Zilo was guided by the group of thugs into the streets of Shadeville. The folks in the area react much differently to the bard with Vinny and his thugs along with him. Before the people would spy and stare like predators looking at their prey, but now they reacted more like the prey, ignoring or fleeing at the sight of the predators.
"So, you guys really do seem to be popular." Says the bard.
"People around here know who we are, ain't nobody willing to step to the Green Dragons."
"Who are they?" One of the thugs looks to Zilo confused. Thinking he screwed up, he quickly points off to the left and says, "...Over there?" The thug looks over to a group of people scampering down an alley before responding, "How in Dema should I know?"
"Figured you guys have run this town so long, you'd keep tabs on everyone."
The thug shakes his head and says, "We ain't got centuries like you dragons do, trying to watch every Tom, Dick, and Jane in town ain't possible."
Vinny leans back and says, "Wisp could prolly manage if he weren't busy all the time."
"Wisp?" Asked Zilo, getting another puzzled look before following up, "Wisp, ain't seen him in a while. Might be the only bloke out of the lot of you to get me what I want." The thug grumbles at that slight as he continues to follow Vinny. The group stops in a normal alleyway and the 4 thugs begin to look around the alleys.
Once they are sure that the coast is clear Vinny reaches into his pocket and takes out a weirdly shaped dagger that looks to have a rectangular blade with sharp corners and ends rather than a normal dagger's point. The two corners seem much wider than a normal dagger as well.
He reaches for and takes down a parchment asking for help finding a killer loose in town. As the poster falls to the ground, Zilo notes that the poster was written by Mathew Coleron, Zilo's client for their current mission. Zilo puts on an air of ruggedness and says,
"Heh, wonder what all this is about." He ends with a smile and picking up the poster. One of the Thugs snickers and says, "Just a little local prunin, never you mind much, sir." Zilo threw the poster to the ground in a nonchalant way and smiles. To the thugs, the smile must have shown a knowing bond between folks, but in reality, Zilo smiled after having found the source of his search.
Vinny points the dagger at the grooves between the bricks and carefully slides it in between two bricks that lacked plaster between them that the poster had hidden. After a click and a thud, the wall begins to drop as Vinny pulls his dagger out of the wall and a secret stairway is revealed as the wall goes down.
Vinny motions for Zilo and the rest to head down and Zilo nodded to him before doing so. One of the last thugs flips a switch at the top of the stairs and the wall returns into position. One of the thugs cackles as he spots Zilo's curious face and says, "Gnomes, some of the best options for blackmail. Smart little shmucks make some of the best junk. Long as it doesn't blow up when you use it.
The walls had torches on them as Zilo is lead to a room with a small desk and a chair. The bard could hear the murmuring and shouting of more people in the hidden safe house, but before he could look to it further. Vinny tells him, "Take a seat, Wilt Wing. We'll be back in a minute."
Zilo sat in the room and began to start forming a plan. These thieves are connected to the killer, in fact, they just might be them, but he needs to get out clean without any more issues. Then he and his team can raid the place and then finish the job. Just as he finished forming his game plan, Zilo looked to the door to see a fellow he didn't recognize.
It was a halfling, shaved head with faint black hairs, one yellow eye and an eyepatch with an onyx band covering the other eye. The rest of the face was obscured mostly with a big bulbous nose. He was rotund, but not fat necessarily, and had two leather sashes in and X formation across his chest with a multitude of pockets. He had a short cloak of faded black, and fancy green boots with dark golden trim. The little man didn't seem to have any weapons.
The halfling left the wooden door ajar and stepped lightly for his round frame, hopping up on the table as he stared at the bard. Zilo, not wanting to let on he was less than draconic, stared back with equal intensity. After a few moments, the halfling spat to the ground from atop the desk and snapped, "You ain't Wilt Wing." Zilo's eyes widened and the halfling smiled and said, "Oh snap, you really aren't!?"
Zilo's teeth clenched as he lowered his head and the halfling continued in his high, but the intimidating tone, "I've used that trick for years, and this is only the 6th time it's worked." The halfling clapped and turned about.
Zilo reached back to his sword while the man had his back turned, but soon as he did there, was a dagger to the bard's neck and the wielder had in a flash turned back around and prepped the second dagger in his off-hand. Zilo froze, the quickdraw on this halfling was incredibly fast. Before Zilo's hand even reached his blade he beat him to the move.
"Now now, for right now you've just tricked my men, not a deadly offense. They told me you were at the meeting point, which means you prolly trapped or killed my dragon friends. Which was it?"
"Technically I wasn't the one who killed them" The halfling chuckled a bit and returned his daggers behind his lower back. He knelt down on top of the table to be level with the sitting Zilo and continued, "That's a hell of a setback. Used them to get folks to cough up their stuff real easy, guess we gotta find a method. You probably cost me a good month of income from my debt collections."
Zilo gulps and asks, "Well that's not what we wanted, all we want is-" Zilo was cut off as the halfling threw a hidden dagger at the ajar door and made it snap all the way on its hinges and bounce off the wall before slamming closed and clicking as the doorknob locked back in the doorframe.
"Sorry, did I break your train of thought!? No matter I personally do not care who you are, but you have got two choices right now my fine friend. Pay me back for the cost of my dragon partners or I treat everyone you love like I treated that door."
The halfling points over to the wall before pointing to his own head and says, "You see I've got a psion on the payroll looking through that one-way wall who's finished picking through your head, he just confirmed for me, you are not Wilt Wing for sure. You are one Zilo Realms, from Deneval and... you have a girl you care about quite a bit! Aria Zal I believe." The halfling smiles.
Zilo's Face grows pale as the halfling finishes, "All I need to do is send word to my contacts in Deneval with what my psion knows and she is dead." The halfling rubs his chin and snaps his fingers and he shouts to the wall, "In fact, screw it. Tell Jake to track her. If he doesn't hear from me in 3 days assume I gave the order to off her."
Zilo looks to the wall in dread before the Halfling pulls his gaze back to him and says, "Now you don't get a choice, make me happy and I think I might call Jake off."
Zilo clenches his fists and asks, "What do you want?" The halfling spins in place and says, "Perfect, I knew you were a smart boy." He stops his spin, crossed his arms with one pointing up to the air before continuing,
"Here's the deal, Wilt Wing and his woman might have been my partners, but dragons are really difficult to trust wholly. Soon as I met them I started getting my men on the job of trying to find their lair."
"You want their hoard," Says Zilo. The halfling nods and continues, "Like I said, you're a smart boy. I gave you your time limit, so get to it." Zilo rises and begins to exit the room. As he begins to walk out, the halfling shouts after him and says, "Oh, I'm sorry, how rude, I never introduced myself."
Zilo turns to see the Halfling, not relaxing back in Zilo's seat with both feet kicked up on the desk. The halfling smiles and says, "The name is Wisp, leader of the Green Dragons. it was a pleasure speaking with you Zilo Realms."
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