I must admit that being in a large city like Urupa annoys me to a small degree. A false sense of security and continuity is pasted on next to every face. In the end everything must shrivel and die, from the humble shopkeeper to the majestic city. Like my father used to say: Life goes on but death comes hither; the seed grows anew but the flower must wither. Still, there is not much else they are expected to do.
The sudden memory of my father jolted me, as I still hadn’t found out what happened to him that night. I resolved to do so at the next opportunity. I wasn’t afraid that he’d died – death is the end of a path and the beginning of another. What I wanted was to know what happened, and to make sure that any dues are paid.
When in Urupa… we bought stuff, we sold stuff. I had to shod my beast of burden, else its usefulness would be short-lived. The most interesting transaction was by far Omaron’s though, where he traded most of his accumulated goods for three small bars of Orichalcum. I cannot recall whether that was the dowry he had to pay, but if not it would seem like a rather strange way to carry one’s wealth. Nevertheless Omaron is a good dwarf, and that night he held a banquet at the Mariner’s Revenge in our honour, for bringing him this far. Fed and sated, we retired with varying degrees of inebriety to our rooms. A guard was posted at the end of the corridor, due to the small treasure in Omaron’s possession.
My sleep was rudely interrupted by shouts and the sound of blades clashing. Unarmoured and unarmed I rushed outside and was greeted by the sight of Gehebu lying on the floor in a growing pool of his own blood and Ivor clutching his arm in pain. Pointing outside he shouted at me, “Run, it was Ged!”. Speeding off I realized that I’m the last in the train, Ged was already being chased by Ahmok, stark naked, and Jarl. Overhead I glimpsed Ajisha giving directions to the two. I kept trail, following the shouts along narrow streets and many turns. At one point Ged took a flight of stairs and tried to lose us among the rooftops. Ajisha proved invaluable here, keeping track of him from above when below they would have lost him. I turned a corner and saw Jarl engaged with him on a rooftop across the street. Having had time to grab only his sword, the dwarf was ill suited to match Ged, who more and more looked like a Thief adept. Then I heard moans and curses from below, and spotted Ahmok picking himself up from the ground, obviously in pain. He must have missed his mark when jumping across. I debated whether to attack from the distance or risk it, but then I realized I couldn’t linger to thread spells because Jarl would be done for. The passions must have been in a favourable mood because just when I though I wouldn’t make it across I kept from falling by means of a handhold, and dragged myself up. Rushing forward I locked onto him with my spirit grip and wounded him enough to fall unconscious. I searched and disarmed him, then tied his hands with his own belt.
Jarl knocked on the rooftop door, since we didn’t want to jump down. We had to contend with a rather agitated man, but it was to be expected given the situation. Meanwhile, given his garment-less situation, Ahmok had to do some very serious convincing to a city watch patrol, who had to escort him to the inn and get reassurances from Omaron.
On the way back to the inn Ged came to, and before I slapped him back into unconsciousness he said that if we didn’t turn him in to the city watch he’d tell us why he did it. Jarl promptly agreed, but Ged said that he’d speak in the presence of Omaron only.
We figured that the city watch would have been called to the inn, so we waited until we saw them depart and went in. Before speaking Ged looked at Omaron and said that he was to be promised to be let go in return for telling who hired him. Omaron thought for a while, then agreed. It turned out that Ged had been hired by Vistum to kill him. At this point everyone looked around, but Vistum had slipped away in the confusion. It seemed that Vistum had done some business deals with criminals. These ventures hadn’t gone as planned, and in return for leniency he had promised them half of the family business. The troll on the boat was sent by them, then, to exact some sort of payment from Vistum.
As promised, Ged was let go, stripped of everything but the clothes he was wearing. We were sure he would survive. Not all of us were happy to see him go, myself among them, but Omaron had the final say on the matter.
Needless to say the situation troubled Omaron greatly, and he realized that he must change tactics in order to reach Travar alive. In the morning he made a show of dismissing our party for failing to do our job properly. What really happened was that he ordered the caravan to go on without him, with
Our options were either the military or the trolls. Thinking that we wouldn’t have much chance of convincing a military ship to just take us where we pleased, we decided on the latter. There were two to “choose from”: No’Kar of the Mist and Kolnarol of the Crystal Queen. We approached Kolnarol, who made a show of laughing at us. Ahmok argued that we could both afford to pay the trip and make ourselves useful in case of trouble. Taking him up to his word, Kolnarol quickly told him to select an opponent from his crew, and if he could best him in unarmed combat, our passage was assured.
Ahmok picked one at randon, seeing that they all looked cast from the same mold. The fight began, and the roll was taking it easy and jovilly, as if sparring with a puppy. He was surprised though when Ahmok managed to land a couple of good blows. Still there wasn't a chance for Ahmok, who had to admit defeat. Even so Kolnarol seemed amused enough by Ahmok's grit and persistence that he agreed to grant us passage.
