Somehow I managed to get a halfway decent night's sleep. I guess my subconcious had decided to take the night off. I was woken up the next morning by a sharp, insistent rapping on the door. I definitely should have slunk off to my hidey-hole last night. I told the rapper to go off somewhere quiet and bugger himself. This didn't have the desired result of making the rapper go away unfortunately so I was forced to drag my sorry carcass out of bed. "Wait until I get my bloody leg on will you." I yelled. After I had strapped it on, taking my own sweet time of course, I went to check on my caller. It was that damned Belvani, of course. He looked disgustingly bright and chipper.
"Isn't it a little early for investigating murders?" I asked
grumpily. "It's never too early to enjoy this bustling metropolis
that is Pavis," Belvani cherrily replied. I sighed disgustedly at
this and gestured for him to come in. He did, followed by his
everpresent lizard. I splashed some water from the pitcher on my wash
stand into the basin on it and washed my face. I like it quite a bit
but it's a strange and foreign piece of furniture to most Pavisities.
The fact that it's made of whole pieces of wood rather than little
bits cobbled together to make bigger bits is enough to make it unusual
around here. Belvani raised a quizzical eyebrow at this extravagant
piece of furniture but seemed to recognize it for what it is. "It was
sent by my mother when she failed to convince me to return to Glamour.
I hate to think what that must have cost her." I said shaking my
head. I slowly washed my face as Belvani examined the wash stand
closer. "Nice workmanship," he said. I grunted agreement.
After I had changed my tunic to one only slightly less grotty, run my
fingers through my hair, and rubbed them regretfully through the
growing bristles on my face I turned to Belvani and bowed. "At your
service," I said bowing slightly. "Where do we begin our
investigation?" he asked. I looked thoughful for a bit and replied.
"Well, I think I should go speak with the local Sun Dome authorities
and try and determine when the deceased was last seen alive, who had a
reason to kill him, where he lived. You know, things like that." I
shrugged. Belvani smiled pleasantly, "I've led an interesting life
so far but this is the first murder investigation I've been involved
in so you will have to take the lead. I am at your disposal." It was
his turn to bow.
After a bland, yet nourishing breakfast at Gimpy's we headed over to the Sun Dome followed by the lizard. His co-religionists were just starting their caterwauling to Yelm and Yemalio so we walked fairly slowly so as to give them a chance to finish up before we got there. I looked sideways at Belvani and asked, "Why aren't you over there yowling with them?" He smiled his smug smile and said, "Oh, I performed my devotions earlier this morning." I nodded slowly and shrugged, what do I know of the Yemalio religion. We made small talk about our backgrounds along the way. I was evasive and he was elliptical so we basically learned absolutely nothing about each other.
When we reached the temple complex we walked right past the templars on guard who just straightened up to look more guardlike and let us pass. Belvani gestured to a bench in a courtyard and said, "We'll have to wait here for Haloric Goldbrow to be free. He'll be the one we need to talk to." I grunted acknowledgement of this obvious to even dense old me fact and settled in to wait.
To be continued.
Oliver
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