Nowhere Left

As soon as the two Death Reapers leave, Haalfrin looks around, and he sees that his short sword has been stolen. One of the locals must have seen it among the wreckage of the ship and taken it.

Haalfrin immediately curls his fist up and hits the ground so hard that he feels his fragile wrist crack and bruise. He hardly notices though.

'That was the old clan leader's sword!' Haalfrin snarls in his mind. 'I'd better hope it was lost in an accident, because of someone stole it...'

Now, Haalfrin isn't so attached to this sword merely because it's a rare and expensive enchanted sword. No, it's because of what the sword means to him.

Back when Haalfrin was much younger, his best friend was Chief Grotto. They'd both been spunky, brawny muscle heads back then, and this sword had been Grotto's last gift to him, before the man was lost at sea.

Haalfrin had that sword with him for over 50 years, and the thought of losing it now makes him furious.

After freaking out for a second and hyperventilating, he finally notices his sword just off to the side; it's still attached to his belt, which is half buried in the sand more than 10 feet away from himself.

His belt must have come off sometime after he washed ashore.

Once he gets his precious treasure back on his waist, it finally occurs to him… 'Why don't I have any injuries?' he wonders.

Of course, it doesn't occur to him that Das had healed him. 'Maybe I just hit my head, and the rest of my body was fine?'

He tosses the thought away in favor of something more important. 'How am I going to get back to the clan – to my house? Reeda was one of the only women staying in our little clan, and she must be worried sick when nobody comes back.'

Thinking of the young girl, Haalfrin steels his heart. 'I'll have to go back to Greenstone.' He jingles his pocket, which still has some coin in it. "I'll need resupplying and safe passage to our clan's island."

'Hmm…,' he ponders, 'Nobody should recognize me, since we all wore face paint during the battle. Well, the only one who saw my untarnished face was that mage, so I'll just have to stay out of his sight.'

As Haalfrin picks up his feet and shuffles away, he thinks, 'Besides, a frail old man shouldn't be suspicious at all, right?'

---------------------

Upon arriving in Greenstone, Haalfrin sees a festive atmosphere. The bloody Kareen have been slain, after all, and the townsfolk are just happy to be alive.

Haalfrin passes by a stall and sees little children's dolls with clothes sown up to resemble the mage from that day - the fellow with a blue uniform and a neatly trimmed brown beard. "They're treating him like a hero, huh?"

He looks around and sees young men and women in the streets dancing, singing songs, and putting up colorful decorations.

One of the townsfolk sees Haalfrin looking around and asks, "Stranger? What business do you have here?"

Haalfrin just points all around. "I heard a mage came by and helped drive away some Kareen. I thought there was a war going on…"

The woman smiles and replies, "It's a miracle, isn't it? I heard someone say that Captain Fisco wouldn't come back to this tiny place. I mean, why would a promising mage bother coming back to a rural town with nothing to offer unless he cared about us?"

An old man in a corner nudges the woman, then answers Haalfrin, "Apparently he was sent to deliver something across the country. Greenstone's on the way, so he stopped by his hometown… Lucky he did too."

Haalfrin looks away awkwardly. "Yeah… lucky…"

The lonely raider walks further down the streets, and when he arrives at the opposite end of town – the one near the docks - he sees the heads of all his clan brothers mounted on pikes, with their bodies unceremoniously burning in one of the fields outside of town.

He clenches his fist and boils with rage at the sight. He wants to take revenge so badly right now… '...but I'm just a frail old man…' He then thinks of this mage called "Fisco" … 'My enemy', he considers, 'has magic AND is in the prime of his youth. I stand no chance.'

Feeling hopeless, he wanders off. Feeling hungry after a bit, he stops and pays a vendor for some food.

While he's paying for his meal, he asks the cook, "How long ago did this raid happen?"

The vendor looks up and answers, "Oh, it all happened yesterday, right around this time of day."

Haalfrin looks up and calculates his time walking here. 'I must've only been unconscious a few hours,' he realizes.

Still wanting to find out more, Haalfrin goes ahead and attends the celebration. Soon after it starts, he sees the baron get up and give a speech.

The first thing the portly baron orates is, "I'm sorry Captain Fisco couldn't make it here; he had urgent business in the capital, and he was already running late. So, I'll have to give you his regards in his stead."

The baron then steps aside and gestures to several carts full of chests and boxes behind him. "Fisco and his escort tracked the remaining raiders down to their hideout and took back all the stolen loot."

The baron bows to the people and finishes, "I'm presenting you all the stolen grains back to their true owners!"

Obviously, the commoners either cheer or have happy smiles on their faces. Haalfrin, however, reels back in surprise, since most nobles would have kept all these things for themselves.

Haalfrin then looks over the recovered loot, and he feels cold sweat since he certainly recognizes some of the loot that used to be in his own house. "What about Reeda?" he thinks frantically, "Did she get implicated? Or rather, is she alive?"

His question is answered when he pushes his way to the front of the crowd and sees the baron gifting some of the less marketable items to the bereaved families… and he sees Reeda's own bloody dress being given away to a family who lost their son in the war.

Somewhere deep in his heart, Haalfrin knows that the little girl is dead by now… and the hatred in his heart doubles.

Without a word, Haalfrin slips back into the crowd and leaves for an alleyway, breathing heavily and clenching his fists. Nobody looks over at some random old man, nor do they notice that he's the only one here who's unhappy with the celebration.

---------------------

Haalfrin spends the next several days living in an alleyway - despairing. He knows he's too old to really accomplish anything or meet new people, so there's no sense in clinging onto some inane sense of hope.

At the same time, he doesn't want to just wait for death either like a slug beneath a steel boot. 'I have to do something, or I'll spend the rest of eternity looking down on myself. I have to get some closure at least.'

The most he can think of doing is go to the family that received Reeda's personal things.

He follows the women back home, and once they've settled in, he waits a little bit to make avoid looking like he followed them – less likely to creep them out that way. He then knocks on the door and waits for them to answer.

Two surprised women open up – one of them old, and the other, young – probably mother and daughter.

Haalfrin bows politely and says, "I was watching the celebration… and I had a granddaughter whose personal things were stolen by the raiders. I saw that my poor granddaughter's things were handed off to you, and I'd like to return them to her grave."

The mother and daughter look warily at Haalfrin, and when he sees they're not answering, Haalfrin smiles apologetically and says, "I can afford to pay for them."

The daughter's face finally relaxes, and she goes out back to retrieve their things. She pulls out Reeda's dress, which had been cleaned by now and stitched back together.

The old woman then goes to her table and picks up a bent knife. "Here. This came with the dress. It might be your granddaughter's as well."

Of course, Haalfrin recognizes the dagger; Reeda always wore it on her hip.

With shaking hands, Haalfrin walks up and takes the dagger. "H-how…," he asks, "How did the dagger get damaged?"

The old woman shrugs, "It just came like that. It might work fine enough after a good hammering, so we haven't thrown it out yet… But you can have it."

Haalfrin smiles sadly and takes the dagger reverently. Something in his heart at least is put at ease. 'Reeda definitely didn't go down without fighting back. Good for her.'