Eddard: Chapter 3 (Con't)

Mother Minx's Part 2

Murder by Death

 

Eventually their conversation came to end, mainly because it was time for to take the stage again.

 

When she took the stage and began her dance, I glanced around the room to check out the crowd.  As the evening wore on, I saw more and more Amnites enter the room.

 

A funny thing about Amnites, their society seems to favour ostentatious displays of wealth, and the more ostentatious, the more wealthy, generally speaking.  Where a wealthy man in Waterdeep might wander the streets merely in clothes of good quality, an Amnite will wear piles of jewellery, use expensive perfumes, and surround themselves with bodyguards.

 

I saw one such Amnite begin to make the approach to my table.  Of his six bodyguards, only two approached with him.  I didn't rise from the table, despite his station.  He was being a supplicant to me, for something he believed I had, and I wanted him to know I knew it.  Its business, not a social meeting.

 

Still, he had more questions than the last.  Took far more interest in her history than I thought was necessary.  I knew Wren was an escaped slave from Amn, and I knew better than to tell him the truth.  I told him she hired me as protection.  That her last contract ended, and she left Waterdeep, believing the city had no others that would be interested in her abilities, hiring me just before leaving the city.  That's all I knew, I told him.  Other questions would have to be asked of her, for I knew not the answers.

 

He was a gruff, arrogant man, one used to commanding power simply because he commanded wealth.  The more I spoke to him, the less I liked him.  But I could not turn him away, or aggravate him, that would blow my cover.  He eventually left, sliding me another piece of paper for Wren to look at.

 

The first merchant stopped back at my table, he asked me,"Do you know what my chances are?"

 

I said,"That might depend on what you could tell me of the Amnites in Scornubel."

 

He smiled, and told me a little of the gentleman that just my table.  He said that he was in weapons as well as rarities, but that his tastes in certain things tended towards Sadism.  I nodded, not quite believing him, but then I asked him about the slave trade in Scornubel.

 

He said "That's illegal." 

 

 I said, "Okay hypothethically, if anyone traded in that commodity in town, who would it be?"

 

He gave a name.  "Denthos, without a doubt."

 

Denthos.  I had the name.  "Is he here?"

 

"No.  Not yet at least."

 

Wren's dance came to an end, and I asked him to leave me so that Wren and I could converse in private.

 

Well she didn't come down.  And soon I noticed bouncers making for the stairway.  As soon as I saw that, I leaped from my chair and ran to stairwell.  I asked the bouncer,"What's happening?"

 

"There's been a murder."

 

"I am a bodyguard of the dancer Shara," that was Wren's alias,"I must check to see she is okay."

 

He nodded slightly.  I ran up the stairs.  I didn't see her with the crowd in the hallway.  Nor did my calls of Shara get an answer. 

 

It was then I realized that Wren had committed the murder- most likely at least.  If I stayed much longer, I would likely be arrested as an accomplice.  Mystra's Breath!