The moon shining its ghostly white light over the land carefully hangs above the great human capital, Alexandria. The stars try their hardest to shine brighter than the moon but they fail and instead just twinkle as if they are singing a song together. The city itself look beautiful under the moon's glow, it has a different personality at night than it has during the day. In daylight, the city is alive and busy. Time flows so quickly and life just past by with no concern about the future or past.
At night it's different, the city become elegant and tranquil. The city is asleep and is time itself has stopped, a few seconds feels like an eternity has passed by. Not all in the city are asleep, there is still a number of people awake enjoying the night. One particular street has the most activity during the night; this street is home to a very unique tavern.
The Old Magpie Tavern stands proudly in this rough street of the human capital. This Tavern is famous throughout the entire human kingdom, for its low-life customers. From Assassins to thieves, they have all stayed at some point in this tavern. It's not just the criminal customers that the Old Magpie has received; it's also famous as the best place to get mostly about anything. This huge bank of information has attracted a lot of mysterious characters, mostly non- human ones.
Tonight, was an unusually busy night at the Old Magpie. Mostly due to the fact that tomorrow was the first day of the Martial Art Tournament and many participants needed a place to stay, as the other inns and taverns are completely full. Jack, the owner of the Old Magpie knew this would be bad for business, on the information front. If he tried to sell information to anybody while these goodie goodies where here, he would get reported and then punished severely. At least he was still getting money from these contestants and was too worried about losing a few gold from not selling information.
Jack was standing behind the bar, serving Ale to those who decided to stay up late and drink. There were a few groups, laughing and chatting quite loudly, just basically enjoyed themselves.
Jack himself was a very large man, properly from being well fed for a long while. Although he was large, he had the appearance of someone very strong and had seen a few battles in his lifetime. The years had started to show on his face, many wrinkles had formed around his eyes and forehead. Also his hair, what was left of it, was starting to grey. His grand father had established this bar and insisted that it was to be passed down from generation to generation but it only got to Jack and looked like it would end. This was because Jack never married and had children, it wasn't that he didn't want to but that no women would want to marry him. Nowadays, it was all about money. If a man had a lot of money, that's would be only thing that mattered to a woman. If they were handsome that would be a great bonus, Jack had neither the looks nor the money. Although the business was doing quite well, it only earned enough to support him and maybe have a few luxuries now and then.
Jack let out a deep sign as he took another four pints of Ale to a group in the corner, he returned behind the bar and started to clean the dirty glasses that had been left on the counter. When the tavern door opened, Jack didn't make an attempt to look up. He just continued to clean his glass, and listen to the footsteps of the new customer as they entered. They way they made a soft thud, indicated to Jack that they must be leather boots, probably meant that this person must be pretty rich to afford leather. When the whole tavern went into an uneasy silence, Jack looked up from the glass he was cleaning and stared at this new stranger.
The Stranger was hidden under a black cloak; the cloak was embroidered with silver thread. The pattern along the hem of the hood and the cloak was a mysterious flower, which was unrecognizable. The Same pattern was on the black leather boats, trailing around the rim and base of the boot. The Stranger walked up to the bar, the whole tavern was following this cloaked one with their eyes. The Stranger turned its head and looked at the staring customers; although the face was hidden you got the feeling that the stranger was giving them a nasty glare. The noise returned as the people gave up staring and returned their business, only Jack still stared at the stranger.
Without saying a word, the stranger placed some gold and silver coins on the counter and pushed them towards Jack with a very pale and feminine hand.
"I require information" said the stranger. The voice was calming and soft, it obviously had to belong to a woman.
"I'm sorry I don't know what you're talking about" Jack said nervously looking around to make sure no one was looking then he leaned closer to the stranger.
"Wait, until we have closed. Then I can help you." He whispered then leant back.
"We have no rooms available, unless you're here to drink I suggest you leave" He
Announced to the stranger.
"Then, I shall have some Ale" The stranger said collecting the gold coins and leaving the silver to pay for the drink. Jack nodded and took the coins and placed them in the pot behind the counter, he took a glass and filled it with what looked like brown coloured water and placed it on the counter.
The Stranger took the Ale and walked over the last table in the corner and sat down, relaxing a bit leaned back on the chair and waited.