The last few rays of the setting sun barely reached any of the space inside. Nubs of candles sputtered from modest sconces on two walls. Malakos was normally at least as comfortable in the dark as in the light, but this dimness was not the comfortable kind. It was heavy with the unmet needs of the other occupants–not priests or worshippers, but homeless wanderers who had nowhere else to go. 

Malakos walked the short aisle until he found a man in simple homespun robes, sleeping on one of the pews.

"Pardon me," the tiefling muttered, touching the priest's shoulder. "Would you be able to assist us?"

"You may take any unoccupied pew," the priest said. "Ilmater offers his shelter to all."

"No, no," Malakos clarified. "We just have some questions, that's all. We're uh…" he lowered his voice. "We have business with a certain group, said to be found around here. Vibrant folks–seem to like wearing the color red. Seen anyone of the sort?" 

The priest looked confused and gestured at his own brown robes. "I'm afraid I've not seen much…red…around here…? The followers of Ilmater have always preferred more, uh, more simple garb; and as for the rest of the town, well, red...It 's not exactly a… y'know, an affordable color."

"I see. Thank you," Malakos said, feeling a bit ostentatious in his own fine traveling cloak. 

There was silence before the priest awkwardly cleared his throat. "(Ahem), was there…? Was there anything else you needed to know?"

Ask about the princess. Ask about local hideouts. Illegal activity. Townsfolk with sudden, unexplained injuries. Loads of questions for their investigation tried to push their way into Malakos's focus, but failed, driven away by questions of a different sort.

"How long…has it been like this?" He asked.

"What?" 

"How long?" He grabbed the priest's shoulders. "Doesn't your king know his people are suffering? Why doesn't he do anything?"

The priest looked at the party cautiously and said, "You uh, don't seem to be from around here. These folks you're looking for…are you, uh, working for the crown?"

Deruque seemed to take personal offense to the question, pushing Malakos aside and looming over the priest.

"Maybe we are," he said. "And maybe we heard somebody's been short on their taxes for the past few months. Now, maybe the records are wrong. People forget things, sometimes. Now let's say we go help the record-keepers remember some of your forgotten payments–maybe you could remember some forgotten stuff about these red cloaks?"

It was a shot in the dark, but Deruque was not the sort to aim in the light, either.

"When did they start taxing the churches?!" The priest asked, incredulously. 

"Deruque! Leave the man alone!" Malakos snapped, trying, unsuccessfully, to pry the large dragonborn out of the quaking priest's face. "He doesn't know anything about all this!"

"He knows something," Deruque growled. "And if he cares for his health, he'll let us know the something, too."

The clearly bewildered priest trembled under Deruque's gaze, "Wh-what am I supposed to know? Taxes?"

"Allow me," Bardy sighed, pushing Malakos out of the way and climbing on the pulpit to tower over Deruque. "Cut it out, Deruque!" 

Deruque looked up at Bardy, back at the priest, and then up at Bardy again.

"I'm not done with you," he hissed at the priest as he slunk away. 

"Yes you are," Bardy said. He turned to the priest. "Sorry about him–he's gone through some stuff. Uh… is there…anywhere we could spend the night?"

"There aren't many inns in town," the priest answered. "But you're welcome to stay here. Ilmater is the guardian of the downtrodden, and so we open his doors to anyone in need. Again, just choose any unoccupied pew or floorspace." He then cast a look at Deruque as if to add, Preferably those that are farther away from me.

As soon as the sun rose, the party slipped out of the sanctuary, down to the streets of Whispenshire. 

"I want to do some shopping," Ruby said. "I'm itching to cook something more satisfying than these daily rations."

"Shopping–good idea," Malakos replied. "We'll ask the shopkeeps if they know anything. You and Deruque check the market. I'll take Bardy and we'll check the textile shop over there–if anyone has a lead about people wearing red cloaks, it'll be them." 

The team split up and approached their respective targets. Ruby spent the morning loading up on various ingredients, Deruque in tow. With more grocers in the area than textile shops, they found themselves covering a lot of ground, but gleaning no new leads. Malakos and Bardy had no better luck with the textile shops–they were given much the same response as the priest had given them the night before: red wasn’t a popular color due to its price, and there hadn’t been any sales of red clothing for years. 

“So,” Malakos said, absently fingering a shirt on one of the racks. “Nobody here wears red. What about cloaks? Anyone into cloaks around here?” 

“Oh, cloaks, yeah–” the shopkeep said. “You do sometimes see some folks late at night, running around in cloaks. Don’t know what color they are–it’s pretty dark after midnight.”

The tiefling did his best to hide his excitement. “That’s kind of weird,” he said conversationally. “What are they doing, that late at night?” 

The shopkeep shrugged. “How should I know?” he asked. “They keep to themselves, so most of us do the same. Now are you going to buy something, or not?” 

The shopkeeper didn’t appear to know anything else–or if he did, he wasn’t willing to share. So they bought something small and left. 

“So they are here,” Malakos said. “But only late at night. When Deruque and Ruby get back, we’ll plan a stakeout.” 

“Sounds great,” Bardy said, pulling out his lute. “Meanwhile, I think I’ll pass the time with a little music. Maybe I can get those kids over there to tell us more. Kids are tiny wellsprings of information.” 

“Oh, good idea. Meanwhile, I’m going to go do some thinking over there,” Malakos indicated a dark alley next to them. At the look Bardy gave him, he said, “I’m overdue a brooding session–I’ll lose tiefling cred if I miss too many.” 

“Whatever,” Bardy rolled his eyes as he sat on a rock and started playing. 

In reality, Malakos wanted to put some distance between himself and the bard. The rest of the party hadn’t noticed it, but he had seen the way the people of the town startled when they saw his face, how the children ducked behind their parents or even turned and ran in the other direction when he passed. To their credit, the people here were more subtle about their aversions than in most places he went; but it was clear that he should not be the one approaching people for information. 

He glanced over at the bard–already, four children had gathered around to hear the music. They were bouncing on their feet, laughing with each other. 

The tiefling shook his head to clear his mind and turned his thoughts to the task at hand. The Red Cloaks were here. They did their work late at night. But where were they coming from? Were they citizens of the town, living double lives? But then, where would they be keeping the princess? Keeping her in their own houses or shops would be an idiotic move–they had to have some sort of meetingplace. He glanced again at the children. There were seven of them, now. 

“So,” Bardy said casually, as he tweaked his lute pegs between songs. “I’m always looking for new things to sing about. Any of you seen anything straaaange and mysssteriousss around here?” He strummed his lute. 

The kids giggled. 

“Oh!” one of them said. “Last night, I was up late because I had seen this wonderful fun toad, and I sneaked out over there to play wif it." He pointed at a spot by some houses.

Bardy gasped playfully, "Scandal! I love it."

He cleared his throat and started to sing,

"Late last night, upon this road,

I happenéd upon a toad.

A perfect toad it was, at that–

For it was round and oh, so fat!"

The children all fell over themselves, shrieking with laughter.

"Okay, who else–" Bardy started, but the boy continued.

"...and then I saw some people wearing lovely red capes, walking along the street. They dropped off a basket on our doorstep and then left."

Bardy shot a look over at Malakos, but continued singing. 

"I noticed some suspicious folks

Wearing bright red winter cloaks–"

His verse was interrupted, however, by protests from his audience. 

"No! They're good!" The boy protested. "Mama opened the basket in the morning, and there was food and medicine for Papa and Lissie!"

"Oh! I think we got a package like that too, last month!" 

"Everybody's a critic," Bardy muttered. "Okay, okay, my mistake.

I noticed some kindhearted folks

Wearing bright red winter cloaks."

This seemed to placate the children, so Bardy subtly cast a line for more information.

"I never did learn whence they came,

Nor where they went–'tis such a shame."

Once more, the boy interrupted. "No, I know which way they went! They walked over that way–toward the well! …After that, I didn't see where they went, but…"

"And then they wandered to the well,

That'stheendnowfaretheewell," Bardy quickly finished the verse, so eager to investigate that he barely even cared that he had rhymed 'well' with 'well.' 

Malakos followed him, his sudden appearance quickly dispersing the performer's protesting audience.

Together, tiefling and halfling peered down into the well. It was old, with no water pooled at the bottom, except for rancid juices running off the garbage that had been dumped there by the townsfolk.

“It’s just a dried-up well,” Bardy said, disappointed.

Malakos wasn’t listening. “Rope,” he said. “You have a rope, yes?” 

“Wh–? Yes? What are you doing?” 

"It's dark, but I think there might be something down there," Malakos replied, taking the rope from the halfling’s hands and tying it around his waist and legs. He wrapped the other end around the least-rotted-looking beam that held the bucket–or where the bucket would be. 

"The only thing down there is rotting garbage," Bardy said, pinching his nose.

“So it appears,” Malakos said. “Two tugs means help pull me up. Three means come down after me. One means run.” And with that, he dropped down into the darkness. 

The well was much shallower than it appeared at first. With a little bit of practice, Malakos suspected one could learn to clear it safely without a rope. His boots hit the ground with a squish! as he landed. He doubled over, vomiting in the darkness as the smell of rotting garbage filled his nose. 

“Everything okay down there?” Bardy called from above. 

“Fine–” Malakos rasped, wiping his mouth. “Just–” his sentence died, half-formed. Now that he was at the bottom, he could see what had been camouflaged from above: roughly carved into the side of the well, a tunnel stretched into the darkness–just big enough for a human to pass through. 

“Hey Bardy?” He called back up with a smile. “Get Ruby and Deruque.” 

The party walked through the tunnel single-file for miles. By the time they saw daylight again, everyone but Bardy was sore from being hunched over. 

“Finally!” Malakos gasped as they stepped out onto a plain of grass, stretching to his full height for the first time in hours. 

“We’re in the mountains,” Ruby observed, looking around them. “The ones you can see at the edge of town.” 

Malakos looked around. They were out of the tunnel, but there was still no hideout in sight. He looked down. There, barely visible, was a path of grass that was all bent, as though it had been trodden several times. 

“There,” he said, pointing it out to the others. “Let’s follow that.” 

The path wound through the plain and into a forest thicket. As the trees began to thin, they saw some structures appearing. 

“Outlook posts,” Deruque said. 

“There’s no cover from here,” Ruby noted. The path wound toward a larger building, also on posts–but the way to it was out in the open, entirely visible to the guards who manned the outlook posts. 

“Then we create our own,” Malakos said, pulling a red blanket from his rucksack. At the look on the party’s faces, he said, “It was a gift from my mother. Red isn’t as expensive where she, uh, where she lives. There’s a lot of red in neighboring…realms. It’s very popular. There now, how do I look?” He had tied it around his neck so that part of it draped over his head like a hood.

“Like a child playing knight,” Deruque said. “Here, give it to me–I’ll get us in.” 

“This is a subtle job, Deruque,” Malakos argued. “And subtlety is not your forte.” 

“What’s subtle about it? We walk in there, bash some heads together, get the princess, and be done with it all!” 

“That’s–I think we need to, to look around a bit. We don’t even know where they’re keeping the princess. Let me go, talk my way in, and then I’ll come back to fetch you guys for the head-bashing bit.” 

“We’ll both go,” Bardy said, running behind Malakos’s legs under the cloak. “See? Concealed carry halfling!” 

“Okay,” Malakos conceded. “Let’s go.” 

With Ruby and Deruque hidden in the trees, Malakos and Bardy walked toward the main building. Bardy peeked out from under the robe. The figures in the tower–ogres and goblins with crossbows, now that he could see them better–watched them pass but made no move to stop them. 

"So," Bardy said.

"Cloaks don't talk, Bardy."

"No one can hear us," the bard replied. "Which is why I need to talk to you about this now."

"Fine, but you have to be quiet when we get in range."

"What are you thinking?" 

"I'm thinking I should have left you back there with the others."

"I'm not making small talk. We could have had just one cloaked person passing off everyone else as new recruits. Why'd you want to come alone?" 

Malakos stopped for a second, but quickly started moving again, feeling the guards' eyes on his back. He had known Bardy for only a day and a half. If he trusted him, would he regret it? 

"I just think we should be gathering information before we make our move," he responded. Especially if we're not sure who is the real enemy.

On the one hand, the king was being negligent at best–letting his people starve while he drowned in lucre. 

On the other hand, the Red Cloaks, while apparently serving the people, did kidnap a woman and were holding her captive, or worse.

Malakos had been suspicious that they were on the wrong side since seeing the townsfolk; but he couldn't jump from one moral gray to another, not without at least assuring himself that the new one wasn't secretly darker than the original. He needed information.

What am I thinking? Malakos shook his head. I'm here to rescue a kidnapping victim, not join a rebel alliance. What good could I do as an outlaw?