The man was still standing behind his bar, only now he looked calmer besides those wild eyes of his that even still were moving a mile a minute. I hope for your sake this works, old man. Henry stalked behind the man, approaching as quietly as he could, hoping that he wouldn’t turn around; he needed the man to be unsuspecting of Henry’s intentions. Henry grabbed the man around the neck and, as expected, tried to wiggle and squirm his way out of Henry's hold, but he held strong and dumped the water from the mug onto his head. The man gasped for air and yelled to let him go.

“You’ve already taken everything from me. Why are you trying to torment me now?” The man cried out.

Henry stepped back and raised one of his hands as the other went to the hilt of his dagger. “Calm down, I was only trying to get myself a drink before you assaulted me.” He turned his hand around to better show the wound where the blood was still flowing freely. “You know you're lucky. Few people would have shown you the restraint I have most folk would’ve gutted you the moment you made a wrong move, so how's about we go over to that booth there and get this sorted out over some ale?”

“I’ll not go anywhere with the likes of you that stole my daughter. You want to get me off my guard, is that it?”

“Listen old man, if I were going to kill you, I wouldn’t need you to be off guard I wouldn’t even need a weapon so sit down or I actually will kill you.” Henry gestured to the booth closest to him and walked over “And don’t forget to bring the ale.”

After a couple of minutes and some swears that didn’t fully reach Henry’s ears, the old man walked over to the booth that Henry sat at carrying nothing but a half-used candle, much to his dread. The man sat down and they both stared at each other in silence for a while, Henry noticed the man had a couple old scars on his cheek and one especially gnarly one on his neck that ran down to the man’s collarbone and likely even farther. Might’ve fought in a war or had an especially rowdy customer either way, he’s no stranger to a dust-up wonder how he let some kids take his precious daughter.

“Well, this is a fine establishment you have here. Well, it might have been once, but now it’s practically in ruins. I assume you had the same run in with those bandits as I did?”

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The man glared at Henry, a look he wasn’t entirely new to seeing “You're not wrong, those damn kids who haven’t even grown hair on their chests playing at being soldiers came here and took all the money, food, and drink I owned claiming they were protecting us from ghouls and werewolves as if those brats could even fight other men much less a damn werewolf. Had they not taken my daughter hostage, I would have killed all of them with a shard of glass, dammit!”

“Calm down, old man, you'll hurt yourself if you're not careful. Now you said they took your daughter hostage right, well good thing I came along because I can get her back for you, for the right price of course.” With that, Henry gave a sly grin and sat back, waiting for the man's reply.

“Of course, another fool who thinks that just because they’ve got a sword that they’re fit to be some kind of.”

“Now hold on just a few minutes ago you thought I was some murderous cut throat here to finish you off, now I’m not enough to get your little girl back from those bandits? And besides say I die heroically trying to rescue her, what's it to you? Then you’re just back where you started.” Henry could see the man was being swayed over and tried to take advantage of that. “I’ll tell you what, because I have my own debt to settle with those kids. I'll only charge you half of my normal fees provided when I return you agree to give me room and board.”

The man thought on the offer for a while and for a moment Henry thought he might even reject the proposal, but when he looked the man in the eyes, he could see he was just trying to muster up the words.

“Alright, but you need to leave now the less time those punks have with my daughter, the better.” Henry was reluctant to travel at night, harder to see and easier to be caught unaware by anything that might roam the forest during the night hours.

“Fine and one last thing, that old nag out there I’m going to need to borrow her for this little adventure.” The man sighed and nodded his head. Henry smiled and made his way out to the stables with the old man in tow.

Being this close to the horse made Henry wonder if it could hold his weight for the length of the trip. He threw his leg up and over and felt the horse buckle under his weight. Well, that doesn’t bode well for tonight.

“Do you even know where you're heading now?” The man asked.

“I was planning on going back to where I got ambushed and tracked them from there. Why do you know where they’re based?”

He nodded. “There is an old keep that used to be run by some knight decades ago. After about a league riding back that way the road splits and you will be on the right path.”

“Thanks, old-” He stopped himself “I’ve just realized I never got your name.”

“Tom and my daughter’s name is Tesslyn, after her late mother.”

“Thanks Tom, I’ll be back before you know it with Tess” And with that he spurred the nag and trotted down the road.