Wax Abyss

[ Adnan ] Riches To Ditches

In the early morning, Adnan had went to the store. He'd bought fresh fruits and groceries, along with the daily paper. He frowned when he read the front article. Apparently, some man by the name of Harlowe Wickens had been murdered. What a shame! Adnan frowned- he'd actually seen the guy the other day. Harlowe was the local smithy, and he'd visited him to see if he could perhaps make him a specific, small dagger. It said, in the paper, he'd been stabbed to death-

Adnan flinched and nearly threw the paper he was reading on the floor when a knock occurred on his front door.  "Goodness gracious, great balls of fire..." He uttered, standing up and making his way to the front door. "Coming! Just a second!" He was living out of a small cottage in which he was renting, in which he stored his most peculiar collection of books and slightly magical items. He strode out of the living room and out into the front hall, opening the door.

He was immediately greeted by two men clad in silvery, full plate armor. One flipped his face plate up, which had been riddled with holes like someone took a hole punch and popped at least twenty holes into the sheet metal, and then bent it in the middle like paper and stapled it to the helm. He pulled a scroll from his cylindrical case, and held it by it's upper knobs. The paper fell out, it's bottom hanging in a rich curl. He cleared his throat before he began to read.

"Upon the summons of an anonymous tip, the court finds you, Adnan Amadeus, guilty of the murder of Harlowe Wickens." He continued speaking, but Adnan was far too shocked to pay attention. The second guard pulled manacles from his belt, opening the latches and pulling Adnan closer by his shoulder. He turned the shocked elf around, cuffing his hands behind his back.

"What?" Adnan said in disbelief, his hazel eyes wide. "N-no, that can't be true! I didn't kill anyone! What evidence do you have?" He tried to shake out of the warden's grasp. One of them grabbed his shoulders and stilled him.

"You ordered the knife used to kill him."

------------

Adnan cried out as the guard roughly tossed him into the cell, his shoulder, chest, and side of his face smacking into the rough stone. As the guards were walking away, Adnan got to his feet and rushed to the bars, gripping the cold iron with his slender hands. "Hey, wait a second!" he shouted. "I didn't kill anyone! That wasn't me! I'm innocent!" He groaned when he got no response. After a pause, he started pacing in his cell, cursing to himself of how this wasn't his fault.

An old man broke the silence. "Hey, whippersnapper," He said. His voice was raspy and gritty, like sandpaper on wood. Adnan cringed, "What?" When he turned to look at the man, he noticed how frail he looked. The old man had thin, spindly limbs. He had a long, white beard and a hairline that receded so far back it gave him a reverse mohawk, the hair on either side long and thin. The man had one cloudy blue eye, and the other looked like it had filmed over. He had little teeth left, and his clothes hung off his skin-and-bones frame like someone draping a shirt over a feather pen.

"You wanna get out of here, huh?"
"Yes, it wasn't my fault!"
"Ehehehe... That's what they all say."
"But it was true!"
"Don't matter if it was true or not, they won't be letting you out any time soon."

Adnan groaned, backing himself to the bars. He slid down the bars until he was sitting on the ground, his knees to his chest. Quietly, he picked at the bottoms of his shoes, unable to decide if he was angry or not. The old man proceeded to question him, to which he replied minimally or not at all. There was only one thing that made Adnan extremely wary of him.

Of all the questions the old man asked, he never asked for his name.