It was a cool summer day, the perfect day for all the townspeople to be out and about the streets of Lómëdor. Aloric wasn't exactly a townsperson - far from it - but his travels had brought him to the city today, against his wishes. He was in need of visiting the marketplace to purchase some supplies, something you don't often find out in the wilderness where Aloric liked to lurk. And so, as he watched the citizens briskly walk to and fro around him, he felt a little more claustrophobic than usual. Was everyone in Lómëdor outside right now?

He was on his way to see if the auction house had anything useful up for sale when he saw the strangest thing. On the ground in front of him, there was a small leather pouch. This confused him as he was sure there had been nothing on the ground only a minute ago. The mouth of the pouch was bunched together by a string woven into the structure of it that pulled the pouch shut. He looked to his left and right, making sure nobody was watching him, and then he bent down low and scooped the pouch up into the palm of his hand. Gently he unbunched the opening, slowly pouring the contents of it into his hand. To his amazement, five gold pieces jingled out. Again he looked left and right to make sure he wasn't the butt of some joke. But there was nobody suspicious-looking around.

"That's pretty odd," Aloric said dryly, mostly to himself as everyone around was too busy practically running from one place to the next. He was sure there had been nothing on the ground. The pouch of gold had somehow just appeared there. "My luck doesn't allow for these strange misfortunes!"

Charoget walked along the streets and just minded her own business looking at interesting stands along the street to see if anything good was in any of the stands. she just kept walking and then tripped and to her amazement there was a little leather pouch laying in the street she took it and ran whatever was inside she could eat or use so she opened it up cuickly and to her amazement there were 5 gold coins on the pouch. She quickly closed up the pouch and strapped it to her side and went along in her business in the streets quickly getting away from the mainstream flow of people to bask in her findings even though it wasn't much she was happy with what she found.

Lilyana walked quietly through the busy streets of Lomedor. She let her gaze range over the crowd thoughtfully. The busy yet serene atmosphere of the place set her slightly on edge. There was something wrong here today... or strange. Lilyana was no fortune-teller yet she sensed something strange.

She noticed almost absently a light-brown haired man stoop and pick something up off the ground. She frowned. There was something odd about that.

She cautiously closed her eyes and replayed the scene. Man walked along street. Man bent down. Picked something up... what was wrong?

Then she had it- the bag of whatever-it-was he'd picked up hadn't been there before. It had just appeared. Out of nowhere.

Odd... she mused thoughtfully. Very very odd...

She scanned the flocks of people, looking for something undefinable, yet strange.

Minutes later, she had it.

A red-haired girl went through the exact same sequence of events. Lilyana frowned deeper this time. There was indeed something odd in Lomedor today. And what was in those bags?

A mere ten seconds later, she had her answer. A third bag appeared in front of her, so quickly she almost tripped over it. She hastily ripped open the bag and examined its contents. Five gold coins...

Shards of Arda... she swore silently. This is the strangest thing I've seen since...since...since I saw that seven-foot high blue spotted mole the other year.

She reflected a moment on the extraordinary mole, then shook herself out of her reverie. Whatever was wrong in Lomedor...well, not exactly wrong, but odd certainly, she would get to the bottom of it.

She gave an energetic nod of her head and examined the bag and its contents again.

Drionis walked calmly through the streets, it seemed like a typical day to him. Besides all the side glances at him and murmers it was pretty ordinary. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a man stoop down to pick up a bag. He shrugged, People should be more carefull with their money, after all who knows who could be lurking around the next corner. and with that he drew his sword and pointed it at the neck of a snall boy, no more than ten, reaching for his waist and his coin pouch. The boy sank away and ran off. He sheithed his sword and decided the boy was not worth the effort and continued to walk down the road it would be a waste of time and energy and as an assassin he needed to consirve his.

He continued on and saw two more pick up bags of gold. He cocked his head, the mask on his face still held the outline of his nose and his mouth, the tightly wrapped bandages seemed to be covering his head in its entiraty, the only thing seen was his eyes. Two slits of hazel hues peered through the bandages at the women and then he glanced over at the man who still held the pouch lookign around. He felt weird and gave his foot a drag kick which hit something that jingled. He closed his eyes and mentaly guessed what it was opening his eyes he had no surprise that what he saw was a bag of gold. Moving the bag on the top of his foot he hacky sacked it into his hand. He opened it and found that there was a five gold peice inside it. He shrugged but knew that something strange was happening today.

Apparently, Aloric wasn't the only one who was cashing in on the luck. He saw at least three people stoop down to the ground and come up with a small pouch in their hands. It was without a doubt completely bizzare. He blinked, then pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Nope, this was for real. He saw an elven woman also quietly picking up a bag, so he walked over to where she was standing. "Do you have any idea what's going on today?" he asked her. Just as he said it, he felt something make contact with the top of his head. "Ow!" he exclaimed. Bringing his right hand up he rubbed the spot that had been hit. I wonder what that was?

He got his answer when he looked down on the floor and saw a leather pouch upside down. He shouldn't have been surprised, but he was when he picked it up and five gold pieces were revealed. "So the oddity continues. What in Arda is going on here?"

"Okay, who's been taking my gold!?" boomed the howling voice of the Goddess of Chaos. A red streak flashed accross the sky, and within moments it crashed into one of Lomedor's paths. Pieces of cobblestone were launched into the air. The smoking crater bled lava, and from its boiling depths climbed Ita the Reckless, shimmering black armor and all. Her glare met many a townsfolk. Each that were near her were afflicted by a sudden rush of Fear and ran for their lives. Ita jumped out of the hole in the ground and shook off the white-hot lava before it cooled and hardened on her skin. It had been a year since she last attacked Lomedor. Such a weak fool she was back then...but now, her attention was not focused on the whole city, but on one man.

Ita stared at Aloric with the same rage her expressions were always filled with. Slowly, she lifted a hand, weapons and armor clanging as she moved, until a brutal black claw at the tip of her index finger was pointing straight at the money-holding shapeshifter. "You," she growled, "have taken my money. The money I dropped while trying to pursue Santa upon my chariot! Now the very hand in which you use to pick up those bags will become as mangled as your dark, corrupted soul." Without incantation or gesture, Ita cast a spell upon Aloric's right hand. Should it not fail, a bone in his hand would snap in half, rendering its digits unusable for the acquiring of moolah.

The goddess gave Aloric one last glare and turned around, walking into the distance. As she strode away from the city, she quickly picked up a bag holding five gold inside.

Charoget saw Ita being angery with a man for taking a bag of gold and she waited until the godess left to run out into the street because she saw another bag she picked it up at the same time a child picked up the bag too the had a little fight about who would get the bag with gold Charoget gave the child 2 pieces of gold from the bag and kept the last three to herself with 8 coins she went to sit and look for moore coins.

"Gah!" Aloric looked down at his right hand and heard the snapping of a bone. In an instant, his hand extended, then fell limp as a bone was crushed. The pain was so immense that Aloric could barely make a sound. He felt like his body was under some intense pressure, like he was drowning underwater.

Aloric didn't know who was behind the black armor, but whoever it was had it all wrong. His soul was not corrupted nor dark. He had simply been in the right place at the wrong time, or however you'd like to put it. He had been right all along: his luck simply wasn't that good to be able to find money on the ground without paying some consequences. He knew immediately that his right hand had been broken, only he didn't know by whom.

And, whoever it was, had left, leaving Aloric and the other people of Lómëdor standing around on the streets utterly clueless as to what had occured. A red streak had descended to the ground, a black armored figure had said something about Santa, and then it had broken Aloric's hand and took off. As if the situation hadn't been odd enough.

"Did anybody else see that?" he asked loudly. Suddenly, he felt something in the pocket of his pants, so he reached his left hand in and brought it out. It was a bag of gold. "It's practically asking for me to take it!" he exclaimed as he stuffed the bag back into his pocket. Unfortunately, most of the gold he retreived would be spent on doctor bills, fixing up his broken hand.

Lilyana tensed slightly when the first man came towards her, gripping a hand around the hilt of one of her daggers. But it turned out he came only to ask a simple question.

"Do you have any idea what's going on today?" he asked her.

Before she could reply in the negative, a bag fell on his head. Lilyana was faintly amused and not at all surprised as he dumped five pieces of gold into his hand.

"So the oddity continues. What in Arda is going on here?" he demanded of her.

Before she could answer, a large red streak fell out of the sky. It crashed into the street and began to boil lava. A large figure in black armor emerged, yelling wrathfully. Lilyana suddenly, irrationally, felt herself quake with fear. She staggered backwards and grasped a black lamppost, regaining her balance. She heard it say something about Santa -Santa? she wondered irrelevantly- and continue to project fear.

When the fearsome figure had departed, she noted that the unfortunate man was clutching his hand in pain. After a few exlamations, he had also discovered another bag of gold in his pocket.

Lilyana sauntered up to him. "Did it hurt your hand badly?" she inquired cheerfully, as if asking the time of day. "I do think we should try and find some answers to this. It is extremely odd, you know. I've never seen anything quite like this. And whatever was that fiery black thing?"