Cherry and I decided to hit the camps around town to look for suspicious individuals. Mostly the people around the camps just looked sad and desperate. They had lost everything and what little they had left, they shared as they huddled together for comfort. “We can’t get this shop open soon enough,” I thought to myself. This had been an increasing problem throughout the week. As more people came into town, Fellhaven just couldn’t keep up. Having only just started recovering from the curse of the rift, farms were still not quite up to supporting the town yet, let alone the town plus a city. And with the city being one of the major sources of goods from outside, the attacks put Fellhaven in a bit of a crisis.
As we got further through the camp, a group of rowdies started whistling at Cherry, who proceeded to moon them. They made some comments and she ran off behind some wagons and out of sight.
“Aw, your girly left,” one teased me.
“She’ll be back,” I boasted.
“Oh, right!” they all had a laugh, “Until then, sit in on a game?”
“What game?”
“Three Dragon Ante.”
“Sure,” I agreed as I sat in for a bit. I was getting crappy hands, but took some time to chat. “You guys doing alright? It’s terrible about what happened to Monolith.”
“We’re doing okay. You?”
“Oh, I’m not from Monolith. I’m just a local merchant, but things are pretty tough right now. As soon as town started filling up, we were cleaned out, so right now we have nothing to sell. People want to buy, but we have nothing. It’s rough.”
“Yeah,” one chuckled, “I bet, it’s rough. Damn those dragons.”
Something seemed insincere about his tone, so I pushed a new question, “Man, that’s a shame. I loved visiting Monolith. There was this one tavern I used to always visit. Ogleby’s. Been there?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there.”
“Great place, that Ogleby has good stuff,” I fished a bit, absolutely failing to concentrate on the game.
“We were drinking there a couple nights ago, before we had to leave. Yeah, that Ogleby, he’s a good guy. Big guy,” he babbled on as his friends shot him looks.
“Yeah he is,” I sighed as the gambit ended and my 20 silver was gathered across the table. “Well, I think I’m out for now.”
“Aw, that’s too bad. The game was really picking up,” he raised the coins and dropped them into his other hand one by one. Clink clink clink.
“Sorry, I have work to do,” I wandered off in the direction I had seen Cherry retreat moments earlier. She grabbed me and pulled me aside. I shook my head, “Completely full of crap. They aren’t from Monolith. The guy just made up a bunch of crap about being at Ogleby’s just days ago.”
We decided to stick around for a bit, just out of sight and see if any of them made a move. One of them slipped off into an alleyway and Cherry crept after him. She got right behind him and started making sweet talk. “She’s gonna get herself into so much trouble,” I thought as I listened in. While she was dealing with him, I decided to quietly cast a spell on the guys at the camp. I have never seen a sleep spell work so well in my life. Four grown men, all totally passed out. At this point Cherry had this poor pants-less guy in the alley at knife point.
“Oh for crying out loud…” I said as she summoned me over.
“Quick, tie him up!”
“Can we at least let him pull his pants up?”
“And let him get away?!”
I groaned as I tied the poor guy up.
“This wasn’t part of the deal,” he whimpered.
“I’m not in the business,” I said, finishing the knot while Cherry covered his mouth.
Cherry tried to argue that her plan would have been terribly effective. I told her to keep it down, we have a whole camp passed out. These guys didn’t seem sneaky enough to be assassins, but were obviously some kind of trouble. As we checked their crates, we found all kinds of expensive goods. “Damn bandits! Pretty rough, indeed.”
We ordered the bound one into the wagon and rode back through town with the crates. Along the way we passed a very baffled Kriv and Iceborn. We rolled up to the local jail and Cherry ran inside. She was followed out by a guard. The guard had trouble believing our story. Seemed we had just raided a group of refugees and humiliated this one by dragging him through town. I pointed at Cherry.
The guard pulled the gag out of the bandit’s mouth and asked him, “What’s in the crates?”
“Just some food!”
“Food, huh?” he reached in and pulled out a large gem, “Try again.”
“What?! Come on, they stole from us! You’re gonna believe them?”
“Well, they have been looking out for this town for a while now and are kind of known around here, so I will generally take their word for it when they say they’ve found trouble, yes.”
The guard took the bandit in, untied him and didn’t have to tell him twice to put his pants on. He walked out to the wagon with us, “And what are you planning to do about this?”
“Get it back on the market. You know how things have been. Someone will need it,” I explained.
“Well, it is stolen goods you’re selling. Suppose the rightful owners come back looking for it.”
“I suppose if they can offer some proof that they were robbed, it can be given back, but this stuff didn’t even come from Monolith.”
“I’m not just turning a blind eye to this, you really can’t just keep taking from everyone you suspect is a bandit to stock your store.”
“Well, they ARE bandits,” Cherry chimed in.
“Just don’t make a habit of this. We appreciate you keeping an eye on things with the town being so crowded right now, but how’s that going to look for us if word gets out you’re raiding the camps and selling people their own stuff back?”
“Understood,” I nodded.
“Don’t let him go, we need to get in touch with the others. We have some questions for him,” Cherry requested and we rode back to find Kriv and Iceborn.
“Where did you get all this?” Iceborn asked, knowing we had gotten into some trouble without him around. Cherry explained the situation and Iceborn decided it would be best if he went to the jail personally to do the questioning in light of the halfling’s relationship with the bandit. We rode to the warehouse where our older merchandise was being stored. Ogleby and Willem were already there, sorting the goods and making an inventory system. They were pleased to see us and Willem was very excited to see all the new stuff we had brought in. We helped unload quickly as it was getting on in the day and there was still an assassin on the loose. I instructed Ogleby to be on the lookout for a few unhappy bandits, giving a description of each, and to sell the horses and wagon as soon as possible to anyone looking for better means of getting further away from Monolith.
We met back up with Iceborn and Kriv. They explained the mess at the temple. A local farmer had risen up to revolt about the situation with the refugees. He vocalized the concerns of the town in regards to the influx of people and the strain on the resources. He even brought Iceborn into the argument, saying people looked up to us, but we’re nothing more than mercenaries looking to make quick money off the people in their hard times.
The guys had requested a meeting with the Mayor of Fellhaven in order to improve the guard shortage issue. The bandit at the jail cell was not able to give them any helpful information, so it was assumed they had nothing to do with the assassin.
Within the hour we had all traveled out to the Mayor’s estate, with the help of one of the town guards who helped get the meeting set up. The estate was buzzing with activity as cooks and maids hurried around to arrange what seemed like a rather large event. The Mayor was in his office, looking over paperwork with intense concentration.
Iceborn spoke first to the Mayor. It seemed like a strained introduction. After hearing the problem the Mayor simply could not accept new guards.
“Look, most of the able-bodied citizens are in Monolith right now, we’re lucky to have the guards we do,” he argued.
“That’s not true, there are a good number of able-bodied men who were displaced from their home in Monolith. You could give them work and have them helping out here instead of sitting around being, as I’ve heard, a drain on the local economy. Put them to work,” Iceborn offered his solution.
“We just don’t have the manpower to train new guards at this point.”
“Then let us train them.”
“No offense, guys, but you’ve become somewhat celebrity around here. If you start training new guards from Monolith, the local people will revolt, I’m certain of it.”
“There is some unrest among them, but I think they would rather see the refugees working to keep the town safe at this time, than have these riots and bandits in the camps.”
“I understand your concern, but I simply can’t do anything about it right now. I have a very important guest arriving tonight. I’m busy making sure this place is secure, I can’t spare any guards from here until tomorrow at the earliest.”
“A guest?” Iceborn pushed.
“Yes, some very important dignitaries are arriving this evening and I don’t want them to get the impression that things are out of control around here,” his tone seemed a bit accusatory. “It’s bad enough I woke up with a knife to my throat in my own home a few nights ago, I didn’t want to cause any more upset about the safety of the town, so I didn’t mention it.”
I thought for a moment to myself, “Why wouldn’t he tell someone about this? Unless he’s in on it. Maybe paying the person off to kill a particular young woman, but why even bring it up to us if he didn’t even tell his own guards?”
As the others discussed matters of security and economy my mind churned. I finally broke in, “So if you don’t mind my asking, were you able to spot any identifying features on this person who broke into your house?”
“He’s been taken care of,” he said quickly.
“Taken care of?”
“Yes, he’s dead.”
“Dead? Can we see the body?”
“No, it’s been removed. He was thrown from the window.”
“Just out the window? And you just left him there?”
“No, he was taken away, to the temple. He’s been taken care of.”
Now I was completely certain the Mayor was full of crap. He was trying so hard to come up with an alibi that he shot holes in his own story. There was no body to be taken away, and if their had been, the guards wouldn’t have to be told about it, they would see it for themselves. Aside from that, if the body had been taken to the temple, Corbin would have said something about it to us based on the source. But why in the world would the Mayor have even brought this up.
The Mayor hurried us out as neither party would be getting any satisfaction from the conversation and he had more business to attend to before his guests arrived.
