[Story] The girl wore red, Ch 5

It appeared that the drunken sot, Domenici, had not overheard the Night Elf. Instead, he followed the drunken little gnome out of the tavern, probably to find another, more appropriate venue to continue their conversation.

"One for the road", thought Saphran, hailing a serving wench to ask for another ale. Just a few minutes later, the girl arrived back at Saphran's table, slopping the tankard down beside her. "That'll be 50 copper." As Saphran dug around in her coin purse, she failed to notice the tall Night Elf bounty hunter pull her cloak up and also leave the tavern.

Finishing her ale, Saphran looked around the tavern. "Ah, bubbles! Where did that stupid elf go?" Saphran thought. "I've gone and lost both the she-elf and the obnoxious human. What am I going to do now? The boss isn't going to like this at all." Saphran was seriously contemplating drinking herself into oblivion, when she noticed a huge man descend the stairs into the bar room. "Oh my! That has to be Maximar! They told me he was going to be involved in this" Saphran was elated. All she needed to do now was to try and stay inconspicuous while following Max, and let him do all the hard work. From his reputation, it was something he enjoyed doing.

Max sat down at a table by the wall. Trying not be obvious, Saphran surreptiously studied the man, attempting to determine whether he was in for the night, or was waiting for someone. Either way, Saphran was going to stick to him like rendered horse hooves. It didn't take long before Max was involved in a conversation with the next table, a dwarf and a human. Although Saphran couldn't hear what they were saying, it was obvious Max was trying to get some information out of them. After some fairly pregnant pauses, it appeared that he had gotten the information he had needed.

Saphran watched Max rise from his table and head back upstairs. He must have gotten directions to something! Saphran decided that this was probably a wise time to also head up stairs and put some fighting gear on, in case Max started any trouble while she was following him. She followed him up the stairs, only tripping over her feet twice. Once inside her room, she grabbed her sword, pulled on a leather tunic and a pair of leather greaves, knowing that if she wore her plate, it'd make a hell of a racket if she accidently stumbled. Just before she left, she grabbed a couple of healing potions from her backpack, just in case.

When as she was about to open the door, she heard heavy footsteps in hallway. Waiting till they were much fainter, she creaked open the door, peeking around it to see who had just passed. What luck! It was indeed Max. Apparently he had decided to fully gear up, plate and all. "Oh well", decided Saphran, "No time to change now."

With that, she locked her door and followed Max out of the tavern.

After a short amount of time, Max arrived at his destination. The place didnt look terribly exciting from the outside, but the noise from within carried out onto the street. It was at this point that Saphran had to stifle a giggle. The building was obviously meant for gnomes as the door was only 4' high and Max had to crouch to try and knock on the door. Several moments later, it was obvious that the gnomish bouncer wasn't going to let this massive, fully geared warrior into their establishment. "He's going to just knock the entire front of the building in!", thought Saphran with glee.

Unfortuantely for Saphran though, it appeared that this man wasn't just an elite fighting machine, he was also blessed with a fair amount of common sense. He simply rested his back against the wall and waited. From her vantage point, Saphran had no trouble keeping her eyes on Max without being seen and as an added bonus, the winter chill was also allowing some of her wits to return to her.