IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE
SESSION 1D: THE COMMON ROOM AT NIGHT
March 10th, 2007
The 15th Day of Amseyl in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
Tee had no luck with the obsidian box. After fashioning and customizing her tools, she set to work… only to discover that the keyhole had no mechanical components or moving parts at all. It was just a smooth hole carved in the side of the box. Based on her description, Ranthir concluded that the box must be magically sealed in some way.
Agnarr had no luck in finding a dog in the relatively well-kept streets of Midtown. On their way back to the Ghostly Minstrel, Elestra stopped in for the evening services at St. Gustav’s. She was feeling particularly lost and confused and was looking for some sort of guidance.
The group congregated in the common room of the Ghostly Minstrel right around dusk. The crowd was sparse at first, but after a half hour of light drinking a bard arrived and brought a crowd with him that grew steadily as the night went on.
Agnarr spotted Sheva Callister come in: She was dressed in purplish leather armor with a massive sword sheathed in red velvet strapped across her back, just as Brother Fabitor had described her. Tee tried to dissuade him, but shortly after Sheva sat down, Agnarr bought two beers, walked over, and – stumbling slightly because he’d been drinking all afternoon – dropped down in the chair next to her.
Sheva arched an eyebrow at him. “Can I help you?”
Agnarr, with his characteristic bluntness and clumsy way with words, tried to make it clear that he had never met her, that he had lost his memory, that he was very confused, and that he definitely wanted some answers. Sheva, increasingly bemused, told him that she had never met him before.
“What?” Agnarr said. “No, I was told that we had—No, wait.” The memory trickled in through his slightly pickled brain. “You didn’t meet me. You met her.” And he pointed across the room straight at Elestra.
Sheva frowned. “Elestra? I wouldn’t say I know her, but she did speak to me a couple days ago.”
Agnarr demanded to know what they had talked about. But this just confused Sheva even more: Why didn’t he just talk to Elestra?
Tee, at this point, decided it might be time to intervene. She came over and pulled Agnarr to his feet, apologizing to Sheva: “He lost his dog today. He’s been drinking. He’s a bit of an oaf. Sorry for the inconvenience…”
Agnarr allowed himself to be pulled away, protesting all the way.
But Sheva’s curiosity had been piqued. She came over to their table. “What’s going on here?”
Tee demurred again, “He can be very rude sometimes.” Elestra picked up on the cue, “He wanted to know what we’d talked about, but I said that it wouldn’t be my place to say.”
But Agnarr was blunt again, telling Sheva point-blank that none of them could remember the past two weeks and that they were all trying to figure out what had happened to them.
Sheva shook her head. “Memory loss is nothing to take lightly. Take it from one who’s been there a time or three herself.” But she couldn’t help them. She didn’t actually know Elestra: Elestra had approached her the other night and asked her to recount some of her exploits beneath the city. Sheva had deferred, but her friend Parnell had been a little less discrete, telling (and Sheva smiled at this) a ribald tale about the time that Sheva (in her younger days of course) had tried to seduce one of the guards at the Vladaam estate.
“Parnell?” Agnarr asked. “Who’s he?”
Sheva explained that Parnell was an old friend of hers. He could really be the life of the party… Well, so to speak. He wasn’t alive any more when you came right down to it. Sheva explained that Parnell was a ghost now, but quite friendly as ghosts went.
Agnarr turned to Tee: “Is this type of thing common around here?”
Tee shrugged. “It’s not like everyone has a pet ghost. But it’s not exactly unheard of. Lots of strange things happen in Ptolus.”
Agnarr put his head in hands. “I’ve got a headache again.” He looked up: “Do you know Jevicca Nor?”
Sheva stifled a laugh with her hand. “I’m sorry. But I wouldn’t tell Jevicca that you’ve forgotten her, Agnarr, she wouldn’t take it kindly I’m afraid.”
Sheva patted him consolingly, said her goodbyes, apologized again that she couldn’t have been more help, and went back to her table to listen to the bard.
Around this time a tall man with golden curls wearing full plate entered the room. He instantly attracted their attention because his chest seemed to glow like a brilliant jewel of light. Elestra went over to talk to him, while Dominic edged up towards the bard to enjoy the performance.
It turned out that the man with the glowing chest was named Steron Vsool. He was a paladin. Elestra chatted with him for awhile, and it turned out that he actually knew Tee and Agnarr. They had gotten into some sort of drinking contest with him (which Tee had won somehow).
When Elestra told Agnarr that, he immediately sought out Steron – who was now talking to Sheva – and wanted the whole story. Steron, like Sheva before him, was confused by Agnarr bluntly getting to the point and joked that perhaps Agnarr should drink a little less. Or, at least, learn to handle it like Tee.
The evening wore on, but there was no sign that Jevicca would show up tonight. As the crowd dwindled, the group slowly broke up and headed to bed. Agnarr went up first, finding a note on the bed… He brought it downstairs and showed it to Tee, who insisted that they give it to Elestra. When she saw it she burst out laughing: “Would you like your door fixed, Mistress Elestra?”
Before they fell asleep for the evening, Tee asked Ranthir to cast detect magic on an amulet. The amulet was not magical.
Tee, not needing as much rest as the others, spent several hours looking through the false identification papers and her Delver’s Guild membership papers, trying to discover as much as she could. She managed to correlate a list of false names to herself and the other amnesiacs, and she also managed to discover several details of what a membership in the Delver’s Guild meant.
In the morning the group woke, cleaned themselves in the fresh basins of water delivered by the maids, and went downstairs to breakfast. Gathered around a table in the dining area, they faced the bleak prospect that the truth of their lost memories was still far from their grasp…
