Watching from Shadows

Posted on 30 Oct 2020 @ 5:32am by Rogue Jaslyn

608 words; about a 3 minute read

Mission: Lore's Labour's Lost
Location: Outside the Guardhouse
Timeline: Cloudreach 16th - morning

OOC: Concurrent with 'Stumptown' with flashback to 'Manners Maketh Man'

Jaslyn trudged out the alienage gates and across the footbridge toward the Jader market. The wind had shifted since she'd arrived at dawn for breakfast with Hahren Liriel, redirecting the stench of the tannery east toward Ferelden. The simple porridge Liriel had shared with Jaslyn settled as uncomfortably in her stomach as the Hahren's news. Two more elves had gone missing.

She put up her hood to cover her pointed ears. Trouble was brewing, and as usual, elves were among the first to fall victim. She'd heard the rumors. A royal a day. It had the triple enticement of too good to be true, too good to be legal, and too good to ignore. After the first three elves didn't come home, Liriel had warned everyone in the alienage, but there were always some that wouldn't listen.

When Jaslyn first heard about the disappearances, she had investigated the ships in port and their cargoes. Enslaving elves and selling them to Tevinter was illegal but profitable and usually ignored by humans in authority – a horrific abuse Teyrn Loghain of Ferelden so flagrantly exemplified just three years ago. Fortunately, she found no evidence of slave export. Still, Jaslyn had a hunch something illegal was being exported, and that it was connected to the clandestine advertisements for laborers.

On the quay she'd heard a familiar name. A Captain Richelieu's ship was docked in Jader on extended business. According to helpful elven dockworkers inspired to divulge what they knew by a few silvers, the man had nearly lost his ship to gambling debts which had recently been paid off.

Curious if it was the same Richelieu who had played cards with Antoine - the man whose death Jaslyn had nearly hung for – she visited the Rose of Orlais tavern where her informants reported he could be found. From a shadowy corner she watched Richelieu lose at cards to one of three other men, a man Jaslyn also recognized as a gambling partner of Antoine's. An overworked serving girl named Camilla served her a pint of ale in spite of Jaslyn's pointed ears, and confirmed the names of both men. The bald, mustached man was indeed Captain Richelieu, and the other man - such a gentleman and so handsome, Camila gushed - was Cainan Sauvage.

Jaslyn had sipped her ale whilst considering how she might approach either of the two men and extract information about Richelieu's business. She had been an elven servant in Antoine's house, practically invisible, and yet one of them might recognize her as the elf accused of killing their friend.

To her surprise, the card game ended abruptly and three of the men Jaslyn had been watching left. Jaslyn stayed to enjoy the spectacle of Sauvage trouncing that boorish Fereldan human who had been pawing Camila. Interesting that Sauvage apparently felt compelled to protect a common serving woman from an obnoxious bully. Jaslyn decided she could, perhaps, approach this man Sauvage directly. But not at night… that would be tempting fate. She wouldn't want to have to kill him in self-defense.

Perhaps it was serendipity or the Maker's will that caused Jaslyn to pause in the shadows cast by the morning sun the next day, with the hood of her green cloak obscuring her visage, and observe Cainan Sauvage himself enter the guard house with a tall and stunningly beautiful Chantry sister. The dark-skinned man with them looked familiar, but Jaslyn could not place him.

Jaslyn leaned against the building across the road from the guardhouse and waited patiently for Sauvage to reemerge.

 

RSS Feed