Record of Lodoss War Fansite.

Archives: Failed Storyline: Adventures of Granite and Ooke

Chapter 3: Recovering Ooke’s Lost Belongings

    As the trio walked out of the gates, Minsk turned to the dwarves. “I still think the jeweler or money changer closest to the crime would be our best bet right off the bat. So that’s where I’ll lead us. If either of you see one of the suspects, let me know right away so that I can have one of these three.” Minsk scratched the top of Dusk’s head, “Get on his scent immediately. If you recognize them, there’s a good chance they’ll recognize you, especially with you’re unique appearance.”

    Minsk had to make sure that he slowed his normally brusque walking pace, so that he didn’t get to far away from the stockier dwarves. His long legs would cover much more ground than their short ones.

    As for his three mutts, it was good that hey were so well trained. None of them was leashed or restricted in their movement in any way. Dusk trotted right along side of the dark skinned ranger/mercenary, and Midnight and Twilight roamed freely sniffing here and there as dogs do, but without every leaving line of sight to their master.

    Ooke scoffed at the comment about his unique appearance. He was a dwarf and as so enjoyed his unique appearance. “Eh, I’ll let you know when I see them, just keep your eye on the direction I hurl my hammer,” Ooke said with a dirty grin. He made sure to keep a step or two behind Granite, for he enjoyed the view from there better.

    Granite led the way, taking Minsk back to the alley Ooke was mugged in. “Here we are,” she announced, stopping in front of the alley. “This is where it happened, right Ooke?”

    Ooke blushed a bit, then agreed. “Yeah, this is the place.” He looked away to avoid eye contact with the two.

    Minsk began to look around the alley, perhaps for some clue as to who the attackers were. He checked the sand there to see if he could get an impression of footprints. As he did so, he looked over to Ooke’s feet to see what kind of footwear the dwarf was wearing to remove that set of prints. Minsk’s three animal companions followed their Master into the alley in an almost imitation of Minsk’s own actions. As he knelt to look at the ground they began to sniff in the same area. The quartet had obviously done this before.

    Standing up, Minsk looked to Ooke. “Which way did they head after the attack? I can’t get much on the partial footprints, they’ve been all muddled up from the action.”

    Ooke raised the skin where one of his eyebrows would be. “Are you completely daft? They ran out the alley and into the crowd. After that I couldn’t tell left from right,” Ooke said with great sarcasm.

    Dramatically, Minsk looked down one end of the alley out into the street, and then out the other end of the alley into the street. The thieves could have gone either way. “It would be most helpful to know which direction they fled, that way the dogs can track them.

    “If they went through the alley that way,” Minsk pointed out one direction, “the jeweler would be more likely as it is headed towards the better part of town. And if they went the opposite direction, they would be headed to the worse part of town and a money changer, or loan shark of ill repute, would be more likely.

    “If we were on a deserted island, it would be simple enough to figure out whose tracks are whose. There would only be your tracks and the attackers. But here in the city, there are many people’s tracks to sort through.” Minsk felt that he had now explained his question more completely so that the dwarf would understand.

    Ooke thought for a second remembering the event in scattered bits. “They ran that way, into slum,” he said while twitching, having to recollect the situation only fueled his anger. He then noticed the voice in his head had been at rest for awhile and he began to wonder why, but only for a brief second, there would more time to ponder the reasoning behind it when they finished the task at hand.

    Taking Ooke’s direction, Minsk began to search the alley in the direction that the thieves had run. Of course, that end of the alley would have to have less debris to leave footprints in wouldn’t it. Despite his intensive search and having the dogs’ enhanced sense of smell, the traffic through this alley was just too overwhelming. There would be no way to determine which clues were the correct ones. They worked their way down the alley towards the street end, but still didn’t find anything definitive.

    Finally, Minsk gave up his search. “Hmph, we’ll have to go with the questioning route. It seems others have been rooting around here, most likely searching for other things you may have dropped in the scuffle.

    “The money changer in this direction would have taken the gems in exchange for smaller bits of money, as it would be harder to unload a gem. There is a good chance that he’s at least seen them. The bandits probably went to him to get a middle ground value on them, if not to exchange them directly,” Minsk explained. “I’ve dealt with him before, he’s a petty man and easily intimidated. But that may work against us as he’ll be on his defensive.

    “The loan shark, on the other hand, is a ruthless brute with even more brutish ‘employees.’” Minsk hoped that this warning would be enough to make the dwarves wary. “He’s the one we would have to buy them back from, at a cost way more than what the gems are valued at.”

    Ooke rolled his eyes, it was clear that Minsk hadn’t dealt much with dwarves; they didn’t back down, even less so when was it cause for a good fight. “So we’ll check out the loan shark first, right!?” Ooke said with a smile and picked up his hammer, giving it a kiss.

    “We’ll have to do them both eventually I’m guessing.” Minsk said with a smile as he watched the tattooed dwarf kiss his war hammer. “We are sure to be outnumbered and on their turf, so you may want to rethink the brute force method of communication. But it’s your choice, I’ll back you.”

    Beating the snot out of these guys was actually a pretty good method of getting information, if you could do it. They respected force, the moment you showed weakness, you became prey for them. Of course, that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t repay the favour at some time in the future, say when you are walking late at night and not expecting it. “You may want to make sure that they have your gems before crackin’ their heads though,” Minsk added. “No sense in making enemies unnecessarily.”

    Ooke smiled. “I guess we could start with a softer touch, but I may change my mind quickly,” he said, knowing the ever looming truth behind Minsk’s words. “So Minsk, lead the way. Take us to this loan shark and let’s start digging for information,” he said eagerly.

* * *

    The way from the alley to the bar/brothel where the loan shark operated his business out of was not all that distant. The outside of the place was kept up well enough, if one ignored the guy passed out in the puddle of urine just off to the side. To the man’s own poor luck, he wasn’t dead and moaned a little at their passing when one of the dogs moved over to sniff in his area.

    It was a two story building with a balcony in the front, for the women who ‘worked’ there to advertise when they were open for business. The balcony was currently empty, but Minsk saw the curtains of one of the windows flutter as if someone had been watching through it.

    “We’re going to be expected,” Minsk said to his two companions as they walked up to the front door; a door which opened just as Minsk was about to knock.

    Standing on the other side was another dwarf, this one with a hugely bulbous red nose, missing an eye, and his mustache shaved, but keeping a graying beard. The dwarf had been heavily muscled at one time, but now due to an easy life and to much drink had begun to replace that muscle with fat.

    “We’re closed!” the dwarf bellowed, but remained standing in the open doorway. Minsk understood the unstated message left by the open door as; ‘We’re closed, but if you have some lucrative business. Perhaps we can open.’

    “We’re here to see Jaek, about recovering some of this dwarf’s property,” Minsk told the door guard.

    “Wait here. I’ll see if he wants any visitors,” the craggy dwarf answered and slammed the door.

    Ooke looked over to the others. “Bah wait, wait, wait...” he commented and rolled his eyes. Rubbing his beard, he began to think to himself.

    “For a person that can live hundreds of years, you don’t have very much patience,” Minsk teased Ooke good-naturedly.

    “Just because you can live for many years, doesn’t mean you will,” Ooke said with the same tone that Minsk gave him, then cracked a smile.

    “True enough,” Minsk replied. “After all, even humans must seem to live forever in the eyes of a dog.”

    The sound of movement and of men talking could be heard muffled through the door, not with enough clarity to decipher what was being said or to tell the number of persons moving about, but there was some activity inside. At least they weren’t just being left to stand here outside.

    Ooke noticed Granite had been fairly quite and wondered if she was alright. He then smiled at her. “I’ll give them ’til the count of ten, then we do this my way,” he said with a wink.

    Granite had followed along quietly while Minsk and Ooke handled the business at hand. She had nothing to add; Minsk knew where he was going and it was Ooke’s property that was missing. All in all, she was actually somewhat bored. She intended to leave Raiden today, but then she got caught up in all this—not that she would abandon Ooke to seek her own fortunes, but this was not how the day was supposed to play out.

    When Ooke finally acknowledged her, she cracked a grin at his comment. She was on the verge of cracking some heads as well if they didn’t get anywhere with this.

    They didn’t have to wait very long for an answer, just long enough to make them know that they were being made to wait. The door opened back up, and the same scarred dwarf stood there once again. “You’ve got a meetin’, but he’s a busy man, so don’t stay too long.” The dwarf stepped back out of the way, allowing room for them to enter.

    Minsk looked to his animal companions, who were eagerly awaiting their chance to go into the building. Like most dogs, they didn’t care whose house it was, but the chance to explore the scents of some place new were hard to resist.

    “Stay!” Minsk commanded to the three wolf/dogs and the three of them sat down on the porch of the establishment. The dark-skinned mercenary was confident that the dogs would do as told, until hunger or an outside force caused them to stray from their post. He then stepped inside of the smoky inn. Ooke followed and snuffed at the other dwarf for making him wait. Granite followed Ooke in, coming in last. The dwarven woman scrunched up her nose at the place; it was not the sort of surroundings she liked to be in.

    The smell of tobacco smoke assaulted their nostrils immediately upon entering the establishment. Tobacco smoke and cheap perfume, enough perfume to try to cover the smell of the smoke. There was very little light on the inside of the building, as most of the shutters were closed. It seemed that the inhabitants liked it that way. The size of the bar area was of decent size, perhaps able to sit thirty or so without being overly crowded. There was a large stone fireplace on the right wall, that was currently unlit. Along the whole back wall was a bar of finely polished mahogany. There were no stools along the bar, and the patrons would be expected to stand next to it. For those too inebriated to stand, there were several round tables with sturdy chairs around them, and along the left wall, opposite the fireplace, there were booths with high backed seats. This of course would be an area for those who wished to do business of a more private nature.

    Four men were within the bar, at least four were visible. There was a good chance that more could easily be summoned from the back rooms or upstairs. The craggy dwarf, a human bartender (with a hugely rotund beer belly) cleaning the bar top, a sly looking skinny human fidgeting neat the last man, and a man that the group could figure was Jaek.

    Jaek was considered a very handsome man, who had mid-back length wavy blonde hair and and a neatly trimmed beard. His clothing was of dark colors and finely made. He sat near the bar at a table with only the chair he sat in, facing the trio as they walked in. “So I hear you have business with me? Something about stolen property. Why on Forcelia would you think that I would know anything about stolen property?”

    “I’ll cut to the chase. Either you know where I can find my goods or who can tell me where I can find them. I don’t care which one it is but the faster I find out the less of a mess I’ll leave behind,” Ooke said, his patience was wearing thin. “I’ve lost a series of gems and some other belongings, and I mean to find them, come blood or high tide.” He pressed on tell the man what had happen and what the thieves looked like. “Anything? Come now, I have the time to waste.”

—-End—-

« Previous Chapter

Chapter List