[Ransom]

While Angalos watched shooting competitions on a number of festivals and competitions, he had never been on the receiving end of an arrow. However, the merchant had received (and delivered) more than his fair share of snowballs during his life., and instinctively knew what to do when under fire. Angalos quickly dropped to his knees and scrambled toward one of the large tables that dotted the kitchen. Even while he reached for his faithful axe, his mind began considering this new and confusing turn of events. Perhaps the arrow had come from some sort of trap, but Angalos hadn’t touched anything since arriving at the kitchen. This left only one disturbing alternative. Something with a ranged weapon was both watching and stalking him.

For his part, Lluniach Tan-Hadir had grown somewhat impatient mind games. He had intended to bait the foolish human into leaving, not pin him behind cover. Even if he had intended to kill the intruder, Angalos had unknowingly chosen the only table spot that the elf didn’t have line of sight to as his hiding place. Still, he was somewhat hesitant to make contact with said intruder. Physical communication always lead to some sort of complications, and such complication usually led to some sort of physical alteration. The elf already had two-dozen notches in the handles of falchion, and he was not in any particular hurry to add another one. After carefully extracting himself from the rubble heap from which he was observing the human, he reset the mechanism on his hand crossbow and loaded another quarrel.

Grasping his black handled axe in both hands, Angolos quickly raised his head above the stone table. Still nothing. While only a few minutes had passed since the shot, it seemed like an eternity had passed since the last attack. Maybe the attackers had even given up and left. Anglos slumped against the table, trying to think of a way out of this situation. If he simply jumped up and ran for the door, it was quite possible that he would be shot in the back. The last thing he expected was for the soft voice of his ambusher.

“Greetings again, neighbor. Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?”

Lluniach idly fingered the trigger of his hand crossbow as he slowly made his way into cavern that had once serves as a kitchen. One of the advantages of living in a system of naturally made caves was the stable temperature. Even while blizzards had whitened the land from the edge of Mirkwood to the Iron Hill, the elf could wander through the dark and silent passages without a cloak. It did not appear that Lluniach had traveled very far from his home, for a belt and a few pouches constituted his entire carrying capabilities. Besides the crossbow, the only other weapon that the elf seemed to carry was a curiously shaped sword.