🚀 go-pugleaf

>He sat back down on the stone by the fire place.  "Let's skip the
>pleasantries, I want to be paid, 20 royals up front and I get an even split
>of any treasure we pull up from the dwarven keep.  If you don't survive
>then your stuff goes in the pot too.  I want a good shot at killing the
>slimy grey dwarf that sits on the throne in Mor-Ganth too"

	Cranach sat back in his chair and noted the dwarf's
demands with a disinterest only matched by his disiniterest
when the dwarf removed the minor glamour spell.

	" I care not about the greed of dwarves", he said
lightly, with a curl to his smile, " I care not about
rewards -- other than the devices the runes on the map
mention ".

"	And now gentlefolk, I must leave  this house, for it
smells too much like a perfumed brothel,", smiled cranach, 
"no offense, Mr Broog,....Briggs, but I'm not 
comfortable in these surroundings ..... I will meet you at
dawn, outside this structure. Then we must set off, for I 
fear time runs out ."

	With that , Cranach left the room, leaving behind
a brief but virulent whiff of the underworld.

	He collected his goods and let himself out the front door.
As he passed, he noticed a huge raven, perched just above his
head. "Ah, good Corgie, now who's messenger would you be, as if
I didn't know". Knowing better than to assault the familiar of
one of the Dark mages, he strode off, smiling to himself and
thought " So....., my step brother Ratnag  te Wynn has 
actually come to talk to me himself.... what a marvelous
occassion "

	Cranach walked randomly, until he came to a thick but small
copse of trees, lying in a small depression, near a fen. He stopped
suddenly, for within the copse he smelled the presence of a full
blown dark elf. 

	His eyes glittered, as he slowly drew his wicked sword,
and he said in the common speech of the dark world 

	"show yourself brother, for your smell identified
your race !" 

	From the copse, all that was heard was the strum
of a bowstring , as an arrow sped unseen towards Cranach.
Quickly, Cranach dodged...not fast enough... the arrow
punctured his lute case and lute, which had slid down around him,
in his haste.

	"You offspring of a High elf, Ratnag !,
that will cost you your pathetique life ", shouted
Cranach as he charged towards the copse. Just before
he arrived a short , cowled figure appeared, wielding a broad
bladed long sword, the kind employed by the Orcish clans.

	With a quick move, the figure side stepped Cranach's
charging form and laid a heavy below towards his rib cage. Fortunately
the blow was slightly ill timed, so the full extension of arc
was not met. The blade struck at an angle and was caught by 
Cranach's hidden chain mail, but blood was still drawn.

	Cranach's mail and and mas ripped the blade from his assailant's 
hand and Cranach, not feeling the pain, stopped and pivoted on his foot
a place a clean blow through the enemy's crown, splashing blood and 
Brains over the ground. 

	Cranach stopped, and grasped his side, noting with a
dettachment that blood had been drawn. He stood over the now
dead assailant, and used the cloak to clean his sword. He didn't
bother looking at the corpse for if it had been his step 
brother , Ratnag Li, killing him would not have been so easy

	Somewhere, someplace, his step brother was following him,
waiting to catch him at an unaware moment, such as the one that just
passed.  " That", he thought, "will not happen again".

	With that Cranach removed his tunic and noted
the damage done to him and his chain mail. With a great deal of
pain he removed his mail shirt and glanced at the deep but minor
cut on his ribs. With deliberate care, Cranach removed a needle and
thread from his pack, a stiched the edges of the wound together, followed
by a liberal pasting of a malodouros poltice, also taken from his
pack. 

	Sighing deeply, he replaced his armor and tunic, repacked
his bag and entered the copse of trees, where he sat against the trunk
of a tree. Just before he drifted of to sleep, he felt a cold, reptilean
chill pass over his mind, foreign memories of the hunt, and the kill
flitting through his forebrain. His forehead wrinkled as he slept, and 
unconciously grasped the item, sewn into the flesh of his lower back,
the same item Briggs had sold him so long ago.......