"Please Help!!! my son's are missing!!!"
Maro woke up to the screams of a woman, actually everyone in the inn woke up. He heard goblin merchants yelling back from the windows in the inn, telling her to shut up.
No hangover, amazing, this new body and its constitution were much better than his old one. Being in a good mood, he decided he would try to see if it was worth it to help her.
As he dressed and went downstairs, Kadrin was trying to console the Human women in the only way Dwarve's could, by telling her some Dwarven story about rocks and children. As she sobbed even harder, she turned to look at Maro coming down the stairs.
…Wow, despite her plain dress, he saw that she was mid-thirties, fair skin, auburn hair, brown eyes and a massive rack. He would definitely help her, as he approached he said "My Lady, I heard that your kids were missing, I have experience finding people, can I help you?"
"Please" she replied between sobs.
He took her to one of the tables and found himself rubbing her back while he waited for her to compose herself.
"I'm sorry" She said, "my sons were my everything and they disappeared last night, I don't know what to do"
Maro genuinely wanted to help her but at the same time his 18 year old body was driven by sin, he crossed his legs.
"Tell me everything and leave out no details" Maro said, with his hand still on her back.
As Patricia recounted everything, Maro's heart sank deeper and deeper into his chest, he started to sweat but due to his experience he managed to keep his composure…
Lork and Grak were goblins, who were adopted by Patricia when they were young. Their original village was raided by Bandits, who either killed their parents or took them as slaves. Patricia had come across them, took them in and raised them. Goblins grew fast so they were physically adults and already working around the camp after 6 months with her. All together, she raised them for just over a year .
The last she knew of their whereabouts was that Lork and Grak were set to go into the forest to set some traps for small game and grab some water for their cabin.
…His heart was absolutely pounding, he murdered orphaned children, looted their corpses and then desecrated the bodies by stabbing them a bunch. He couldn't deal with this sober.
"Kadrin, 2 beers please!"
Kadrin gave him a look and Maro motioned him to go get them.
While Patricia was talking non stop about her orphaned goblin children, Maro chugged his beer asap. Before Patricia could say anything else.
"My Lady, please go home. I will go look for clues at their last whereabouts. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is nothing at all, I promise I'll have an update for you by tomorrow."
Patricia, intermittently sobbing, agreed and went home.
"Young man, I sincerely thank you"
At least this way, he was in charge of investigating himself.
"Good Riddance, those Goblins were spawned from the devil itself. Patricia's life will only be better with them gone, all those 2 did were steal and cause Patricia grief" Kadrin exclaimed when it was safe to talk.
Confused, Maro inquired further.
Kadrin spat on the floor, "Not just them, all goblins… fucking thieves and opportunistic criminals the lot of them"
As Maro was sipping his second beer slowly, he gestured to Kadrin for 2 more beers and handed one of them to him. Ah, alcohol, the best information gathering tool there was.
Kadrin went on a huge anti-goblin tirade, Maro gave him a cheers after every racist comment he made, which made Kadrin like him more. He heard, "Green fucking shit stain" a lot to describe them, and a bunch of swear words in Dwarvish he couldn't understand.
But he did confirm with Kadrin that his feelings were relatively common amongst a good chunk of the "Order" races which consisted of Humans, Gnomes and Dwarves. Also he warned me that the capital enforced anti civil-unrest laws due to all the internal conflict going on, so saying this stuff aloud would start trouble. So a lot of people hid how they felt.
There wasn't really an opposing faction, just savages and useless "inbred" morons. Orcs, goblins, trolls and some accompanying smaller races were just referred to as savages. Orcs didn't really owe anyone allegiance, they just operated as per their base desires and barely had a functional structure outside of Biggest and Strongest is the boss. Goblins were a little more devious and for them it was who can stab the most people in the back to get to the top. Trolls were trolls, brain dead giants standing at 4 meters tall, easily manipulatable by anyone but scary, fierce and territorial.
Beastmen were smarter but their animal side really made their instincts take over for any critical thought and they weren't united. Beastmen tribes were extremely aggressive to each other, they only saw themselves as competition for resources and food. For the most part they didn't kill each other around towns and were even able to work around each other but if an Owlman walked into a Wolfman camp, he would die as soon as he was discovered.
Oh man, Kadrin lost his shit on the Elves. They lived for thousands of years, so they were extremely aloof and unreliable. A lunch break to an elf could last 50 years, they couldn't do conventional work, sometimes an elf could get distracted by a herd of herbivores and just follow them around for generations before they came back home. They also didn't become adults, until they were around 1500 years old, despite physically being adults around the same time humans were.
There was also one time, thousands of years ago, Elves and Dwarves had a defence pact and when the Dwarves were invaded by an Orcish horde, the Elves arrived with a paltry force, 100 years after the war was over. Dwarf territory was pushed back to their mountains and their underground cities, they have held a grudge since and even in the utopia refuse to conduct business with elves directly.
Demons also existed, but were rare, they had been hunted down long ago by the ancient Hero. As the Demon lords of old didn;t discriminate, they took territory and lives of all who did not submit to serve.
Before he knew it the morning workers were up and getting ready to head to the worksite and the various merchants were setting up their wares outside.
Maro was a bit tipsy, but he decided to walk it off and head towards the scene of the crime. Inheriting Kadrin's racism for goblins, he felt a lot less conflicted. As lead investigator of this mission, it was his duty to fake evidence to get the trail pointed away from him.