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Title: |
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Well-Connected
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Experience: |
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6187760 |
Archetype: |
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Tough and Charming |
Age: |
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6464 days |
Gender: |
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female |
Background: |
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Moonlighting Dilettante |
Sleuth Theme: |
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Secret #2 |
Last Login: |
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Jan-23-2007 |
Account Status: |
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Retired
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Subscription Status: |
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Unsubscribed |
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Community: |
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Equipment
Completed Missions
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Packages Delivered:
5
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Overdue Books Returned:
8
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Nemeses Captured:
0
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Secret Plans Revealed:
0
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Artifacts Unearthed:
0
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Journal Pages Found:
0
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Brass Rings Won:
0
Detective Biography
Mama said she was a ‘dancer’.
And if we’d travelled in polite circles, I might have known that what she did was called burlesque, but hell, we didn’t travel in no ‘po-lite circles’, so I only ever heard it called “the hooch”.
To give Mama her due, she was damn good at what she did. The men who came to see her flaunt her ample charms never went away disappointed. She always left them with their jowls slathering and their trousers stretched to the point of no return; always wanting more... always wanting Mama.
I don’t suppose, looking back, I really understood most of what went on. I was as much boy as girl; shapeless and sexless; unconcerned as I was by buttons and bows. Scuttering between the rows of shuffling, restless men, picking up the coins they tossed at Mama, and the clothes Mama tossed at them, was just a game to a scrap of a child.
But all games come to an end.
Perhaps Mama saw the writing on the wall; perhaps she saw those restless men turning their attentions to something prettier and younger. Whatever it was, one day I was sitting on the steps outside our ramshackle little house, waiting for Mama to finish with one of her ‘special clients’, and the next I was sitting on a train bound for Missouri to go live with a Grandmother I hadn’t even known existed.
I cannot say I shed a tear when Mama put me on that train. Besides she always cried for both of us. Too overcome for words, she kissed me quickly and pushed a slender package into my hands, before turning away into the waiting arms of one of my many ‘uncles’.
(I took a seat away from the windows to avoid the scene Mama was no doubt making)
So with a suitcase full of clothes I had never worn (Mama had decided to splurge on me), with a ticket to a place I had never been, to go live with a woman I had never met, I wondered what strange feeling this was welling up inside of me. I thought perhaps that it was finally sorrow taking it’s hold. But I was wrong... it was relief.
When I got to unwrapping Mama’s parting gift, I found the strangest legacy of all. For what I thought might be a doll, or a ribbon or comb, was not.
No, Mama had gifted me with a stiletto.
To the surprise of the weathered Nun that sat across from me, I held that long thin blade up to the light and smiled. That old girl must’ve seen something in that smile - same thing I s’pose some people see today - because she crossed herself mighty quick and was countin’ on her Rosary beads for the rest of that long train ride.
Needless to say that was only the beginnings of my adventures. That moment was not the making of me. Nor, I admit, am I complete. But it ‘was’ a start. I am no romantic, but how many can say their story started with 'light flickering on a silver blade'?
I may come to tell you the rest of my story. I may not.
All you need to know for now... is that I still carry that stiletto.
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Politics
Order o Socrates:
Poor(-1)
Arcanum Brthrhd:
Poor(-3)
Cosa Nostra:
Good(10)
Eastern Triads:
Poor(-3)
Circle of Light:
Poor(-3)
Green Hand:
Fair(9)
The Tea Steepers:
Great(55)
Shangri La Tigers:
Terrible(-55)
Contacts
Barber (New York)
Waitress (New York)
Fortune Teller (London)
Podiatrist (London)
Calligraphist (Shanghai)
Tea Merchant (Shanghai)
Podiatrist (Delhi)
Holy Man (Delhi)
Spice Merchant (Cairo)
Barber (Cairo)
Arch Villains
Victor "Machine Gun" Blood
Captured
Shang-Ti "the Mole" Grimm
Failed
Sir Abdul Panzer
Failed
Books Collected
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Agatha Christie
Secret Adversary
Agatha Christie
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventure of the Empty House
Arthur Conan Doyle
A Scandal in Bohemia
Arthur Conan Doyle
Martin Hewitt, Investigator
Arthur Morrison
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
Edgar Allan Poe
A History of Indian Philosophy
Surendranath Dasgupta
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