The Night- A Short Story.

Chapter 4: Welcome to Maladic

"Hey max?" Asked elizabeth. She was wearing her old attire from when we were back in yorkstead. " yeah, what is it?" I ask, arms spread out on her couch. "No offense but, when are you gonna get off my couch?" Elizabeth asked in an angry tone. I look up at her and blush. I haven't been outside her apartment for three days. "Sorry," I tell her as she crosses her arms and looks down on the floor. "Well," elizabeth says flustered, "I'm kicking you out." Hesitantly she then adds, "but first shave, I don't want you going around Maladic looking like garbage." Getting up from the couch, I joke saying, "since when did you care about how I looked like?" Elizabeth looked up at me with a stern look, as If she wanted to smack me. I smiled at her before continuing, "alright, alright I got a razor in my bag." She nodded at me and pointed towards a bucket in the corner of the room, "use this, i don't want your hair everywhere" she says. Nodding at her, I go and grab my razor and head over to the bucket. The bucket was filled with water that showed my rugged face. "Damn she's right." I mutter to myself, just loud enough for elizabeth to hear. "No crap I'm right, now shave." She retorts. So with that I looked into the water, using it as a make shift mirror, and began shaving. Once I looked clean shaven in the water I got up from the bucket and turned around to see Elizabeth holding my equipment. "Your done, now go." She says as she hands me my things. Taking my stuff, I threw it on my back while asking, "come on, can't I stay?" Elizabeth sighed at this and said, "not if you want to end up a nightkin." Elizabeth then took my hands and looked up at me. Continuing on, she says, "look I need you out there if I'm to find a cure, I can't just figure out alone how to reverse this curse." Confused, I look at her and say, "why can't you? Your the best sorceress I know." To this she blushs and shakes her head answering, "max, thousands have tried to reverse the curse since the nights been created, of those people none have found out a cure or process that could stop the transformation." Elizabeth then closed her eyes and slowly opened them again as she hesitantly said, "one of my projects in Maladic is to find a way to cure nightkin. It was wanted by a rather rich night creature who wanted to know his past; I'm only one of the hundreds of mages who he has asked since the cities creation." I nod as I began to understand why she wanted me out there. "I think I understand now, I'll head out and search for more information." I tell her. Elizabeth nodded and said, "check around the city, there's bound to be someone that knows something about the nightkin." Turning around, I open up the door to the night and peer in at the world that awaited me outside. "I'll do just that, goodbye Elizabeth." I say as I close the door behind me, offically entering back into the night.

Looking outside Elizabeth's apartment, I notice the busy streets below me. On the streets were hundreds if not thousands of night creatures. Of these night creatures all looked to be of different race. Heading down the wall steps, I eventually make it down to the streets when I hear someone behind me say, "murderer." Looking behind I spot a nightkin with horns and a goattail. "I'm no killer." I tell the nightkin sternly before heading back on my way. From a distance I hear the nightkin say, "Tell that to magnus, murderer." To this I fasten my pace, I wouldn't feel guilty over saving a human village. Keeping on my way, I eventually spot a bar with a sign saying, "Try your luck, poker and fist fighting." Interested, I went inside to see strong, large nightkin inside. The building also had dim red lighting which gave the place a new but similar atmosphere to the rest of the city. "Hey look folks We got a human!" The barkeeper says ecstatically. Looking over at the barkeeper, I notice that he himself was a human with blue skin. Instinctively, I take a seat at his counter and ask, "so could i get a beer" while offering him a gold coin. To this the barkeeper nodded and took my money while getting out a mug to fill from the kegs behind him. Turning a kegs faucet, he pours out a beer and hands it to me while asking, "so howed you get here anyways?" To this I take a sip of my beer and say, "I'm an adventurer, came here on my own will." The bartender laughs and jokes, "please, and next your going to tell me your max Harrison, seriously where'd you come from?" I look down on the table and take another sip of beer before hesistantly saying, "hate to break it to you but I am max Harrison." The barkeeper suddenly looked at me in shock and took a few steps back. He thought of me as a killer, just like all the nightkin here. "You... you killed magnus. You doomed a whole tribe!" He shouts at me in anger. In an attempt to keep him calm I reply back, "Magnus was attacking a human village, without his death they would have perished." This managed to calm the barkeeper a little, but he still looked angry and scared at me. "Max... ever since his death humans have become less and less accepted out here." The barkeeper says, flustered. He then sighs before retorting, "just get out of my face, before they think I approve of what you do." Listening to him, I get up with my beer in hand and look around to see what's going on around the bar. In the left corner of the place was a circle where the nightkin were fighting each other, and in the right corner of the bar was a table with nightkin sitting around it playing poker. Not much of a fan of poker, I headed over to the left corner to watch the fistfight going down.