#rangen

Seeing you ready to attack, the thief regards you for a moment, then chuckles, bringing up his knives, which are not small things. You tighten your grip on the handle, demanding that he back off. He tuts at you.

“You got lucky, girl.”

You scowl, letting him know that now you’re even. You warn him again to leave. He responds by lunging at you.

“That toy won’t help you now..!”

You dodge to your right to avoid his right stab then bring up the axe handle to deflect his left slash, pushing him back a little. He recovers, stabbing at you again in immediately. He’s quick, and would definitely be able to get the best of most of his victims, but you’re quicker; able to dodge or block his blows. He narrowly fails to slice you across your left side and you punish him with a slice across his side in turn.

Though he cries out, it does not deter him, and he pushes forward again, returning with another flurry of stabs and slashes.

Did you offend him by not rolling over and surrendering, or is he desperate for money?

You’d prefer not to kill him, or, at the very least, get his blood everywhere, especially not on your new clothes; he might’ve already ripped them when he pressed the knife to your back!

Though each of your strikes is increasingly strong and on point, he only seems to become more determined to win, which in turn, makes it increasingly difficult to avoid his blades and deal more non-lethal blows. By the time your patience has run thin, his attacks seem more like a broken, spinning fan with knives crudely attached to the blades.

He misses again, but you do not. You dodge his stab and swing your axe down hard into the side of his left thigh. He cries out in pain, immediately dropping a knife and clutching at the wound. You do not stop; bringing up the axe again, and swing it once more. You turn the axe and strike him hard in the side of his head with the flat of the blade. He teeters for a moment before collapsing and lying motionless.

You remain as you are, waiting poised and ready, catching your breath. You carefully approach him, nudging him first with your foot, then crouching to check his pulse; he’s still alive, but out cold. Hmph.

You look at the shadowed figure slumped on the floor and consider leaving. Then you consider your attacks. All your previous strikes to his torso had been met with some resistance; you figured that he must be wearing some sort of leather armour or thick clothing under his coat, but the cut to his leg felt different; either he isn’t wearing armour there, or you managed to cut him in an un-armoured area. Either way, a wound like that will bleed heavily, and with him being passed out, the chances of him bleeding out and never waking up again are pretty high.

You huff again. You came out for a night on the town, not murder. His fault for trying to attack you, but, the least you should do is give him a chance to not wake up dead. Maybe then he’ll reconsider his choices and give up this life of crime.

You glance around at the buildings; they all remain as dark and dead as before, with no lit windows or people gazing at you from within. And the alley itself remains empty. You stride over to your bag, pick it up and put it back on, before going back and shifting the thief into a sitting position.

He’s wearing a bandanna over his face, which you remove to make his unconscious breathing easier. When you touch the leg of his trousers, your fingers immediately come away bloody. You’d better hurry.

You wipe the blood away onto his coat, then rummage in your bag for your small medical bag, grabbing a couple of bandage rolls from inside; when you walk around with a battle-axe, keeping bandages handy is a must, at least as far as you’ve experienced. You also take out your lighter and set it down, with the small flame doing its best to cast some light over the area.

Working quickly (but not with the greatest of care), you do your best to compress and bind the wound, using up the roll of bandage, and you supplement it by cutting strips away from his coat. You notice the sound of metal shifting as you move his coat while cutting it.

When you’re done you inspect your handiwork. He’s no longer in danger of bleeding out, but he’ll definitely need to see a doctor and get stitches. He’d better hope that he wakes up in time.

You glance at his face; square and red-brown skinned with a softly shaped jaw that sports a medium-length red-brown goatee, he seems relatively young, not quite in his 30’s you’d say. Hmm.

With your first aid done, your next goal is to investigate the source of that metal clinking, so you rifle around through his inner coat pockets. Unsurprisingly, you discover a fair few items; two wallets and a money bag, a small dagger in a sheath, a large handful of loose change with a few notes, and a very fancy gold necklace. Apparently, he’s had a busy night. You decide to confiscate the items and also pick up the two knives. A near-death experience, as well as having his loot and weapons confiscated are twice as likely to make him change his ways!

You stand, glancing around; still lifeless in the area. You’re about to turn off your lighter when you remember your instruction paper. Oh no…

Fingers of panic start to creep over you as you consider the prospect of getting lost again, but it quickly subsides when you spot it with the help of the lighter; it didn’t get lost, and fortunately, it didn’t blow away, though, considering the still, stuffy air, you wonder if anything could blow away in here. It did, however, end up in a gutter a couple of feet away from where you were originally standing.

You gingerly retrieve it, and look back at the thief; from here, he could easily be mistaken for a passed-out drunkard.

Looking back at your slightly wet, slightly gross paper, you remember what you were originally doing before you were rudely interrupted, and once more glance up at the buildings, albeit still on high alert. Holding the lighter high, you scan the sides of the buildings at the junction, and sure enough, you see “Prentor Alley” engraved on a wooden board attached to the side of one. In the dark, it’s near impossible to see, but with the light, you can see the remains of some curled, dried paint on one part. Apparently, it wasn’t always camouflaged.

With a final glance at the thief, you extinguish your flame and hurry down the dark path.

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PART 2 COMING SOON