Weathermistress Ada approached Jaheira and Edwin, staring imperiously and folding her arms.
"Let me do the talking," Jaheira whispered.
"Chaos prevail!" the Weathermistress said, her voice rasping like a scraping sandstone, her headdress gently clinking. "Do you require the services of Talos?"
"Actually, we were hoping to strike a deal," Edwin said, ignoring Jaheira. "The Shadow Thieves wish to send you a message."
"Do they, now?" The light in her dark eyes flared with anger. "I could have you split from stem to stern for that."
Behind her, one of the guards pulled himself up a little taller. Jaheira's hand strayed down her staff. Long years of battle had taught her where to place the first strike, but she was sorely tempted to lay it upon her companion instead this time around.
"You have a bold mouth, wizard," the Weathermistress said. "You try Talos's patience. I told the last group that we had no money to pay the protection fee."
"I am aware of that. But Mae'Var will revoke the temple's debts if you hand over your necklace," Edwin said.
The Weathermistress thoughtfully stroked her creased, hard chin, the anger in her eyes slowly getting replaced with a kind of wild thoughtfulness. "An unusually lenient offer. I may accept if you do one small favor for me."
"I swear, when you next speak out of turn," Jaheira said, her voice sharp, "I will be much less tolerant. You have my word on that."
They were making their way further west, towards some nondescript information broker's office, a message from Weathermistress Ada in hand.
"Bah, you simply fail to acknowledge my brilliance," Edwin said. "My own skin is what matters here, and I've better things to do than getting flayed alive by some addled celebrants. I simply took the path of least resistance, as it were. So let us pass along the message from the Weathermistress and have done with it."
"Be that as it may, you refused to lay your perfectly manicured hands upon this note, and so I carry it." She held up the missive. "We take a detour first."
She abruptly turned aside into an alley, a small, tunnel-like way shielded from light by a series of wooden roofs. She stopped in front of a bare and seemingly abandoned stable, its only furnishing a small, weather-beaten table. Edwin, who was not as quick, had to take a moment to assess where she was going and follow her down.
"Are you mad?" he sputtered. "The Talassan priestess would have our heads if the message was tampered with!"
"It may have a postscript that instructs the recipient to kill the messenger. I would not put it past them, and so I will open it. But if you insist on being particular, Thayvian, you can deliver it yourself."
"Oh, very well." But then he muttered under his breath: "Suspicious for a mere monkey."
"If you wish to make yourself useful," Jaheira said, "then cast a spell to discover any traces of magic upon this note."
Edwin said, "I doubt these thud-and-blunderers have the intellectual capacity for such subtlety, but if it will cease your prattling…"
Jaheira held up the sealed note. Edwin turned his hands in a simple ring, then chanted, "Scio, didici, pecto."
To both their surprise, the note briefly glowed with a soft white aura.
Edwin studied it for a moment, then said, "I hardly expect you to understand such subtleties…but there seem to be two spells on this note: an abjuration and a divination. One places a ward on the seal, and the second alerts the sender if any but the intended recipient breaks the seal. A familiar pair of cantrips; those incompetents in the Cowled Wizards stamp every missive with it. Give it here."
He took the note into his hand, and his heavy eyelids fluttered closed for a moment. Then, with the other hand, he made a series of complicated gestures and then spoke the words of power: "Manus, potentis, paro."
"There," he said. "That is dealt with. Now, about the seal—"
"Let me handle this," Jaheira said, snatching the note back with one hand.
She pulled out a small, thin knife, a match, a lamp, some oil, and her whetstone from the small pack she carried and placed them on the table. She filled the small lamp, then struck the match against the whetstone, watching for any sparks that might go astray. The small flame merrily grew and danced, and she lit the lamp. She held the knife over the flame, moving the blade forth and back to heat it evenly.
"A jackanape's trick, I presume," Edwin said.
Jaheira refused to rise to his bait this time. She pressed the flat of the knife against the back of her hand. It was just hot enough.
Carefully, she slipped the knife under the wax as though she were shaving the icing from a cake. The knife's warmth separated the wax from the paper, and with one motion, she lifted the seal upon the flat of the knife, whole and unbroken.
She set the seal and knife aside, opened the note, and began to read:
"Kestrel,
I propose a spell, heightened in power when we Call Down the Thunder in four days; it should provide the impetus in the Slums you need. But you must be confident that you can harness it for your purposes.
Glory to Talos,
Ada."
She folded the note along its creases. For a long moment, neither of them said a word, and Jaheira started gently re-warming the seal as she hovered the wax over the lamp.
"What sort of power can the Talassans wield, I wonder?" Edwin asked. To Jaheira's disgust, he seemed fascinated by the concept rather than horrified.
"Perhaps they control the storm in some way. Maybe it has to do with those gears," she said, as she gently laid down on the seal back onto the paper and pressed it in the exact spot it had been before.
She surveyed the letter, now re-sealed with no indication of ever being opened. It had been some time since she'd put a subtler skill set to use. This wasn't how she preferred to work. But when she had a mind, she could do it well.
And now, the knowledge gained through such means might avert catastrophe. Whoever this "Kestrel" was, they were playing with fire. The Talassans had only two goals: advancement of their god's worship and wanton destruction, not necessarily in that order.
"Perhaps we ought to alert Mae'Var," she said, "but I will certainly take this information back to my people after turning that necklace in."
"Whatever this spell is," Edwin said, "it must contain immense energies if a storm powers it."
"I would not get too attached to the idea of it if I were you," Jaheira said. "Our only purpose in intervening will likely be to break it."
"As long as I get a glimpse, it will be sufficient to sate my curiosity."
"I will believe it when I see it, Thayvian."