Of Horns and Heralds
Leilon in the daylight, with money in your pockets.
AC bought Goggles of Night. Moist bought a Moon Sickle. Ubys bought Slippers of Spider Climb and an Amulet of the Devout. KeYs and AC put their heads together over a stack of wyvern scales and started talking smith-shop for Falkor.
It was a good afternoon.
Evening came. The Dusty Gnome glowed against the dusk. A lady came down the stairs and scoffed at something small waiting by the door.
A small, hunchbacked gnome locked eyes with AC. He bowed very low.
"Hello! I am Perfinerf…"
He had been sent by the Mephisto Twins. For AC and friends.
KeYs and Ubys knew the name. Tiefling twins. Moved into a house by the ocean — the ruins of a town called Saltmarsh — shortly after the most popular tavern in town burned down.
"How soon are we needed?" AC asked.
"Shouldn't take long…" the gnome said.
You went out. The ornate coach was still there. It had been parked outside the Dusty Gnome since dawn. The horses were spectral.
You climbed in.
The coach moved fast and west and along narrow roads.
Two armored knights sat in the road ahead. "In the name of Tyr, I command you to halt." The horses jolted. They were upset.
Ubys leaned out. "What's the matter?"
The knight called the Mephistos freaks-after-the-Zariel-cult. He told you they had taken Ser Gertz and that you had until sunrise to return him or you would be presumed in league.
You looked at his colors. You did not recognize him. He was not Leilon's chapter.
Nathaniel had worn this color.
The coach kept west. The road kept narrowing. The salt smell came up.
The Mephisto house was four stories and falling apart and outside Saltmarsh proper, perched on the cliffs. Overgrown gardens. Empty animal pens. The sound of the sea.
Perfinerf showed you in.
Inside: Oriana Mephisto in a silk dress, with a deer-horn amulet at her throat. Beside her: her brother, Mordecai Mephisto — red-skinned, spade-tailed, half-hidden under a hat and a mask.
Oriana looked at AC and her eyes went soft.
"Oh — this — this is AC. I've heard so much about you…"
A bard somewhere was singing about years ago, about Ser Vindictus, an angel of Tyr, who descended into the Temple of Orcus.
Mordecai cheered.
You all heard it at the same time, in your heads, not from the room:
"Checkmate."
The Twins had a map to sell.
They had an auction to attend.
They needed protection.
You looked at the invitation lying on the coffee table. The lots:
An Egg of a Dragon God.
Weapons from the Dessarin Valley.
A book called The Whispering Reed.
You took the job.
Ubys kept the invitation. The rest of you went to look at Ser Gertz — who turned out to be a battered Half-Orc Knight of Vindictus, tied up in the basement.
Next session: a cliff, a Griffon, an oath shouted in Tyr's name, and a knife's-edge negotiation that almost goes the other way.