From alt.pub.dragons-inn Thu Sep 8 08:18:45 1994 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:7646 Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!pa.dec.com!nntpd.lkg.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!leggy.zk3.dec.com!orb!not-for-mail From: hutch@ibeam.jf.intel.com (Steve Hutchison) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [CIA] Miro - Taxi! Yo! Taxi! Date: 7 Sep 1994 23:47:54 -0000 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 63 Sender: news@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Message-ID: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL11] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A gentle wind blows through the redhaired elf where he sits crosslegged on the roof of the stable. Down in the street below, the Guard has arrested a handful of bellicose noisemakers with placards, which worthies are now shouting about "I have my rights" and "What about freedom of speech?" The Sergeant-at-arms looks the ringleader up one side and down the other. "Have you paid your taxes yet?" he drawls, slowly. "Immigrants got to pay their taxes afore they gets freedom a' speech." The ringleader's eyes bug out and he begins to froth at the lips. Miro smiles. With the way they're carrying on, he won't have to do anything for them to stay locked up for at least a week. He stands, and looks across the Avenue of Unforgotten Heroes, and again wonders who most of them were. There! off to the south. Caelfurd and his big smelly compost-wagon are trundling slowly north, with the usual collection of strange and down-in-the-dumps urchins ... no, too noticeable. Magic carpet? No, too many to carry. Besides, too flashy. A yellow-fringed fruit cart wheels around the corner from the illegal Low Town Travelling Market. Miro smiles. Third time's a charm. He vanishes onto the wind, then reappears again sitting next to the driver of the fruit cart. It's large enough to hold ten men. The black dragon will, if he can't shapeshift, have to take the hard way out. But of course he can shapeshift -- or how did he get inside the Inn? The door wouldn't admit anything real huge, nor for that matter would the floor hold them up for long. "Hello, Gurtie, m'dear," Miro says to the old woman driving. "What ye be wantin'?" She puffs something foul smelling on the corncob pipe she clenches between her teeth. "Why, tae have you be deliverin' a few, que cest' que sais, a few vegetables o' my acquaintance." Miro smiles his most engaging smile. "How much?" Drat, he thinks, she's resistant to my charms. "Oh, two silver?" He makes the suggestion off-hand, knowing that... "Ten." She slaps the reins and the draft beast (not even close to a horse) slogs forward without noticing. "Foive and I'll be buyin' ye'r leftover mangoes in tae the bargain." "Six or you don't get any," she rasps. He looks longingly at the fruit and sighs, defeated. "Done." He spits on his hand, proffers it, and she looks at him sideways then shakes. "Filthy habit," she mutters. "Be pullin' up tae the side there by the Dragon's Inn," Miro says. "Me passengers are waitin' there."