Chapter 2: A Guards Fate
Outside the Giggling Squid, evening was starting to fall, causing the streets to quiet as businesses started to close and workers went home. Lud stepped out of the tavern, and paused to take a deep breath and a sigh, his smile turning slightly more melancholic as he turned and began walking further into town, towards the coast. As he did so, he failed to notice a couple of figures break away from a side alley in order to pursue. These figures wore scruffy clothes, their features lined with dirt and their hair a matted mess. Clearly they had seen better times. For the moment though they had grins on their faces, seeing an opportunity to improve their situation.
It was as these two moved to pursue that Na'ish and his companion exited the tavern, and upon noticing them hung back further before following at a steady pace. Following them were the hooded pair with the strange rodent, who chose to simply keep to the shadows of the street, which were increasing as the sun went down. Finally, the grey haired man took one look at the retreating figures, and decided to hook a left, disappearing into one of the many adjacent back alleys of the town. Here, the man reached a dead end, but smirked when he saw a drain pipe reaching down from the roof. He climbed it in order to get a better viewpoint of the group, while hoping to remain unseen.
None of them had noticed when a large ashen-skinned man had pushed himself off from the wall where he had been leaning beside the tavern, following the main group down the street in interest.
As the two rogue men followed Lud, they appeared to be having trouble keeping up. Every time they lost sight of him around a corner or stand, they would turn it to find Lud far further away than his steady stride should accomplish. This resulted in the two having to almost jog to keep up. Eventually, they caught him turning into a side alley, the pair exchanging smirks as their opportunity presented itself. Both swiftly entered the alley in pursuit.
It is this movement that Na'ish manages to catch as he turns around the corner, pausing in contemplation. His sudden stop caused his robed companion to hit the back of him, stumbling slightly as he took in the new situation. As he did so, there was also the noticeable sound of a bottle getting kicked to their left, and a hissed curse. Swinging around the pair noticed two figures hunkered in the shadow of the nearest set of barrels.
"Who's there?" called Na'ish, revealing him to be a soft spoken individual. Realising that they had been thoroughly caught, the robed pair stood, revealing themselves to the others for the first time. The short one chuckled nervously.
"I assure you there is a good explan..." Before he could finish, his companion excitedly bounded forward, causing Na'ish to take a more defensive stance, though he did not draw his weapon yet.
"Hi, I'm Indira! Who are you? I love meeting new people, and going to new places. This will be my first dark alley! How exciting!"
Na'ish looked shocked at the verbal barrage, unsure how to react. The robed man appeared to be suppressing a chuckle. Indira's companion sighed, and stepped forward in order to pull her back a bit from crowding Na'ish "What have I told you about your enthusiasm, it scares people."
Indira's shoulders sagged a little "Apologies, but everything is so interesting Alistair…" The now named Alistair turned towards Na'ish "I know this looks bad, but we simply had your interests at heart. When we saw you following the generous man from the bar, we feared the worst when he picked up those ruffians. Don't want to get mixed up in a mugging now, do we?" he smiled, lowering his hood for the first time, revealing himself to have elfish features and dark shoulder length hair with a small goatee beard. His ears suggested he was not a full elf however.
His companion also lowered her hood, showing herself to be a wood elf, with long red hair and bronze skin. Upon her head sat a small rodent, which perked up upon being revealed and jumped to her shoulder. She also had a confused look on her face "But, I thought that's what you were going…" Her comment was stopped by Alistair placing his hand over her mouth, still looking at Na'ish, though his smile had become more nervous.
Na'ish, however, didn't take heed of this. "I simply wish to ask him questions. I care not for the rogues or their intentions"
It was at this moment they all heard a muffled "Glurgh" come from around the corner of the alley that their targets had entered. Looking briefly at each other, they all turned to round the corner and investigate.
The scene they were met with, was the two unfortunate rogues lying face down in the dirt, with no sign of Lud anywhere. Na'ish strode forward, and as he passed the rogues he barely looked at them, choosing to simply gesture to them as he passed "Godfrey, if you would."
His companion sighed and strode forward, kneeling at the figures before flipping one over and inspecting him. "They are still breathing," Godfrey stated "if that was what you were wondering.", before continuing to do the same to the other individual. Alistair and Indira approached, Indira looking very much like she was regretting her first dark alley experience. "What do you reckon happened to them?" he asked.
"They are knocked out," said Godfrey "but otherwise fine. They will awake before long"
"Oh ok," muttered Alistair, "…think they have any good stuff?" to which Godfrey just gave him a deadpan stare. "…sorry, forget I said anything."
Meanwhile Na'ish had made it to the turn at the end of the Alley. "Still no sign of Lud."
"Or maybe, you are just not looking hard enough." a new voice spoke from the entrance of the alley, causing the group to swing their attention to it. Leaning against the wall was the tall ashen-skinned elf, smirking at them. How someone of his size had snuck up on them was anyone's guess.
The figure pushed off the wall, and walked down the alley with a confident step. The group by the unconscious pair stiffened, as if expecting a confrontation. The man simply walked past them, completely ignoring their presence, and instead walked to where Na'ish was and crouched down to look at the floor.
"See, there are marks of a man passing through here, if you know where to look…" the man gestured to the ground, revealing a few scuff marks that looked vaguely like footsteps. Na'ish also moved forward to better see the marks. "So these will be Lud's footsteps?" he asked.
"I would assume so, I don't exactly know the man's foot size." snarked the newcomer.
Na'ish ignored the rude comment, choosing instead to place a hand to the marks. "Perhaps, I can tell whether it was or not". He then proceeded to gather some magical energy of a gold colour into the palm on the floor, gaining a look of intrigue from the taller man. The energy built and grew to encompass the ground. Then, in a rush of wind the energy dissipated, blowing away the tracks in the mud and causing the group by the ruffians to shield their eyes.
"...Was it meant to do that?" the tall stranger asked, a single eyebrow raised. "No...no it was not" sighed Na'ish. The stranger just shook his head in disappointment. "Great, and now we have no way to follow whoever left the tracks". The man just huffed, and went over to where Godfrey was finishing his inspection of the knocked out men.
"Can you wake them?" He asks. Godfrey simply shook his head "There doesn't seem to be any injuries to heal, they are simply knocked out." The ashen-skinned man moved to the side of one of them, then proceeded to lift his boot before kicking the downed man in the side of the head, before Godfrey could stop him.
The man's head snapped to the side, before he awoke with a start and sat up, holding the injured head with his hand. "Wuh, wha' happened?" the man asked blearily. Before he could get his wits about him, he found himself hauled to his feet, coming eye to eye with a man many times his size. "Where is Lud?" the man asked calmly.
"Wha, who? who are ya talkin 'bout?" The ruffian replied groggily. "You know, tall, handsome, gold skin. Hard to miss, especially since you were, you know, following him." The man petulantly looked off to the side, "Don't know nuffin'." He stated. This earned him a swift slap to the face courtesy of the man holding him, causing his eyes to bug and look at him in disbelief and a little pain. Seeing the man raise his hand once more with the apparent intent to hit him again, the man panicked. "We were just gonna rough him up a bit, get some coin. Man's gotta eat, and word on the street was that guy was loaded."
Alistair steps forward at this "And? It doesn't seem you were successful, how did you get knocked out?" The man takes a contemplative look, impressive seeing as he was still dangling in the larger man's grasp. "I don't rightly know. One moment me and Richie were following him into this alley, the next I felt something hit me from behind, and everythin' went dark." He then looks to his downed companion, and says "Is he gonna be alright? He owes me twenty coins is all."
The man holding him up shakes him slightly to regain his attention "He is, but you won't be much longer unless you tell us where Lud went." The man squirmed in his grasp, panicking at the threat "I don't know nuffin', like I said, we just wanted to mug him, but we got knocked out somehow." He was then unceremoniously dropped to the floor once more, the man falling onto his back, unable to get his feet beneath him at such short notice.
"Then you are useless to me, take your friend and leave, now." The man proceeds to do just that, standing up and reaching down, slinging his unconscious companion's arm over his shoulder and heading towards the exit. A swiftly thrown dagger at his feet and a harsh "Faster!" from the tall man hurried him along significantly.
Alistair gave a low whistle, "Gotta say big guy, love your style! What's your name?" The man simply scowled at him, causing Alistair's easy grin to falter. He turned and started marching over to Na'ish, but not before muttering "Varus." as he left.
Alistair simply shrugs to a concerned looking Indira, "Tough crowd".
It was as Varus was approaching Na'ish and Godfrey that there was a new commotion from the Alley entrance. "What now?" he muttered, as all present turned to see two new figures approaching. Unlike the two they had recently evacuated from the alley, these looked far more official, wearing the armoured garb and coloured tabard of the local town watch. Varus noticed out of the corner of his eye that Alistair had noticeably shrunk back, attempting to use the shadows of the alley to hide.
The two approached, one man in the lead holding a torch and another, younger looking male trailing behind. "What do we have here? What's a group of this size doing hanging around an alley eh? Up to no good?" the lead man said.
Varus appeared to dismiss them entirely, turning to start to exit the alley from the other entrance without so much as a word. Before the guards could comment on this behaviour, Godfrey stepped towards them. "Apologies my good gentlemen, we are simply travellers in a new town, and while searching for a place to rest got lost in the darkening streets as night fell."
The lead guard gave Godfrey a look over, clearly not entirely convinced of his story. However a quick look over the alley failed to expose any obvious wrong doing occurring. "Very well, in that case you lot had best be heading to the Giggling Squid, a tavern just down the road from here. It's best not to linger here at night, strange things can occur".
Godfrey did not miss the way that the guard's "can" was emphasised. Curious, but not wanting to miss an opportunity to get away, Godfrey simply bowed and thanked the men, and gestured to the rest of the group to follow him. As they passed the guards, he noticed that Alistair had once more replaced his hood over his head.
As the group was leaving, unknown to them a figure up high on the rooftops stood up once more, revealing the elderly features of the greying man from the tavern. "Interesting, so much for a quiet retirement town...I will need to find out more. Perhaps I will try to get to know this group, if only to get more information on Lud". The figure then proceeded to return to the Giggling Squid via rooftop, arriving before the group without them ever knowing that he had left.
Meanwhile, in the alley, the senior guard watched the strange group leave with some suspicion. However, he had come to this alley for a reason, and he couldn't afford distraction by strange travellers. This was Grayben's Bay, there were always strange travellers! Turning back to his fellow guard, the man said "Ok boy, this is where that commotion was reported several days ago. We haven't got round to it yet, what with you know what occurring, but this will be good training for ya. See if you can find anything and then come back to the barracks to report. I'm going to go take my watch shift." The man then turned to leave the alley.
"Er...sure, yeah. Of course Garret, are you sure I'll be ok on my own?" the young guard asked nervously. "It's only the dark Alfie, if you can't handle that, you won't make a very good night watch now, will ya?" Garret calls back, waving behind him dismissively as he leaves.
Alfie took a few steadying breaths, then started waving his torch around the alley, looking to the walls and floors in an attempt to find out anything. One thing that caught his eye was a couple of depressions in the dirt, looking as though a couple of bodies had recently laid there. Crouching in order to get a better look, he heard a brief whoosh of air displacement from behind him.
Assuming it was his superior checking on him, he called back "I think I found something Garret, look here" he gestured to the floor. Hearing no reply, he stood up and turned "Garret?..." before laying eyes on the source of the sound. He only succeeded in widening his eyes and gasping before his body convulsed and slumped to the ground, his torch rolling to the floor and extinguishing in one of the many pools of damp ground…
