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Post by Kadin on Feb 10, 2021 19:48:07 GMT -6
Kadin had been to the docks before, of course. He even sort of liked the docks? But when he looked at the quest board today, all he could see was some information declaring SOMETHING or other was apparently at the docks. And he, or someone, had to find it. It seemed like something had been stolen? He squinted at the notice board for a while longer, wondering what it was all supposed to mean, while the houluh at his heels tugged at the leash attached to it. It whined.
"Not right now, Dylan." Kadin said, still looking at the notice. The houluh whined, again, and paws at his leg. Kadin took in a deep breath, held it, and continued to look at the notice board. The houluh with him today wasn't even his. He'd told the owner that he'd take it out for a walk, just to be nice. He didn't think he'd end up taking it on a quest.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 10, 2021 19:50:46 GMT -6
But, well. The notice board. Someone had to investigate the docks. He knew the docks pretty well. The houluh whined some more. Houluh were supposed to be good at finding things, right? And they were pretty good at the docks, right? Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he took Dylan with him. Maybe Dylan would even enjoy the experience. Dylan would never be able to tell his owner if they ran into something dangerous, right?
Kadin looked down at the houluh. The houluh stared at him with big, big green eyes. The houluh whined.
Right.
Kadin grabbed the noticed off the board and flipped it over, just to check to see if there was anything written on the back, too. Satisfied when he didn't find anything, he made his decision. "Alright. We're going to check this out, okay buddy? And no one who doesn't need to know about this will find out."
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Post by Kadin on Feb 10, 2021 21:02:02 GMT -6
The houluh sort of stared at him as if he was crazy, which was fair. This wasn't even his pet and here he was, walking around with it on a leash and expecting it to just do what he wanted to do. Well. Tough. It didn't get a choice in today's activities! They were going to go inspect suspicious shit at the docks and that was all there was to it. Kadin stuffed the flyer into his back pocket and gently tugged on the leash, leading the pup in the direction they needed to go. "Don't give me that look." He muttered. "I'll get a reward for this and you'll be fine. Your owner won't even know."
The docks wasn't too far away, but it would still be a bit of a walk. A perfect time to get the houluh some exercise, or so Kadin reasoned. Still, he didn't want to tired it out completely.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 10, 2021 21:04:00 GMT -6
Especially if they'd still have some searching to do at the docks once they got there. So he led it in a pretty leisurely pace as they headed down the streets, letting the houluh stop and sniff whatever he wanted to stop and sniff. It was a nice day, at least, without a cloud in the sky. The docks were probably lovely right now and Kadin figured that even if they weren't looking for something there, it would be perfectly reasonable to bring the houluh just because of what a nice day it was. With that in mind, he continued on to the docks, looking around the side streets as they went. The houluh seemed perfectly content to just walk, having done its business enough times already that it didn't have anything left. Still, Kadin kept stopping whenever he seemed to want to sniff something interesting on the street, so that was nice of him.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 10, 2021 21:06:47 GMT -6
They kept going until they finally did arrive at the docks. Just like he'd thought, the docks were beautiful at this time of day and on this particular day in particular. The sunlight reflected off the water, turning it a bright, attractive shade of blue with green undertones. It was almost weird to think that they were here to look for a shady character and missing items. Kadin stood by the water for a while, him and the houluh just enjoying the sight, as he slowly mulled over what his game plan should be. They shouldn't tip their hands too soon, of course. He didn't want to spook anyone and miss the chance to actually recover the items. No, they'd have to go carefully, slowly, and make sure that they investigated everything correctly before finally finding the prize. He didn't want anyone to be suspicious of him, either, so he'd have to be especially careful.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 13, 2021 23:06:24 GMT -6
Considering he had a houluh with him that he didn't even own, he didn't want to endanger the pup or himself with all of this nonsense. So the name of the game would be to make sure he was quite, subtle, and didn't really gain the suspicions of anyone he might run into while they were here. With that game plan mostly in mind, Kadin nodded to himself and looked down at Dylan. "Ready, kid?" He asked with a smile, watching as the houluh looked up at him, obviously confused. "Yeah, me, too."
And off they went. Kadin wandered around the docks, figuring the best thing to do first was to just look like they belonged here. They were only out for a walk, him and a houluh, nothing to look at here at all! After all, people came to the docks all the time with their pets, houluh were no exception.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 13, 2021 23:09:02 GMT -6
Houluh especially were rather a common sight at the docks. Although they weren't aquatic themselves, they were pretty good for catching fish and were therefore used at the river a lot. It made sense that they might be at the docks, too, in that case. So he wasn't too worried about being called out just for being here with a houluh, but if they started snooping they could definitely be checked up on. But so far they seemed to be lucky. On the whole, there weren't a whole lot of people here. It wasn't a particular busy time of the day for the docks. Kadin vaguely wondered if maybe he should have looked up what times the shady characters were around here before setting off on this weird sort of scavenger hunt. Then he'd at least have a better idea of when to look, heck knows that he had no idea where to look besides "the docks."
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Post by Kadin on Feb 13, 2021 23:11:28 GMT -6
But he tried to keep that out of his mind, since that negative thinking wasn't going to get him anywhere. Instead he focused on looking around to see where the different crates were. Which ones looked like they had been properly marked. Which ones look like they were strange or abnormal. Kadin wasn't about to start poking his nose anywhere until he was sure he could do it safely, so he was trying not to be too obvious about it, but he was still about to see a lot just walking along like this. Dylan, of course, was having a great time. This was a super great walk, as far as he was concerned. There was so much to see and so many new smells to smell, Kadin was having to stop pretty god damn often in order to give him a chance to sniff everything they came across, practically. Houluh, right?
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Post by Kadin on Feb 14, 2021 21:30:48 GMT -6
That also gave Kadin a good excuse to really examine some of the crates more closely than others. As long as Dylan was cooperating, of course. Some of the unmarked crates especially were ones that he should take a good long look at. He figured that whatever he was looking for probably either had the wrong label on purpose or it was unmarked in a way that whoever knew what they were looking for would be able to find it, but no one else. He needed to investigate everything just to be sure, even if he didn't really know what he was looking for yet so the whole thing was just a little bit pointless. Still, he went from crate to crate, making it look like he was just following the houluh as it playfully investigated all of the crates in the area, searching for new smells. He didn't consider what it might look like.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 14, 2021 23:13:47 GMT -6
After examining what felt like every damn crate on the docks, Kadin was still coming up short of anything that looked overly suspicious. With a sigh, he sat down on a crate and considered his options. He'd looked all around the docks and it didn't seem like this was going to be as easy as just finding a suspicious, disguised shipment and bringing it back to where it was supposed to be. No. He'd have to actually find the asshole that the flyer had talked about and try to get him to give over the missing shipment directly. Kadin didn't like his chances, especially with all the time that was already lost, but he was running out of options for properly getting this case solved. So, with new resolve, get got up and nodded to the houluh. "Right, Dylan. We've actually got to find this guy now. Here's hoping you'll help sniff him out."
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Post by Kadin on Feb 15, 2021 13:09:30 GMT -6
It would probably be a lot easier to find the guy if they had a scent to go off, but Dylan wasn't even trained to go tracking yet so it'd probably just be useless. He'd likely just sniff at the stuff and then go off to look for any crates that smell like food. So instead of worrying about it, Kadin started wandering around the docks looking for people instead. What he really needed to do was to put himself in the mindset of whatever that shady guy was thinking. Where he might be, what sort of places he might be hiding. He hummed to himself, walking back to storage units and crates, looking here and there for any other people. And, of course, there were a lot of people. This was a shipping port, after all. But he wasn't finding any particularly shady people, they all seemed like they were where they were supposed to be.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 15, 2021 13:27:50 GMT -6
He might have to, horror of horrors, talk to people and ask around. Hmm. Naw, he wouldn't do that. Instead, Kadin continued looking around to see if he found any shady looking individuals. Actually, considering how he'd been walking around on the docks all day, he was probably the most shady individual that was at the docks at the moment. He amused himself with that for a while, then shook his head and continued looking around to see if there were any shady individuals around. He figured that he'd probably have to look in the shadier areas and, once again, considering that he'd been everywhere, he knew just were to look. There were plenty of places where the shipments were stacked up high enough that it was easy to hide among them, perfect if someone shady was looking to hide shipments and otherwise do shady things. So there he went towards there.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 15, 2021 13:53:25 GMT -6
He'd headed back towards the back of the docks, where the shipments were piled up high and there were plenty of hidden places for shady characters to hided in. There were also shacks and such, scattered here and there, that he could probably check into. Dylan didn't seem to be a ton of help in this regard, just enjoying his walk as usual, and Kadin wondered if maybe he should have brought a pet with him that was actually trained. But he wouldn't worry about it, for now, instead he'd just keep searching for this shady individual that he was supposed to be finding. He had to be around here somewhere, set up somewhere with the stolen books he was supposed to be looking for. But it was one person he was looking for among all of these crates so, even though he'd kept searching all this time, it might still take a while.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 15, 2021 14:23:38 GMT -6
Eventually he seemed to have stumbled upon the right direction. He'd found places where the crates made it easy to hide, but there wasn't really anyone around. After some more searching he started to see people in the distance, people who looked like they were meeting for whatever reason in these super isolated spaces, out of the way of everything, and making deals about who knows what. You know, they were shady. Kadin glanced down at Dylan. The houluh looked back up at him. They might finally be heading towards the right place and he had a vague idea what the guy he was looking for looked like. Now they just needed to find the right person and shake him down for the location of the books that were missing. With a nod, Kadin casually walked along, trying to stay out of view while also making it seem as if he belonged here.
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Post by Kadin on Feb 15, 2021 14:25:03 GMT -6
None of these shady people seemed to really be looking to make a scene of themselves, so no one really noticed him, and he snuck through the stacks and boxes, an eye out for a guy who matched the description of what they were looking for. Dylan seemed to pick up on the mood and crept along silently, too, much to Kadin's relief. It'd be difficult if the houluh made things harder for him. It wasn't like he could just leave the puppy somewhere during this investigation! So it was a good thing he seemed to be more of a help than a hindrance. As they crept along, Kadin wondered where he'd finally find the shady guy he was looking for. The flyer hadn't had much, but he felt like it should have been enough to make the guy stand out. What he hadn't taken into account was, well. How to say this.
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