1st Day of Fall in the Year 518 AV
It was early morning, the sun still a few bells from rising, when Duncan arrived in Sunberth. It seemed somehow appropriate to him that his long, wretched journey to the city would end with a torrential storm. It had been growing ever since he first caught glimpse of the city outskirts; the ruined shattered remains of buildings adding to the overall gloomy feel of the place. Now that he was further into the city, the storm was in full swing.
Duncan spent nearly all of his life in a planned, organized, clean city. The poor quality of building construction and complete lack of street planning he was now surrounded by made him feel even dirtier than when he first got close to city outskirts. Building placement seemed random and it looked as though people simple threw things away whenever and wherever they felt like it.
"Izurdin, help me find patience." Duncan whispered softly to himself.
While he'd not encountered many people on his way into the city, there were still a few who either didn't have any place to go to get out of the weather or simply chose to remain out in it. He noted that for the most part, those he did see kept to themselves and most avoided eye contact. He did notice, out of the corner of his eyes, the occasional head turn toward him or thinly-veiled glance from beneath a cloak hood.
Having chosen to pack away his leather armor and helmet, Duncan was dressed in his leather war skirt, boots, shirt and his nettle cloak, the hood of which was pulled up in a near-futile effort to keep the rain off his head. He still wore his toothed gauntlet though; his weapon of choice. With the rain seemingly coming down even harder, he ducked under the eaves of a nearby roof.
"Makes me almost miss the mountain snow..." He muttered to himself as he pulled his cloak tighter. "I'm going to have to find a dry place to stay...soon."
Duncan glanced around his immediate surroundings and found that he was in a somewhat narrow alleyway between a handful of buildings. There weren't any windows on this end of the buildings although he noted there weren't many windows on most of the buildings he'd seen; at least not ones without bars or heavy shutters.
Through the sounds of rain hitting the buildings and splashing the ground, Duncan heard a voice.
Hey, you, shorty! I'm soaked and in need of that there pack you're carry'in. So why dontcha hand it over! The voice came from a man who stepped out into the alley from between a couple of buildings. He was dressed is a variety of mismatched clothes and was walking toward Duncan with his arms outstretched, a short dagger in each hand. His short, dark, wet hair was plastered to his head and a short, scraggly beard framed his mouth.
Another voice shouted from the other end of the short alley as a second man, this one with longer hair, clean shaven, dressed in a similar mismatch of clothing and carrying a chunk of wood roughly fashioned into a club. "You heard him! Hand it over and maybe you live through this. Maybe!"
Duncan looked from one man to the other and then to his surroundings. Quickly, he took stock of his situation. The lighting was terrible; lightning strikes from the storm and a bit of illumination from the covered lanterns on the main road several yards away were all the light available. Thankfully, Duncan's isurian eyes were used to dim light and even total darkness. In the low-light conditions, he saw that the men were lightly armed although there were two of them. Glancing at the alley and the buildings, he noted that it was raining pretty hard and everything was wet; puddles and mud on the ground offering potentially unsteady footing. The alley was narrow, maybe six to seven feet wide at most which meant there was really only two directions for maneuvering, moving toward one end of the alley or the other . There was a bit of scattered trash and little else as far as obstacles or obstructions which made for at least some freedom of movement. The confined space offered him some advantage overall as his training was focused on close combat.
"I have a better idea! Duncan shouted through the rain, hoping his grasp on the Common Tongue was enough for the men to understand. "I'm going to walk out of this alley with what is mine. Nobody needs to get hurt here."
The two men laughed and continued their threatening approach.
With a heavy sigh, Duncan muttered once more to himself, "So, the city offers its first test. Izurdin, I will not fail."
Duncan flexed the gauntlet on his right hand and readied himself.
