Quest Playing With Fire (Kreig)

[Gossamer]

Timestamp: 52nd of Spring, 518 AV

The contender had some dumbass name. Truthfully, they were getting more ridiculous and less edgy as time went on. No one fought under their real names, not unless they were real fighters… and those sorts of men were hard to come by. “Razor" was pretentious and completely overinflated in his abilities. The crowd knew it and Krieg knew it. But Tall Johnny was having a hard time finding true contenders. And no-names, people with street names that no one recognized, often could be sold as ‘wildcard’ bets. Sometimes Jonhny could make some money. Sometimes not. So he took chances.

Kreig could tell immediately upon stepping in the ring that this was just an average street punk. The lanky young man had a cocky smile and an arrogance he wore like a second skin. Probably from an affluent household, running wild with too much money and time. He was completely in the wrong matchup, but his bravo was unbeatable. He was the type of contender that danced around flashy and fancy, but not really advancing and not really throwing any solid moves. All Kreig had to do was wait him out and watch him grow a little less cautious and a little more tired. It was a show, not a fight, and Kreig understood that. Sometimes Johnny had to put on shows.

So Kreig did as he was instructed. Give them a show. And that meant standing bored in the arena while the lad danced around arrogantly and flashy until there was enough restlessness in the crowd to merit him throwing a few punches. After that, the fight went quick. Five moves, less than ten heartbeats, and he was laid flat. There was nothing memorable about the fight. Kreig hadn’t hurt him, not really, but he wasn’t going to be a hundred percent healthy for a while because he took several hard hits to the head that was ultimately the cause of Kreig laying him flat. The lesson would be hard learned though with his type. Razor went down fast, and as he did so something fell out of his leather pants, a slip of paper that was tucked casually in a back pocket.

It fluttered across the dirt and brushed across Kreig’s boot. Wrinkled, it was dirt brown on the back side, completely camouflaged against the floor of the arena. Kreig would most likely go unnoticed or people would not be concerned if he bent, retrieved it, and saw what it said on it. It was a map of Tent City… a map marked up with an area encircled and noted ‘Burn It’. There was a symbol on it as well, a sort of stylized flower, three leafed, bound in a band of some sort.

The map had been well handled. But most concerning of all was that where it was marked to be burned, there was hundreds of incredibly poor people living in squalor. Setting a fire there would cause mass casualties… death to men, women, and children that had no recourse against it with the way their housing was thrown together. Scrap wood, tarp, pallets, and even tin salvaged from the ruins of Sunberth. Tent city was probably the most vulnerable part of the population outside of the city proper. And because it was immediately adjacent to The Slag Heap it was incredibly vulnerable.

Kreig could take the information and just forget about it. Most people would. Or he could investigate. There had to be a reason the map was marked up and that there were plans being made for that area.

Turning over the map, to the plain brown side, if he tilted it one way or the other, he’d find there was faint worn writing on it.

“Clear out this area. What we seek is below it. Its far easier to burn it down than search through all that filth.” Again, a faint three flowered symbol was left at the end of the writing, similar to the one on the front with the red inked outline.

[Kreig Messer]

Kreig was glad the fight ended truth be told, not only because of the boredom it entailed for both he and the audience but for the fact he gleam anything useful from it. Nothing he felt he could incorporate into his own style of fighting or something that he would have to plan around if he were to encounter similar opponents. All it took in the end was a good few licks in the head and boom! Razor was down for the count to the relief of all involved. They weren't even hard punches, just things that would force 'Razor’ to take a rest for a few days. Fight done, next pair of fighters come in and perhaps it will be actually worth betting on this time. But as Razor fell the chap had to drop something, a bit of parchment small enough to go unnoticed and sail near Kreig’s boot. Hands in his pocket, he tilted his head down to note the bit of parchment that seemed to nearly disappear into the ground. His curiosity gnawed at him, truth be told. Oh he knew he probably should not have been so nosy but honestly it was like handing a child a sweet roll and telling him not to eat it. Doomed to failure really. Unless the child didn’t like sweet rolls, which was a ridiculous notion in Kreig’s mind. Bending to the knee as if realizing that he himself dropped something, the brawler picked it up, examined it briefly and realizing it was a map, pocketed it, and left the ring so that he may look at it without curious eyes wondering why he was lingering. Also he wasn’t sure Johnny would set another fighter on him if he did and he’d hate to have his attention drawn to two things. Once out of the audiences sight he pulled out the brown parchment and gave it due examination. It was a map of tent city, the poor of part of town that actually made Sunset Quarter's look positively luxurious. His stomach sank when he saw the word burn it right next to it. His jaw dropping a few inches, eyes widening, and a feeling of anger bubbling up inside him. He hadn’t recognized the symbol, but it was something to burn into his mind. The folks in the Tent City hardly ha dit easy living there, and the fact that it had a lot of shoddy construction and being near the Slagheap made it a death trap within a death trap. Flipping the parchment about, his eyes furrowed at the words written. What the petch could be under there that warranted burning it down to just get at it? Greed could be an ugly thing, and the fact these shykeheads thought it warranted burning down peoples homes, killing, and displacing its inhabitants worth it made it too ugly for Kreig to stomach. And that symbol was there again of course. He had to keep that in his head. He had to do something. This was going to be troublesome. Sighing in frustration, the brawler moved to fetch his breastplate and studded gauntlets and began making his way to Tent City. No use interrogating that Razor arse he felt, he was going to be out of it a good while and Kreig had no idea if he had time. “Bein’ a good lad will be the death of me I swear….”

[Gossamer]

Kreig had no problem wandering the streets of Sunberth until he hit the area just outside of town called Tent City. It was labeled clearly on the map and easily recognized by the haphazard building that had been done on the area. Tents covered the ground, but also there was the making of a first-class shanty town because people had salvaged lumber, metal, brick, and really anything that could be built with to form little cubicles of living space that they could call home. The whole area was tinged with smoke from the slag heap if the wind wasn’t favoring the tent city or the haze of the multitude of cookfires wasn’t being swept away by sea breezes. Tent city was really an assault on the senses in all forms.

First, it was a riot of color, smell, and definitely had a distinct bustle of noise about it. If Kreig followed his map carefully he’d arrive at the area in the shanty where it was carefully labeled on the map for demolition.

The problem was, looking over the area, there was no singular way to contain a fire if one got started. There was no easy access to water since there were no wells in the area. The sea was too far away for any sort of bucket brigade, and everything in sight was flammable. People milled around, mostly younger and older, the middle aged males mostly off trying to earn coin. The rest of the population looked sad, down-trodden even. Old men and women at shaded ‘doorframes’ that could barely be considered ‘porches’. Children played in mud and waste streams that flowed both into and out of tent city. The smell of feces and unwashed bodies was everywhere.

And the buildings… well they were tagged with colorful scratching of various gang sign, graffiti… and here and vibrant slashes of crimson that resembled a three-leafed plant banded towards the bottom. If Kreig began looking in earnest, he would see that some of the children had red paint on their hands… a small group near him floating improvised boats made of leaves and twigs in puddles of piss had such markings. They looked to be about seven or eight, two boys and a girl, and were trying to race their boats by blowing on the puddles. Their fingers were stained red and the one girl had a splash of red paint on her bare foot.

There were tough youth wandering around as well. Some of them looked to be running errands or in a hurry. One of those would be easy to stop and question, though they didn’t have the red paint that Kreig could see.

As for the tents and shanty buildings, Kreig could see they were clearly marked. Someone had been painting the same symbol on buildings that had been painted on his map. The paintings weren’t precise, but rather haphazard and barely recognizable as if made by all sorts of hands, both small and large for the distance from the ground the symbols were painted varied. If he paced the area, he’d find the same tags everywhere, roughly covering the area of the map in his possession as well. The sheer area of the demarked ‘fire zone’ was staggering. If the place went up in flames, many many many people would die.

[Kreig Messer]

It was at moments like this that Kreig realizes how unfathomably lucky he was that he born and raised in the Sunset Quarters and at the current lived in a basement room at Tall Johnny’s. Say what you will about both living conditions over there, but they were paradise compared to the health hazard that was Tent City. Kreig never really had a reason to venture to this part of the city, and the smells and living condition of its people alone were reason enough not to. Kreig felt guilty about that. He had also felt nauseous from the multiple hits on his senses of sight, smell, and for some rather unfathomable reason his very sense of taste. It was like he could taste the taint in the air and smell of fire from the slagheap and the smaller utility fires had done nothing to help with that. His eyes falling upon the people he could feel another twinge of regret, it was funny how poor a regular person in Sunberth and imagine how they could ever get any more sadder and poorer. Only to be confronted by it as you enter Tent City and walk amongst its people. Kreig closed his eyes briefly, very briefly, in effort to contain the anger he felt. When he thought the people here had it rough, he’d no realization at just how understated that was. Looking at the ‘buildings’ if they could be classified as such also had him angry, the people having but little choice to live in these decrepit things due to a myriad of reasons. Any sane person would want better if they had to live here, but for now it was all they had. And they stood to lose it and more. As he wandered, his eyes fell upon the buildings again. Three red lines like grass, grouping at the base and looking bound caught his gaze. He lifted the map and looked at the symbol, compared to the markings and frowned. It seemed he found it. His eyes travelled again and he found the same symbol, like the first it was crudely made but resembled the marking upon the parchment. Then again, and again, and again. It was everywhere in varying states of recognition. Well, this was certainly not a good thing. Kreig’s fist tightened around the map as his teeth bit onto the corner of his lip hard enough that he felt blood gather in his mouth. This was bad. Unfathomably bad. Bad enough to set one or two fires, multiple on so many at once? He couldn’t imagine it being limited to just Tent City. For as shoddy the construction here was, the rest of Sunberth wasn’t so far behind. This wouldn’t be limited to Tent City, not at all. His eyes fell upon a group of children playing nearby, the piss puddle serving as the body of water for their little vessel. He saw the marking there as well, on those boats. He saw the red paint, those accursed lines. He saw the same paint upon the fingers of children. His face paled, eyes widened. He looked at the various markings of the same symbol again, his neck almost spraining from how rapid his gaze. He returned to look at the children. A piece of a puzzle. His eyes fell upon the remainder of the people, his eyes wondering if he’d see the same upon its residents. Instead his gaze fell upon older youths who had a tough look about them, moving back and forth as if they’d urgent chores. Were they related to it? Are they aware of what was to occur? Do they know what kind of deathtrap? Or are they simply victims as well? And what of his suspicion, was he right in thinking the people had been tricked into marking their own homes? It wouldn’t be hard, a silver would be enough to get even a single loaf of bread that didn’t tastes like the soles of boots. Kreig had to know. So as one of the busy youth was to pass by, his hand darted forward to try and grab them by the shoulder and simply ask “What’s with those symbols?” His voice was desperate, panic underlined his voice. “What’s with those symbols? The three lines curvin’ an’ meetin’ at the bottom? Where'd they come from? I’ll pay ya five gold if ya tell me” Yahal, Father above, he hoped the tried and true method of bribing helped him here.

[Gossamer]

The boy Kreig had randomly snagged widened his eyes as the big man seemingly snatched him out of the crowd. He struggled lightly, but he was a thin boy of about eleven with wide blue eyes and an unruly and dirty mop of blond hair. Fear coursed across his features and he seemed to keep trying to reach for his pocket where Kreig could clearly see the outline of something that might have been a knife. Most of the boys around the area had weapons, but they weren’t real ones. Bits of metal worn down or shaped to look like weapons was all the youth could afford. But diligently sharpened on loose brick of stone, they could be just as destructive as the real things.

“Fii….fiivvveee gogoogoold?” The boy stammered and finally stopped struggling. He wasn’t sure what Kreig was talking about. Glancing around, he looked to see if he could spot what Kreig was talking about and saw the fluer de lis. “Oh? The red lily?” He asked. Then held out his hand for the coin. “I’ll tell you but I wanna see the money first.” If Krieg produced, the boy would begin to talk, especially if Kreig released him and he didn’t feel threatened.

“There were three men that visited. They talked to everyone, asking a lot of questions about what was below their homes. They told a story… about creatures that lived below Sunberth. Said there were mines all over, and some of them were beneath our tents. They were looking for something… a way to get in. Because the creatures guarded a treasure. They wanted it. We all want it now too. Like you, they were offering coins for information. Everyone does that here really. Part of the story was about the lily. It was said to grow where one can get into the mines. We painted it for luck… .they gave the kids paint and they took off… painted them almost anywhere anyone would agree to help find treasure if it was indeed real.” The boy said, his voice rising in excitement at the prospect of more treasure.

“Everyone is so excited about it. Everyone but Mosa. She keeps telling everyone to watch out for the strangers. Warning folks its no good. She keeps rubbing dirt over the lilies. She’s really old though. No one pays her any mind. She’s a fortune teller and seer. But no one thinks she’s got a real gift. No one has even seen if she’s god touched or not.” They boy sad, eager to give out this information as well.

“She lives just a few rows over, take you five minutes walking slow to find her.” He said helpfully, and if Kreig had paid him well, he’d vanish into the crowd the moment Kreig’s attention was diverted.

[Kreig Messer]

The tried method of bribery proved true, especially as it saved him the trouble of having to deal with the moral quandary of fighting a child with a crude bit of metal shaped into a knife. He’d already had to deal with one such child plaguing him with guilt years ago, another was desperately unwanted. Kreig let go of that lad, producing the mizas in haste. The fives jangled in his hand as he waited the boy to speak the information. All the while the paleness of Kreig’s face never really left the reality of the situation all too heavy on his mind. The weight only increased as he heard the tale. Kreig withheld his breath as his eyes closed. While he doubted the idea of monsters guarding a treasure, the bit about the minds was common knowledge. Petch’s sake Sunberth had ways into the mines all over, it was a mining town before the world went shyke in a handbasket. But these three men…. They were looking for a specific entrance in this particular area. Whether they truly believed there were monsters guarding a treasure beneath Tent Cityor not, Kreig didn’t care. What Kreig did care about was three greedy imbeciles had the gall to lure these people with the promise of money and then trick them into marking their own homes with that… that lily. Kreig wanted to laugh really, opening his eyes as he looked into the sky. His hands wrapped over the coin before looking down to the boy. If Kreig didn’t hurry, these people would indeed find a red lily, but it would be deadly and burn them all to ash. “Alright, you held your end” Kreig reached out to give the boy the money promised, five gold ones enough to last the kid for days if he was careful “And I’m thinkin’ that Mosa has the right of it” His face turned grave, his lips curling down to a frown “If you’ve got family boy, best run. “ Was all Kreig said as he looked away, unaware that moment was the moment the lad ran off. It didn’t matter in the end, while he wished for the three responsible, he at least had a lead. Mosa, this old fortuneteller, whether she was the real deal or not Kreig didn’t care…. She had a head on her shoulders and they did say there was wisdom in listening to one’s elders. And if listening meant to save this cesspool and all its desperate gullible folk, than he’d give all his gold for it if he was asked. He took quick steps, his boots thudding on uneven ground, dirt and shyke, piss-filled puddles. He tried to maneuver his way past people young and old who maneuvered back and forth for chores or the task that would sink their lot even lower without realizing. As he thought it about it, he increased his pace especially once he caught sight of her tent. He’d hoped the old woman didn’t suddenly bugger off out of old age, that would have been inconvenient to say the least “Oy, the fortune teller about? I’m here for a tellin’ “ He let out in order to catch her attention, and to serve as a warning as he intended to barge in like a man possessed.

[Gossamer]

There was an old woman on the threshold of the ‘house’. It was part tent, part tarp, part pallet construction with one coveted piece of flashing for a section of the roof. She was ancient, even by Sunberth standards, and had a battered violin perched on her chin, playing it a haunting way. Her fingers were gnarled with arthritis but it didn’t seem to stop her from bowing the instrument with a loving precision. The song was sad, full of longing, and had drawn a little bit of a crowd of children. If Kreig was observant, he’d note that her ‘house’ too had been tagged, but mud had been smeared across the marking as if an attempt had been made to eliminate it.

The old woman took her time and finished the song, laying the battered violin down delicately in its case before she looked up at Kreig. “You should be more honest with your intentions.” She said thoughtfully, looking at him through wrinkled eyes and with a frown on her face. “Let me see your palm.” She said thoughtfully, holding out one of her gnarled hands. He could see the callouses on her palms and fingers from playing. Her thin arm trembled, making the liver spots dance and the wrinkles look like little smiling faces beneath them. She had a worldly wise quality about herself, something that had no doubt drawn the children that had been listening to her play.

“Well, I don’t have many more years to wait. Let me see…” She added with a huff only the extreme elderly could manage. When Kreig proffered his massive hand, the old woman grunted and a second hand joined the first. “The Gods gifted you with a lot of paw…. And its seen a lot of action.” She said, turning his and around first and running her gnarled fingers over the scarred knuckles. She then reinverted it so she was studying his palm and stilled. Mosa blinked, glanced at Kreig, and then back down at his palm.

“You have the lines of a King. I don’t say that lightly. Leadership, Dedication, Controlled Power with a Conscious.” Her gnarled finger with its neatly trimmed blunt nail traced more of his palm. “Here… until here you are inactive. Dormant. Until your early thirtes…. thirty two I’d say.” She said, glancing at him as if trying to judge his age. “Until now. Until this very moment. You were Gods’ Sent. This test is your test… and lives are at stake. This line says that…” She said, running over an obscure line that marked the thick part of his thumb where it joined his hand. “You could rule somewhere, stranger, someplace that needs a fair King. But if you don’t act, it won’t happen. And your actions can save many…. so many. Not just here, in this moment, but over the course of time.” She said softly, releasing his palm and looking up at him.

She was a tiny thing, full of presence but weak of body. The woman was probably in her last years… perhaps even last season. She wore the clothing of someone from Denval.. a survivor. And her eyes looked haunted, as if she’d seen too much.

“What can I do for you? You aren’t here for a fortune telling, though I gave you one anyhow. You are here because men… men with money and power seek to control those who have nothing. It’s always the way of things. Those that can and are of the mind to do so seek to control those that have no choices. Their pleasure comes from the pain of others. They seek treasure, in this case, treasure from before the time the world fell. Some people have seen it. And some have spoken of it. Now others want it… in the ground below here. Somewhere close, though no one knows exactly where. They’ll torch us, Your Highness, to reveal the obscured. Can you still their torches? Can you protect all of us? I don’t think you can. You are one man. The children know to run, but I’m afraid their elders will not be so wise. And if they run, where will they go anyhow? There is starvation here, starvation there… starvation everywhere. Sunberth is not a thriving place these days. It’s foundations are crumbling. Can you shore them up being only one pillar? You can’t you know. Maybe you can make a difference in this… but over time? No… you will fall. You need many more like you. Why would you not gather them? Build them? Any one of these little ones roaming around can be made to see and their brains filled with wisdom. You can grow pillars if none are available full sized. Kings need armies. You have none.” She said softly, smiling at him both encouraging him and chastising him.

“You’ve waited almost too long as it is.” Mosa finally finished. She’d lectured the young man enough, she decided, toothlessly smiling up at him.

[Kreig Messer]

She’d been ancient, more so than Kreig imagined and he felt himself thinking wryly that she could very well buggered off and been guided by Dira to the thereafter. He’d noticed the music at first, but he did so now and he was caught up it like being ensnared into a web. For that moment he was like the children here, who listened raptly. Much like the youth he bribed earlier said, the old woman did seem to have a habit of muddying the red lilies. Even though he only saw the one marking, it set Kreig’s heart slightly to know she had her head straight. When she remarked about his intentions, he stiffened. Was it something about his body motion that gave him away, its not like he was bothering mixing up his movements so there was that. Or perhaps there was truth of her being a seer, Kreig mentally sighed at that. He feared magic, oh he respected more nowadays but he still feared it as he should. For all that magic was hated in Sunberth, it was thought that things such as fortune telling was mallarky or didn’t hold the bite of other magics such as Reimancy, but even so Kreig worried. His fingers snapped open and close, but breathing deeply he nodded to himself and presented his hand to her “Alright then, if it means a moment of your time” He said, trying to act dismissive but failing miserably. He let her take his hand, he let her turn it about, examining it. That hand in particular was one that saw many a scar, many a fading wound. On its palm were the marks of his initiation into a disciplined he’d long not dwelve into for years, and a branding that marked him citizen of a city that was both worse and better than Sunberth at the same time. Yes, his left hand was the proof of him seeing the world, and now it would read a future apparently. When the old woman stiffened, so did he. He was afraid she’d learn his secret, his black mark. But it seem she saw something different, something grander as she glanced up and down from his palm to him and back. What she said next caused Kreig’s brow to rise, a weight upon his shoulders rising incredibly. He wanted to disbelieve her words. Him? A king? Preposturous. Oh but the women spoke with a conviction, and Kreig found himself believing it despite himself. He could save many, she said, not just here but all over. But he’d save none if he did nothing. Kreig gulped, words failing to leave him. She’d mentioned Gods too, a test…. Yahal and Dhira both he hoped it was either of the two, because those are the ones he actually followed. Actually he wished none of the Gods were looking down at him now, he wasn’t sure he could take that. His mouth feeling dry, he smacked his lips and looked owlishly at her. When he wanted to answer her question, she quickly answered it himself and now he was listening to another tangent that was heavily related to the telling. Really her using the words ‘your highness’ was like taking a club and smacking him up top the head with it So there was something below, most definitely and so Kreig assumed the thought their being monsters there a forgone conclusion especially if it’s before the fall. He listened again, eyes closing as he took in the words into his soul and he found himself finally letting out a sound, that of a sigh. He looked blandly at the old woman, talking of saving Tent City, talking of holding the flames if only even for a time. She was right, his other hand balling into a fist tightly. He was but one, it was very likely he could not stop those in time. Three they may be but they’d have hired hands in on it. “You really know how to make a gent feel all a flutter, eh?” Kreig deadpanned, his words conveying the opposite. His lips open, his teeth closed upon each other, he closed his eyes, tilted his head back slightly, ran a hand through his hair and breathed deeply. He then looked at the gathering gaggle of children who’d came to listen to the woman talk “Well, I gotta start somewhere even if I’m a thirty two year old fool” And while he could shore up the future, if he did not try to save the present than he was a poor excuse for a Son of Sunberth. He took out a handful of gold Mizas, then another handful and presented the shiny things to them “The old teller says you kids might actually have a brain, and if you were listening than you know that some bad men are coming” He refrained from calling them shykers or petchets, even though the child audience would have likely heard all variations of the words by virtue of being in Sunberth. He knelt down, one knee bent onto the ground “She’s sayin’ the grownups won’t be a listenin’ cuz they all want coin to get food an’ such. So tell you what” He jangled the money in his palms “I got a lotta coin, so if you are all good little chicklets, how’s about you each take one. Run around an’ say a man from Tall Johnny’s is givin’ out money an’ then make yourselves there, eh? If ya have too say its one of those three guys” He then tiled his head at the old woman “An’ how ‘bout bein’ respectful to your elders and one of you take here there too?” Kreig grinned, he wasn’t sure if this wasn’t going to work. But if so many people were hopped up on a treasure hunt, who’s to say their Kreig won’t make ‘em come get the coin. Then another thought hit him “An’uh, there’s another coin for each of you kids if you muddy up as many red lilies as you can, eh?

[Gossamer]

Mosa smiled at Kreig’s thoughtfulness. The coins were far more than the children saw in whole seasons. If Kreig spent more time in Tent City he’d understand that. Gold Mizas just wouldn’t last the children days, but months, and it put their lives in immediate danger. Older boys and girls, equally violent, would take the money if they knew about it… so it disappeared about the children’s bodies almost immediately. Two little boys gathered Mosa between them and after she’d tucked her beloved violin into its case, the trio were off at a very sedate pace towards Tall Johnnys where there seemed to be a steady flow of people headed.

Just before she was out of earshot, the old seer turned around much to the protest of the children leading her. “Try at the well. There’s something to be seen from the well if you have eyes to look. That will be a better place to start than at my home, which has nothing anyone needs. The well won’t steer you wrong.” She said, gesturing again with her violin case before being carefully and gently ushered off by the children who were eager to collect more coins at Tall Johnny’s like the fighter had said.

As for the rest, big children and small children took coins and ran off, some already visibly wiping away the crudely painted lilies that were all over at the children’s heights. This was the most excitement any of them had seen since the three strangers had paid them to paint lilies in areas they knew were above mine entrances. Now they were getting paid to play in the mud and ‘erase’ the lilies. The children had enough coins to eat like kings for days and days and that thought alone made them happy.

On Kreigs part, he had a well to find. Tent city had an iffy supply of water at best. Many people used tarp systems and cisterns made of anything they could scrounge to capture and store water. However, several places around Tent City had wells that had been hand dug by altruistic members of the community that had wanted people to have better lives. These wells usually were found in little squares of a sort. One was very near where Mosa lived… and if Kreig was to walk north along her ‘street’ then he’d come to it.

Nothing big or fancy, the square that housed the well was just an opening in the tents that usually equated to a gathering place for some of the people. Upon first look, nothing exciting sparked Krieg’s interest at the well. There was nothing overly exciting about the well. It looked rough, old, and heavily used. It was made of stone with a sort of wooden set of planks that acted as a cover. The planks could be pulled back and the bucket lowered to draw up water. The well was covered due to the fine layer of ash from the close proximity of the Slag Heap that covered everything in this district.

If Kreig walked to the well however, and circled around it getting his bearings and having a look…

It took him three circuits of the well before it hit him. A cluster of tents next to the well on the southwest side were… in fantastic shape. They were virtually new. Sure, they’d been disguised as older, with stains on their sides and what looked like poorly masked patches to make them blend in. Someone had leaned old planking up against one wall to make it look as if the wall had been built of reclaimed wood, but close inspection revealed that there was clean white all but new canvas behind the planks. It was as if someone had hidden a well-bred horse in the midst of a herd of mules and donkeys and had just hung fake long ears on it to try and disguise its presence.

There was also a rather large thug lingering near what passed as a doorway, obviously a guard.

[Kreig Messer]

Kreig felt a sense of warmth at the sight of the children doing their part, sure he bribed them but really that was a small matter and the loss of coin hardly burdened him… mind he was worried about paying the rest but he was hoping he’d enough to pay all who showed…. And that Johnny wouldn’t mind the influx of poor people at his door step. He was questioning after the fact that the burning of the lilies would matter and the cads who decided on this plot would even care, but if they had to mark their houses he supposed some had specific orders so it might possibly delay them or at least limit the amount of fires that would start. He scratched at his chin. He turned his gaze to the seer, listening to her parting advice as it were. So he had to look for a well huh? He wasn’t quite sure what he’d find there… but hey, who was he to disagree with a seer? He scratched the back of his head now and nodded at the direction she pointed before she finally she followed the children who seemed to be exasperated by her delays…. Bless their greedy little hearts. He chuckled and walked down the ‘street’ if it could even be called that. It didn’t take long for him to reach the well in question “Huh, expected it to look a lot crude…” He mumbled quietly, crouching at it “Honestly it doesn’t look weird… just worn? Would that fit?” He wasn’t certain but it was the best apt word he found judging by the ash and obvious amount of use its seen. He looked from the base to the top, went about and looked above it. Even moved a couple of the planks aside to look inside. Honestly he wasn’t sure of what to find and after a bit he felt like he was being had, but by who he wasn’t sure. He sighed, scratching his head again and frowning. His mind briefly flashed to Fallon, surely she could have made better sense of this than he. Closing his eyes he turned around and leaned against it. Gathering his thoughts a bit, opening his eyes he looked about. Honestly it was all just tents, tents, tent along with junk which some may as well be some folk’s most valuable posessions. Heck, some of the tents seemed so valued and taken care of that that look brand…new… ? ‘Huh. Someone’s good at mending’ He thought briefly, then he focuses his eyes at the group of tents and noted that actually… those were a bit too clean even for greatly-fixed up tents. OH. OHHHHH… “Why didn’t she say that in the first place?” Kreig murmured, feeling a tad silly now that he spent all that time on the well. Honestly It was like someone large ball of gold in a stack of needles… he should’ve seen it a mile away. Also there was an obvious thug guard, big, imposing and sticking like a sore thumb. Kreig sighed to himself, dropping his head before snapping it back up and putting his hands in his pockets as he wandered about to the big thug and put on a big ol’ smile that was as fake as those ‘valuable and historic’ pottery one could find at a market. Standing in front of the thug, Kreig gave a cheerful little wave as he looked up “Hey there! Mind tellin’ me whatcha doin’ standin’ right there by yer lonesome”