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Vurustak
Andoran
Calistril 16
4735 AR
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When the door to the hunter's lodge opens it brings with it riotous laughter and the sound of many boots on the hardwood floor. A trio of adventurers, fresh from the wilderness, saunter in like the lodge is their home. One carries a blood-stained bag over her shoulder, another is rifling through a satchel of paperwork, while a third calls out to the lodge's proprietor.
"Ivoh!" The heavily armored man yells. "Filled and finished!"
The slimmer man in chainmail behind him produces a bounty from the board, passing it to the heavily armored man while the third member of the group, a heavily-tattooed Kellid woman, lays the blood-soaked bag down on the table.
"Nine heads." She says. "I'll let you check the math if you want."
Wojech Ivoh rises from his forge, setting aside a pair of blackened tongs as he does. "I trust you," he grumbles, taking the bounty and checking it over. "Did you do the extra task?"
"Yep." The Kellid woman says. "Followed the ridge to the cave, but I don't know what you were talking about. There was nothing there. Just an empty cave."
"No signs of a fight? Bodies?" Wojech presses.
"She said there weren't nothing." The thick-necked Taldan man in the heavy armor retorts. "It was fuckin' empty. I nearly fell into the gods-damned valley tryin' to get in there."
Wojech brusquely takes a coffer box off the nearby table and shoves it into the arms of the Kellid woman. "Take your coin and go," he urges. None of the trio need any further incentive to go, happy to take the money without counting it as Wojech is paying them without checking the count of heads. They're idiots, but they're honest idiots.
On their way out, a cloaked woman slips in between them. She brushes snow off the black fabric and off of her matching beret. A wisp of blonde hair slips out from under it, surreptitiously tucked behind one ear with a gauntleted hand.
"Wojech Ivoh?"
He turns around, not having heard her enter. "Depends, who's askin'?"
Brushing her cloak open, she reveals a matte black suit of breastplate armor and the eagle pin on her sleeve. "Knight-Captain Talisa Gwynn of the Twilight Talons."
Wojech rankles at the titles, frustratedly taking a seat at the table in the middle of the lodge. "If you're here about bounties, come back tomorrow I'm closin' up."
"I'm not." Talisa says, moving to stand across the table from Wojech. "I heard you may have been the last person to see Cassius Avignone?"
The name makes Woject's stomach turn. He looks away but nods. "Aye."
"I was wondering if you might be able to tell me where he is? I received a report from him and when I had our communications officer attempt to cast a sending there was no available recipient."
Talisa doesn't make any assumptions, but there's a hint of accusation in her tone. Wojech feels it.
"I've been tryin' to answer that question for weeks." Wojech admits with a tired sigh. "Last I saw he was with a whole gaggle of people, went up into the mountains and..." He shakes his head. "I know what I saw."
Talisa sits down across from Wojech and produces a small journal from her belt. "Why don't we start there," she says, flipping it open and retrieving a short pencil from where it marks the beginning of blank pages.
"Tell me what you saw."
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Meanwhile...
Thronestep
Razmiran
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Weathered hands roll a bead of ointment over aching, swollen joints. Pale skin as thin as parchment paper is pulled taut over old bones. Dark spots blotch the old flesh. Veins stand out prominently, like tree branches viewed through oiled cloth.
Weathered hands slowly pull on long silk gloves. Those black-gloved hands lift a ceramic mask up to affix over a wrinkled face shrouded by a deep, purple hood.
With wheezing breaths, the elderly, robed man levers himself up out of his chair from his dressing table. He pauses to take a pinch of rose petals between two fingers and tucks them into the collar of his mantle.
But when he reaches the door to these candle-lit chambers, the tired old man behind a ceramic mask stands up straight and forces himself to push past the agony in his back, knees, and knuckles. He exits into a brightly lit chamber upon a raised dais where an ivory throne, flanked by flowing violet banners bearing the image of his mask, is centered.
Rows of masked acolytes cheer in his presence and drop to their knees, hands raised in the air. Razmir the Living God settles down onto his throne, gnashing his teeth against the blinding pain in his lower back.
One red-robed priest with a gold painted mask ascends the steps from the vigil floor, moving to Razmir's side. He leans in, spilling secrets from mask to mask.
"We detained a foreigner who entered the city unlawfully, your holiness." The Vision of the Fifteenth Step whispers. Razmir says nothing, but casts a tired gaze at the Vision, demanding to know why this matters to him. "He bears the scars you spoke of. Over his eye."
Razmir's grip on the arms of his throne tightens. Not from pain, but rather, anticipation.
"His name?" Razmir rasps.
The Vision looks at the crowd, then back to the Living God. "It is him." The Vision whispers.
"Balgur Geller."
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