Cohost writing prompt: @Making-Up-Adventurers — Adventurer who showed up early
"Begging pardon," a man says politely to the sag-faced beer-bellied member of the city watch manning the watch house's front desk. "I've spent some hours asking about; apparently there was a fight at an inn last night, and several travellers in your cells." Every one you could lay hands on, he doesn't say. On principle only. "I was expecting to meet someone; could you tell me whether, back there, you have a woman of the Dells, about so high, skilled with a bow, by the name Steadfast-Be Forthwith—"
The watchman shifts sideways in his chair and farts loudly and expressionlessly. "It'll be some time," he says. "Some foreigner took a knife to the belly, and didn't last to see this morning. Enquiries."
The man nods, and doesn't glance around the indolently silent watch house. "Aye," he says patiently. "I'd gathered so much. Could you, perhaps, tell me whether the slain adventurer was a Dells lass, about so high—"
"I'm sure I couldn't," the watchman says indifferently.
The man silently stands before the desk for a few long seconds.
"I see," he says finally, softly, "that you're a man of the faith," and he reaches forward a slow hand to take between two fingers a fold of the watchman's shirt, pinching in it a small religious medallion hanging inside on a cord, invisible to the eye; and the watchman looks him in the face for the first time, snarl dying on his lips at the soft godlight shining sourcelessly behind the man, leaving him haloed in quiet righteousness. "It does me good to see one of the god's own, here, and I'm sure the god wouldn't brook me to press you for information not yours to give me. Only, there's a travelling companion of mine, due to meet me here, whose character I'd vouch as unimpeachable within the god's principles, and I wonder if I could simply trouble you to say whether, among the living or the dead, you saw aught of a woman—"
"Well, I'm sure any companion of a paladin wouldn't have been involved in any stabbing," the watchman says hurriedly, and the paladin smiles slowly, still very polite.
"I'm one of the god's sword-arms, brother," he says. "The god's not opposed to stabbings as much as some of their reasons. But aye, I've never known her to do such a thing...except as the god would find approval of it."
The watchman looks into clear, unwavering eyes, and coughs a few times, and stands. "I think we could check the cells," he says in a strained way. "For a paladin."
"That's a kindness," the paladin says, and follows him into the back of the watch house, where the tiny, cold, barred cells are, holding half a dozen assorted persons. "Ah! There she is."
Sweating, the watchman unlocks the cell door. "With your vouch for her behaviour," he says, and the paladin smiles again, reaches again for the flinching man, and presses a fingertip to his shirt, over the medallion.
"Be there no night so dark that you ever doubt the god sees you," the paladin says, in a kind tone, and the religious symbol begins to softly glow, visible through the rough fabric of the shirt. The watchman blurts something fearful and unintelligible, and rushes away.
"That's a man worthy of your god's miracles, aye?" the archer says sardonically, stepping out of the cell.
"That's a small, grimy man in a position of a little power, who'll feel the god watching his every small, grimy deed for the rest of his sorry life," the paladin says, and she barks a surprised laugh.
"Oh, we're a bad influence on you, Arlo," she says, slipping an arm around him.
"Aye, well, after they made us wait for the first two hours, and wouldn't tell us anything, we overheard two watchmen laughing that whoever was stabbed didn't live the night," the paladin says dryly. "And Malia began to direly threaten to compress the entire town to two dimensions and nail it to the floor of the Hell of Perpetual Diarrhoea, so—"