A small, yet apparently very well made and sturdy ship arrived at the docks. Two demonic soldiers approached it as a figure in an overly big brown hood disembarked.
"Stop right there. Inspection. Name?"
"Certainly, sirs. The name is Long. Mister Shashoh Long." a silky tenor said.
"Take off your hood at once!" a demon said. The man wordlessly complied, revealing very long rabbit ears and a face with an expression of pure tranquility, all covered with gray fur and a single wisp of black hair. "Do you have any gold, weapons, magical items on board?" one of the demons said, the other already digging through the ship's inside.
"No, sir."
"What do you seek in Hazelwood?"
"Business. I'm an investor."
"Without gold?" asked the demon with suspicion in his raspy, otherworldly voice.
"I prefer to pay with silver," answered calmly the rabbit.
"Clean!" said the other demon, now getting off the ship. First one grunted and walked aside, clearing the path for Shashoh.
"Thank you, sir," mister Long said and walked towards the village, looking for an inn. He quickly found one near the docks and entered. As he sat on a stool, his cape moved aside, unveiling an overly elegant black tail-coat with gray decals and a gray shirt underneath.
"Clean water, please," he said to the bear behind the bar and quickly received a mug of crystalline clear liquid. He smelled it once, then twice. "Clean, it means without alcohol in it." The bartender looked offended.
"What w'dya want then, eh?"
"Milk, please." Several people in the bar smirked. A drunk wolf suddenly collapsed onto a stool besides Shashoh.
"Stranger comes here, doesn't like our water, talking sissy, sissy will drink milk, looking like a sissy too, I bet your father wa--"
Shashoh made a fiery slap in the drunkard's face. Whole bar started to laugh, but everyone stopped and began to gasp and whisper as the wolf fell to the ground and started coughing out blood, lots and lots of it. Long turned to the bartender, sniffed, then took a sip of the milk and licked his lips.
"I heard you have a problem with a dragon," he said.
"How... how do you know?"
"Interesting news travel much faster than a horse." The bartender just nodded nervously. Shashoh turned to the bar and chuckled. Whispers stopped. "I'm hiring everyone who can fight or carry supplies. You guys without hands, you're hired." People looked at each other in astonishment.
"You want to hire us?" asked Simon, one of the crippled ones.
"Because you obviously had a contact with the dragon and survived. You still can be of help. I pay with pure gold," he said, extending his empty hand and snapping his fingers--suddenly he held a golden coin, which he then flicked towards Simon's pocket as it landed within. People gasped, some of them walked outside just to get away from the cursed metal.
"Why does it even matter to you?"
"Because, brave sir, I'm a dragon hunter."
Topic: feaudal area (Read 71749 times)