Scattered Fragments

Act 2: Chapter 15- Small Cuts

            Finding good information in a city full of taverns was supposed to be fairly easy. In a sea of sailors, Pirates, and bandits, you'd eventually find someone who wasn't drunk enough to form a proper sentence; but at the same time not too sober to find suspicion in your questions.

After a while, Aldaren, found an old man who fit the preference. His name was Kech, father of two, pirate by day, smuggler by night- nice guy. On the second shot of whiskey he told Aldaren about a fellow named Pope, a street urchin with his ear a little deeper in the ground than most rats. Thankfully, Kech told him where to find Pope.

He found Pope scouting the docks, watching sailors pushing crates on and off ships. Pope was younger than Aldaren expected. Handsome guy, maybe in his early twenties. Probably a real ladies man when he wasn't running around doing grunt work. Aldaren decided to make his move, smiling past a couple of ladies who gawked at him.

"Hey, Buddy!" Aldaren called out, trying his best to sound local. "You the guy they call Pope?" He asked, catching his attention. "My buddy told me you-"

And he was off. Aldaren sucked his teeth, whispering a curse to himself as he ran after him.

The port city of Caden, was the most filthiest city in all of Sera. The Tang-Li used it as a way to transport prisoners to and from Shihu- The prison that was attacked several weeks ago. Ever since then, Tang-Li presence has been scarce, so the Pirates and sailors use it for their own devices.

            Aldaren paced himself as he chased after the kid, trying his best to move out of the way of anyone in his way.
            "I just want to ask you some questions!" He yelled to Pope, but it only caused the boy to knock things over his path.
That never works, it just gets me angry, thought Aldaren as he jumped over a pile of crates and boxes Pope had thrown over.

            The boy seemed to have been getting quicker as the chase went on. Using Corpus I see. Aldaren himself flared his Corpus, but it was only enough for a short burst. He was able to cover a couple feet of distance, but he was quickly losing them as Pope ran faster.

            After a couple blocks of scraping past filthy pirates and running from a really angry street vendor, Pope managed to crawl inside an abandoned warehouse. Aldaren tried using the front door, but Pope had locked it before he could get in.
            "Damn it Pope, you're just making things harder on yourself!" He said, looking around to see if there were any entrances. "And me..."

            He circled the warehouse and found an open second floor window. Aldaren noticed a pipe leading up towards the roof and decided to try and scale it. It wasn't as sturdy as he hoped it would be, but if he was careful enough, he could be able to reach the window before it would give.

            The scale wasn't so bad, save for the rusty creeks the pipe groaned every time he moves his body. Aldaren was almost to the window when he heard a cry coming from inside. Had someone seen us running through the streets? He asked himself, unable to doubt that someone would want the boy silenced if it meant keeping him from talking.

            The bolts on the pipe were beginning to give. With one final push and jump, Aldaren was able to reach the window's railing and squeeze himself through the opening. He learned the hard way as he dropped all the way down to the first floor that the warehouse was an open room. He grunted as he hit the cold dirt.