Quip

"YOU!" Pudgy fingers pointed accusingly at a nearby sheep, the critter remaining completely oblivious to its impending doom. "I'm gonnae rip yer innards oot 'n' uise thaim as a poke. Noo git ower 'ere 'n' intae mah pocket sae ah kin git back tae Landon 'n' be dane wi' this bloody chore." Grabbing the fluffy beast by the scruff, she shook it madly like it might somehow shed its skin and morph into precisely needed, even though she'd already forgotten whatever it was she'd been sent to fetch. Big on passion. Short on attention span. It had taken her nearly a week of painstaking effort to

By this point, Quip had given up trying to get mats from pure slaughter. Not that she wasn't capable. The sheer sparkle factors glittering across the fields demonstrated her prowess. The mobs were all just too low level to be worth anything, even at her meager rank. "Come oan! Yin o' ye mist be worth something toward making this happen." Gasping for breath more out of the expectation that she should than because it was actually required, Quip leaned against a solitary oak growing proud and tall in the middle of the grasslands. A small rise at its base gave way to a pocket or niche

"Get ower 'ere ye lousy piece o' self-propelled future bacon! Ye'r aff tae be a song!" Quip still hadn't quite grasped the concept of gathering being a murder-free activity. As far as she was concerned, death creates mats and mats create everything else, therefore death creates everything else. It didn't quite work that way. Fortune and a hand in shadow arranged that she would trip over the appropriate gathering node along the way. This exercise would require a staggering amount of premeditated stumbling, but it had to be done. It already took a considerable effort not to laugh, just wa

"Hey, ah think a'm finally getting th' haun o' this." As horrible an ordeal as the last few days had been, Landon actually had to agree, mostly because he was sure she'd put him in a headlock again if he didn't. A knock on the shop door nearly caused his frazzled nerves to break, launching him into the rafter. Opening it but a crack, he found a small boy with a neatly wrapped parcel under his arm. "Package for Quip, Sir. I was told to get it here right away. It's from her brother." Uncertain what to make of it, but tired of being held hostage in his own home and receiving an increa

"Whoa! Lady. Easy!" Landon instantly backed off and got to work, thanking the stars that the system would simply manifest the required recipe. He didn't actually have a clue how bagpipes were really made and now would never want to learn for fear of revisiting this trauma. It took a while, and Quip hovering at his side fawning over him and asking a million unintelligible questions didn't help. He just smiled and nodded a lot, instantly reversing his reactions if her mood appeared to sour. By late evening, the Wee Beast, as she'd taken to calling it, was ready. The cacophonous hell that

Landon's brain nearly short-circuited when Quip returned, a full sheepskin in her arms and partially obscuring her gleaming green eyes poking out behind it. "There!" He looked confused. "There what?" "There's th' material ye wantit tae mak' th' bagpipes." He'd already completely forgotten. "Oh! Right. Those. See, the thing is, what I actually need are crystals. It's how the whole performer profession thing worked." Quip's eager expression had already turned to whatever most befits the gathering of thunderclouds under a tornado watch with a touch of air ra

Harassing every local on the streets quickly proved unsuccessful. Most were just terrified of her, and the rest were threatening to duel her if she didn't get the hell away from them. "Prissy bunch o' jackasses! A' a'm waantin' is a handful o' mats. Howfur solid kin that mibeez aye, mibeez naw be? Freyd hud thoosans o' th' bloody thing laying aroond a' ower th' place." Memories of her failed and aborted sorting session only riled her temper even more and she soon stomped out the main gates to continue her search. Accustomed to the wide variety of goods that Freyd frequently brought b

"Hey, YOU!" The same booming, barking voice that regularly scared her brother out of his second storey hammock wreaked havoc on the nerves the poor, random player she'd chosen to accost in the lonely alley. "Where dae ah git stuff tae mak' instruments?" "Where do you what?" The accent was causing some problems, but Cardinal's best efforts were only able to achieve so much. "Materials? Is that what you want? You'll either have to trade for them or go gather them in the wilds yourself." The poor man was about to make some smartass comment about how much of a newb she had to be to ask

"Hiiiiiii," she said, swooning so hard it might cripple him if she fell. "A'm Quip. Urr ye single?" Thick, brushy eyebrows winked and twirled at him in a disturbingly mesmerizing fashion. "Lan... uh... Landon?" Some doubt crept in, uncertain that it was safe to reveal his identity to this maniac. "Single? Yeah, I guess. Running solo is kinda my thingm though, if that's what your asking." His fight and flight instinct were searching for a third option, not liking either default odds in the face of the current situation. "Can I help you with something?" Quip blushed a deep maroon, a

The crescendo nearly made her ears bleed even as her eyes twitch in time with the beat and her feet were already tapping along as an involuntary reflex. As the man finished, his heavily calloused finger plucking the chords like a maestro, his face twisted in a rictus grin of manic intensity, he swung around and held his final note for a full minute, trying to eek every possible second out of the tune. Quip's brain noticed that his eyes were closed, but hers were in full blown rapture. As far as she was concerned, he was gorgeous. And then the string snapped. A yelp and lashed fingertip.

Still fuming after her latest knock-down drag out argument with Freyd, Quip had stormed her way back to the Town of Beginnings stopping the portal at every level on the way down. She'd assumed that touring about the different scenery might calm the thrumming of her veins and pulse, but it all just worked to piss her off even more. "Tha' damnable ingrate! efter a' a've dane fur him. He aye doesn't appreciate th' single smallest gesture. Awa' an' bile yer heid Freyd!" Completely lost, she found herself standing outside a music shop in some rundown narrow alley of what could only

Bright blonde brows raised in surprise, but not by due of arrival as she'd heard Bismuth's footsteps upon entry. It was the compliment that caught her off guard. She was short, gazing up at him from a full head's height lower than his own with a pair of eyes like shining emeralds. Thick braids dangled about broad shoulders that made her seem more likely to be a blacksmith than a shopkeeper, as implied by her stained and heavily wrinkled apron. "Most fowk dinnae aim fur th' favoured punter discount ferr sae brazenly, bit keep it up braw. Ye'r daein' juist fine." Her eyes raced down a

Bushy braids of blonde watched them from a distance, feeling every pang of panic, fear and insecurity flow through the pair squatting in the middle of the pond. They were like kites, casting about for a tether in the wind, not realizing that they need only hold on to each other. It had taken long enough, but maybe they'd finally started to figure things out. She shook her head, smiling at the way people insisted on dancing endlessly around each other. Her usual approach was just to mash them together until the parts were made to fit, but these two seemed to need time and a slow simmer inst

"You beat Hephaestus at his ain gam? Isnae he th' yin thay ca' th' 'lame' god? Howfur solid cuid that hae bin? Picking oan unfortunates?! PITY OAN YE, KOGA!!!" The heads of several nearby players poked up from behind hedges and gullies, drawn by the sudden and dramatic cry. Nothing said had seemed inflammatory, yet the unpredictable woman had flared from casual chatter to embarrassingly loud outrage in less than five seconds. Her barking accusations set to the local wildlife scampering for cover, her wild eyes daring him to respond in kind. "First ye'r killing babies, 'n' noo ye

Quip's ears perked up. Her head followed, poking up out of the grass like an overly curious marmot, little tufts of sod and reeds sticking out of her tightly braided hair at odd angles. "Psychology? Is that th' yin that hauns oot gear lik' candy, or th' ither yin? Ah kin ne'er remember." Genuine consternation crossed Quip's face as she struggled to reconcile vague recollections, ending only with a shrug and resumed search. "I dinnae ken howfur ye'v managed tae git oot o' toun at a'. Hings seemed tae be getting worse, nae better. Though, ah suppose, thare ur fewer o' us tae treat than

"Freyd's an ah kent that awreedy bahookie , wha wouldn't recognize a feeling if it slapped him o'er th' coupon lik' a drookit fish!" She guffawed loudly, never missing an opportunity to rag on the man. "Bit, aye, he kin an' a' be a gid sort in his ain wey. Juist dinnae ever tell him ah said so." Shuffling over to a small patch of long grasses, Quip poked about between the blades, but failed to find anything of value or interest. A rather startled-looking frog was tossed randomly over he shoulder as she delved into the depths of the foliage without success. "And dinna fash yirsel aboot M

A surprisingly kind and sympathetic smile swept across Quip's features, softening with the appearance of wrinkles around her eyes and creases at the edges of her lips. She'd know the sort of overwhelming emotions that seemed to be plaguing this girl. She's watched her sister die and lost herself to the grief. That sort of thing took its toll, and for all her brutish, over-the-top behavious, Quip had a kind soul. "There, thare, Eddie," she said, patting the taller girl gently on the shoulder. "Freyd's bin a richt, mirk fankle tae, sin he returned. Wilnae blether aboot it wi' a'body,

"What?! Awready? Luck o' th' Scots, ye hae thare, lassie - forgoat th' Irish! 'N' ye kin ca' me Quip," she added, jabbing her sword into a small opening at the base of a nearby tree, scaring the hell out of a pair of squirrels in the process. Once the den was clear, she reached in, almost up to her shoulder, and rummaged around blindly. "Oh, a'm far fae green. Maeve, Dingo 'n' ah wur daein' real weel oan oor ain, up as heich as th' third, if ah recall, whin hings whin sour." A mix of grief and elation flashed across her face as she yanked her arm free, holding a lump of something b

"Yeah! A'm fae th' maist amazing steid oan th' planet! Cannae ferr steid yer accent, though, bonny lassie. Ye keek lik' yin o' thaim bonny russian dancer types, though - a' graceful, 'n' stuff." A full head shorter than both of her companions, Quip seemed completely unintimidated by the difference. She was by far the broadest and most solidly built of the three and grinned like a madwoman as she grasped Kyra's hand and physically dragged the two other players out the main gates. To anyone watching she must have looked like an over-enthusiastic tween dragging a pair of beleaguered paren

"Keek, ah dinnae pure mind whit he said. Some auld fogey accosted me while ah wis traivelin thro' toun 'n' shored me a jab. Ah said aye. Aw the info wur yammered. Bit ah'ament aboot crawling aroond oan mah hauns 'n' knees picking herbs 'n' jobby. Ah will bring ye back something ye kin uise; mibbie git yersel' some blood fae a stane or something, bit ah dinnae pick petals fur a' body!" The clamor was coming from Zackariah's shop, where a short, stout figure in badly battered plate waved her hands around in an agitated manner. Two tight blonde braids bounced around on her back while she

"Howfur oan earth is a'body expected tae survive surroondit by endless hordes o' shambling bodies, while squatting in th' squalor that is this man's shop?!" Quip was on another cleaning tirade. Freyd was off skulking about some dungeon or other, as usual, and Dingo was likely taking his third nap of the day. "A've hud it wi' this jobby. Dingo! a'm aff hoorin'. Dinnae gie th' entire inventory awa'. Speaking o' whilk, a'm taking this, that, 'n' whitevur th' hell this is suppose tae be. Freyd owes us some back pay." Grabbing a few loose items from amidst the seemingly piles of no

A muscled, heavily callused hand grabbed Elora from behind, covering her mouth and whipped the rest of her harshly down into the same muck that had suctioned her foot into the ground. What first resembled one of the shambling diseased humanoids that plague the thirteenth floor surprised her when it spoke. Or, at least, tried to through a set of pearly clenched teeth and Scottish brogue so thick that most could barely understand a word she was saying. "Urr ye trying tae bring doon hauf th' flair oan yersel'. Shut yer gob 'n' wifie up, or ye'r aff tae git us baith murdurred. Ye'r that l

"Look 'ere, ye juvenile smurf! Ah'ament yer buddy, 'n' ah'ament yer slave either!. Freyd, Dingo 'n' ah hae beeen spending all oor time 'ere fur ye, fur free! Freyd even supplied th' crafting respites 'n' used up yin o' they bloody event items fur ye. Sae stuff yer wit ye hink, 'n' if yi'll waant someone tae ca' a cheapskate, ah will sell ye a frikkin mirror!" ~Quip ____________________ name morag macleod age 26 gender f origin scotland (uk