Rounding the last building the mayors house came into view. I guess I didn’t have to worry about no one being awake. Every window in the building showed light and I could see people in there. Shaking my head I climbed the stairs. There was no way at this late hour that this would be good news.
The room was full of every watch person, Nikki, one of the Elite Guards stood by the mayor. The other Elite Guard, Frank was off to the side of the room kneeling by Dancer who was sitting, now conscious. Frank had one hand on Dancer's shoulder and one on Sticks. Mayor Skandro stopped what he was saying when I had opened the door and watched as I entered. “Ah. Baz.” He said simply. Several of the watch were covered in soot marks and the room smelled of bitter, acrid smoke. Occasionally someone would cough. Bran started at my name, turning wild eyes on me before turning back, visibly shaken that I was here. I shot him a dark look, but he had already turned back around. Anger simmered but I resisted the urge to attack him and instead I walked down the line towed Frank.
As I headed over to Frank Skandro picked back up talking about a fire over at one of the farms. Frank’s special ability allowed him to share hurt, wounds and even illness across a person or people making it easier and quicker to recover, pulling people back from life threatening situations. I could already see Sticks shoulder bleeding as a portion of the damage was transferred. “Elite” I nodded a greeting to Frank who nodded back. “I will take a share of the wound.” I said. Frank nodded again. “I have faster healing and a high pain tolerance due to my heritage” I stated. It was an easy pass that allowed me to cover for some of the minor abilities my mother drilled into me to keep secret.
Franks hand dropped from both. Sticks glanced at me “Thanks.” He said. I knew he was more grateful that I was helping Dancer than taking some of pain that would likely have been his. He had never shrunk from pain. I smiled at him and allowed Franks magic to work on me when I felt his touch. I saw that his hand was now on Dancers right ribs and immediately felt a dull, growing ache around a couple ribs. That kick he took probably cracked some ribs. As taught from as early as I could remember and probably beyond, I insulated myself from the pain using my anger at Bran and let no pain show.
Displaying pain was considered a weakness to my mother’s people and she raised me in her people’s way. It was all she knew. I found that being unusual looking made me a negative focus. Much like my mother’s people, any display of weakness was noted and acted on by those that felt threatened because I looked different than they did. I found those lessons were useful even outside of her people’s caves.
“Anger slows healing” came to me from my spirit. I wondered at that. First what would a spirit know about living creatures and healing but second… It almost sounded reasonable and got me wondering. Anger prepped for fighting and while it dulled pain, was your body focused on healing that pain or was it focused on making muscles work and heighten senses? For all I knew it could do both with no problem.
“Don’t strain yourself there, deep thinker.” Came the familiarly bitter thoughts and I could tell it had gotten frustrated with me again. I sighed and shook my head at its return to negativity. Frank made a quizzical noise bringing my attention to him. His face plainly asked the question if he should continue. He had noted the shrug and shake and thought I wanted him to stop. I nodded to him to continue as Skandro’s voice continued filled the room.
I focused on what the mayor was stating. “When we are done here, please take a look at these… unusual spears we found at the farm.” He said gesturing at a pile of large, charred spears laying on the floor next to him. “They weren’t at the farm earlier and may be connected to the fire. If we can find out who made them perhaps, we can figure out who put them there.” He continued to talk about the fires and new routes we were assigned while Frank finished drawing off health to help Dancer heal up.
“So as a recap.” The mayor said as he wrapped up “Let’s find out where these spears came from. Keep an eye out for anything unusual in our village and I repeat do NOT engage anything alone. Our goal is to run them to ground, corner them and take them in a safe fight where we have the advantage. Lastly dig into the rumors!” He said, pounding his fist on his little podium for emphasis. “We need to find out who killed Garen. We need to send a message that turning lethal force on one another is entirely unacceptable! The people of this village need to see that we have control. That they don’t need to go armed on their own streets for fear of being attacked or worse in anticipation of an attack. Garen is an example that a word and a few moments was all it took to needlessly end a life. As tensions rise it will become worse. Be careful out there. Let them know you and your team are in control. Let’s wrap this up so everyone can get home or get back out there on patrol.
Has anyone seen anything else suspicious that needs reporting?” The mayor asked. Bran cleared his throat to get attention “The halfer in the poor pit is suspicious. I think he is using the excuse of learning taxidermy to get people to bring him body parts for his creations. He’s acting ill to keep suspicion off him. The rest of them seem to be covering for him too, could be more than one person over there is involved.” “Thank you for bringing that up.” Mayor Skandro responded, “I will remind you that you are not to refer to the poor quarter as a ‘pit’, Bran. We have also talked about your racial slurs. You will have some penalty work to make up for that. We do have a farm that needs cleaned up. Report to me first thing in the morning.” Bran’s shoulders sagged at that. “I will have Baz follow up on the poor sector in your stead.” Said Skandro.
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“Baz is part of them!” Bran blurted out “He refused to look further into it when I brought it up and when trolls tried to kill me earlier Baz stayed and spoke with them, probably coordinating another attack!” “Ah.” The mayor said, nodding at Bran. “Baz. I will need you to stay behind with me and Nikki to work through this.” I nodded at the mayor. I mean, I came here to report what I had seen anyway, so this was no change to my plans. “Anything else?” The mayor asked.
“At first light will we get a group out to search for May?” I asked. “She may still be alive.” The spirits thoughts rolled through my head “If she’s lucky she’ll get release. Your failure to catch them may have not only caused her release from life’s torment but torture of her true essence as well.” The mayor scratched at his ear a moment before answering. “No. As much as I hate to let the necromancer get away with this atrocity, I can’t leave the town with weakened defenses which might play into their hands while our forces are out chasing cold leads.” There was a pause while he considered it a bit more and then added. “No. Stick with the assigned patrols. Defend our people. Make sure no one else is taken.” He scratched at the back of his neck and sighed, shaking his head. In tired tones he added “Everyone go. Keep your eyes open, protect Silveren. Baz. Come on.” He motioned to me as he turned to go in the back door. Everyone else turned to walk past me to leave. Bran held a moment, then as people cleared turned and strode towards me his face tight with anger. I braced myself, relaxing my muscles, focusing on his movements, essentially entering the upcoming fight mentally, so there would be no surprise, no lack of readiness. He stopped before me, hand resting loosely on the pommel of his sword. “I..” He started snapping his mouth shut, eyes darting back and forth, finally resting on the ground in front of me. “I didn’t mean to push you into the trolls.” He spit out quickly and turned, bustling past me. “That was wrong.” He mumbled and started to walk away. “I shoulda known you were allied with them, though traitor!” he called over his shoulder as he left.
I shook my head, not quite believing what had just happened. Not knowing what to do with it, I pushed it out of my thoughts and turned to see Nikki holding the door to the back for me. I hurried forward so she wouldn’t have to keep holding the door.
The mayor listened to me relate what had happened over the night occasionally looking to Nikki who verified my story with a nod. When it was done, he affirmed my decision to help Dancer before going after the beast, though I still wasn’t certain it was the right choice now. Then he surprised me with a question. “What Bran did was attempted murder.” He said, studying my face. “I’m curious, before I go further with this what do you think should be done?” My eyebrows went up and I took a deep breath in as I considered this. Bran really pissed me off. His values were hateful, and I would love to see him suffer for them, honestly. The spirit sent a stream of very creative images about its thought of what should be done with Bran. I had to work to not wince at some of them. It was apparently very creative in a grisly kind of way.
“Phew!” sounded as I let the breath, I didn’t realize I was holding out. “Bran works well, or at least decently with the others of the watch. Normally I would say he shouldn’t get away with something like this, and perhaps later we can deal with it but now…” I trailed off a second before continuing “Now we are in a bad position and punishing Bran does not put us in a better one. Worse, it could erode confidence the public has in the watch and even the confidence inside the watch. I think we need every person we have out there. As long as he’s not paired with me, I think he will do fine, but if it were me calling the shots, I wouldn’t remove a game piece from the board if I could help it with everything going on.” Skandro nodded at me, steepling his fingers as he thought. After a moment he said “Thank you. Go and get some rest. Recover the health you gave to help Dancer recover and we will talk tomorrow.” Nodding I got up and stepped back through the door into the room all the watch had just been in.
To the right was the pile of spears that Skandro had noted. I knelt down and looked them over. The haft was thicker than a normal spear and the material… I touched it and felt the grit and solidity. Tinking my nail off it confirmed it. These were made of a rough metal. Grabbing it I could lift it but I could tell others my size would not be able to lift it. Heck even Ocran wouldn’t be able to throw this weapon all that far. There was a lip on the haft near the head that seemed odd for a thrown weapon. Under that there were strips on both sides of the weapon leading down on each side of the weapon that aligned with the unusual looking doubled edge of the blade. Scratching along the roughed edge, I found it was gritty and some of the grit came free with me just rolling my finger over it. The blade looked like two huge arrow heads pressed tightly together until there was only a narrow channel left. I checked over each of them and found a couple odd items. Each cleft at the edge of the blade had tightly packed ash in it and one of them had a glass ring just above the blade. The top edge of the ring was jagged, as though there was more glass above it but it had been shattered. I sighed and shook my head. Very strange weapon. I left, heading to bed as soon as I got back to my new home.