The hunt begins

A few days had passed and we had finally made it to the town Tordrid told us about. It was rather close to the mountain though it was nearing the beginning of spring so it wasn't as cold. Being so close to the mountain yet still so far from it at the same time was almost nauseating. We made our way towards an inn, the name of the inn was The Silversmith Inn, and it was quite large for an inn. It was at least four stories high, it had an intricate facade of wood and stone and the interior was surprisingly not as busy as I had originally thought, "Ah, finally more people to serve." I heard a voice say, I turned to see a male half-elf behind the bar, tall, with long blonde hair tied into a bun, and a well-kept goatee on his face. Torrid walked up to him.

She sat at the bar and asked to see the owner, "Very well, anything to drink while you all wait?" she turned to us and motioned for us to sit at the bar, Maryanne ordered some tea while the others ordered various alcoholic drinks, I asked for a glass of spiced rum, Nalaed asked for the same thing. As we got our drinks a white scaled dragonborn came out to see who asked for her. When she and Tordrid saw each other a smile formed on her face, "Akra it's good to see you. How have you been?" In a clear but raspy voice, she smiled and said, "I've been better, sorry about the voice, I'm a little bit sick, been taking a lot of the medicine the clerics recommended, I've also been drinking some tea and it been a little better day by day." Torrid nodded.

She then sighed and said, "Listen, Akra, I know you're busy with everything and keeping this huge place up and running but are you sure you don't want any payment from us at all?" Akra shook her head, "No, not at all, A good friend of mine died because of that horrid man, you make him pay dearly you hear me?" Tordrid smiled and nodded, "Thanks Akra. Oh and I hope you get better soon darlin'," she said walking back over to us, "I always do." She said walking back into her office. We finished our drinks and were given the keys to our rooms. Maryanne, Ambition, and Rurik had their rooms on the third floor while Nalaed, Tordrid, and I had our rooms on the fourth floor. Tordrid was on the left side and Nalaed on the right. As I finished setting my things down for the night a knock came at my door, "Oi...can I come in?" I opened the door for Tordrid who was now in some loose comfortable clothing, "What's going on?" she sat down on one of the nearby chairs and sighed, "listen...I...I wanted to apologize for what I did...it was uncalled for and I was tired from traveling for so long and so damned focused on this revenge thing that URRGH!" she sounded frustrated, "I'm...I'm sorry its been hard on me, you know...losing someone you love, she was the only family I had left...well not the only one, but the one that cared about me and worried about me whenever I went out on a quest or had to travel across the sea, no one else truly cared about me as she did."

I sat on the bed and nodded, "I know what you mean, I'm sure you've heard about what happened to my father?" she looked up at me, "aye, Sebastian Crowfeather, his death shook many people, he was a good man your father, he helped so many in need, kind of like you are now." I smiled, "but that's pretty much all I came here for, I should also warn you to stay as far from my fists as possible if you want to avoid it happening again, trust me, you piss me off enough, I do not hesitate to hold back." I chuckled a bit, "I can tell." she smiled and made her way out of my room, "Goodnight Shane Crowfeather." and with that, she left. A few minutes later another knock came at my door.

I opened the door to see Nalaed standing there with her hair tied into a loose bun and holding a small keg and two empty mugs, "Couldn't sleep, plus I wanted to talk to you about the stories I've heard of your people since we never got to do so." I invited her in, "I was wondering about that, others have heard tell of my people and they weren't shy to share, why were you?" I asked as she served us both a mug full of mead. "Well, some weren't too bad, you know, some save villages, towns, and cites, some go on long adventures across the sea to fight giant monsters or lend their arms to some foreign army fighting against some tyrant. Others...well…"

I took a long sip of the mead, the sweet honey taste masking the slight burning sensation going down my throat, "Other stories I've mainly heard are about certain folks... "exploits" for lack of a better term." "Like who?" "Well, there are only three that come to mind, two Ulfguardian males and a female. The first story I heard was of a male tiefling and the local librarian." I took a moment to think about a similar story and I believe I knew which one she was talking about, "Was it the story of the tiefling that had a late book to return and so the librarian, a dragonborn, told him he had to pay a fine?" While still drinking she nodded and pointed to me excitedly, "Yes that one exactly, is it true?" "To an extent. How did you hear it?" "Well the tiefling wanted to return the book but didn't have any coin on him and the librarian, this large behemoth of a dragonborn said he needed to pay one way or another and took him to a private room where after a short exchange of words they began to loudly make love, I heard it was so loud many of the people reading decided to simply leave." she giggled as she refilled her mead.

I shook my head smiling, "well, that did happen, but not to the extent that you may think. You see that dragonborn was a high ranking wizard and put a magical lock and spell over the doors and walls in this private room that way no matter how loud they were no one would hear them, it wasn't until a staff member spotted them by accident and figured just by looking at them that if there was no magic surrounding them then everyone would have left just as you said." She looked genuinely surprised, "Oh my. Oh! The female story I heard was so romantic, it has to be true from start to finish correct?" I shrugged and let her explain what she might have heard.

Taking a quick sip of her drink she said, "Now I heard tell of forbidden love between a human prince and a half-orc woman, a warrior who was to be his protector, they had fallen in love but the love between them was considered taboo. So they met in secret in the dead of night, some say that they would make the sweetest and most gentle love during those meetings, others say they were as loud and as rough as wild beasts deep within the forest, then when the king had died the prince, who was now king declared his father's old rule of interspecies relationships being outlawed legal and outwardly declared his love for the half-orc woman he loved so much and had her be his queen to rule over the kingdom for the rest of their days."

I smiled as I drank the last bit of my drink, "Alright, so a lot of it is somewhat true, but not to that extent, it wasn't a prince he was a marquee since the young man's father was a duke and the head of a relatively large town, the name of which I forget. He was also the youngest of five sons who unfortunately died from either, assassins, sickness, or went off to fight in some sort of war. I should also mention that the law implemented wasn't that harsh, it was meant more for higher ranking nobles and middle-class folk since many people in those areas got to see various other races than some of the poorer folks. When I said he was young, I meant that he was roughly 19 years old when he first met this half-orc woman." Nalaed nodded along to what I had to say as I continued, "The boy's father was deathly ill and to be honest sort of cruel toward everyone, even other nobility who had no ill will towards him, thankfully it was enough to keep him from snooping around whenever the boy and this woman would meet as you would say."

She sat up in her chair, "Were they as loud as some say?" she asked clutching her cup, for a cleric her mind seems to be more in the gutter than most if she were a cleric of Moona I would understand, but it doesn't seem like that was the situation, however, I didn't have time to dwell on it for too long as I wanted to get through this whole ordeal and get some sleep. "So for that, they would occasionally meet in an abandoned room in an old watchtower on the duke's land, however for their more rough and louder escapades, they went down to the local bordello to make it seem as though someone was getting their money's worth."

Setting her cup down Nalaed asked, "So was the rest true?" "In a way yes. The duke died, the young man took his place, he got rid of the old law and married the half-orc woman, some say their kids are growing up strong, healthy and happy." She smiled, "As all things should," she said leaning against the chair, "Oh! I almost forgot about the last story I heard. The one about a human who was the secret lover to a dwarven duchess. She hired him as protection from her deceased husband's enemies as they were after her as well and she couldn't fight as well as she used to, and none but the servants knew about their relationship. Some servants have even been told to keep an eye out while they did their business." I suddenly realized who she might have been talking about. "Holy shit...and you can confirm this is somewhat true right?" "Yeah? My mother is friends with one of the servants." "Son of a…" "What? What is it?"

I sat on the bed next to the chair, "There's an old man who hardly ever leaves one of the local taverns in Ulvenguard, he would always go on and on about how he used to be in a relationship with the richest dwarf woman but he couldn't stay with her because of the laws of her land, but he would always boast about how he was able to leave her with child multiple times before officially leaving her, though he wishes he would have stayed to raise them all regardless of the law." "m-multiple times?" she said, "Yeah...at least I think so because no one truly believes him, they just call him crazy old man Kirkland." "Huh...welp. I'm tucked out I guess I'll see ya in the morning." she grabbed her cups and her keg and left as quickly as she came in. I shrugged not wanting to waste any more time awake than I already was.

That morning after breakfast, which was on the house, we discussed what we should do to find this man and what exactly we should be prepared for, maybe even find some sort of approach to the whole thing to best suit the situation. Ambition spoke first, "now listen, I'm not saying we shouldn't be careful but if we know where he is then the best strategy would be to attack head in, as the saying goes "the best defense is a good offense." I think…" he said starting to sound confused.

Tordrid shook her head, they'll expect that. Besides, there are far too many guards for us to handle, we can take a few out here and there quietly but all together for a full attack will be far too dangerous, we need to find a strategic point to enter from taking out whatever guards are there and then make our way inside." Maryanne and the others nodded while Ambition rolled his eyes, I noticed on the map of the area where this getaway estate was located there was a missing space in the wall surrounding it away from the guard towers line of sight. I took the map and the blueprints of the estate itself and looked it over, "why is there a hole here?" "Everyone leaned in to see what exactly I was talking about. Torrid took the blueprints and even compared it to a recent drawing made of the estate. "Son of a...the boar story is real." "What?" "I heard a while ago that a rabid wild boar slammed into the wall and made this huge space that no one bothered to tell him about, and over the next few years it was covered by tall grass."

Nalaed smiled, "so that means...we have a way in. Right?" We all looked to Tordrid as she nodded. "Aye. We do." She said smiling and clutching her axe tightly, "Now the hunt begins."