Chapter 11: New Beginnings
By the next evening, things seemed to have settled down for the party. They had been rather rudely woken up by the city guard in the early hours of the morning, and instructed to get the hell off the streets before they were thrown in prison. Yoshimo, as the person having inflicted the least damage to the inn, had been delegated (leader's prerogative, according to Harrian) to see if the Copper Coronet would give them a room.
Lehtinan had been disinclined to do so, and Yoshimo had the bruises to prove it.
And so, after spending an hour attempting to rouse the still-sleeping Minsc, Jaheira had taken charge, once again deciding that Harrian was in no suitable frame of mind for a command role. Indeed, the thief had still been barely recovered from the brawl the other day, without a helmet as he had been and hefty as Anomen's mace was.
So the druid had taken their squire's advice – for he was the only other in the group with some modicum of having his wits about him at that moment – and gratefully left the Slums district. News of the brawl had not yet reached the Five Flagons, and they had been more than happy to take their coin and give them five rooms indefinitely.
Despite the party's desperate need for a more solid form of income than the thousand or so gold coins they'd made from selling trinkets taken from Irenicus's dungeon, and the fact that they'd taken almost two days to do literally nothing to further their quest, it was agreed by all that they take the rest of the day to recover, so as to be on top form for whatever they would next have to deal with.
Consequentially, the party disappeared off to their separate rooms for their separate tasks – sleeping, healing, or thinking – for the duration of the remainder of the day, and it was not until the evening that they met up in the tavern of the Five Flagons for their first real meal together.
Harrian was poring over a piece of paper when the others joined him at a table near the back, but he was studying whatever it was so intently, all he managed was a grunt in reply to their greetings.
Jaheira looked at him for a moment, then reached across and took the paper from his hand. "A 'good evening' would not come amiss, you know," she murmured, her spirits a little recovered from the previous night but understandably not fully.
"I was reading that," Corias protested, but made not attempt to retrieve it. "Just making there that there are no discrepancies." The others looked at him, including Jaheira, who had made one attempt at reading the thief's handwriting then given up. Gorion had often despaired of his studies.
"A plan of action, as I mentioned yesterday," he continued, scratching at the back of his neck idly. "If we're going to make it anywhere in this city, we're going to have to be prepared and have planned solidly. Especially with the Shadow Thieves around."
"I doubt they will take kindly to your treatment of Bayle, yes," Yoshimo agreed, pulling the paper towards him once Jaheira had given up in disgust. He squinted at it. "'Get spellcaster, Find job, Talk to Cowled Wizards'?"
"I never said it was a long list," Harrian muttered defensively, the fatigue plain in his voice. "And those are our basic plans. Tomorrow, we need to ask some questions, find some more people who'll help us." He looked firmly over at Anomen. "I don't suppose you'd know where the Cowled Wizards can be found, would you?" he asked, not really expecting much of an answer.
Delryn and Yoshimo exchanged looks, before the squire answered, "the Council of Six building, in the Government District." He frowned a little, as if this was the most obvious thing on Toril.
Harrian raised an eyebrow. "So they don't… hide behind some other dominant power, using them as a front for their operations whilst they operate in secret where nobody can get to them?" he asked, the surprise clear in his voice. He was not used to this sort of thing.
"They are a legitimate power," Anomen shrugged. "You may find it hard to get to talk to somebody of any influence, and even if you do I sincerely doubt they will be disposed towards helping you… but they are easily available. If you want a spellcaster in the party, I highly recommend you get a license from them as well."
"Yoshimo mentioned that," Harrian murmured. "Pay a certain amount of money and they will allow us to have a mage who is legally entitled to cast spells within the walls of Athkatla, correct?"
Anomen winced; it was clear that the thief's phrasing of the matter did not bode well with him. "In a manner of speaking, I suppose. Officially, you have to apply and then wait until your suitability for such a license can be evaluated… but many spellcasters have been known to offer gold to, ah, speed up the process."
"And bypass an evaluation," Jaheira observed. "Only in the City of Coin."
"The system works," Yoshimo insisted, a little indignantly, although all noted Anomen did not share in the bounty hunter's assurance.
"For brigands such as yourself," the squire snapped indignantly. "The upstanding citizen in this city is taken advantage of by corrupt merchants doing deals like the Cowled Wizards' monopoly on magic. Or, at the very least, a criminal injustice is done daily by small-time operators like yourself or vast organisations such as the immoral Shadow Thieves!"
There was a long silence, during which Harrian took his piece of paper back, and Boo leapt from Minsc's shoulder onto the table. The ranger looked up cheerfully, oblivious to the tension that had settled upon them. "Boo says that everyone needs food." There was a pause, followed by an indignant squeak. "And he wants crackers."
Everyone exchanged looks, and Harrian was about to wave one of the waitresses over when there was a loud banging noise from the staircase on their heading down to the cellar. The barman had informed them that a bard troupe had taken up residence recently, but due to Harrian's low tolerance for the theatre, they had not investigated it.
A tall, cadaverous man dressed in black erupted up the stairs, a long cloak flapping behind him, and rested on the banister, panting. "I don't care how much money those plane-hoppers are paying, I did not sign up for that!" he shrieked down the staircase.
He was followed by a dwarf moving at a similarly speedy rate. "By Moradin's Hammer!" the red-haired man bellowed. "Rescuin' their tiefling be one thing, but I dinnae agree to fight bloody demons!"
A head popped up at their feet. "Are you warriors or wenches?" This third man was heavily armoured; so heavily armoured they couldn't see his face as the party watched on numbly. "It's just the one mephit…"
Just then, he let out a short, sharp yelp of pain, then disappeared from sight. There was an ear-splitting scream which came to a halt surprisingly abruptly. Patrons of the bar glanced in that direction briefly before ignoring them.
"That's it!" the man in black shrieked again. "To the hells with this city! I shall take my magical arts elsewhere, where I shall not get ripped to pieces at the drop of a hat!" He turned on his heel and swept out haughtily, cloak flapping behind him.
"Aye!" the dwarf agreed, trotting beside him. "If tha beer's good in tha north, then I be saying on ta Baldur's Gate for me adventuring!"
The odd duo stepped out, leaving a rather bemused group of adventurers behind them, all waiting for somebody to make the first step after such a veritably bizarre exchange and piece of action. There was no sound from the cellar.
Harrian raised an eyebrow at them all, then shrugged, getting to his feet and ensuring his longsword was fixed correctly to his belt. With sighs, the others joined him, and, as one, they headed down the stairs.
The body of the heavily armoured man was lying at the bottom, and by him, the body of a dust mephit. There were about five other demonic bodies littered around the stage of the playhouse, and four people picking about them desolately.
Corias took a step towards the actors before a thought struck him. He knelt by the armoured body and searched quickly for his pack. From it, he pulled a purse – which he pocketed – and a handful of scrolls. As the others looked on curiously, he shuffled through the pieces of paper, before waving one triumphantly at the others. "Thought so. Magic use license," he declared happily, putting it inside his own purse.
Anomen wore a mask of intense disgust. "You just took the belongings of a dead man," the squire murmured a little numbly.
"I did," Harrian agreed, getting to his feet. "It's not as if he's going to be needing it any more… and I doubt his friends will be back for the coin. We have rooms for another four nights from that man's purse." The thief grinned at him and patted the unhappy cleric on the shoulder before turning to the four actors.
"We heard some of the noise from the, ah… disturbance, and it sounded as if there was a situation here that could use a few extra blades?" Harrian asked brightly, folding his arms across his chest as he surveyed the four rather odd-looking performers.
One of them, a woman, stepped forwards, a broad smile on her face. "If you could help us, we would be most grateful. As you must have seen, the party we originally hired did not quite have the stomach for the situation."
"We've faced a considerable number of perils," Corias said dismissively. "Whatever it is you need us to do, I'm sure we can manage it. It seems as if all you've had to face are a handful of mephits anyway."
"There may be worse things lurking." The woman shrugged. "My name is Raelis Shae, the leader of this group of troubadours. We travels between the planes, performing our plays wherever we see fit." She pulled a small blue bauble from out of her cloak. "We do so with this portal gem. When we arrived on Toril, Haer'Dalis here –" At this, she nodded in the direction of one of the tieflings, a lanky man with blue hair who nodded sternly at them, "had the gem, but was kidnapped by a mage named Mekrath. We hired the men you saw to rescue him and the gem, which they did, but –"
"You asked them to fend off all manner of monsters that would emerge from the portal as you tried to open another, and they were… unprepared for what did attack them," Jaheira finished, looking inquisitively at the gem held by Shae.
"Precisely." The troubadour leader nodded, smiling again. "You appear to be a capable group of adventurers… could you finish what they did not? Fight off the monsters that may appear through the portal?"
Harrian looked briefly at the others, then smiled at Raelis Shae. "I don't see why not," he decided at last.