Tuesday, May 11, 2010

A second shadow

Daelagor was sitting in a shadowy corner overlooking the small market square. A week ago he had heard from a traveler that a drow party allegedly had been spotted by some farmers near this village. Mostly ignored by passersby, he listened to the gossip and watched the people setting up their stalls for the day. The stories of some of the farmers about a drow group were contradicting. Most of them claimed to have lost livestock to them but the descriptions were so vague it could have been anything ranging from wolves to ogres. The best lead he had was a woman that had told a customer earlier she saw a group of five black elves traveling south by night three weeks ago. He was just waiting for a moment when no other customer would be at her bakery stall to ask her about it when he heard loud noises from the other end of the market.

He slipped into the shadows of the building and appeared a few moments later further down the street where the argument took place. His attention got caught by a huge creature in the midst of a crowd of humans.
"What did you say about Dragonborns?" His voice was clearly audible over the noise of the crowd and the crowd suddenly enlarged the circle when a battle axe also became clearly visible.
Now with more space around the creature, Daelagor could make out fine brown scales with a bronzish tint to them. He had heard of Dragonborns before but had never seen one in the flesh. A human farmer dropped to his knees in front of the foreigner, apologising for whatever it was he'd said before. The sight of the trembling human in front of him seemed to calm the Dragonborn and he left through a corridor hastily created by onlookers backing off.

This was the first chance for Daelagor to learn about the proud race and he wouldn't let it slip. The more he knew about a race, the more efficient he could fight and track them. You had to know your opponent, his habits, his preferred fighting style, his weaknesses. Although Daelagor wasn't sure what the motives of this Dragonborn were and whether he was a future opponent or not, he was determined to find out as much as possible. If the creature would travel southwards, it would have a second shadow for a while.

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