Side RP: Chaos in Hara

The old woman fixes Uelten with a stern eye. "Yer not from ‘round here, that much I can see and hear," she says flatly. "So let me give y’a bit of advice."

She takes a careful look around the street. "Yer not goin’a have much of a life askin’ around about the activities o’ the guard. And that’s all I’m goin’a say."

Taking a few more swipes with her broom about the front of her door, she turns around and goes back into her house.

---

As Coreene studies the bootprint, she realizes that she’s seen these boots before, on the feet of the longer-serving city guardsmen. In fact, they’re fairly nice boots. Probably an officer’s. And as she continues to look around, she realizes that there are other prints around. There were at least four or five people here last night. Seems like an awful lot of effort to kidnap one woman from the poorest part of town.

Minama stares at Coreene with wide, almost worshipful, eyes. "You are? Oh, thank you, Mistress Coreene," she says, impulsively rushing forward to wrap Coreene in a tight hug.

When she lets go finally, she scrubs her watering eyes with the back of a dirty hand. "I can go next door and stay with old Katya. I do that sometimes. She's teaching me letters!" Minama says enthusiastically. She turns to the bedroom and waves her fingers. From under a pile of blankets, a thin beat-up book, its pages starting to fall out of the twine binding, rises and floats toward Minama's hand.

The girl apparently has some arcane talent.

"Mama says I'm not supposed to do that," says Minama as she clutches the book to her chest with both hands. "She says it's dangerous, but I don't see why. I can't make anything move very fast, so it's not like I'm going to hurt anyone with a flying book."

She grins, thinking her little jest to be pretty funny. "Besides, mama does it sometimes too. When she thinks I'm not looking, but I see her start the cook fire with her fingers."

Minama listens, and grows more serious as Coreene's admonition sinks in. "All right. I'll be more careful," she says in a small voice. "All I need is my book. I'll go now."

She darts out the door and heads to the old woman's house next door.

It is likely no surprise that the tracks do not lead toward any known outpost of the city guard. Instead, they go deeper into the run-down district Minama's home occupies. After following the tracks for a while, Coreene is able to determine that there were five individuals in this particular group: two wear the boots of the city guard, two wear different boots and one wears simple shoes of a similar fashion to Minama's -- probably the mother. Of the two that wear different boots, one of the individuals is clearly both larger and significantly heavier than the other, who seems more of a normal size.

When Coreene points out her findings to Uelten, he takes a closer look at the unknown bootprints. Upon a bit closer examination, he notes that the smaller of the bootprints is of a relatively well-known Rhamian make, and someone with some money and resources to be able to still get them, given difficulties in trade.

Following the tracks to their conclusion, they end outside a dilapidated warehouse in a nearly forgotten area of the city near the river. The buildings nearby are almost completely unoccupied and in a sad state of disrepair. The early spring day is getting on toward evening, and a chill fog is beginning to roll in off the water.

Coreene and Uelten sneak around the side of the warehouse and move toward a window. As they sneak along, they can hear the sound of conversation inside, though the words are too muffled to make out. There’s a pile of old crates near a window that’s just above head height, but climbing the crates ought to give a good look through the window.

As an alternative, there appears to be a wall board falling off near the corner of the building. Careful effort might be able to pry it loose without making too much sound, allowing access to the interior of the building and what might be going on inside.