Change in the wind

  As Nilo sits on the bumpy carriage clutching the pillow Clyde had given him to use and thinking that it could have been a little thicker, plans begin to truly take shape in his mind. Even as a young man of seventeen, he realizes that if he is to become the information overlord he wants to be, that time will pass quickly and he needs to be immersed in an occupation where he will be able to contact many people and not just a few. Constable should meet these needs and give him a positive public image as well.
  As the carriage pulls into the garage, Nilo admits to Clyde that such a position was ill conceived and not at all well thought out. While Nilo attempts to make sure Clyde knows he has a friend in Nilo if he needs one, Clyde goes about gathering the silver to pay Nilo for the single guard ride. Gathering up his crossbow from the carriage Nilo makes his way to find a suitable place to live.
     The school is just as he remembers it with his master making his way down the ranks and the school banner flying boldly and proudly. He waits for Master Zhiril to make his way around to him and explains to him that he will be staying in the city after all and begs for the master to keep him on as a pupil while he makes his name with the constables. Nilo does not bother trying to haggle price with master Zhiril knowing him to be a man that speaks his mind and not one to bother with such a thing. Alas, being accepted back into the school also means....being the punching bag for the night. Nilo takes his beating with pride as he works with all the students. Furthermore, he is able to find a student by the name of Lilac, who works as a teamster on the docks, with a room to let.
  He finds that the accommodations that Lilac has available are even less than he wished, but refuse to insult him and pays him a month up front and promptly cleans his back room out and attempts to use some of the loose lumber about the room that Lilac collects from the job site to repair a rather intimidating whole in the floor. Trying to block out the smells and the surrounding Nilo drops himself into a deep meditative stance to rest the night away. Snapping out of the stance 6 hours later Nilo's first image is of a rat deep within a bowl of gruel that Lilac presumably left for him, although Nilo reckoned that the rat needed and wanted it more so gathered his belongings and made his way to the closest watch station.
  Entering the watch station he finds many sailors and would be thugs tied up along a wall. Curious he looks to see if the two that had assaulted him were in the line. As Nilo is inspecting the prisoners one of the guards, Oinau, asks him his business. "I'm here to become a detective with the guard!", Nilo replies. Smiling to himself Oinau tells Nilo that the guard doesn't hire small children and for him to scamper off. Nilo, in his most commanding voice makes sure that this Oinau knows that not only will he be a guardsman but Oinau will end up saluting him on his return. Oinau grabs his friend Enon and prepare to have a little jest with the fellow, after all they can always stop it before the kid gets killed. Enon tells Nilo that before he will send him to the recruiter that Nilo will have to prove himself in combat, grabbing a large worn out thug from the line of prisoners. As Nilo ponders the situation, and examines the prisoners condition, after all Nilo doesn't want to kill the poor schmuck, the guard tells the prisoner he is free to go as long as Nilo is laid out on the floor.
  That was all it took, the prisoner smiles and immediately attacks Nilo in a series of streetwise attacks designed to blind and cripple the young man. Seeing that he means business Nilo, goes from being defensive to timing psychic assaults upon the brutes mind, quickly leaving him laying on the ground bleeding internally with the blood running out of his ears. Enon and Oinau are not quite sure what they saw, but they are sure that they need to get rid of the young man and they are equally sure that they don't want him reporting to the recruiter and their superiors about the sport they had with him. So they give a series of instructions designed to baffle even the most streetwise of the guards, which proved to be an overkill as Nilo was only half listening while trying to see to the wounded prisoner.
  He attempt to follow the directions proves to be even worse than the guards probably intended. As Nilo winds up among the worst part of the town. Deciding prudence over valor he tries to make his way quickly out of the area, to ANY other part of the city. Alas, fate intervened. Nilo hearing cries for help....stops.
  The cries for help coming from a gnomish merchant, whose pack and wares are scattered about, held by two ruffians and assaulted by a third. Nilo decides that these pack runners are more likely prone to cowardice than actually confrontation attempts to bluff and intimidate the merchant free. Taking his crossbow out and quickly tossing in a bolt Nilo shouts at the men. He informs the ruffians that he isn't sure which one will be shot first, but he knows that the one first shot will no longer need to worry about it. As he suspected, the boys were not ready for an armed encounter with a deadly mechanism such as a crossbow and scattered faster than he could even take aim.
  Nilo quickly helped the merchant gather his wares and began to escort him out of the area, letting himself be guided to the gnomish quarter. Looking around the area, Nilo feels very comfortable here as everything is set more to his scale than in the human area. And as the merchant introduces him to his wife and his wife feeds him to reward him for rescuing her husband Nilo quickly inquires as to whether there were any rooms for let.
  The merchant introduces Nilo to Adak the blacksmith who lives close by, and Adak seems to be quite the serious fellow. Alas, he is able to break the ice with the blacksmith by broaching the subject of metallurgy and the different merits of various alloys. Being shown the lockable apartment Nilo is excited with the prospect of staying her and a deal is quickly made, so long as Nilo remains in the guard the terms state.
  That evening Nilo makes his way to the recruiter with help from his new Gnomish friends and quickly impresses the guardsmen there enough to enter training. It will be a hard two weeks of training, but this is nothing compared to the life that awaits!