The next day, Dracna went to the Golden Goblin tavern, dressed in her plain long tunic robes. Her Watch cloak in a bag at her side. The Goblin catered to nonhuman patrons she had heard, so this might give her some clues she hoped. The tavern was small, a few tables and a bar with solid three-legged stools in front of it. One of the stools was occupied by the only other customer, a hulking Ogre, a kind even rarer than her own in the city. She took a seat at the far end of the bar and asked the yellow eyed and yellow tusked Goblin barkeeper for an ale, adding a few extra coins to her payment while quietly adding "Information looking for."
The goblin quirked a bristly black brow. "What else would you like?"
She sipped her ale. Not bad, and better than the piss that some served her kind. She wished she could just drink for fun and relax, something she hadn't done since coming to the city. Always on defensive since the first disastrous days. She asked "Bugbear big action happen. You things hear? Maybe now more coin spend?"
The Goblin scratched alongside his nose saying "Don't know about nothing special. You should go ask at the clubhouse."
"Clubhouse?"
"The Bugbear gangs in the upper city have a few clubhouses they work outta, where they ain't kept in their master's villas."
Dracna passed a few more gold coins across. "Clubhouse?" she repeated. She'd known from experience with the slave trader Gazakral that some lived on the grounds of their master's villas.
"Old Fort, Monster Town and the Arena districts. There is one in the Fort, just north of the last water tower, most northern. You might also ask at the Screaming Skull."
"Where Screaming Skull be?"
"Huh, it's run by yer folk. North and west of the Watch base off the Silver road."
Dracna realized how much she still didn't know about the city after nearly a year living in it. She didn't know the other clans, and barely knew of other Ghenuo in the city aside from M'he's clan and Gazakral.
She had no resources or support in the Watch. Still an outsider in the city. But that didn't mean she had no teeth, or claws with which to catch her prey.
After the little bar, she went to the street where the fight had been. Dressed now with her Watch cloak, she asked about noises. Fights in the night. The residents cowered back from her. They knew nothing. She dangled silver coins. She had seen that folk learn to mind their own business in the less well to do districts, especially when there is a fight in the street in the dark of night. She offered gold. One old man said that yes, he had heard some fight the other night. Someone with an accent shouting.
She knocked at the boarding house door. The door opened until the woman saw what was on her stoop. The door slamming and bolted. Dracna called out. "I Dracna. City watch. Have questions about fight . Strangers with accent."
"Go away! I know about your kind and their tricks, you savage cannibal! I sent a boy out the back to get the Watch!"
"I Watch. Just questions. Boarders about fight ask." Dracna hunched and stooped to be shorter, showing the embroidered Watch seal on her cape collar at a peep hole in the door.
"They ain't here. Gone past 3 days. Now get! I have an axe and the Watch will be here soon!"
A human male in leathers came around the corner of the boarding house. A sword in his hand. "Get away from the door, monster." he growled at Dracna.
She pointed to her short white cape. "I be Watch."
"I can buy that too and trick simple folk. Not happening here beast!" He made a lunging sword thrust that she dodged.
"You have dueling permit?"
"This is self defense and defending the home, creature."
"I only question ask!"
"Don't know and don't care what kinda trouble those two got into with you and your kind. They skipped, or are hiding. Now, get!" Another sword thrust.
Dracna backed away, loosening the cord on the long knife at her thigh. "What kind these ones? Human? Elf?"
"Get!" shouted the man, as he swung the sword at her.
Dracna blocked the swing with the knife, grabbed the arm and pivoted the man into the wall of the house, hard. "You Watch attack. Very bad." She dropped her knife and wrestled the sword from the man's hand as she slammed her body into him, elbow in the stomach and against the wall again. He grunted and she got the sword from him. One clawed hand at his throat, she held and pressed him back. Bending down to look him in his bulging eyes. An image flashed in her mind of lunging forward and taking his throat in her teeth. She kept her eyes locked on his and took a deep breath, dispelling the image. "I Watch be. About fight and boarders the other night want to know."
"Don't know nothing!" he gasped wild eyed and clawing at her arm.
"You good help for Watch!" She threw the sword one way and grabbing a handful of shirt and leather threw the man the other way into the street. Picking up her knife, she left as the man got back to his feet and ran for his sword.
Finally, Dracna sought out the Clubhouse. Wrong district from the attack, but maybe they knew something. Maybe they would talk - if not to her, then to the other Bugbears. She followed the north aqueduct to the last watertower and then started searching, offering silver to passers by for directions. Soon she stood at a ruined looking tenement with drumming from the inner courtyard. The outer doors were sealed and boarded or bricked up. Visible through the gate of the courtyard was a bonfire. Bugbears drumming, others dancing both violently and suggestively. Striding into the courtyard, she was faced with a troop of six bugbears rushing forward, gnashing pointed teeth in over wide mouths, stomping columnar feet and alternately chest thumping and brandishing weapons as they got closer with grunts and howls. She had seen this before, The Bann display. Show of threat and power. She growled, showing teeth and claws, pulling her sword for a few sweeps. Growling a chant as she got in close to one with the gold chains of a leader. "What you want Ghenid?" gold chains shouted.
"Information." She replied, leaning on the wall, towering over the stocky Bugbear.
"Go away." he said with a waving of a hand.
"I pay." She pulled a pouch that rattled with coins. " Only if information good. Lies get big trouble." Laughter from the Bugbears around her.
"You no boss." said Gold Chain.
"I City Watch."
More laughter. " Don't care about Whites. Nothing for you."
Dropping the bag of silver coins, she grabbed the Bugbear and swung it around, slaming him into a wall. "Who taking captives?"
"Nothing for you!" he grunted.
A few others started up close by. Four or five. Maybe 20 in the courtyard. More on upper floors. She bit the boss' shoulder. Licking the fresh blood, activating The Rite of Marking she had chanted and readied earlier. "Who taking captives?" she breathed quietly into his ear.
The Bugbear snarled and pushed at her, trying to break away.
Her ears flicked back as another approached - she spun with sword out, dodging a mace swing. A two handed strike gutting the bugbear attacker. Turning back with one hand's claws catching the Gold Chained Bugbear as he tried to slip away. "No dueling permits. Brawling. You get trouble."
The Bugbear snarled back "It's you that gets trouble!" He pulled a dagger, to make a stabbing attack. She grabbed the hand and smashed it into the wall, adding a knee into his belly.
"You want talk, I Dracna. University-East Watch." She swung the sword to keep back the closing Bugbears and edged to the exit. Using her greater strength she again swung the Boss bodily, this time into the group closing in around her. She bolted, stabbing another that tried to cut off her exit, heading for the main street quickly while the bugbears rushed after her.
Dracna ran hard with the gang in pursuit. Heading for a small plaza with trader stalls only a few blocks away. Getting to busier streets where she could slow and expect to notice any Bugbear. She wiped her blade on her tunic and sheathed it, slowing only a moment. A Ghenid with bloody blade bursting into the plaza would be scary or threatening to the residents. She must not seem more a threat than being a seven foot tall barbarian cannibal monster, even with her white cloak of the Watch.
At the edge of the plaza she slowed, walking briskly past a few children playing in the street, parents watching nearby. The three traders at kiosks watched her, as did the handful of people - humans eating, a centaur drinking at the fountain, the three goblins playing dice. No Bugbears. She hurried west to the old Trade street, then Silver road. Various residents giving her way, but providing her protection by their presence. She made her way to the Watch station, pausing to consider city politics, patrons, territories and allies. She rushed on heading back to her own post, wary for pursuit or ambush.
She returned to her station in time to change, bolt down the fried meat dish in the mess and prepare for patrols. She wrote a message explaining events and her thoughts, the brush held tight upright in her fist, carefully tracing out the words. Her tongue sticking out the side of her muzzle behind the fangs. Sending the note with a runner to another station and a centaur officer she met two years ago. O*(click)Hwee. Maybe her second friend. Her first friend, Verboin, the Gnome tailor had started this. He had said: "You could become a citizen, then you would belong here." They had met to share a drink of ale and a plate of meats and cheese.
"I monster. They no want."
"This is Incaras. You can be a citizen." He said with a grin and a note of certainty.
She snorted. "How? No coin. I scary cannibal."
He laughed. "That you are. But you can fight, yes? Big, strong. The Watch will have you and after a few years you become a citizen."
She had thought about it. Who would listen? She was arrested and beaten on false accusation, but one listened and looked. A first meeting with fairness, if not justice. She had gone to met O*Hwee the Centaur. Buckskin coat, the wide green eyes, flat face, graceful pointed ears.
"You look, see I am true in past. Is fact I be Watch?" Dracna had asked.
"Why? What do you want?" O*Hwee had asked, eyes narrowed.
"Work watch, be citizen? Part of city Clan?" Dracna stumbled.
"Why?"
"I want this for Ghenid."
"Take the city? Rule it?" Her face twisted. Cynical.
"No, they be city." replied the Ghenid. It seemed to surprise the Watch Officer.
"You have to obey the rules. Can you do that? Do you have honor?" She asked, green eyes looking straight into the red and orange colored eyes, but not as threat.
"Can obey." Dracna dropped her head down, ears up. Then with wrinkled brow asked " What be "Honor"?
The Centaur smiled. "Yes, you can join the Watch. I'll take you to the Captain."
Her matriarch, M'he, petitioned the Tribunes of the district for admission. M'he had liked the idea and Dracna had been taken in by the Watch. Sworn in and trained on laws and basics and was soon noted for fighting skill and promoted to hated instructor. Disliked, complained about and avoided except by a goblin recruit like herself. Months. Better at The Common tongue, Atan, but still practicing. Several months spent working the Eastern Ward before she asked to be moved, at the Matriarch's request. M'he's plan was to add her Clan into the Watch. Her eyes and ears. Her agents. In every district she can get. Pack politics. Clan. Moving into positions in the city before any other Clan thinks of it. So she was moved to the Eastern University district. Under a feline Bahku commander named Osmwoe. He hadn't trusted her either and made her repeat the oaths to protect the city, it's citizens and residents and obey the laws. He had used Bahku oath binding, like her kind's Soul Chain that held her to the oaths. She took that familar chain. The different kinds - Elf, Dwarf, Troll, Human, lizard Octnon, Centaurs, Goblins and even kobolds - half demon dog apes with horns with fur and scaled rat tails - in the city and in the Watch. Working together, sometimes grudgingly. One tribe of many kinds. Dracna was also having O*Hwee teaching the concepts of the four legs, the centaurs. Honor. Building better for the future. Ghenid don't have a future, except the Eternal Underworld as ghosts. Wealth, treasure and slaves or servants builtup and stored away in the secret personal crypt, sent by ritual to the underworld. Building status in the afterlife. Everything treasured and valued is bound by the Chains, things cast into the fire and held forever in the Underworld. The highest claim of affection being for Ghenid. "I own you forever." She had said it of her cubs, and still held their ghosts in her chains. Pulling their Chains in the night. Dragging the ghosts to the living world to make them offerings full of the flavor of life, warm, savory and useful things to take back to the cold and dark of the Underworld. The rich and varied flavors, spices and smells of the city. The demon queen, the Goddess, sets the prize before you. Can you take it? Hold it? Is it trapped or poisoned or set to turn against you? Cunning and wits are valued - Apa, being the Ghenid word. She saw now that Ghenid live to die. They can't build a city and art without fighting over it and destroying it to hide it in their tombs for eternity. M'he is different and barely speaks the Ghenid language. She is starting a path for the people to join the city. On Ghenid terms. But the matriarch doesn't know or care about Honor. Or the ways of any of the other kinds. Dracna sees the wonders. Water in fountains in every district. Treasures of tasty, spicy foods, fine crafted made things, words and art like nothing her people have. She wants this for herself. For future Ghenid. This is a hard prize to win and harder to hold.
