The morning in Limen dawns cool and grey with cloud and fog this later Lamashan morning, and the light stays wan even as the mist slowly dissipates, bursts of scattered showers intermittently spitting down cold from the heavens above. Fortunately, the common room of the Martyred Manticore – the best place in town for a traveller to hire a room and a place at the board, as the staff proudly maintain – is bright and cozy nonetheless. In the drizzly late morning, the inn is even quieter than the streets outside: apart from a few farmers and foresters indulging in a more relaxed start back home or into the woods after transacting some business in town, and a handful of travellers (some rougher-looking than others) heading up or down Rostland way, only a barmaid and the landlady, Agatha are around, wrapping up a covered dish destined for a poor soul that needs it, since no brownie or other good neighbour helped themselves overnight.
Through the windows of the inn, passers-by that can no longer put off needing to brave the weather can occasionally be seen: scholars and civil servants on their way to the library or to the town hall, workers heading to the curtain wall slowly being built around the city, or to any number of businesses, and of all backgrounds. Elves, whether the more bookish, clerical sorts or the wilder resettling from further south in the Narlmarches, rub shoulders with half-orcs as well as humans and gnomes, kobolds from the Sootscale tribe, and even one or two wary lizardfolk traders from downriver, looking somewhat grumpy as the year turns relentlessly to the cold seasons.
You suspect there might be more to it than that, since she’s insisted on establishing a series of code phrases, although maybe that’s the Daggermark paranoia showing. Things like, “The hawk is unhooded,” or “The path is clear for the well-prepared traveller,” or “Even the shallowest ford is slippery footing.”
The rumours say that Lady Hyalinnea has spent some time with the Poisoners’ Guild, though you’d guess it was too recently for her to be much help with your personal investigations into what happened that the sister guild betrayed your mother. Still, if the occasionally alarming gardens that even a weary (but knowledgeable) traveller would notice on their way into Limen are anything to go by, and the town’s much more welcoming air than some parts of the River Kingdoms you’ve seen, she’s rather open, and might at least have some insight on recent guild and herbalistic developments.
First things first, though, and you’ll have to see if Ulisha’s up, because she doesn’t seem to have surfaced yet, and it’s getting late.
The trick is getting introduced to the movers and shakers here. It’s a small town, and the council seems to be alarmingly accessible, but that doesn’t seem to extend to, well, extended interactions with those not already of their circle, necessarily. You’re putting in the work to get to know the locals that might provide an in, or at least a chance of running into the right sort of person: the herb and spell component dealers, along with those providing the prerequisites for a suitably civilized lady’s life. You haven’t run into the Lady yet, but surely it’s only a matter of time, if the proliferation of dangerous plants in gardens across Limen is anything to go by. She’s either incredibly trusting, or counting on the idea that it would be unwise to turn to herbal mischief in a town whose leaders are well-informed about the uses of plants.
It’s still all very strange, and even the clear fey influence – which would surely delight the Circle back in Gralton – isn’t enough to set you at ease. There’s something – not in the water, no, but somewhere in town that sets your teeth on edge and a shadow of painful buzzing in your ears, and it seems to get stronger the closer you get to the improbable patchwork building of the town hall, whatever that means.
As you ruminate over your plans for what’s left of the morning, in front of the fire or over a cup of something hot, there’s a loud thump and sudden draft as the wind catches the inn’s opening door. With a soft clash of armour accompanying their steps, two striking individuals enter in from the weather, a handsome, black-haired human man with stern, sharp-cut features, and, rather less confidently in his wake, a young elf woman whose blonde locks frame an unnervingly beautiful face, as if she were a doll or statue come to life.
As the locals look up and warily move towards the edges of the room as they notice the new arrivals, you remember that some of the chat in the common room last night recounted, with ghoulish relish, some sort of business in this very inn involving a werewolf running wild. It’s not that armed guests are infrequent at the Manticore, but this looks rather official.
“Good morning, Agatha,” the man says tersely with a nod to the landlady, before considering the common room and booming out, with a hint of frustration, as if to suggest that he’s wasted on but resigned to this errand, “If Ulisha the Chronicler is here, let her know that the Lady and Council of Helikia are waiting to give the audience she requested.”
Maybe a bit more than a hint.
“I haven’t seen her this morning, Kesten,” Agatha says from behind the bar, her tone pitching up and her eyes widening as she glances towards the stairs leading to the rooms on the upper storey, betraying her unease that her inn is about to see more excitement than she would like, again.