November Guided Quest: The Thankless Ground

[Skie and Avery]

Talmhaidh had it's share of port hotels, great stone buildings that were built ringing the port. They were a barrier between the rest of the city and the warehouses and shipyards, as vibrant and diverse as the merchants that filled them. Parthas' Priestess was one such building, with brilliant crystal and glass filligree along the windows and a brightly blue painted door. It was warm and inviting, the well-sealed lanterns shining with golden light on the dismal and rainy night. The storm that had locked the ships to land for two days now was beginning to die down. The roar of thunder and flash of lightning had come and gone, leaving behind a grey sky and gentle rain that refused to let go.

Within the hotel, a small crowd gathered around in the main lobby. A motley assortment of travelers were ringing the room, broken in their circle by the plush velvet chairs and coffee tables that had been smartly arranged before the hearth. They were headed by a tall Draconian. He sneered, a set of imposing teeth flashing from between his dark and leathery lips. As he crossed his arms in front of him, a suspicious eye was cast to those in the room. His back had been turned for but a moment, pouring a drink. In a matter of moments, there was a flash brighter and hotter than any lightning strike across the stormy sea and now a human man lay dead in his tavern.

The victim had been no one of note, a simple merchant from Fallien who was a crewman of one of the ships in the harbor. He had no wealth on him, no information of use. The wares he'd helped to bring ashore had been sold, and he'd received a meager pittance for shore leave and was left to find a cold drink and warm bed until they could once again return to the sea. There'd been no apparent rhyme or reason in his murder.

As the group stared at his corpse, and the Draconian - who was only known to patrons as Mac - called for one of the cooks in the back to run and report the death, a strange glow began to emanate from the body before them. The crystal dagger, a deep amethyst in color, disappeared from where it had been standing from the chest of the lifeless mariner. It left behind the gaping wound, red flesh glaring from the tear in skin, and so much blood.

At the same time, a curse came from the front door. The cook, a lanky Draconian child with a grim face, was yanking at the handle, jiggling it so ferociously that it might rip right out of the old oak door. "Door's stuck!" he finally croaked, frazzled by the turn of the events.


Welcome to the November Guided Quest! A PM has been sent to the murderer. You have free reign of NPCs (including Mac) and the entire hotel. The only thing I ask is that you do not find a way to escape the building - yet. I will notify the group when you are allowed to take the quest outside of the hotel. Enjoy!

[Ags]

This particular fairy princess had devised a crafty way of mapping much of Althanas through little effort: she snuck onto all the ships at port in Fallien where she'd begun her adventures in this new world, effectively adding them to her inventory of doorway portals, and subsequently checked in on them regularly in their travels. Some didn't make it far, resulting in disappointing trips several miles down the coastline, and one had even sunk, a tale which she would prefer to forget, but a few made it to other regions, and from there she continued linking to other vessels. In a matter of a few short months she'd crafted a vast web of connections all over Althanas, and at this point it was easy as pie to travel from Corone to Salvar to Fallien at a whim.

The newest addition to her regions at disposal was Dheathain, a delightfully peculiar place which she wished to get to know as intimately as possible as long as her attention span allowed. Upon her ceremonious arrival to Talmhaidh –– i.e. poking her head out from the pantry of a merchant ship to the surprise of an unsuspecting seaman, then taking her leave as politely and inconspicuously as possible –– she set sights on the town's offering of hotels, assuming this was where she could immerse herself in a most interesting crowd.

Ags set up shop at the Parthas' Priestess with the inkling of intrigue. However, she preferred her own accommodations, so instead of renting a room, she borrowed the door to a broom closet from whence she accessed her personal space elsewhere as needed. But in all other aspects she was just as much a guest at the hotel as any other and had been a regular fixture in the public areas of the establishment over the past day or so, so when this fellow dropped dead, she was already present. The fairy had gone down to the lobby in search of tea and casual conversation, bedecked in a white toga-inspired number that was artfully draped and intricately fastened with intricate clasps. Over that was an ornately woven shawl in the brightest of reds, gold fringe blending with her long blonde hair.

In the horrific silence following the flash of light and quick discovery of the body, Ags wasn't quite sure what to do with herself; hailing from a backwards fairy world of sorts she was used to all sorts of grim pranks and, for a moment, supposed this may be a party trick the hotel arranged to liven the doldrums of cabin fever brought on by the storm. She raised her hands to clap, but when the cook panicked at the door and everyone else remained so dreadfully serious, she thought twice of that reaction and crossed her arms primly over her chest.

"The door is stuck? Really?" The fairy pondered aloud with an urgency that might be construed as mirrored anxiety, then strolled up to the closest door –– not, in fact, an external one, but one which led to the hotel office –– and attempted to open it just a crack to peek inside, shielding its contents unless someone cared to follow. This would perhaps appear silly to the others in the room, but she was checking to see if her ability still functioned with this twist of events. First she would have it open to the broom closet within the building, then if that worked, would attempt to open it to her room back home. Any limitations would force her to rough it, not the most attractive prospect, but it would make the remainder of her stay a great deal more interesting.

[Hydriatus]

Vultha stifled a yawn as he stretched out his wings, flapping them lazily once before folding them back to himself. He was perched on top of the chandelier in the lobby, keeping an eye on everything occurring below. The small dragon had come to this place as part of his tour of the land, the scholars of Drakengard being only too happy to help him learn about this new world.

He had chosen the Parthas' Priestess due to it's owner being a Draconian and therefore probably more tolerant of his antics and very existence than other proprietors in the region. He had not done much exploring yet, mostly content to remain in the building and watch over those coming and going. He mostly kept to the shadows, his favored haunt as a shadow dragon, out of sight of anyone who may have been startled by his appearance. Dragons were still somewhat distrusted, especially ones as bold as him. To be so casually staying in an establishment such as this.

And now a murder. How fun. Another mystery or petty squabble his path crossed. He carefully studied those gathered, mentally noting with some idleness who could and could not be a potential suspect. At this point, everyone. Including the fairly off lady with golden hair checking the doors. She struck him as the more manipulative type though, not the kind to kill someone - but definitively the kind to hire someone to do it. Still...he had encountered enough illusionists to doubt what he saw. The shadow dragon clung to the chandelier as he moved over it and clung on as he hung upside down, studying the body. It seemed real, but he would have to check it much more thoroughly to be sure.

Vultha sighed, leaping across to the top of the large display showing off random little trinkets from across the surrounding region as well as a map showing the area to aid travelers staying here in finding their way around. Everyone seemed to preoccupied with the body to worry about him, so the small dragon slithered carefully over to the lobby counter, where the guest book was. He could hear them muttering amongst themselves. Name...name...Mac seemed to know the man, but then again he knew the name of everyone who stayed under his roof. Vultha dropped behind the counter, his head snaking about searching for the guest ledger.

A slight grin formed as he located the tome, still open. Time to investigate the full details of this merchant...

[Tinker Kid]

Raime had seen a lot of things. Well. Not that many things. But a not insubstantial number of things, all told. This included vast storms, travelers' inns and their ilk, and eccentric women with inordinate interest in cleaning supplies. It even included murder. It did not, however, include mysterious murders, nor glowing, magical, disappearing crystal daggers. That was magic for you. Complicates everything. The windows rattled in the storm, loud, jarring.

"This is bad," he said, and if that wasn't helpful, well, at least it was sincere. Blood glistened on the dark, polished wood in an expanding pool around the poor old man. He looked... rather dead, but what the hell was he going to do, let him bleed out, if he is still alive? He marched across the room in four quick strides, pulling off his oil-stained gloves as he went, and dropped to a knee beside the body. He pressed one hand to the wound, trying to stanch the flow of that vital fluid; with the other he reached for the man's shoulder, his cheek... something. For the merchant, for there to be more than meat before him. It wasn't promising. With a calm he didn't feel, he glanced at the strange little woman, "I would imagine the mops can wait until he's actually cold, Miss. But if you would be so kind, perhaps you could bring over some linens before all his blood is on the outside?"

His hands were shaking. Raime had arrived two days previous, following the "journey" part of "journeyman". He liked the idea of Dheathain, of a world waiting to be uncovered, and he liked Talmhaidh. It had that frenetic pace and vague, undirected hostility to anyone and everyone (especially everyone!) that reminded him of home. He could feel the blood seeping into his clean linen pants. It was sticky. He knew his heart was hammering in his chest, but it was all so far away. What were the odds? He had walked into Parthas' Priestess exclusively on alliterative appeal. There were dozens of hotels. This one wasn't close to the little steam bellied galley he rode in on. So why was he here, soaking in the blood of a particularly unlikable merchant, whose sunken gaze had tried to glare him into non-existence day after day, in the small cabin they had shared on the voyage to this steaming, storming place... and why the hell couldn't he remember the man's name? He hated himself for it, and a bit deeper down, he wondered...

Was this his fault?

[Ags]

It appeared that Ags' abilities were limited to the inside of the hotel; she could open the door to any place within the establishment that she wished, but to access her room or the outside was impossible. This was amusing, if anything, because it meant that for the first time in her life Ags would have to rough it (as, when one has always had access to anything she reasonably needed with the turn of a doorknob, even the comforts of the hotel seemed to be akin to the wilds of this new world –– what would she do without her elaborate, well-stocked dressing room?!).

The shock of this met her with a mix of entertainment and panic, emotions which conflicted into a most distressed expression when she looked to Raime as he addressed her. "Linens?" she repeated, the request taking a moment to process at this most tumultuous moment. "Ah, yes." She opened the door again to the supply closet upstairs and retrieved some towels, piling several of the oversized things into her arms before walking over to the corpse.

As she pressed the cloth to the merchant's oozing wound she took a good look at his face, brows furrowing in recognition. Why was this person so familiar? There was something unmistakably known about the curve of his cheekbones, the precise hue of his hair… Ags gazed intently at the dead man's face for a long moment, silently baffled. She was broke from her reverie, however, when there was a shuffling in her peripheral vision as some of the hotel staff rolled the edge of a carpet up so the far-reaching pool of blood wouldn't stain it.

"My room," Ags started, glancing up to Raime with a little frown. Suddenly she was most unsettled and felt trapped, caged in spite of her urge to fly. "I can't access my room. Where will I stay?" Apparently she didn't feel this murder mystery would be solved anytime soon, though it was taking some effort to empathize with the gravity of the situation and its contrast to the Dionysian world from whence she recently arrived. After all, in Tenger Jerhal, death was a mere inconvenience for many.