The Alexandrian

Ptolus - In the Shadow of the Spire

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

PRELUDE 2C: THE AWAKENING – AGNARR

PBeM – March 5th thru 9th, 2007
The 15th Day of Amseyl  in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

You open the door at the end of the columned hall. Beyond it lies a magnificent chamber made all of gold. Its walls and floor and ceiling are all embossed and etched in bas relief. Directly opposite you and Tee stands a door of giant proportions — literally large enough for a giant to traverse it — made entirely of ebony and covered in similar bas reliefs…

… and that’s the last thing you remember.

Ptolus - Agnarr's RoomYou wake up on the softest bed and pillow you have ever laid your head upon. (Could it really be stuffed with feathers?) A soft, pale light seeps in through two large, shuttered windows to either side of the bed.  Beyond the shutters you can hear the gentle patter of rain and the soft ringing of bells.

The room itself is huge, and possessed of a sumtpuous decor. The bed is wide and long. There’s a table with several chairs and four wardrobes. A single door, currently shut, leads out of the room.

Hanging from a hook on the side of one of the wardrobes you can see your familiar tunic and kilt.

Moving with the lithe speed of a panther you roll out of bed and pad over to the windows. You find yourself looking out over a vast metropolis. The number of buildings you can see in a single glance is, literally, more than you have seen in your entire life.

The sight arrests your eyes for a moment, but then you look down and discover that you’re about three stories up from a public square of some kind. In the middle of the square there is a small pool. Standing over the pool is the statue of a man. Behind the statue there is a large flight of stairs leading down into the street.

Ptolus - Delver's SquareYou can see that the street leading out of the square ends in a T-intersection with a larger thoroughfare.

It’s dawn and a few people are moving here and there — not many, though. The rain is probably keeping people off the streets. You test the window and find that it opens easily. Warm, wet air washes over your skin.

You move back to the wardrobe and grab your clothes… only to discover that they’re not actually your clothes. Although of the same design and cut in essentially the same style (including the clan design of the red elk), this tunic and kilt are made from snow silk (as opposed to the rough and familiar feel of mammoth wool).

(Snow silk is woven from the silk thread produced by snow silk worms. Although almost as hardy and durable as wool or cotton, snow silk has a texture almost as smooth and soft as true silk.)

You pull them on anyway (they fit as if they had been hand-crafted for you). Then you yank open the wardrobes. Most of them stand empty, but in one of them you find a suit of masterwork studded leather armor. And in another you find a bandolier holding six masterwork throwing axes. You grab that and throw it over your shoulder, noticing that there’s also a bag hanging from it.

With that done, you head for the door. It’s locked, but from this side. You easily open it and peek out: You see a long hall, with many similar doors leading into it. Off to your left you can see the hall dead-ends in a window. To the right you see a couple of other passages leading off of it.

Heading down the hall to the next door, you turn the handle. It’s unlocked. Peeking inside you can see that no one is there and you shove it the rest of the way open. The room is smaller than yours, but there are three beds. Two of the beds look like they’ve been slept in; the third is still made. There are a couple of wardrobes here, too.

You do a quick search, but don’t turn up anything of interest.

Just beyond this door there is a short hallway. Looking down that way you see a couple more doors, and then the hallway dead ends in a window (looking out in the same direction as the window in your room).

As you come out of the room, you hear a door opening down the hallway, you take a few steps in that direction…

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