--Three Weeks after Deathwing’s Razing of Stormwind--
A leather-bound folder landed with an unceremonious slap on the desk in front of the she-rogue.
“Give that a look,” the master assassin spoke sideways, straightening himself to standing and beginning to pace his side of the desk.
The she-rogue casually undid the straps on the protective wooden clapboards sandwiching the papers. Most of what was on the brittle parchments appeared to be reports of minor and varied goings-on in Elwynn Forest; most of them her own. The rest were official documents: deeds, wills, citizen papers – nothing out of the ordinary as far as the lady-sellsword was concerned.
“What else is new, Mathias?” The she-rogue sat back rakishly, tossing the folder back onto the table and rocking back onto the chair’s rearmost legs in boredom.
“Add this to the mix, Tuan.” Master Mathias Shaw produced another parchment from the mysterious compartments of his workdesk. Upon immediate inspection, it was seen that one side of the parchment was crudely decorated with scrawled handwriting, while the other clearly looked like official documentation of some sort. Tuan took the parchment cavalierly from Mathias’ hand and read first the handwriting, then the documentation.
“The Furlbrows, huh?” the she-rogue mumbled. “I thought they got this back already …”
“Well. They didn’t.” Mathias stopped pacing and turned to face the she-rogue. “Give the date on the note written on the back a good look, then go through that folder again. Tell me what you see.”
Tuan shrugged, rocked the chair forward and paged through the haphazard stack again. After going through about five or six parchments, a distinct change came over the she-rogue’s demeanour. She began to linger at one document, then another. She jumped to her feet and continued rifling through the papers, twice, thrice, four times, increasingly frantic … and then she froze in mid-reading, muttering darkly under her breath.
“This isn’t real. These things happened five farking years ago,” Tuan finally spat out, slapping the clapboards closed and tossing them back down. “How on the green face of Azeroth is all this happening—” Mathias wordlessly threw one last item onto the desk, right next to the clapboard folder. Tuan only stared at the object as she whispered the last words of her sentence with a dead voice. “—all over … again …”
Ever the experienced master assassin, Mathias remained perfectly pokerfaced as he spoke once more to the now very much sobered she-rogue. “I believe you know how to proceed.”
“Fel I do,” Tuan snarled as she snatched up the blood red bandana and the clapboard folder, storming out of the SI:7 headquarters like a vengeful wind.
Now alone, Master Shaw straightened his back with a confident smile. “I know you do,” he whispered into the emptiness as he sat down to peruse the contents of another folder, marked with the sigil of the peculiar clan that Tuan had gotten increasingly mixed up with over the past few years. He picked up a page that had all of the intrepid she-rogue’s personal information meticulously recorded in cryptic script.
“That’s why you’re the best person for the job.”
~||~
“Westfall,” he murmured.
The store clerk nodded in understanding and began gathering the supplies the hooded man had on his list. “When do you think you’ll be coming back, Eli?”
“Couple weeks, I reckon,” the Death Knight replied, rolling a sore shoulder. “Jus’ gonna see what I’m gonna find out thar.”
“I know you can take care of yourself easy, Eli, but I hear Westfall’s not a good place to be nowadays. On top of bandits and highwaymen, there are loads of desperate folk out there.”
Eli just smiled under his hood. “I keep tabs on th’ news, Thurman. I’m ready fer any boldfaced scrub itchin’ t’ frisk me … granted they get past th’ fact I’m already dead.”
Thurman Mullby chuckled as he finished packing the Death Knight’s saddlebag. “Being dead should be an effective deterrent right there, Eli. And don’t worry about paying for these, I’ll put it on your tab until your next rounds.”
Eli shared the light-hearted moment genuinely as he picked up the thick, packed satchel and turned to the door, throwing a wave back to Thurman.
Right then, a tall woman stormed into the general store, just barely avoiding running the Death Knight right over. She kept muttering about this and that as she gathered a small armload of supplies from the shelves before unceremoniously dropping the chosen sundries on the counter in front of Thurman in a disorganized heap. “How much. I’m in a hurry,” she barked.
With a shrug, the Death Knight sauntered outside where his horse, Dionysus, was waiting. The undead steed was nickering to another horse tied to the hitching post next to him, so the usually annoyingly jittery Deathcharger was suitably distracted while Eli strapped the supply-filled saddlebags to the semi-ethereal steed’s sides. Just as he finished, the distracted woman blustered out of the store and started to hastily strap her saddlebags to the other horse.
The woman stopped mumbling for a moment, and Eli could sense her eyes on him.
“Keep starin’, miss,” the Death Knight said casually. “I ain’t gonna be here fer long.”
“Huh.” The sound of strappings being hastily bound slowed down to a more deliberate pace. “Didn’t mean to stare. I just noticed your medallion. Then realized you looked familiar.”
Eli paused a moment in strapping down his saddlebags. “Y’ don’ say?”
“Uhuh.” The woman leaned over to get a closer look at the medallion clasp that attached Eli’s hood to his vest. “You know Clan Crossdeep?”
“Took me in,” was Eli’s simple, matter-of-fact response while he finished tying up his saddlebags. “I’d be in Northrend wanderin’ around otherwise.”
“The Crossdeeps tend to do that a lot,” the woman quipped as she adjusted her horse’s harness. “Taking in random people, I mean.”
“A-yup.”
There was a pause shared between the two, marred only by the sounds of a bustling city in the middle of the noon market.
“Come t’ think of it …” Eli spoke finally, turning to untie Dionysus’s reins from the hitching post. “Yer voice sounds pretty familiar t’ me.”
It was the she-rogue’s turn to be caught on the back foot. “You don’t say?”
“Ayup.” Eli paused long enough to wrap his Deathcharger’s reins firmly around his wrist and hand. “Were you up in Lakeshire about a year ‘r so ago?”
The woman paused. “Don’t recall right off the bat. I’m all over the place.”
“‘Cause I met a drunk young lady up there around abouts that time when I was deliverin’ their tav’rn’s weekly sup’ly ‘f liquor.” Eli turned to face the woman. “That ring any bells?”
“… some.” To the passer-by, the woman sounded flatly casual, but she knew this weird Death Knight was on to her. Worse, she could tell that the Death Knight knew that she knew what he sensed.
The Death Knight snapped the tension with a warm smile. “S’been a while, Miss Tuan.”
Tuan breathed a discreet sigh of relief. “Eli. Almost didn’t recognize you without your winter gear.” She smiled back wryly. “That’s what I get for not keeping tabs. What’s it been … six months?”
Eli nodded in confirmation. “Give ‘r take.” He paused for a moment. “After what happen’d in Wint’rspring those months ago, I won’t blame no one fer forgettin’ a thing ‘r two …”
The she-rogue cringed visibly at the discreet mention of what had transpired in the distant, eternally snow-capped region called Winterspring; the foothills of the mighty Mount Hyjal in Kalimdor. Quietly, she untied her riding mare’s reins from the wood post, before turning her attention back to her Death Knight acquaintance. “How’s your shoulder?”
Eli rolled his left shoulder with a light wince, then adjusted the sturdy leather spaulder he wore to protect the joint from further injury. “Could be better,” was the casual reply. “Least it ain’t gettin’ any worse.”
The two shared a smirk.
Then Eli finally asked: “You sounded like you were in a right tizzy tryin’ t’ get somewhere, Miss Tuan. Where y’ headin’ in such a rush?”
Tuan’s expression hardened immediately, her mare whinnying in concern at the palpably venomous aura that suddenly flared up around the she-rogue. The Death Knight, in response, remained coolly taciturn.
“If y’ dun wanna talk about it, Miss Tuan, fine by me.” He turned to his horse and checked over the Deathcharger’s tack. “I’m pro’lly not s’posed t’ know anyways.” With a cold chuckle, Eli swung himself into Dionysus’ saddle.
Tuan allowed herself a slight smirk at the Death Knight’s remark, and then smoothly rounded the man’s question back onto him. “What about you, Eli? You’re also fixing to go somewhere.” She glanced at Eli’s saddlebags, knowing that any physical gesture would be lost on the blind man.
“I know better than t’ lie t’ ya, Miss Tuan,” the Death Knight replied.
“Smart.” The she-rogue swung herself into her saddle, patting her little trail mare’s neck.
Eli rolled his glowing eyes under his hood. “I’m headin’ out t’ Westfall … as fer the why, should be obvious by now.”
Tuan leaned on her saddle horn with an interested expression. “Finally got a lead?”
“I sure hope so.” A pause. “‘Cause I dun think I’d stand fer another wild goose chase.”
Silence.
“Mind if I come with?” Tuan ventured after a moment of thought, straightening herself. “I’m headed in that direction too, and it sounds like you could use a little company on this trip.”
The Death Knight grinned lightly. “I won’t complain ‘bout havin’ a travelin’ companion. It’s better than chattin’ with Baccus, at least.”
An incensed clicking could be heard from Eli’s back-mounted sword holster, followed by an indignant puff of frost rising from the massive holstered runeblade.
“Shaddap, Baccus,” Eli growled. Tuan did her best (and failed) to stifle an amused snicker at the Death Knight’s interaction with the semi-sentient weapon.
A couple cheeky clicks were the runeblade’s response, and then it respectfully fell silent.
“Road’s waitin’ fer us, Miss Tuan,” Eli said nonchalantly, turning Dionysus toward Stormwind’s forward gate. “Don’ let me keep ya.”
Tuan didn’t bother masking her rapscallious grin. “Never stopped me.”
With little fanfare, the two rode out of Stormwind and into the lands beyond.
~||~
“Wait. Wait. They welded the armour shut around you?”
“Yup.”
“So you were basically stuck in that armour for Light knows how long.”
“Yeup.”
“… how the fel did you manage to get rid of it?”
“Made friends. Dwarf friends. They do a mighty fine job punch drunk – which kinda helps when you’re not wearin’ nothin’ under the steel.”
“… makes sense. Too much, maybe.”
“Y’ don’ seem rattled.”
“I’m not, thank the Light. My thoughts tend to turn elsewhere when it comes to dirty things.”
“Maybe I should be the one thankful for that.”
A quiet, ever so slightly ironic snicker. “Probably.”
~||~
They had left the Westbrook Garrison and crossed the solid stone bridge that connected Elwynn to the sweeping farmlands of Westfall. Tuan was in the middle of the final crescendo of a (somewhat overly embellished) recount of the day she had first run into Hogger, the notorious gnoll leader who had recently been seized by the Stormwind army and put into the Stockades. General rumour had it that the ferocious manbeast had made the jailor schedule quite difficult for the Warden, Thelwater.
Eli was about to quip something back at his reckless companion, when Dionysus suddenly made a jerk and a stutter-step jump underneath him.
“Oi thar! Easy, Dio,” the Death Knight chided, quickly shortening the reins. “What’s with ya all’a’sudd’n—”
And then he too felt it.
A dull, metallic scent, almost completely robbed of its original warmth, carried on the dry, slow breeze that made the runes branded onto his skin all those months in the past burn and throb underneath his leather armour.
The change in atmosphere didn’t go unnoticed by the she-rogue. “Hey, what’s wrong, Eli? Why’d you seize up just now?”
“Over thar, Miss Tuan.” Eli’s mouth had suddenly gone unnaturally dry – even more so than his unliving disposition already caused. “Up ahead, along th’ road.”
Another dozen steps, and both steeds slowed to a metered walk almost on cue before halting altogether.
“What the ever-burning fel …” Tuan breathed hoarsely. Her mare nickered and stamped her hooves uneasily, and Dionysus tossed his skeletal head with a snort. Eli was dead silent.
Scant yards in front of the two travelling companions was, for lack of a better word, a disaster. An old cart, shoved onto the road, the corpse of a small grey mare halfway overrun by the cart’s front wheels. A man and a woman, both in their middle-age, thrown about like rag dolls with various belongings scattered around them, dried blood spattered onto the parched ground. Gnomish monitoring robots scuttled to and fro, blinking red lights indicating the high level of alert while a pair of investigation assistants stepped around the scene, making observations and jotting down their findings on small notepads.
“It’s a bloodbath,” one of the assistants spoke up. “They were murdered.”
“Yeah.” The other assistant knelt by the dead man, expertly examining the body. “Judging by the temperature, I’d say they’ve been dead no more than six hours.”
“Damn shame what they did to Old Blanchy, too …” The first assistant finished scribbling on his notepad and looked over at the sorry sight of the joyridden cart and its unfortunate target.
“No kidding, rookie.” A third man, distinctly dressed in a simple but official-looking suit, came striding over, stopping by the mangled beast and kneeling by Blanchy’s unmoving head. “Looks like they really put the cart …” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pair of shaded glasses, carefully setting them onto his face. “… before the horse.”
Tuan quickly stole a glance at her companion. He didn’t look back, but his posture said everything that needed to be said.
The officer stood just as smoothly as he had bent down, and strode back to the side of the scene, where he positioned himself in an only slightly cheesy manner. Tuan shook her head and tapped her reluctant mare into a slow walk, making her way around the ongoing investigation.
Even with his darkened glasses, the officer caught notice of her. “Watch your step, rookie,” he snapped tersely without looking up. “We don’t need any civilian vigilante types getting involved. Leave this one for the professionals.”
Tuan didn’t reply, but she reached into her satchel and produced a parchment that she held out to the officer. He turned his head minutely, his lips twitching, but he reached out and took the document nonetheless. He gave it a cursory glance, and then shook his head, folding the paper and shoving it into a pocket.
“This is useless. Did you even look at the date on that? The Furlbrows have been squatting on the Jansen Stead for five years.” He adjusted his glasses. “They never could quite get their wagon … fixed.”
Tuan had to do her level best to repress a groan, but she didn’t budge.
The officer sighed and pulled off his glasses, looking up at her with weary eyes that had obviously seen more than their fair share of the darker side of human society. “Here’s the deal, rookie. We’ve got a full-blown murder on our hands. That’s what you’re looking at on the ground in front of us.” He gestured lazily at the murder scene with his glasses. “Double homicide … single horse … icide.” The she-rogue arched an eyebrow in return.
The officer didn’t stop his tirade. “Worse yet, we’re in Westfall. I could throw a rock behind me and hit a dozen hobos with enough motive to want to wipe these people – and horse – out.” He threw a thumb over his shoulder. “Now I don’t know who did this and I sure don’t appreciate having to come to this dump to investigate the deaths of a couple of squatters, but I’ll be damned if I don’t find the perp.”
With the outmost care, he folded his glasses and tucked them into his jacket before looking back up at the still mounted she-rogue. They stared at each other for a heartbeat.
“… fine. You want to help? Go talk to some bums. The hobo … knows.” And with that, he turned away from her, clearly intent to overseeing the investigation.
Tuan glanced behind her, seeing Eli dismount and make his way around the crime scene as well. She followed suit, tying her mare’s reins to the rickety old wooden fence that still lined the worn old road. Eli secured Dionysus in a similar manner and stepped up to his companion.
“Th’ Furlbrows, of all people …” he muttered darkly, the ever-present Death Knight timbre making his voice all the more menacing. “What the fel has happen’d to this place?”
“Let’s find out,” Tuan replied quietly, turning to the small, neglected farmstead sitting by the road.
True enough, the hard-packed soil was swarming with a rainbow hue of homeless, half-starved and listless men and women. Not a few of them were clearly wearing the typical casual getup of Stormwind citizens – where one could recognize the clothes beneath the layers of dust and grime caked onto them. Tuan set her jaw and sauntered out into the destitute gaggle.
Picking a quietly rambling man at random, Tuan stepped up behind the hustler and tapped his shoulder meaningfully. He spun around, his eyes flickering through half a dozen different emotions at the sight of the tall, leather-armoured she-rogue silently staring him down. “W-waddya want?” he spat out.
“You seem to be a regular customer at this joint,” Tuan began off-handedly. “Mind sharing a few riveting stories? Like who decided it would be funny to put the beatdown on them folks?” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb, clearly indicating the crime scene by the road.
The man’s eyes flickered to the sides frantically, like a cornered beast. He stepped back, then started forward, as if about to engage in fisticuffs. “I ain’t tellin’ you a damn—!”
The temperature around them suddenly seemed to drop a few degrees. The hobo froze in midstep, his eyes sliding off the she-rogue and past her, widening in abject terror.
It only took a single qualified guess for Tuan to realize what was going on. She simply looked back at the derelict wreck of a man, her countenance never changing. “I understand if you’re squeamish about socializing in plain sight like this. Luckily I know a great spot nearby for private talks. Wanna come with?”
The man shrank back until he was nearly a full step and a half away from the now towering woman in front of him. “L-l-l-listen pal, I d-d-don’t want any trouble! Okay? I didn’ see who murdered ‘em, b—but I sure heard it! Lots of yelling. Human voices … you dig?” He glanced back and forth between Tuan and whatever was obviously stood behind her. “Look … I didn’t see who killed ‘m, missus, but I got a whiff. Smelled rich. … kinda like you.” His eyes suddenly glazed over, and he hung his head, his voice receding into a slurred mutter. “Damn shame too. Furlbrows were a fixture around here. Nice people … always willin’ to share a meal or a patch o’ dirt …”
Enough was enough. Tuan stepped up to the despondent man and patted him gently on the shoulder. He flinched and looked up, momentarily terrified, but his eyes widened in wonder when she discreetly pressed a few small copper coins into his shaking hands. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” she mumbled as she went past him, leaving him to quickly shove the money into a ragged pocket and scurry off.
She took a few more steps, and then she stopped and turned around. Eli was right behind her, arms crossed and shoulders squared, his eyes glowing icily beneath his dark hood.
“That was you, wasn’t it,” she said matter-of-factly.
Eli let his body language relax slightly, and he shrugged dismissively. “I ain’t what you’d call a regular Death Knight, Miss Tuan, but that don’ mean I don’ know how to act like one.”
She smirked lightly. “Keep up the charade, Eli. It’s proving useful.”
He smirked back, reaffirming his menacing posture.
As it was, there were still some individuals that had gone over the edge from despair and starvation. One of them, a particularly tattered-looking elderly woman, threw herself with a shrill shriek at Tuan, trying to claw the she-rogue’s eyes out. Tuan sidestepped smoothly, giving Eli an opening to step forward and slap the old woman squarely over the face with the back of his hand. She went down like a bag of flour.
Tuan actually flinched. She quickly bent over the woman, but breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that the poor old one still lived, although thoroughly out of it. She shot her companion a look. “Didn’t have to hit her so hard, stonefist.”
Eli fidgeted. “… sounded worse than it was, I guess. She alright?”
Tuan looked over the elderly woman again, and sighed. “She should come to in a while. Fel, these people are wrecks.” She stood and turned to leave … and immediately caught sight out of the corner of her eyes of the furtive gestalts of orphan children darting at the fallen, trading excited whispers among one another.
“Check her pockets!” “Does she have boots? Get them!” “Mine!”
That proved too much for Tuan. She spun around like quicksilver. “HEY.”
The orphans scattered like mice.
Tuan groaned and ran a hand through her hair. She was sure she was getting a headache.
“Let’s keep movin’, Miss Tuan,” Eli mumbled. “Ain’t gonna help us getting stuck here.”
Tuan shook her head furiously. “What are these kids doing out here?” she growled under her breath. “Why aren’t they at the orphanage? Fel, there’s plenty of room there!”
“City bureaucracy, no doubt,” Eli muttered, the displeasure evident in his voice as well. Behind them, the old lady slowly picked herself up again, mumbling incoherently to herself before wandering off. She paid the odd pair of travellers no further heed.
She-rogue and reformed Death Knight made their way systematically around the field, goading the various transients for information. Most of what would come out after a look at Eli’s cold stare amounted to little more than haphazard, panicked babbling, but here and there something discernible would surface. Some claimed gnolls, others claimed murlocs. A few of the more lucid individuals went as far as outright putting the blame on the King and his grandiose campaign in the north. Tuan decided not to carry those discussions any further.
The worst part, however, was watching those homeless ones that would get into a tussle over some seemingly insignificant thing. It would start as fisticuffs, until the weaker one’s stamina gave out and they’d get mercilessly pummelled into the ground, before the attacker would rummage through their clothes and make off – only to be replaced by a gaggle of ragamuffins plundering anything that had been left behind. Tuan’s visage kept hardening, until most every hustler she tried to approach simply fled from her as often as they would flee from the sight of her intimidating companion.
“Ain’t gonna get anymore outta these, I’m afraid,” Eli remarked, finally letting his shoulders drop back down. He didn’t look at her, but it was obvious he could tell the she-rogue was just about ready to explode.
“Yeah,” she muttered, not quite trusting her voice. She hissed a string of thankfully unintelligible expletives under her breath, turned on her heel and marched back to where the officer was still standing.
As was to be expected, he was dubious.
“Gnolls and murlocs? Horse poopy, pal!” He gestured fiercely, a surprisingly heated gleam coming to his eyes. “Gnolls and murlocs didn’t kill these people! I’ve seen what gnolls and murlocs do to people that they kill and this … isn’t it.” He composed himself and turned to the crime scene, eyes narrowing. “Too pretty. Too … perfect.” He sighed, producing his shaded glasses and polishing them off-handedly on the cuff of his jacket. “Furthermore, the Furlbrows have been squatting on this farm for five whole years. No – whoever wiped them out had a reason. This is murder, plain and simple, and we’re gonna get to the bottom of it …” His voice trailed off as he put the shades on, raising his head into that only slightly cheesy pose again.
“As pointless as I think it’s going to be, we need to investigate all our leads. Seeing as how we have nothing else to work with, we may as well chase down the information you got.” He turned to the mismatched pair of adventurers before him. “There are a couple of Riverpaw camps in the area. Track them down and search for clues. And head out to the Longshore and shake up some murlocs. Plenty of them along the beach … try to find anything that can help shed some light on these murders. Bring it all back to me – if you get lucky, rookies.”
Tuan elbowed Eli lightly in the side and stepped away from the officer, and Eli followed along.
“You check the gnolls – kind of a specialty of yours by now, isn’t it.” The Death Knight smirked lopsidedly in return. “I’ll go for the murlocs. They’re slippery little fellows, and we don’t need you stumbling into the ocean and getting drenched.”
At this, Eli did chuckle quietly. “I can agree to that, Miss Tuan.”
She smirked back. “Step to it, cowboy. We’ve got evidence to round up.”
‘Round up’ turned out a very apt description. Eli simply strode directly into one gnoll camp at a time, letting the rabid hyenamen fling themselves at him, before he’d send a pulse of dark energy through his runeblade, boiling their blood in their veins and dropping them in entire handfuls. Tuan, meanwhile, set about with some impromptu target practice, taking out murlocs in a steady stream of throwing knives and the occasional slicing of a slime-covered throat.
Eventually they reconvened a few steps away from the still ongoing murder investigation by the roadside.
“Got anything, Eli?” Tuan sighed as she wiped bluish Murloc blood from her blades, sheathing each of them with care.
“Not much,” the Death Knight confessed, sliding his still-rattling runeblade into its holster. He held out a gauntleted hand, showing a small scrap of cloth. “‘Side from this, I guess.”
The she-rogue stole a glance at the paltry item, and froze. She snatched the scrap from his hand and examined it closely.
Eli shifted his feet. “S’it important?”
She looked over at him with a slight start, and then sighed and shook her head. “… I keep forgetting you’re blind, Eli. And I wouldn’t expect you to be able to read colours off your fingertips just yet.” She put the scrap back into his hand. “It’s red. Blood red.”
“Huh.” He let his hand close around the tiny cloth piece. “I jus’ picked it out ‘cause it felt different than the rest. Smoother.” He turned his head in her general direction. “How ‘bout you?”
She produced a small, rumpled slice of parchment. “A letter. Or what’s left of it, at any rate. It’s been heavily damaged by water, but there’s still some legible writing.”
“Lemme see.”
She blinked, but duly held it out to him. He flattened it carefully and brushed a surprisingly gentle hand across the rough texture. For the briefest moment, the script seemed to light up with a dark aura.
Tuan merely watched him impassively. “Anything that rings a bell?”
He hesitated ever so slightly, but eventually shook his head. “Nothin’ off the top o’ my head.” He handed the parchment back to her. “You?”
She folded the letter neatly and put it into one of her pockets, her face hardening. “Way too much … and I don’t like any of it.”
Again, the officer’s reaction was all too predictable. He sneered at the piece of cloth as Eli presented it to him.
“Is this supposed to be some kind of joke, because I’m not laughing. Bits and pieces of red cloth? What the fel is this supposed to mean?”
“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to figure out?” Tuan quipped back with no small degree of sarcasm.
He ignored her, turning to the letter she handed him, falling silent for a moment as he perused the cryptic, nigh-unreadable text.
“Nice find, rookie.” He folded the parchment back together and handed it to one of the assistants standing to attention nearby. “I think I have a stack of these back on my desk at the station. We’re basically back to square one.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and heaved an exhausted sigh. “What do we know? Someone that likes to write fiction about the past sent the Furlbrows a letter.”
And with that, he produced his shades and put them onto his face. “Looks like we got ourselves a real history … mystery.”
Tuan turned the other way and rolled her eyes mightily while Eli pulled his hood down with a faint sigh. Baccus, on the other hand, made enough noise for all three of them as the agitated runeblade clicked and rattled furiously in its scabbard. The officer paid the protesting weapon no heed as he straightened up and checked his already immaculate jacket collar.
“Alright. We got ourselves a real ‘whodunit’ here. Unfortunately it looks like the locals aren’t willing to talk, and the clues you got off the gnolls and murlocs are damn near worthless.” A wry smirk flashed across his face. “We’re going to have to initiate plan … be on the lookout for Two-Shoed Lou.”
Eli actually blinked. “… two-shoed Lou?”
“… is a coincidental informant of mine who, ironically, makes his home at the Furlbrows’ old pumpkin farm.” The officer yanked his head around as a way of giving directions. “Head over to the farm and find out what Lou knows. Oh … and if he gives you any guff … tell him that Horatio sent you.”
((co-written by TheKittyLizard and Tuan Taureo))
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