A tale penned by Radswill La'Varn

[Radswill La'Varn]

Dear Captain of the Guard Baoffer

   First I’d like to thank you for the quill and parchment, I’m going to use it to tell you what happened in my own words now.  (Since I won’t be around to tell the magistrate later)  I came into Hilltownforge three nights ago with empty pockets and an empty stomach.  Now I’m not going to mince words with you here Baoffer I’m a thief albeit not a good one, (I did get caught and all) but it’s how I’ve kept my belly and purse full for a long time.  
   
You know Baoffer I want to tell you something.  I don’t really got any body else to tell it to, so you seem just as good as the next guy.  I’ve had my eyes open for a long time, and I’ve noticed a few things about property.  You know it’s always in transition, property is, you know people are always trading with each other, making new stuff, finding some one else’s old stuff.  It seems like it’s here today and gone tomorrow, but there’ll always be another tomorrow when it comes back.  That’s why it doesn’t bother my sleep at all if I steal something.  If I took something for somebody it’s cause I needed it and by the day after I’ve probably already lost it some one else.  It’s not a bad thing it’s just the way I think things are.  
   
So where was I, I had just come into Hilltownforge three nights ago tonight.  I sure was in need of a few things after my time on the road.  I moseyed on down to the merchant district (you know I’ve never had a problem finding where merchants are, call it a thief thing I guess) it was all ready pretty late and the last guy open was closing up shop.  Which wasn’t necessarily a good thing, wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either.  I looked around the square a bit for a more run down looking place.  I wasn’t really in the need of big money just a bit to square me over till the next bit came along.  And there it was, looked like a leather merchant, he’d all ready closed up and the lights were all out.  The glass of his store was old and dirty, the sign over top was peeling and some of the mortar around the brick work was coming out.  This seemed like a perfect place.  I went to case the joint.
   
Just as soon as I got around back I heard something every thief should recognize.  It’s the sound of a heavily armored man walking slowly.  The *clink* … *clink* is unmistakable.  And the only heavily armored people who walk around at night that slow are watchmen.  I ducked into a shadow and hoped like all hell he didn’t see me moseying to the back of the shop.  And thankfully the *clink* … *clink* soon left the merchant square.  Which meant it was time to get down to business.  There wasn’t any back door to the place but there was a window.  The window consisted of two dirty panes of glass each set into frames.  One on top and one on bottom, the one on the bottom slid up to the top one.  There was a simple catch at the top of the bottom frame that slid into the bottom of the top frame.  I took out a thin knife and wormed it in between the two window frames then slid it across the catch, which popped out of place rather noiselessly.  At that point I was pretty proud of myself.  I lifted the bottom window up and crawled into the joint.  It was dim but I can see good in the dark.  To my left there was a counter to my right there was some stairs going up.  In the middle of the room was a couple of tables with saddles and sheaths and some clothing made out of leather.  Then it caught my eye.  It was hanging of the right hand wall, just in front of the stairs.  The best looking leather breast plate I’ve ever seen.  It surprised me in a bit to be in what I thought was a run down place, but I wasn’t about to curse good fortune.  I sidled along the wall to it.  It fit like a dream, like it was made for me.
   
I must have made noise at some point I don’t remember when but I was behind the counter when I heard the creak at the top of the stairs and then the unmistakable:

“Hey you down there robben me I’m going to bash your brains in!”

This is generally the call of an angry shop keeper.  His voice sounded a little young to me but I didn’t think much about it, I just dropped down into a crouch behind the counter.  His foot steps sounded like thunder as he came down the stairs before he reached the floor I stood up and launched two daggers into his chest.  And he was young, he was only a kid.  I got to wondering if he was the shop keeper when I got clubbed from behind.  
   
Now I want to make two points here.  First I got some awful bad luck.  You might be thinking every thief says that when they’re caught but I got it bad.  It always seems like I’ve got everything worked out in my head, how things are going to go.  But it’s like everything isn’t at all the way things seem.  Like this guy who clubbed me from behind (I learned later he was the shop owner and the kid’s father) this guy was a giant.  He stood almost 7 feet tall and had shoulders and a chest made up of bulging muscle, that were wider than an ox’s.  And that aint no exaggeration you had to have seen him too.  But anyway all this bad luck, though it’s bad for my thieving business, it sure has made me a good fighter.  The second thing is: I don’t mind killing people.  It’s not that I’m cruel it’s just that if there’s a freak of a man in front of me who just watched me kill his son he’s not going to worry about killing me, so I look at it as defense, I don't worry about killing him either.  Now you might say you killed that boy when you didn’t have too, but I look it as merely defending my self early.  But anyway back to what happened.
   
I got hit hard, but I’ve been hit hard before and I rolled with it, rolled right over the counter.  I hit the ground and kept going when I came up I had my fighting daggers out, (call me superstitious, but they’re my lucky ones) one in each hand.  Now some people say a fight’ll take a long time but in my experience they happen quick as lighting.  This one was no different the giant came over the counter in what was a terribly impressive leap.  I half lunged at him and he must of have been really excited which is what I was hopping for and he took a swing at my extended arm.  I disengaged the powerful blow and then lunged the rest of the way in, stabbing the big man in the chest.  My other knife wasted no time gouging out his gullet.  And that was that.  Kill or be killed Baoffer.
   
I rolled the big guy behind the counter and covered him up with a table cloth, then I went to check on the kid.  He was still alive.  I removed my daggers from his chest then wrapped him up in a table cloth as well.  I don’t know why but I made sure to wrap his chest up real tight to stop the blood flow.  

“I ain’t sorry about stabbing you, or killing your dad, but I don’t mean you any harm kid.  I do hope you get better.”

I don’t know why I told him that.  I knew he couldn’t hear me … but any way, I hid him with his dad underneath the counter.  
   
That’s when your men busted in there was seven of them, I knew I couldn’t fight them all so I went for the window.  I leapt through it but right when I landed I got whacked on the head again.  
   
I want to thank you for not letting your men beat me to death out there.  It probably helped that they didn’t know I killed any one yet.  And that sure was smart of you to put a man of yours around back.  I’ll remember that one.  But now I’m sorry to say Baoffer, I can’t stay with you any longer.  I got an itch in my feat telling me it’s time to move on.

Sincerely

Radswill La’Varn

   Radswill stood up from the stone floor he had been writing on, he rolled up the parchment and put it at the head his sleeping pallet.  Everything about Radswill made him look like a boy, he was very short even for an elf, he didn’t have a scrape of facial hair at all, and the mop on top of his head was wild and blonde.  But he had the walk of a fighter, that easy gait made because he never let his heels touch the floor.  He moved over to the barred door that led into and out of his cell and peered cautiously around, there wasn’t any one to be seen.  Radswill then took of his left shoe and using his fingernails and his teeth ripped out the seem around the sole of it.  He bent back the leather and removed a lock pick, a small pry bar (to turn the chamber of the lock), and a sewing needle already threaded.  He put the pick and the bar in his pocked and then sewed back up his sole.  He didn’t do a very good job but it would hold for a while.  He then went back to the door sliding both hands through the bar he felt around till he found the lock.  It took him a bit to pick it, especially from behind and with out being able to see it but he eventually heard the *click* he had been waiting for.  
   
The door to his cell slid open easily and Radswill moved down the hall way.  He wasn’t in the prison.  Not yet, he was just in the guard house.  It took him a bit of searching but he finally found the “Evidence Locker” he picked that open too.  And there was all of his stuff even the breast plate that fit him so nicely.  There was also some stuff that wasn’t his at all, but that didn’t really bother Radswill and he made off with as much as he could carry.

[Radswill La'Varn]

I guess I should have left some contact information, especialy since I would like to find a DM.  My preference is weekday nights: tuesday or thursday in particular.  You can email my at babycheecks8000@yahoo.com

Radswill La'Varn

[Radswill La'Varn]

*I’d just like to say that I like writing these, so I hope any one who reads this enjoys it.*

Radswill entered the Oysters Delight, with a swagger (he had a lot of newly acquired money is his purse).  It was early in the night but the place would fill up soon, he hoped.  There were lots of open tables at the moment, but out of all of them Radswill choose a small one with one seat in the middle of the room.  He choose it for several reasons: it was close to the fire which gave off a pleasant feel, almost like liquid warmth, second (and most importantly to the opportune young elf) it was close to the bar and most of the other tables, or in better words right in the middle of the action.  

He ordered water, and the soup and bread dish.  After the waitress had left with his order he pulled out the only thing he had bought so far with this new money.  It was a small leather bound journal, along with a quill and a bottle of ink.  

Dear Journal (I guess)

It seems rather feminine to call you a journal.  But it is better than calling you diary … you know I’m not sure why I even got a journal.  I think it has to do with that letter.  It was really nice being able to get out all my thoughts.  I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on the road between Hilltownforge and Lonington.  And I think I’m just getting lonely.  Sure there are people around, but none of them care for anything but themselves.  Like that waitress just now, she smiled at me, but that’s only cause I’m paying her.  She didn’t notice me looking but she soured up after she left the table.  I don’t know what I’m complaining about though.  I’m just as selfish.  Still doesn’t help me being lonely though.

Radswill continued to write in his journal, through most of the night.  The soup and bread were delicious.  Which was the way it should be in such an expensive joint.  About 9 o’clock.  A fat man in fine clothes stumbled down the stairs (which presumably led to the inn’s rooms) he was surrounded by several large well-armed men, and three young women.  All of them laughed at his jokes, but only when the fat man looked at them otherwise they looked off, very bored like.

And here he is journal, the lucky winner for the night!  I can’t believe this fat guy.  He’s thrown money all over the bar buying drinks for his men and his girls and several other men’s girls.  What a cocky ass.  Now it’s not like I’m on some crusade here journal, like I’m only going to rob this guy blind because he’s a jerk, or I think I’ll be doing the world a favor.  I don’t think that highly of my self.  But I do think if you are going to rob some one and you have the opportunity to rob such a rich ass like that than you should take it.  Because it’ll be a lot funnier to see a man like that with out any money and clothes, than a man who all ready doesn’t have money and clothes.  Do you understand?

There wasn’t a fall down dummy ceiling on the second floor.  It was just the rafters that supported the roof.  Radswill sat crouched up on one of the beams at the back of the biggest room in the inn (he had picked the lock to gain entry to it, and extuiguished the candle so the room was dark, except for the moon light) where he waited patiently for the fat man to come up drunk and unawares. (he knew the fat man would come to this room, it was after all the biggest) He smiled to himself in the dark, thinking he was pretty clever with the whole set up.  And then there it was the soft scramble at the front of the door.  Radswill thought it was still pretty early in the night for the fat man to come up, but here he was.

Radswill slunk along the beam till he was right over the door.  It opened and the man walked in.  Radswill dropped from the ceiling knife in hand ready to plunge it into the fat man’s back.  

(Now when things go terribly wrong, and something very bad is about to happen the world seems to slow down.  Even the most miniscule details become apparent, like the superb stitching on the shoulders of a black cloak worn by a thin man who slunk like a thief.  Now this isn’t because of some magic.  And the world doesn’t actually even slow down at all.  What really happens is the mind realizes this terrible situation and goes into over drive.  The mind process every sense faster than it ever normally does.  So it’s not actually the world slowing down, but you (the person who is about to experience this calamity) speeding up to deal with it.)

Radswill felt like he fell for a whole minute from the eight foot high beam.  He had plenty of time to realize that it wasn’t the fat man who entered.  That it was another thief poaching on his mark, and he had plenty of time to adjust his blade according to this other man’s height and weight.  But the other guy was good, way to good.  His body turned just right to avoid the blade sinking into his spine, and not only that there was an audible *clink* of metal armor, as Radswill’s blade skipped across this guy’s turned back.  Now any one moving that quietly in metal armor was a foe to be reckoned with.  Radswill landed lightly on his feet and immediately rolled out of the way expecting a fast attack from this thief.  He was right in that assumption.  A long thin blade appeared to fast for the eye to follow and cut the air where Radswill had been.  The new thief pressed Radswill hard with snake like thrust, Radswill parried but had no time to riposte, and no time to pull his second dagger.  Radswill’s brain screamed at him, the fight was going on for too long, it was too load, this guy is too good.  Everything was wrong.  And then Radswill saw his end.  

For as long as he could remember Radswill had been able to look at the whole person in a fight.  It had served him well.  He could take in an opponents foot work, body position and the rest of his movements at the same time.  And he could see his end coming.  For the whole fight this thief had led with his right foot, and kept equal distance between his two feet.  But after a hard slash to Radswill’s face (which he parried) the thief’s left foot was pulled up to his right foot, which would extend his lunge by a couple feet.  The last slash had moved Radswill so that the wardrobe was right behind him, with no way to escape the up coming lunge.  The maneuver was called a Gain and Radswill had used it numerous times before (to great effect) but now there didn’t seem to be any place to go.

That whole thought came to Radswill so fast, that the thief’s blade had only started moving when he came to his final conclusion.  The world slowed down again, and in a flash Radswill’s body fell.  But there wasn’t a blade sticking into it, instead he rolled forward hard crashing into the other thief’s legs and toppling him.  He fell onto Radswill and the two got tangled in each others limbs for a second.  But the pounding of feet up the stairs scared them into a squirming fit.  The two broke free of each other, and leapt out of one of the two windows.  They each sprinted off in a different direction when the landed.

*On a rooftop lit by the street torches Radswill took out his journal to assess the nights work*

Dear Journal

All I have to say about that is Damn it!  Damn it!  Damn it! … and shit.

Radswill La’Varn

*Later that night*

Dear Journal

And furthermore, I’m not bitter.  But screw that other thief.  

Radswill La’Varn