The Island With No Parallel

Legacies

Yunara, Kailu, and Manuel stepped into a seedy bar thick with the smell of the spiced cigars that Yunara was beginning to loath.

She crinkled her nose as the potent smell forced itself up her nostrils. "The elusive and wise scholar is supposed to be here of all places?"

The monkey hopped unto the table of an unsuspecting couple that had no idea that an orangutan had placed himself right in the middle of their meal. "He didn't think the Aracs would come to look for him in a place like this. No self-respecting Lord or Lady of renown would be caught dead here."

"By the looks of the bartender,being caught dead certainly looks like a possibility," Manuel remarked, looking at the gruff man behind the bar cleaning out a glass with enormous hands. And Yunara was almost sure that he had a knife hanging at his belt.

"There he is!" The monkey leaped from the table he sat at and pointed at a man that was sitting at the back corner of the bar, laughing loudly with some men at the table with him.

"That's him?" Manuel asked.

Yunara could see why he was dubious. He was dressed in a brown robe and looked to be in his thirties, a mug filled with beer in his hand as he slammed his table in laughter. His wavy charcoal hair was a disheveled mess. A large, crooked nose hung over a fair amount of stubble that covered his chin in a way that made Yunara wonder if he even bathed recently. He didn't look like a scholar by any definition of one.

When she noticed the monkey didn't answer, Yunara turned to the table he was sitting on only to find that he'd disappeared.

"Where'd the monkey go?" Kailu asked.

Manuel sighed. "I suppose that means we're on our own now."

He lead them as they approached the loud drunkard in the corner of the bar.

As he didn't even seem to acknowledge their presence, Manuel cleared his throat. "Excuse me."

Glazed eyes drifted over to Manuel. "Oh, are you talking to me? How can I help you?"

"Are you Shi'ran Dul?"

The man snorted, turning back to the equally intoxicated men at the table with him. "I have never heard of him."

The other men erupted in laughter, Yunara crinkling her nose again at the smell of alcohol mingled with spiced cigar on their breath, an even worse smell than the cigar on its own.

"We don't have time for this," Manuel demanded. "If you come with us, we can talk about it in a more secluded environment."

"I do not know who it is you are looking for, but I am not this Shi'ran Dul you seek."

Kailu sighed exasperatedly and snatched the silver bell from Yunara's bag and rang it. "Tell him we're telling the truth!"

The monkey faded into existence on the table. "It's true, Shi'ran. They are the ones you have been waiting for."

Shi'ran didn't appear to acknowledge the monkey, but then stood from his seat. "Not so loud, not so loud." he looked around, then said in a lower voice, "Maybe I do know of this man that you're looking for, but we'll have to talk about this outside."

One of the men at his table frowned. "Gehn, you actually know who they're talking about?"

"Yeah, it is starting to ring a bell. Don't worry, I will be right back, fellas."

The man shrugged indifferently, chugging down the contents of his mug rather than care, it seemed.

Shi'ran took them outside of the bar and into the torchlit streets, the monkey following after them this time.