Campaign Log: Confessions of a Forked Tongue

[coronatiger]

26th of Ratanu, year 412 (continued)

I had Yana wait outside the kitchen while I searched it. Ælios wouldn’t want anyone but me in there until we had finished with Nillet, who still lay on the kitchen table. I suspected Ælios of having brought a familiar, so I went for his chest. It wasn’t locked, but the opening mechanism was quite complex. I saw immediately how to work it, though, and had the chest open in no time. The contents of the chest reflected an extremely organized mind. I didn’t bother opening all the small containers within, I just moved them slightly aside so I could look around them for any living – or undead – creature. Nothing leapt out at me as suspicious, so I closed the chest and proceeded to go through the kitchen cupboards. There weren’t any wraiths there either.

Nynos wasn’t too pleased that Yana and I decided to search his room next, but he made no move to stop us from entering. We weren’t looking for his dirty spy secrets and we left the door open so he could watch while we searched for the intruder that had set off Wolfram’s alarm. Satisfied that Nynos wasn’t harboring a stowaway wraith, we moved on to our own room.

Korro suddenly started screaming, so we interrupted our search and dashed off to see what was happening. Xipil was standing outside Korro’s door and he tried to open it when I came running, but it was barred from the inside. Ælios opened the door and gave us a glance that asked what was wrong, as if the screaming behind him was of no concern. Ælios was blocking the view into the room, at least for someone of my diminutive stature, and I jumped impatiently to see if I could look over his shoulder. (Actually, I’m not that short for a human woman, I’m just used to comparing myself to Grogg, Wolfram and Hylda, who are all so big.) Ælios understood and stepped aside. Peering into the room, I saw no intruders, and considering Ælios’s calm, I didn’t think we were under attack. Korro was just imagining things.

Ælios asked me inside “to learn” and Wolfram tried to argue that he should be invited too, since he wanted to know about anything that had to do with spirits. Ælios reassured him that this wasn’t related to spirits at all, and I detected that he fooled even Nynos, whom I thought was quite observant when it came to deception.

I didn’t want Yana to go off on her own when there might be a wraith on board, so I signaled to her that she should remain in the hallway with the others. Ælios closed the door and barred it. I glanced at the physician, wondering why he found it necessary to bar the door. I suppose he didn’t want Nynos to waltz in and see him doing anything he shouldn’t. Nynos had instructed him to stay away from the supernatural, and although he had to suspect that Ælios wasn’t following orders in that regard, he could claim ignorance as long as he didn’t witness anything personally.

Korro was tossing and turning on the bed, so the blanket that partially covered him didn’t hide the new bandage on his left arm. Before I could ask about it, Ælios had me tell what I knew about the patient. I said his soul had been tortured and relayed that Korro had told me I could kill him once we were away from Byblos. This prompted the question of whether Korro was a mage, which I said he wasn’t. Ælios thought it was strange that a non-mage would have a tortured soul.

Korro calmed down while Ælios and I talked, and when I asked about the bandage, Ælios said he could remove it now. I noticed a small bloodstain on the bandage, but no marks on Korro’s arm, at least not from where I stood. I assumed Ælios had punctured Korro’s skin either to inject some medicine or to draw blood. I thought Xipil might want to taste the blood, so I offered to dispose of the bandage, but Ælios said the blood was dangerous. I handed it back, saying in that case it might be best if he took care of it.

Ælios was up to something. I understood it was related to spirits when he said he wanted to get rid of Nynos for a while. Ælios had just managed to pull one over on Nynos, but that could be because Nynos didn’t want to suspect the truth. Cleverly, Ælios now presented a scheme wherein it was up to me to convince Nynos to leave. From Nynos’s behavior, I didn’t think he was allowed to relinquish control over Ælios. Letting us be alone in a locked room seemed to be at the limit of the leash Nynos gave his countryman.

On Ælios’s instructions, I went to fetch a folder from his chest. Xipil and Nynos stood outside the room, but I ignored them. Someone else might be tempted to scrutinize Nynos’s expression in an attempt to gauge his state of mind, so they could better tailor the deception to the target, but I knew that could give it away to someone as skilled as Nynos. I had a plan already, and I was confident I could adapt it on the fly, should Nynos react unfavorably. Yana, standing a little further away, got a smile though.

When I handed the folder to Ælios, he complimented that I managed to open the chest so quickly, and on my first attempt even. “Was it supposed to be difficult?” I asked coyly. Ælios considered me for a moment before opening the folder. He took out writing utensils and began to write instructions for retrieving certain objects from his office. I left the room to convince Nynos to go.

Admittance to Ælios’s office wasn’t granted lightly, and Nynos leaped at the opportunity. Ælios had warned me that Nynos wouldn’t allow anyone else to go there, so I had planned to ask Nynos to recommend “someone trustworthy”, since none of my party should leave the ship after what happened this morning, but I didn’t even get the chance before Nynos assumed the task. Nynos was surprised that Ælios would allow even him to enter his office, and asked me to have it confirmed. I turned to Ælios through the open door. “Can Nynos go to your office?” I asked. “What?! Come here!” he commanded.

I went inside and closed the door behind me, for Ælios’s body language said he wanted us to be private. I approached the physician and we conferred rapidly, keeping our voices low. Xipil might overhear if he had his ear to the door, but Nynos shouldn’t. Ælios practically confirmed his unwillingness to try to deceive Nynos personally.

I returned to my target, now armed with a dense page of instructions. The quick glance I got of the text before Ælios folded the sheet in half revealed it to be in some foreign language, but I don’t think I would have looked even if I thought I could read it. I’m not Xipil. “Ælios says you are allowed to go inside his office, but only you, and you have to follow these instructions to the letter. And I don’t think he’d appreciate it if you took advantage of a loophole in the instructions to snoop around.”

Nynos raised his voice so Grogg, Hylda and Wolfram could hear as well, and asked if anyone needed anything, now that he was going into the city. Wolfram mentioned that we still hadn’t been put in touch with the promised tailor, the one who should make winter clothes for Xipil and possibly the rest of us as well. Wolfram asked Yana if she could do the sewing if Nynos provided the fabrics and furs, but she hesitatingly informed him that she had another project in the works and wouldn’t be able to take on this task at the moment. I looked at her, but she avoided my gaze. She had promised to make me a dress, and while I was eager to see the result, it wasn’t really urgent. There was no gala or ball to give Yana a deadline, so I didn’t mind her doing that flower project of hers first. Winter was on the doorstep, though, so I would think Yana would prioritize having warm clothes ready for the cold winds to blow down from the mountains. She has been reluctant to talk about the flower project, and I’ve respected that, but now I decided we would have a discussion about it. If it was so important, I thought I should know why. Maybe it was related to her broken heirloom, which she also wouldn’t talk about. Grogg offered to sew the winter clothes, letting Yana off the hook for that task, if not for the talk I meant to have with her.