2-14 “Better than Nothing”

By the time we find Inspector Freeman, Harold's constant blathering is starting to get to me. He was scouring alleyways when we got to one of the men assigned to relay messages. How does he manage to root around in the alleys all day and not get even a smudge on his breastplate? places are quite filthy.

“Sir, this is Harold Wordweaver, a business partner of Peter Moldmaker, he's here to tell you what he knows. We have an enchanted stone of his appropriated for the investigation and he would like it back, if it proves irrelevant to the case.”

“Well, I wouldn't say I'm a partner, more of a-”

“Thank you Nivar.” Interrupting someone? He must be exhausted. “If you could take Ken and do a sweep of the alleyways, it'd speed things along nicely. This area looks like the center of the more recent disappearances.

“Mister Wordweaver, let's go talk someplace more comfortable, no sense standing out in the sun.”

Even something like this is preferable to standby, pretty sure he knows that much about me. Otherwise, it would probably have been an order, most of the others hate alley work. We spend a fair deal of time searching, and bump into another pair of watchmen that are on the same task, nothing to report except which areas they've already scoured. At least there wasn't any muck around to have to dig through, surprisingly dry around here. Ken is rather adept at avoiding and maneuvering around the detritus that is clogging up some of these alleys.

“It's getting close to the end of our shift, lets check one last set across the street from this one and head home, don't worry it's a small one.”

“Starving here, can't wait to get home and eat dinner.”

“Do you do the cooking at home too? When we were out in the woods before you made some surprisingly good stuff.”

“Only one at home to do the cooking, taught myself to cook when I was tired of paying too much for food or eating junk.”

“No one else at home? Have you been looking? I'm sure a lot of women would be impressed by the uniform, and that you can cook like that.”

“No, saving myself for someone back in the hometown, we've been keeping in touch via a pair of enchanted brooches I... obtained from a previous employer. Waiting for the situation down there to be appropriate to get her out.”

“Is it really that bad?”

“Worse, I really wish I had-”

“Hey! Stop, thief!” We're just approaching the street, they aren't crowded, stall owners are starting to pack up. Probably a snatch and run. Hope he's running this way, I bet there'll be a great look on his face when two watchmen pop out of an alley.

2-13 “Recovery”

The whole point of being on standby is being ready to go on a moments notice. We're up and moving towards the front immediately. Ken grabs a light crossbow and bolt box from the equipment rack we pass leaving the training grounds. Probably a good idea considering we don't know who this wizard is or how powerful he might be. He also seems to have remembered to keep it unloaded until something is actually going down. Showing up at a heated scene with a loaded crossbow doesn't help anything.

We slow down as we near the front desks. No need to barge in and draw attention when people are arguing, we can hear them now. Assistant commander Staghorn is letting someone know that, “You can't have it back until after all pending investigations are closed or the item is proven irrelevant to any open cases.”

We slide into the foyer quietly as our armor allows. Looks like quite a few of us were called in here, that's standard procedure when dealing with spellcasters. You never know how powerful they are by looks alone, best to be prepared. Wait, we just met this guy. Harold is here and already trying to retrieve his magic rock, he seems more flustered than when we met him outside of the statuary.

“How long will that take?! I can't work without my channel stone. How am I supposed to make a living while you sit here with it in your vault?!”

“I'm sorry, but we can't give it back, and I don't know how long it will take. We've got a lot of missing people, many of which are now presumed dead. Reports are still coming in. If you want my advice on the matter, you can find Investigator Freeman. He would love to have a statement from an acquaintance of one of the recently missing, and while you're at it you can give him a full description of your rock and its abilities so we may rule out it's involvement more quickly, if that is the case.”

“I need it back quickly though, you'd better see that it has nothing to do with this! Where can I find Mr. Freeman?”

“Okay then,” the assistant commander looks around at the lot of us that assembled during the argument, “Nivar, Kenneth, you two were on this case, take mister Wordweaver to see the Investigator.” His expression wordlessly adds, “I don't think he's dangerous, but make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.”

“Yes, sir.”

The rest of the men filter back out of the room. Ken and I motion for Harold to follow us. Investigator Freeman said that he would be checking for leads in the southwestern quarter. I guess we'll see how else we can help once we get there too, just about anything is better than being on standby. Harold is grumbling under his breath again, I wonder how long Staghorn was keeping him tied up before we arrived.

2-12 “Standby”

Being on standby is usually very boring, which is only a good thing because if there's excitement while you're on standby, it means something bad is happening. Like finding that body. The only thing useful to do is spar or practice your archery in the training field.

The sparring pit itself is spectacular. The guardhouse was built to the kingdom's standard, and that included an enchanted live weapons sparring pit. I had only done practice bouts with wooden weapons previously, but live weapons changes the game quite a bit. The enchantment prevents any injury in the pit from weapons that aren't themselves enchanted. Which means I use standard issue gear in there, my own equipment would still kill a man. What the enchantment doesn't stop is the actual pain of the hit, which wont go away until you leave or fall unconscious from it. (Very similar to that knife to the neck I felt during that eyes of the dead spell, except that forced me to stay conscious through it.) With all that put into the sparring pit it makes me wonder why the standard issue gear is so poor.

Right now Ken and I are resting after several rounds of sparring. After some of the talents he displayed today, some of his quirks while fighting seem to be explained. If he was raised in a bad part of the city he lived in or in just a bad city, he'd have learned more along the lines of fencing and unarmored combat with small easily concealed weapons than what we use. Which leads to the question...

“So why did you join the watch?”

He looks a little uneasy with the question.

“Well, to escape. My hometown didn't have much in the way of a town watch, and what we did have was corrupt. Honest guards didn't last long before requesting transfer to another city or 'disappearing,' and I chose the former to get out of there. The place was pretty much run by thieving guilds, and street gangs. Some people still managed an honest living by farming or crafting wares. But no one would last long without paying someone or other protection money. I was brought up on stolen food and taught how to fend for myself in a similar way. I'm not exactly proud of what I did to get by back there.

“Once I'd had enough of being strong-armed into burglarizing my neighbors, I tried joining the watch. I never got much training, pretty much just have to ask to get in around there. I was hoping to be another man on the small force and make a difference. I didn't know that pretty much all of them were being paid off to just let whoever had done the paying's group do whatever, you only had to be careful around watchmen paid off by a different guild. Did the best I could without drawing too much ire from the bosses. Requested transfer when I killed a mugger that was taking it too far on my route. I had one friend higher up in the ranks than myself, and he got me out of there. Not just for my sake, but also to stop me from causing any more trouble. It was easily done, not much paperwork when you transfer from a place with 'too many guards' to someplace that's asking for more. I kinda wish I had managed to-”

“Hey Nivar, Kenneth! Come out front, we've got a wizard here giving us a bit of trouble. We might need some extra muscle if he tries something stupid.”

2-11 “Specters of Revenge”

The note is written in code. I can't make any sense of it. I've seen a few but this one is new. Hopefully, the investigator can figure it out.

Investigator Freeman shows up with a few men from the guard house. He starts pointing out things to take into custody for examination and perhaps some divining magic. Almost all of the dust is swept into a container and taken back. The magic stone downstairs, and the small cloth scrap from the broken window are taken in as well. While they are going around securing evidence, Ken comes up and asks me what I'm looking at.

“Coded message, I think its calling for a hit on someone. Ran into a local informant who was ordered to bring it here as a job for Peter Moldmaker. He said Peter was some sort of hit man. Can't figure it out though, not a code I've seen before. It takes me forever to figure these out.”

“Mind if I have a look.”

I hand it over to him, couldn't hurt. He looks it over for a few seconds.

“Looks like whoever the boss is thought that some people going missing on their side were revenge killings for some form of sabotage they pulled on a rival gang. No names of targets, though. Looks like he was just supposed to pick some people out from whatever this rival gang is. Peter was supposed to receive a bag of 50 platinum sovereigns as pay. 'The Pigeon,' probably whoever was carrying the message, has the money and was supposed to give it to Pete if he accepted the job. Though if it isn't meant to be a hit there are a few other possible meanings.”

'The Pigeon'? Well, looks like Vinnie finally got away with something, assuming his boss and Pete don't turn up again. I don't agree with the assumption that these missing criminals are revenge killings. If they were, I'd think that the perpetrator would have left some form of message, a warning perhaps. But there was no calling card here, no note, just a mess and an abnormally large amount of dust.

“You got all of that, that fast?”

“If I'm alright in assuming that it was meant to be a hit, like you said, then this one is almost uselessly easy, just enough code to say it isn't a code in court. Man, one guy back home had what everyone called 'Idiot Code', a system where letters were pretty much swapped randomly, and every time one was repeated it was a different letter. The first 'A' in the note would actually be a 'D' and the second 'A' would be a 'Q'. You'd know it was a code, but it was damn impossible to figure out. At least, until someone managed to steal one of his very select few translation sheets he gave to his most trusted contacts, it was. Then he went and changed it all around...”

Freeman finally gets around to asking what else we may have found. I give him the coded message. Ken fills him in on what he figures it means, and I fill him in on what I learned from my 'local informant.'

“So one culprit down, one to go? Assuming that this guy really is out of here. If my hunch is correct, and this dust and the other piles your informant heard about, are the remains of bodies, we might have a very powerful wizard running around disintegrating people. That's all I can think of that'd leave piles like this around.”

Ken chimes in, “Perhaps a vigilante, if all of the targets are criminals.”

Freeman shakes his head negatively, “I don't know if they all were criminals though. It's actually fairly unlikely, considering the amount of them. Too many people have gone missing after the shift to this area of the city.”

“Any idea where to look next?”

“No, I want you two back on standby at the guard house. If there's a wizard strong enough to do this to people running rampant, we'll need magical assistance to bring him down, and I don't want to lose any men just because we weren't prepared for who we find. I will keep you updated for when I find out our next move.”

Looks like its back to business as usual, for at least a little while. I hate being on standby, it always makes me feel useless. At least I'll be able to have a few training bouts with Ken.