Thanks again to just passing time for reviewing. Admitedly parts of this chapter ended up looking a bit similar to parts of your 'The Gods Hate Me' when I read them, this is only in terms of tone and I'm pretty sure it's sufficiently different, but if you think any bits are too similar then let me know and i'll edit accordingly.
Anyhoo, onwards and this way.
Chapter 3
The Moonstone Mask wasn't quite what Darras was expecting.
He'd thought it would be an inn, just like any other. Judging from the numerous jovial looking men with beer-soaked beards and scantily clad women stood nearby who were counting the coins they had been handed and laughing practiced laughs at whatever anecdotes they were coming out with, he was in fact in a brothel.
Darras was all of twenty years old, but he abruptly felt like an eleven year old who'd stumbled upon an orgy. Bit of an overreaction perhaps but it was still awkward.
"Hey! Watch where you're going with that thing. You nearly poked my eye out!"
"What?"
The large weapon strapped to his back had apparently had a minor altercation with a nearby dwarf. The man gave him an unpleasant glare before moving off a few paces.
"Sorry." Darras called after him.
"We don't allow weapons in here lad." A large Half Ork bouncer said, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Sorry." He said, "I'll leave."
"No need to leave, you can hand your weapon to Torgo behind the bar and take it back when you're done."
"That's alright, I, I think I took a wrong turn anyway. I was just looking for an inn."
"Ha, ha, ha!" The man's laugh sounded like kegs in a distillery exploding, "Come to spill your first semen and getting cold feet at the door. Come back when you've got a few ales in you boy. Just don't get stupid when drunk or I'll snap you in half."
Darras didn't respond to that, he just turned around and left. When he was outside he felt a need to sit down. That was not his proudest moment. If Isania were there she'd probably spend the next hour laughing unashamedly at him. But, as it was, she wasn't. Leaving him alone to bear the weight of his embarrassment with an added note of sorrow.
But she wouldn't have him sitting idle and staring gloomily at the clouds. He still had an elusive bloke with a last name he couldn't remember to find.
Elves sounded like the obvious people to ask. 'Sarir' sounded Elvish, kind of. He'd noticed two Elves during his mindless wandering through the streets. There didn't seem to be that many of them, maybe they kept a close knit community of sorts.
Only one way to find out, Darras pushed himself up and started wandering once more. Now that he actually needed to find one though, the Elves of Neverwinter all seemed to have vanished.
It took him little under an hour to find one. By the looks of her she was one of the city's nobles and at the sight of being addressed by an unwashed human with dirt under his fingernails and a sword on his back she immediately called the closest militiaman and proclaimed that she was the victim of attempted banditry and general uncouthness. Thankfully the militiaman seemed to have had dealings with this woman before and let him go on his way with only the question: 'Were you trying to rob this person?' To which he responded 'No', for in truth.
Awkward moments seemed to be hounding him today. Maybe he should take the half Ork's advice and down an ale or two. He wasn't planning to go back to the Moonstone Make afterwards, it was just that the thought of having his thought processes dented with an alcoholic rock seemed pretty tempting considering all that he had to deal with right now.
Once again though, he doubted Isania would approve, and he was keen to conduct himself in such a way that her last words to him, her saying that she was proud of him, wouldn't turn hollow. That didn't mean he could never touch an ale again, far from it. Isania and him could match tankards with half a Dwarvan clan, and on three occasions had done just that. Not while there was work to be done though.
"Excuse me."
The voice startled Darras from his musings, he turned to see a young, long haired gnomish man in a blue tunic. He was looking at Darras in a way that a person might look at a teapot they were thinking about buying.
"Yes?"
"I have to wonder by the look of that sword on your back whether you're a blade for hire, though you look a little young. Mayhap you just pilfered it from your father for an hour or two to threaten the market stall man for selling you dodgy leeks. Or perhaps it's in an attempt to impress a buxom young virgin, or a stocky farm boy, or a ferret. You look like you might have a rodent fetish. Reminds me of the time when…"
What in the hells was this?
"Is there something I can do for you?" Darras asked through slightly gritted teeth.
"Oh fine, interrupt me when I was just about to tell you a riveting tale about… Oooh, that's not a very pleasant look in your eyes. Hmm, very well to business. I represent a number of concerned citizens who, in the absence of any proper leadership at the moment!" He all but shouted that last part, turning angry eyes towards Castle Never, "Have decided to do something about a recent wave of problems that have befallen our fair city ourselves."
"Oh, I see. What manner of problems are these? I haven't really been here long enough to find out."
"A traveller? Truly? In this day and age? Wait, you, you're not trying to seduce me are you? Playing the big hero with sword and a noble tale of demon slaying en-route perhaps…"
"No, I…"
"Because I'm a happily married man I'll have you know."
"I'm not trying to seduce anyone!"
"Oh," He almost sounded disappointed, "Well anyway, our biggest problem is the spontaneous collapse of homesteads. At first we thought it was just some of the older properties giving way due to damp in the rafters, but then some newly built houses in the Peninsula district fell down one after the other, like dominos."
"These houses just collapse on their own?"
"Yep, no warning, no little creaky noises, just a pile of rubble burying some poor family alive."
"Bloody Hells! So you want me to investigate for you? See if there's some nefarious force at work somewhere in the city?"
"Oh good gods no!" The gnome said with a chuckle, "No dear boy, I'd employ you for something more uh, how to phrase this politely? Practical. Something a little less demanding on the old thinking thing in your skull."
"I see." Darras replied, wondering why this annoying creature had told him the tale of buildings collapsing if it had no relevance to what he would employ him for.
"Yes, a more recent problem is a sporadic case of the dead raising from their graves in the Beggar's nest. AGAIN! It's not too big a problem so far, just a few skeletons roaming about around the Great Graveyard. A zombie or two too, but we'd like to keep the problem contained, lest it balloon into something drastic. We've set up a bounty of sorts, for every skeletal knuckle you bring to us we'll pay you fifty gold."
Darras' eyes couldn't help but light up at the prospect. This seemed a relatively painless way to get some money together, which would help him get himself back on his feet eventually. This is something he'd need to do whether he found this Sarir or not.
"That sounds like something I can certainly help with." He said.
"Good lad, just keep in mind that there'll be militia forces on patrol as well. Not quite so many as most are busy dealing with the Ork raids out on the Western road. Lot of houses near there. We tried to move the people inside the city but who wants to live in a place where houses keep collapsing? But anyway, the militia'll be looking to make sure no sneaky gits try and cheat by digging up bodies."
"I wasn't planning on…"
"Some people will do anything to line their britches with coin. My Great God Uncle Biro 'Shoelace' Flil was…"
"Shoelace?"
"Oh never mind that. There's no time for stories now. Don't try and prise a tale out of me you interrogative youth."
"I…"
"So, do we have a deal?"
"I suppose." Darras said, trying to remember what exactly he'd agreed to while trying to figure out how anyone would gain the name 'Shoelace', "Who do I go to collect?"
"Take all body bits to the on duty graveyard attendant. We've given them a dowry to work with. Dowry? Is that the word? I'll have to look that up when I get home. Right, well if there's nothing else I'll be off. Lots of mercenaries to gather you understand. Auf Weiderbye."
Auf weider what?
Though this meeting certainly added to Darras' string of freakish experiences, he couldn't help but feel a little better. One, this was a quest which if somewhat simple, was still something Isania would approve of. A chance to do a good deed and help out a city in distress. That gold would also make him feel a lot better about his current situation then the eight coins he had left. Assuming of course that he was able to kill any zombies.
The undead themselves didn't give him much pause. In truth he'd fought little else during his three year adventuring career. Isania and him were often putting down fledging necromancers. There was always one in any community. Normally they were socially inept wizards with megalomaniacal tendencies which were not equalled by their abilities. Sometimes they hadn't even needed to kill them, they just gave them a jolly good talking to and sent them home with no supper. One would-be Dreadlord of Nashkell had even wanted to join their party after they had defeated him and his seven strong army of undead bats.
One lesser known fact about adventuring was how absurd it sometimes was. The foibles of mortals could sometimes turn even the most serious of quests silly.
There was little reason to hang around. The sun would be setting soon, it seemed to be setting earlier these days, but then that was December for you. In any case, there were likely to be more undead about during the dark hours, and hopefully if he went now he could maybe find another mercenary or two to join up with. Lone warriors rarely fared well he had discovered, unless of course they formed the ranks of the quasi-mystic heroes of grand tales that encouraged scores of idealistic children to charge out into the world with their mother's kitchen knife and get diced…
Gods, what was wrong with him today? He couldn't go four minutes it seemed without getting lost in inane thoughts. It was time to focus on matters at hand.
One slight problem, where exactly was the Beggar's Nest?
"Pardon me young man?"
Helm's patience, now what?
Darras turned and saw the unhappy features of an old woman staring at him. Her voice was little above a whisper.
"Yes?" He asked, "Something I can do for you?"
"I couldn't help but overhear your discussion with that strange little man earlier. You're going to go help keep the restless bodies in the graveyard in check yes?"
"Yes."
"In that case I'd like you to have something." She reached into the depths of her shawl and pulled out a pair of leather bracers. She all but shoved them into Darras' nose.
"These belonged to my son," She said , "sort of a family heirloom. Passed down from father to son for five generations, all of them were soldiers or guardsmen. My son was… unlucky." She paused and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "I'm too old to have any more sons. So I'd like to pass these on to someone who might make use of them."
With surprising force, she thrust the bracers into Darras' left hand.
"Erm, not to sound ungrateful," He stuttered, "but are you sure you want to part with these. Shouldn't you keep them to remind you of, of your son maybe?"
"If I needed these to remember my son what kind of mother could I have been? No, all these things do is remind me that he's dead. But you kind of remind me of him. Your eyes are the same. He stuttered a lot too."
He smiled, but not too much. This still didn't feel right, but the woman was already moving away.
"If you're absolutely sure." He said, "You don't want to sell them? You could probably get a few coins out of…"
"More then a few." She said, "There's magic in those bracers. Helps keep the shivers in check in a fight, or something like that. Course I'd never hear the end of it from my husband if I sold them. Even with times as bad as they are. No, he'd want someone to take them who'd do something good with them."
He examined the items in his hand. The worn looking leather wrist guards didn't look at all magical. They didn't look all that sturdy either on close inspection. Still, such things often needed to be worn before their effects could be noticed.
"Ok then," He said, pushing out a long breath as if to emphasise the point that he was accepting this gift reluctantly, "rest assured I'll put them to good use."
"You do that lad." She said, "Those undead things were what killed my boy. Make sure you find whoever's taken those bodies out of the grave and put your sword down their throat."
"I will," He said, "thank you."
The woman nodded and walked off. Darras wondered whether he should give her a few coins for food, but had to decide against it. Until he earned some proper money, he couldn't start handing out coins to the needy. She might very well have not been as impoverished as he assumed anyway.
Strapping the bracers to his arms, he did notice that what apprehension he felt about his situation was dulled down considerably. It was also harder to feel the sorrow that had begun to accompany the memory of Isania's face. That was somewhat disturbing. He'd have to remember to take these off as soon as he was done in the Great Graveyard.
Fairly confident that everyone who was going to speak to him had done so, Darras set off to find someone who could point him in the direction of the Beggar's Nest.
To be Continued
