Sjal
Approved Character
Fall 20, 124
Sjal walked along a pier in the port city of Meniscus with a skip in her step. She'd run away from her home country and had followed the coast, hoping that she would find something, anything that resembled a town. She flew and teleported every so often as far as she could see until she finally saw some towns in the distance. She feared that they might also be under the aeld'norai's control so she kept going until she came upon a particularly large town.
She flew down low enough to see that the ship didn't have a single aeld'norai on there. She followed it to the port and to her surprise she'd not only found people, but an entire bustling town outside of the forest's influence. The society still seemed to still be ruled by aelves at face value, but these ones were different. Above humans, but not so much so that they were viewed as gods.
The primary goal she had was to stay out of trouble. She was still a little jumpy, feeling like this was all a dream and at any moment she might be woken up to find herself in her father's dungeon. Or someone from her past might show up and kidnap her. The one thing she had at her disposal was her pocket dimension which she could always escape to. None of that helped her escape the creepy creatures that demanded that she deliver bodies. She would have to deliver some soon or else she was sure there would be consequences. She hated that her first thought upon finding civilization was that she would get the haemora off her back for a while.
In this land it looked like everyone belonged to a clan. Sjal rarely talked to anyone, just when she needed some money. She didn't beg… usually she advertised that she could make portals and that was enough to get change for some food and shelter. By the looks she advertised her abilities, she figured out that portal mages were in high demand. The downside was that she hadn't been to any of the other arcanis areas so her usefulness was limited. She was still able to help move things around within the port town, however. This usually consisted of helping people unload things off their ships or vice versa.
It seemed like the point of this town was to get goods from the sea and send them inland to where the larger settlements were. She almost didn't believe that there were towns bigger than this one, but people described entire cities and kingdoms. At times she felt like she was in a fairy tale. She ended up trading a couple of portal casts in exchange for some maps marked with the major landmarks and cities.
Sjal looked at the maps as she took a seat on one of the empty docks. She knew the general layout of aleheim – it matched maps she'd seen in the past. It was a sizable chunk of the lower part of the world map portion. She thought she could point out the general location of the firelands on there, as well as the basin. She also used her finger to trace the path she must have taken to get to her current location. She'd travelled for weeks and had made surprisingly good time.
She didn't really have a destination in mind yet, but she figured that she would go as far as the coast would let her go. She didn't feel completely safe here, but the country marked as Jian looked far enough away. She hoped it would be far enough away. She decided that if Jian didn't work out she could always go west towards one of the other countries.
"So much travelling…. At least now I can slow down and take a breather…" She yawned. She got to her feet then lifted into the air. "No, I need to earn some money, enough to make sure I'll have some at the next town. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to trade… and I don't want to end up being marked a criminal in these foreign lands."
To her surprise, laws were mostly the same. Don't do shitty things and shitty things tended not to happen to you. Stealing was shitty, and while she thought she would make a kickass thief… she didn't feel like doing anything bad to these people. The culture here didn't seem to revolve around violence and she hadn't seen any advertisements asking for mercenaries. Sailors, yes, but she wasn't interested in being on a boat.
A nagging at the back of her head told her, "you'll have to kill eventually… you owe those things bodies…" She closed her eyes and groaned. But the voice was right, she needed to find some bodies.
"Okay, I'll stick around just for a while… see if there's a job and if there's an opportunity to get some easy bodies. Then, I'll be on my way." She had noticed that the more she delivered bodies to her interplanar bullies, the more her relationships with others seemed to deteriorate. She felt bad knowing that she might end up sacrificing any one of these kind people if she was forced to.
Sjal ended up taking on an odd job. There was someone who was vandalizing property and she was aptly equipped to finding troublemakers due to her ability to fly and get around quickly. Within an hour she found a man defacing the side of a storage shed with his name. Sjal shook her head in disappointment. The guy was at least twenty and he was this hard to find? Something about this told Sjal that the guy should have tried a little harder.
She flew down to his level and shouted, "what's the big idea? You're coming with me right now!"
"Oohhh, let's see you make me come with you," he laughed and continued marking his name. Sjal looked over to where she'd seen some people walking not too far away. Dared she simply kill this man? No, they'd been headed in this direction too. Maybe she wasn't the only one here to get this guy.
"Take this!" she thought in her head while blinking behind him and hitting him in the back with an elbow that pushed against his spine. The effect was delayed. It took a while for the man to realize what was happening. His face twisted as he thought she was trying to trick him somehow. He didn't consider that she was hurting him quite badly. Sjal was two strikes in when he realized that she had somehow ended up behind him.
"What are you doing?" but Sjal didn't stop. She kept blinking around and hitting him until he couldn't move anymore.
"Good. Are we going? Would be a shame if others caught up and wanted to join in on the fun." She winked at him. "I guess I have to pull you if you can't walk anymore." Sjal picked up his leg and pulled with all her might. She was so small that it ought to have been a big hassle but she knew the fireman carry and natare. Sjal propelled herself upwards thanks to the support given to her by natare and focused her balance while flying.
She landed roughly at the entrance to a large bustling building. She handed off the hoodlum to the authorities and overheard a conversation.
"You hear what happened?"
"Oh, the kid? Yeah, I hear he witnessed the death of both his parents."
"Sounds like it was arson, but there were weapons on the scene."
"What's scary is that it was just down the street. I hope this neighborhood doesn't go to shit."
Sjal left the office, a little disturbed by what she'd heard. As for the child, Sjal did some more digging and learned that he had been placed in a hospital for psychological treatment. He had no other family in the area, so no one other than a couple guards had stayed with him to make sure nothing else happened to him. She suspected that the trauma of the event had been aggravated by loneliness. Nothing could replace what he needed right now.
As she returned to the crime scene, she noted the authorities' observations. The place had been littered with weapons and traces of fire. Sjal's first thought was that assassins were involved… but what kind of third rate assassin would be this sloppy? "If I can find these killers, I can sacrifice them," she thought. She knew that she had to be careful though.
There was one thing the authorities had missed, however. The fact that the assassins had left behind the weapons suggested a great many things. For one thing, they had the means to pay for and waste such equipment. A kunai once thrown could be recovered and reused, as well as a great many other weapons and projectiles that she had made a list of. In this way, she deduced that the murderers were either wealthy or financed or mages. In any case, if these weapons did not obviously come from magic, she could try to find the buyer through other suppliers.
If they did come from magic, it meant that an accomplice was just as dangerous. Likewise, this accomplice could be the origin of the training the killers had received. The authorities had also downplayed just how bad the damage on the inside of the building was. For two people, whose level of training she didn't know, they had managed to cause quite a bit of damage. Their goal seemed to not only to kill but also to sow fear.
Someone who wanted to silence a witness would kill him in his sleep with the fewest witnesses, the least noise... Here, half the house showed burn marks, and the entire neighborhood might be in danger. It was like posting a sign on the door saying, "We can do this, so don't poke your nose into our business!" She couldn't help but notice the expression of excessive pride in their actions.
She looked up at the sun. It was still early in the morning - too early for her to go to the hospital to see the kid. If he had ever managed to sleep, there was no way she was waking him up. Every minute he spent regaining his strength must have been very important to him. She then decided to turn to the some witnesses. There was a lot of missing information she needed from them. She would take the rest of her morning to question people and merchants who might have been up when all this happened. If the authorities would cooperate easily with her, it would certainly not be the same for the merchants who turned their noses at her accent. She knew from the start that it would be difficult.
For the poor child, she would visit him in the early afternoon. She would probably bring something to comfort him… sweets would work, without a doubt, maybe something else depending on what she could find out. The biggest victory for her would be to make him talk. At the very least he could talk about the scene and the assault. That could help her with progressing the investigation she was putting together.
She hoped to have the name of at least one of the killers before the end of the day, or at the very least a general location to spy on… anything that would lead her to these killers. She couldn't help but wonder what would happen if none of these things led to any leads. In that case, she might go and provoke these killers. She was sure that would work because she was sure they would respond. Proud as they were to have destroyed the house in which they had committed their double homicide, they would not fail to respond if she insulted them… but she was still wary about becoming a criminal herself.
It was around an hour later when Sjal walked back through the 'police' building. It was a small building, only two floors but it was fairly busy. On the ground floor, she entered through the reception area. A relatively small room compared to the number of people present. In front of the counter, half a dozen people were queuing for complaints and various information. A bench had been made available to her left, right at the foot of a large window. Bathed in sunlight, she had no doubt that the east-facing orientation was favorable. Without it, the sun would have hit during afternoon too, transforming the police station into an oven. On her right, a door reserved for staff probably led to the offices.
As she entered, she expected people to pay attention to her, but she was just another face in the crowd of complainers. Sjal waited patiently for her turn and eventually someone came to meet her. A man of about thirty, well-built, with broad shoulders, hands so large that hers seemed to be those of a child. He was more than a head taller than her. His skin was dark, he must have had a mixed complexion reinforced by long exposure to the desert sun. His face had a surprised expression, his thick brown eyebrows were raised above his brown eyes. He had very short hair, almost shaved, and a three-day beard.
"Can I do something for you, ma'am? You can call me Ishida."
He held out a firm hand to her, which she shook as she replied, "Hi, I was intrigued by a case I overheard… about the child who's home was attacked not too far from here. I am a mage and thought I could be of some assistance."
"Interested? For what purpose? This is a sensitive matter, after all."
"I thought I might be able to help catch the killers and had some questions," Sjal explained.
The man ran a hand through his hair and sighed, "listen kid, I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but this is something that you should just leave to us. But I can tell you're not from around here and if you really think you can help then I'll see what I can do. Come with me."
She followed Ishida through the hallway to a small office. Piles of files were fighting not to fall to the floor on the various overloaded shelves. He made a place for her on a wooden chair previously covered in paperwork and invited her to sit down. As she took a seat, she took out a piece of paper on which she intended to write down the answers to the questions she had.
"Can you tell me a few words about what happened? I have nothing more than rumors I've overheard."
Breaking his silence, the man explained, "It was near midnight, and I was on guard myself. Fortunately, the fire didn't cause widespread damage. When we arrived, there was no trace of the criminals."
"You're talking about criminals in the plural. What makes you think that?"
"Well... The quantity of weapons... It's impossible to carry so many alone. Did you see how many there were? Here's a register where we listed them."
She grabbed the said register that he handed her. "If it was a single killer then they must have used magic. We have mystics, but they're busy with other cases right now and they haven't been able to confirm anything yet."
Trying not to let her feelings show, she moved on to the next subject. "Could you tell me more about the victims? Their profession, etc."
Ishida said, "yes, of course. The couple was about forty-five years old, with only one child to support. Umi was the man's name and he was a deliveryman for a trading company based a city to the north. The woman, Gama, worked in cosmetics. I do not believe they had any criminal history..."
"A trading company? Which one?"
"I don't know... Um, let me check..."
He got up and headed outside the office. Sjal followed him at a respectable distance, close enough to show her impatience, far enough all the same to not slow him down because of the stress. He asked one of his colleagues for a file, and she quickly flipped through it, knowing how his papers were organized. She pointed to the information they were looking for, and he was able to give her the answer.
"The company is called Kya Smitheries. Do you think that's where the weapons used for the assassination could have come from there?"
It was a significant probability, but nothing more than a hypothesis. Sjal let herself believe that the victims could have seen something that required him to be silenced permanently. As for his wife, she suspected that, during her husband's murder, she had been a witness to be made to disappear... However, she didn't understand at all why the boy had been left alive. It was a bit of a big mistake for people that supposedly were good people.
"Thank you for your time, I think this is enough to get me pointed in the right direction," Sjal said.
"No problem, good luck. Remember that I'm not deputizing you, so don't do anything that would get you in trouble."
Sjal grinned and nodded, "of course I won't."
It seemed that Sjal had spent the entire morning at the station discussing the family and the circumstances of their assassination. This had allowed her to see the story much more clearly, and as the minutes passed, their first lead had seemed plausible despite the fact that the child had survived.
Ishida had insisted on accompanying her to Kya Textile's business location because he agreed that it would be a good idea, and Sjal had not been able to change his mind. He was courteous, capable, and willing. Why would she have said no? He did not bother her, and she could use his stature to open doors and give insight that she wouldn't otherwise have.
Math:
many apprentice level free teleport casts
5 journeyman portal casts in exchange for some basic goods / services over the course of a few days
3 - .55 = 2.45
