The Search for a Killer (Dmitri, Hazudar, Roland Dean; open - PM for permission)

[Reliant]

It had been only minutes that the human Dmitri and the elf Roland Dean were made witness to a horrible murder in an alley just outside of the Crown Inn and Tavern. There, among the dirt and grime, they saw a half-orc brutally extinguish the life of one of the Prime Garrison's own. With the rampant rise in crime within Prime and the inability to search for the criminal themselves, the two Prime soldiers that rushed to the scene to help asked the human and the Vysstichi for help. A sizable sum, and honors for bringing the murderer to justice, would be theirs if they could find the half-orc and bring him dead or alive to the Prime Garrison. The two soldiers mentioned that an information broker, located not to far from where the chase for the half-orc ended, might be able to give the duo information on the wanted criminal and maybe where he was heading. And so our story begins...

Dmitri and Roland Dean watched dolefully as the two Prime soldiers walked down the alley to recover the body of their fallen comrade and report the incident to their ranking officer. Behind them was the large crowd into which Hazudar escaped, and about a kilometer down the street was the approximate place where the information broker might be. But the two did not receive exact directions from the soldiers, nor did they know they name of the one they seeked. It seemed as though they would need to find someone to point the way...

[Dmitri]

Heh. Maybe I am making a big deal out of this. It was just some guy who was murdered. An average crime nowadays. But one of the few people I actually talked to in this city...

Dmitri was arguing with himself in his mind, trying to plan a course of action.

Oh come on, I don't need to do this! What kind of satisfaction is it going to give me! I doubt I'm going to get any reward at all. I'm not employed or anything. I'll probably even get myself killed...

But this guy was the first friend I had in this town. Well, not counting that Roland fellow. I have a debt to pay.

Or do I? I don't know the guy all that well.

But do I know anyone well at all? If I don't do my best at this job, I'll probably be tortured by guilt for a while...

Whatever. I've got nothing to lose.

Well, that cuts it! I'm going to do whatever it takes!

Yeah, but it would help if I had a little direction...

[Roland Dean]

Roland look at the man next to him, the man was shorter and slimer then Roland and since Roland had met him the man had always seemed confused about what to do. I guess this man is to be my companion on this journey...well he seems like a good enough fellow if all else fails i can use him as a decoy if need be. Roland pulls out his pouch and removes a cigarette from it, he lights the cigarette and moves starts walking up the street. He yells back to the confused looking Dmitri,"Come! We must seek out this man the soldiers told us of. Since they left us with little information about him be on the look out for petty thieves, we want to grab one on our way they'll have information for us. And if not well....we'll have to start asking everyone and that about never works and only leads to trouble." From his days as an assassin, Roland had learned to track people down through other people and he knew this should work and if they couldn't find out from this man he believed there would be some one at the tavern that could help them. He took a long haul on his cigarette, then blew the sweet smoke in front of him into the crowd. He paused for a moment then took out another pouch, this one empty removed some stones from the ground placing them in the pouch. Giving the pouch the apperance of containing gold. Then he tied a piece of leather onto it, and fed the other end of leather through his cloak to his left wrist, where he tied it there. then tuck the extra cord away as to hide it. Then he strapped the pouch to his belt. "Bait" ,he whispered to himself.

[Hazudar]

OOC: Hey, do I need to post anything yet? :confused: If so, what should I post about?

[Reliant]

OOC: Yeah, I was waiting for you to post. Not really anything to do with Roland or Dmitri yet, just a little something that continues what you were doing in your last post in the other thread so that I don't have to keep switching between the two threads. Sorry.

[Hazudar]

What a brightening for Hazudar. Over the course of only a few candlemarks, he'd been sold out by a foul-mouthed half-elf, held up twice at crossbow point, made to endure all sorts of humiliation at the hands of the Crown guard, and was finally forced into killing off some Silrosian soldier that he didn't even know. Orok alone knew how Hazudar had managed to pull it off. Killing a soldier was never a trivial matter, of course, but this fellow had been accompanied by two of his mates, and all three of them had been armed to the teeth. And as if that weren't enough, Hazudar had barely managed to carve a line in the elf's throat when another pair of soldiers came rushing to the scene, forcing him to make a break for it.

And now here he was, huddled in the far corner of what had to be Prime's seediest tavern, sulking and licking his wounds over a pint that tasted like it had come directly from a stillwater outhouse. Not surprising, considering what a dive this place was: dingy, poorly lit, with stale drinks served by a mute bartender to a group of regulars that probably wouldn't have been safe to share a room with for very long, had Hazudar been anything but an orc. He was, though, which meant he fit right in with the assorted urban scum that this particular tavern was home to. There were mercenaries, conmen, thieves and outlaws of all sorts--in short, all those whose idea of a good time didn't mesh with the strictly-enforced rules and crossbow-toting guards of places like the Crown Inn and Tavern.

Hazudar certainly couldn't have blamed anyone for having that attitude. He'd had about enough of the Crown, himself. At first he'd only been amused by the displeasure in the faces of those he met there--got a kick out of it, in fact--but he'd never taken them too seriously. This was the capital of the Empire, after all. Sure, people could talk, they could spit at their feet when you passed, they could even try and start a brawl with you if they were feeling gutsy, but you could do the same. When it came right down to it, everyone was a citizen; everyone had the same rights--even half-orcs. That was what Hazudar had believed, anyway. But now he had to face the truth: there was simply no place in Telath that would accept him for what he was. Especially not the Crown.

Yet the half-orc would still have to pay that place at least one more visit before he could be free of it. Slate would be waiting to hear firsthand about how the job had gone. Hopefully the gory details of the elven soldier's death would be enough to satisfy the guardsman and make up for the brawl that he'd supposedly caused. Actually, it was more than hope--Slate would damn well have to be satisfied, because Hazudar was through. The Silrosian's life for his own, that had been the deal, and Haz had delivered as promised. There'd be no more shackles, no more standing like a trained animal, no more little errands to take care of. The only possible way that Slate could stop him from walking back out of the Crown a free man would be to kill him.

Actually, Slate probably wouldn't be too averse to that possibility--which was why Hazudar had already put a good deal of thought into whether he ought to head back to the Crown at all. He could always skip town... but then, what would that solve? No matter where he went, Hazudar knew that there would always be self-serving bastards like Slate around to make his life a living Aeternia. Running away wouldn't solve anything. It was time for the half-orc to make a stand, to march into that tavern and demand what was rightfully his. Just as soon as he could be sure that no one was on the lookout for him.

In other circumstances, Hazudar might've been back at the Crown in less than a candlemark. But this was a soldier he'd killed, one with friends in and outside of the military forces of Prime... a dangerous combination. No one knew that Hazudar was planning to return to the Crown--the scene of the crime, so to speak--but the soldier's friends might still be there asking questions or looking for clues that would lead them to him, the culprit. There was no telling when they'd give up, but just to be safe, the half-orc was planning to wait for the cover of the darkening to make his return trip. Until then, he'd just lay low, letting the dim, smoke-filled, noisy atmosphere of the tavern blot out all signs of his existence.

[Hazudar]

OOC: Reliant? :}