RP:The Girl by the Roadside

Summary: While bodyguarding for a family carriage, Krice spots a murder scene by the road. After attending to the dead girl, he goes looking for clues. A chat with the staff at the Kelay Tavern offers at least one good lead.

Outskirts of Sage Forest

She was a common traveler. Her modest floral dress, heavily soiled with dried blood, hangs down around her torso with her arms peeking out the bottom. She hangs by both ankles, strung up to drain and swinging gently from the tree by a few passes of vine cord. Whoever took her blood has also taken her head. On the ground beside her are a few personal articles: a full purse, a broken parasol, a couple scroll cases with spells, a novice magic wand. By the flies and the crows and the smell, anyone might guess she's been here for a few days. Whoever strung her up like this must have spent some time here. They sat in the brush. They built a fire. They shed some fur, black and brown.

Krice arrived from Kelay Way up north, wearing his usual black attire with his long, white katana sheathed against his back. Instead of walking as he almost always did, the warrior's mode of transportation was a stagecoach. A family of four sat within modestly-designed cabin, paying him little mind, while he perched on the rear step, standing, with both arms folded over his chest. One of the younger boys in the family had expressed as they left his awe at the warrior's ability to balance on a thin step over uneven terrain, but he was met with professional silence. Now, their conversation consisted of what their meal would be that evening once they arrived in Enchantment. The driver kept his two horses walking at a comfortably-slow pace; the family was not in a rush. As they turned northward to follow a wide patch of compacted dirt created by frequent travel, the warrior tilted his head to glance at his surroundings. Something had caught his attention, a distant scent more sinister than flowers or even animal predators. The smell of blood and death. As he looked over his left shoulder past the white hilt of his katana, his pupils easily caught sight of the displayed woman dangling from a tree. Her gruesome death compelled him to step from the moving carriage as he called to the driver, " Hold." Passing the window of the door-side, he said to the young, scruffy-faced father, " Don't let the kids see," before turning to approach the scene. Reaching over his shoulder, Krice took hold of his katana but did not yet draw it, scanning the evidence of this obvious murder both for clues as to the culprit's identity, and hints that maybe he was still around. To the cacophony of two young boys complaining under their parents' coos and reassurances that they wanted to see what 'The Silver Warrior' was doing, Krice would reach out to secure the headless woman's body with his right arm, cutting the vines above her ankles with the tip of his sword as he withdrew it. Her legs swung away from his arm but he crouched to lower her carefully, smoothing her dress over her thighs once she was grounded.

With her dress down where it belongs, Krice can see that much of the blood staining her clothes came from one puncture in her back, another in her side. The killer has yanked the arrows back out, but a seasoned warrior or healer could still recognize the wounds: hunting arrows, broadheads. There little sign of further violence or scuffle. None of her garments have been torn or removed. She has no broken bones, bears no signs of bondage. She only has a few small scrapes on her hands, as though she'd been knocked down and landed with her palms out. Whatever evil thing happened to the young lady, it at least seems to have happened straightforwardly. She was shot dead on the road and decapitated soon after.

Krice was in the middle of escorting a family from one place to another; though his life as a warrior led him into war and onto battlefields, he did not expect to see someone murdered plainly in relative peacetime. The kids had quieted, distracted by a story their father was telling them, which allowed the warrior the opportunity to scrutinize the victim's wounds, scent her state of decay, and acknowledge the fur on the ground nearby. Obviously a pure animal wasn't one to use arrows and decapitate someone, least of all without consuming the body thereafter, so he correctly surmised that this must have been some kind of higher-thinking biped or hybrid. Even above the stench of the woman's rotting corpse, Krice recognized the scent wafting from that fur. It was a distant memory, years-old, but he -knew- that he knew to whom it belonged. Standing, he sheathed his katana and arranged some loose foliage over the woman's corpse to offer her temporary privacy in death - to be made permanent later - and then turned back to his customers. He shared a look with the wide-eyed driver, who had sadly also seen the beheaded woman and looked sickly for it. A crack of the reins set the horses into a gentle trot as Krice grabbed the lip of the carriage to take up his place once more on the rear step, this time more watchful for other signs of death and depravity.

Kelay Tavern

Mesthak and Nancy work together behind the bar. There’s a lull in business, and the two are taking some time to put some shine and polish on the brass and the wood. Each one works with a rag in hand. Mesthak is paying dutiful attention to the beer taps, the candlesticks. Nancy is smoothing some pungent-smelling oil into the bartop. It’s one of those moments you would never catch during regular drinking hours. The two work with the candles extinguished, the door and the windows propped open, with a muggy afternoon breeze creeping slowly, stickily through the building. The floors have already been scrubbed and mopped, as have the tables. The cobwebs are all dusted out of the rafters and the corners and the candelabras. Later on, assuredly, the whole establishment will be roaring with patrons, but for now, the tavern is empty. The perfect time to catch up on a little housekeeping.

Krice hadn't been in Kelay for a day and a half, but only his most stout fans would have noticed. After a brief visit up north in the Stone City, he returned home. It was the next morning that he ventured into the Town proper, wearing the usual black garb with his white katana strapped to his back. Some of the citizenry had been talking of a murder, a lot of it rumour and inconsistent with what he had witnessed a few days earlier. There was a likelihood that they weren't discussing the woman he had found strung to a tree, but with some citizens indeed mentioning that detail of the scene, he knew that word had likely spread from the family he had escorted down to Enchantment. Some citizens greeted him without any foreknowledge at all of the dead woman, and he kept it that way with trivial pleasantries and genuine but shallow conversation in passing. Nudging open the Tavern door, he stepped inside to find the staff more active in places where patrons usually mingled. The warrior stopped two steps in, his hand still on the door, and mumbled, " Could smell that from Larket." He was referencing the oil that Nancy used, and although he clearly didn't like it - as told by the subtlest wrinkle at the side of his nose - he wasn't being impolite. Kelay loved him for his heroism and his peacetime helpfulness, and it transferred to the workers.

Nancy looks up first at the sound of the door. “Be with you in a minute, hon. Just sit down anywhere.” Silhouetted as he is in the sunlit door, Nancy doesn’t recognize Krice immediately. She hurriedly wipes and polishes, doing her best to get through this coat without making Krice wait too long. Mesthak puts down his candlestick, rinses his hands off in the bar sink, and gives Nancy a friendly nudge, offering to take over. It’s an offer Nancy gladly accepts. Wiping her hands on a clean rag, she walks over. “Sorry about the smell. Re-treating the bar, it’s got to be done sometime. Oh!” She recognizes him. “Mr. Krice! You beat the crowd.” At the sound of Krice’s name, Mesthak immediately fills a glass of water and slides it across a finished section of the bar, where it’s already been treated and is mostly dried. “First one’s on the house.” The dwarf jokes; water is complementary. If Krice doesn’t grab the water from the bar himself, Nancy will hand it to him. “We’ll wrap up chores in a minute, Mr. Krice,” the barmaid assures him, “so just make yourself comfortable.”

Krice liked the familiarity between them all; it was welcoming and felt safe. Almost normal. He stepped up to the bar as he addressed Nancy, a quiet sigh of muted exasperation preceding his reply. " I keep telling you, drop the 'Mister'." Reaching out, he angled his hand to catch the sliding glass in his palm. Mesthak's joke was met with his own, though delivered on a bland tone, " I'll leave a tip." As Nancy bustled around to finish the chores, he focused on narrowing the mental pathways that allowed him to register the smell of that oil, and the moisture of humidity intermingling with it, so he could better hold a conversation without snarling in discomfort. Seemingly relaxed but still serious, the enigma stood between two stools with his elbow on the bar, hand still around that glass, and said, " Before the crowd rushes in - wanted to talk to you two." A momentary pause allowed them time to register his words. " Anything extraordinary happen? New patrons? Maybe -really- old ones passing through?"

While Mesthak wipes the last few dabs of oil into the wood, Nancy starts putting away the cleaning supplies. Whatever is left, they can finish later. Anything extraordinary happen? “Hah. Always,” Mesthak laughs. “Sure you heard about Lady Blackwell,” the dwarf nods over at the board, “and her ban. That was a big stir couple weeks back. New faces, oh,” he scratches at his beard, “that Bailey, you know her? She’s been a rowdy drunk. Think she ended up getting picked up by the town guard. Can't say much about old faces, just the regulars, but well,” raising a brow, Mesthak regards Krice and tries to read what the warrior, guess what specific information he’s fishing for, “I heard about that girl you found. That’s news.”

Krice didn't need to glance at the board to be reminded of 'Lady Blackwell'. He had firsthand experience with that little insipid creature. His attention moved on to talk of Bailey and her drunken behaviour. " The new citizen?" The one whose awning the warrior had fixed a few weeks earlier? " Didn't think she was a drinker," he mumbled, bemused. When talk devolved to the issue at the forefront of his mind, Krice leveled Mesthak with a pensive stare but there were other emotions in his usually calm eyes; uncertainty, sadness, just hints of it intermingling with gold. "Yeah, that's..." The woman had been buried shortly after he escorted the carriage family to Enchantment, and the evidence collected and handed over to the guard. All of it? Probably. Maybe. " Nothing else like that happen? Haven't heard anyone talk about it in greater detail than you'd expect?" For instance, the killer hovering around to rave about his kill? Though, granted, the manner of murder didn't lead him to think the murderer was a gloater as such. " Specifically, any hybrid-types? Or fur-covered bipeds?"

Mesthak gradually shakes his head. “Can’t say I have.” The bartender looks to Nancy but the barmaid agrees. “Nothing but idle talk and rumors, Mr. Krice,” she’ll never be able to drop the honorific, “there’s nothing but the usual. Folk’s aren’t even that scared or bothered, if you ask me. Life goes right on. A little sad, isn’t it?” Nancy sighs and starts stacking clean glasses in a rack. “Everyone goes right about their lives.” Mesthak is still scratching his chin. “Reminds me of about five or six years back, when those elves began going missing. Had one turn up in a similar way, you know,” the dwarf draws a line across his neck, “and strung up, all butchered. Folks blamed the drow,” this he whispers, so as not to offend any potential drow eavesdroppers, a good habit but an odd thing to do in an empty bar, “what with that awful war going on. But, uh, that’s old news. What’s this about furry folks, now?” It’s a curious detail, and it has obviously grabbed both Mesthak and Nancy’s curiosity. “Anyone we should be lookin’ out for?”

Krice huffed a quiet breath through his nose following Nancy's continued use of that honorific, but the importance of his visit was in full swing now, so he let it slide. The sadness of people moving on from a murder was real, but it also made sense; if a person was incapacitated by every murder that happened, well... No one would be doing anything and the world would fall apart. When Mesthak mentioned elf murders in years past, his eyes widened slightly because a memory stabbed his brain. Black and brown fur, decapitations, a garland of skulls, that -scent-... Realization unfurled like a flower in timelapse. " Maybe," he breathed, distracted and a little off-kilter. " What do you know about the elves that went missing?" Here, he glanced at Nancy as well. Each of them had given him different information but useful in its own way.

Mesthak and Nancy look at each other, each one hoping that the other has something particularly helpful to offer. “Oh, uh,” Mesthak starts, “they were scouts weren’t they?” Nancy shrugs, shaking her head. She doesn’t remember the specifics. Mesthak goes on. “I think they were scouts, aye. Talkin’ about,” again he lowers his voice, “drow being their cruel, barbaric selves. Fact of life, not trying to harp a point on it. Just scouts got caught by drow patrols is what people figured. It was a bad war, that one.” “It was,” Nancy agrees, trying to chime in, “cruel, terrible.” Just then she squints at the sunlit door. “There’s someone coming up, I’m going to take care of them. Mind your manners, you two, sorry Mr. Krice.” Nancy stands and calls to the new guest, a common Kelay townsman by the look of him, “sit anywhere, I’ll be right with you!” Mesthak looks back to Krice and shrugs, “anyway, that’s what I know about it, Krice. I’ll keep my eyes peeled, though, for,” he clears his throat, “ahum, someone matching your description, aye.”

Krice didn't fault Nancy and Mesthak for their animus about drow; after all, years ago House Dil Sel Dissan's lycans had surrounded him in a battle in Sage, ten to one, which culminated in a twenty-one day captivity in the Underdark. He wasn't a fan, either. " Only ever known one drow to be nice." And even then, she was a half-breed. Gilded eyes followed Nancy's attention to the arriving patron, to whom Krice offered a casual, " Hey, Bob." Back to Mesthak, he said, his voice a little lower, " Black and brown fur, biped, tiger stripes? May or may not be wearing a garland of skulls. Try not to spread it through the town, just stay vigilant. Thanks for the chat." The warrior lifted his glass to finish the water therein. Four mouthfuls later, the empty glass was slid back to Mesthak and he turned for the door, dipping his head to Nancy in passing.

Mesthak nods and taps the side of his nose, privately acknowledging Krice’s request. The warrior can count on the bartender for intel. And just like that, Mesthak is back to washing glasses as though nothing odd had happened. Nancy answers Krice’s nod with a smile and a wink. “See you soon, hon,” she offers as they pass, him toward the door and her toward the taps. Just another day at the Kelay tavern.