Nestor walked into the crowd, casually making his way towards the entrance to the city hall. He hadn’t expected for the crowd to part as it did for a king, but he was surprised that most people made room for him to pass by. The few people who bumped into him curtly apologized and returned to what they were doing. One person even threw a silver coin at him due to tripping the seemingly fragile traveler. Nestor was very annoyed at this gesture, but took the money with a faked modesty.

Midway through the crowd, however, he finally found the trouble he was looking for. No, it was not a pickpocket, nor a weakling who was just passing by. It was not a lady in trouble, or a beggar, or even another traveler seeking a chat. He was stopped by what seemed to be a devout thief with blood-stained plate mail armor, carrying a crossbow with a few skull pieces and monster teeth/claws incorporated in. He could tell a great many details about the crossbow, for it was pointed right at him. The people quickly backed away from the two as they silently sized each other up, resulting in a make-shift brawl area.

Nestor’s eyes focused on the fact that the crossbow had no bolt nor trigger, despite being pulled back. Immediately, Nestor assumed that the man’s power was a deed power related to the creation of bolts of some sort. His time for observation did not last long after this as the burly man before him roared, “How dare you bump into me?! Do you not know who I am?” His muscles flexed in turn after saying this, as if he was attempting to intimidate Nestor with his physique. As this happened, a few men from the crowd worked their way over to the man and positioned themselves behind him, already having drawn weapons.

Unfortunately for the man, Nestor calmly joked, “Is it not common to bump into a bull when travelling through a herd?” and got a few cracks of laughter as the man before him and his buddies growled at him. 

In response, the bull-man yelled, “I’ll feed you to a herd if you don’t beg on your knees right now!” His cronies then backed up his words with shouts of agreement and aggression, waving their weapons carelessly at Nestor and walking towards him. “He the strongest crossbowman in the world,” one of the men shouted, “Ralick the Skullcrusher!”

Nestor chuckled after the brief introduction, then commented, “I don’t think the locals agree with your aggressive antics…” as he motioned towards the people around them, whom had gradually been drawing their own weapons. “We don’t need any fights here yet,” a lady from behind Nestor shouted, pointing a staff at the crossbowman, “for all you know, this man could lead your group right to the magician!” A murmur of general agreement then passed around a few members of the crowd as Ralick’s cronies relaxed.

Ralick himself, however, was too angry to be swayed by those words alone. “SILENCE!” he roared, stomping the ground hard enough to crack the stone, “I SAID BEG!” After saying this, a bolt appeared in his crossbow and, without a second delay, it shot into the stone immediately next to Nestor’s right foot. After the round was loosed, a few members of the crowd advanced a step to stop a fight from ensuing.

Without moving, Nestor calmly leaned towards Ralick and joked, “I think this bull needs some grass, it looks hungry and irritable.” At saying this, Ralick swung at Nestor with his crossbow, but, once again, Nestor didn’t move. The crossbow passed in front of Ralick, but by the time he reached the end of his swing, Nestor was behind him, holding a knife to his throat. “That’s enough,” he commented, kicking out the man’s right leg with a loud “thwack,” and bringing him to the ground. 

After Ralick hit the ground, Nestor sheathed his dagger and sweeped one person from Ralick’s posse to the ground. A few members of the crowd then quickly suppressed the other few angry members of Ralick’s group, disarming them and calming them down. It took a few heavy men to keep Ralick pinned down until he was calm, but the incident was stopped without any major injuries. Of course, by the time everyone was calm again, Nestor was already moving through the crowd some more, interested in the diversity of people.

He bumped into a few more aggressive people, but he didn’t need to fight anyone else that day. He moved towards the town hall, and eventually made it near the edge of the crowd and bumped into a lady. He managed to bump rather accidentally into her, however, for a trouble-maker decided to catch his foot as he walked in her direction, resulting in him tripping into the lady’s behind. Nestor rolled out of the way of a kick as the flustered lady tried to respond to the awkward situation with violence, then stood up and held up his hand.

“If you are looking for the culprit of this situation, the man at blame is he,” Nestor commended, pointing towards a man who was quickly working his way away from the two of them. The lady did not believe Nestor, and quickly slapped him in the face before leaving, muttering curses under her breath. Nestor sighed, deciding that her assumption of his perversion merited a hit, for the purposes of common courtesy. “Not really worth it though…” he murmured to himself, reminiscing the moment. 

He then started walking towards another group of gentlemen near the edge of the staircase leading up to the town hall. The men looked to be established warriors, with moderately dirty armor and custom-made swords, the likes of which were probably power-related. Nestor assumed that the meeting would be taking place soon, but there was still plenty of time left. [i]Maybe one more scene,[/i] Nestor thought to himself, sizing up a few of the individuals of the group as he continued calmly nearing them.

As he approached the group of warriors, one of them quickly turned around and greeted Nestor. “Hey, you’re the guy who took down the Ralick guy earlier!” he exclaimed, hugging Nestor, as was the common greeting among friendly travelers. Nestor patted the man on the back and commented, “If I hadn’t, he’d have whacked me in the face.” This caused a few other men to look over and greet Nestor in turn, offering a few words. As a result, Nestor got caught up in a friendly banter with a few other travelers for awhile, discussing the town, the possibility of a hoax mission, and other such important points.

Around ten minutes after greeting the warriors, Nestor gave his good tidings and left, rather skeptical of their treatment towards him. [i]They seem like a band of thieves,[/i] he thought, ensuring his money pouch was yet present as he weaved through the bodies of people. A notable number of people in the crowd were rather aggressive, the type to openly betray a comrade. Nestor hoped that he wouldn’t have to deal with people like that, especially not for a mission like this one.

Nestor found himself bumping into a group of rather young men and women and tried to discourage them from joining on the mission. “No way, mister, we’re ready for this. We’ve been training all of our lives!” one of the young men commented, toting his bow and evoking agreement from his peers. Nestor groaned and commented, “and just how much longer do you think the Black mage has trained? And those security escorts who die on their missions across the Sulva Plains?” This caught the young man off-guard, but he retorted, “we won’t make foolish decisions like that, we have Johnny here!” He then pointed to one of his peers, who nodded.

Nestor heard a loud trumpet sound from the town hall immediately following this young man’s statement, then quickly turned around to witness the source of the noise. Two men stood at the open door, dressed in what looked to be a fancy robe with the town’s crest on the chestpiece. Before Nestor understood what was going on, the man announced, “I hereby call into order the meeting declared by Councilor Kagan of the Haldor High Council! All who wish to join the search for the Death Magician may now file into the town hall! All seats must be filled, and public decency is advised! No drawn weapons are allowed in the town hall by punishment of imprisonment and fine!”

Upon the last word of the announcer’s speech, the trumpeter played a quick tune and they opened the doors to the town hall. Immediately after this, the people of the crowd started to file into the hall, each man taking a seat in the vast room, some people needing to stand up due to the vast number of men. After the last man entered the room, the doors were shut, but not locked, and the trumpeter went to the stage at the front of the town hall. He played his tune, then the announcer walked up and introduced Councilor Kagan, who walked up to the stage with five armored guards. 

Kagan was a pot-bellied man with a well-tended head and a fine robe who carried with him a ceremonial sword. His appearance was best described as that of an upright gorilla without hair. Not the most handsome of men, but rather professional in mannerism nonetheless. The crowd was still shooting murmurs and general chatter as he got into place to speak, many comments being asked about the man’s identity and stature. “Looks like the kind of guy who’d fall over dead after starting to run…” Nestor commented, evoking the chuckles of a few men next to him. After clearing his throat and calming the crowd, he began to speak in a rather nasal voice:

“Greetings, men and women of Haldor. As of now, I am sure that you are all wondering whether or not this, ‘Black Magician’ you were told of is real. The Haldor High Council has had many, many readings confirming an entity which has been seen in seemingly random places across Haldor, bringing with it plague, famine, many, many monsters, and a great deal of suffering and death.” After saying this, a murmur of general disagreement passed across the crowd, then Kagan continued, “Few men have ever seen this entity and lived to tell about it, let alone describe what it looked like or follow it home. As a result, many of you are undoubtedly skeptical about this ‘Death Magician.’ The solution?” He paused, then shouted, “We find this ‘Death Magician’ and get some proof! All men providing proof will be given 600 gold pieces, as was changed by the Haldor High Council, and remission of any crimes previous to the last year.”

At this point in his speech, Kagan motioned for two men on the balcony, who then unfurled a extremely large scroll with a map of Haldor. There were a great many mountains and rivers across the map, a number of dots with the names of cities beside them, and two hundred sporadic red x’s across the entire map. “Above me is a map of Haldor,” he commented, scanning the crowd as the people started to look up at the paper, “Each red X marks a general area one of your groups will explore. We’ll need to separate you all into two hundred groups, one for each x. Each group will have anywhere from two to fifteen people in it, ranging based on the suspected probability of finding the ‘Death Magician’ there.”

Kagan then motioned towards the sides of the stage and a large number of men and women started to file through the crowd with a large number of scrolls. As they reached the crowd, Kagan continued, “Each of these scrolls of paper is a map. On this map is a detailed map of Haldor with one of the red Xs marked with a number.” As he continued speaking, the people of the crowd started to gradually lose interest, grabbing the scrolls and talking amidst one another. “If you do not like the map number you got, find someone to trade with. You are all to meet with the other people assigned the same map number as you in the courtyard tonight. You have three months to complete this task, after three months, you are all to return here whether you have succeeded or failed.”

With these words said, Kagan motioned for his guards and finished his speech with the words, “I wish you all the best of luck. Keep each other alive out there!” and left the stage with his escorts. After he left, a few minutes were allowed for the distribution of scrolls. Nestor grabbed one of the scrolls from a particularly pretty maiden, then opened it and discovered that he got #143, an area near the North Westernmost part of Haldor. Deciding that he was too good to trade with the other people, he decided to sit back down and wait for the people to open the gates so he could leave. Before opening the gates, the announcer and the trumpeter reappeared. With a quick fan-fare, the trumpeter left, providing the announcer a bit of peace from which to talk.

“You are hereby dismissed from this meeting! From this moment forth, all information must be sent to us regarding the ‘Death Magician’ must be given to the Haldor High Council by person, so as to determine the validity and honesty of the claims. You are all dismissed!” He then motioned for the guards at the door to open it, stepping towards the stage exit. It did not take long for the gates to open, for the men nearest the gate helped to open it. Nestor then worked his way through the crowd and escaped the stampede by jumping over the railing and off the stairway, landing a few feet down on solid rock, resulting in a bit of ankle pain. Shortly after this, Nestor looked around, brushed himself off, and made his way back towards the slowly emerging crowd, highly uneager to find his partners.