CHAPTER 1.04 - THE STORIES WE TELL; OR DON’T: I
3AM TODAY
Hugo flattens himself against the wall of the alley. He would draw the single dagger he’d managed to find on his way out, but he’s too close to the mouth of the narrow alley. He can’t risk alerting his pursuer should the blade catch any light. He holds his breath as a tall figure turns into the alley’s mouth. The figure is making every attempt at stealth, but with each movement there’s the slightest hiss or clink of shifting metal. Chainmail, great. Hugo congratulates his instinct; even if he could reliably stab this bastard he’d accomplish little more than angering him. The figure pulls into the alley, stands for a moment, listening. He’s silhouetted by the low light from the street. Looks tall, a shade over 6’, but not as heavy-built as the kind of bruiser Hugo expected to be on his tail.
As the guy starts moving again, the halfling’s heart sinks. He might not be stealthy, but he moves with certainty. Shit. Hugo racks his brain. A pro, then? Some mercenary? Not one of the usual suspects, certainly. An out-of-towner? He focuses on remaining absolutely still, willing himself to blend into the low detritus. It’s poor cover but the best he could manage when he heard the merc’s footsteps approaching. He feels a dump of adrenaline into his already saturated system, preparing for fight or flight. Either likely doomed.
Then he just about cries out in surprise as the oblivious figure looms up and past him.
-x-
Thae feels miserable. This IS the right thing to do – She was clear – but it FEELS like abandonment. Of duty, responsibility, a sacred oath. And as good as She is, as clear as Thae’s own focus and devotion, She did not explain how one leaves a city without a lot of awkward questions. Nor without some record of such an identifiable citizen leaving at a time for robbers, for…blackguards? Ne’er-do-wells? Thae cannot pick the correct term; too much temple living.
The half-elf jerks in fright as a voice, close by, says “Thae!” Spinning around, relief floods in to quell the fear of discovery. It can be only one person. Of course. The Goddess provides.
He stands at 3’3”, handsome dark-skinned face sporting a trim goatee below artfully tangled dark hair. The kind that has either taken zero time to style, ‘I just rolled out of bed’, or an hour in front of a glass to perfect. Thae is momentarily baffled by Hugo’s plain attire – he is usually so dapper – when the small man grunts and flinches, torso twisting to the left.
Thae kneels, trained by years of tending to people too poor or proud or tough to admit they need help. Lays a gentle hand on Hugo’s ribs, muttering an apology at the gasp the touch expels. Thae focuses. No bones moving: a cracked rib, then. Instinctually summons the beautiful face of the Deity to mind, utters the words quietly, feels the divine power channelling, warming, healing.
Where Hugo was pulling away from Thae’s hand, he now relaxes, a sigh of relief tinged with pleasure. It might be Thae’s imagination, but in the dark alley it seems like a patch of skin around Hugo’s eye lightens. Again, on the left side of the halfling’s body. Thae’s martial training whispers that the halfling was beaten by a right-handed attacker.
Thae would normally fall into support mode: Were you attacked? Are you in danger? Do you need sanctuary in…in the temple from which I snuck in the middle of the night? At a time when I knew all but myself and two other guards would be asleep?
But there is no time. Thae inhales deeply, readying to plunge into total trust with an acquaintance who realistically only FEELS like a friend. “Hugo. I need to get out of the city tonight. And I am not sure I can offer you an explanation.”
Kneeling there in the alley, Thae’s heart freezes as Hugo, standing erect but still eye-to-eye with the kneeling half-elf, stares silently for a second.
-x-
Hugo can’t fucking believe it. He catches himself, realising he hasn’t answered. He flashes his cockiest grin, gives Thae a wink.
“I know a place.” He pats Thae’s shoulder then saunters down the alley. Stops and turns after a moment, relishing the bafflement on Thae’s face. The half elf’s still on one knee, head twisted to watch him. “Well, you coming?”
-x-
Around an hour later, the pair are at the mouth of another alley, pulled just back into the shadows. Hugo is pointing out one nondescript house from a line of them. They are about as far from a city gate as it is possible to be, or rather to a gate OUT of the city. They are about 5 minutes’ walk to the western gate, but that leads through the city wall proper into a massive, stockaded area serving as an extension of the kingdom’s prisons. Caladria is surrounded by the Emerald Forest, and supplies most of the kingdom’s lumber. And to supply such a hungry demand it needs hundreds of skilled lumberjacks. Or, an even larger number of less skilled workers with an incentive to take on such dangerous labour. It is common for the kingdom’s criminals to be offered shorter sentences served in Caladria – at least, those whose crimes are insufficient to propel them immediately to a short rope from a high gallows. These sentences always involve serving on massive work gangs to hew, strip and drag trees to supply the city’s sawmills.
Nothing of this makes sense to Thae. If Hugo’s plan was to leave via the West Gate, that one is stuffed with guards. Besides, the half-elf has a more personal objection to the western gate. Every week or so, Thae’s temple would be called to the stockade, or worse: to the woods beyond. Sure, if they could survive the sentence and they worked well, a convict could return to their life, debt to society paid with some money in their pocket to boot. An image looms large in Thae’s mind. Of a screaming man, legs pinned – pulped – under a fallen tree. Thae was called there for two reasons: the divine healing, while insufficient to save the man’s legs, was enough to preserve his life. And Thae’s martial training, slim but imposing armoured frame and striking – ha! – warhammer were equally important in case the soon-to-be amputee’s workmates lashed out. The half-elf twitches back to the present, catches Hugo muttering.
“It LOOKS empty, but it FEELS like someone’s in there. Can’t be certain, but...”
Hugo has not shared much, but even to a child of the temple, the term “safehouse” resonates. Thae leans to the halfling, asks a question; considers the response, then proposes a plan. Hugo rewards the idea with an open, admiring grin and a chuckle. Perfect.
-x-
A half-minute later, Hugo is stifling his laughter. It couldn’t have worked better. He watches a couple of heavy figures, having exited the house in sleepy panic, running off into the dark. The cleric bowed head in a short prayer, summoning a radiant light from a dark sky onto a small bush out front of the house. It lasted an instant, but looked like fire, and certainly to the occupants of the house must have looked like the scariest of all foes: THE AUTHORITIES.
After another minute and no further issue from the house, nor any nosey or insomniac neighbours, Hugo urges Thae to follow him. He walks out into the street, keeping a careful eye on the houses, ambles towards their target. He walks between the safehouse and its neighbour as though they belong there, then pulls Thae around the corner to the back of the house. Hugo mimes ‘quiet’ and ‘stay here’, before looking around them. The house’s tiny garden backs onto the high stone city wall, so they are in deep shadow. When he sees Thae’s silent knod, Hugo grins, then swarms up the wall of the house to the tiny balcony 10 feet above. He is thankful for the cleric’s intervention; he’d have managed this without the healing; but not without pain, and therefore not silently.
He stands on the balcony and listens. The house seems quiet; but Hugo’s impressed. Thae might suck at sneaking but is AMAZING at standing still. Must be all those nights guarding the temple.
This is usually the only untrapped ingress to the safehouse, but anyone who uses – who even knows about – this place is likely to be pretty paranoid, so Hugo spends some time checking for wires, the gleam of broken glass on the floor inside, hell – even squinting into the dark room beyond for the shape of a crossbow. He misses his tools at a time like this, only having a small pick and lever entangled in his hair. He keeps it voluminous both for style and for this. As satisfied as he can be, Hugo pushes the casement window partially open. Not so far that the sharp squeak he had engineered would catch. He’s proud of that; anyone bulkier than a slim(-ish, he grimaces, sucks in his stomach) halfling would alert a light sleeper of their presence.
He pads through the house with a rising sense of frustration. The place smells of unwashed bodies and spoiled food. There are dirty plates scattered around the place, even a mould-filled mug in the kitchen. He establishes two things: the safehouse is, indeed, empty; and that the figures vanishing after Thae’s divine fire were a pair of X’s fucking thugs. Hugo catches himself thinking that they’d have hell to pay when he raised a stink about…their stink. His stomach begins to knot at the thought, vomit rising in his gorge, but then Hugo leaps, cannonballing his small body into the crossbow aimed at the rear door of the house.
Which now swings open. Hugo hears another tailored creak, and the tiny sound of a thin, high-tension wire catching on the half-elf’s boot. Thae’s framed in the doorway, warhammer raised for combat, a look of absolute bafflement. Hugo lands, rolls, comes up furious “Gods, THAE, what the hell are you doing?” It comes out more harshly than he intended, the outburst partially fuelled by Hugo’s fear for his…friend? – put that away for later – but mostly that the tripwire’s triggering caused no response from an unloaded crossbow. Those STUPID BASTARDS.
Thae looks genuinely confused at the outburst “I thought you were being strangled.” The half-elf’s eyes go to the crossbow “Glad I was not hit by that nothing, though.” Hugo squashes a chuckle into a half-cough, and Thae, fully grinning now, rejoins “Yes, a strangulation noise like that.” Hugo shakes his head, shoots back “Get yourself untangled from that wire, and close the door. Please, please be careful in here.”
Thae doesn’t react to the odour of the house (Hugo supposes sickrooms smell worse) but looks impressed when the halfling inserts his slim lever between two unremarkable boards and a small square of floor swings up to reveal a shaft to the basement. Hugo’s certain that the two idiots didn’t realise there was a basement – he didn’t even share that information with X, never mind to where it adjoins.
He isn’t prepared for a barrage of emotions down here. There’s barely enough standing room for him and Thae, and it was pitch black until Hugo located the tinderbox (now pocketed, there’s one resource) and lit the stub of candle stationed on a tiny shelf beside the ladder. Another shaft, iron rungs hammered into the stone beneath Caladria to form a ladder, extends into the dark. Hugo touches Thae’s hand, the half-elf blinking in the flare of the candlelight, points at the hole.
Then Hugo jumps over the shaft, heading for a shallow alcove in the opposite wall. Under his breath, he’s muttering “fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck” as he hunts through the small pile of dark items there. Thae has become a statue again, eyes following the halfling.
Hugo leaps back across, raising a scrap of parchment up to the candlelight. Reading the few words written there, tears spring into his eyes, and he sighs a name: “Berin.” He circles back to the alcove, begins pulling on a set of dark grey leather armour. He’s thankful that his tall friend gives him space as he struggles not to cry. A set of armour, his precious lute, and a small bag of emeralds gifted from a dead man – boy really. He almost weeps; knows these emeralds were Berin’s take from his first job with Hugo’s clique. Berin’s alive! And succinct as ever in his note: “Things turning bad. Hope you got out.”
