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Short update! paper due! project must be identified! Grad classes have begun! /faint!
Now that Telki had her sister and something to look forward to, the party had become bearable, even at times, enjoyable. Despite her sister's dire outlook on her dance performance, Telki knew better. Nothing was more graceful than a Wemic in dance. She'd seen Wemie dance before, when she thought no one was watching her. She might not remember her life with her tribe, but her body sure did. Maybe it was a kind of racial memory. This time, when a curious courtier came up to her, the smile was genuine.
Gideon saw Orrin setting up right where Wemie? had said he would be: next to the great hearth. Watching him set yet another instrument up, Gideon idly wondered how he transported them all, and then noticed the peculiar pack behind him: a rather large bag of holding. Gideon's lips quirked. Orrin was either a very wealthy bard, a very stealthy bard, or a well connected bard.
Turning over what little he'd heard of the bard, there was nothing to indicate he wasn't all three.
“To what do I owe this most auspicious visit from the Grimmest Brother?” The man had ears like a bat, too.
“Something tells me you already have a fair idea, since you came with the conundrum's 'sister'.”
“Ah yes, those two are fit fodder for a full cycle of songs in and of themselves. But my sources tell me none of it is fabricated: Magical users are disappearing in HuornWood, Secular and Clerical alike. My sources also tell me they aren't being kidnapped by anything natural, either. “ Orrin finally looked up from the mandolin he was tuning, and held Gideon's piercing black gaze. “that includes Drow, Gideon.”
Now, he had a quandary. Which came first? His duty to his brother, or this, more mysterious and possibly more menacing duty? What could be more menacing than Drow?
“Oh, I'm glad you came to me, I have a message for you: Blackstaff wants a meeting in the morning.”
Yep, Orrin definitely had connections in high places. Blackstaff was a law unto himself. Rumor held that he was one of the hidden lords of Waterdeep. No one was brave, or foolish, enough to ask him outright. “What time, and where, Orrin?”
“We are to present ourselves at the base of the Black Tower at nine sharp, the rest will handle itself. This includes the girls, of course.”
“Of course.”
By the time Gideon rejoined Telki, he had decided that the Drow problem looked like it would have to wait. That rankled. It literally felt like an itch he couldn't reach to scratch, and it was clawing its way inside his deepest marrow.
“What did Orrin say to cause such thunderclouds on your brow?”
“What?” Gideon pulled himself out of his musings to gaze at the pixie face at his elbow.
“That lady was coming to talk to us, and you glared at her so fiercely, she turned and ran.”
“Lady Huxley? She can run?”
“Like a rabbit through high grass.”
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