"Yeah...that makes sense" Magnus agreed as he lingered on the threshold. "But that's easier said than done. How do you track something that seems to come and go as it pleases? Something that seems to be able to move like a ghost?" he asked in a mostly rhetorical way. He obviously did not expect her to answer. And it still did not explain why Daneel of all people ended up the victim of such a person.

If the Magistrate was the one he was looking for, how would he confirm such a thing before making his move?

But maybe that was it...maybe now that he had his target, he just needed to confirm it so that he could take more definitive action...

Alice looks at Magnus quietly for a few moments, her one good eye sizing the Minotaur up with a piercing gaze.  Eventually, she shakes her head.

"I wouldn't know."  She sighs.  "Maybe you are trying to answer too many questions."

Alice smiles with an empathetic face, her eyes still on Magnus as she waits with the door half closed.  "I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help."

"No no, sorry for bothering you. Thanks for seeing me at least, and good luck." Magnus waved to her slightly as he left.

As he walked along the street, he reviewed mentally all that he had learned.

Daneel believed he was cursed for his connection to his apprentice Margerie and her suicide after her pregnancy out of wedlock. Some had assumed them lovers.

But Margerie was more than likely involved with the Magistrate of the Court where she laundered. A wealthy and powerful figure, a "natural" child would have hurt his standing in society and his professional reputation severely.

The kind of man who could potentially arrange to hire three out of town thugs, through an intermediary, to assassinate the Minotaur looking into the case.

The kind of man who could potentially arrange for the guard to not respond for up to an hour as an unknown creature murdered those same thugs after they had failed in their task and been arrested.

But while the evidence pointed to the Magistrate, Magnus still did not possess the "why" of why Daneel had been cursed of all people.

Why would the lover of a girl who had taken her own life, hate one of her last employers? Vex him so?

Did he fear that Margerie had told him? Was he trying to drive him out of town to tie up the last of the loose ends?

Was Daneel more involved that he had let on? Not her lover perhaps...but im some other way?

Had the tragic death of the young woman and her unborn child resulted in some restless spirit?

Magnus heaved a great sigh. He was accustomed to watching trade goodd and glaring at miscreants. Not picking apart intrigues...

He decided that he would attempt to find the home of the Magistrate, and to see if there was perhaps some vantage point he could watch it from. Perhaps he would learn something about the man's activities? Or perhaps he would find this "cadaverous" intermediary there in his employ?

With all the rumors making the rounds, perhaps he would have some other interesting visitors?

Magnus had reached an end of sorts.  Part of the story he saw so clearly.  The Magistrate and Margerie, their love affair and their baby.  His aversion and her despair.  But that was where the clarity stopped and the fog began.  Who had been the one responsible for the curse, and why had it targeted Daneel?

Magnus saw no clear way to those answers, and only one man left to question... the magistrate himself.  It seemed to only solidify the way in Magnus's mind that the Magistrate was clearly implicated in the death of the three thugs...

Magnus asked around and found it quite easy to locate the Magistrate's home.  Alston Manor was by no means a small house.  It was perched on a small hill just a ways over from the cathedral, surrounded by a chest-high stone wall with a modest lawn and garden for a city home and with a large, circular drive and carriage house in front.  As Magnus took in the obvious wealth, he wondered if really the direct confrontation was his best idea... and yet he really had no others.

Magnus knocks on the oaken doors, which are shortly answered by a balding, middle aged man in servant's attire.  "Sir Alston's been expecting you."  The man says before Magnus even has a chance to ask if the lord of the manor is home.  "He'll take you in the library.  This way."

Magnus follows the man through a wide and open front hall, streaming with natural light, towards a door on the side which opens up into a rather large library with two walls of books and one of windows.  Several plush chairs adorn a corner, one of the side tables hosts a small wooden box and ash tray and Magnus can smell a faint smoke hanging in the air.

"He'll just be a moment."  The servant explains as he shows Magnus in the door.  "Make yourself at home."

It is perhaps only a minute more before the Magistrate, Sir Richard Alston, walks into the room.  He is well dressed, his shirt with lace at the cuffs and a highly embellished collar with simple, black riding pants and boots.  He has a simple green cap clutched in one hand, and he walks briskly, with a purpose towards Magnus.  "Yes?"  Sir Richard starts, coming to a stand a few steps from Magnus, who towers over the man by a head and shoulders together.

"What is it that I can do for you?"

There had always been a certain amount of risk inherent in Magnus's life. The ability to exist somewhere safe, working in a mundane profession had been denied to him from his earliest days.

It had driven him into his current occupation, a Mercenary for lack of a better term, where at least the risk was periodically rewarded.

And here he stood yet again, not on the battlefield, but in no less danger. The man in that library could have him arrested, and Magnus would have little recourse. The Minotaur knew this, but it was a calculated gamble to order to potentially get access to better equipment...reducing his risk in the future.

Such was life.

"Good evening, thanks for seeing me." Magnus smiled politely, reflexively, and nodded, his hands seeking out the strap of his messenger bag for lack of anything else to do with them.

"I figured it's about time me met." He said a little wearily. The man's majordomo had betrayed that Magnus was already expected. If he could approach this meeting from a position of strength, if he could convince Sir Alston that his reputation or status was at legitimate risk, they both might get through this is one piece.

But the man had to be convinced that it was not already too late, that there was something to be gained as well.

"Before anything got out of hand. Well, even more out if hand" he shrugged. Three men and a girl were dead, one man's livelihood was on the verge of ruin.

"Is it safe to talk here? Do you need to send anyone away?" There. An invitation, a suggestion of discretion, and a little silence in hopes that the man would open up and begin to talk, or maybe even bargain.

Sir Richard glares at Magnus with an expression of stoic distaste.  He grips his cap with both hands at his front, his eyes narrowed, his shoulders pushed forward as if readying to fight.

Still, the man does not move, but answers Magnus's question crisply.  "It is safe, I fear not prying ears in my own household.  My staff has the utmost discretion."

"Alright..." Magnus crossed his arms and nodded. "I won't waste your time them. What's it going to take to stop all this?" he asked directly.

He did not want to drive too deeply into the man's embarrassment. This was a person who was obviously unused to being at a disadvantage, and the Minotaur was not looking to aggravate him, just to solve the problem.

That problem being the perceived curse upon his Client. Given that the men knew full well where to find him, and that they had shaken down Daneel, Magnus assumed that the man knew full well what he was talking about.

But if he didn't, well, that would be revealing in itself.

"To stop this?"

The magistrate lilts his voice, though his eyes are dead set upon Magnus's.  The man does not seem afraid, nor angry... just tense and determined.

Magnus had always been a little nervous of men of power.  Men who controlled other men, who controlled the law, who in effect controlled him.  It was an odd situation, here, in Sir Alston's library, where there were no soldiers, no courtroom, not even Sir Alston's servants at the moment.  Here, Magnus clearly had the upper hand... at least for the moment.  And yet Magnus thought he sensed some of that same nervousness about the magistrate that was so familiar... and the stern refusal to let it control him.

"I'm afraid you will need to be more clear.  I am a busy man.  I have much to do."

And yet, despite the words that seemed to shrug Magnus off, the Magistrate stands stock still, his eyes glued upon Magnus as if waiting for the blow to land...

"To call it off." He clarified, having made his overture. The fact that the man was still hiding after being confronted irking him a bit.

"Three men are dead, other cursed...It needs to stop. No more murders. No more curses. Any of that. People are noticing anyway...if it had not been me to puzzle it out it would have been someone else. At least I'm willing to work with you...if you'll be honest with me." he offered. Stil avoiding some of the terms he might normally use in the hope of a less dramatic resolution.

It worked to the man's advantage, or so Magnus thought. The Minotaur was practical, and while bringing the man to justice would have been ideal...the world did not always work that way.

If he could just get it to stop, that was more realistic perhaps. And it solved the problem, at least long enough for Magnus to brief Daneel, get his things and get the hell out of town.

Not a great fix, sure, but Magnus would take what he could get. He felt.in over his head.

As Magnus hurls his implied accusation, You've killed three men and cursed another, delicately worded as it is, the magistrate seems to be a man coursing with emotion.

"I had nothing to do with those three men!"  The anger comes first, his eyes bulging at Magnus as his jaw squares forwards.  "I wanted them gone!  Banished from Rapahael, but not killed.  I..."  He rips his gaze away from Magnus shaking his head.

"I wanted it to stop.  I told him to stop, that things had gone far enough.  I told him to leave things well enough alone..."  The magistrate's tone sinks, the anger siphoned from his voice all in a moment.

"I thought he understood... that he was asking for more money so he could leave...  But clearly that is not his intent."

The magistrate walks to a large backed chair, flopping himself down with his head sagging slightly.  "I don't know what to do."

Oh shit

Being inhuman came with certain disadvantages, but he hoped that his broad, flat features did not betray the realization that he was likely after the wrong man. Maybe one degree removed, maybe not blameless, but the wrong man none the less.

He shifted his weight, his big nostrils widening slightly as he exhaled, but that was the extent of it. His mind raced to catch up, to think on his feet, to roll with this new revelation. Luckily for Magnus much of this occurred as the Magistrate was making his way over to the well upholstered chair

The gaunt man. It had to be him. Hired perhaps? Involved for other reasons? But the man behind the monster.

"Well, I think we still have some options." Magnus offered in a lighter tone. A counter-point to the mans despair.

"You want him gone, I want him gone...and what's more, I want to be gone myself." he suggested. "If he's gone way past your initial agreement, maybe we could work together to solve both our problems?" he shrugged as he approached to stand by the chair. "It wouldn't even cost you anything, not on my end. I just need information, and your word that all this is gonna' stop once he's been dealt with."

"Information."  The magistrate repeats the word, not as a question, but as a tired statement, or perhaps as a reassurance.

"Yes."  Sir Alston shakes his head.  "Nicolai was recommended to me by an old friend in Craine.  It was chance, I think, more than anything that brought him here and started everything.  He needed work... of a sort anyway, and I was seething..."  Alston squints his eyes hard, the muscles in his jaw tightening.  "Still seething.  A wreck.  I wanted to make Daneel pay, and I'm sure I said so.  Nicolai mentioned that he could it if it was my wish.  In my suffering I accepted."

Alston's brings his hands to his face, overcome by the moment.

"I'm afraid if you wish to know what he did or how, I cannot help you.  I knew only that he had powers, I did not even at the time know how maliciously he used them, how he rejoiced in the suffering of others.  I have tortured myself over bringing him to justice this whole day, but in truth I fear him...  What he could to do me physically, yes, but also how one word from his mouth could ruin me forever, and everything I have built."

"I am not proud."  Alston looks up at Magnus as he returns his hands to his sides, his face flushed with emotion.  "If you wish to deal with him on your own I would be thankful for it.  I believe is is staying at the White Heart, though I know little else of his activities..."

OOC:  Roll vs. IQ.

Tracking down information on this sordid arrangement seemed to have taken a great deal of time and energy. Every impression, every rough guess had been pried from strangers on the streets of Raphael. Some had been afraid, other reluctant, some surprisingly generous, and now the information came in a stream so steady that Magnus found that he had trouble keeping up.

His basic premise seemed to have been correct, this Magistrate, Sir Richard was the nexus. He had been responsible, in a way, for the torment that Daneel had suffered. That he had gone through an intermediary had not been known at first, but it was perfectly plausible. Instead of a majordomo, this Nicolai essentially sounded like a mercenary presence. In addition, like many who employed mercenaries, this man now found himself afraid to confront the very element that he had introduced.

Magnus felt like he had a good idea of what he was looking at now, and a direct way forward. He could deal with this Nicolai in a few ways, ways he would need to consider further before he acted. But a nagging wonder still remained...what had Daneel done to deserve such attention? What had the Smith done to warrant such obvious, intense anger from this man?

Did it really matter? As long as he got paid? That was a good question...

Would he betray himself as being ignorant if he asked?

At this point he decided it was best not to stir the pot any further. Sir Richard was in obvious distress, and he could find out in other ways. He had the mans cooperation...best not to risk it.

But before he replied, something stirred in his mind at the mention of the White Heart...

13:37, Today: Magnus rolled 9 using 3d6 with rolls of 2,1,6.  IQ (10).

Magnus wrestles the question of whether or not to pry.  What had Daneel done to earn the wrath of the Magistrate?  Why had the whole situation erupted as it had?  And most importantly, did it matter enough to ask?

No.  Was the simple answer.  Digging, especially when the Magistrate seemed to be so cooperative, would likely only invite more trouble.  Nicolai he could deal with...  And he knew where he was.  The White Heart.

The White Heart.

It had been the first place he had attempted to visit in the city and seemed it would be the nexus of his stay.  Perhaps he had earned enough good graces with William Howell the owner, and the servant girl to give him some leeway.  And that thought, of the server, brought back the moment of their meeting.

"Don't you know there's a murderer loose!  Nearly scared me to death!"

Nicolai was at the White Heart.

Then another memory... this one of Alice... "The girl, they say she died screaming next to her husband in their hotel room..."

"Don't you know there's a murderer loose!"  Magnus sees the server's shock...  Her fear...  The murder had been in that inn.  "Nearly scared me to death!"

He was at the White Heart... but what else was he doing?  Where else could he be now?

"Sorry, the man in twelve is something of an ass."  The memory comes unbidden.  The servant girl again, shaking her head.  "Wants his room cleaned but never wants to leave it."

Magnus tried to maintain his more reserved countenance, but the recollection of it all made it difficult. He had been so close this entire time...had practically stayed at the same establishment. But now he had a clear direction.

"I can take care of it." Magnus told him with a slight series of nods. "I won't even ask for pay, all I'd like is your word on some legal protection, whatever you can give, if things go south." he raised up one hand as if to preempt some protest  "Now I'm gonna be careful, and then I'm gonna leave town...more or less for good. But I draw a lot of attention, and no plan's perfect. So if the worst comes to pass...can I count on you to do what you can? " he asked Sir Alston directly. "Your word as a gentleman would be enough for me."

That he would drop things with Daneel was implied, but he thought better of demanding it outright. He wanted the man to feel like he still had some control here, not like he was being extorted, and given that Magnus was essentially agreeing to kill a man in cold blood on his behalf, he did not feel that it was a lot to ask in exchange.

The Magistrate holds Magnus's gaze, his brown eyes glittering with emotion, though he manages to keep the rest of his demeanor in check.  It is several moments however, before his begins to respond in a slow and stunted manner.

"I... cannot condone such crimes as the Lord himself hath deemed unforgivable."  Alston hesitates, his words caught in his throat.  "But many such crimes have been served with banishment before, and would not draw ire if they did so again.  If there is proof that Nicolai has taken lives of his own... all the better."

Alston pauses again, his eyes flickering wildly as he bites his lip, though he looks Magnus full in the face before he continues.  "If you fix this, I assure you shall not face no worse than banishment by my hand...  You have my word."

Magnus nodded, matching the gravity of the Magistrates tone, glanced to the ground, look back up and nodded again. "Alright then..."

His arms still crossed he stirred from where he stood, not in any particular direction, but enough to convey that he was about to leave.

"Never fun, dealing with this stuff. Buts it's the way of the world I guess." He sighed lightly. "If it all works out I doubt we'll see each other again. So unless you've got anything else, I think I'm gonna take my leave." he began to move towards the door he had entered through, feeling a little dirty. It was not the first time in his life, and it would likely not he the last. But it really was the way of the world.

He needed armor to keep him safe, so he could get back to his family or start his own some day. Just about the only man who could, or would make it had a problem. Magnus was the solution.

The Minotaur just hoped it would be over quick, and that he could leave the city behind him sooner than later.

The Magistrate merely nods in response, still too overcome to offer Magnus anything more.  Magnus takes his leave, walking mostly alone until he is nearly at the front entrance, where a servant graciously walks him to the door.

Magnus's walk to Angel's Armory is filled with the grim justification for his planned deed.  He was just a Minotaur, just doing a job, to just get on with his life.  Even as his hooves beat out the slow walk back to the center of town the last of the light ebbed away from the dusk, leaving only the darkened rain clouds which still loomed overhead.

Magnus manages his way to the armory, though once he gets there he finds the door still locked...

OOC:  It is 1900 on the 8th of August.  You have a key to the Armory, which you can feel free to use if you wish.

Magnus heaved a sigh as he stepped into the dark Armory and locked the door behind himself.

With a little effort he lit a candle, and once he could see properly he stifled a yawn as he set out the makings of the tea, what was left from their time in the jungle.

As the pot warmed and the leaves nudged into his cup, he found himself once again alone. It was in this solitude and the contemplative mood that he found himself thinking about his recent confession and the reasons for the lengthy conversation with the Priest.


Magnus had killed several men, including one that had been accidental. In fact he had geared up with the others to specifically hunt down and kill a mage, not once but twice. Mages that had been dealing in the Dark Arts.

So why did he already feel guilty about this one? Was it any different? Was it simply because the man resided in a little inn instead of a great tower or a mouldering jungle ruin? Surely it was not a sense of unfairness?

Was it because this man had been hired to do his grisly work? Was it because Magnus was now, in a round about way, working for the very same man that had first hired said mage? We're Nicolai and himself not so very different?

Yes...yes, that was a factor, he admitted to himself.

There was also the unsettling notion of killing in cold blood. Would Magnus had knocked either of the previous two on the head if he had been able to catch them unawares? Almost certainly.

But that had not been the case. They had both known what was coming for them. There was something more disturbing about setting out to ambush a man in a peaceful setting. Even a reportedly evil man.

Magnus had long been a killer, but he had not considered himself a murderer. Even for a good cause.

He let out another long, anxious breath and ran his calloused hand over his face.

Was he just being nieve? This mage had  made Daneel's life hell, had deviated from his bargain with the Magistrate, and had trafficked with God knew what to kill those three thugs, among others.

He would be a damn fool to insist on some kind of equal contest. Chivalry was for high born Knights and those swordsman types from Arraterre, like Gustav.

He missed Gustav. Never one for a lot of conversation, but never shy in a fight.

The water was boiling.

A plan came to him with a little effort. He would sleep, clear his mind, and take breakfast at the White Heart. He had eaten there before and it would almost certainly not cause any alarm.

Room 12.

If he could get a good look at Nicolai, confirm his mark, perhaps as the serving girl went in to deliver breakfast or remove the chamber pot, he would be in a much better position.

From there, he could potentially find a place to post up and wait, long and boring work, but when Nicolai did come out, and he eventually would...that would be the time.

And if all went well, he would never come back.

And he would have his armor...and be away to Three Corners.

Magnus took a sip of the steaming beverage, nodded to himself, and settled down into a chair.

Ugly business, it was true, but business it was.

Magnus was a fighter - a mercenary if you will.  But he did not gauge himself a murderer.

Was it because this whole thing was premeditated that it sat so poorly with him?  Certainly he had killed.  He had even killed men.  The worst was probably Mika'il, who he had killed on accident, shattered his arm so badly that the boy had died of shock while he still hung from his useless appendage which was rooted within the stone of a cave wall.  Magnus tried not to blame himself for that, after all, it had been an accident...  And it wasn't his idea to try and smash the rock with the mace...

This killing would be no accident.  It seemed quite clear that was what the Magistrate expected... and perhaps Daneel as well...  The fact that Magnus was plotting this man's death, no matter how heinous his crimes, sat upon him like the morbid rain clouds that still clung to Raphael like lichen on a stone.

Magnus drank his tea and tried to force the vile task of the morning from his mind and sleep.

He did not have much success.

But sleep or not, the morning comes, the dawn blotted out by the dark grey of the skies.  Magnus wakes early and notes the weakened frame of Daneel shaking slightly in his restless sleep.

It would all be over soon.

Magnus makes the short trip to the White Heart and sits at one of the tables, bidden by the same server who seems somewhat less talkative this morning.  More abrupt.  Magnus orders his breakfast, alone amongst the half-dozen tables, waiting for fate to catch up to him...

OOC:  It is 0630 on the 9th of August.  Apologies if it seems like I skipped over lots of things just to stop short of any real concrete action.  I wanted to give you at least one post to let me know what preparations you would take, what armor you would wear, what weapons you would bring, etc.  I tried to skip over the things that I didn't think would have a bearing on the story, but feel free to add in details where you think are pertinent.  I tried to forward your brooding with the melancholy themes of the thread, hopefully that hit somewhere close to the mark as to how you would play Magnus.

The warm, black coffee helped to breath a little life back into the haggard looking Minotaur as he sat roughly facing the direction of his target. At the very least he hoped to recognize when the room keepers were starting their rounds, and then to be in the right place when room 12 opened up.

It had been one of those nights where he simply could not get comfortable. Either too warm or too cold, his stab wound itched and throbbed and he could not find a good position. He envied humans the ability to sleep on their sides, or their stomachs. And while he was sure he had gotten some sleep, he had no idea how much, and he felt no more rested than he had the evening prior.

He had left his armor behind once more, the same clothes he had been in for some time on his back. And he had taken his satchel with the mace, nothing different, nothing more threatening, nothing to arouse any more attention from the local watchmen than he had to.

If all went well this would not be a stand up fight anyway...

He busied himself somewhat by repacking his little first aid kit, folding the linens into neat little bundles, and by nursing his coffee as he waited for the morning rounds to begin.

OOC: A great job, as usual :)
This message was last edited by the player at 15:11, Thu 20 May 2021.

Magnus sits and waits, drinking what remains of his coffee as he searches for activity with all of his senses.

The server hustles back and forth amongst her many duties, shuffling linens between rooms, sending sheets to the wash bin, picking up whatever remnants remain of the early crowd while absently waiting on Magnus, though by this time the minotaur causes her relatively little trouble.

William Howell, the owner, sits idly at his desk.  He lords over the small space where the room keys hang, each hook numbered for each room.  It seems worth noting that the key to number twelve is missing, though in truth it seems most of them are.

Somewhere behind Howell and through another door, Magnus catches the occasional clang of a heavy pot or pan, or the scrape of copper cooking ware.

Everything seems in its place.  Quiet but for the normal buzz of a moderately sized inn.  At least... until it isn't.

"Can't I even get a god damn cleaning!"  A voice rages out of sight.  William perks up in his chair, his eyes immediately traveling down the hallway beyond Magnus's vision.

"You've done both of those even this morning, and barely even touched mine since I've been here!"

The voice seems to be getting louder.  Magnus thinks he hears a few murmured words from the girl, though the man cuts her off, shouting all the louder.  "I've had it with you!"

The man steps into view, approaching William, ready to bark out more of his tribulations, though his gaze falls upon Magnus for a moment.  There is no doubt it is Nicolai.

The man's features are striking.  His eyes pale brown eyes are sunken and purpled like a man who has not slept.  His collar bones thrust themselves from his skin, just visible under the wide-necked shirt.  His short brown hair and clothes are mussed and tattered here and there.

For a man so concerned with his room being clean, he seems to have taken no care for himself.

Magnus's memory fires as he reaches down for his sack.  This was the same man he had nearly bumped into when he had been fleeing from the courthouse.

"Never mind."  Nicolai nearly spits over his shoulder, as he forcibly breaks his stare at Magnus and redirects his walk towards the door.  "I have somewhere to be anyway.  By the time I come back it'd better be clean!"

Magnus found himself scrabbling, mentally, to process the event as it happened.

He had been there, attentive, but also thinking about what he would like to order for breakfast, and about the pretty waitress, and about Daneel's Involvement in the while mess, when low and behold, there he was.

There had been no need for any sort of sneaking around and spying, no, but now he was behind the ball. He had lost the initiative.

As he processed Nicolai's presence, made an effort to commit his features to memory, and fought back the urge to leap up and act with his adrenaline flowing fast, he recognized that he had himself been recognized.

That they had seen each other before, and that he was very likely suspected.

It was few moments after Nicolai had stepped out into the street that Magnus was fumbling with his large hairy fingers for currency even near to what he owed for his coffee. He paid a little too much, shrugged on his bag, and the chase was on.

He endeavoured to look casual, although how effective that was he could never be sure. He tried to see where the man was going before he was out of sight. There was every possibility that, now spooked, he would leave town all together.

Or he might seek out the Magistrate.

Or that he might formulate some sort of magical defense.

Whatever Nicolai's plan, Magnus did not want to lose him. Not know. Not after he had worked so hard to find him.

While he was not about to sprint through the streets of Raphael after him, at least a direction of travel would be invaluable.

Magnus is unprepared for the quick entrance and exit of Nicolai.  He fumbles for his purse, splattering down a handful of coin for the coffee as the murder storms his way to the door.  Before Magnus stands from his chair with all of this things in hand, the man has already shoved his way out of the front door and into the street.

Magnus hastens along after the murderer.

What Magnus fears worst, that he will lose Nicolai, never to be found again, does not come to pass.  Though neither does his intention of following the man quietly.

"What?!"  Nicolai screams the word immediately as Magnus pushes his way through the doors of the White Heart.

Nicolai turns his body fully, facing Magnus from a dozen paces away.

"Why must you follow me, you, you, you monster!"

Despite the dreary day, the streets are filled with travelers, many of whom hustle along on their way, though several stop to gape at Nicolai, who's eyes are wide and staring, boring into Magnus before he even has a chance to step into the open.

Magnus notes that many of the people are staring at him too...  Well, he always did attract attention.

OOC:  You and Nicolai are approximately 12 yards apart with a crowd of twenty or more (of varying states of caring) surrounding you.  Unfortunately, despite your intent to follow, your default skill at shadowing didn't quite keep Nicolai unaware (you also may have a slight penalty due to being a minotaur) and Nicolai decided to make a scene rather than let you continue quietly.

Magnus wanted to appear in control, confident, dangerous. He cracked his broad neck and stood a little straighter.

But he was tired. He was wounded, and stared at and he hated crowds, hated them even in his childhood. This was not his element, and he was knee deep in affairs he knew little about. He had just wanted some armor, and now it was all a mess.

And so he dropped the charade a few moments after he has adopted it.

"Don't do anything stupid Nicolai" he said instead. It was less of a threat and more of a plea, although he had not intended it that way. Magnus did not know this man, and so he couldn't hate him. Not really. And the last thing he wanted was to have it out here, in the street, with witnesses and innocents standing all around.

He began to close the distance, slowly advancing, wondering just how desperate this man had become and wary should he try any tricks he had seen his own Mage friends cast. They could sail up into the air and rain down fire, turn into birds. And those were just the ones he knew about