“I hate this.” Alaric mumbled, leaning against the wall. Two fingers holding back three fingers of window curtain lent him a view of the street outside. A group of a half dozen boys, all of them in long tunics and wearing no pants, stood on the deck of his curio. Four of them stood in serious vigilance, staring predatorily over the streets while one of the others cracked his knuckles and the last withdrew a spindly a finger from his hawk-like nose, admiring the catch. Alaric dropped the curtains and threw his back against the wall in a fine display of melodrama. His sigh seemed much longer than a man of his stature could emit and he emphasized it by slowly dragging his hand from his side to his temples, rubbing them slowly.
 Across the room at a table, between bookshelves, a grey skinned woman covered in jagged black tattoos and storm cloud colored hair grunted. Inch and half long tusks, engraved with intricate knots, jutted from her angular jaw. Those with a more open mind would say that she was rather good looking, for an orc, but no one ever said that about orcs. She sat at a small table rolling bones in a cup, occasionally shaking her head. 
“You don’t like much.” She grumbled, flipping the cup on the table and revealing the fall. The orc spat on the ground and scooped the bones back into the cup. She started shaking them again in search of whatever answers she needed. Alaric strode across the room and plopped down at a table not so far away. He reached out to the center of the table and snagged a nail puzzle from it; two nails bent into small loops and interconnected together via those loops. It was a simple puzzle, and by placing the nails so that they mirrored each other and making the same movements at the same time the puzzle was easily solved, pulling the two knots apart. The second part of the puzzle was putting it back together, which was something Alaric hadn’t quite managed yet. Moments later a light metallic clanking came ringing from the library as the Halfling casually tossed the two nails over his shoulder, knowing he’d find the again the next time he stepped on them.
“Those boys outside said you needed to meet with the others.” The orc offered, flipping the bones again. She gave an unsatisfied grunt and scooped them up. Alaric scoffed and pulled a leather tome from a side table without even looking at it. Flipping it open he skimmed until he was about halfway through, then abruptly jammed his thin finger into the book, muttering to himself.
“I never asked for this.” He moved his finger through the text never staying on a page longer that a few seconds, seemingly he just wanted something to do with his hands. He set the book down with a dull thump. “How did you not know any of this coming? You’re supposed to be a seer.” He pulled off his spectacles and stared at the orc woman. She gave an unconcerned shrug and rolled again. 
“They don’t mention everything, the bones that is. Others mention everything, but very little of everything is important and no one should worry about the unimportant. She rolled again, but before she revealed them she scooped the dice back up. Alaric looked at her incredulously.

“What does that even mean?” He snapped back, nimbly hopping from the chair. He began to pace around the room, the clatter on the bones in the cup being the only sound therein. He was clearly agitated. He had been since he had completed his ceremony. Anu had lit the incense and said the ancient words that Alaric actually did have some passing knowledge of, but the chant was actually quite boring. Invoking Udrau’s blessing and protection. During the second part Alaric was taken to a meeting hall where he was sat at a table practically groaning under the weight of the feast in from of him. A dozen other halflings remained silent around the table until a holy man of Yon, the Halfling god, blessed the meal. The rest of the ceremony involved eating, drinking, singing, dancing, and all sorts of other activities with the other halflings. Needless to say, his ceremony went a lot smoother than what he’d heard about Kanros’s.

 Alaric didn’t give a damn if the people thought he should be a guardian, he had little interest in doing so. Not only was he utterly positive he’d make a terrible governor, there was the fact that he had do it in a room of people that knew him as a fraud. The new Guardians had been chosen for being heroes, and everyone who fought Cyrabassis that day knew that Alaric was no hero. 
“I’m definitely not going with all those boys. They don’t wear pants, Gretch! I’ll have front row seats to things not meant to be seen!” After he finished what he was saying Alaric went quite. He had in fact seen things not meant to be seen, twenty years ago, in Melazus. And now they were back. Only the silence of the room brought him back from his reverie. The clatter of bones had ceased and Gretch was staring over them, uncannily still. 
“Then don’t go with them,” she murmured, her greasy storm cloud colored hair hanging in front of her tattooed face as she studied the bones in front of her, “But regardless of how you get there, you must still go.”
“Is that what the bones say?”
“No.”
“Oh fine.”

Alaric slipped through a first floor window and landed on the soft soil below. He furtively glanced about for any errant lictors roaming the grounds and after he deemed the coast clear, Alaric darted through the eccentrically decorated garden of his Tealeaf’s Curio. He passed little statues of red hatted gnomes holding shovels, a fountain in which a massive disembodied marble head of some lost king or some such eternally wept, and a tall, eerily thin sculpture of a creature made of bone and wood, reaching towards the stars with long appendages ending in vicious claws. He leapt onto a vine covered wall and scurried up it, pausing at the top to give his residence/business an appreciative glance. It was no palatial estate, but it was a large building. Its architecture had no semblance of consistency, as wings and rooms were added haphazardly and built by different laborers. One room would be rectangular and supported by pillars while the one adjacent was rounded and supported by arches. One wing’s roof would be flat and contain an exotic garden, while one of the other wings spiraled into a slender pointed tower. It was an eyesore to most, but Alaric believed it was his duty to stick in the craw of the hoity-toity aristocracy, and he enjoyed supporting the rumors of him being some sort of half-man warlock. 

Alaric scrambled back down the other side of the wall and brushed dust from loose linen pants. He wore a billowy linen shirt as well, and a brown vest, cinched against his body. A green cloak draped over his shoulders and a gray bowler hat, cocked a little to the front and side, crowned his head. He wore nothing on his feet, as Halflings are wont to do.

No one payed Alaric any attention as made his way to the hall. Dressed as any Halfling would and with no entourage of noble purebloods scurrying about and flashing their dreaded thighs, his status as a Guardian was largely overlooked, and Alaric was fine with that. He’d spent his whole life being overlooked, literally and figuratively. He passed by the lictors and entered the hall, his eyes immediately drawn to the scorch marks and deep gouges on the walls. His heart began to hammer when he saw them. Alaric knew what kinds of things could do this. Trying to keep his composure, the Halfling strode into the room without pomp nodding to the other guardians who cared to look at him. He noticed a chair that was quite obviously meant for him; tall and much more narrow than the others. He appreciated the gesture as he tried to recall if there had ever been a Halfling guardian. Dismissing the thought he climbed into the chair and peered around to his fellow guardians. How long had it been since they had all been together? 

After Anu opened the session, Alaric remained inattentive, his eyes darting to and from the walls and floor, thinking about the monstrosities of Melazus.

 [b]“…Cyrabassis.”[/b]

Kanros’s mention of the name snapped Alaric from his waking nightmare. He slipped his hand into his vest and pulled a pipe and an envelope stuffed with some sweet smelling dried leaf from pocket. He snapped up a lit candle at his side and started puffing on the pipe with determination. As much as he wanted to get to the bottom of this, working with some of these people would prove difficult. Kanros had always been a good man, and his heart lay with the city. Landar was a different matter entirely. Alaric held no warm feelings toward the Blood Rider, whose methods had always seemed extreme to him. Perhaps the years had tempered his blood lust, but Alaric doubted that was the case. Leytan and Alaric floated in similar circles these days, but the monk’s demeanor was unnerving to Alaric. For a soul that was so unsure before, he positively beamed asuredness and tranquility, two things Alaric was devoid of. Then there was Ephraim. The elf, much like Landar, was simply too bloody for Alaric’s taste, and his persecution of witches and hedge-wizards, some of which Alaric had personally known, was too much to bare. Alaric wouldn’t say he hated Ephraim, but he very much disliked the elf. Nasharia seemed a gentle woman, but Alaric knew that she possessed a very dangerous mind and strong ambitions. Out of all the people in the Hall of Guardians, Nasharia was the only one Alaric would have said fit the title of Guardian, in a classic sense. He wouldn’t mind working with the woman, but he certainly didn’t trust her. Haljon seemed to have let himself go since the old days, and the man slobbering drunk, which was publicly known. Still, he did command an impressive force and the city could use it. Alaric had barely noticed Erwun, lurking in the dark. Erwun, his old friend, taciturn as ever. Alaric almost looked forward to the reunion. 

Taking a long draw from the pipe and blowing the smoke through his nose, Alaric piped up. 
“It must be some kind of inter-dimensional travel that brought the beasts of Melazus back, and there are traces of the aether that are left behind. Perhaps finding these traces could lead us to Cyrabassis, or at least to wherever these nightmares come from. If I could be allowed to take readings here I may be able to provide some clue as to what was summoned.” The Halfling puffed again, the thick smoke starting to group into tendrils that drifted eerily across his ruddy face. He looked at his fellow guardians intently for a moment, purposely not looking in the direction of Ephraim, whom he could already hear objecting to his investigation.