When the small, wooden and stone buildings appeared atop the crest of a small hill along the old stone road, Amyie was relieved. When the sounds and smells of Targos reached her ears and nose as she neared the entrance, she was happy. When she finally made it inside the town proper, she felt at least a little bit at home.
But after about ten minutes in the bar, she was more than a little irritated. The bar's patrons were loud and rowdy, punching each other playfully and shouting stupid jokes about yetis, fish, and women across the room. More than just a few bar-goers had bumped into her - quite hard, in fact - and not a single one had offered an apology. With a sigh, she hopped up onto a barstool and irritably placed a gold coin on the table, ordering a glass of the finest wine and informing the barkeep that yes, she'd be having a room, and that she expected the best steak in the house in it when she got there. Too happy about the gold coin to make a snide comment in return to Amyie's foul manners, the barkeep simply danced away, marveling over it, and slid out a bottle of fine elven wine, procured, as he said, by simply commenting a kind elven visitor's hat. He went off on the elves' generosity, beauty, and fine smithing for a few minutes - receiving only a few grunts in return - before accepting his rich customer wasn't really listening and simply pouring the wine into the glass silently.
And Amyie wasn't listening, much more interested in the pouring bottle of wine and in the lack of energy in her limbs. She picked up the glass wordlessly and took a sip. She glanced around the bar hoping to find someone interesting to pay attention to as she drank. Unfortunately enough, as she had expected, she only saw what she had before. Drunks, farmers, fishermen, a few adventurers, and a man boasting loudly about his exploits with an angry tribe of hobgoblins, a man who told the biggest lies Amyie had heard since Gilford the Green told her he'd built a golem out of flesh, metal, and clay all in one.
A tall, slender man in a dark cloak and a big, strong man in dark robes wearing a metal necklace with a symbol on it - a holy symbol of Gond, she recalled. She watched them for a bit before noticing the telltale hum of mystical energy resonating from the cloaked man's sheathed scimitars. She rose an eyebrow at that. Most people here didn't have magical artifacts – most people here didn't even have magic – and fewer still wielded scimitars. She recognized them from her days in Calimport, but not even in Luskan, a powerful and bustling port city, did many wield such strange and exotic weapons.
Suddenly Amyie's irritation was replaced by curiosity. She looked around, noticing the majority of people all engaged in business. She glanced back over to the barkeep, who was busying himself cleaning a glass. Of course he would notice most things Amyie did, and probably wouldn't be too happy about her pulling out fairly obvious magical items and staring at strange cloaked men. She needed a distraction - and what kind of illusionist would she be, she noticed with a small smile, if she could not distract a simple-minded barkeep?
The gnome slipped a small silver whistle out of her pocket, looking it over silently so as not to gather unwanted attention. She glanced around, almost imperceptibly, and found that yes, she wasn't being watched. Taking advantage of it, she swiftly brought it to her lips and blew, hoping nobody was watching.
Thankfully, no one was, and the small whistle's dweomer was allowed to act itself out without interruption. As Amyie blew into the whistle, the sound of a man dropping a pan and cursing rang out from the kitchen - soon lost in the din off the inn's common room, of course - and the barkeep turned around to see what was going on. He walked back into the kitchen, and Amyie instantly pulled out another small item, a fine glass monacle with a thin gold frame, and put it up to her eye. She looked right in the direction of the cloaked man's scimitars.
The monacle was, of course, another magical item, that allowed its wearer to see magical enchantments and what they did. It usually even pierced through spells that attempted to hide the enchantment from sight, such as wards, making it quite a useful item - especially against other wizards.
As Amyie looked through the lens, though, she first noticed quite a simple enchantment, but strong. It was an enchantment that made the object it was cast on glow a soft blue. Boring.
The other scimitar was far more interesting, though. This one didn't appear to have a certain affect, though - it was just magical. Probably forged in some alternate plane of ice and cold, the blade would destroy any beings of fire easily, and jump at the chance to. It was strong, too, and active. She could even see it vibrating slightly in the direction of the inn's flaming hearth. She grinned at that.
The interested gnome wizard was drawn from her thoughts by the sound of footsteps as the barkeep returned, scratching his head , probably wondering about what he had heard previously. There had been no fallen pots or pans, no matter how much he'd insisted to the cooks that he had heard it.
Amyie finished her wine with a large gulp and put the glass down. She nodded to the barkeep and informed him she was going to go up to her room now. He nodded back and told her the steak would be right out. Smiling with the thought of a warm meal and a warm bed away from the cold, windy tundra, Amyie went right up to bed.