an account of a part of her earlier life, and others, but…”

“But the date’s 100 years old and talks about Council Presidents that haven’t existed for 300 years,” Rith finished. “That’s…interesting,” he said.

“What am I supposed to do with something like this?” Roah Gin asked, vexed.

Rith was incredulous. “It’s a book,” he said. “Like you said, just read it. It should be entertaining if anything,” he added.

“You’re sure you got this out of my mailbox?”

“I’m positive! But I’ll keep an ear out for someone missing an exotic piece of fiction,” he smirked. "So, what're you going to do?"

"It's not like I'm going to quit my day job because of this," Roah Gin said. "I...guess I'll work on it in my off time, couple of hours a day."

Rith rolled his eyes. "How exciting," he said, gaze stopping on the wall clock. He spun on his heel and walked to the door, limberly slinging on his heavy camping bag on the way out.

"Hey, unlike you I have to work for my living, not to mention run errands and clean up after guests." Rith sat down on the wooden ramp and slipped his shoes and mail pack back on. "Maybe when I get a big, fat early retirement I'll start having enough time to indulge some free time, too, and do things like run around bothering people, but until then whoever sent me this is just going to have to wait—Are you leaving?"

“Of course I am,” Rith replied. “Honestly, boy, and you wonder why nobody comes to visit you if you expect them to hang around while you're either complaining or have your nose stuck in book.” He stood up and pointed his finger to Roah Gin’s chest. “You just get started on that thing and get it finished with. I, for one, am off camping—enjoy the rest of my Saturday. But I’m still expecting a full report tomorrow morning,” he added , stopping at the bottom of the ramp. “I'll tell Darby you're coming by.”

“Even I don’t read that fast,” Roah Gin said, feeling the weight of the text in his arms.

“You want to be a big, famous historian, don’t you?” Rith asked. “Assuming there is such a thing.”

“Ha ha,” Roah Gin said. “But I’m serious, Rith. Don’t tell anyone about this yet.”

“My lips are sealed!” he called behind him, and waved “good-bye” as he set off down the path.

“That was a short visit,” Roah Gin commented to the book at length as Rith took to the sky. As the aelin disappeared, a black spot on the horizon below the blazing sun, the wind picked up and suddenly Roah Gin felt very exposed. He retired to the confines of his home, shutting the door behind him and shuttering the windows. The fans still hummed all over the house, but somehow it didn’t seem to be as warm anymore. Clicking off the nearest one and flipping on his desk lamp, Roah Gin took a big breath and sat at his front table, clearing away enough room to lay down the thick, black book. When he was comfortable, he pulled out a notepad and scribbled on it to get the ink flowing in his pen. “Big, famous historian, huh?” he asked, mulling the thought over as he made absentminded circles with his pen. “Well, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes,” he told the book, tapping it. “Why do I have a feeling you’re going to be more trouble than you’re worth?” He pulled back the cover and first blank pages, smoothing down the first one with writing.

September 8 , 924
the foot of Mount Gnoran, valley of the Khorred Tributary, Tolflats Chain, Kartia Mountains, Northeast Inteka

was scrawled in the top right, and annals began immediately , utterly without ceremony or explanation.

The green slopes of Mount Gnoran, it read, less peak than the highest point in the rippling fold that constitutes the Tolflats Chain, among the farthest east on an uncompromisingly craggy continent, were slowly illuminated by the sun as it crept over the eastern hills…






September 8, 924
The foot of Mount Gnoran, Khorred River valley, Tolflats Chain, Kartia Mountains, Northeastern Inteka



The green slopes of Mount Gnoran, less peak than the highest point in the rippling warp of rock that constitutes the Tolflats Chain, among the farthest east on an uncompromisingly craggy continent, were slowly illuminated by the sun as it crept over the eastern hills. Slightly south of the equator, the Tolflats Chain itself is overrun from peak to crevasse by a dense tropical forest, stunted due to the altitude but no more impenetrable than that of the the foothills and flatlands farther east. Beneath the vegetation, from the slopes of Mount Gnoran and its conjoined siblings the water table slowly flows down and out of its storage zones in the cracks and fissures of the strained, distorted rock and what space can be found in the humus and leeched, caked red clay of the jungle basin. Forced out by saturation and a layer of impermeable rock, the water finally makes its way to the Khorred River nestled between the Tolflats range and the scattered crags opposite the valley. The tributary was in its inception a leashed creature, its every drop governed by the peculiarities of the first mountains squeezed and folded skyward by the sublimation of the deeper, denser northern oceanic plate of the sea of Arogo below the lighter continental Inteka. The river was confined to the seemingly permanent, unyielding natural angles and crevasses of the mountains as gravity simply pulled its contents to the sea, but to say that Khorred is entirely a subject of outside forces would be a lie; its own agency began with the very first grain of clay dislodged and carried away by the first rain drop to trickle downslope. The harder outside continents pushed the earth out of its basic state, the faster the river ran, constituted both of the unseen undercurrents of slowly flowing groundwater and the visible sheets and streams of rainwater, until, with enough rain and the right conditions, the coursing water could trigger tons of earth worth of mudslides and drag boulders along its swollen belly. Thus the Khormed river, although governed by the particularities of geography, is a leashed beast not only capable of reducing its captors to rubble, but inevitably shall, unless met with a catastrophic shift in the angle of its plain. As this process continues, every year the sun will illuminate more of the landscape faster than the year before, as the coursing water carries the earth from its stressed, distorted condition high above ground, broken up by weathering and vegetation, back to peaceful equilibrium at or below sea level.

A population firmly rooted to the earth on a broad, mountainous continent, many groups of indigenous Intekans acknowledged this general process. In antiquity, they quickly assigned to rivers a great significance not only as the source for life-giving food and water, but also as a valuable spatial marker, physically and metaphysically. The societal discourse of the river came to take on the connotation of centrality; a point of return and a base for progress and development.

Simultaneously, the river came to represent the metaphorical compliment of the Goddess of the Earth, Madina, the actual historical Earth Spirit and patroness of Inteka, who, according to legend, was so fixated on molding the mountains of her continent and correcting tectonic interference that she entirely ignored the development of life there, treating civilization with an utter arbitrariness befitting a true Goddess of Nature. Unlike Madina, however, the river god has never had a name or a clear anthropomorphic representation separating it from its natural form; rather, it is the essence that binds fresh water, a force which seeks a flat, peaceful equilibrium and interacts with the rock and earth it shares space with, engendering maximum fertility at their most balanced state. This lack of titular distinction for the river god gave it a mutability in the private and public discourse that allowed it to transcend the increasingly complex development of Intekan society and thus conform to the changing needs of politics and spirituality, ensuring its survival right down to the present day.

The international community, of course, in our predominantly aelin vernacular, decided the best way to transcribe the concept of a nameless river god into English was as The River with a capital R in order to avoid confusion. This appellation corresponded with other attempts to help clarify Intekan discourse with the outside world, such as distinguishing mountain-dwelling, darker-skinned Intekans as “mainland dwarves” and fairer islanders as “sea dwarves,” where both in the standard Intekan tongue had been “Fenggef” or “person.” Naturally, the ensuing centuries of Intekan international relations were characterized by a great flowering of mutual respect and understanding. Vying with manticors and humans to be perhaps the least advantaged sentient race on Niosha, coupled with an at-best indifferent former Spirit patroness, indigenous Intekans none-the-less share their virtually unnavigable continent with a number of coveted resources, a condition reflected in a history marked by four periods of occupation or colonization, more than 300 years of severe trade deficit and consistently among the least economically and technologically developed infrastructures. But to say that Intekans are entirely the subjects of outside forces would be to lie.

As the sun’s rays poured down the eastern slopes of Mount Gnoran, a conversation ensued deep in the valley below to the dull roar of the Khorred River. A full-bearded dwarf atop a dapple gray pony led a dnel, two horse-mounted human women, and a manticor upstream along the exposed, ruddy banks. As the rainy season had not yet hit eastern Inteka, among the most well-drenched regions in all of Niosha, the tributary was a third of its usual girth, subsequently allowing for easy passage over its narrow but traversable rock-pocked, sandy bed. However, as the party traveled further upriver, the sand changed to jagged, slimy rocks, and the beach narrowed. When the horses were unable to go on, they halted.

“It headed this way,” the blond man said with an inarticulate drawl. “I saw it going upstream when I was setting up to fish some trout about five. Last I saw of it.”

The dwarf’s skin was dark and rough from exposure and crow’s feet radiated from his baggy, narrowed eyes. His frizzy dishwater blond hair seems a disconnected, cottony mass as it spilled out the bottom of his imported matching fedora hat. A beige, button-fronted vest was his only shirt, exposing arms with as much variation above and underneath as a white-bellied fish. The dnel was a sienna-colored centaur with black hooves and tail. His human part, usually covered from top to bottom with a black uniform trimmed with red, was left largely exposed due to the heat and humidity, although he retained the bandanna and lower face mask to conceal his features. The rim of the black bandanna consisted of a line of stylized red notches representing flames. On the top of the bandanna as well as the right side of the face was was the actual symbol of the dnel, an abstract candle flame consisting of three closely interlocking, curved brush strokes. The centaur was stripped down to a tank top, scabbard, and cloak and piled the rest of his ensemble under the expanse of his long cape, emblazoned with the simple dnel flame and trim.

“You’re positive this is the werewolf identified at the murder scene,” he asked, for confirmation.

The man glared up at him awhile before answering, adjusting the chewing tobacco from one side of his lip to the other, then smiled. “If I knew it were a person I wouldn't have picked up my gear and left, but it matches what you say. Nothing runs all fours that big that’s not brown or gray around here. This one was white as the sun and was wearing something, couldn’t quite tell what, but it had to be clothes. That was 29 days ago this day,” he added with a false polite tone, still staring at the dnel.

“Where does this river originate? You said the werewolf was following it as far as you could tell,” one of the two women on the appaloosa mare asked. She was a fair-skinned human with large, penetrating and intelligent eyes, a well-controlled angular jaw, and ruddy lips that formed the shape of a dignified, flattened M. On her forehead and left cheek were three teardrop-shaped pink stones apiece, which were aligned in two identical downward-facing arcs. The gems on the woman’s forehead were slightly obscured by a few locks of curly henna hair that spilled down her back and shoulder. Despite the humidity, she was clothed fully from the collar down in dark, earthy-shaded riding gear, including brown leather gloves. Over the entire ensemble she donned an unbuttoned white leather trench coat with a broad triangular lapel. Over her shoulder was slung a quiver and a long slender bow, lacquered to a rich burgundy and ornately carved with two reverse images of the top-down view of a leaping gazelle, its hooves gracefully pointed forward and its head pulled back so that the twisted horns arced the length of its body. Between the images of the gazelles at the ends of the bow was a fitted grip of black tanned leather with silver fittings worked in the shape of reclining does. At the woman's waist jutted a silver rapier fitted with the same leather and a hand guard in the shape of a gazelle’s head and horns.

Her companion on the horse, also a human female, dismounted with an leap, her raised wooden clogs letting out a snap as they hit a boulder on the riverbank. She scanned the brightening southern end of the valley, which at a distance curved off to the west around the foot of a craggy outcrop of vine-and-moss-draped rock.

This woman was younger, shorter, and leaner than the other, but the grace and energy in her step betrayed a spring-loaded musculature. She had bright, curious, darting eyes, constantly absorbing new information, a flat button nose, and unpainted lips which she was biting at absentmindedly. Her naturally golden skin was tanned to a healthy brown and she had a small dark mole on the right side of her face an inch from the center of her ear. Straight black hair hung down in locks to her neck and shoulders, variously highlighted bright blue at the ends and changing to a vibrant yellow here and there. She wore a loose silk happi shirt folded conservatively across her chest with long square sleeves opened at the ends rather than sewed. The happi was dyed to match the sun at the horizon, fading from deep blue at the top to yellow-white at her waist and bottom of the sleeves and was embroidered with the outline of flying cranes and billowing clouds. On her legs were split-sided black hakama pants, opening over white, two-toed socks and blond wood geta sandals. At her hip she wore golden brass knuckles in the shape of one gazelle horn apiece and an old wakizashi short sword in a burgundy lacquered sheath.

“If you keep following the river, it goes all the way to Mount Narroenged,” said the man on the pony. “Narroenged is about 30 miles south-south west, for an aelin. Not much out that direction except the Riverways. Then again, the Riverways are about as full of holes and caves as a rotten tooth.” He smirked. “Suppose if you are going to kill someone it’d be a good place to hide out.”

“He has a point. He or she has no way of going to Anusha like the other one and besides may have multiple accomplices,” the manticor said in an old Nouesian accent. Standing on all fours the top of his head came up to the standing woman’s belly, but his physiology was constructed in such a way that his neck naturally jutted forward instead of up, much like a cat. His face was generally humanoid in bone structure but was covered with a slick brown-gold fur with black spots on his lower cheeks and forehead. His eyes were a deep green with cat-like pupils and the bridge of his nose was large but narrow so as to accommodate a cat-like heavy scent olfactory system. The bottom of his nose was black, wet, and sensitive and his nervous, dry mouth sometimes betrayed a twitch. Being a carnivore, he had strong neck and jaw muscles, but the jaw structure itself was delicate. His bristly black head hair was straight and hung down in an arc uniformly to slightly below his chin, but was currently tucked behind straight-lobed, furry ears. The fur at the matnicor’s neck, chin, and general under quarters were white and fluffy, where as the rest was a sleek brown-gold several inches long pattered with leopard spots. Folded bat-like wings jutted from below his shoulder blades horizontally on a strong back and he had a brown-gold scorpion tail nearly the length of his body which was black underneath rather than white, and curled only at the very end.

Interest piqued, the Intekan man mulled over his tobacco and looked back and forth between the other members of his party as they discussed their further plans. The call of birds and insects grew as the sun continued to dress the young mountains in bright green for the day. As the heat and humidity intensified, so too did the sweet and sour smell of rotting freshwater fish from the exposed riverbed. The man spit on the rocks and leaned forward in his saddle to listen better.

“Have you asked other dnel to see if the werewolf had been spotted any time directly preceding the attack?” the mounted woman asked the centaur.

“Naturally,” he said, “but we haven’t turned up anything. Since no one’s seen the assassin outside of wolf form, our suspect could be any human male or female on the street. It doesn’t help that we were expecting the other one. So Zharej has volunteer accomplices now?”

“Could be a revival of the Loyalists,” the manticor said. “Wouldn’t be the first time. Every time someone gets a bad hand from segregation laws they crawl out of the woodwork.”

“But I never expected them to go so far as to ally themselves with Zharej’s assassin, though. Usually the whole Loyalist spiel is just propaganda to gather support,” the woman next to him said. “Who in their right mind would think Zharej actually has a chance of returning to Niosha?”

“No use worrying about it without more information,” the woman on the horse said. “For all we know it could have just been a hired hit.”

“But it wouldn’t hurt to find out from the source,” the manticor argued. “If there’s a possibility that there are mortals loyal enough to kill for Zharej it’s a problem we need to nip in the bud now. If it’s civil unrest with the law somewhere we need to find out the problem and try to devise a solution, but first we need answers. I say we go to the Riverways and try to track down our culprit.”

“You want to respond to a killer by answering their demands?” the dnel said in indignant astonishment.

“Squeaky wheel gets the grease,” the dwarf said with a broad smile.

“You can’t be serious.”

“The murder of Anne Beth Bornta wasn’t meant to be a statement, or we’d know about the political motivations by now,” the woman on the horse said. “The attacker braved the expectant dnel guard to kill a shiiro and disappeared almost without a trace. We were lucky to find witnesses this far. The tactics are virtually identical to the other assassin, indicating corroboration, or copycat murder, or the worst case scenario, that Zharej has somehow devised a way to increase the number of his slaves on Niosha.” The manticor winced at the implication and the woman on the ground bit her lip uncomfortably. “Either way, I agree, we should investigate to the best of our ability. Amate, Rogh, if you check out the Riverways, I’ll backtrack to South Medos to see if I can dig up anymore information.” The manticor nodded curtly.

“Rendezvous at the embassy in South Medos in a month? We’ll send word if we can’t make it on time,” Amate said, pulling her pack from the saddle of the appaloosa. The woman in the white coat nodded silently and coaxed the horse to turn around. The Intekan man blinked in alarm and laughed hesitantly.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me correctly,” he said. “When I said the Khorred spring was near the Riverways I didn’t mean just right around the bend,” he called out as Amate and Rogh turned upstream with a wave and began to sprint.

“They’ll be fine,” the woman on the horse said, trotting in the other direction.

“Fine?” he blurted sarcastically. “Alone without a horse even?”

“You don’t have to worry about prosecution if anything happens. We’re not protected by dnel or Intekan law,” she said. “Or any country’s law for that matter.” The appaloosa was brought to a canter.

The dnel followed along. “You’ll get your pay, no strings attached,” he called back, “As long as you did what we paid you for.” The dwarf scowled vindictively as if hit by a physical blow, and rode a distance behind. “With negotiations between West Nlatt and Inteka the mess they are now, perhaps it’s best you left this investigation to the dnel,” the centaur said in a low voice when he caught up to the appaloosa. “Ma’am, surely you can agree that more stately concerns take precedence at this particular juncture?”

“How I do my job is hardly any of your business or, unless you’ve been recently voted into the Dnel High Council, your jurisdiction,” she snapped.

“Ma’am.”

“With the last shiiro descendant gone, finding out Zharej’s next course of action is top priority regardless of political concerns on the ground. The dnel would do well to remember that.” The centaur sighed uncomfortably and didn’t respond. “What?” the woman asked as he fidgeted uncomfortably and slowed his pace. “What is it? Speak up.”

“Then you’re just going to stay with the investigation until it turns up something?” he said.

“That’s what I said,” she replied irritably.

“If that’s the case, then you should know that investigating South Medos is a waste of your time,” he said.

“I beg your pardon? Keep this insubordination up and I’ll see to it this is the last time you put on—“

“Anne Beth Bornta wasn’t the last shiiro descendant,” the centaur said abruptly, pulling himself up straight. The woman on the horse stopped dead, then tilted her head forward expectantly. The dnel swallowed hard, averting his eyes from her icy glare and continued, “She had a daughter in her home in Gista. The Intekans who did the paperwork found out when they read her will. She and her family came to claim Anne Beth’s belongings about a week ago…”

The woman turned pink, then ran her tongue across her teeth slowly and began nodding in realization. “Noss,” she said. “In a month have a message waiting for Amaterasu and Rogh Worcul at the South Medos Embassy and every friendly station along the way. Make sure they find out exactly what you told me, or the High Council will find me far less amicable towards dnel interests when the time comes to broker the peace between Nlatt and Inteka. Understand?”

“Understood.”

“Good,” she said, and took off downstream at full gallop.

The centaur sighed in frustration and stamped at his reflection in a trapped puddle of water. He looked over at the Intekan man who was watching him intently nearby. The dnel growled and tore at his pack under his cloak, pulling out a half-empty sack of money, and threw it at the dwarf. Coins flew out of the open satchel as it soared through the air and scattered all over the riverbed. “Keep the change,” he muttered and dashed off after the appaloosa. The blue sky reflected off the litter of coins in the mud. The Intekan man muttered and simply stared back hotly. Finally tearing his eyes away, he glanced upstream just as, in a last flash of color, the human and manticor disappeared around the southern bend of the river. Then he descended from his pony.

Rogh and Amaterasu raced up the riverbed, the clap of geta the only measure of reprieve from the drone of locusts and frogs and babbling water, as suffocating as the leering tree boughs, the still, moist air, and the smell of rotting fish carcasses in the deepening forest landscape. The two ran at a heightened pace that never slackened but for the physical obstacles barring their southward pursuit. Now and again Amate slipped and tumbled on the mossy rocks and boulders but just as quickly was back to full sprint without even brushing herself off. Rogh, naturally the faster runner, held back close to her side, cushion in case of a fall.

“You know, I really thought it would be the last time. I really did,” Amaterasu said in Japanese, using Rogh as a prop to pull herself up after sliding off an unsteady stone and tumbling into the water.
“I don’t mind,” Rogh said, shaking himself from his thoughts. “You could just try taking off the shoes, though.”

“Not that,” she said, picking up her speed again on a sandy expanse of course deposited sediment. “Another shiiro we couldn’t protect. It’s driving me mad.”

“Oh. Don’t blame yourself. Our only failure was not detecting Anne Beth before, and it’s not like the dnel were about to cooperate with us in that. As far as I’m concerned, I think they were attempting to cover up for their own failures by trying to show they could protect her themselves and in turn shift the blame to us for allowing the previous murders,” Rogh said between breaths as he ran. “They got what was coming to them.”

“A woman’s life isn’t fair game for one-upmanship,” Amate said angrily.

“That’s not how I meant it,” he said.

“I know,” Amate conceded, “but all the same I hate how all the politics have gotten in the way of the original goals. When Jefoli first trained us and shared his vision with us, we were supposed to be treated as a compliment to the dnel, not an obstacle or a tool. Things have gotten so…routine. The rules have lost all of their value—meaning. Exploited and ultimately a victim of the crossfire. Just like Anne Beth Bornta.”

Rogh looked over at her as they ran. “Don’t be pessimistic,” he said. “It’s not really your color.” Amate smiled and skipped confidently over a jagged triangular rock jutting up between some fast-moving water. “Even with the shiiro descendants gone, there's still Noss, and besides that the status quo’s changed so maybe we can start having some real successes. Some positive contributions.”

“Starting with your grand scheme to bring peace and harmony to the world one segregation law at a time,” she said with a wry grin.

Rogh balked. “What?” he said indignantly “I just figured that since the attacker was one of the Middle Races, they might have for some reason found some solace in the Loyalist manifesto to overturn lingering racial persecution against them. What’s more they carried out a race-based crime. Why else would anyone wanted to ally themselves with Zharej? Anyway, he’s been virtually impotent for 600 years. As far as motive is concerned, his vicarious campaign against the shiiro seems petty retribution at best. Besides that he has about a snowball’s chance in hell of having his man infiltrate dnel headquarters, much less find a way to dispatch Noss in the first place.” Amate laughed. “If you thought it was ridiculous why didn’t you say something?” he added, hurt.

“I don’t disagree, I just though it was cute,” she said.

“Cute?” Amate smiled. Rogh shook his head and sighed.

They ran on in silence for awhile, following the course of the river for miles. The humidity pressed in like a wet sponge. The sound of the ruddy water and the repeating harsh buzz of insects pressed in above all other noise, a pulsating heartbeat alone in a breathless, soundless world. Rogh's gaze wandered to the thick underbrush now and again. He saw branches weighed down with lichen reaching out around dark breaks like the searching arms of an insatiable, desperate beggar draped in rags. Even as old as he was, Rogh cringed in spite of himself. “So, once we get to the spring where do we go? He didn't say,” he asked.

“If you don't know, I don't know. We've never been to the Riverways this way before. Why don't you fly up and take a look?”

Rogh watched up above them for a clearing in the trees. Although the sun was not yet into the bottom of the valley, the patches of sky were bright and inviting. The sight of them was like a glimpse of the surface from deep underwater, and Rogh was beginning to feel desperate for air. “Gladly,” he said, and took off at the first opportunity, leaping from branch to branch and out of the canopy, scattering a flock of small, colorful birds perched there. When he broke through, he closed his eyes and breathed in deeply as the wind whistled in his ears and forest fell away below him. He rose higher and higher and winced as the sun broke over the eastern ridge. Opening his eyes again, he saw the winding path of the river through the green mountain valley. At the altitude he was now the treetops obscured the bends, but it was clear enough where the Khorred retreated into the silhouette of high, snow-capped mountains off to the southwest. Here and there columns of smoke rose from the breakfast fires of villages along the riverside and even from small clearings in the thick of the forest. Straight ahead the lower eastern ridge of hills took a turn to the west, diverting the river valley.

The Riverways of which their dwarven guide spoke were a massive, millenium-old network of mainly east-west canals carved hundreds of meters straight into solid mountain rock. They radiated from one point near the west bank of the mighty Fegghasi River, into which the Khorred flowed, and on the map appeared for all the world like a desert shrub growing out of a vertical wall. The Riverways' network was geometrical: straight lines, triangles, and pentagonal pools the size of lakes all perfectly symmetrical over an east-west axis, a maze of standardized gage with many connecting channels but also full of dead ends leading to solid walls with mysterious artificial caves high above the water table.

Originally the deep trenches were not connected to the Fegghasi River, but the people of the nearby city of Biron must have quickly deduced the value of joining the two via an artificial canal, because they for centuries prospered by charging hefty tolls for water transport over them. The trade goods were accepted from the west and shipped down the Fegghasi River, which flowed north hundreds of miles and emptied into the Istaul Ocean, with the city of South Medos at its mouth. Yet it is clear that in ancient times the Riverways were intended neither for for trade nor for agriculture. For the transport of goods, the precipitous rock walls were nearly as much of a liability as travel overland through the brush. And, although many of the pathways were blocked by falling rock in the ensuing centuries after the Riverways' construction, those remaining were still far more than necessary to regulate trade even at the height of the local harvest of grain and vegetables from the arable meadows and stepped farms high in the mountains. The Bironians maintained three main branches of the Riverways and blocked off the rest, using rangers to patrol the others to force out competition. However, that simply meant making sure that no new elevators were constructed, as the stone walls were deterrent enough for trade otherwise. For the uneducated and unworldly, the true purpose of the giant network was simply an awe-inspiring mystery of ages gone by.

Because the Fegghasi River was to the east of Rogh and Amaterasu's position, if their dwarven host had said that the source of the Khorred was near the Riverways, the network was undoubtedly just over the tail end of the range of hills directly ahead of them. The main corridors for trade for the Bironians were the longest in the center of the Riverways, so the innumerable caves in the rock walls of the north and south canals would indeed be a prime hideout for the lawless, especially those who could fly. If the assassin was driven to travel this far to escape its crime, there was the distinct possibility that it wasn't acting alone.

Rogh circled twice and dipped back into the canopy when he spotted Amate below him.

[Starba]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

Like I said, you don't have to read all of it, since the necessary parts are in bold. But I'm patient.

Godspeed, Spider-Man!

[Starba]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

Hmm...any other takers? I can always add to the pot.

[Marc M.]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

I might be able to whip something up...

[Starba]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

Nice! Same rules apply. There's another $13.38 in it for you if you show an effort.

[TheHonorableRyu]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

I might get in on this, too!

[Starba]

Re: I'm a lazy copycat. Somebody want to do some concept art for me?

Please do!