[Moon] Caught In the Middle

The city is full of color, voices of people murmuring, discussing, shouting, in fact outright living when Rauka was away from all those trouble. Duty awaits. She was in the middle of another standard pen-testing, already got in. Although the job was dull, the location was a bit unusual this time. Usually she was tasked with breaking into official places to ensure their security. There were some out of the ordinary jobs, of course but this one seemed particularly odd as it was a regular house. Nothing fancy, nothing official, just (apparently) the residence of someone. It's a two floor building, Rauka standing in the first. Although a bit disorganized, nothing unusual catches Rauka's eye.

As you go upstairs, the stench of something horrific fills your nose and lungs. Only your dwarven constitution prevents you from coughing or outright puking. The upstair room is smaller than the entrance with only an uncomfortable looking bed with a single table. In the middle of the room lies a young dwarven man. It's impossible to understand if the body has been there for quite some time or just that the weather is so hot that it stinks. When you get closer, you notice a familiar necklace. This man belonged to Clan Orothiar, maybe the biggest rival of Clan Kundarak. The blood on the body is dry and it stained the wooden floor.

The shield you were talking to listens to you calmly, giving her attention to you fully. When you finish she turns to her partner and says "See that, Planko? The citizens of this city are good." As she approaches the house, her partner keeps an eye on you to make sure you don't run away. The shield inspects the house and its surroundings. Smells the air, then grimaces. She comes back and thanks you for informing them. Then she says to Planko "Little girl is right. Something stinks there. Let's see if we can identify who lives there. We can't just barge into the place but things will be a lot easier if we can get a clearance." They now completely lost interest in you, discussing how should they approach this issue as they continue patrolling.

"Oh, so you say we were pen-tested ouselves? You know this place as much as I do, let's check here to see if anything is misplaced or are there any signs of intrusion."

As she finishes her words you start to investigate the place. The room you're in right now is the head office, with a door connecting it to outside and a few windows on the sides. There is a big table behind which Talaraka was sitting and a big shelve containing lots of documents and books. You trace your own steps, approach the situation like you would if you were to intrude here. First you check the instruction paper. At first glance it's exactly how it should be with the handwriting and stuff but when you look a bit closer you realize it's a bit too perfect. You reach one of the shelves to compare this instruction with previous ones. That's when you realize one of the papers seems off. You always fold it exactly twice with complete overlap but this one has some additional wrinkles and folding signs you're not used to. When you compare this odd one with your cuurrent instruction you realize every word in these papers exactly match with all the little details one puts into writing. People are usually not that perfect when it comes to handwriting, you can observe lots of different styles on one person's writings. You and Matron discuss this.

"Well, it's official then. Let's keep a low profile on this. You alerted the guards, which means they've already found the body and even those guards can find your red coin lying there. Once this gets out, other clans will have heard of this and it won't be late until they figure out it was us that sent you there. First things first. Do you have any acquintance from Clan Orothiar? Someone who doesn't care much about clan rivalries? It'd be nice to have someone our back should they accuse us of anything. I'll contact my superiors in the mean time to get to the bottom of this. You have any other ideas on how should we proceed?"

With a short walk you arrive at the restaurant. As always it is booming with people talking, plates being put together, clanking voices all over. Waiters are shouting for orders, people laughing or discussing with each other. You know this place very well, so there is always a spot for you and your companion. You are now sitting at a tiny table in the corner, a bit away from the nearest table.

Ae you arrive at the head office, you notice a gnome woman entering the building just before you. When you enter you find Talaraka talking with her.

"What is the meaning of this?" the woman asks angrily. She was pointing to a red coin, left to the places you pen-test by you. You recognize the woman as the local sheriff Ibabnin. She's a tough but trustworthy woman whom Kundaraks, especially Talaraka has a good history with. "Would you care to explain why was this thing lying around in a friggin murder case, eh?"

Talaraka, just when she opens her mouth sees you entering the room. "Good day to you too, Ibabnin. As my good friend Rauka can also explain, there has been an attempt to fraud us into this murder. It was just a regular pen-test, just that we have been infiltrated and the mission was given to Rauka from a false source."

"So you're tellin' me our friggin' security specialists have been infiltrated? What's next? Shields will start murdering people, eh?" She was obviously angry but she takes a deep breath, collecting her thoughts. "Listen. I believe I have taken this coin without anybody seeing. Apparently some girl has reported a smell-" She stops in thhe middle of the talk, slowly turning his head to Rauka. "I'm an idiot. Of course! Whatever. Guards were there pretty quick so I don't think anybody else were able to enter the building but one can never know in this city. The dead body belonged to one Hakhur of Clan Orothiar. Apparently he was the illegal child of the Orothiar council member Tutak. Well, nobody has confirmed anything but we got a letter from the man's body. It talks about a local gang threatening him to reveal his true identity. If anybody finds this letter, check out the Ratabands was his exact words, I guess. We haven't got the faintest idea what the hell is a Rataband."

As she says this word, Rauka's mind starts shouting danger! In your area of work, one must accustome oneself to the art of misdirection and hidden messages. Security systems usually contain false sources that lead to nowhere or alerts the owners should you temper with them. Something about that word bothers you. After a while you remember that it is an anagram of a word once was very popular in coded letters, both to indicate there is more to that text and serve as a password. If anything, you are almost sure that this letter found in the man's corpse contains more information than these guards were able to extract from it.

You came back and Ibabnin takes you stroll through the city after a mysterious look to your kit. Now the night has finally fallen and you can't decide if the city is more lively during the day or night. It is like a carnival around here with all the lights and people walking, talking. After almost twenty minutes of walking you arrive at a fancy building. It's one of the oldest structures in the city and it's the Shields' main office. The city administration has reserved this beautiful, strong building for the Shields' to pay them their respect. Just when you were about to enter the building, Rauka feels a light touch in his belly. When she turns around she notices a burgler a few feet ahead of her with her kit. The burgler has started running towards the direction both of you just came.

Burglar has long legs to quickly get away from you, in a matter of ten seconds creating almost thirty-thirty five feets of distance between you and him but as he runs towards people, pushing some away, trying to find a way to lose himself he does not look where he steps. Desperately trying to move out of the puddle's way, he fails and steps on it only to lose his balance and knock on the floor. He shouts with agony but tries to stand up and continue running.

Alright, you move your body accordingly, your voice is now like a lullaby, focused on only the burglar. Your voice moves like linear, conical wave, instantly putting the struggling burglar to sleep. In the mean time a few innocent bystanders are affected by your spell as well, falling to the ground. You instantly run towards the thief, restraining (you can describe how you do that in your post) him. As you were about to wake the bystanders you notice two Shields approaching your way. One of them is a tall, broad shouldered human woman, almost 1.9 meters. The other is an average size half-elf male with short silver hair and little, green eyes. "What’s going on here?" the woman asks with a firm, confident voice.

When you make your case clear the two Shields listen to you carefully. You understand that they believe in you. Even if they did not seeing that burglar's appearance would probably convince them. They thank you for your cooperation and take the sleeping burglar away.

As you wake the citizens up they show signs of confusion. One minute they were walking in the street, minding their own business and the other they are unconscious. They all were about to get mad at you but when you explain the situation clearly they understand. Two of them accept your gold but the third one rejects it. "Stoppin' crime, eh? No need for money! Next time yous can even hit me!" he says with a thick accent, laughing to his own comment as he wanders off.

In the mean time, when you turn back to meet Ibabnin you find her crossing her arms, watching the scee as it unfolds. "What a city, eh? You handled that pretty well. You ever thought of a carreer in Shields?" she asks.

Captain Cenemoy greets you with his overly enthusiastic attitude. "BOY ARE WE POPULAR TODAY! A man cannot just leave work here, can he? Oh, hello Ibabnin." he says, giving a quick and little suspicious look to the sheriff. You get the feeling that these two have a history beyond work-related relations.

"Hello, Cenemoy. This is Rauka of House Kundarak. We'd like to know if there has been any disturbances in the sewers lately. A private case we're working on requires knowledge on this issue."

"SEWERS? You're not the first to ask that today, surprisingly! Two of our patrols asked the same thing earlier today. I'm saying the same thing I've said to them: go ask the archivist."

Archivist listens to you. He then goes in the back, takes a ladder and climbs to it to reach the highest shelf. He grabs a heavy, hard-covered blue book. The books seems so heavy to you that it must be hard to carry it, especially on top of a ladder. Lackshmist carefully steps down from the ladder, minding his every step, returns to the desk and places the book on the desk with a heavy thudding. "Here. If you'd like more information on sewers, I suggest you to contact two of the Shields named Terilith and Kaez. Earlier during the day they were investigating the same thing and went to the council hall to gather more information. Maybe they have progressed further into the case." He then returns to his own work.

You choose one of the tables from the archive room. Ibabnin seems a bit bored. "Books. I never were good with them. I'll be waiting outside, getting some fresh air. Feel free to ask me should the need arises." She then walks out of the room.

You spent your next hour reading the blue book. There are some things there that you already know like how Clan Orothiar is specialized on craftsmanship and construction. Lots of the ancient and/or big buildings in the Citadel have been either designed or completely built by Clan Orothiar's contributions. Even more houses are filled with lots of tools or ornaments, again created by the same clan. This is one of the reasons why they are so rich and powerful in the Citadel. Also, they exhibit a strong form of inner mating, meaning that almost every marital union among the people of Clan Orothiar are being decided beforehand by the elders or Orothiars in high places. That is why a member of the Council having an illegal child is a very, very serious matter, especially in terms of Orothiar's house rules.

Council of Dwarven Communities (shortly referred as Council among the Houses) is the dwarven executive branch of the Radiant Citadel's government. Each of the ten houses has one representative to work in the council, who may be thought of as the most powerful person in that clan. Each clan has its unique inner organization, of course and Clan Orothiar is one of them. They elect a Governor, differing from the Council representative. Governor is the head of in-clan affairs and representative is the head of out-of-clan affairs and unless there is an extreme case, former always dominates the latter. Two of them rarely disagrees on some issue, however. Clan Orothiar is not known for its inner disarray bu there have been some cases in history that it happened.

As you skim thorugh some parts you also gain some new insights into the rivalry between the two Houses. Apart from a few events that happened way before anyone you know ever lived, there are no apparent indications that these two clans are in a feud. Radiant Citadel is a peaceful city, at least in verisimilitude. Even if any part of any civilization were to be in direct confrontation with each other such a crisis would qucikly be forced to be solved by other Council members or by means of Shields. As you read, you slowly intelectually validate something you've felt your whole life: this rivalry is only perpetuated by people growing with the stories of the rivalry, not the actual thing.