With the two gold orbs in her pocket, Ravenna, Magnus and mar’Khabazza head to merchant’s guild straight away to sell them off but find it is completely empty. They stand in the lobby perplexed by the lack of activity for a moment until a woman in an elegant gown swans into the room from an office in the back. Startled, she sizes up the trio and then introduces herself as Lady Catriona von’Indi of House Indi. She flirts brazenly with both mar’Khabazza and Magnus and ultimately agrees to dinner with Mar’Khabazza this evening in the common room of the Tempest.
Still looking to sell the gold, they walk over to the merchant’s quarter just south of Noble’s Row to find someone interested in the gold. After a bit of a search, the jeweler they find is a youngish northman named Pusellin. Upon seeing the gold orbs, he immediately recognizes them as being of Duergar make and refuses to buy them.
“The Duergar are a necessary evil in this town. Sure, their ability to locate valuable ore underground is uncanny and their engineering work is second to none, but they do be essence users and have demon blood in their veins. Or so it is said. They’ve been known to emerge from out of the earth right into folks’ basements to steal away babies and young children for their own nefarious plots. They never mix with the rest of us folk, neither. Staying away as they do in that creepy castle of theirs. Carved from a single block of stone it is. Or so they say.”
Stymied, the trio wanders south through the western part of town, looking for a public house that might host to the type of folks who might be interested in their Duergar gold. Walking south they come across the Crow Club, a sturdy well-kept four story building that stands like a bastion against the drab and densely-packed buildings of the miners quarter at the south end of Opal.
Mar’Khabazza heads into the club and spends some time looking over the patrons and their activities and manages to spot a trio of gentlemen handling business of some kind or another. He approaches them and manages to sell off the gold and the collection of salvaged jewelry , but at a steep discount.
Purse once again flush with silver, Mar’Khabazza and Ravenna head to the gaming tables, while Magnus heads to the bar to what getting drunk feels like. After losing some money Ravenna heads outside to get some air and spots the gypsy girl again, standing across the plot. This time the girl stays to briefly chat with Ravenna, introducing herself as Savinia Loresong.
She again warns about how to act “when the Slenderman comes”. Frustrated with her evasiveness, Ravenna demands to know more about her. All she says, as Mark’Khabazza and Magnus arrive, is that she “is a friend of your kind” and and says she is “with some folks who are friendly” but refuses to elaborate before slipping away into the gloom of the Opal daylight.
More confused and frustrated than anything else, they return to the Tempest to prepare for dinner with the Lady Catriona. Mar’Khabazza sends Magnus to go fetch her from her house, which is just off of Noble’s Row, and Magnus escorts her arm in arm as she shamelessly flirts with him. They arrive back at the Tempest and Mar’Khabazza charms her with tales of rough adventuring through the wild and she speaks of life among the nobility of Opal, a self-identified group of powerful merchanters, clergy and bureaucrats from the Empire. She claims House Indi to be the most powerful House in Opal and detests House Rin’ji at the top of the Row for their status and position.
Eventually she departs, stating that “the Lord von’Indi will be expecting her back.” Disappointed, Mar’Khabazza finds a dice game and the evening deteriorates into drink before the trio head upstairs to sleep it off.
May 25, 7761
The overcast, grey day brings hangovers and lethargy as the trio try to figure out what to do next. While Mar’Khabazza and Revanna toss ideas about over breakfast, Magnus heads to the bar to start daydrinking. Eventually the troupe decides to find a more permanent residence and wander out into the city to look for a house either to purchase or to squat.
They eventually find a suitable building in the merchan’ts quarter south of Noble’s Row, one near the the villa of Pusellin the Jeweler. Mar’Khabazza talkes the current residents to take a purse of silver to leave back to the heart of the Empire and they readily accept, packing to leave on the next merchant train out, three days hence.
Looking to get her recovered relics appraised and better understood, Ravenna heads to the library in the Caravan Grounds in which she eventually meets with Magister Kalendris. Together they research books of ancient arts, crafts, and artifacts old artifacts, looking to better understand the onyx chalice recovered of the Sudarr Shaman’s corpse. It turns out to be a relic of one of the old tribes originally roaming the pre-Upheaval plains of North Brilend and is a device that amplifies power received from the gods, while also being capable of turning any liquid placed in the cup into fresh drinking water.
