Fri Feb 11, 2005 12:01 pm
Max Selden was an ordinary man. A farm hand, he worked long and hard hours, and he worked well. His employers had nothing bad to say about him. Once, every few weeks, when his pockets were full of pay, he would take some of that money (not all, of course, for he was saving for a farm of his own, one day) and go to the nearest tavern to relax and have an evening to himself. It just so happened that the nearest tavern was the Broken Dagger. Not, perhaps, the best place to spend evenings, but the drink was good, and not too dear in price. Besides, Max made a point of never getting drunk.
Except for tonight.
Oh, he was not very drunk. He had only had perhaps one more drink than he usually did, but it made him surprisingly fuzzy in the head. Thinking, perhaps, that he was overly tired, he decided to return to his home before his judgement grew more impaired. So he payed his tab and left the tavern, stumbling slightly as he walked down the dark road back to the farm.
He never made it back, though. About halfway there the poor man began to feel dizzy. He moved courteously off to the side of the road, so as not to impair any traffic that might happen along, and sat down on a treestump to rest for a few minutes. At the end of those few minutes, though, he had passed out, falling to the ground with a dull thump.
Minutes passed. Finally, a shadow detached itself from the many that surrounded the area, moving to crouch over the fallen body. A quick check ensured that no pulse lingered in poor Max Selden. Once that had been established, it was the work of moments to remove an item from the corpse and place another.
In the morning, Max Selden's body would be found at the edge of the road, his clothing still smelling of the Dagger's ale.