>>5272055The wooden door of the small office clicked shut after the armoured woman had entered, she stood at attention and saluted the man sitting behind the desk, “Sir,” she said.
She wore the low-ranking uniform of the guards, a combination of leather and chainmail worn underneath a tabard of murky green sporting the symbol of Duskmire.
Her blonde hair in a tight bun. A short sword safely tucked away in a scabbard dangled from her belt.
“At ease,” said the man behind the desk, a desk which was covered in papers of all sizes and origin.
He sighed and rubbed his temples, fingers circling around in the greying hair, “Any luck on the investigation, private Stone?”
The Captain scraped some remnants of tobacco out of his wooden pipe using a blunted letter opener.
Bookcases filled with with folders, papers, and files about cases, both current and past, lined the walls.
Private Stone solemnly shook her head, “Me and trainee Highmountain spend the better part of the day checking around the Lower District, searching for any witnesses, but we’ve got nothing so far. Have you read the report, Captain?”
“I have,” said the Captain, he began shifting through the various documents littered across his desk.
“Here it is. Dreadful affair, really,” he said as he began to leaf through the pages, “Body found in an alley not too far from the Sleazy Goat Inn at the Lower District. Death by bludgeoning. Hard knock to the back of the skull was what killed her, but the entire body was covered in bruises. Somebody took their sweet time with the poor woman.”
”Oh,” said the Captain, remembering something as he once again began to search through the pile of documents, “Got the coroner’s report.”
Private Stone perked up, “Anything new?”
The Captain extended the folder towards private Stone, “Have a look. It only arrived an hour or so ago.”
When she reached for it, he pulled it back a short distance and gave her a serious look, “You may not like what you find, Esmeralda.”
Esmeralda Stone swallowed, then nodded, taking the folder in hand and began reading the contents.
She visibly paled. Horrendous. Disbelief turned to anger, “A psychopath then,” she said.
The blow that killed the woman wasn’t the first one, but the last. She was there for all of it.
Every bruise and broken bone. The hit to the throat had been the first.
A blow to stop the victim from screaming loud enough for anyone to hear. The killed had enjoyed it.
Private Stone’s expression twisted in anger, a vein pulsing on the side of her face.
