Daisey in the Sunset District, Part 4

After she made herself some dinner, and eating it on the patio shaded by the bulk of the building, Daisey made preparations for her nocturnal mission to the warehouse. She didn’t normally wear her gambeson; she usually kept it hanging in the closet, behind her sweaters for those rare days when it got chilly. She brought it out, laying it on her bed, and stared at it.
It was a bulky garment, albeit much less restricting than mail or linothorax, and certainly much more comfortable. It was burgundy and navy linen, with two dozen layers quilted together and making a garment highly resistant to cutting and good for absorbing bashes. Not as good against piercing damage types, but it was capable of stopping arrows if she got lucky. It buttoned down the front, like a double breasted jacket, giving her torso two thick layers of protection. She hoped she wouldn’t need it. She pulled on the leggings first, lacing them up, followed by the long jacket-like garment. She hadn’t needed to wear it for a while, and she twisted and stretched her body to see how well she could move in it. A little more stiff than she would like, but not at all bad.
She gathered the rest of the gear she thought she would need, put it in her pack, and got her staff. She exited her flat, and walked out into the night. She stood on the landing, as she closed the door behind her. Twilight was past, and the stars were out. There were, thankfully, oil lamps lit in the courtyard below. Daisey didn’t like the dark. She kept thinking she saw things moving in it, but they were only shadows when she looked closely. But there will come a time when they aren’t just shadows, and there will be something lurking in the darkness.
She shuddered. She didn’t like going out at night, and she didn’t like the dark. Scotophobia did that to people, and she really didn’t function well in the dark. She took a deep breath. I can take this, she thought. This is why I light street lamps. Daisey walked down the stairs, through the courtyard, and onto the street.
Port Karn didn’t really sleep at night. Night was when the Orcs and Goblins were the most active. Orcs could finally doff their lightweight cloaks, wide brimmed hats, and colored glasses. The sun no longer bathed them in its too bright light. Goblins, too, tended towards nocturnality, although they didn’t suffer from the photosensitivity that the Orcs did. The streets were still about three quarters as full as during the day; in a few hours, that would drop to about half as the diurnal races finally retreated back to their beds, leaving the Orcs, Goblins, and the few night owls of Human, Elven, Dwarven, and Hobbit descent to roam the streets.
Daisey made her way down streets that echoed with loud, Orcish laughter and guttural Lurkash. Imperial could also be heard, but Lurkash use really spiked after the sun went down. Transport wagons, utilizing the roads while there were fewer people, rumbled and clattered by, drawn by snorting horses whose iron-shod feet rang on the cobblestones. After a twenty minute walk, she could see the warehouse mentioned in the files, looming up into the darkness. The sporadic streetlights illuminated only the lower part of the structure, and only dimly at that.
No lights were on inside. It appeared deserted. But looks can be deceiving, she thought, and looked around trying to see if anyone was watching her. She didn’t see anyone, and she made her way to the alley on the right side, between the warehouse and the adjacent building, which looked to be some sort of potter’s studio. She was looking for a side door, which, hopefully, she would be able to find, and would be less in the open than the front entrances. In the alley, the meager light of the street lamps didn’t penetrate, and the only light was from a half moon. It was enough to navigate, if she moved carefully, but not enough to really be able to see very well. But there weren’t any doors on this side of the building.
A rat scurried along the base of the building, startling Daisey and almost making her drop her staff. She caught it before it clattered onto the bricks that surfaced the alleyway. She closed her eyes, and took a few deep, quiet breaths. Hobbits were naturally stealthy, so it’s possible that the rat had never noticed her. But she took no chances, and sidled closer to the warehouse wall, to better take advantage of the deeper shadows.
She reached the right rear corner of the warehouse, and peeked around the corner. It seemed to be a slightly wider alley, likely used as a way for wagons to get supplies to the buildings along it. It was empty, for the moment, although there was enough traffic on the roads that a teamster could come along at any time. A few of the buildings lining the alley had lamps out, and a couple had open loading doors. While she didn’t see anyone, she knew that there were people in those entryways, going about their business.
She scurried around the corner, moving along the wall, using what she could for cover as she made her way towards the rear door of the warehouse.
She didn’t see the tiny, dark figure looking down at her from the rooftop. Goblins were naturally stealthy too, and Lariiki was good at her job. She was also a mage, and had cast the Spell of Wallwalking to walk up the side of the building to the roof. From her vantage point, she could see Daisy creep up to the door. The door she had unlocked earlier. The Goblin woman smiled, her pointed teeth glinting in the moonlight, and moved towards the front of the building. She had unlocked that door too, just in case Daisey had tried that one. But now that unlocked door would serve a different purpose. She cast a Spell of Light, and a tiny, flame-like point of light glowed at her fingertip. It lit up her hands and face, and little else. But it wasn’t for her; it was a signal to the two guardsmen lurking down the street, waiting at the entrance to an alleyway.
The two men, a Human and an Orc, wore the uniforms of the City Guard. They also had the truncheons of the City Guard, the badges of office of the City Guard, and, were indeed, of the City Guard. Paid for by Baronet Ethil Deckard, who had bribed them to be at this location on this night, to catch a certain Hobbit mage.
Lariiki doused the light, moved to the edge of the rooftop, and walked down the wall to a window, where she could watch what happened inside.
Daisey stood at the door, examining it and listening for any noises from within. She heard nothing. There was no visible lock on this side of the door. What the hell, she thought, I might get lucky. She tried the doorknob.
It turned! She slowly pushed to door open, fearing it would creak. I guess I got lucky tonight! She looked into the darkness, which seemed even darker than the alleyway. She shuddered again, steeling herself to deal with the darkness that caused her heart to race and her mind to almost panic. She clamped down, hard, utilizing all of the tricks and techniques her magical training gave her to help focus. She crept into the warehouse, and closed the door behind her. She crouched, still, listening.
She didn’t even hear any rodents. Okay, she decided, no one’s home. She pulled out her lantern, cast the Spell of Continual Light inside of it, feeding in mana to ramp it up to daylight intensity, and closed the shutter so that only a thin, bright beam shot out of it. She played it around the warehouse. She saw rows of tall shelves, and a couple of ladders.
On the shelves seemed to be bags of grain, flour, or dried beans. It appeared, to all intents and purposes, to be a food supply warehouse. Daisey moved up and down the rows on silent feet, playing the light up and down the shelves on both sides of the aisle. It was all foodstuffs. If I were silver and copper ingots, where would I be? she asked herself. She didn’t have any answers, and—
“Stop right there, missy!” a gruff voice ordered.
Daisey spun, the light coming to play on a very large Orc, wearing a City Guardsman’s uniform of dark olive green gambeson. She could hear movement in the aisle behind her, and when she turned to look she could see a second guardsman striding toward her. Unlike the Orc, who could see in the dark, this one carried a lantern, which he unshuttered to shine light on the scene. His other hand held a truncheon.
“You are under arrest for trespassing, and breaking and entering. Come with me!” the Orc said, pulling out a pair of manacles. “You are going to answer some questions.”
Daisey wasn’t a battlemage. Her list of spells didn’t run anywhere near that direction anyway. While she did have a spell that could, theoretically, persuade one of the guards to leave her alone, the second one made that strategy a non-starter. Dammit, she thought, I wish I had thought to set up a Mystic Mist! That would have created an area filled with disorienting fog that only she would be able to see through. But that spell ritual took five minutes to cast, and there was no way the two hulking guards would let her get away with that. Or she could try to fight her way out, against two opponents who might as well be twice her height and four times her mass. And likely better skilled.
“Fuck,” she sighed, and held out her hands. The Orc clapped the manacles on them with what seemed to be a very loud clank. The Human city guardsman took her staff and lantern as the Orc led her out through the front door and onto the street.
Lariiki, in the shadows on the wall just under the eaves of the rooftop, lay against the side of the building, the spell of wall walking still in effect and holding her against the building. She watched the three people march towards the city guard office that was three blocks away. Her mission was complete, and she made her way back to the Sentinel Group’s offices to make her report.
The dawn sun spilled through the narrow, barred window of the cell and fell on the back of the door. Daisey hadn’t slept much; most of the evening had been a grueling question and answer session with the two guardsmen who had arrested her. She had told them the truth, but that hadn’t kept them from asking her variations of the same questions a half a dozen times. Her answers were consistent: she had found evidence that someone was stealing from the company that they worked for, and she was looking to find corroborating evidence, which she hadn’t found. And no, she wasn’t breaking and entering, as the door was unlocked. She had no rebuttal against the trespass charge, and glumly accepted that she had indeed been traipsing about where she shouldn’t have.
Then, satisfied at last, the city guard had put her in a holding cell, until someone higher up could determine what to do with her. The cell was ten feet on a side, with a small window high on the eastern wall, and a locked metal-faced door on the west wall. Three narrow sets of bunk beds took up most of the space in the room, but there was a chamber pot against one wall, and a bench bolted to the other.
Five of the six bunks were occupied, the other four people in her cell still snoring. Three were sleeping off nights of drunken excess, one was a small time thief, and the other hadn’t said a word. Daisey lay on her bunk, unable to sleep, despite being very tired. Her mind kept racing, trying to figure out her next move, assuming she got one, and didn’t end up in prison, or worse. She assumed that the owners of the warehouse would likely press charges, but there was always the chance that they wouldn’t, since she hadn’t touched anything. All she’d done was walk around.
She decided she needed an advocate.