Meddling in Foreign Affairs

Chapter 2: Being an "Elf"

After shaving and switching cloaks with the elf, Dismas found himself wandering through the dark streets of Sdelki with his new hood up, trying to catch the attention of whoever the elf wanted to get off his tail. For a while he just wandered around aimlessly, but then he realized that it might be a good idea to put his new money in a safe place, in case his new job went south. He was almost to the only messenger service in the city that was open at that time of night when he heard sounds on the rooftops behind him. Whoever was following him (and thus, trying to find the elf) was not from Sdelki, or they would not have attempted to travel by rooftop. Every sketchy person in the area knew that the roofs of Sdelki were designed to be difficult to travel on, and it was almost impossible to walk across them silently.

Dismas turned around to face where the noises came from, trying to be more graceful and elf-like than he actually was. He saw figures on top of the building directly behind him and swore when he realized how many there were. Somehow that prissy elf had managed to get at least four angry dwarves on his tail. Some 'diplomatic mission' that was. For some reason Dismas assumed that the elf was involved in a normal situation, like having stolen from someone or cheating at a dice game. He probably should have suspected something when he was willing to offer so much money for a simple task, but he wouldn't have been able to resist the money either way, so that didn't really matter. And now the idiotic elf had gone and gotten him involved in something he had no place in. The dwarves and elves had been harboring an obvious animosity towards one another for centuries, and as a human, he should have done all he could to avoid their fight.

Without much internal conflict, considering he already had the elf's money safely tied to his belt, Dismas decided to give up on his charade. Maybe if he helped the dwarves find the elf, they would give him more money. "You are looking for the owner of this cloak, right?" he called up to the dwarves on their roof. "I regret to inform you that I am not him. I am, in fact, very human-like but seem to have gotten myself jumbled up in your dealings with the elf."

The dwarves argued amongst themselves quickly before one stepped forwards. "It is amusing that you believe that we would be so easily fooled by your trickery, elven scum."

"No, I'm not an elf! An elf hired me to distract you so that he could do whatever it is he was doing. If you need more than that, I can lead you to where I last saw him and describe him in detail for you."

"That is exactly what an elf would say in this situation."

Dismas groaned at their stubbornness. In an effort to not let the elf fool them, they had actually given him more time to escape. And they didn't seem like they would notice their mistake anytime soon. "Seriously, though! I'm thicker than an elf! And I don't have pointy ears!"

As he started to move his hands to his hood, there was quick movement on the roof. "Halt! If you make one more move, I will shoot!"

Suddenly very aware of the arrow pointing straight at him, Dismas stopped. "I was just going to put down my hood so that you could see my very human features."

"Even if you have human features, you have no way of proving that that is what you actually look like."

Dismas sighed, not seeing an easy way out of this situation. "Look, you're the leader, right?" The dwarf who had been speaking and was still pointing an arrow at him nodded cautiously. "So, you're smart, and you've been tracking this elf, or whatever, and you know that he's smart. He doesn't talk like I do, and his voice is very different from mine. And if he were going through all the trouble to disguise himself as a human, wouldn't he have at least made himself look taller?"

One of the other dwarves walked up to the leader and said something quietly to him. The leader nodded slightly before turning back to Dismas. Without giving any warning, he released his arrow and Dismas felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. A burning sensation spread from the sharp pain, and he felt himself becoming extremely lightheaded.

"Bloody dwarves and their poisonous arrows," he muttered under his breath as he fell to his knees and the world around him went black.

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Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be up tomorrow!