Nothing much was different from a usual market day in the Lómëdor Square, shoppers and traders were abundant and money and goods were passing almost every hand in the area. Santa Claus was whistling as he walked, eyeing the dodgy food products and the suspicious potions. It was certain that he wouldn't be buying anything for anyone here unless he was desperately low on cash, as the level of disease in the poultry and scratches on the crockery were shameful! The whole place stunk too, not just of people but of animals and elves and pixies and lupines and angels and demons and even a couple of Lizarians. To be perfectly honest, he had no idea why he was here in the first place. The city had a sort of force about it which pushed you to move with the rest of the crowd, almost as if the tide of people were like a current swarming through the paths and roads dragging him along with them.

Of course, he wasn't wearing his unnecissarily extravogant red suit in the market place for a variety of reasons. Firstly, he felt like a complete goon in the costume and regretted ever chosing to wear it in the first place. He was stuck with the thing now that everyone knew he wore it though, as if he wore something else then no-one would know who he was and he would be accused of trespassing in the homes of others. Another reason was that he was beginning to outgrow the trousers and they were so tight on him that every single curve in his body was revealed in rather disturbing fashion, so disturbing in fact that he was often given disgusted glares by mothers and children alike.

Despite him not wearing the outfit, he was still getting giggles and stares from people every now and again. Surely a man could grow a white beard and gain a couple of pounds without being accused of being Santa? Apparently not, there must have been something about him which gave it away that he was the jolly old man in the red and white suit. "Ho ho!" he smiled awkwardly over at a hunch-backed woman who was pointing at him, and waved to a small rattish man who was goggling at him from behind his stall. It was at about that precise moment that a large green fist impacted with his chin and made a part of his face crack with blood.

A large and hairy ogre-ish thing was frowning down at it's victim, who was crumpled on the floor regaining his footing and staring back in disbelief. "What did you do that for you stupid green git!?" shouted Santa with a mixture of rage and confusion. The creature stared back at him for a couple of seconds, processing this new sentence and trying to decide upon a reply. After a moment or two it replied with yet another punch to Santas face, and a shove to Santas chest.

Things were turning ugly.

It had been, Vex would later admit to herself, the oddest contract she had ever gotten. Written in some indescribable mixture of reds and blacks and on the most expensive glossy vellum she had ever laid eyes on she had received it without quite knowing how or why. One moment she was busy drinking good ol' orckiller and the next... she was inside her appartment holding a funny looking scroll stamped with a green signet signed wax-seal- she had vaguely recalled it being all the rage among the nobility. She had opened it, and scrawled on it were two simple words that would change her life forever.

Kill Santa

Nothing more, nothing less. At the time, she had dismissed it as a mission of minor importance- who would bother with something so elaborate and not even bother mentioning pay?- when she had received, almost at the door, two crate-loads of stuff exotic enough to rival the former God of Light's dalliances with nature.

On each crate was written: 1/99.

Vex had blinked. This was being... very generous. Someone knew her very well indeed. 1% now... 99% upon the completion of the job. She knew, even before drinking a single bottle, that this was high quality stuff. Very pricey.

Even as she took out the first cork Vex had made her decision. She was being paid. She had a contract- and thus a job. As a member of the gainfully employed she would do her best to do her job.

She would kill Santa.

----------------------------

Finding rumors and information on her target had been the easy part. Finding Santa himself... that hadn't been quite so simple. There was so much rumor and nonsense flying about that Vex had almost given up. Almost. There was something to be said about the incentive of what appeared to be a lifetime (or at least yearlong) supply of alcohol that kept her going.

The first thing she had discovered was that he lived in a remote, nigh-unaccessible place that everyone thought they knew but no one actually bothered to voice out loud. The other thing she had discovered was that he spread presents and good cheer. That had sickened her- the man clearly did deserve to die and from that point onwards she had pushed on with a relentless fervor that was only distracted by the pull of the various bars in Lómëdor on a... less than hourly basis.

In any case, she had been making good progress until she realized that locating this 'Santa' fellow was going to be difficult. Even moreso than the initial intel had indicated. Apparently, he lived the entire year incognito until a certain holiday rolled around and then- if words were to be believed- he was *everywhere*. She smelled powerful magic but couldn't quite believe it. That was... that was time-stopping magic on an incredible scale. It went without saying that that would be very, very troublesome. Assassinations tended to become assassination attempts on individuals who had such power at their fingertips. She didn't allow herself- or her alcohol- to believe in such rot. There was such a thing as hope and she fueled herself on it as she went searching for this jolly old man.

After about a week of randomly hoping for more news and about to give up, Vex had very nearly decided to look for someone with true prophetic and divination abilities when, just because the world worked like that sometimes, she spotted her target. She didn't know how she knew he was Santa- she just did. It was like a moment of blinding, divine inspiration. She just knew.

And when she saw him get hit by an orc she did something she hadn't done in a long, long time.

She just stood there, rooted to the spot. Staring. It was the perfect chance- she knew it was the perfect chance. And yet, for the life of her, she couldn't move a muscle.

Alchemy knew next to nothing about Christmas, in fact you could walk up to her and lightly mention it and she'll immediately respond with "What's Christmas?" Or something strikingly similar. Despite her age, Alchemy acted more like a five-year-old girl in most situations, and once you mentioned Christmas it'll be unlikely that you'll be able to get her to shut up until you've told her every detail about it at which point she'll probably be leaning close enough to singe your eyebrows if she was in the mood.

Her lack of knowledge as to this annual festival resulted in complete confusion on her part as to 'what in the name of Lothy was everybody doing?'. All she could take in was the surprisingly cheerful mood of passersby and the odd greetings that they were muttering to one another. Not to mention, the square did seem a heck or a lot prettier than the last time she'd been here, and even more crowded. She wandered about for a bit, staring at the decorations being put up around the place.

Deciding to put an end to her confusion she stopped a passerby.
"Excuse me," she said "But what's with all the decorations and stuff?"
"You're kidding right?" The man replied "It's Christmas, you know, presents and all the like."
"What's Christmas?" Told you.
"You really don't know, do you?" The man replied "Have you been living under a rock or something?"
"I used to," Alchemy replied, brightly "A really big one with lots of snow on!"
"Err....Right,"
The man walked off, clearly marking her as a crazy drunk or something similar.

Alchemy merely shrugged and carried on wandering through the streets without a second thought as to whatever Christmas might be. She hummed merrily to herself as she went on, devoting little time as to working out what the deal was with the cheerful mood and everything. Her absent mindedness ultimately caused her to collide with someone or something, and send her staggering back a few feet before recovering. She looked up and saw a big green ogre standing in front of her, standing over an old man with a white beard who didn't look to be in the best of shapes.

"Oh! Am I interrupting something?" She asked apologetically.
The ogre grunted and threw Alchemy aside with a single swipe of his green arm. Alchemy flew a few more feet and landed hard on her backside, which hurt a lot considering it wasn't exactly warm and she was barely wearing anything to protect herself from any such injuries.
"Ow! That hurt!" She complained, completely ignorant of the current situation.

Quite a crowd were gathering now, which wasn't good for Santa. He shouldn't have gone into public at a time like this anyway and getting into fights would ruin his incognito approach to Christmas shopping! It would seem that the Orc was causing quite a stir already, he (or possibly she) had already gained another victim and had thuggishly tossed a red-headed young girl aside in it's attempt to get back to it's first victim. Santa was on his feet again, recovering from the second of the Orc's punches so far. It was tempting to punch the creature back, but there were far too many reasons not to. He was supposed to be Santa for crying out loud, he had a reputation to live up to! It would not be acceptable to just 'fight back' when threatened, it was his moral responsibility to keep his cool and diffuse the situation calmly and correctly.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t quite stop himself and punched the Orc back squarely on the nose. A small united cheer broke out from some of the onlookers, but Santa wasn’t doing it for the crowd. “Back off mate, you hear?!” he spat at the Orc, who was clutching his bleeding nose with both hands and fearfully looking back to Santa. He quickly added, “And have yourself a Merry Christmas!” before he walked over to where the girl was to see if she was ok. The Orc was starting to cry big blobby tears now, bawling rather loudly and attracting a lot of sympathy from the crowd. Santa didn’t care, he was actually quite pleased with himself for finding yet another person who didn’t deserve to get any presents this year!

“It looked like you had quite a nasty fall little girl!” he inquired to the little human. As he looked closer at the girl he realised she had red eyes, which was a slightly creepy quirk for an innocent little girl to possess. He was pondering to himself as to what he was going to do next, when he felt a shadow creep up from behind him, looming over both him and the girl, blocking out the light of the sun. Santa spun around to see a gigantic Ogre completely covered in rusty plate mail, a chain or two and a belt with skulls dangling from them. The comparatively little green Orc next to the Ogre must have been it’s child, and now the parent had came along to tell off the ‘naughty man who had hurt it’s ickle baby’. How typical.

Santa sensed another, heavier fist was about to collide with his skull very shortly, so he looked around him to see if there was anyone who could help him. The first thing he spotted was a demonic creature looking onwards in what seemed to be shock. There were very few moments left, and as Santa backed away from the Ogre he mouthed, “Help!” to the demon in the hope that he had an ally on the watch. After all, the last thing he needed was another person who wanted to hurt him!

Vor’angkoo was taking a walk through the alleys of Lomedor, heading slowly but steadily towards the main square. He took glances to left and right, his grey eyes studying for something worth to focus his attention on. Deep inside, he was disappointed. For a city of this stature, he expected to see things a little more special than those already there. It was just a place hard to live in and integrate, with many people bustling the endless streets at all hours of the day, and even night. Even the library with a strong resonating name has been just a waste of time for the prophet. Almost an entire day was lost within the walls housing the shelves with thousand of books, trying to find something worthy of reading, something new he didn’t know already, but to no avail.


Things changed though, as soon as he placed his first step into the market square. The streets were empty and no one was paying attention to him or anyone for that matter. Even the merchants left they stores and focused towards a certain ‘attraction point’. Something grand was going on. The population formed a circle around what seemed to be the tallest and the strongest creature of the city, or at least that’s how it seemed. It was an ogre. The giant had a very aggressive attitude and apparently was picking on someone. Everyone cared too much about their own sake and life to interfere and save the victim, even the guards were watching helplessly and hopelessly.

As the observer he usually was, Vor’angkoo tried to push his way through the crowd and see what was happening. It was probably the worst idea he had ever thought about in his whole existence. In no more than a few seconds he was stuck, and forced back in no time.

It was time for a little showing off. A wave of his hand would bring to life the silent companion he owned, a flying carpet which faithfully carried him above everyone else. Only then he was able to observe what was really going on into the ‘ring’.

Santa?!

That couldn’t be, all the memories of his childhood made his whole being shudder. Those memories were thought forgotten, buried in the past of his former existence as a human, but the mere sight of Santa Claus brought them back.

The ogre was trying to give Santa a good beating, for no reason at all. It was time for the observer to quit his job temporarily and get into the swing of things. Killing Santa would probably throw the world into ruin.

His voice like thunder and a single motion of his hand made the sky split apart and release a perfectly arched lighting straight into the attacking arm of the ogre. It struck with the speed of light, halting the beast from going any further. The electricity would spread through its whole body making it twitch, paralyzing it for a while. It was big enough not to die from a mere attack, though.

“Vile creature, devoid of meaning and stripped of any reasons to live! Who might thee be to try to bring the winter’s spirit to peril. Back away while you still can and I won’t be forced to erase you from the pages of time!”

The flying carpet took him just beside Santa, his cupped palms pointing into the direction of the agonizing troll, prepared to cast another offensive or defensive spell if necessary.

It was already clear that cold days, hard ground and a fall on the backside were not the sort of things a person would most like to mix together, as Alchemy's own rear end was not not only bruised but wouldn't shut up about it, it was truly irritating. She remained where she was for the moment, trying to convince the pain to stop making such a fuss, she'd had worse falls than this, in fact been in colder climates than this, but that didn't chance the fact that it hurt like hell.

She stood up somewhat shakily, murmuring something about 'never doing that again if she could help it'. She rubber her injured back end for a moment or so, ignoring whatever stares she got from it, and turned her attention back to the row in front of her, and watching it like a three-year-old girl would watch a small bunch of animals do something interesting. Maybe it was Alchemy's lack of childhood that caused her to be so immature in even the most serious situations, or perhaps since getting her memories removed her IQ might have taken a bit of a dip, she couldn't remember what any possible side effects were since she couldn't remember anything beyond waking up after having her memories taken out, thus any explanations as to the possible effects it might have were completely lost on her, as were most things.

Right now, the fact that an old man was squaring off with an orc was certainly the most comical thing she'd ever seen, it wasn't exactly 'the ultimate showdown of the century' but it was certainly something she wasn't about to miss if she could help it. Certainly the old man coming across as the victor must have been the most amusing part, a simple punch and he must have broken the orc's nose, cause he backed off sobbing like a little kid. Alchemy proceeded to snigger at the event in a very childish fashion, and barely noticed when the old man came up to her. She looked up when she realized this and hastened to stop laughing.
"Don't worry about it," she said "I'm fine, thanks."
She gave the old man a cheery smile.

Before she could speak again, however, an odd smell coupled with the sound of heavy footsteps and the spontaneous blocking out of the sun caught her attention and she looked past the old man to see a much larger ogre standing over the two of them, looking very, very miffed at something. Alchemy stared up at the creature, not with fear but with a sort of curiosity, after all she couldn't see much point in walking around a market dressed like that unless you were trying to make 'freakiest outfit of the year' award of something.
"Um...Excuse me," she said, quiet politely.
The ogre turned her head to look down at her, if it was a she. It leaned closer to her so that Alchemy could smell her bad breath.

"You want some too?" He...She.......It grunted.
Alchemy noticed its eyes flick down briefly to Alchemy's sword, Vyri-Sys, strapped to her side and back up again.
"Are you kidding?" Alchemy replied "I can't stand the sight of blood!"
The ogre snorted again and straightened back up, glaring down at the two of them again, Alchemy now resorting to almost cowering behind the old man.

It was a surprise, therefore, when something flashed overhead and hit the beast in the arm, causing it to stagger back a few paces. Alchemy froze with surprise and looked around to see a weird blue man floating on a rug beside them, perhaps that fall had knocked her out and she was now having a mad dream, yeah that was a logical explanation for everything. In fact her life life might well be a dream and that was why she thought she'd had her memories removed, so she couldn't remember to wake up from such a good dream, that had to be it! All this thinking was making her head hurt though so she stopped and the possible enlightenment was lost forever.

The plea for help shocked Vex back into her senses. Or rather, back into her rather usual assassin-self which was the same thing really. Death had wings every once in a while and while she may not have even been the messenger, she could certainly be his servant on this fine winter day in-

A rather lucky beer bottle bonked her over the head, splashing alcohol all over her figure and interrupting her thoughts. She closed her eyes, (alcohol and eyes did *not* mix very well) and tried to wipe the stuff away. If she had been a goody two-shoes she might have counted her blessings- the beer bottle could very well have broken after all. Some of the glassworkers here were absolutely atrocious at what they did and she could have been enjoying alcohol laced cuts on top of this simple indignity. If she had been a thinkamancer she might have realized that alcohol had befuddled her senses to the point where she had forgotten her very important disguise-

"Freakin' devil!"

"Soul-eater!"

"Pooh-pooh head!"

"Yeah- wait, what? Someone get the kid away from-"

But she wasn't a goody two-shoes nor a logical thinkamancer. If anything Vex was trying the very laborious task of identifying whoever threw the beer bottle by scent alone. She didn't think she could do it, but figured if she got her vic-aggressor wrong she could always try again. And again. And again. Blind and thinking of revenge Vex thus missed the somewhat splashy entrance of a certain well-known blue dude who's funky carpet she had truly wanted to steal the last time she had met him and was busy unfurling her wings.

"In the name of Hel- can't a girl just kill *one* lousy old man in peace these days?" She snarled, unfurling her wings to their rather impressive length (she ignored the fact that she clipped the side of a building while managing this and almost tripped and fell flat on her face. She sniffed the air cautiously. Yes, yes, that was the one. That one right there. Ewwww, did he just piss in his pants? Lousy drunk. No, he couldn't be the one. It had to be someone brave, someone who clearly did not fear her...

"Pooh-pooh." More giggles. She pounced for the voice.

"It was you!" She hissed, her wings sweeping out in a wide fan as she sought to push away any other by-standers. She heard a mother scream and what sounded suspiciously like (but certainly could not have been) someone cry for the town guard and smelled the heady scent of a magical discharge.

"You tried to save Santa! Any final requests?"

Things were getting crazy.

The ugly, thuggish ogre had just been pulverised with a blast of shocking cyan light, emitted from a man who was also shockingly cyan with navy-wavy hair. This bizarre creature was spewing some rubbish about eradicating everybody from the pages of time or something similar whilst hovering overhead on a flying carpet. Yes, that's right. A flying carpet.

Santa stared up at this supernatural freak for a few seconds in absolute horror, wishing that he had never asked for help in the first place. He could take a few punches to the chest but he wasn't too keen about getting his beard singed off his face and then getting zapped into oblivion! Glancing over at the girl he was trying to help, she seemed as equally perplexed to as what this flying gentleman was trying to do, but then he glanced over at the ogre who was getting angrier and more confused by the second. Looking around again he could see that the onlookers were beginning to part and avoid the angry demon who Santa had previously asked for help from, who seemed to be taking advantage of the chaos and was starting up another fight.

Over the top of the screams, yells and shouts he heard, "You tried to save Santa! Any final requests?" and saw the demon threaten one of the onlookers. It would seem that there was another creature to look out for in the vicinity and that Lomedor Square was very quickly turning into an arena full of assassination attempts! The wacky-flying-carpet-time-erasing-blue haired man was lowering his hovering rug nearer to Santa giving him and the girl a chance to escape the bedlam. He weighed his choices up; Stay here and get a pounding from the Ogre and a worse fate from the demonic creature or hitch a lift with the electric man and risk getting the shock of his life. Literally.

Time was running out, so he took the risk. He reached up and grabbed onto the blue man's clothing to help pull himself up, and put his first leg onto the carpet. He looked over his shoulder and realised that he couldn't leave the girl behind. "Quickly now, hop on!" He urged and held out his flabby hand so that he could pull her up. If only he had his sleigh handy, or any of his reindeer! They were only around the corner in one of the stables, patiently awaiting his return!

What a day this was turning out to be, Alchemy might be the sort of person to lust after adventure but this was going over the top, even by her standards. The whole 'Christmas' thing was fair enough, a random festival that the people celebrated, it was natural and there was absolutely no cause for it to be suspicious, and the ogre, well that wasn't something you saw every day but it was at least possible within the standard laws of reality, after all anybody could pick a fight whenever they wished so it was certain you'd see a punch up sooner or later.

Of course, that's when things had started to get a little hectic, Alchemy was all for having her life saved while a hulking juggernaut was about to tear her limb from limb but a blue man on a flying carpet was a bit too much, in fact it was utterly insane! And when Alchemy thinks something is insane then it is 150% insane, quiet truthfully. Of course there was also the new problem of the enraged demon person going stark crazy over the place.

It was all traveling a little too fast for Alchemy, after all she'd never have expected anything of this magnitude to happen to her, she knew things usually happened whenever she was around the square but this was taking the Lamus Bread. The whole scene was crazy, the enraged ogre woman glaring up at the blue man on the rug and the insane demon jumping about yelling about how somebody 'saved santer' or whatever it was. In fact taking it all in was making Alchemy's head hurt.

She turned her attention away from the scene and tried to shut it out, screwing her eyes tight and covering her ears in a very childish fashion.
It'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadream
It'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadreamIt'sadream she repeated over and over in her head Nothing's happening, it's just a crazy old dream. It'll be that funny looking cheese you ate the other day, the one Leon left lying around for days, yeah that'll be it.
She looked up again, only to find the scene exactly as it was, the same enraged big green woman, the same half-crazed demon and the same blue skinned rug man.

To make matters slightly worse, the old man - who was probably the only sane thing going on around this place - was climbing up onto the rug with the blue man.
Is this was Christmas is? Alchemy wandered Everything and everyone going insane?
The old man snapped her out of her thought process, urging her to follow him onto the rug with the blue man.
I guess I've gone insane too, Alchemy mused Oh well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Taking the old man's hand, Alchemy allowed herself to be pulled onto the strange flying rug behind the old man.
"Oh yeah!" She said, suddenly remembering a fleeting curiosity from a few minutes ago when everything was sane "Do either of you know what Christmas is? Only this man back there said something about it, and a rock as well but I know what rocks are and I don't know what Christmas is."

The sudden release of force might have been a little too much for the people present in the market square at that time, they were all unsettled by the event and each of them tried to find the nearest exit. The ogre on the other hand, was a little more powerful than upon the first inspection. It quickly regained its consciousness and control over its twitching muscles and rose to its feet more aggressive than ever. Most definitely it lacked a proper-functioning brain and even with the great risk to lose its life it still didn’t back away. Strange, what might have been enraged it so much to begin with, a creature like that didn’t act on its own, or did it?

Santa hesitated to receive help from the stranger at first, giving the ogre enough time to take its aggressive stance once more, and prepare for another attack. It was now or never!

Vor felt a sudden and unexpected tug on his robe and did his best not to lose his balance and be thrown off his carpet as Santa tried to pull his whole weight up with the help of his clothes. This old man seemed to be heavier than he looked. Vor’s feet were deep into the carpet and after a few seconds Santa managed to get on, but he decided that the girl needed help as well. He couldn’t blame him, leaving her there would be a nasty thing to do.

“Hurry up, I don’t want to toast this barbarian today!”

The carpet was now at its full capacity with three people on it. “Hold on!” Vor was accustomed with the rough maneuvers of the carpet, but he couldn’t say the same thing about Santa or the girl. Driving was sleigh was totally different than riding a carpet.

The ogre launched another hopeless punch, it was too close for comfort, cutting the air just beneath the three of them as they seemed to be thrown upwards by the magical properties of the flying carpet. They were at a safe distance now from the ogre’s reach, but not from the rocks it started to throw after them. The prophet did his best to avoid any kind of damage to him, his ‘companions’ or his mean of transportation. “Where to?”[/COLOR] He asked in a hurry. But the situation was far from over, an enraged voice threatened him for trying to save Santa.

He couldn’t believe his eyes, the same demoness he has met awhile ago in the Sanctuary of the Angels, when both of them were so close to be accused of murder. “Don’t tell me you want to finish off what this brainless creature has started! It will not be easy for you! Mark my words!” So she was not the demon looking for redemption she so highly affirmed, after all.