Something, Something. Sandy Crack (Closed)

[Alydia Ettermire]

Bron Retla rubbed the bridge of his nose in the wake of Alydia's sudden departure. Everything was in readiness, but the highly capable thief was spreading herself too thin. The train heist on its own needed all of her focus; she was tangling with people well above her current capabilities. If any of them got their hands on her...

And of course, she was still bent on trying to eradicate some of Raiaera's blight when she got there, and then there was the time-travel project. Neither of those were new goals; she'd been working at them for years. Ever since that one fateful trip into Raiaera to rescue the people she'd lost. Ever since... He sighed. Ever since.

The last thing she needed was to be running yet another caper on top of all of that. She needed even less to be running a caper with an item of questionable origin, operation, and value. Even worse: she was running it against someone ostensibly from the future and obviously with unknown abilities and resources. Why did she not have any sense? Why had she not consulted somebody before initiating an impulsive chase?

Less than two decades before, when a young detective found herself framed beyond fixing for a crime that hadn't actually happened, he had stepped in to offer her an escape. She was certainly was among the most talented criminals he had ever recruited, even if he couldn't control her and thus had needed to tailor his role to be more like their initial relationship: he as an informant, she as a firecracker who chased down and retrieved what she wanted. On days like this, Bron wished nothing more than that she had remained a detective, the protege of the famed Karliik.

Sometimes he wondered if she wished it, too. He knew Karliik wished it; he still conversed with the man every once in a while. It wouldn't be long before their next meeting, presuming the conference of criminals didn't end in a bloodbath.

A dark olive hand unfolded the piece of paper given to him for this adversary from the future. It was a simple sketch done in a style specific to a particular region of Raiaera. There were no words, but there was a detailed level of Blight shown in the shriveled trees and on the ground. He doubted the future man would know exactly which region this was; in another generation, this knowledge would likely be only a faint memory for the Raiaerans. Either the hard-working researchers and adventurers would cure the Blight and erase the Necromancer's last lingering effects, or it would continue to crawl forward until it consumed everything in elvendom.

He could let the future man fumble his way around the world, or he could misdirect him. He could also point him to the exact place she would be, provided certain promises were made. It would all depend on when or if the man reached him. After all, what he couldn't risk, more than anything else, was someone else running Alydia down in the next two or three days. That would be a good way to get her killed.

Folding the note and tucking it back into his pocket, Bron Retla left his small but comfortable home and walked the short distance to the small antiquities shop he ran. It wasn't big or presumptuous; there wasn't much market for such things in much of Alerar, even in its cultural center. Since he was careful to keep his criminal tracks covered and only took legitimately acquired objects, he was safe from arrest. It did make him easy to find for those he needed to know how to reach him or for those who occasionally needed some information he had.

For the time being, he picked up a cloth and started dusting a beautiful old statue. He would see what he needed to do with this new stickyfoot when and if he arrived.