Righteous Fury

Summary: Rona runs into a spot of trouble while retrieving some information from a Syndicate storehouse, and ends up explaining some underworld goings-on to the fascinated Murder.

A (relatively) peaceful afternoon in the District is shattered, along with a set of windows on the third floor of an industrial warehouse as Rona comes crashing through them, firing arrows into the room she so unceremoniously left. She falls about ten feet before being caught by some kind of invisible force, and drifts down slowly. The two slavering beasts that chase after her, each sporting serveral arrows in vulnerable-looking places, are not so fortunate... their paws scrabble comically in the air before they plunge to the ground. THUD... SPLAT! She lands in the resulting gore, seeming put out by it.

It's the sword people notice first, seemingly moving of its own accord through the mists. But, it is actually attached to a wee Goblin in studded leather. "Who goes there?!", she calls out, slowing when she sees the gore and gore splattered Elf. "Yelrona? What's going on?"

Yelrona puts an extra arrow in each beast, just to be sure, but they are well and truly broken. Several passersby are running away as Murder approaches.

"Hi Murder," she says casually. "Oh... nothing, really. Some unexpected defenses, is all." She makes an arcane gesture, and the blood begins to clear off from her body and clothes, revealing a few bloody bitemarks underneath.

Murder peers up at the shattered windows, then the dead things. "Uhm. So what were you up to?" She inspects the gore, checking out the heads especially. "Are you up to no good?", she wonders, whispering quietly.

Yelrona laughs. "_That_, my friend, is _entirely_ a matter of opinion." Her bow returns to its spot on her back, and she unrolls a long parchment scroll from a utilitarian wooden scroll case. The words "Last Will and Testament" are visible at the top of it, above many many densely-written lines, which she scans quickly. "Certainly some would say so. By my own standards, though, not so much." She squints angrily, as though she's read something deeply upsetting.

Murder peers at the scroll curiously, and cants her head slightly. "What were you doing, just now? Aside from splatting a couple of .. whatever these were." She gestures to the piles of ick. "And what is that scroll?" The Gobber steps closer and squints at the writing.

Yelrona doesn't make any efforts to prevent Murder from reading the scroll, though she doesn't actively show it. As the title suggests, it's the last will and testament of Righteous Fury Druvain, whoever _that_ is. Or, presumably, was. It lists, in tedious detail, all of RF's assets, to be distributed to their various heirs, most of whom have similarly martial names: Clever Feint, Stand and Fight, and so forth. There are exceptions, though... Daniel the Shark being among them. "It's evidence," she says. "Of a sort, anyway. You see?" She points to a line that reads "Veyshan Miners, 17, bequeathed to Strike from Behind Druvain."

Murder blinks as she reads the scroll. "This is insanity. Why.. why are people named after fighting moves? Who is Daniel the Shark? Evidence of what?" She rubs at her cheeks and sighs. "Is this an Elf thing?"

Yelrona rolls up the scroll, looking satisfied, and tucks it back into its case, which she tucks into her pack. She shakes her head at Murder's question. "No. It's a Syndicate thing. The Druvain Family is a powerful force within the Syndicate... Daniel the Shark is one of their operatives, a sometimes smuggler who was recently arrested. I've suspected for a while that they've been operating with the Veyshanti slave trade, moving slaves in and out of Alexandria through the Warehouse District. Now, at least, I have a name."

Murder rubs her ears a moment, and nods. "Oh right. You just stole someone's will, and you've got names because they are doling out the goodies from their empire?" She grins brightly. "Okay, I can handle that." She stretches and slips her sword onto the little sheath on her back.

Yelrona chuckles. "Close enough. It's not actually a will -- that's just Righteous Fury's affectation, like the names. All of her instructions to her subordinates are... well I guess you could say 'coded', though they aren't difficult to interpret -- as various sorts of legal documents. From what I saw, she has about three dozen wills on record." She finishes clearing up the blood, and considers the dead dog-like creatures, then shrugs and reclaims her arrows. "If you want the heads, or something, feel free."

Murder shakes her head. "Nah, their heads have too much damage, they are broken or cracked. I looked." She runs a hand through her hair. "It sounds like a crazy ass guild or something. But eh, I suppose whatever works for a crime ... boss?" Her ears perk up. "Are you doing Guild work?"

Yelrona nods. "In a manner of speaking, yes. The Syndicate has no love lost for the Guild, nor vice-versa, and tensions in the underworld are getting extreme. I started looking into this because the Shark was using the Three Axes warehouse to stash the sage brew he was smuggling into Alexandria, which..." she wrinkles her nose, "well, sage brew is not something I want to see widely distributed here. The mages and artificiers are quite... extreme... enough as it is. But when I started backtracking his movements I realized he was running a two-sided trade, smuggling sage brew _in_ and slaves _out_. To Veyshan, as it turns out," she adds, tapping her pack where the scroll-case is. "Incidentally, we should probably find somewhere else to be," she observes, starting to move away from the dead canids. "By now, word of this will have gotten to Righteous Fury, and she... well, what her first name lacks in accuracy, her second name makes up for."

Murder assumes an innocent look and trails along beside the Elf. "This seems rather intricate. And that one or two pokes can make it all fall down. Like a card house." She looks over her shoulder more than a few times as they move away. "Hmm, nothing following us yet. So you think she'll come after you?"

Yelrona nods. "Absolutely. One way or another. To be perfectly honest, I'm counting on it... right now, I don't have a lot to go on. Though a lot more than I did an hour ago! Still, there were a _lot_ of items in that storehouse, she has no way of knowing what brought be there. She probably doesn't even know what I took, exactly! So she's going to be nervous now, and be checking on _all_ of her assets, and spreading herself very thin. And I... well, I don't make a very good spider, but I have at least a _little_ bit of a web in this District... with a little luck, as she scutters around, I'll build up a better picture of her operations. Which will hopefully give me some sense of just where she's getting her slaves from."

"Can I help? I'm good at breaking knees, since they're usually on my level. An' people tend to underestimate me, because I'm underfoot all the time. Out of sight, out of mind, as they say." She bounces from one foot to the other. "I can also just be a fly on the wall, yeah?"

Yelrona grins. "What, you think I was explaining all of this just because I like hearing myself talk? Of course you can help. I don't really need any knees broken right now... quite frankly, the only reason nobody's coming after _my_ knees is because I have some organizational clout, but if I start going around starting real fights that clout won't help much. So I try to keep things more... discreet." She looks over her shoulder at the broken windows and shrugs. "Usually. Anyway... keep your ears and eyes open, eh? You're smart, personable, and... er... well, you don't precisely shout 'law-abiding,' if you know what I mean. People will talk to you. And, you know, people always talk around flies on the wall, yes?" They arrive at an open-air cafe where the staff seems to recognize Rona, and she sits at a small table. "Can I get you anything? They make a marvelous bitter chocolate drink here, with ground almonds and caramelized sugar, it's decadent. Anyway... if you hear anything about the Syndicate's operations, or about the slave trade with Veyshan, or anyone who's jonesing for sage brew, or... well, you understand... you let me know?"