I felt like starting a story one day. You Massassians can be a part of it. Anyway here are some simple rules:

1-Don't make your post "kill" the story.
2-All comments (not part of story) should look like this. Keep 'em short.
3-If your post is not in order of the story, edit or delete it.
4-verbs in past tense
5-Be creative

======Let's start================

Echoman had been sitting in his chair for a long period of time. In front of him was his desk where files of papers lay. He was facing his door which was guarded by two bodyguards. Behind him were wide glass windows with a good view of the city below. The bright lights and glamour of Los Vegas were easily seen. Echoman's office was the highest floor of his hotel, The Massassi. And his profession wasn't all "legal".

What troubled Echoman was a letter that was sent personnally to him. The dark, black letters on the sheet within the envelope read:

"The cow moos at midnight. Leave a little gift for it. You know the place..."

Echoman began to worry. "How can I find someone to deliver this money?? Who could be brave enough??"

There was a knock on the door. Echoman looked up from his table and was informed by his bodyguards that someone with a question was here to see him. Echoman smiled.

"Bring him in."

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"x=2?! Them fightin' words."

Sarn_Cadrill sauntered in and took a seat at the desk before Echoman without waiting to be offered one. Echoman glared furiously. "How many times have I told you not to meet me here? What if some moron reporter saw you come in?"

Sarn rolled his eyes. "Relax. No one ever sees me. You know that."

"Forget it. We've argued this enough. Anyway, let's get straight to the point. Do you know about this letter?"

"Of course I do. I know everything that happens in this town worth knowing. I've already got men staking the place out. The question is, do you have a man to deliver the package?" Sarn pulled a cigar from his inside coat pocket and clamped it between his teeth, unlit.

Echoman frowned. "I was just wondering that myself. Any suggestions?"

"Well I might be able to think of a couple people you could trust... But it's going to cost you."

"How much?"

"Oh, please Mr. Man," Sarn grinned from behind the cigar. "I don't need money. I deal in favors." Carefully Sarn laid out to Echoman what he had in mind for the coming weeks. Of course, he didn't tell Echoman everything, only what he'd know to make sure the task he would be in charge of got taken care of. Echoman's expression ranged from stark disbelief to utter appreciation of Sarn's criminal genious. Finally, Sarn had explained the plan in sufficient detail. He rocked backwards in the chair and placed his feet on Echoman's desk, raising an eyebrow.

"Ok," Echoman said. "It looks like this could be beneficial to us both. Now who do you have in mind for my drop?"

Sarn grinned. "The last person you or anyone else would expect. Let me talk to him, and I'll get back to you within the hour." Sarn stood, knocking over his chair in the progress. "Oh, and by the way, there's a typo on your letterhead. It should read "Las Vegas." You might want to get that fixed. Sarn strode from the room, thinking to himself. Echoman was an idiot, but an necessary idiot. Not only would he be helping pull strings in Sarn's plan, but he was doing for the price of an informant in his organization. Sarn chuckled to himself as he stepped into the elevator. Gebohq would be a valuable asset to have close to Echoman.

Meanwhile back in his office, Echoman was puzzling Sarn's plan over in his mind. He hardly trusted Sarn to provide him with a man that wouldn't be sending everything he heard back to Sarn, but it was better to have informants you were aware of then those you weren't, and Echoman wasn't naive enough to think that his organization had none.

As for Sarn's plan, he was already beginning to see a couple ways he could switch things around so that it was him that came out on top. If done properly, Sarn wouldn't even know anything had happened differently then he'd planned. He was great at casting vision, but when it came to practical implimentation, Sarn still had a thing or three to learn. Echoman reached over and hit the buzzer on his desk.

"Miss Turner? Get me IS_ford on line 1. And uhh, run the letterhead through a spellcheck."

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Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin
http://www.writings-emag.net The next big thing since individually wrapped cheese slices (coming soon).

A man cloaked in shadow called to Sarn from an alley, ventriloquistically throwing his voice - in the voice of a young woman to boot - to sound right in Sarn's ear.

"Hello, Cadrill, enjoying the bounty of another day's hard - or perhaps not-so-hard - work?"

Sarn looked around to see where the voice was coming from, but, as always, he could never tell. And he'd never seen the lady who always spoke to him. He opened his mouth and spoke to the thin air, and the man who was speaking in the voice of the woman, though he was a fair distance away in the alley, heard, for his specially designed left contact lens picked up the vibrations in Sarn's throat, carrying them into the visible spectrum so that the shadowed ventriloquist could tell what's being said simply by looking at someone. "How much did you hear?"

The Ventriloquist shrugged. "How much does it matter?"

"Don't suppose you're ever going to get around to telling me your agenda one of these days? . . ."

But the man in the alley was gone, though Sarn of course never knew he was there. He shrugged himself and kept on walking. He would keep sending men to track down this mysterious woman, but for now it seemed he had to accept that he did not know her mysterious identity or agenda.

-----

The shadowed man whom Sarn had never seen and thought was a woman said, "Alright, Iriana, that's enough."

The voice in his head relented, saying, Alright, if so you wish.

The man - his name was Highemperor - nodded. He donned his brimmed hat and kept walking. His hat and trench coat were black, but his slacks were brown, and he wore a scarlet vest over his silver shirt. His eyes are piercingly brown, though one, the left one, appears to be baby blue with the specialized contact lens in it. He was a lone agent, working for no one but himself. No one knew his identity, but folk all over town called him - or rather, they called Iriana, his other, female personality - the Ventriloquist. He deactivated a modified nerve firing in his brain, which set an EM aura around him which scrambled all detection of any sort. Now that he was no longer in his role as the Ventriloquist (Iriana), but in his public role as Highemperor, author, it was safe to turn it off.

And so he sauntered on.

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Quest on epic adventures or duel at the High Citadel!

Echoman began to sweat. Droplets of water rolled down his forehead. Time was running out. If Echoman doesn't bring the cash, he will face trouble. Bad trouble.

"Where is he?" proclaimed Echoman, "Where is the man sent from Sarn?"

He was sitting at his desk and looking over the letter. He read the lines again. Then sat back and thought, "After all these years, why do they haunt me. I told them I want no more of their operation.."

There was knock on the door. He got up from the chair and was ready to meet the guest.

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"The Tenloss Disruptor was outlawed throughout the galaxy because it's such a stupid gun"