Silver Insanity

The night is brighter here than it was at the northern edge of Dornsby, as the street lamps are actually lit. Some people are still about even at this time of night, most moving quickly from one place to another.

A few blocks away, a squad of guards patrols slowly - only the most sluggish and dim-witted of criminals would actually be threatened by their procession.

Aurora drifts overhead, listening to what speech there is to be heard and watching where people go and where they don't go. Guard patrols are also noted, patrols along a rich area likely mean that the inhabitants pulled strings but patrols in unassuming areas were a bit more suspect. Patrols in shoddy areas possibly meant trouble, no patrols in dubious neighborhoods either meant that area wasn't considered worth the trouble or that it simply was too dangerous.

The southern area of town is fairly well patrolled, but the farther north you go, the less common the guards are. The entire northern district is empty of lights of any sort - literally everybody is indoors, with windows and doors closed.

Well... perhaps not everybody; a small voice right next to you comments "Peaceful night, isn't it?"

The commenter is a tiny white dragon, perhaps three feet in length. Its form is ragged and thin; were it alive, it would be one short step away from starving to death. Of course, it's not alive - and, as undead abominations go, it looks pretty healthy.

"So it seems to be yes, but likewise is the calm before the storm and in a city this size something's always brewing somewhere. I've gotten caught in enough crossfires to know that even the knowledge of something so simple as which alleys are blocked off can be of immense use. Or," she pauses for a moment, glancing at the odd creature next to her, "what one might expect to find above the rooftops..."

The thing grins toothily. "Expecting me to be here would be... a mistake. But there is indeed a storm brewing - though whether it will strike here or elsewhere, I neither know nor care."

"I'd repeat that adage about expecting the unexpected but that saying's always rather annoyed me." Aurora shrugs. "I suspect I may have clipped the edge of a storm, though whether it's the one of which you speak or no I know not, nor to be honest does it particularly worry me. Doesn't exactly do much good to spend all one's time worrying about bracing against one storm only to have storm winds hit from the opposite direction."

"True, true."

The dragon (or, arguably, thing that was once a dragon) remains silent for a long moment.

"I suppose I should explain why I'm here, before we waste the night exchanging more vague generalities. I'm looking to hire you; a few small tasks to start - tests, really - and then a larger mission. Payment is open to negotiation, in both amount and kind."

"What sort of tasks and what sort of payments? I've been called fey many a time before but I've little taste for those foolish lost causes or last stands of which bards seem so enamored."

"The first task is fairly simple. Until recently, this city contained a pack of afflicted were-rats, in mostly unwilling service to Karpuzlu. A group of adventurers rounded them up, and are currently working on decursing them. However - they missed three were-rats, and left behind the cursed relic that started the whole mess. The task, then, is to finish breaking Karpuzlu's power here."

"As for payment... The city is offering a bounty of a thousand gold per dead were-rat. Of course, they don't understand that there's no difference between a dead were-rat and a dead human, so you may have trouble if you try to collect that. I, on the other hand, will offer a flat nine hundred platinum for completion of this task - or anything or anyone that can be bought for that sum. Or, if you have no use for material rewards, some future task that takes no more than an hour or two of my time."

"Three questions then, I think, before I accept or no... First and one that might render the last two moot, would acceptance of this first... task construe acceptance of further ones? Second, where might I find the statue and the remaining weres? And third, how would you suggest I go about destroying the relic and contacting you when the job is done? I tend more towards hunting creatures rather than things, as most things hunted are hunted for use not destruction and that is a pursuit better suited to more scholarly sorts of mages."