Chapter 2: Group Investigation
The guard turned and saw a handsome black haired Half-Elf leaning over the body of the dead merchant, "Hey don't touch him until I inspect him!"
The Half-Elf looked at him with sleepy eyes, "I haven't touched him, I was simply letting you know that they are not the culprits. They couldn't have killed him."
The young Half-Elf stood up and the guard inspected him with an inquisitive look. The Half-Elf had long messy black hair that rested on his shoulders, he was wearing dark leather armor that was very tattered which matched his tattered leather boots, and a navy blue cloak that had a symbol of a black rose being stabbed through the center by a silver sword. "Who are you?" The guard inquired.
The Half-Elf extended his hand to the guard, "Hello good sir, my name is Faylen Tempesh." He shook the guard's hand whilst giving him a charming smile. The guard unconsciously shook his hand out of habit until he came to his senses and took a step back cautiously from the new arrival.
Faylen looked over at Keyleth, "Could you do us all a favor and turn the lights back on please?" He asked and made a pleading gesture with his hands.
What's with this guy? Keyleth pondered. She was also cautious of the Half-Elf who seemingly came to their rescue but quickly complied, "Oh. Yeah. No problem." She waved her hands, and a purple arcane aura could be seen spreading through the room. Soon all the doors and windows closed. Then a moment after all the candles and torches in the room came to life once more.
"Thank you!" Faylen smiled as he pointed at the back of the man's head. "Now if you would be so kind as to look here, Mr. Guard."
The guard was still unsure if he could trust this Half-Elf but he figured he had nothing to lose if the Half-Elf could give him some type of clue towards who may have killed the man at his feet. The guard walked around the body to look at what the Half-Elf was pointing at. He noticed a small dart at the back of the dead man's head.
"As you can see, this dart is likely the cause of death. Well, more likely the poison contained in the dart" Faylen explained. "Our Wood Elf here wouldn't have been able to hit him from the back if he was seated to this man's right."
The guard knew what he was saying made sense and due to the purple coloration on the skin around where the dart was inserted, it was clear that it was laced with poison which likely caused the man's death. "Ugh, why do these things have to happen during the night shift." The guard sighed, then spoke in a stern voice "Alright everyone listen up. I don't know exactly what happened here but I do know that this man here was poisoned to death. So I need to get a statement from all of you." This caused most people to groan as it would take a while for the guard to collect everyone's statement. It was getting late and most of them would have been heading home or to their rooms upstairs soon. The guard tried to reason with the crowd who clearly cared about their own comfort more than the dead man on the floor. "Now I understand how you feel, but I have to get as much information as I can."
Sir Vardin came over to the guard again and gestured towards Keyleth, "Well aren't you going to at least arrest this woman!?"
The guard once again sighed, and explained "I can't arrest her for threatening you alone, if we arrested everyone who threatened someone in a tavern we wouldn't have space in the town's jail to hold them all. You can make a formal complaint at our barracks tomorrow and we will make note of it, if she causes trouble again it will show that she's already done so before, and then that would be a reason to detain her but even then only for a short while."
The merchant huffed and sat down again waiting for the guard to take his statement, "Huh! To think after all I do for this town this is the type of treatment I get! Your superior will be hearing about this!"
The guard pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled slowly, he could feel a headache coming and could imagine the further headache this man would cause in the morning.
"Kind guard, may I suggest an alternative option?" Faylen asked with a devilish grin.
"Sure, why not." The guard was hoping to resolve this soon and Faylen's charming attitude was making him put faith in the Half-Elf.
"Well, why don't we investigate for you, I'm sure these two would like to wipe their names from this whole situation and if we find the real culprit we could all go to bed with ease of mind," Faylen suggested in hopes of being done with this whole situation faster.
"How are you going to investigate? The only clue we have is this dart which doesn't give us much." The guard replied.
"I did say the man wasn't killed by anyone in this tavern." Faylen pointed at the window about twenty feet behind where the man was seated prior. "I think someone shot the dart through that window and left as soon as his target hit the ground," Faylen explained.
The guard couldn't help but agree with the Half-Elf yet again, "Alright, but I still have to get everyone's statement, so I can't just go and investigate outside."
"Well the three of us could go investigate and you could stay here and collect statements, maybe that way we could find the killer before he gets too far." Faylen pushed.
"I can't just let the three of you leave and go investigate for all I know you're the killer and are trying to get away on the pretext of "investigating" outside." The guard accused Faylen.
At that moment the cook spoke up, "I could take everyone's statement, while you four go and investigate outside."
The guard looked at the cook with a joyful expression, "You could do that for me, Oriax?"
"Of course James," Oriax said while waving his hand, trying to show it wasn't a big deal. "Lysandra and I could get it done faster than just one person and you can accompany these three to investigate."
"Thank you Oriax, I'll owe you one," James said. "Alright Faylen let's go with your idea," he said and gestured towards the door.
Faylen smiled and started walking to the door, "Great let's do that then." Before he and the guard left the tavern Faylen looked back at Rhen and Keyleth, "Aren't you two coming?"
Rhen looked lost and didn't say anything. Keyleth grabbed his arm, following Faylen and James out the door. "Yes, we are coming!" She exclaimed.
The cold night air billowed through Feylan's cloak as he pointed towards the side of the tavern, "I think we should start with looking around in the alley the window in question is."The Guard, James, nodded his head and walked over to the alley. They looked down the side of the wooden building, the cobblestone floor was wet, smelled of ammonia, and had steamy musk that made none of them want to enter the alley.
"I'll keep a lookout here while you take a look," James ordered while rubbing his irritated nose, "You seem to have a keen eye for these things."
Faylen raised an eyebrow at the guard, oh so now you're ok with me conducting an investigation on my own, "Sure. the girl can come with me… Oh, what are your names again?" Faylen said and gave his best fake smile.
Keyleth tried her best to ignore being referred to as "girl" and spoke proudly, "I am Keyleth Thairin! It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." She pompously held her hand on her chest in order to match Faylen's fake attitude and then waved her hand towards the Wood Elf beside her. "And this is Rhen Kight." Hearing his name made Rhen finally snap to his senses.
"Oh, yes. Hi, nice to meet you." Rhen blurted out. James shook his head and pulled Rhen over to the side where he would have a good view of the alley and the road.
"You two go and look near the window, try to make it quick so our culprit doesn't have more time to run away." James ordered, "You stay with me Rhen." Rhen nodded his head and stood beside James.
Keyleth followed Faylen into the alley and once they got to the window she asked, "What's your deal, why help us?"
"Because when I saw how heated you were getting with that man I feared you would follow through with your threat and I thought, this girl is really going to burn down this tavern with all my stuff in it, so I stepped in," Faylen explained and kneeled down to look at the ground around the window. "Plus you two were clearly innocent and I figured I could lend a hand."
Keyleth blushed because she really hadn't thought about other people's belongings because her bag upstairs was fireproof. Though, she quickly questioned Faylen further, "So what, you're just some drunk who goes around helping random strangers?"
"First of all, I wasn't drunk, I was simply too tired to walk up the stairs to my room." Faylen said in an offended tone, "and if it makes you feel any better my family raised me with values such as helping those weaker than me."
"Are you calling me weak!" Keyleth's temper flared up again.
"I was simply saying I was taught to help others often. It's part of the family business." Faylen retorted as he inspected a footprint.
Keyleth was about to yell at him but took a deep breath, "Sorry. Those idiots were annoying me all night while I was trying to enjoy my dinner and I've been on edge since one of them dropped dead."
Faylen stood up and placed a hand on Keyleth's shoulder, "It's alright, I have dealt with those types before." Faylen said looking down the alley towards the Guard and Rhen who was currently standing awkwardly next to each other avoiding eye contact, "I think I found something, let's go." Keyleth nodded and turned around walking back towards James. "Hey Mr. James, I think I can follow the trail out of here, our assassin wasn't too careful and was tracking mud." Faylen described, "if we are lucky we might be able to track him back to his hideout."
"Great, lead the way, Faylen, and stop calling me that. James is just fine." James said and stepped aside.
"Of course," Faylen walked out into the center of the street and seemed to briefly sniff the air before heading left down the main road. The group headed down the road for a few minutes following Faylen. They all kept a lookout while he was busy tracking their target. There wasn't anyone out on the street, besides a homeless man Keyleth spotted, until Faylen stopped.
"I lost them." Faylen cursed.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
DEADZER0
DEADZER0 I don't know if anyone is really reading this or not. But if you've made it this far thank you. If you did happen to have read the first chapter before this chapter came out and read my notes there, you saw I mentioned I would be releasing this chapter soon after that one... That didn't happen, but here it is. Life happened. But I will try to stick to a better schedule in order to release chapters more often. If anyone cares. Idk I'm just trying to practice my writing while hopefully entertaining someone.
Thank you for reading.
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