(https://cdnb.artstation.com/p/assets/images/images/002/442/653/large/oscar-acosta-rivera-noir-elf.jpg?1461787851)<br/><br/>A gruff peal of laughter rouses Ingram with a start.<br/><br/>He bolts upright, tired eyes searching the empty room for the source of the disruption. But it is only a passerby, nearly shouting beneath the open window.<br/><br/>“And then,” the voice snickers, continuing an anecdote, “the broad lifted the veil…”<br/><br/>Ingram snaps the window closed, irritated, but only mildly. In this part of town, there are far worse wakeup calls than drunken laughter. And in these cramped quarters, membrane-thin walls, and crowded streets, he has had the great fortune of experiencing every one of them.<br/><br/>He rubs his face, stiff from where it has been laying on his sleeve. He didn’t mean to fall into a trance. The anonymous drunk did him a favor by waking him from his accidental slumber – he has work to do – plenty of it – and plenty of clients who he’ll lose by delaying any further.<br/><br/>Ingram rolls tobacco in parchment and lights it, leaning an elbow on his writing table and smoothing his sleep-tousled blond hair. The letters he intercepted are unambiguous – the tearful lord who hired him is indeed being cuckolded by his brother. Ingram will have to break the unsurprising news at a decent hour. For now, he turns toward the pile of his own correspondence that he has been ignoring. The first is unpleasant, a sharply worded nudge from a client whose case he has frankly forgotten he’s supposed to solve. The second is even more unpleasant, a sharply worded threat of eviction from a landlord Ingram has done his<em>best</em>to forget. Nothing interesting, until he comes across a gaudy letter with an unmistakable seal.<br/><br/>His eyes light up. A royal missive of some sort. He leans back in his chair, crossing his long legs. Whatever the king wants, he couldn’t want it at a better time. Business isn’t booming, and Ingram can eat (and drink) for a month on just a minor job in his majesty’s name. His excitement sours when he reads the contents. Not a job. An invitation to a bloody ritual. A distinguished and lofty honor blah blah blah due to noble services to his majesty blah blah blah. The tavern keeper wouldn’t sell him whisky on a currency of distinguished and lofty honor.<br/><br/>He crumples the missive and tosses it into the unlit hearth. Seconds later, he changes his mind and retrieves it again, brushing ash from the thick parchment. There is no harm in visiting your bread and butter with a loudly growling stomach. Nothing would be lost by showing the king that he has a fine, capable, brilliant investigator right here at his fingertips for an extremely reasonable fee. It’s good to remind him of Ingram’s existence. His landlord certainly wasn’t forgetting about it.<br/><br/>He wonders how long the letter has been sitting on his desk, but realizes that he doesn’t know the date. Then he realizes the ritual may very well have taken place already. April 19th, the invitation claims (if the invitation is to be trusted). He ponders the date, seeing if anything comes to him. Nothing does.<br/><br/>He opens the window.<br/><br/>“…and when I say big, you’d better believe I mean big!” The drunken anecdote continues on the street below.<br/><br/>He employs some remarkable sleuthing, using his finely tuned deductive skills to determine the current date.<br/><br/>“Hey!” Ingram shouts.<br/><br/>“Yeah?” The tipsy wood elf blinks up at him.<br/><br/>“What day is it today? The date?”<br/><br/>“Uhh.” He looks to his companion, conferring. “Seventeenth I think?” The other elf shakes his head. “Eighteenth?” Another headshake. “Nineteenth?” The other elf nods. “Nineteenth!”<br/><br/>“Thanks.” Cigarette between his lips, fumbles for his coat, swings his legs over the window sill and jumps to the ground below. He claps the wood elf on the back. “Now get yourself home, friend.” He takes out his flask and drinks deeply as he turns down the road toward the palace. “You’re wasted.”<br/>