"Oh yes Mountie!" replied Kat, remembering her mission. I was wondering if you could make me one of those clever name badges such as you have. I know I havent been here very long but they look dazzling." Standing beside the Overlady, Kat smiled at Mountie. "You did a very good job on yours"

((OOC: @Rose are you sure your inbox is not full? I would check and make sure you empty all of your pm folders))

The wolf walked over to the Dryad, the Queen, and the crow. "Ah, ze poor creature!" She exlaimed after a sniff. "It smells like it ate something bad. Do you know what be wrong with it Rose?"

Lady A smiled.

"Well, it depends," she said to Kat. "What sort of things do you enjoy? Perhaps we can find you a befitting title from that."

Her smile quickly faded, however, when she saw the crow.

"The poor thing! Let's take a look. Perhaps we can save it," the Lady of White said. As she walked over to Rose, she hit a knob in the wall. Underground, bolts started turning, bars falling, and feathers flying. Whatever sinister plot the enemy had, she was ready for it.

Kat, standing nearby, hear some grinding gears and thought to herself "Im think this place is much more then it apears." After examining the unfortunate crow and assesing that her meager healing skills could do nothing to help it, she again adressed the Queen: "Well ma'am, I enjoy many things, including but not limited to reading, writing, poetry, maps, painting, languages, culture, instruments of war, swordplay, exploring and herblore, I am also a master of disguise, A trained spy/assasin and an acknowledged explorer. I have no idea what kind of job you could get out of this miss-mash of my interests and abilities but I would be pleased to do anything that would please your ladyship"

Watching his contented customers dwindling away to their duties, Frazzle took off his apron and ran to an unknown location, unbeknown to the rest of Lady A's followers. He quickly turned off the main road of the castle, going back alleyways and jumping fences.

Upon reaching the wall of the castle, he grabbed three select swords that were waiting by the location, pinning each one into the clay-like wall (here the castle was weak, due to repairs that were not made in stone), allowing him to climb up the wall. As he'd pin one sword, he would balance himself upon it and insert the next.

Soon he was out of the castle altogether, running into the woods to see a secret assignment completed.

The Lieutenant sat on a chair in the middle of the hallway and made it impossible for anyone to get past without difficult by propping her legs against the wall. "I don't understand the game. Of course. They made it that way so I couldn't win."

Upon seeing the Dryad show the sick crow to Lady A, Lady G almost took a few steps forward to see if she could help. Then she had a second thought: Should this be an enemy trick, Lady A would surely be much more prepared than I!

She contented herself with staying back and watching.

A raven flew in with another message. This one read:

To the Villain-to-Be and the EVUL Elf Lady --

Please do not hurt my crow, after I have entrusted it to your care. I do not want to get it back in even worse shape than when I sent it. Thank you.

Signed, The Silver-Tongued Speaker of Awesomeness

P.S. Man, you guys are way too suspicious... Have you ever considered counselling for that?

~Riella

A little while later, Lady C came back, horseless and smelling of horse (which was not, in her opinion, a bad smell at all). Pippin trotted behind, pausing to sniff at the ground every once in a while.
"Oh, the castle? You want a polite answer or a truthful one?" She grinned widely, showing that she was kidding. "Truthfully, I haven't been here long enough to really know yet. But I do know that I'll like it much better here than that other tower." A fleeting image of her wild vision passed before her mind's eye and she smiled.
"My only complaint, so far, is that is it Ivory and Gold. I don't much care for gold. Silver is a good deal more attractive, in my opinion. Ivory and Silver would suit me better personally, but this isn't my castle." She grinned and winked, showing that she was kidding again. "But actually, with you and Lady A here, Miff, I'm sure the gold will soon cease to bother me at all."
Pippin came up beside Lady Courage and sat down, gazing and wagging his tail at Miff in a very "I really like you" sort of way, but he did not interrupt.

When the flurry around the crow began, Lady C moved closer and tried to peer over shoulders to see, but she's only 5' 3" so that's not usually very easy for her to do. However, she managed to find a place to watch and listened with all of the suspicion that Ithy had accused the occupants of the CoIaG of possessing. When the message was read aloud, Lady C muttered to no-one in particular, "We wouldn't be so cagey if y'all weren't so treacherous." This gave her an idea and she turned around to look for Pippin. But he wasn't sitting beside her.
As a matter of fact, he had moved up to gaze at the little crow in the lap of the Overlady. Being so small, he had easily made it all the way up to her trailing skirts and was just at this moment rearing up on his hind legs to peer into the basket, his front legs held out in front of him to keep his balance. It never entered his head how this intrusion could be taken by someone else; he was merely curious to see what everyone was looking at. This was something he did every day, poking his nose into whatever was interesting everyone else. Lady C was pretty sure this unwitting and innocent nosiness of his was because he thought he was just as entitled to a look/taste/smell/touch of whatever as the humans were.
When Pippin had got his large buggy eyes on a level with the edge of the basket, he toddled forward, gently placed his paws on the basket to steady himself and peered in, oblivious to the many eyes he had just drawn to himself by getting in the way.
He sniffed, wrinkled his nose and commented in a low voice "Ew, sick!" He continued, however, to inspect the sickly crow and did not hear Lady C hissing softly at him to come back and get out of the way. Sometimes, Pippin simply does not pay attention to anything else when something is already fascinating him and I suppose that is because he can't pay attention to more than one thing at once. Which, now that I think about it, is only keeping with his gender.

Ze wolf was getting anxious. Something wasn't right. She had seen much suspicious activity as of late and her instincts told her something was wrong. But, alas, 'twas so hard to tell who was on zere side and who was not. She snuck off to be alone after making sure zat ze crow was being attended to and she went to explore ze castle. Zis likely 'twas not ze best idea as she had already gotten lost once, but she soon realized she needed a breath of fresh air and she headed for ze courtyard to figure things out.

((Taking a few liberties by making people do stuff here...let me know if you object. ))

"Hmmm...." The White Lady thought, looking at Kat. "Armorer just doesn't sound grand enough. Hmmm....Aficionada! Weapons Aficionada!! What do you think?"

~~

After gently caring for the crow, Lady A stood.

"Come, I think this little fellow needs some extra care," she said. "Come, we'll take him to our doctor, and then I'll take you all over to the Armory, and you can choose your signature weapon. After that, you will need to do an hour of weapons training every day. This way!!"

Gliding along, Lady A made her way back indoors, if it could really be called indoors. The light streamed in, making it just as bright and cheery as outdoors. After placing the crow in the care of those in the castle hospital, she led the others through the castle until they reached a wall.

"This is one thing that you must learn," she said. You see these designs that run along the walls? The different symbols do different things--but all of them identify your fingerprint when you press them. For example, see that Leaf of Lorien? Go ahead and press on it, Rose."

Rose did, and nothing happened.

"Sweeet, go ahead and press it."

The Lieutenant did, and the wall suddenly began to open, showing a new hallway.

"Cool, huh? It knows if you have permissions to enter or not. Shall we continue to the armory?"

Mountie nodded to Lacy as they walked. "Yes, of course. This place is much better than the ... other Tower. I do hope you enjoy it here - in spite of the fact that it's gold and not silver. I prefer silver when I am choosing jewelry and accessories, but I actually think the ivory and gold complements each other quite nicely."

She laughed softly, somewhat amused by Pippin's buggy eyes. "You are quite the character, aren't you, Pippin? I'm so glad I have met you."

All of a sudden, a pair of wide green eyes peeked out of Mountie's cloak. They belonged to a cat who was black, white, and orange. It was often said that she looked like a black and white cat with a bucket of orange tabby markings thrown over her. Mountie frowned at the kitten and pushed her head back inside. "Oh, please excuse her. Chessie's eager to meet new people. It won't happen again."

With that, she pulled her cloak around her and followed the group to the armory. She was having a hard time choosing between a sword and a bow and arrow. She had experience with both, but it was a question of which one was more efficient.

"Kat, I do love that title Lady A came up with. If you would like, I can make you a name badge, if that's the one you'd like to use," she said, falling in step beside the girl.

"Now... it's a question between a sword or a bow and arrow," she said thoughtfully.

Kat was blissful. Weapons aficiondo, sounded like the most marvelous job she had ever heard of. "Of course m'lady! it sounds like the most wonderful thing i could think of! I am grateful, thank you" Kat walked on with Lady A to the armory, deep in thought.

~~~~

Kat wa sin a good mood, she stood in front of the wall of symbols and watched in surprise as L. Sweeet pressed her thumb to the wall and a door apeared. Okay thats a petty nice door, thought Kat as she walked through it.

Lady Courage laughed at Miff's comments on ivory and gold, "Oh, I don't think it will diminish my enjoyment of the place too much. Besides," here she wrapped her arm around Miff's shoulders, "I have too many friends around!" She grinned, "Oh, and yes I agree: Ivory and gold compliment each other very well. Very well indeed!"

Pippin's ears perked and his tail began to wag when Miff began talking to him. "I'm glad I've met you too!" he began and who knows what he might have said next if the little head hadn't suddenly popped out of Miff's cloak. Lady C let loose a delighted little squeal and Pippin stiffened. That sound is usually reserved for him.
"Oh, you brought Chessie! When are you going to let her out?"
Pippin sniffed at Miff's cloak cautiously. He liked cats very much, but it did cross his mind that the cat could possibly be a competitor for attention. He would have to keep an eye on the behavior of the humans to know if he needed to ramp up his attention-getting antics. Until then, he would be glad to find a way to make an acquaintance with the cat.

As they walked and the talk died down slightly, Lady C also began to think about what weapon she would choose. Ack! Hard choice! She was putting together in her mind a list of the weapons she had used before and was not too happy with the results. Her most used weapon was not likely available here in the Ditto Town universe. So, next on the list was the bow. At one time, she had been known as quite the archer. But that was a long time ago and anyway, would it be useful here? I mean, what sort of battles would be taking place? If it's all close combat, then the next weapon on the list would be a sword. Or a pair of dirks. Or maybe...
Then she was distracted by the finger-print scanner permission-required hallway. Her eyes popped with appreciation and she almost laughed aloud at the sudden comparison of "National Treasure" that came to mind. Her brain immediately began to work on who was which character from the film, but she quickly derailed that train of thought in favor of more important meditations.
"So, Lady A," she began, "-oh and hi, by the way- are we all going to have permission to enter here eventually? Or are we going to store our weapon of choice in our rooms- or where ever it is we're going to stay? And also, what sort of battles are we going to do here? And the most pressing question of all- can we only have one weapon!?"
Pippin tugged on her riding skirt with his teeth and when she looked at him, whispered, "What about me? Don't I get a weapon too?"
"Hush," said Lady C with a frown for interrupting.

Entering the armory along with the others, for a moment Lady G paused, just to survey the room. Upon entering here earlier during the exercise Lady A had given out to look for various objects, L.G. had been stunned at the extensive array of weaponry. She had never seen so many weapons in one place before. But then again, you've never been in an armory before today, she told herself.

Jerking out of her thoughts, Lady G realized that she should not block the way for others to enter, so she quickly moved out of the way.

The question that undoubtedly everyone else was facing too was Now which weapon to choose? Each had positives and negatives. The bow and arrow, one weapon she had had experience with before, was more effective on long range combat than in close combat. A sword was better for close combat, but was it really her style?

She sighed. This could take a while.

Lady G continued to deliberate, until she heard Lady C asking Lady A questions that she was wondering herself. "Yes, can we only have one weapon, Lady A?" she asked. "Or if we start out with one, can we eventually take a second?"