Feychild

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

“How about her close friend, Naliyah?”

“No…” Liaena muttered after a moments pause where she considered Sharons proposal. “…I don’t want to do that to her. None of this is her fault”

The girl did not respond to Sharons remarks initially about a lone attack on the mansion and the likely futility thereof, still rapidly running through the options for the Rithrynn Situation in her head.
“I can deal with her. I’ll can sort it so Serphia doesn’t realise where she’s gone, and then I can….go and get Marshall. I might even have someone who’d be able to tell me what he did to her – if she’s feeling more cooperative this time, anyway”

“…”

“Oh. Yes. I’ve got an assassin” Liaena added out of nowhere. In response to the weird look Sharon gave her, she felt around in her satchel until she pulled out the sock containing Astrid and plopped it on the desk, the sock jumping around angrily again after the little human tried to fight her way out of the material. “I made a deal that I’d release her after all of this was over, so now I’m stuck with her. I’m not sure what to do with her now though…she’s annoying to have to carry around the whole time”

“…Would that be the assassin that the elves were searching for all night?”

“No. I don’t have that one anymore” the girl said absently. As far as Liaena was concerned, her mind had clearly already moved on to more important matters than simply the whereabouts of tiny, angry mercenaries she might potentially be carrying in her hand luggage. “The White Hand have a rivalry with the Red Vanguard. I think we could get the Red Vanguard on side easily if they got to take out the guy bank-rolling the lot that are taking over their jobs. Although there’s more people than Sherpa involved in this. There’s a guy called Jamie Lasher that he’s staying with. I’d not heard of him”

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

Liaena nodded distractedly, running through Sharons proposal in her head. “Right. Marshall. Of course. I’ll talk to him”

The girl was still clearly thinking about a million fragmented things at once. Liaena took several hurried steps forward, pulling out of Sharons arms before swinging around to look back at him. “If Sherpa dies, it might break whatever control he’s got over her. He’s got his own mercenary guild, a gang called the White Hand. I saw men from their group outside his house. There was a death of a noble last night I think they were involved in, so I sent Kitty to go and investigate –“

“Who?”

“—but they’re building their own castle, practically! Down at their docks, they’ve got a fortress that looks out over the harbour” Liaena ploughed on, completely oblivious of Sharons attempts to contribute to the conversation. “If this goes on much longer, he’ll have too much of a foothold to get rid of. I think we should infiltrate the house he’s staying at, and take him out there as soon as possible. I can go in disguised as a servant and the Night Elves can –“

“…”

“Oh Light. Serphia.”

Liaena had, if possible, gone even paler as she paused to think through all the possible ramifications of the situation in her head. “There’s no way to involve her without her blabbing it all to Rithrynn. But we can’t tell her about Rithrynn. I don’t know what she might do to her”

Okay. Time for plan B, possibly.

Falling silent again, Liaena paused to consider all of the possible alternatives for Sherpa Murder, all while under the suspicious eyes of Sharon. “I could just go in there by myself”

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

Liaena merely stared blankly at the Sharon for a moment, the human having paid as little attention to Fredericks words as the high elf. Upon seeing Sharon alive, well and decidedly un-shanked, the girl allowed the hand holding the dart-gun to fall back to her side.

“Liaena!?”

“…We need to talk” Liaena got out finally as she strode forward, grabbing a fistful of Sharons dressing gown sleeve as she dragged him forcefully towards the staircase. The elf hurried after her rather than be pulled or have the expensive material ripped; trying to slow down Liaena was akin to attempting to reason with a particularly pig-headed steam locomotive with all the brakes ripped off. “Why? What’s happened?”

Up two flights of stairs, Liaena did not pause or slow down until they reached Sharons study, whereupon she pushed the confused high elf inside, checked behind her for pursuers and entered herself before slamming the door and locking it. Turning to give Sharon another blank look, she fell to pacing around the room. “I know where Sherpa is”

“What?”

“I know where Sherpa is staying” Liaena repeated. She had still not let go of, or put down the dart gun. “I got his address from a housing estate agent, I went over to his house and saw him come out of it. It’s 32 Eternal Sun Street, over in the Cathedral District”

“….”

“Isn’t…that….good?”

Liaena was silent for a long moment. The girl was still wandering around the room aimlessly, in a manner that suggested that she was still too wired up to sit down. “I saw Rithrynn there too”

“…”

“She was there too!” Liaena whirled on Sharon even though the high elf had raised no voice of doubt or objection, her face displaying mingled desperation, confusion and fury all at once. “Just a few minutes after Sherpa left, she ran out with that big cat of hers and rode off down the street. He must be controlling her somehow, with spells or that thing that attacked us down in the sewer…..I-I-don’t don’t know what to do”

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

A worried crease had appeared on Kathlins forehead at Rosemarys words. The distinction between ‘the lady of the house’ and ‘a servant’ finding the corpse seemed like quite a large one to her, no matter what the lady of the house herself had to say on the matter. “Ma’am, sorry but could you clarify? Who –“

Kathlin stopped very abruptly upon receiving a dig in the upper thigh from Ragnar, who had just elbowed her. Pausing for a moment, she then looked over at Eddick. “Uhhhh…Yes. Sure.”

Turning to follow the servant, Hester, who was still trying to eat her way though the window gave a muffled squawk of anger before fluttering over to stalk her along the long greenhouse corridor, glaring fiercely through the glass.

“…Excuse me Mister Murphy, but could you give me a moment?” Kathlin explained as she paused by one of the windows that could be unlatched. Unlocking it, she reached out to grab Hester, the owl spat a very crumpled, torn piece of paper at her as she brought it inside before fluttering to her shoulder, grumbling to herself. Kathlin unfolded the scrap of paper to briefly scan the contents.

“Why does she have to be so cryptic? …”

“I’m sorry about that” Kathlin said as she turned back to the servant, who was giving her an unfathomable expression. “She belongs to a friend of mine and…she’s uh, very well trained” the girl added without much hope. Hester’s status as a demon-bird was well established with those that knew her.

“…”

“…So you were the one that discovered the corpse, Mister Murphy?” Kathlin enquired as they made their way towards downstairs. “Would you be able to tell me the circumstances of when you found him? Why were you attending him at 1am in the morning?"

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

Running through the city, Liaena stalled a few streets away from Sharons mansion. “What am I doing? I can’t go in like this”

Glancing around, the girl withdrew into the gap between two buildings away from the prying eyes of the street. Removing the expensive, fur-trimmed, badly ripped cloak from around her shoulders, she unceremoniously threw it into the gutter. Pulling a small vial that was pitch black inside out of her bag, she took a final look around for spies before tilting her head back to gulp the contents down. A moment later she grimaced and braced herself against the wall as her insides started to jump about like snakes.

It took less than a minute for the worst of the effects to wear off as Liaena shakily held her hands up to check them, then reached for a strand of hair to look at the colour. The sleeves of the dress were now clearly too long for her as she turned them back to keep them out of the way.

Remerging from the narrow gap was a girl that was an entirely different person from the one that had entered it, being about a foot shorter, with black hair and paler, although still flushed and sweaty from her mad dash through the city. Keeping a sharp look around for anybody who might be taking more of an interest in her than healthy, Liaena set off for Sharons house again at slightly less than full out run, heavily conscious that she had once again become ‘Desirable Bargaining Chip No1’ for any enterprising lurking assassins that hadn’t learned from the last times.

Thankfully, she only had to turn several corners before she finally reached the street at which Sharons mansion was located on, with a very, very, very unhappy looking Night Elf posted outside. That Night Elf only seemed to register Liaena’s presence after she had already approached, with a very long apathetic pause before recognition finally formed. “Oh. You’re that monkey that lives here aren’t you?”

“…Yes” Liaena said carefully, deciding under the circumstances to just this once allow the ‘monkey’ descriptor to pass. “Can I come in?”

Falaani sulkily turned to start rattling around with the bolt on the gate while Liaena hovered impatiently. For a race that prized itself on its elegance and speed, the Night Elfs moments seemed to the human to be torturously slow. “By the way…you haven’t seen Rithrynn, have you?”

“Hmm? Oh. Yeah.” Falaani paused for a moment, before wrinkling her nose in recognition as she finally pushed the gate open sluggishly. “Special Lieutenant business, she says. Not as though the lieutenant isn’t supposed to manage rotation or anything like that. Who needs relief? …Ashei nei bara nur ma Faleere vashani …where’ve you been, anyway?”

But Liaena was already gone as she turned around, running towards the house.

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

“I…see…” Kathlin said hesitantly, taking a moment to digest this new information. “I’m sorry Ma’am. I thought that you were the one that found him”

She cast a quick glance at Ragnar, but the dwarf still seemed unwilling to commit either way to the conversation. At the same time, Kathlin spied a little owl flutter down to perch on the windowsill behind Rosemarys back and begin to headbutt the glass persistently.

“She has the best timing…”

“Uh…actually Ma’am, I’m not actually a member of the Red Vanguard. Some of their members are friends…of a friend, so they asked me along to see if there was anything I could do to help” Kathlin clarified after a pause, causing the dwarf next to her to give her quite a sharp look.

“If possible, I’d still like to assist your Captain Adolph with the investigation. It’s my….civic duty, I suppose Ma’am? I would prefer to finish the autopsy, and I do have a bit of medical knowledge if they were in need of that”

Having said her piece, Kathlin clasped her hands behind her back as she looked at Rosemary, all the while ignoring the rhythmic bangings coming from the window behind the lady, which were becoming steadily louder.

“Would it be possible to speak to the servant that found him, Ma’am?”

*

Running as though all the creatures of hell were behind her, Liaena had long since been left in the dust by Rithrynn and Nisha, but then she didn’t take the same route as the Night Elf and Sabre. Leaving the main street to sprint down one of the side alleyways, Liaena cut an almost straight line across the Cathedral district as she jumped over bins, ran along walls and barged heedlessly through not-at-all public rights of way. It was only when she burst out on the waterfront of the canal path that she stalled for a moment.

Running on pure adrenaline, it was only when she stopped that all of the complaints from her overexerted body hit her at once as she groaned, bending over to nurse a wicked stitch. The bottom part of her new cloak had been ripped clean off and she had no idea how it had happened. The hem of her expensive wool dress was caked with melted snow and grime, and her hair was a sight to behold. However bad she looked however, she felt a lot worse.

“Oh Rithrynn. What’s he done to you?”

She must have been possessed, by that creature that attacked them in the sewer, or maybe some other evil curse that Sherpa had cast to get his claws into her. That was after all, the only possible explanation, and it hurt a lot more than any of the physical abuse she had recently taken. “I should never have told her to go away”

But where was she going now? Back to Sharon’s house? Where Sharon was, surrounded by idiot Night Elves that wouldn’t even give their sister a second glance, and where it was all too easy to get him on his own, just in time for a tragic accident…

Liaena started to run again.

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

I think it's been less than a year Sharon. Li's not that old :p

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

Sharon....you did tell nallore what happened to dalaran in our rp, didn't you? >:)

Poor dalaran got a bit mauled :-P

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

Whelp the big, fluffy nightsabre is out of the bag. And its going to take a lot of Li-blugeoning to put this one back :O

Rithrynn has the worst timing :p

"Shadows of the Past", a Warcraft Roleplay

Watching secretly from her vantage point across the road, Liaena’s eyes narrowed to slits as Sherpa wandered out of the house, to stroll casually over his carriage as if he didn’t have a care in the world. With that much emanated hate, it was a wonder that Sherpa did not detect her presence, or even drop dead on the spot.

“We’ll see how smug you are soon enough. You won’t be hiding behind your hired muscle any longer”

As the carriage rattled off, her eyes returned to the building thoughtfully. Now was in theory the point she returned to Sharon, Sherpa’s address confirmed. However, it occurred to her that with Sherpa and what looked like the owners out of the house out of the way, now might be an ideal moment to try and bluff her way into the building. Pushing her (untouched) food and tea aside with that in mind, she dumped down a few silver and started to rise to her feet – just as the door opened again, and another two forms leapt out. It took a few moments to process what she was seeing, before her jaw dropped in slowly dawning horror.

“RITHRYNN!?”

“Lets go girl! To second breakfast!”

*ROAR*

As Rithrynn and Nashi sprinted off down the street, Liaena hung in her half-sitting, half-standing position as she struggled to comprehend what had just happened. “I-I-I don’t understand. What’s going on? Why – why would she be here? …”

“Ma’am? Please Ma’am, are you alright?”

“……”

“I-“ Liaena stuttered as she turned to the waitress, who had come over to stare at her with some concern. Several of the people sitting outside was also eyeing her oddly, she was creating quite a scene as she hung frozen in place, face white as a sheet. “—I have to go”

“Ma’am—“

Uncaring of anything the waitress had to say Liaena sprinted off down the street, pushing aside pedestrians and dashing between rattling carts. Deaf to the cries of rage, she continued to run flat out towards the Mage District.