Shade leaned against a lantern post right outside the tavern. He looked up at the night sky and squinted. He found the stars seemed to not only be blurry, but were moving side to side. “Maybe taking a bottle for the road wasn’t the best idea.” He groaned, before taking another swig. “I feel like I’m going to puke.” He then turned his drunken gaze to the cobblestone roads, on the hunt for a nice conspicuous alley to puke, then pass out in. The roads, typically vibrant and bustling with the sounds of hoofs clacking and merchants yelling, lay dark and dormant, nothing but fellow drunks and criminals milling about. His gaze fell on a ‘cozy’ looking dark alley across the street, and he stumbled his way over. When he got to the entrance though, he moaned in disappointment as the alley was already occupied.

  No more than a hundred feet into the alley, three wolves were standing over a small male elf lying in a puddle of rainwater tinted red with the elf’s blood. The trio were the classic cliché, a leader and his two subordinates, one a large brute, and one that looked like it hadn’t eaten a sandwich in 3 years. “So, you don’t have the money?” The leader snarled, a tall, well-built wolf with classic grey fur. He was wearing a full black suit with a blue tie, as well as a black fedora with his ears poking through tiny holes. He was holding a baton in one hand, while glaring angrily at a seemingly empty coin pouch in the other.

  “I’m sorry…I promise…. I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.” The elf replied through nervous clattering teeth, his hands covering his face, and blood covering what was left of his ripped and tattered clothes.

  “You know the boss isn’t going be happy.” The frail wolf chimed in, staring down at the beaten elf like he was the most disgusting thing on the planet. He was much smaller than the others, short and brittle looking. No weapon that Shade could see and no armor. He only wore a long brown robe, reminiscent of a monk, with the hood up covering his head, his pointed ears popping out through little holes as well.

  The brute wore a thick steel chest plate, like he was getting ready to go to battle in the middle of some back alley, as well as a huge wooden club, holding it with both hands. He bent down close to the elf and sniffed a few times, then frowned and spat on him. “You smell of booze. You could pay for beer, but not us?” He said angrily, kicking the elf in the stomach, causing him to cough, wheeze, and spit up even more blood.

  The frail one then began sniffing the air himself. “He’s not the only one that smells of booze.” He snarled, as he turned and looked right at Shade, baring his teeth. “Did you need something?”

  Shade giggled internally at the wolf who looked like any slight breeze would instantly kill him attempting to be intimidating. On the outside though, he put on his best friendly smile as he drunkenly took a few steps into the alley, keeping one hand on the wall for balance. “Well actually, yes, I do, thank you for asking.” He replied with a burp. “You see, I was looking for a place to sleep, and this alley seems to be pretty decent lodging. Could you tell me, will this be a long shake down, or are you guys almost finished?”

  “Oh, we have a jokester do we.” The leader scoffed, turning his attention from the elf to Shade. “And a human one at that.”

  The brute took a few threatening steps toward Shade, and pointed his large club right at him. “You will turn around and walk the other way if you know what's good for you, human.”

  The elf moved his shaking hands from his face and looked over to Shade with pure fear in his eyes. “Please…please sir, please, you have to help me. They're going to kill me.”

  “Shut up you!” The leader snarled, taking his turn to kick the elf in the chest. “We’ll get back to you in a minute!” Then he looked back over to Shade with venom in his eyes, tapping his baton in his hand. “Well human, what’s it gonna be. Are you gonna leave, or are we going to have a problem here?”

  Shade looked at the leader, then down at the elf. His fear ridden face was a complete mess of blood and bruises, but that was the least of the elves worries. The tips of his normally pointed ears had been cut off as blood poured from his mouth which was noticeably missing multiple teeth. His fingers were leaking blood as well from their now nail-less finger tips. His right leg was facing a direction Shade didn’t think healthy legs were supposed to, and on the parts of him not covered in blood, fresh burn marks could be clearly seen. Shade frowned as he took in the beaten and broken elf. Unfortunately for him, this scene wasn’t anything new, nor even close to the worst thing he had ever seen. He had seen things like this many times before. But that wasn’t the part that was bothering him, it was the fact that he had been the one to cause this type of scene many times in the past. He was the one others desperately pleaded with onlookers for saving from, right before he snuffed out their lives. After staring at the elf for a few moments, he put his fake smile back on and looked over to the leader. “Tell you what, I think I have a solution that will leave everyone here happy.”

  “Oh, and what’s that?” The leader replied cynically.

  “Well, if its money you’re after, I’m sure I have more than enough to cover what he owes.” Shade said, taking his coin pouch off the belt he wore around his black robe, giving it a good shake. “And if paying you means I can get this cozy little alley for my own, then I think it’s a worthwhile transaction.”

  The leader looked at the bag of coins for a moment, his face going through many emotion changes in rapid succession. Confusion, curiosity, fear, but when he finally looked back up to Shade, he had a sadistic smile on his face. “Listen human, I appreciate the offer, but we don’t want your money. This here elf needs to learn a lesson about… fiscal responsibility.”

  Shade figured that was going to be the answer. People like this weren’t really in it for the money, you could make loads more coin from adventuring then you ever could by shaking down the poor and weak. They were in it for the addictive feeling that came with holding power over another. They wanted to feel strong, in control, they wanted the feeling of the thin thread that held another person’s life dangling helplessly in their hands. And he couldn’t even blame them, he once had been addicted to that very same drug. In fact, he still was.

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  He stood there and tilted his head back and forth as he considered his options. He knew he could take the three of them easily, even as black out drunk as he was, but he wasn’t a hero, not anymore. After taking one last look at the desperate elf, he sighed and shrugged. “Whatever, guess I’ll find a different alley to sleep in.” He turned and stumbled back out of the alley, all while knowing what would likely become of the elf in the end.

  “Wait, no wait!” The elf called out in dismay.

  “Smart man.” The leader said, then turned back to the elf. He knelt down in front of him and shook the empty coin pouch once more, that same sadistic smile still plastered on his face. “Now, what are we going to do with you?”

  “Boss, shouldn’t we go after the human, you saw how much coin he was carrying, right? He’s just a measly human, we can take him out easy.” The brute said, as he began to walk towards Shade.

  “Stop!” The leader called to his brutish subordinate, and the rotund wolf stopped and turned to look at his boss. The leader then peered past the brute and out of the alley with narrowed eyes. “No human could have that kind of coin. I don’t know who he is, or more importantly, what he is. And I don’t plan on finding out.” He then raised his baton high in the air and brought it down on the elf’s face, shattering his nose and breaking even more teeth, causing blood to explode everywhere like someone had just popped a ripe tomato. The elf yelled out in pain as his hands shot back to his face in a desperate attempt to protect himself. “You shut your damn mouth! We still have some more things we need to discuss.”

  As he walked away, Shade could hear the sounds of the elf’s blood curdling screams, but those screams that would scar most people, barely even registered to him. He took another large swig from his bottle and continued stumbling down the sidewalk, on the prowl for a nice little alley he could call home for the night. After a few blocks, he found another, and peered into it, only to groan loudly as he found a male wolf being serviced by a red headed female elf. The pair both heard his annoyed groans and looked over to him, to which Shade once again put on his best fake smile. “Hello you two fine citizens, I was just wondering when this here alley would be available for my use.” Then, with the woman clearly being…busy, he focused his attention on the man. “Guy to guy, I think we can admit we’re all a bunch of liars when it comes to our stamina. What’s it gonna be, another 5 minutes, 10? I can wait.”

  The wolf shook his head. “Sorry man, I don’t know about your libido, but I paid for 4 hours, and I plan on using the full 4 hours.”

  The fake smile left Shades face as he began to look rather annoyed. “You paid for 4 hours with a prostitute, but you didn’t feel the need to pay for an inn?”

  “Hey man, don’t kink shame!” The wolf sneered, then pointed at the bottle in Shades hand. “I ain’t judging you for walking around with a bottle of the cheapest booze you can buy!”

  “Kink shame?” Shade replied, throwing his arms up in the air sarcastically. “What kink? You one of those people that get off on having sex in public?” The wolfs face blanched at him saying that. “Oh, you are. Then what’s the problem with me watching? Isn’t the whole point of public sex the thrill of someone finding you? Well guess what, found ya. You’re pretty shit at hiding, hope you never commit any crimes, they’ll catch your sorry ass instantly.”

  The elf then took the wolfs member out of her mouth and peered angrily over at Shade. “I’m not sure what your problem is dude, but I’m tryna work here, could you go be a drunken nuisance somewhere else.”

  Shade put his hands up in surrender. “You’re right, you’re clearly occupied with something. You could even say your hands are full.” But when neither responded to his bad joke, instead only blankly staring at him, he just sighed, turned, and started to walk down the street again, on to find the next alley.

  The only problem was the next alley was also taken, this time by what appeared to be a drug deal about to go bad. He half wanted to watch what would happen, he still had half a bottle of booze left and could use a show to drink it with. He ultimately decided though that he wanted to sleep more than he wanted to finish his bottle, so he kept walking. But when he got to the fourth alley, he almost exploded in confused frustration as he peered at what was apparently a drug deal mixed with a group of people going at it. Two elf men in suits both held open brief cases in their hands. Both were closely inspecting the contents within the cases, which was nothing odd on its own. What was odd were both men being serviced by what seemed to be twin female dwarves at the same time. He threw his hands up in the air in bewilderment again. “Ok, now if someone could explain to me what this kink is, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  One of the two men looked up from their brief case, then smiled and winked at him. “Work hard, play hard, you know?”

  Shade opened his mouth to respond, but found he had none, so he just nodded, raised his bottle in salute to the man, and kept walking down the road.

  With each passing occupied alley though, his frustration grew more and more. Of course he could always go to an inn, but he didn’t want to. Spend money on sleeping quarters? What a waste of good drinking money! Especially when he had a home he could always go back to if he really needed somewhere to sleep. But it wasn’t time to head home yet. He had fallen into quite the pattern over the last decade, becoming quite accustomed to his alcoholic lifestyle. He would grab a bag of coins from his home, then spend weeks, maybe months, going town to town, tavern to tavern, drinking his eyes out. When he eventually would run out of coins, he would head back home, grab another bag, rinse and repeat.

  To most this might seem like quite the depressing life, but he had found an odd solace in it. That was until tonight, where somehow, someway, every alley in the town was taken. This had never happened to him before, what was wrong with this town? Didn’t they know alleys after a certain time of night were for the homeless and alcoholics amongst society? Have they no manners here?

  As he was frustratingly mumbling to himself while walking away from yet another occupied alley that contained something he didn’t even want to begin to try to describe, he stopped dead in his tracks. “Who the fuck is that.” He said, eyes going wide. The feeling of a tsunami’s worth of echos washed over him. An absolutely overwhelming amount of power. As he looked around the mostly empty streets though, the few people who were still walking them either didn’t seem to notice, or they didn’t seem to care. He assumed they didn’t notice, as any weak being berated with this amount of power would quickly fall into a panic. But why could he sense it then? He was better than most at sensing the echos within people, but that was when they were trying to hide it. This seemed more like someone was trying to show off how strong they were. So why could only he seem to sense it? Curious, he closed his eyes in an effort to pinpoint where the power was coming from, but while he couldn’t get an exact location, he felt something that confused him even more. The echos, though strong, felt muffled, like the person actually was trying to hide them. But then why could he sense them?

  He looked down at his now almost empty bottle of whiskey, then down the road a bit. He was quite tired, and quite drunk, but that drunkenness was fueling a now raging curiosity to find out what was going on. And with apparently no vacant alleys open for the night, he was left with only one option, at least in his mind. He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of echos, he was going to find who this person was. Even though he couldn’t pin point the exact location of the person right now, he could feel their echos, and if he could feel their echos, he could find them.