THE NEXT TENDAY
RAEN
While Benn begins his search for the worshippers of Leira, Raen tries his luck with the House of Blue Flames.
From the street, the temple looks like an obelisk of green basalt, covered in baroque friezes and fitted with a great brass door.
No one stands guard over the door.
No one answers Raen’s knocking.
No one opens the door—it unlocks and swings inward, moved by some unseen force, after Raen has stood for a few minutes under the arch.
He felt a momentary tingle as if magic touched him. Scrying magic, possibly, as he does not feel any change as of an enchantment laid upon him…
Within, tall candles topped with heatless and never-failing blue flames illuminate intersecting galleries that seem too long for a building the apparent dimensions of the temple as seen from the street. Doors line the galleries. Some of the portals open into rooms and others onto black voids without floors or walls.
In the third room he checks, Raen finds an old man bent over a writing desk, backlit by three floating bright blue orbs. The man looks up.
“I am called Thelonious. Welcome to the House of Blue Flames. Please, have a seat.”
The man gestures toward a chair pushed up against the back wall.
The old wizard-priest, Thelonious, interviews Raen in a friendly manner, even offering him tea and biscuits (conjured).
After the initial questions have been dealt with, Thelonious tells Raen that the established magi of the city don’t appreciate foreign competition but that a gentleman’s code prevails among local practitioners of the Art. If Raen makes it clear that his presence is temporary, no one is likely to bother him. If he stays more than a month, he should try to join the society of arcanists, something that requires an invitation. Thelonious would be happy to help him out in that regard.
As far as getting back to his home plane, well, Thelonious says that the patriarch of the temple could effect a cross-planar translation if the proper key were obtained. There’s the rub. Getting the right key requires research into the location and nature of the destination plane, and while the magician-priest who heads the temple might be persuaded to whisk Raen off to another world out of professional courtesy, he’s not going to just drop his own work to spend what could be months or even years looking for the correct metal or alloy to construct a planar key attuned to Raen’s currently unknown home dimension.
SIR CLIVE
Sir Clive finds that the city’s book markets carry several affordably priced printed books of some interest to him.
A merchant offers the swordsman a job as night watchman at the merchant’s dockside warehouse.
Modest pay, but it will suffice to cover all the knight’s living expenses and leave some money over for purchases in the local book market.
And the warehouse has a magical light inside, so Clive can read in between walking his hourly rounds.
KATRIN
Widow Falchett has taken a liking to Katrin. The old lady offers Katrin a job as a servant, pay to be room and board.
“Just mornings, dearie. I’m starting to have a bit of trouble getting everything done in the early hours the way I used to do. I could use the help with the early cleaning, running errands, serving breakfast, all that. After highsun you can scamper off, do as you please.”
If Kat accepts she finds
KLOKULF
While Benn looks for the deluded adherents of Leira—no doubt another name of Mytteri—Klokulf contacts natives of Zhentil Keep, in the city on business.
The meeting doesn’t last long—just a round of drinks at a local pub. The men are mercenaries of some sort. They don’t talk much about their business but they are happy to discuss Zhentil Keep and, in hushed tones, the cult of Bane. What Klokulf learns tends to confirm his suspicion of a link between Bane and the Lawgiver. The chief difference in the cults appears to be arcane magic: no strong prejudice against it exists here, though the men do allude to some political squabbles between mages and clerics. And there's no animus against non-humans as such, but rather a belief that Bane favors humanity in the terrible struggle of life. Orks and such lowly creatures can be made to serve.
The 'eye-tyrants' the men speak of as allies of the Zhentarim--which it seems, is a shadowy group not exactly part of the open cult-- those sound like horrible monsters, quite inhuman.
The men say that Vaasa is a cold, wild country, inhabited by monsters and by the distant cousins of Zhentish folk, the
Vaasi horsemen and hide-hunters. They’ve not been there, but at Zhentil Keep one could surely find men who had.
The sell-swords tell Klokulf that a smart, tough man can always get good-paying work at the Keep.
ALAIN
Alain investigates magical matters in the area. He does not find any war-mages trained as he was, but he does learn that the names of certain famous (and still-living the last he'd heard) wizards of his home-world are known here by the spells they invented. That strongly suggests some sort of link or passage between the worlds and one not too far back.
Though time might not flow at the same rate in every world…
BENN
Even provided with a lead from the sage, Ormauth, contacting the Leirans takes Benn several days and nights of clandestine meetings, messages left in blind drops, and other skullduggery.
The latest note from the Leirans reads:
‘We never gather beneath the derelict lighthouse on the Isle of Cats, and certainly will not meet you in the hour before sunrise.’
Which, given the cult’s foggy and deceptive communications, strongly suggests just the opposite.
The ink of the note fades first, and then the paper itself crinkles, curls, and decomposes into a fine gray mist.
The Isle of Cats is an island in the mouth of the Arkhen River.
Getting there would be a short journey from the city, requiring a boat.
Delight is to him- a far, far upward, and inward delight- who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.
-from Moby Dick (Hermann Melville)
