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The first leg of our journey south was not a single night, as Astrea had said. It was a full night, and a full day. The next town south of Artana, about one day or one night's journey on a slow pack animal, or by barge, or one very easy day or night's journey on horseback, was Philia. Unlike the larger cities further south, Philia did not have a port. We did not care to stop in Philia anyway, as it was not mentioned in books, scrolls and verbal tales passed along about Tzika. The towns mentioned were all ports on Apha: Radeport, the port town for the city Resson Rade, one of the two cities mentioned in connection with Tzika; Wereport, the port town for the City of Werekind, not mentioned; and the Arcanae, the port of Arcana Sitol and the city of Arcana Lyal, cities described as once having been ruled, in person, by Tzika. We weren't sure whether we believed that, since in all the other records of Tzika's activities, she'd shown little inclination for command, much less rulership. But the tales were among the most recent. Joe thought there might be living elves in Arcana Lyal who should remember that time, if indeed the stories were true.
We disembarked in Radeport the next evening, and immediately traveled west to Resson Rade, where we were welcomed by a familiar-looking Esther. Esther's inn was huge, compared to all the others we had stayed in, and included detached buildings which could be rented in their entirety by larger parties. She put us in the building furthest from the central inn. We did not argue with her selection. Esther had no objection to serving us meals in the main building, but did not encourage us to loiter, saying she'd be more than happy to have one of her assistants attend us in our separate building. We took the hint, but asked her for information about the city, and where we could find maps and a guide. She said the assistant she would assign to us, Thyatira, would be happy to show us around the city, and find the libraries, guilds and watch houses we wanted to visit.
Thyatira was helpful. While Astrea was still awake, she led us to a small booth in one corner of the nearest market square, where we bought maps of not only Resson Rade, but of Radeport, the City of Werekind, Wereport, the Arcanae, and the roads and major holdings surrounding them. The elf running the booth directed us kitty-corner across the square to a small shop which sold pamphlets listing important citizens of the city, by specialty, where they could be found, and what they charged for certain common services. We bought guides to the libraries, guild offices and mages-for-hire. As dawn was approaching rapidly, we returned to Esther's, and made sure Astrea was comfortable. We established a watch cycle, and settled in to debate how we were going to handle researching this city.
We now knew that Squiddie was alive, awake and out to get us. With this change in status, no one was in a hurry to split up and go shopping, whether for food, weapons, spell components or information. On the other hand, if we had to stay together all the time, we were going to be extremely conspicuous, and would only be able to operate at night. The time restriction was not overly onerous in any of the cities, but might prove to be a problem in the towns. We'd noticed that large portions of Radeport closed up at dusk. The port stayed open, and a few pubs and restaurants to serve the workers who moved goods in and out of the port, but the shops and services aimed at the general populace when they weren't working were unavailable after dark. Wereport might be open later. We had no idea what to expect in Arcana Sitol. One the one hand, the Arcanae were the most populous of all the towns and cities we would visit. On the other hand, Arcana Sitol was perhaps a two hour walk from the outskirts of Arcana Lyal. Why not close up shop and go visit the city at night.
The more cautious members of the party, notably Joe, Rushi, Mervish and Dervish, argued that because we might eventually have to split up was a weak argument for splitting up early and often. The rest of the party thought the risk was small. As long as we were never apart for more than an hour at a time, the theory went, very little was likely to happen. I pointed out that there was no reason to believe that anyone in the party was under attack other than me. After a brief, shocked moment, everyone else broke out into gales of laughter. When they settled down enough to explain why they'd laughed, they asked why, then, had Joe's wards gone down as quick as he could set them up. For that matter, why had Rushi felt a claustrophobic feeling the night I was attacked. Neither Leroy nor Jack thought it reasonable to believe they could get away with sacrificing Abiram on Squiddie's altar without being in line for Squiddie's wrath.
None of this answered our question: sleep during the day and wait for Astrea to wake up before venturing out, or make brief forays out into the town with our fingers crossed, hoping for the best. Squiddie provided an answer instead, by attacking.
This attack was not, initially, a direct attack by the god on me or anyone else. Instead, a bunch of black-clad, masked would-be murderers swarmed through the windows and bashed in the door. In the space of mere moments, we were confronted by at least three dozen attackers. It is not easy to keep exact count in such a situation. Our opponents were armed, but not in an consistent manner. Some carried kitchen or personal knives. Others had swords. A few had axes, and one threw star-shaped knives. Their attire was alike only in that they were all dressed entirely in black. Some looked still damp from recent dying. Others looked like they'd wrapped themselves in drapes or curtains or other wall hangings. The rest were wearing ordinary street clothing that happened to be black. The masks, also, were improvised. Most of the masks were napkins that had had eyes cut out irregularly and tied around the head. I don't think this crowd had ever done this before, because several of them had trouble seeing at all, and we quickly discovered we could incapacitate them by yanking on the knots behind their head. With the mask off center, they were blinded. They either couldn't, wouldn't or didn't think to remove the mask, and instead wasted time attempting to readjust it. This gave us ample time to knock them over and kick them in the face and throat, thereby eliminating them as a present threat.
Ivan and Mauser grabbed their axes wading into the fray. I saw they were careful to maintain a distance of two axe swings, to make sure they didn't accidentally hurt each other. Irvish grabbed Rushi, and shoved her underneath the bench of the booth she'd been sitting in. Irvish then jumped up on the bench and started swinging a short sword at anything wearing un-stylish black clothing. Mervish ducked around to the other side of Irvish, and they covered each other. Dervish followed along behind Ivan and Mauser, mopping up anything that still twitched after receiving the attentions of the dwarves. Joe got about twelve of the attackers to lie down and fall asleep, simply by ordering them to do so. Leroy talked a half dozen of the attackers to attack a similar number of their compatriots. Marion was practically flying through the air, kicking her way joyfully from one enemy to the next, clawing one, bashing the next and biting a third. Jack shoved me under the bench opposite Rushi, and stood on top of it, calmly catching everything that was thrown within his reach, and returning it, lethally, from whence it came. After several minutes of worrying about what I ought to be doing, I got my paper out and started taking these notes.
Once the idiots in black stopped attacking, Irvish and Jack allowed Rushi and me to climb up from under the benches. That was a relief, because the blood was starting to flow and I'm tired of trying to scrub blood out of clothing. Under other circumstances, I might have bought new clothes, but right now, I questioned whether we'd ever make it to a marketplace, and, even if we did, those clothes would not last, unbloodied, long enough to change into them. This time, some of the bad guys were not dead or mortally wounded. I hoped we would leave them alive long enough to get them to do some of our laundry for us, in exchange for having forced us to get so dirty.
While we were checking the bodies, to make sure no one was lying in wait with a garrote or miniature crossbow, we heard a knock on the front door. The knock was odd, since the door was broken open, and the windows on the walls around the building were all broken open. Esther leaned in and asked if it was all over. Jack gave her the all clear, and said she could come in, but to watch where she stepped, since a lot of them were still alive; having attacked without warning, there was no telling what they might do. Esther leaned back out, talked to someone, and then stepped inside, followed with a man named and a woman dressed in the uniform of the Resson Rade Watch. Esther introduced them to us. The man, Foretto, was short, slender and alert. His partner, Bracy, was taller, with a more powerful build and a sleepy look about her eyes that I felt certain was deceptive. We told Esther and the watch what had happened. They listened, and then Foretto and Bracy picked their way through the room, removing everyone's masks. Some of the black-clad attackers were men, some women. They were all human, and none had the odd shimmer werekind usually have when seen anywhere except in broad daylight. Esther went out, and came back with a healer who lived near the inn. She followed Foretto and Bracy, applying bandages and other basic care to the individuals indicated. While all this was going on, we heard someone coming down the stairs. Since the only person upstairs was Astrea, who should still be asleep at midday, everyone except the watch and the healer started for their weapons, including Esther and Thyatira.
Astrea was standing two-thirds of the way down the stairs, shielding her eyes from the glare of sunlight through the open door and windows. "What's going on? I heard a racket, and it woke me up." Rushi fainted. Jack gaped. I dropped my scroll, which rolled toward a puddle of blood, and retrieved it barely in time. Irvish tried to hustle Astrea back upstairs, but Mervish and Dervish stopped him, pointing out that she wasn't dead yet and was therefore unlikely to die now.
Astrea stared at the open doors and windows, and all the light streaming through. "I didn't think it was full moon yet. Joe and Marion haven't changed yet, have they?" I cleared my throat, and told Astrea it was about two hours after noon. Astrea stared back at me, and fainted. Irvish caught her before she fell more than a couple of stairs. He threw her over his shoulder, and took her back up the stairs. Mervish and Dervish followed, carrying Rushi with them. Ivan and Mauser volunteered to help the healer, which Joe was already doing. More members of the watch trickled in, and they had all the bodies out in about an hour, or a little more. Esther departed again, and returned with a cleaning crew, and some carpenters. She shooed us all upstairs, where we were all eager to go anyway.
We went upstairs, to discover that Astrea was sound asleep again, but this time, not sleeping the sleep of the undead, unmoving and without breath, but rather the normal sleep of the living, complete with a nerve-wracking snore. The improbability of someone as beautiful and elegant as Astrea snoring made me giggle. We talked to the orcs for a while, to find out if Astrea had come to before falling asleep and maybe said something informative about her newfound ability to tolerate sunlight. Not to mention snoring. They said no, after Irvish had tucked her in, she started sleeping normally. They had put Rushi in her room, and split up to keep an eye on them both, then took to the hallway between the rooms, leaving the doors open, so they could watch and chat at the same time.
We instituted the watch schedule we had earlier arranged and turned in for what sleep we could get while cleaning and carpentry went on below. I half-expected Jack and Leroy to get up and go visit the prisoners during the day or early evening, but no one left. I think everyone wanted to stick around, with all the excitement going on. Esther's cleaning and construction crews were efficient. The downstairs was more or less rebuilt and clean by the time we met back downstairs at the dinner hour. Thyatira said dinner would be served for us in this building. We were not surprised, and given Astrea's unusual behavior, we were relieved to not have to worry about moving her to the other building while we ate.
Astrea showed up a little later than usual. She sat down to dinner. She looked around at everyone. We were all staring at her. She frowned, and said, "I had this bizarre dream." Most of us chorused, "No, you didn't." She laughed, and said, "Yes, I did. I know that when I came downstairs this afternoon, that was real, not a dream. But I did have this bizarre dream." She told us that in the dream, she was picked up by winds, lifted bodily, dreaming, but in her dream she was undead during the day, breathless, pale and not alive. Her body was brought near what she felt sure must be Squiddie, a gargantuan squid-like being with tentacles that ended in heads. The heads, she said, had fangs for teeth, like hers. She awoke abruptly, then, as she did at sunset, breathing again, and alive as the undead are during the night. Squiddie was talking but not talking, telling her she would always be alive as the undead are during the night, that she would never rest during the day again, that she would always breathe, and she would feel the rays of the sun. At first, she was afraid, thinking this must be a curse, that she would die. But as she listened to Squiddie drone on and on, with the heads of the tentacles repeating what the huge squid-head said a beat or two later, she realized that the words might mean that she would be able to awaken during the day, experiencing daylight. The thought enchanted her, taking more and more of her attention, until Squiddie faded in front of her, and she returned to her sleeping body. Waking, she heard noises downstairs, and came down to investigate, without thinking whether it was day or night, as she had never been awake during the daytime before.
For a change, argument did not break out when Astrea stopped speaking. We ate. We thought about it. When we did talk about it, we all agreed on what must have happened. Astrea's dream, and her description of it, was abundantly clear. Squiddie had cursed her, intending her to be awake by day and asleep by night, and so die inadvertently when she went out thinking it night, when it was actually day. Squiddie had taken away Astrea's vulnerability to sunlight.
I had a few questions of a practical nature. Did Astrea still need blood? Astrea said she still craved it. Had she changed physically in appearance that she could tell? She had not. She could sleep whenever she wanted or needed now, like any of us. Did she crave anything new? This got her attention and the rest of the table. She said she did, but she wasn't sure what it was. We made sure that all the plates were passed by her. She sniffed everything, but had no more interest in the cooked dishes than she had before. She still liked, but did not need, red wine, and she appreciated white wine and beer now, which she had not before. When the salad got to her, however, it stopped. She ate all of it. She made serious inroads on the fresh fruit when it arrived, and Thyatira had to bring back more rounds of the fresh, raw, chopped vegetables three times. And the new, improved Astrea burped. She continued to look around the table, focusing now on the drinks. On a hunch, I asked Thyatira if there were any fruit juices. Thyatira went to look, and came back with three, two citrus, and one other. Astrea sucked down an entire pitcher of one of the citrus drinks. She looked around, scooted closer to Jack, draped herself along his shoulder, and promptly fell asleep. Leroy summed it up for the rest of us when he said, "If Squiddie will keep supplying curses like this, I vote we keep him around for a while."
What kept everyone talking, long into the night, was the matter of when any or all of us could leave the inn, and whether we had to do so together, or was it safe for some of us to go separately. A lot of the debate surrounded whether Squiddie knew or cared about all of us, or was only interested in some of us. The rest involved just how far the hypothetical protection my presence conferred extended.
Several theories prevailed. One theory started with the belief that some minor gods had the power to read minds. Under this theory, Squiddie knew about all of us, and everyone we'd met along the way. Given Squiddie's tendency to extend blame to those who helped or even just liked people who opposed him, this meant that everyone we'd done business with, hung out with, or just chatted up might be in danger.
Another theory held that since none of the records we'd read suggested that Squiddie could read minds, Squiddie could only know what his followers reported to him, directly or otherwise. Under this theory, Squiddie could know about everyone presently in the inn, since it had been attacked, Vira, the eight thieves who'd been at Squiddie's temple with us, and potentially others as well. Squiddie presumably did not, however, know about everyone we'd ever done business with or talked to along the way.
Yet another theory held that Squiddie could only access the minds of his believers, and then only retrieve what it occurred to him to be interested in. Under this theory, the thieves might be off the hook, since only one acolyte escaped, and Squiddie might never have been in direct contact with that acolyte. We suspected the acolyte would himself do everything to avoid contact with Squiddie from the time of the temple visit on. Under this theory, Squiddie might still be ignorant of some members of our party, depending on what he dragged out of the minds of today's attackers. However, the fact that Squiddie had specifically contacted and "cursed" Astrea suggested that anyone in the party who thought they might have escaped the god's attention was probably being optimistic.
The consensus that emerged was that we couldn't protect anyone outside the immediate group, and their risk was limited anyway, at least as long as Squiddie was focused on eliminating us. Everyone in the party could assume they were in constant, potentially lethal danger. The only thing standing between us and death was, in the opinion of the group as a whole, me. I did not like this conclusion, but found myself entirely unable to marshal convincing arguments to the contrary.
Joe had developed one chart for the forms of magic that I could detect via the odd visual manifestations. He was still working on one for the audible effects. The question presently on the table was whether I could detect the magic I must be emitting or generating or using. I pointed out that magic items, spells and enchantments became harder to detect when created or deployed by a sophisticated user. Given my mother's skills, and what she probably fed me, I saw no reason to believe I'd be able to detect what I was doing. Mervish said that did not make sense, as whatever I had that enabled me to detect other magic was itself extremely sophisticated. Mervish suggested that I just try a little harder. Since I don't put any effort into seeing or hearing, or for that matter, tasting, smelling or feeling magic in the first place, I said that I had no way of knowing how to interpret that kind of advice. Silence greeted this remark, and then the usual babble of questions and argument. Everyone wanted to know what magic I could detect with my other senses. Jack reestablished order. Joe signed to me to close my eyes, and reach out in my imagination to the limits of what I could protect, and tell me what that looked like. I raised my eyebrows, but did as he suggested. I was amazed to discover that it worked. With my eyes closed, and relative silence in the room, I could sense where everyone was at the table, as a sort of warmth and light. I had expected, as had everyone else, to see some sort of fiery or glimmering or shimmery dome extending over everyone, and possibly over the building as a whole, but that wasn't what it looked like at all.
There was a silvery line connecting me to everyone else in the group, which broke into strands and surrounded the light and warmth which, in my mind, represented each person. I opened my eyes, and described what I had sensed to the group, and discovered, as I did so, that I could see the lines with my eyes open, although it took a little additional concentration to see the strands surrounding them. I mentioned that one line extended north as far as I could see. Mervish got up, and ran upstairs, calling down to ask me if the line had followed. I said yes, it had. Mervish went to several rooms upstairs, and I could see the line extend to and presumably through the ceiling, following Mervish around. Mervish returned, and we concluded that the line extending north must be extending to Vira.
We debated whether the protection actually extended all the way from Resson Rade to Artana, and, if so, was it effective at that distance and what was its upper limit. What, for that matter, would be the effect on me of maintaining that connection at greater and greater distances. We concluded that we had no way of knowing, and no way to find out easily without backtracking, which no one wanted to do.
The next question was whether the protection could be extended and removed at will. I closed my eyes, and extended a line to Thyatira. It connected, and grew strands surrounding her. I opened my eyes, and asked if Thyatira felt any different. She said she did not. I then cut the line, and the strands shriveled off and dissipated. Again, I asked if she felt any different. She said she did not, and asked what I had been doing. I explained, and Joe, who had been looking preoccupied for several minutes, made some gestures which did not make sense as sign language, and peered at Thyatira. He then signed to me to extend protection again to her. I did, and he made the same nonsensical gestures and peered at her again. He traced, in the air, the strands, and with a little concentration, I could see that he had accurately detected them. He asked me to make sure that I did not remove the protection. I said I would not. Then he made a different set of gestures, and the strands blossomed out to become a shimmering outline around Thyatira. I asked if anyone else could see that, and no one could except Joe. We asked Thyatira again, if she'd noticed anything. I had noticed the lightest of touches as the strands had expanded. She, however, had felt nothing at all. Joe signed that I could remove the protection now, or leave it, however I liked. I removed it, and asked Joe what he had done. He signed that he'd lobbed about a medium-sized bolt of power at her, enough to knock her out under ordinary circumstances without doing any permanent harm. Leroy looked surprised, and repeated what Joe had signed to the rest of the group. Thyatira was outraged. It took several minutes to settle her down again, but she left anyway to go have words with Esther.
Esther came by a few minutes later, with a docile Thyatira in tow, requesting a demonstration. Esther could see the strands without any special gestures, and after asking me to extend protection over her, she had Joe lob a good-sized bolt at her. She felt nothing. I felt a slightly stronger nudge. Joe looked more tired. Esther looked around herself with interest, eyes resting on the strands which had expanded to full coverage. She asked me to remove it, thanking us for our cooperation. She reiterated to Thyatira that she had nothing to fear from us, and left. After having a glass of wine or two, Thyatira thawed out a bit more, and we started telling her stories of our adventures.
Several hours later, we turned in, planning to get up early in the morning to go to the market, as a group. We had established that I could maintain a connection across a great distance, but no one had any desire to find out the hard way whether that connection weakened with distance. We would be searching for anything that might protect us against a god, whether by making us more difficult to find, or by deflecting attacks. While we were at the market, Jack and Leroy would go check on the black clad attackers of this afternoon, who were being held a few blocks from the main market. Depending on how much progress we made, we would travel to Radeport and visit the few likely sources of information in that town, and catch an evening departure south on Apha. Otherwise, we would spend the night, and travel to Radeport the following morning.
The rest of the night was uneventful. The following day went largely according to plan, except the mages of Resson Rade were both better informed and more talkative than anticipated. We received confirmation of Tzika's reign in Arcana Lyal, but the dates given, while overlapping, were not exactly the same from report to report. Most of the reports indicated she'd ruled over the Arcanae, not just Arcana Lyal, and some of the reports suggested she'd also ruled over Wereport, and subsidized the building of the City of Werekind. One report, which we attributed to the source, a propagandist for werekind in general, and a freelance tout for the City of Werekind's tourism office, claimed that Tzika was herself a were, other form unspecified.
Jack and Leroy reported that the watch had buried the dead, selling whatever goods they had on them to pay for the price of burial. The rest of their goods would have been divided between the watch who had been responsible for processing them, and us, except there wasn't anything left after burying them. The wounded were in custody, and the healthy had been charged with caring for them. Further sentencing would occur later, and our opinions had been solicited on what we'd like to see done to them. Jack and Leroy had asked if the watch had previously had contact with any of them, and the watch said they were all from smaller towns west of Resson Rade, and some of them looked like they'd come from further north. After interrogation, the watch concluded that all were followers of Squiddie, delegated by the priest in the Twessol Temple. This was surprising, since we knew that priest was dead, and the temple defiled. Jack asked if they had stated when they had been hired, and discovered they had been hired before the thieves. Nothing new was coming out of Twessol after us. Jack told the watch that the Twessol temple was out of business, so the watch could decide what to do with this lot with relative impunity. The watch was pleased to hear that, and said they'd probably put them to work in the silver mines between Resson Rade and the City of Werekind.
By the time we rendezvoused at our building, it was too late in the day to travel to Radeport before everything closed. We decided to pack and make it an early night and start before dawn the next day, to ensure our arrival in Radeport with plenty of time for research before heading south. We cleaned up before dinner, and while I was drying off after a quick bath, I heard a shriek from Astrea's room. I went running, and found her holding a mirror in her left hand, touching her nose and cheek with her right hand. At first, I thought she was startled that she had a reflection, but Astrea said don't be a ninny, of course vampires have reflections. How could they possibly dress so well, otherwise? I hadn't thought about it in those terms, so I asked her what was the problem. She indicated her face, which was peeling from overexposure to the sun. She asked me if she was dying. I reassured her, saying that when one hasn't been out in the sun, and then is, especially at midday and without a hat, sunburn is a typical outcome. I told her it would itch and peel, and eventually darken to a tan, after being red for a while. I advised a hat with a wide brim, and said I thought Rushi had a salve that would reduce the itching.
Astrea then burst into tears. I sat down on the bed with her, and held her shoulders while she cried herself out. I asked what the problem was now, explaining as best I could that sunburn would go away, and with proper care would not return, and would leave no permanent damage. I said some people thought a tan looked very attractive. That made things worse. She was concerned about her family. I did not understand why, until she told me she had not been made a vampire, but was one from birth. Everyone in her family was a vampire, and they prided themselves on their clear, pale skin. How was she going to explain a tan to them? They would be devastated. She would be humiliated. She could never face them again. What should she do?
I thought about that for a while, and said maybe we could get a veiled hat at the market. That, with gloves, ought to keep out enough sun for her skin to whiten again. I said that if it was very serious, we could probably return to nighttime travel, and she could always stay indoors when we went out during the day. This cheered her up some. I went back to my room to finish getting ready for dinner.
As we compared stories of the day over dinner, we concluded that mages are weird. Some are slovenly. Others keep irregular, not to say random hours. Some are shy or gruff or blunt to the point of incivility. Some are paranoid. One responded to Rushi wishing him good morning, when she entered his office, by throwing a knife at her. She was so startled, she didn't even duck. It bounced off of her protective shield about six inches in front of her, which startled her and the mage both. From this we concluded that whatever that protection was which extended from me to my friends, it was effective against physical attacks, as well as mental or psychic or spiritual. I felt that this helped explain why we were so successful against our attackers two days ago, but everyone else thought they were just unusually incompetent. The mage decided to be civil to Rushi after that, and explained his behavior as stemming from expecting someone else to come through that door. Rushi declined to ask who he would have intended to greet with a dagger thrown at the heart. We chided her for lacking even a small amount of curiosity. She defended herself by claiming she'd had no desire to stir up the mage further than he was already. He hadn't known anything worthwhile, either, other than that Tzika had ruled in the Arcanae, and he claimed she'd ruled there for a thousand years, which we knew couldn't possibly be right.
Mervish and Dervish had gone investigating together, interviewing priests at three temples who we had thought might know either about Tzika, Squiddie's powers and penchants, or both. They hadn't found up much about Tzika, but they'd spent a lot of time discussing and speculating about the capabilities and vulnerabilities of Squiddie. The priests they had talked to had enjoyed talking to two bright young orcs who took such an interest in the pantheon that they had volunteered letters of introduction to several temples in the Arcanae, and one in the City of Werekind.
Joe and I had visited magic shops and mages who specialized in protection. Most of what we found for sale in the open market was either outright fraud, or useful primarily against magical attacks based on items that could be purchased from the same vendor. We stopped by the watch on the way back to find out whether this was legal or not. Some of it was, but a lot wasn't, and we'd given the watch what information we had. They were not hopeful, saying that every time they kicked a new round out of Resson Rade, more showed up to take their place. The rest of what we found was too specialized to be of interest, or too worn to be relied on, with a single exception. We'd made an offer on that item, a girdle, and landed in a bidding war with someone else in the booth. We quit after our second offer. Joe thought they were surprised, and suspected it was a scam to bid the item up. I took a good hard look at it before I left, and described it to Joe when we were out of earshot. He got a funny look on his face, and then started laughing. A bear laughing tends to get other people laughing, and we were shortly surrounded by a roaring crowd, none of whom knew what the joke was. I still didn't know what the joke was. Joe said at dinner that, based on my description, he had realized he'd misidentified it. It was indeed an item of protection: protection against weight loss, which was loaded with several dozen disguise spells, some to disguise what the girdle was, what it was for, and some intended to disguise the wearer. It wouldn't have done any of us any good at all.
Ivan and Mauser had visited a dwarvish community not far east of Resson Rade proper. Their primary purpose was to visit a local shrine which was important to them personally, as it was devoted to the only dwarvish god that viewed love between female dwarves as a positive thing. The other dwarvish gods either ignored bonds like the one between Ivan and Mauser, did not pass judgment, or were negative. They returned late, looking exhausted, but very happy. They had no news of significance, unless you count local legend that Tzika had once had an affair with a female dwarf mage-cleric named Ezraen, one of the founders of the shrine. It did not seem relevant, other than as yet another example of the pervasiveness of legends about Tzika in the area. Astrea, who'd gotten a little drunk in an effort to drown her concerns about what her family was going to think of her, said something about the story giving new meaning to the "Tzika slept here" line we'd heard far too many times already. Fortunately, Ivan and Mauser thought that was hysterical, and stumbled upstairs giggling.
Irvish had spent the day in search of a weapon suitable for killing a god, or at least that god's high level minions. He had not found such a weapon, but he had found a wonderful new short sword. He'd traded in his own to buy it. We all looked it over, testing the edge and the temper, and agreed he'd gotten a wonderful blade, and looked forward with him to seeing it drink the blood of Squiddie's minions. We made several toasts to that effect.
Astrea and Marion had shopped for disguises, clothing, devices or spells of magical concealment that might be effective against a god. They didn't find anything either, but they did get names and addresses of shops in the Arcanae that might have something useful.
All in all, other than Ivan and Mauser having a wonderful time, Mervish and Dervish getting a chance to talk comparative theology, and Irvish finding a new weapon, it was a poor showing all around. We went to bed early, not hopeful about what we would find in Radeport the next day.
The night passed without event. We maintained a watch, leaving Astrea out as she was too drunk to be much help. As we had suspected, she had a nasty hangover the next morning, but Vira's powder (which I made a point of stocking ever since e first gave it to me) set her straight. She was chagrined to discover she was now susceptible to hangovers and headaches. I patted her on the arm, and said look on the bright side, you can look on the bright side now. How many vampires can say that? She made a face at me, but smiled and said she was enjoying the sunlight, other than having been sunburned, and she especially liked not having to worry about being hidden away before sunrise all the time.
We arrived in Radeport shortly before the shops opened, and waited at the quays on the riverside for the barge-owners to wake up and start selling fares. We got our places, and permission to load our gear and livestock, before visiting the one office and small number of shops in town. I swear that the office, which was shared by the weather-mage, Radeport's government, the port, two of the larger merchants in town and all the major guilds, was bigger on the inside than on the outside. When I asked, the clerk running the front desk shrugged and said, of course. There was no way they could store all these records any other way. I asked how it was done, and she looked at me as if I had crawled out of a hovel in the most obscure part of the land: a mix of pity, superciliousness and annoyance. A holding spell, just like on luggage, was put on each of the rooms in the building after the building was complete, but before anything had been moved in. It was more rugged, so to speak, and longer lasting than the luggage spells, but otherwise, basically, the same thing. I thanked her for the explanation, and asked for directions to the weather-mage.
The weather-mage, Michaen, turned out to know almost everything we'd laboriously discovered about Squiddie, including his former identity. He said Squiddie could indeed break into pieces, and send the individuals out independently. The distance at which they could operate was related to how many were acting independently, and the amount of power Squiddie could draw from his followers. I told him what we had read, that Squiddie was unusually subject to attacks by or on his followers. He had not been aware of it, and perked up when I told him. He pulled out several pieces of paper, and started scrawling out addresses, names and letters of introduction to his counterparts in Roneport, Wereport, Arcana Sitol and Divara Sitol, a port town south of the Arcanae. He also wrote down some numbers which he believed to represent the relationship between the number of individuals acting independently, total distance and total number of followers. He said it wasn't perfect, since sometimes Squiddie had a lot of followers, few of whom he could draw much power from, and at other times, Squiddie had only a few followers, each of whom was powerful in his or her own right. I thanked Michaen for his assistance, and told him I'd try to keep him informed of anything we learned. I asked him how he had become so knowledgeable about Squiddie. Michaen said that in this business, it pays to know your weather gods, and Squiddie counted as at least two weather gods all by himself.
No one else learned anything of significance in the other sections of the office. Ivan and Mauser had stayed out in the market, and picked up a map and directory for the Divarae. The section listing temples, shrines, high priests and priestesses, and representatives of various sects, cults and religions started with several gods listed in bold, described as banned from Artana in the north, to a place called Bolon or Bol in the south, and from the river Apha in the east, and for three days hard ride to the west. Topping the list was Squiddie under his old name, and second to last at the bottom was Squiddie under his new name. The regional governor in the Divarae, who claimed control over that entire area, and to whom Artana paid minor tribute, had a standing order out for anyone serving any god on the list, payable on presenting evidence of the person's death or capture with proof they were indeed servants one of the gods. When Jack and Leroy saw that, they immediately grabbed the directory, and started looking for rules regarding what was acceptable as evidence, and what the date on the directory was. It was about five years old, and the rules were strict. One did not need a signed, dated, notarized, written confession in the hand of the worshipper, but something very similar was required. They were disappointed, but believed that as long as the worshippers were captured mostly alive, that they could secure the needed evidence.
The barge we had secured places on departed in the late afternoon, around the time the office and some of the shops closed. We were aboard in plenty of time, after stopping for food in the market square. We traveled through the evening, and slept aboard, ariving in Wereport early the next morning.
Joe knew the weather-mage in Wereport by reputation. She was a were-bear by the name of Aureum. They hit it off so well, Joe would have stayed in Wereport while the rest of us traveled onto the City of Werekind, but for the fact that Aureum decided to take a day off and come with us to the city. While the rest of us questioned the locals, Aureum and Joe stayed in her office and talked shop, with the door closed and the shade drawn. At least, they said they talked. I was busy scarfing down a particular kind of sweet roll which was a specialty in Wereport.
Aureum had been apprenticed to Michaen for three years before taking her current position in Wereport, so we learned little new from her. Marion found some distant relatives, and went walking along a deserted part of the quays with them, looking for trouble they could bring to justice. They didn't find any. Most of the rest of us got the gear off the barge, and settled the livestock in for the trek into the City of Werekind. We weren't certain how they would react to the natives of that city. Because it wasn't full moon, we anticipated that most of the city would not be in humanoid form. Pack animals tend to be conservative and insular by nature, and do not always react well to werekind. We hoped that long association with Joe and Marion would have accustomed them to the close and constant presence of were.
We headed west late in the afternoon, arriving in the city in the evening. We had no recommendation for an inn, and there was none in this city run by a familiar hostess. Aureum suggested a place run by a were-chimp named Lazarus. She said they got a lot of were-primates visiting, so it could get a little ripe, but was clean and the food was edible by human standards, which could be hard to find except around the full moon. Lazarus was a friendly host. We thought it only fair to explain our circumstances to him, and he was gracious. He did not turn us away, but did put us in a separate building, at a lower rate, with a substantial deposit in case something happened during our stay. I thought that was sensible, if expensive for us if Squiddie sent a wave of human attackers, the way he had in Resson Rade, and wondered why Esther had not made a similar arrangement for us. Leroy said that Esther knew better than to drive away repeat business that way. I was about to respond that we weren't likely to be repeat business except possibly traveling back north, when I realized that each of our stays at inns run by one of the doubles probably counted as repeat business. Not for the first time, I wondered at the consistency of service, and quality of communication accomplished by that extended family across extended distances.
Marion, Joe and Aureum spent the night on the town, leaving the rest of us to feel a bit left out, but aware that turn about is fair play. The following day, everyone other than Marion, Joe, Aureum, and, to a lesser degree, Leroy and I, was largely unable to contribute to research within the city. Marion visited every martial arts school in the city, asking if anyone had ever gone up against Squiddie, in either incarnation, what with, and how well it had turned out. Joe, Aureum, Leroy and I made a pass through the various witches and mages in the city, with a similar set of questions, and a few more about Tzika, her rule in the Arcanae and her dealings with Squiddie. The rest of the party spent time in the reading rooms scattered throughout the city.
The City of Werekind was founded with the assistance of Tzika. Its initial settlers were the beleaguered werekind of the region ruled by the Divarae, persecuted by a number of sects, but primarily by the followers of Squiddie, in one form or another. Did Tzika found the City to make up for having assisted Squiddie, or was she still working to improve Squiddie's image by guaranteeing the survival of the werekind of the region?
Whatever her motives, Tzika, who had owned and operated mines north of Wereport and south of Resson Rade and Radeport for several decades, used the proceeds of the mines to build a market square, a building to house city offices, a series of temples to gods favorable to the were, an inn, a waste-and-water system, and the major streets of the city. Nearing the end of this massive public works project, she sold the silver mines to Resson Rade, and used the money to endow two schools and an academy for werekind, and reading rooms throughout the growing city, to be open to the public for a nominal fee, waivable on demonstration of need. A little over two hundred years later, the City of Werekind was a model city, clean, prosperous and growing at a comfortable rate. Its populace was literate and well-behaved. Many who were not werekind lived permanently in the City, a few more every year, although not growing as a percentage of the population. If the food had been better, I probably would have wanted to stay. Astrea had a great time. Cooked food was hard to find, not always well-prepared, and we had been spoiled by the cuisines of Artana, Woodven and Resson Rade. Astrea couldn't care less. She didn't like cooked food, and the wine was fine. The raw foods were fresh, flavorful, gargantuan and picked at exactly the right moment. As if that weren't enough, werekind would stop on the street, come up to her, sniff all over her, and volunteer their neck or a limb for a snack, because a vampire walking by day was such a novelty they were hoping for a scar to show their friends and family.
We returned to Wereport the following day, booking a late departure for Arcana Sitol since Joe and Aureum were showing a powerful reluctance to part. Fortunately, during our night at Lazarus', nothing untoward occurred, and we got our deposit back. We discovered little of interest in Wereport, and, after a touching good-bye to Aureum, we boarded the barge for Arcana Sitol. We arrived the following morning, and continued our investigations, after depositing our gear at an inn run by the familiar-looking Keziah, who put us up in a separate building. She did not ask for a deposit. We split up, to visit a variety of offices and shops, confident my protection would extend throughout the compact port town.
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Copyright Rebecca Allen, 1999.
Created: July 8, 2012 Updated: July 8, 2012