Scares and Fairs

by **Verity Lohlepher** Thu Jun 12, 2014 3:03 am

Verity walked along the streets of Magnolia and tried to immerse herself in the festival going on in Magnolia. She wandered among the stalls and observed the many people going past. There were several few she recognized the faces of from her traverses around town occasionally but none that she knew really well. A woman with a monkey on her shoulder and wearing tracksuit pants and a short sleeved t-shirt was giving free perfume and make up out on one street and another man holding a long and slender crystal staff and wearing a sleek tuxedo was reading fortunes out for free on another. They were the two stalls that stood out to her but she guessed all of them had their little quirks.

Verity today was wearing a black leather jacket over a strapless white t-shirt and jeans. She was carrying nothing but her dagger, Hauskor, inside her jacket just in case she came across trouble. So far, she had received a free necklace from a generous shop owner whom she had decided to rescue from an extremely pushy customer but she wore it instead of carrying it in the shopping bag it was given to her in. In all honesty, she was finding the festival this year to be slightly dull compared to previous years.

She had been in the last two and those two had been wonderful. Perhaps it was because of the systematic routine and repetitiveness that she found this one to be less so. Never the less, it was still a perfectly alright break from her guild's antics. Fairy Tail was awesome but definitely a guild one required breaks from.

Verity turned the corner into another street when she was bumped into by a fattish man with a grey mustache.

"Hey! Watch where you're going!" The words immediately left her mouth as she spun around and glared at the man.

To her utter surprise he stopped to look at her. He seemed rather distressed and in a panic. Verity stared at him as if to ask 'what do you want?'. Fortunately, he didn't seem to wait very long before he got the message, taking in deep lungfuls of air.

"Are you a mage?" He asked, his eyes stretched wide as he gazed at her, seemingly desperate for a 'yes' response.

The blonde eyed him suspiciously and took a step back.

"Yes...why?" He seemed a little fishy.

The man took a tissue out and blew his nose. "Thank goodness! You need to help me!"

Well the man did seem distressed.

"Uhh sure?? What with?" She responded, still clueless as who the person was.

"Children are disappearing! You need to track them!"

At this point, Verity was beginning to question his sanity as the man looked worriedly at her. "Okay??? Where??? And who are you anyways???"

The man sniffled. "Oh sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Sir Reynold and I am the manager of this festival!" He said with an inch of pride.

"Ohhh...right," Verity responded as his words began to make sense in her brain. She was a bit doubtful of his words but she guessed it gave her something to do. "Do I just look around here?"

"Yes, thank you so much, I will be off now," And with that, Sir Reynold took off again.

Verity shrugged her shoulders. She guessed it was time to search now.

564/500 words

by **Verity Lohlepher** Thu Jun 12, 2014 7:31 am

Verity continued walking around the festival after the man left and looked for any sign of the missing children. As she turned in and out of streets, it did seem evident that her skeptical opinion to whether the man was alright to think there were children missing was wrong; there weren't any laughing, bouncing up and down, whining, running children anywhere to be seen in sight. In fact, it may have been the reason why she found this year's festival to be dull. There was simply not enough energetic people around. Children made up most of the vast population and there weren't any here which calmed the atmosphere down.

And so, she made up her mind. She would find these children and then she'd finally be able to enjoy the festival....although...if the children were depressed and scared, it wouldn't be of much use to her for bringing the mood up. But then again, they were easily appeased. She'd just get them some sweets perhaps or a free ride?

Verity continued to quietly muse about what she could do and turned a corner when a light flashed in the corner of her eye. She whipped around immediately and gasped. The ferris wheel. It was...horrifying. She felt the malicious intent surrounding the spinning object of joyful fun (well more like spinning object of impending doom) and knew that it was where she might find the children. She wouldn't have noticed it if she hadn't turned around at that particular intersection. She was walking away from the wheel and when she was turning, the stalls mostly covered her view except for that street. It had been open.

The re-quip mage thanked her lucky stars and pushed her way through the people in order to get to the ferris wheel as quick as possible.

864/500 words

by **Verity Lohlepher** Sun Jun 15, 2014 3:27 am

As Verity broke through the crowd, she ran across the pavement and towards the ferris wheel as fast as possible (which was fairly fast). She could make out the purple light quite clearly now. She skidded to a halt just before the ferris wheel and stopped for a second to recollect her thoughts. What kind of magic could produce that? It didn't matter though. She knew she'd need to be careful from this point on.

The mage scanned her eyes from the top of the ferris wheel all the way to the bottom, taking in all the carriages while trying to find observe as much detail as possible. She finally reached the base of the ferris wheel and felt triumph bloom for a millisecond within her. There was a strange man just standing there while cackling his head off. His blonde hair was practically not what she'd consider blonde from all the dirt sticking on it. His clothes were all black. Deep, dark and black. All in all, she'd consider him your average typical bad guy walking along the streets with a time bomb ready to go off at any second.

She started towards him when the man looked up directly at her. A cruel grin slipped on his face causing her to frown and laughter fell from his lips like rain drops sliding off a leaf. Crazy. Definitely crazy. She was about to place her foot forwards again when a sudden sword came towards her, the whole thing dripping of shadows.

Immediately her reflexes kicked in and Verity did a bend back to get out of its way before springing back up and looking for the sword. Her breath came in quickly as her eyes darted back and forth. No sign of it. She was beginning to think she imagined the whole thing when a whooshing sound from behind alerted her to it's presence. Her eyes widened open and it was by mere centimetres that she avoided becoming decapitated. This time, the girl sprung backwards. The sword was still coming at her but it stopped short of touching her face.

So it had a limit to how for it could go. Great. Now she just needed to work that out. It was obvious it was being controlled by the now cackling man in black as he stared relentlessly at her. Some part of her wondered what was wrong with him. The other part of her was gauging the distance between him and her. 10 metres roughly. Assuming she was correct, she'd need to find a way to take him out. Her best bet was running in 5 metres and throwing her dagger (which was in her jacket) at him before activating her electrical surge attack.

So really, her only task was to avoid getting incapitated. Sounded easy enough. Time to put in action.

Verity looked up and saw the man still staring, albeit now vengefully, at her. She'd come soon but not yet. She slipped her hand inside her jacket and pulled out the glass dagger, Hauskor. She didn't bother storing it in the other dimension unless she needed to. It was a waste of mana otherwise. She double checked the distance with the man. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then, she opened them again...and ran. She heard the slight intake of air which came with the swiping shadow sword and ducked her head while raising her hand to block it with Hauskor. This man sure wasted no time.

She was a metre away from her target of 5 metres away. Time to cast the spell. "Electrical Surge!" she yelled, swerving from her path to avoid the incoming sword and threw the speeding dagger, right on it's target. Hauskor was fast, she'd give it that. The man however managed to doge the dagger's blade. He did not, thankfully, dodge the attack. It didn't matter where the blade touch. As long as it hit something, the electricity would transfer. He realised this too late and got electrocuted on the way down to greet the floor. It seemed the dagger didn't appreciate missing it's target and funnily enough, when it fell, it's blade met his leg causing him to scream out in pain (which then caused several spectators to laugh at him).

While that was happening, Verity struggled to wrestle with the shadow sword which disappeared after the man was hit with the attack. She scrambled to her feet quickly and resumed her dash towards the strange man before leaping towards him and kicking him in the face as he tried to stand up again. She fell on the floor herself after that but for the most part, remained largely unharmed.

"Hey you! Where's the children?" she asked, back on her feet in an intimidating position to the man. He didn't seem to care. Instead he started laughing

"My name is Relic and you'll never get them,"

Verity was not impressed. She turned around the find her dagger and pulled it out of his leg causing him to screech in pain.

"Okay, I'll rephrase myself. How do I get the children?"

This time he seemed genuinely scared of getting caught.

"Y-y-y-ou g-g-g-g-o-t-t m-e..." he began. Verity sighed. This was taking way too long. Spells were usually reversed when the user was unconscious right? So Vera decided to punch Relic in the face instead of hearing him out.

As soon as his head hit the ground with a thump, the children suddenly emerged in whatever state they were in. Internally Vera was doing a happy dance. First successfully done mission ever! On the outside, her face was neutral. It didn't take long for the children to return to their usual happy selves (thankfully) so Vera resumed her walking around the festival, quite pleased that finally, it didn't seem quite so dull.

1839/500 words