As soon as the wagon arrives outside the inn in Emerald Bay, Dreadstone leaps from the back of the wagon, demarcating his own personal patch of chilly cobblestoned street with the thrashing motions of his tail. He returns Lone Wolfs handshake and well wishes with a vaguely affirmative wordless grunt. In truth what he witnessed in the wagon had somewhat unnerved the urban ranger, though he is not sure if it stems from discomfort from being around unfamiliar' magic, or jealousy that wildman can change between human and another form just like that.
Barring the ambush on the road, hes been cooped up almost the entire way from Ruby Keep, and he takes his time in relishing the freedom of movement granted to his unusual appendage once more. Inconveniences like this are why he rarely travels, he notes to himself. There is no love of tieflings in this world, and scant reason that anyone would build accommodations to suit. If life had dealt a different hand of cards, perhaps he could have been a carpenter that specialized in such things, but Dreadstone was not the type to dwell on hypothetical alternate possibilities.
As if to drive home the sentiment of how unwelcome people find his presence, the thronging crowds that part to flow around him holds furtive glances of distaste, people taking just too long of a stride to steer well clear of him as they pass for it to be a natural ebb of pedestrian traffic. It washes over Dreadstones cultivated indifference, like water over a black stone sticking out of the bottom of a streambed. This is more or less how he is accustomed to being treated, and it seems that Emerald Bays history of being the center of arcane knowledge has not made the populace more accepting of those of exotic heritage.
No, people are pretty much the same everywhere, he reasons. The largest exception here is the sheer preponderance of youthfulness, but thats not an unusual phenomenon in population centers built around institutes of learning. Men and women alike, flaunting their beauty around in their ritualized dance like breeding was going out of style. Dreadstone would be the first to admit that the girls have a decided aesthetic appeal, but there too he has cultured his apathy. There are a fixed number of loves a man will be granted in his life, and the dead gods had in their malice seen fit to give Dreadstone both of his allotted romantic interests at the same time, and in his greed had lost them both.
Lighting a cigarette, he strides forth into the current of traffic, walking against the flow of oncoming humanoids. He passes through the crowd unimpeded, as though he were no more substantial than a ghost. People part to let him pass, then come back together to fill the gap in his wake, sparing a moment for a dirty look before resuming their conversation where they had left off. Hes got some time to kill, so he decides to see if theres not anything he can do to keep himself busy in the interim.
In a way, Dreadstone exists outside of society and as such has an outsiders perspective on it. Not like that Lone Wolf kid, though, no. He is an outsider, but he is possessed of an intimate familiarity with how that society operates. How it functions. How its disparate, intricate parts interlock and turn the wheels that propel the whole thing forward. Most people only see one facet at a time, see nothing but the ripples on the surface, but Dreadstone knows the angles to look from to view the whole thing.
Like a river system, information tends to flow along fixed channels. Accumulate in pools before the current pushes it out into the next tributary that feeds into the river that fills the endless belly of the lake. Some of these are obvious to anyone; any local constabulary office, for instance, is rife with handbills featuring charcoal renditions of the laws most coveted trophies. Dreadstone pays a visit to these offices, staffed by the law enforcers with the strained courtesy that speaks of their desire for the tiefling manhunter to finish transcribing the notices into his notebook and just leave. After a while, he thanks them for their time and does so, and they breathe easy once more.
He also knows the value of the beggars and the vagrants, those who navigate the city in functional invisibility granted by the populations collective practice of pointedly ignoring their plight. These folk lack the judgmental glares of those more fortunate than them, and are more than willing to render assistance for a few coins or a warm blanket. Most people would be surprised at what the street folk know, and for a paltry sum he learns the locations of the dives and dens where the shadows of Emerald Bay coalesce.
As the winter sun begins to set, the full shape and scope of Emerald Bay builds itself in his mind. Not just a two dimensional map of the streets, but one that includes the interactions between the different social strata and how details and information percolate back and forth across those interfaces. He doesnt yet know it as well as he does his home of Ruby Keep, but he judges he has enough to stop mapping out these invisible river systems and go fishing.
He picks a bar that he judges is far enough off the beaten path to attract a sort of patron that might be disposed to be know things that the local law enforcement might not, yet not so far in the shadows that he is liable to wind up stabbed and left for dead in the alley. Selecting a corner table in the back, he sits with his notebook out and listens for those deep in their cups to spill what they know, ordering just enough ale to justify keeping his seat.
Not that the proprietor of this establishment looks the sort to make a scene trying to kick out a fiendish apparition like Dreadstone, but theres no need to impose.
Code:
Gather Information
Diplomacy check: 1d20=18
Hours: 1d4=2
((Dreadstone has no Charisma, heh. Didnt have a particular objective in mind for this attempt. He could be looking for a fence for the painting, but given his lawful bent hes probably more keeping an ear out for anything that might lead to a bounty he can cash in relatively quickly))
((Still updating character sheets. Oy, now I've got the second one to baby sit for the animal companion...))
))
