Author's Note: This story was written by a friend of mine and I told him that I would put it on this site, so enjoy. Also D&D belong's to Wizard's of the Coast, not him or me
Dollarian walked into the tavern, his head low despite the bright red tunic and the large, glimmering necklace that all of the members of his merchant family wore. The necklace with its rose-shaped ruby at its center, so well known in many port cities caught the low torch light. He had never been to the Walking Dead tavern before, but then he had no desire to be near anything that was familiar tonight. Everything he knew, from his house, to his friends, even his family reminded him of her. Jasmine was the light of his life, and from the way that he was feeling, she might as well have been the only light he had ever known. For almost two years he had been courting her! He was going to propose in front of all of the wealthy families at her birthday party in less than a week. The ring he had commissioned cost a small fortune – not to mention the three weeks the dwarven jeweler had taken to carve the miniature rose-ruby for the rings gemstone. But now, for no reason he knew, she had no desire to speak with him, refusing to see him and calling him names Dollarian wouldn't have guessed she knew. He had been satisfied moping and complaining around his manor the first night, but he couldn't handle seeing all of the things that brought her back to his mind anymore. So he had set off, determined to find a place where he could drown the memories. Jhor, his bodyguard, had refused to let him go alone, especially when he learned what part of town Dollarian was headed to – the West Docks. Jhor knew that area well, and his distraught, emotional boss would likely be robbed and killed if no one were watching his back. Scimitar on his hip, Jhor followed a few paces behind wherever Dollarian's depression was going to take him.
The pampered merchant was oblivious to the many pairs of eyes that sized him up, adding the value of the necklace to the weight of the coin pouch as they made their calculations. Jhor noticed each pair and gave them each a knowing glare, warning them not to try. Fathik was bartending tonight, like usual. Jhor wasn't particularly fond of him, but then no one had a reason to not like the plump tavern keep either. He took your order, took your money, and gave you your drink – always in that order. He never asked questions and let no one have a tab. He never interfered in your business, never forced you into idle talk, nor responded to what you had to say. He would even clean up after your messes – as long as you gave him a tip and got rid of the body yourself.
The crowd in the bar was not worse than most nights, but Jhor was well trained and measured each one for potential threats. His focus hung on one shadowy figure in particular. There was a man in a hooded cloak sitting by himself in a corner, half hidden in the shadows, far away from the fireplace for such a chilly night. He had even pinched out the candle on his table. He drank slowly, watching everyone closely. More interesting -though decidedly less dangerous- than the shadowy figure in the corner, was the presence of another unusual customer. The red and black striped lion on the steel shield leaning against his bar stool marked him for a member of the Keeton City Guard. There were no other markings on it – either dents or rank emblems, so he was probably quite new to the force. The over-shined chain mail he wore over his clothes caught the light as it shifted from his breathing, and the warhammer which hung from his belt was without a single battle scar – both just confirmed Jhor's assumption: this one was likely unbloodied and untested as well. But what made him worth noting was his race. He was dragonborn. Jhor had seen them before, even fought alongside them, but their overbearing sense of honor normally kept them out of such establishments. And Jhor had never even heard of one joining a town guard, especially a town that was so predominantly human. The typical human was far below the standards of people that a dragonborn would normally associate with. Jhor chuckled to himself as a few explanations behind the dragonborn's presence went through his mind.
The stool on Dollarian's right had been empty, or so had been Jhor's first impression. He now noticed the cloak draped over the seat. The cloak was displayed neatly, as though it was reserved or a patron had claimed his place before taking care of a quick responsibility, rather than the typical disorder that would accompany a forgotten item. Jhor took a mental note to watch for the cloak's owner.
A gentle hand on Jhor's shoulder stole his attention away from his boss's safety. He turned his head to see the sultry face of Hellen less than a hand's distance from his own. The flour she used to keep her face pale had clumped in a couple places from sweat already, and she had left fingerprints when she had pinched her cheeks to bring out the rouge. Jhor took that in quickly, dismissing the fact that he knew why she had been sweating despite the chilly autumn night and grinned widely at her before embracing her tightly, not missing the chance for a free kiss. Hellen led him to a cushioned bench on the far wall of the tavern. Jhor was too happy that he had been paid his monthly salary the night before.
There were two things about the Walking Dead Tavern that drew people there night after night. The first reason appealed to the dregs of the city, as well as its newcomers and vagabonds. Fathik hadn't the slightest care who you were, what you had done, or why you were here. If you paid, you were good enough to be a patron of the Walking Dead. But it was the second characteristic which truly pulled in higher numbers of patrons with coin than the other like establishments in the area: the Walking Dead Tavern had found out some secret which it had not shared with another tavern keep anywhere. It was a secret which more than a few spies had mysteriously died or suddenly decided not to continue their search for. It was a secret which Fathik kept so close to himself that he was the only person to tend his bar or get restocks from the cellar. The Walking Dead Tavern served its drinks cold. Not chilled from a deep cellar or the cantrips of a street magician, but ice cold, year round.
The novelty fueled Dollarian's already enthusiastic drinking; he had never known such a sweet pleasure as chilled ale before this night. (But then even dwarves had been so taken by the sensation of cold dwarven spirits, that Fathik had lost count of how many dwarves he had seen pass out in his tavern.)
As was Fathik's nature, he did not involve himself in anyone's affairs. This included your ability to handle your drink. If you paid for it, Fathik would serve it. If you passed out, there was always someone willing to be a Good Samaritan and help you home. Fathik knew full well that this was the simplest and thinnest cover story there was for the common thief. Inevitably, each passed out customer –who wasn't found dead- would turn up in an alley not far from the tavern, devoid of anything that might be valuable, down to their breaches now and then.
Fathik did not wish these fates upon his customers, but he would not pity them either. "They chose their path," he would think. "Hopefully one lesson is all they'll need." He could see the undeniable fate in the over-dressed Dollarian's eyes as he downed the second half of his fourth drink. Dollarian enjoyed the cold ale so much that he had finished seven before his head thunked unceremoniously on the bar. It wouldn't be long before someone noticed their 'friend' and offered to make sure he got home safely.
Even Fathik didn't notice the new customer sitting on Dollarian's left before he motioned for a mug of mead. He kept his hood on his head, the brim pulled low over his eyes, and his head slightly bowed. Had anyone been watching closely, they would have at least realized that the shady corner was no longer occupied, but no one had been watching closely.
Gloved left hand holding his mead, his eyes apparently staring intently into the sweet liquid; another hand moved as if with its own mind. This one had no glove, so that it could feel
it's way more acutely. The skilled hand quickly found its quarry. The coin purse was not even tied shut; apparently Dollarian had been too focused on his next drink. The bold thief, thick with experience in this sort of thing almost gave himself away at the unexpected. As he reached into the purse to pull out a handful of his payment for not killing the man and taking everything he owned, his fingertips glanced cool coins. His hand closed to grip and found a startling discovery: something warm, warm flesh to be exact. The thief quickly controlled himself and squeezed again, gently this time, feeling each detail, using his deft hands as eyes to display a clear image in his mind. There was a hand - a child's hand - still warm in this man's coin purse.
The hand twitched, moved against his own, and even Morthos could not hold back his eyes. The hand was attached to an arm; an arm which led under the carefully placed cloak on Dollarian's other side. Two small eyes glinted in the firelight from the shadow under the cloak, a piercing glare right into Morthos's own. Having no desire for conflict over the minor prize and weary of the danger of quick movements, Morthos slowly withdrew his hand and let his eyes wander. They didn't wander far before they found the intent gaze of an armored dragonborn standing over him. That he knew what Morthos was up to evident in his judging face.
Morthos brought his mead to his lips and took a long draught, finishing his drink. He stood slowly, keeping his back to the bar, always facing the city guard. Morthos took note of the shield still leaning against a barstool and the warhammer held naturally at his side, all without moving his eyes from the dragonborn's unwavering gaze.
"Give back what you stole, thief, or I will take it from you by force. I am sure that no second thoughts will waste time on the death of a parasite like yourself."
A low and raspy voice responded from the depths of the still shadowed hood, "I stole nothing and will return nothing."
"Then you've made your choice." His raised his warhammer over his head, two hands gripping the oiled leather wrapping, preparing for a crushing blow on the trapped thief. His new weapon turned red in the light, matching his eyes, as he paused. A moment of weakness evident of his lack of battle experience, though the dragonborn would have claimed that he was simply hoping the thief would not force him to go through with it. As the warhammer crashed down, the flat side of a shuriken slapped him in the side of the face. Morthos didn't miss the guard's flinch as a moment of opportunity. Morthos was not unused to such situations, he had even been called an artful dodger by those who wanted him dead more than others; he would have likely been unscathed even without the unneeded assistance. As it was, though, he was able to make a fool of the zealous guard. He slid down and out to the guard's left, spinning as he lowered, kicking the guard's ankle backwards. The warhammer's first victim crumbled beneath its blow, not stopping before crushing through a bit of the floor as well.
Fathik made a small nod, briefly surveying the complete destruction of a five-foot section of his bar, and then slowly walked to the storage room behind the bar to get a broom.
Unsure if the shuriken distraction had come from a friend or a foe, Morthos popped to his feet quickly, surveying his surroundings, curious where the spinning metal had come from. He did not miss the deep bow of the halfling who had stepped out of the cover of his meticulously placed cloak. Nor did Morthos miss the large sweeping movement of the halfling's arm as he bowed. An untrained eye would have certainly not seen the halfling's deft snatch of the drunken man's coin purse; Morthos's was not untrained.
As much as Jhor had been enjoying himself, he couldn't deny noticing the ruckus happening across the room. His duty pulled him away from pleasure – as duty was want to do to
him quite frequently it seemed. He stormed over, brandishing his scimitar with obvious ease. Jhor took comfort in the fact that he had not removed his vembraces as Hellen had insisted.
Even in his haste, Jhor could not help but notice that the person standing on the other side of the city guard from Dollarian was the same who had hid so comfortably in the shadows earlier. Jhor's years of experience told him precisely why the man had enjoyed the solitude of the darkness so much. Jhor hadn't met too many tieflings in his time, but the four he had known were more than enough. All but one of them had been bottom feeders, parasites of society, preying on the weak, selfish to no end. The deep hood of his cloak, so carefully pulled tight over his horns; the tail –another tell tale sign– was commonly tied into the back of the cloak when they infiltrated human society. Obviously this sorry excuse for a person was no different from the few that Jhor had the misfortune of knowing. Jhor was determined to give him just what he deserved, a very close look at the aged carvings on his scimitar's blade.
Jhor charged in at the tiefling, leading with his blade, but he stopped short and tumbled forward. The burning in his chest doubled as he fell, only to erupt in agony as his fall buried the thrown daggers deeper into his chest. The tiefling, it would seem, was more than prepared for a fight. Wary of the human determination to live and the will for vengeance, Morthos released his short sword from the upside-down scabbard on his back, flourishing the blade in quick movements, severing his newfound foe's head from his shoulders. Without a moment's hesitation, Morthos quickly returned the blade to its home. The blood runes would hunger for a few agonizing moments now that their thirst had been tempted, but Morthos had felt that fire too many times to count, too many times to care about it anymore.
Largely unnoticed in the scene that had so quickly turned violent, the halfling decided to relieve the drunken man of the weight around his neck. A scream and a crash at the tavern's door did not phase the small man or slow his task. Morthos, on the other hand, knowing far too well the type of scream it was, raised his head. It was a scream of death, one that portrayed the knowledge of the singer's fate with each torn note, a dying scream. A woman stumbled to the floor. A man was attached to her back, digging his teeth into her throat. The startled people just stared with their eyes wide and their mouths gaping open. The woman's screams weakened as her blood spilled from the torn hole in her neck, covering the floor around her in a glistening pool of red.
He looked up from his meal, blood dripping from the mouth he didn't have the mind to close. The tattered clothing, long, dirty fingernails, and blue-grey skin completed the message sent from the sunken eyes. A zombie, along with his insatiable hunger for warm flesh, had stumbled into the Walking Dead Tavern. The irony was lost on the wailing and screaming patrons.
Seeing one of his precious city folk bleed to death gave the city guard renewed strength as he continued the struggle to free his hammer from the wreckage. The zombie, blind to all but his next victim, lurched across the ground grabbing at the back of the halfling. His nails dug into the base of his neck, but the leather jerkin the halfling wore spared him from a trailing scrape of torn flesh down his back.
Two daggers, in quick succession flew through the air. One dug deep into the outstretched forearm of the zombie, pinning it to the floor; the other also flew true, striking into the same arm's shoulder. A great roar of frustration erupted from the dragonborn, silencing the crazed customers, as he freed his hammer. In the same motion he brought it around, stepping in front of Morthos and over the bleeding halfling, brought his warhammer over his own head and down through the zombie's.
The tavern was suddenly completely quiet, save for the dragonborn's heavy breathing. He lifted his warhammer to his side, switching to a one-handed grip, then leaned over and grabbed his shield. He looked about the room briefly, but his attention was stolen by the sounds from outside the tavern doors. He could hear a couple of other calls for help. They were faint, but they were there. Caring more about the dead rising up and chewing on people than the common thief, the city guard walked outside, posthaste. He would deal with the tiefling later.