*It’s a quiet night in the capital of Brister as down by the pier a car pulls up to a warehouse. Exiting out of the car is a group of four lion demihumans. three of the lion demihumans were wearing brown jumpsuits while their leader who has brown hair, yellow eyes, and wearing a white business suit with a black shirt and gold chains comes out of the car carrying a briefcase and hands it over to one of the other lion demihumans. He straightens his collar and begins walking toward the warehouse where a door gets opened by a bunch of elves from the inside who welcome him and the others in before closing the door. On the opposite side of the warehouse is another warehouse where an elf woman dressed in a black skin-tight suit surveys what just transpired. The elf had long flowing blonde hair and blue eyes with a slim body along with kukris hanging from the sides of her waist. She takes out her cellphone and makes a call*
(Elf woman): Master, it’s Zia. It’s just like you said, the deal is going down tonight. No. That won’t be necessary. I can handle this myself. It’s fine. 15 minutes is all the time I need to take care of this situation.
*Zia ends her call and stares at the wallpaper on her phone which is a picture of her and Amarti Cloudsfall standing by each other and smiling happily. Zia kisses the picture before putting the phone away and puts on a black mask to cover her face. Zia jumps down from the warehouse soundlessly and begins making her way over to the warehouse where the lion demihumans enter. Zia sneaks around back only to see the door is being guarded by an elf holding a gun. Hoping to distract the elf, Zia reaches around her waist and takes out a small bell. She throws the bell off to some trash cans near the elf’s location which gets the elf’s attention. The elf goes to investigate where he picks up the bell and the bell sprays sleeping powder into his face which renders him unconscious. Zia goes to the backdoor only to see that it’s locked. Not wanting to alert the rest of the guards, Zia tries to look for another way in. She looks up and sees an open window on the roof of the building she’s trying to get into. Wall jumping off the sides of the warehouses, Zia is able to make it to the roof of the warehouse she wants to enter and lowers herself through the window quietly*
*Once inside, Zia stays quiet and out of the way in the rafters so she wouldn’t draw attention to herself. Looking down below she sees the lion demihuman getting ready to sit at a table where a female dark elf with short purple hair, green eyes and with an eye patch over her left eye sits waiting for him. She was wearing a purple Chinese dress with gold designs*
(Dark elf woman): Good evening Kemba, I trust my warehouse was hard to find?
(Kemba): Indeed it was Miss Elbereth. If I had known it was going to be this hard to find, I would have invited you to my establishment to make the exchange.
(Elbereth): I am well aware that your establishment has had a number of run-ins with the local authorities. So much so that they always have an eye on the place for any. . .shady activity going on.
*Kemba growls at her statement out of anger. Kemba owned a restaurant that catered to demihumans. Particularly those of the carnivore types. In truth, it was actually a front for an illegal gambling ring that he ran*
(Kemba): It’s all because of that damn elf merchant spreading rumors. Nearly cost me my operation. He’s lucky he hasn’t found himself in my claws yet.
(Elbereth): He’s lucky he hasn’t found himself on the other end of my gun barrel. Two of my dealing areas were leaked to the knights because of my men getting drunk and blabbing at that club. I wouldn’t mind having a little payback as well*
*Elbereth was also involved in illegal activity. She was the owner of a number of floral shops around the kingdom which served as a front for her illegal drug operation*
(Elbereth): Well, shall we proceed with the deal?
*Elbereth motioned for one of her men to set a briefcase on the table. One of the dark elves from behind Elbereth brings a briefcase and sets it in front of Elbereth. Elbereth opens the briefcase and reveals the packages of powder inside of it to Kemba who smiles at what he sees*
(Elbereth): Please feel free to inspect the drug for yourself.
*Elbereth takes out of the bags and tosses it to Kemba who catches it and inspects the bag first before opening it and reaching into it with two fingers to gather some of the powder. He rubs it on his fingers before taking a whiff of the powder which causes him to hum and close his eyes for a second as he takes in the smell of the powder*
(Kemba): Hmm, Fleur Fantasy. The drug that sends you off to a fantasy world. I know a lot of good people who would pay handsomely to have this wonderful drug.
(Elbereth): So, do we have a deal?
*Kemba motions for the demihuman he gave the briefcase to earlier to approach the table. The demihuman sets the briefcase down on the table and Kemba opens it to reveal stacks of money inside.
(Kemba): I’ll take two batches of your best quality.
*Elbereth agrees to the deal and as they go to shake hands Zia drops a smoke bomb from above which lands on the table and goes off. As the room fills up with smoke, Zia counts to ten before dropping down from the rafters. Zia lands on the table which gets the attention of Elbereth who can still barely see. Zia hits Elbereth on the head with the handle of her kukri knocking her unconscious. Zia then jumps off the table to attack the rest of the dark elves who began opening windows to vent the smoke. When one of the dark elves who opened a window turns around, Zia slashes at him with her kukris across his chest. He stumbles backwards before falling to the ground face first and dying. Two nearby dark elves saw the attack and fire at Zia but she deflects the bullets with her kukris as she gets close to them. When Zia approaches one of them, she knocks his gun away and slashes the neck of the elf causing him to die as blood came flying out. He begins gasping for air before his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he collapsed to the ground motionless. Zia proceeded to attack the other shooter by chopping his hand off. He screams out in pain alerting two more darks elves who take out their guns and shoot at Zia. Zia grabs the dark elf whose arm she chopped off by the shoulders and uses him as a shield by pulling him in front of her. The dark elf that Zia is using as a shield gets shot five times before dying as blood came pouring out of his stomach and chest area. Zia throws his body to the ground and throws one of her kukris at one of the dark elves that shot at her. The kukri goes spinning through the air and impales the head of the dark elf Zia was aiming for. The second shooter backed away a few steps in shock, unaware that Zia was running towards him. Zia impaled the other dark elf through the stomach with her remaining kukri as she was in front of the dark elf. The dark elf coughed up blood and Zia pulled out her kukri allowing him to fall to the ground where he dies. Zia pulls her other kukri out of the head of the first dark elf and slices his head off which lands near the feet of a third dark elf who was horrified at what he saw and fell down terrified for his life. Zia walked over to the dark elf who was crying and begging not to be killed. As he surrendered while sobbing, Zia used the handle of her kukri to knock him out*
*When the room becomes ventilated enough that everyone can begin to see, Kemba who had got up from the table and formed a circle with his men to protect themselves from harm, he saw Elbereth knocked out in her chair and the dark elves were all lying motionless on the ground. Kemba sees Zia over the body of the dark elf she knocked unconscious and she turns around to point one of her kukri at Kemba who growls angrily at this declaration*
(Kemba): Shoot that bitch!
*Kemba’s men took out their guns and began firing at Zia who deflects all of their bullets with her kukris. When the demihumans stop to reload, Zia begin to do a chant in the elfian tongue which makes her kukris start to glow. Zia clanks her kukris together unleashing a flash bomb which blinds the demihumans who drop their guns. Zia rushes over to attack the three demihumans who fired at her with her kukris still emitting a bright light and slashes at their chests in quick secession not killing them but causing them to pass out from the amount of the pain they took from her attack. This leaves only Kemba who regains his vision and attempts to take out a gun only for Zia to kick it out of his hand. Zia slashes at the chest of Kemba with her kukri only to hear the sound of metal scraping. As Zia saw his whole body turn into solid metal, Kemba tries to punch her, but she does a backflip through the air to land away safely. Kemba rips off his shirt to show off his metal chest.
(Kemba): HA! I can turn my body as hard as metal. Those puny kukris of yours won’t hurt me.
*Kemba pounded his chest proudly*
(Zia): Really? I guess I’ll have to swing harder.
*Zia does another chant in the elfian language where the kukris begin to glow brightly again. She then runs toward Kemba and begins slashing away at Kemba who guards against her attacks with his metal arms waiting for a chance to strike back not knowing that Zia’s attacks are breaking through his metal. Kemba soon begins to feel pain in his arms and he jumps back from Zia’s attack to inspect his arms where he sees that her attacks are crumbling his metal arms. While he’s distracted, Zia throws one of her kukris which spins through the air and bounces off the metal skull of Kemba. This staggers Kemba on his feet and Zia catches the kukri in midair and unleashes a spinning attack on the stomach and chest area of Kemba causing him to scream out in pain. Once Zia stops her attack, Kemba staggers away from her and falls to one knee while clutching his stomach. Zia runs toward Kemba and hits him with a dropkick right in the face which sends him falling back first by the table. Kemba pulls himself up using the table where Zia walks over to the table and grabs a bag of the Fleur Fantasy from the table. Zia gets behind Kemba, opens the bag and shoves it into the face of Kemba who tries to pull it off but it’s too late as too much of the Fleur Fantasy has gone up his nostrils. Zia removes the bag where white powder is all over Kemba’s nose and mouth. Kemba stood standing with his eyes in a complete daze and drooling from his mouth. Zia boops him on the forehead and he falls over backwards landing on the ground completely drugged out of his mind. With Kemba passed out, Zia sees that her work is done and just in time as she hears sirens out in the distance heading towards the warehouse she’s in. Zia quickly leaves out the back door of the warehouse and gracefully wall jumps onto to another warehouse to avoid being seen by the knights who had just arrived outside of the warehouse and were about to raid the place. Zia quietly jumps from warehouse to warehouse making sure the knights down below don’t see or hear her. When she reaches the last warehouse she drops down silently and begins to run up the road leading out of the pier area and back into the capital of Brister. Once back in the capital, Zia ducks into an alleyway to avoid a passing knight car that was rushing down to the pier. When the coast is clear, Zia comes out from the alleyway just as a black limousine pulls up. She smiles underneath her mask and gets in just before the limousine drives off. Once inside the limousine, Zia removes her mask and sees that sitting next to her is Amarti Cloudsfall with a bottle of water and a towel for her. Zia smiles at seeing Amarti and takes the towel and water from Amarti where she opens the bottle and begins drinking it while wiping her forehead*
(Amarti): 15 minutes right on the dot. Impressive work as always my dear Zia.
(Zia): Thank you as well Master Amarti for the pickup. With this, Kemba and Elbereth will be off the streets for good.
*45 minutes later*
*Inside Le Garden the lights go dim as a spotlight shines on a mic in front of the band. Zia walks out on stage with hair done and wearing a long blue dress. The crowd begins to cheer for her as she walks up to the mic getting prepared to sing. When the crowd goes silent, Zia begins to sing a slow jazz song accompanied by a piano, drums, and cello. The song that Zia sang told the story of a man falling in love with a singer but the singer letting him know that their love can never happen. The song was touching and moved a few women as well as men to tears at how beautiful the song was and how amazing Zia’s voice was. After the song, the crowd cheers for Zia as she takes a bow and Amarti watches on proudly off to the side of the stage clapping for her*
SHAD
Author’s Notes: Here’s the fourth preview and our first female character. I hope you like her. Zia was one of the first characters I came up with for this novel, so she holds a special place in my heart. Originally, I was going to have her be Amarti’s sister, but as I began writing her character I found her to be a better match as his love interest. Even though they have a master/servant relationship I can assure you their relationship is healthy and if you want to know more about it you’ll have to wait until the official novel drops. The next preview will be out in March. I’m going to be busy with my job in February and won’t have a lot of time to work on the next preview and I’m focusing my attention on finishing the editing on my blogs for February. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.*