Chapter 3

Edward Strongshield was everything the elf had expected from a paladin of the Order of the Silver Hand, which was exactly what made him intolerable to be around. Crys had taken Jaina's suggestion about getting to know the local authorities better, stating with the top, and the captain of the city guard was as high as you could get. Standing a hair taller than Crys' six foot and three inch height, but twice as broad, Edward was the very image of the idealistic go-getter and stout defender of the weak. He was clean-shaven except for the traditional handle-bar moustache that seemed as much a part of the paladin order as their oaths of loyalty, his sandy-blonde hair cropped short and neatly arranged, and wearing a spotless white tunic and blue breeches tucked into black boots polished until they gleamed like tumbled obsidian. He often twirled the hairs on the end of his handlebar moustache in his idle moments, as if enjoying the very thought that one of the long-traditional symbols of the paladin order were adorning his face. With a clap on the back that nearly sent the elven wizard sprawling Edward gave Crys a tour of the barracks, all the while pointing out improvements he had made, including his plans to install a metal pole through the second story floor that footmen could slide down to their posts in the case of an emergency. Crys kept his true feelings well hidden, commenting when required by politeness and the whole while wishing he had access to some sort of time-shifting spell.

Then there were the questions about family, and how his son if growing up to be quite the scholar, but needed a little more horseplay to develop his body as well. When asked about his love life Crys explained that he needed some wounds to heal first, holding his cane up to his chest. Thankfully Edward said nothing further, just nodding sagely and changing the subject. When at last they had made it to the infirmary Crys was able to get a few uninformative moments with the guards who were present at the murder scene. They had little to add, commenting once again on how the corpse had been mutilated and then sewn back up, the fiery explosion, the sinister note pinned to its chest. Each of course had their own pet theories on who did it, from a thieves guild to troll necromancers who had manipulated the dead body using a small doll that looked like the victim. The elf thanked them for their time and left in Edward's company.

Lastly they visited Theramore's prison, Ironclad, a suitably impressive and effective stockade that, fortunately, usually housed only a regular rotation of drunks and rowdies. Crys was always sure that if went drinking on particular evening that he left before he was completely intoxicated, allowing him to stagger home and finish the deed in peace. He drank because it dulled the pain, but it was still his pain. He would not be made a spectacle like these ones imprisoned here, or passed out on the street like sleeping stray. After giving the detention area a quick scan Crys was ready to leave the joyless stone building when something, or someone, caught his attention. Turning to face the one cell to his right completely his eyes widened in recognition.

"Daghmor! Daghmor Darkdelve!"

A dwarf dressed nearly head-to-toe in black leather armor with steel studs sewn abundantly across it lay curled up on the wooden bench facing the wall, obviously sleeping. At the sound of his name being called he started awake and promptly rolled off the narrow bench and tumbled, sputtering dwarven curses, to the straw-strewn floor. "You know this dwarf?" Edward queried, his eyebrow arched in surprise as the stocky prisoner got to his feet and dusted himself off. The dwarf's eyes dimmed with sleep scanned the room and came to rest on Crys' form, a grin forming on his bearded face.

"Ah, Crys lad! It's been awhile. How have ye been keeping yerself?"

Edward had every right to be surprised by the odd relationship, which had begun in an argument. Crys had been waiting for weeks for a shipment of Panderan ale to arrive at a local tavern, but when it had, only half of what composed the entire order had arrived there. Crys quickly found out there was a second client who had ordered a like amount, and there was only enough to fill one order. A resounding "what!" that made his sensitive elven ears ring heralded the arrival of said other client, a dark-eyed dwarf with a thick curly black beard and the broad build of a warrior. Naturally an argument ensued, each comparing the time they had ordered it, how much money they were willing to pay for it, and so on. It ended in insults, Daghmor promising to break Crys over his knee like a piece of kindling, Crys threatening to light the dwarf's beard like a fuse. Something passed between the two of them then, something unspoken. It was as if they both suddenly recognized the other as a veteran of the war, that if they had met several months before, they would have been guarding each others back on the field of battle. After a tense moment the two of them suddenly burst out into laughter, drawing odd looks from the other patrons about.

In the end they split both the cost of the ale and the ale itself, most of it being drank that night over tales of conflict and of homelands left behind. They were a good foil for one another, and had since shared enough drink between them to float the flag ship of the Theramore navy. It didn't surprise Crys in the least to see him here, the dwarf not having the same advantages of rank that would keep the elf from places such as this.

"Captain Strongshield, I want this good dwarf released immediately. This should cover any fines he owes," the warmage said, turning to the paladin and reaching into a pouch to hand him a short stack of gold coin. Edward was dumbfounded, accepting the gold mechanically before finding his tongue to respond.

"This one here is a right devil when he's had a few too many. He caved in a helm and crushed a man's hand through the gauntlet he wore when they were bringing him in last night."

"Then keep yer men's heads away from where a dwarf can whack them!" Daghmor said while smiling fiercely.

Crys held up a hand in the dwarf's direction, still facing Edward.

"I trust the men will recover…?"

"Well, yes, they received clerical healing and..."

"He will remain in my company and I will accept responsibility for his actions in future, agreeable?"

Edward was going to say something more and then just clamped his mouth shut, then releasing a slow breath through his teeth and relenting.

"Alright, sir wizard, he is in your care, but keep him away from the taverns, or you'll be sharing a cell this time tomorrow I promise you that," he warned, getting the jailor to open the cell and release the dwarf. Smiling amiably at the guard captain Daghmor trod out the door followed by Crys.

After retrieving the dwarf's confiscated items, including a polished cudgel made of heavily knotted wood with a leather-wrapped handle, the unlikely duo left the prison.

"So what was it this time, Dagh?" the wizard asked, glancing down at his shorter companion as they walked, also slowing his pace to accommodate Daghmor's slight limp.

The dwarf had lost some use of his right leg after an orcish catapult round crushed it during the second war. Being relegated to mind-numbing guard duty afterwards Daghmor decided that he had just about enough of fighting with the army, and told his commander as much by breaking his nose. After a brief stint in prison, shortened in recognition of his service with the army, Daghmor was a free dwarf, taking enough odd jobs here and there to keep him in ale, food and shelter most of the time. More often than not his devil-may-care attitude and truly heroic intake of alcohol put him on the wrong side of the law, or a prison cell's bars, as was evidenced by where Crys had found him just moments prior.

Daghmor snorted and waved his hand back towards the barracks.

"Feh, the usual. Drunk this, disorderly that. Stuff like I did would've given me extra cleaning duties in the dwarven army, but here they were ready fer a flogging and forced labor breaking rocks, not that it'd be any different from what they got my people doing here in the first place. This living amongst humans, its not any life for a dwarf."

"Nor an elf," Crys added, his eyes staring off into the distance as continued on their way. Daghmor looked up to his companion's face but then just shook his head and grumbled something before changing the subject.

"Thanks for getting me outta there, lad. You were the last person I'd expected to see there to bail me out."

"Truth be told, I hadn't the slightest idea you were there, but seeing how you were, you've given me an idea," the elven wizard confessed, a wry smile crossing his face.

The dwarf regarded his erstwhile rescuer as if he had just found a serpent in his pack, and Crys beginning to steer their walk towards the fish market.

"It's a black stain."

"Observant as ever, my stolid companion, and it is the very same stain that I told you about on our way here."

It was nearly mid-afternoon, the pair stopping to cool their heels and moisten their lips at an inn before setting out again, Crys moving to the scene of the crime while telling Daghmor about it.

"And ye've been commissioned to find out the culprit?"

"Yes, by none other than governess Jaina herself."

Daghmor smirked. "And what self-respecting lad could refuse a request from the Golden

Sorceress? None that stand in my sight."

Crys bowed slightly, a thin smile on his lips. "Certainly not I. She piqued my interest in it and presented several valid points as to why I should become her watch dog. Hence, I am here."

"These points that she presented, were they about the size of a pair of cannonballs and hung about yea high… "

"Daghmor!" Crys admonished, drawing a mischievous grin from the dark-garbed dwarf and looks from several nearby market-goers.

"Yer flushing lad…"

"Irrelevancies aside, I accepted and now I'm going to be calling in a favor from a dear friend of mine to aid me," Crys growled, fixing the dwarf with a piercing stare. Daghmor stroked his beard in thought, looking up into the sky. Finally he shook his head.

"Nay, lad, that I cannot do. If I wanted to be ordered around I'd have stayed in the army. I do owe you, no mistaking that, but I'm not your dwarf."

"Even if it was repaying a favor and you were being paid for your time?"

The leather-clad dwarf considered the offer and nodded agreeably.

"Well lad, that's quite a different thing entirely. How much?"

"Five gold a day, and that's a complete day. You're up when I'm up and you go where I go."

A shake of a dwarven head answered that offer.

"Nothing doing lad, ten gold a day and ye buying my drinks after a hard day of duty in the course of public safety."

This time Crys shook his head, a short laugh accompanying his counter-offer.

"Fifteen gold and not a copper more, and you buy your own drinks. You'll have bled me dry in two nights if I was paying for your 'drunk and disorderly'."

Daghmor gave the elf a sour looked but finally agreed. "So what's first?"

"First, you show me Theramore's underbelly before it gets dark. Then, you and I are going to become the smallest patrol unit in the city. The killer is going to strike again, tonight even, and we need to be nearby to either stop him or catch him."

They pair did just that, Daghmor giving Crys a tour of the best of the worst. Every city had a "bad" district, even one as frequently patrolled and orderly as Theramore, you just had to know where to look. Goblins operating their black market business out the basement of a cobbler's shop; a ring of cutpurses, the oldest of which was only seventeen summers; a warehouse where the land owner held brutal boxing matches between down-on-their luck laborers looking to make a extra few silver. Crys thought briefly about telling Edward about such places, but they were hardly groups of cultists regularly sacrificing virgins to the lords of the Burning Legion. Besides, while not nearly as street-savvy as Daghmor, the elf knew that if he were to disturb the underworld now with arrests and what-not, it would put the murderer on alert as well, lying low until the heat had died down. A well-dressed elf walking with a burly dwarf who looked every inch a thug through the poorer sections of Theramore drew many glances, but they were not approached at any time during their tour, most of their observers likely drawing their own conclusions and steering clear.

"Space is so scarce in the city limits that there's not a single abandoned warehouse in the whole of the city. This means if your murderer is hiding amongst the lower classes, or moving about through their area to commit his crimes, chances are that there are at least five people who have seen him, but just never put two-and-two together," Daghmor explained at one point, gesturing to a warehouse that had workers piling sacks of meal into from a nearby cart. Several children played in the upper floor, most likely the building owner's own family, or that of a worker who was renting the place.

"So why are we here, elf? You said your murderer could wield magic, and I haven't rubbed shoulders with any mages at the local pub," the dwarf asked.

Crys pursed his lips before responding, considering the direction of his investigation carefully.

"I start in the basement and work my way up, so to speak. While it is true that the one responsible for the murders, be they the actual killer or not, is versed in the necromantic arts, wizards rarely work alone. Take our example, for instance," Crys explained, opening his palm and sweeping his arm between himself and Daghmor to encompass them both.

"We've walked for the better part of an hour-and-a-half through Theramore, and not a single word from either a citizen or a guardsmen. The guards assume because you are accompanying me, that you are working for the Alliance in some manner, and thus do no bother you. The laborers see me and assume that I am a client of yours, or your

boss," the elf grinned at the dwarf, who only rolled his eyes, "and think little of my being here. If I were to walk alone here, I would stand out like an ogre on a freshly shorn lawn, and if you were to start loitering around the richer shops and residences, your presence would certainly raise the suspicions of the local guards. I am convinced that the murderer is not working alone in this, possibly even that the caster who reanimated the body and set the magical charge has nothing directly to do with the actual killing. This means he is using some indentured muscle to handle the logistics of his crimes, and I'd wager the right amount of gold spread around here would garner him some quiet help, hence why we are here. "

Crys then shrugged ruefully and sighed.

"Though I must confess theories are all I have right now, with no body to examine and no witnesses to the kidnapping nor the dropping off of the body afterwards. So indulge my amateur musings and remind yourself that you're getting paid handsomely for your time. I'd wager this trumps working as a caravan guard running past the Dustwallow Marsh on its way to Bael Modan, hmm?"

Daghmor's response was an odd rumbling gurgle that originated from his gut, causing the dwarf to pat his slightly rounded belly comfortingly.

"My stomach is reminding me I have eaten naught but a hard-tack biscuit and some thin broth today, and my hunger trumps your musings any day."

Crys conceded the point by inclining his head and nodding slightly.

"That it does friend. We have some time before nightfall, and we'll not need that howling stomach of yours warning the killer of our approach tonight. Can you suggest a place with a variety of fare to please both a dwarven and an elven palate?"

"I'm already walking there lad," the short rogue replied, his feet picking up their pace until he was in the lead despite the old wound hampering his movement. Hunger can be a powerful motivator it seemed, Crys mused.