Daughter of the Dead Part 1

Daughter of the Dead

Case 1

Part 1

Draft_3

By: Chase L. Currie

Earth 2517

Dunharrow

                The sky creaked with the sound of starships blasting into orbit escaping the bitter winter of the day. Icarus Ironwings with the ironic name laid in his bed staring up at the ceiling. He was the perfect image of a dwarf with a deep red hair cut into a shaved Mohawk and a long-braided beard matching his head. He wore the muscles of a warrior and the battle scars of one as well. The greatest of his scars from a battle long ago in the Green Wars was his arms. They are made from steel and bio-metal, each arm had three large holes in them where a small plate could be inserted in or in his cases six magical runes.

                He left his hand looking at the metal fingers seeing the turn cost of his old life. A life where he was a Paladin, a warrior for God, but that was then and not now. Now he was a lonely dwarf in a city he hated lying in an empty bed wishing for a different life. A life he dreamed back fighting Orcs and Trolls, a nice little farm in the middle of the country, with a lovely human wife and three children. An easy life for him, easy from where he came from, but God had a different plan for him. A plan he wasn’t sure he liked, but he didn’t have a choice in it. He was a man of God after all.

                He sat up in his bed huffing at the perfect loneliness around him trying to understand how the isolation of his life was a blessing. He felt one of the holes in his arms where the cold bite at him. It felt like someone had dropped an ice club on his arm and then dug it into his skin. Well, if he had skin which he didn’t. He rubbed the hole trying to fight back all the darkness of the war and of the sins he committed after the battles. He did a lot of things which would make an Orc blush. It was best not to think about the past.

                He glanced back over the bed thinking it would be a glorious day to sleep. He was his own bossed and it wasn’t like he had any clients waiting for him, but the old training in his mind kept him from drifting back to sleep. He climbed out of his bed, made it up and looked around at the perfectly clean and organized room, another part of his training. His walls were covered with old artifacts called books. Most of the races didn’t use a physical copy of books anymore; they were all floating in Mother or what some people called the cloud. They could log in through the net and gained whatever information they were looking for to read, but not Icarus; he liked real books.

                After his shower, he changed into his work clothes, a leather jacket, green armor undershirt, blue jeans, and army boots. He made himself some hot tea and then crossed the hall to his office with the words Ironwings Private Detective written on it. He unlocked his door seating at his desk drinking his tea and checking his e-mails. He didn’t pay any attention to the tall high elf standing in his hall waiting for him.

                Icarus lite up his smoking pipe as a soft knock rap on the glass.

                “What?” He asked in a rough voice from years of smoking.

                “May I enter?” The elf asked.

                “The bloody door is unlocked,” Icarus barked back and with his rude remark the door was pushed open with the elf stepping in.

                The elf was tall like all elves and had the same pointed nose and ears as one would think of an elf, but this skin perfectly clean and had blonde hair like that of an angel. He was of noble blood, and it was easy for the dwarf to tell. It was not by the way the elf was dressed, he tried his best to look like a common person, a person born of the low folk, it worked a little, but the way the elf held himself to give it all away. He kept his nose pointed up in the air looking down at all the people who had to work for a living. Icarus already didn’t like him; he didn’t care much for high elves. The only elves he liked were the ones who fought beside him in the war, wood and dark elves.

                “I am Eldar Sindye of the House of ---”

                “Yeah, I don’t care,” Icarus interrupted the long boring title. “All I care about is why are you in my office?”

                “I’m here to hired you,” Eldar said with an emotionless face, “Icarus Ironwings.”

                This was the downside of being a private detective you couldn’t say no until you heard the job and this elf must have a good paying job to track all the down here to find an Ex-Paladin. Plus, Icarus did like to eat and so saying no to a job from a noble asshole who could afford a private city-ship might not be the best idea.