Ryuji awoke to find another overcast day but it didn’t look like it would rain. After completing what had become his morning routine, he headed downstairs. While he was eating breakfast, Karen seemed a bit more flustered than usual but he had things to accomplish today so he left rather quickly.
Ryuji headed to the market to quickly speak to Gato about the buildings available. Gato was just getting all the items set out in the stall. Ryuji told him that he had a map of all the available locations in town and showed him the map. Gato looked at the map very carefully and studied the locations marked. He then asked if Ryuji could come with him to his house that evening so they could all look at the map. Ryuji agreed and then rushed off because he had other business that morning.
On his way to Potions and Stuff, he was worried about the cat women out looking for buildings on his behalf but he had to put it out of his mind as he stopped by the money changers and quickly sat at Shoan’s desk. Besides, the killer wouldn’t strike so soon after his last victim, right?
Shoan seemed a bit startled to see him only a few days after his last visit but Ryuji waved it off saying that business was good. When Shoan looked as if he would question it further Ryuji pulled out the alibi he’d been working on this whole time. He told the boy that he had money deals with eleven different businesses.
The kid was startled by the fact that he had so many deals going at once but Ryuji wasn’t about to tell him that most of those were street stalls. He was equally unwilling to admit that four of the eleven businesses were part of the same bakery. He did however tell Shoan that he was preparing to open the new bakery and that he needed funding for it.
The kid looked bewildered by the idea that he had been singled out to do all the transactions for that many businesses. He had heard about the bakery being fixed up but he hadn’t realized that Ryuji was the one who bought it and his eyes shown when he heard the news. Shoan was doubly surprised by the sheer volume of coins that Ryuji piled on his desk from the enormous blue satchel.
His business concluded, Ryuji left his customary tip for the boy and headed out. Shoan’s eyes sparkled, this was the third time in an eightday that this elf guy had left him a tip. He had made more from Ryuji’s tips than he had earned in wages this eightday. Shoan began to wonder if perhaps he had attracted the elf’s eye somehow but then he remembered the vision of beauty he had with him the other day and dismissed the notion as absurd.
Ryuji arrived back at the wizard’s shop and yelled for Dorn in excitement. When he told Dorn about reading over half the book the normally surly dwarf bellowed with laughter and told him to take the day off. Dorn explained that he should take a day off and let his mind rest a bit. Ryuji was very excited to finish the book but he agreed that a day off might be nice. He was a little reluctant because he had just taken half a day off yesterday but Dorn said it didn’t count since he had spent the whole time reading.
Ryuji left in high spirits because he knew just what he wanted to do on his day off. He thanked Dorn and headed straight for the market and Gato. His intent was to have the old guy search around for his family so they could all go look at buildings together. Things did not go according to plan.
On his way to the market, Ryuji heard a scream and suddenly someone started yelling that the murderer had killed another victim. His breath caught and his blood ran cold. There was another murder? It couldn’t be the cat-women, could it? Ryuji ran in the direction of the commotion as quickly as his legs would carry him.
As he arrived at the scene of the commotion, he found a huge group of people clustered around a small knot of soldiers. There was just enough space that Ryuji was able to navigate between them. When he was almost to the knot of soldiers, he tripped over someone’s foot and stumbled into the center of the circle the soldiers were making. He managed to catch himself just short of falling on the corpse lying on the ground.
As he was steadying himself, he got a good look at the woman lying on the cobbled street. The woman was indeed one of the beastfolk but she was something more like a sheep or goat than a cat. Ryuji was just straightening up with a sigh of relief when he heard a familiar voice yelling to him. As he turned, he spotted the captain of the guard that he had spoken to before bearing down on him. “What do you think you’re doing? Who gave you permission to… oh, it’s you! You should still stand back unless you have some business here.”
Ryuji was just about to agree with him but then caught himself and asked a question that had been bothering him. He stepped closer to the captain so they wouldn’t be overheard by everyone in the crowd before he spoke in a hushed tone. “Actually, I was wondering if you had any leads to tracking down the murderer? You obviously don’t have to tell me anything but I’d be happy to help if I can.”
The captain pushed the boiled monster leather helmet back a bit and regarded Ryuji with skeptical eyes. Ryuji could feel the intensity in his gaze but there was something else there too, desperation. Finally, the captain seemed to have reached a decision and leaned in closer. “For some reason, I just have this feeling that you might just be able to tell me something I don’t know. All right, listen closely. We don’t have a lot to go on because the person responsible always seems to be able to avoid being seen committing the murders. We think it might be one of the guards because the wounds all look like they were made with guard weapons.”
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When the captain said that Ryuji looked around the circle. The captain assumed that he was looking amongst the guards but in reality, he was looking at the weapons they were holding. All but the captain were wielding halberds, a cross between a long-spear and an axe. The captain nodded before continuing as Ryuji looked at the dead woman again. “That’s another reason we think it might be a guard. Nobody would suspect one of our own town guard until it was too late. I probably shouldn’t have told you that but I just feel like you are somebody that might be able to see something that I haven’t. this is the third murder victim that I’ve had to look at personally and I just want it to stop!”
As Ryuji looked at the captain, he noticed the man was clenching his fist so tight that his knuckles were white. He then diverted his gaze back to the dead woman. The hole in her chest and throat did look like they could have been made by a spear of some type. From the looks of the wounds, it appeared to his untrained eyes as if the woman had been stabbed through the throat from behind and then stabbed in the heart while she was already on the ground. However, there was something about the scene that just didn’t seem right.
Ryuji stepped closer and looked over the stab wounds. For some reason, his eyes seemed drawn to the blood on the ground. It was very different than the blood in the dramas that he’d seen on TV and he almost gagged as he got a whiff of the pungent odor of the blood. Still, his eyes were drawn to the blood and then he spotted it, a footprint in the edge of the blood.
As Ryuji knelt down at the edge of the blood the captain and a couple of the guards as well as several of the citizens and gasped and the captain was about to rush over to grab him. When he got close, he noticed what Ryuji was looking at and just as he did Ryuji looked at the captain’s feet. When the captain looked down, he was unsure what this strange elf noble was looking at. Then Ryuji stood without a word and began studying the feet of all of the guards present.
The captain’s face went white as realization dawned on him. The killer had stepped in the victim’s blood! The killer would have blood on his feet! They just might catch him this time. But just as he was getting ready to congratulate Ryuji, he noticed that the elf had stopped looking at the guard’s boots and was heading back shaking his head.
When Ryuji drew close again, he spoke to the captain in a low voice again. “It wasn’t one of your men. *Seeing the captain’s perplexed look he pointed to the captain’s own boots. * The print doesn’t have a ring around it. You and all of your men are wearing greaves that cover the front of your feet. The footprint doesn’t match your type of boots either. I think somebody is trying to frame the guard for the murders that have been happening.”
The captain had to nod at that but Ryuji followed it up with a couple questions. “This is important, we have to move quick. Was there anybody that has been in the barracks recently who isn’t a guard? Especially anybody in there today?”
The captain’s face began to go a little pale. “There was one man who was in the barracks today. In fact, he’s in our barracks often enough that he could have done it every time there was a murder. He’s a merchant that we have a contract with for our equipment though. It’ll be really hard to hold him and we probably can’t keep him for long unless we can prove he did this.”
Ryuji got a big malicious grin on his face before replying. “There is always only one truth! Just see if you can get hold of him quickly and I’ll do the rest. I’ll meet you at the barracks in the nobles’ district in a little bit. I have to prepare for this first but I think we can catch him bloody-handed if he’s the one who did it. It’ll probably take me about an… I mean a candlespan. See you then.”
The captain looked like he wanted to protest but Ryuji was already sprinting away. instead, he began frantically issuing orders. His relief was profound, his men weren’t killing anyone. He silently prayed that the strange elf noble could actually do as he said. The captain was almost afraid that Ryuji was just going to use some connections to pin everything on the merchant but somehow, he didn’t think that was what he had in mind.
Ryuji burst into the front door of Potions and Stuff and yelled for Dorn. The old man came out a little flustered and started to admonish Ryuji for coming back on his day off. “No time for that. I need some things quickly. Do you have any black rust powder? Also, do you have any hardened tree sap that isn’t a solid stone yet?”
As Dorn got those things together, he raced into the back of the shop and grabbed a small shovel and broom used for cleaning up rock debris. Ryuji looked around but couldn’t find what he was looking for so he took the cleaning set and a mortar and pestle set and raced for a nearby building. When he got to the bakery, he almost did a summersault trying to slow down.
Ryuji raced inside after only a cursory greeting with the foreman… woman. He ran into the kitchen and looked around inside the chimney flue but to his dismay, it was clean already. When a familiar fox-woman came over he was about in tears. Mullie was more than a little concerned that maybe they had screwed up somehow. “Morning Mister owner. What’s wrong? Did we mess up somehow? If you tell me, I’m sure we can fix whatever it is.”
“No, no. I was just looking for an ingredient for the potion shop but it seems I’m too late.”
“An ingredient for the potion shop? What kind of ingredient would you find in here?”
“I was hoping to find a bit of chimney soot but the chimney is already clean I see. I can’t complain about people doing a good job even if I could have used that right now. I’ll go now and let all of you get back to work.”
“Chimney soot? What would you use… Oh, wait! This chimney is clean but I doubt they’ve cleaned the part upstairs yet! Come with me, I’ll get the soot if that’s what you want.”
Ten minutes later the woman was crawling out of the chimney access and was covered in soot from the cleavage up. she held out a mortar full of something that used to be called lampblack and her dazzling white smile was a stark contrast to her black face and chest. Ryuji grabbed the mortar from her and tossed her a large silver. As her eyes went wide, she was gearing up to protest but Ryuji was already gone.