Into the city

Back at the keep, we stayed around for a few days, until Obegard received a magical summons from none other than Sorcha. I wasn't too happy to hear about that, but she talked about some siegemaster of the Nothrog who had plans to lure some of the free kingdoms into a trap. She said that the only chance we had was to find the Nothrog that was his lieutenant, and get him to tell us the weaknesses in the siegemaster's plan.

That was all well and good, but we had to head to a city over a thousand miles away. Fortunately, Obegard had a spell that allowed us to skirt the plain of shadow and travel there rapidly. Before we went, we also met up with an elf who apparently was looking for us. It turns out this elf was one of those who were warring with the elf queen, and also wasn't all that bad. We let her join with us for the time being. I don't know what her talents exactly were, but she seemed to be able to handle herself fine.

At the city, I was surprised that we weren't able to find sellers for all of our magical goods, especially since the city was quite large, and a trading city to boot. We also took time to try to find out about this siegemaster. We asked around, and by greasing the right palms, we found someone who had the information we needed. Unfortunately, our chat was disrupted by a group of drunks looking for a fight. Except that they weren't no ordinary drunks. One of them threw Durthen literally across the room. I managed to give a few of them some nasty injuries from my spiked gauntlet. The city guard soon showed up, and while normally I'd stick around and explain what happened, the city's rules were quite draconian, and I had no desire to be railroaded into whatever justice they intended to dole out. Durthen was the only one to be taken away, as the rest of us magically were transported away.

The next day I discovered that Durthen had been fined a good amount by the local judges, and he paid fines for the rest of us. I didn't too approve of that, but I guess not having to look over our shoulders the whole time here was a plus. Not long after, as we were traveling through the marketplace, a beautiful woman with what I guess a touch of celestial blood approached Obegard and handed him a package. Obegard, as usual, was awestruck at the sight of a woman, and he began acting funny. I gave him a slap on the back of his head to return him to his senses, but that was exactly when she had reached over to try to kiss him on the cheek -- not exactly what I intended. Inside the package was a note and a single coin of unknown origin. The note merely said that we should go speak to her, except that she didn't leave us where she was staying. I don't know why she would try to be cryptic. We tried to glean some information out of the coin, even going to one of Obegard's guild scholars. We discovered that it was some kind of ancient coin from the Medusan nations. That was all well and good, but it didn't get us any closer to our mysterious benefactor. Just then, Obegard also noticed that his tower pendant was missing. Did that woman also take it? I'd be surprised, since I was watching quite closely for such sleight of hand, and noticed nothing.

Even with Obegard's magic, he couldn't locate the pendant, and we resigned ourselves to a rest in the inn. Fortunately, I had insisted that we cast a defensive spell around the door first, as we were awoken in the middle of the night by an intruder. It was some sort of hybrid spider woman -- the same one that we had seen assisting the guild mage. Obegard cast a spell that managed to bring her down from the ceiling, and Durthen charged in with a furious stroke of his axe that almost split her in two. I guess any live questioning is well, out of the question.