Session 0 - Arrival

Farilind arrived at Wildcross on the Ocean's Caress in his crisp, brown, bland uniform. He walks with confidence despite being in a city he's never set foot in. He wanders, watching everything and nothing in particular.
 
The elven man is searching for an inn, though he's content exploring and seeing the different areas. It will take him about an hour to reach Meriam's Rest, a decent establishment.
 
Farilind passes a city guard standing lazily with his halberd at an alleyway. When he notices Farilind coming, he straightens, puffs his chest out, and sneers. “What's yer business 'ere, elf?” He added extra sneer to his final word.
 
Clenching his teeth and exhaling slowly, Farilind turns to the guard. “I'm just out on a stroll. Trying to find a good place to rest my head tonight.” As little confrontation as possible. This man doesn't seem like he'd need to be pushed far to be provoked.
 
“Fine, fine.” He grumps disappointedly. It appears he may have been looking for an excuse to use that cudgel at his waste. Some kind of rebuttal from the elf that would have justified it.
 
“Well. Good day.” Farilind nods before being on his way.
 
As Farilind continues, he looks back at the guard. Really odd that he's standing guard at an alleyway. And without another guardsmen. With his curiosity peaked, Farilind begins searching for an alleyway he might use to scale one of the buildings, to get a discreet view of the guard's alleyway.
 
Farilind quickly finds an alley, crates and barrels at its end. Though there's still about an eight-foot space to clear between the top of the pile and the roof's ledge. He balances on a teetering barrel before jumping up, snagging the ledge and pulling himself up. He scampers along the rooftops until reaching the guard's alley. The guard lets out a whistle--Farilind notices that there's little to no traffic--and shouting begins inside the building. Then a crash, shattering of glass. Moments later, a man exits the building into the alleyway, a sack slung over his shoulder, pulling a mask from his face.
 
“Well.” Farilind thinks to himself. “Welcome to Wildcross.” He climbs down a ladder leading to the alley and dives into the crime scene. It's an alchemist shop. The shopkeeper is slung limply over his counter. There's a shattered bottle and a clear, viscous fluid.
 
When Farilind turns him over, he sees the terrible damage done. He has glass shards in his face and neck, blood streaking his face as gravity pulled it down along his face, into his hairline, where it then dripped onto the floor. Already there was a puddle, stating the seriousness of the wound. Farilind threw the man onto his shoulder, thanking the stars he wasn't a big man, and ran into the road, shouting for help.
 
People gasp and some take off, sprinting. A man points him to the direction of a doctor. Thankfully, a pair of guardsmen were rushing towards him while he was lugging the man to the doctor. The guards took the injured man, bade Farilind to follow, where they had him wait outside the doctor's door. Not long after, once of the guards came out. He asked for information, which Farilind freely gave. The guard nodded his appreciation, noticing the blood on Farilind's uniform, and offered the doctor's basin for a brief moment, so Farilind didn't walk around terrifying the locals.
 
Farilind slipped into an alley to change out of his blood-stained uniform and into a new set of clothes.
 
“Hey!” A raspy, irritated voice. “This is my alley you poacher! I'll cut you!”
 
Realizing that the beggar is hostile, Farilind pulls his pants up and cinches his belt and flashes his dagger.
 
“Look. I was just changing. I'll leave. I promise.”
 
“Lies. Lies! You were taking my things!”
 
And with the scream, the beggar ran up to Farilind, swinging a stick.
 
The beggar managed to strike Farilind in the side with a stick. He returned the favor with a pommel strike to the noggin, knocking the beggar to the cobbled, wet alleyway. Farilind finished changing and headed out, mumbling under his breath. What a day.
 
Eventually, he found the Meriam's Rest. There seemed to be an event going on inside. It was quiet, aside from the two angry voices...
 
Farilind walks in to the innkeeper dealing with a drunken dwarf. “You paid for your room five days ago, Oni. I need you to get out, or you'll leave me no other choice!”
 
“Hah! Whadderyagunna do, call the brute squard? Hah hah! Now move, barkeep, goin' to mah room...”
 
The innkeeper sighs, rubbing his eyes with his fingers in disappointment as Oni shoulders passed him and stumbles up the stairs.
 
“Well. Looks like you've got yourself a situation on your hands. You have any rooms available?”
 
The Innkeep looks up at Farilind apologetically. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Usually my patrons are much better mannered.”
 
Farilind pays his room dues, purchases an early dinner, then heads up to his room. Oni hasn't quite made it into his yet. He's jiggling at the handle. Farilind opens his door awkwardly, key in one hand, plate of food in the other, and enters his room. He sits and just starts eating his food when Oni presents his stalky self in Farilind's room's doorframe.
 
“Ya don' think I could have some of tha', d'ye?”
 
Farilind looks down at his food. “Umm. No, definitely not. Get out of my room, please.” The way Oni's eyes sparked, like a wildfire roaring into existence, was Farilind's queue to jump out of his chair, dagger in hand.
 
“Why you stupid lit'le elf. Mah food. MAH. FOOD.” And he charges with fists raised.
 
Oni barreled at Farilind, attempting to tackle him to the ground, but he's able to spin out of the way.
 
Farilind slams his pommel in between Oni's shoulders, sending him to his knees. Farilind uses the opportunity to pull Oni's head back by grabbing onto his matted mane, and driving the butt of his dagger onto a pressure point. It hit perfectly, and Oni's unconscious body fell limp, his breathing slow.
 
Farilind looked out the doorway to make sure no one heard the brief encounter, then slipped out and checked Oni's door. It opened. And it reeked. He'd torn the place up. Which made him confident that Oni wasn't fiddling at the wrong door. Farilind then returned to his room and drug Oni back to his. He spent the rest of his evening recording his journey in a journal.
 
The next morning, Farilind woke to more commotion. The city guard was here with the innkeep at Oni's room. As Farilind was sliding passed, one of the guard's called out. “Hey!” Farilind froze. “Did you do this to him?” Farilind craned his neck, looking over his shoulder at Oni. There was a large bruise on his neck. “Innkeep here says you were the only up here while this dwarf was thundering about.”
 
Farilind checked to make sure the dwarf was still breathing. When he saw the rise and fall of his chest, he nodded. “Yeah. He assaulted me in my room.”
 
“You know what the punishment for assault is in Wildcross?” The guard responded with raised eyebrows.
 
Farilind pauses. What to say? “...No. Though I imagine it's not good.” He decided to take the risk. “Though I'm sure this makes your job a lot easier. You're here because of his delinquency in paying for his room--and wrecking his room--I presume. I acted in self-defense. And now you can take him without an issue.”
 
The guards and the innkeeper appear satisfied with Farilind's response. He breathes an inward sigh of relief. “I like Oni.” The innkeeper says. “But he's bad for business. Maybe some time in the stocks will do him good.”
 
Another guard arrived with a stretcher, and the three took Oni away.
 
The innkeeper returned downstairs to manage breakfast. Curious, Farilind snuck back into Oni's room and snooped around.
 
During his snooping, Farilind found a letter, crumpled in the scrunched up blanket on the bed.
 
“Oni. We need you to make a scene for several days. We'll pay off your tab when we're done”
 
Excitement raced through Farilind's body. He loves a good mystery. “Looks like I've found something to do.”
 
Farilind spent a lot of the day at the inn, chatting with the patrons, finding the ones that come here daily. He asked several questions about odd things going on; most spoke of Oni. Seems like he did well with his distractions.
 
He found one individual, however, that reported seeing someone sneak in a side door and head for the kitchen while one of Oni's biggest confrontations were happening. Farilind waited the evening out, waking in the middle of the night and slipped downstairs, and into the kitchen.
 
Confident that no one else was awake or working the kitchens, Farilind snooped around the room. His boot caught on a lip in the wooden floor. He examined it, then pried at it. It gave way; a disguised trap door, with a ladder leading down... Farilind descended into the depths, the temperature change was almost immediate. There were noises down here. Squeaks and scratching. Lots of webs. Doesn't look like this place was used much. Old rotted barrels and crates and... half-eaten corpses. Half-eaten because of the large, gray rats chewing at the flesh...
 
The elf was rushed at by a territorial rat. He was able to score a nice slice with his dagger along the rat's side, but it snagged his ankle with its jaw. After shaking himself free, he drove the dagger's blade into its neck. It writhed in pain until it died.
 
Another rat is chewing hungrily on a corpse; it doesn't appear to notice Farilind. He pulls out his shortbow, draws an arrow, and lets it sail.
 
His first shot impales the rat's tail. It squeals and starts scampering towards him, but he had enough time to draw another arrow, this one sliding into and out the back of its throat.
 
Four dead bodies. An elf and three humans. The victims are found. It looks like Farilind might be visiting Oni in the stocks to find more information about the murderers he stalled for.
 
Discord Link: Session 0 - Arrival