npc inbox: sa-hareth + stairs of sighs

[groundrules]

NPC INBOX: SA-HARETH

Reach out to your (not-so-)favourite NPC here, putting their name in the comment header. Try to keep it to just quick text/audio/written exchanges or inquiries that can accept summarised answers, please!

CURRENTLY WITH THE PARTY

	THE MERCHANT username: raven master The patron saint of etiquette and the eastbound getaway expedition. Seems to largely trade information alongside wares. Appreciates spices, strategy and collaboration. Has an eerie and overly cautious manner. Committed. Defends the benefit of the many, to the detriment of the few.
	KARSA username: lady of the willow tree Sorceress, young (?). Employed by the Merchant and deferential to him. Talented but fiery and frequently impatient, intolerant of fools. She will get today's job done yesterday. Struggles to sympathise with men, objections and those who cannot absorb information quickly. Enchanted the group's translation devices.
	ASGEIRR The ghost of a scholar monk. Haunts the tattered execution cloak that the party stole from the La Rea bank in Sa-Hareth. Once a champion of equality and freedom, he faced ire for converting his followers against the regionally profitable trade of slavery. Soft-spoken but wise and just, slow to regain his strength. Will speak to those who visit his cloak in brief interludes. Favours necromancers.
	MAZYAR Charlatan, crook or wise man, Mazyar has worn all the names. Once an exceptionally skilled smuggler, now an equally apt tradesman and caravan master, allied with the Merchant. Less cryptic than his 'associate,' if more prone to riddles and keen on items with value.
	GHOST ARMY OF ARHA A maudlin, marauding and eerily fixated army led by the young lord Arha through the Stairs of Sighs. They seek to rescue Arha's oracle lover Hatisse from Taravast.
	OUHRSSON Guys, it's a bear.

SA-HARETH

	"HALTHAM" | ANURR username: Haltham | illiterate The undead warlord Anurr, previously posing as gentle-mannered giant Haltham. An embodiment of Sa-Hareth's cold storms and wind, who regained his territory from contender Unhalad with the inadvertent help of the party in Arc I. Frostily rational and amenable to some negotiation.
	THE (NOT-SO) GOOD PEOPLE From distressed locals to busy-bee merchants, guards, enchanters, tradesmen, politicians and looser-tongued courtesans — never underestimate the value of indiscretion in a citadel built on commerce, rumour and stubbornly choosing to ignore the expanding rule of the undead. Not every piece of gossip or legend's worth your time, but beggars can't be choosers.

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Comments

[darkeststars]

With another dry glance, Archeval obligingly scoots his paper pile a bit more together to one side so there's more room for Wuxian to find a perch. Though they haven't interacted too much yet outside getting work done for the group, Wuxian certainly seems like the free-spirited type so far. He's no Sith, of course, but it's still an odd personality to find in someone whose power Arche recognizes as akin to his own; most Dark Side practitioners in his experience are dour and nasty types, rarely trustworthy and certainly not given to...whimsy. There's only one fellow Sith Arche can think of that he might have called a playful type -- certainly not himself...but there's plenty enough ghosts already out here on the Sa-Hareth outskirts without dredging up that one again so soon.

Before he can get lost in his train of thought too much, he reaches over for the booze with a dry look, not hesitating to open it up and give the contents a sniff.

"My thanks. I rather feel this is the sort of situation that always calls for spiking the drinks," he declares in a drawl, raising the open flask in a brief toast to Wuxian before he pours himself a good portion right into his half-full cup. He nudges the flask back in Wuxian's direction once he's closed it again, before reaching for the little note in turn.

"...hm. Well, you'll have to give me a moment. How did you end up with this, exactly? I'd think Tamaiu would be well aware most of us don't speak the local tongue, so for her to send along something that could only be conveyed in writing--..."

He purses his lips with a tense, thoughtful look at that, already caught up in poring over the few words scribbled across the paper.

[weifinder]

"Spiking? Not sure I understand the word, but drinking, that I do." He lifts the flask, tipping it to Archeval in what would be a semi-proper showing, before he opens the flask and takes a drink. It's decent enough, but nostalgia says it's nothing like the best he's had, while also much better than the worst.

He swallows, humming at his companion's words. "She's trusting ingenuity, and it's important enough this was said in a way ears can't hear." He taps the gemstone translator that hangs off his waistband, currently sitting in his lap. The network.

"Worst comes to worse, it's the local language—there are people enough I know in our very tense citadel south of here that I could get to translate, either on a whimsy or for a fee. The tipsy ones would find it funny, forget about it before morning as we're waiting for the port to re-open."

[darkeststars]

"Mm, it would be just our luck if this was the one time they didn't forget," Arche observes a little absently, still squinting down at the paper. He stops to take a generous sip of booze-spiked tea as he reaches over for a pencil.

"Well -- I've certainly had worse on this rock."

He notes his opinion wryly as he starts to scribble, scratching out some more of those unfamiliar glyphs beneath Tamaiu's writing with a thoughtful frown.

('Spiking' goes unexplained for now; the vagaries of these quartz translators are just impossible to work through sometimes. What he wouldn't give for just one protocol droid hanging around.)

"I think I can manage, though, it's short enough. But... if I have this correctly... No, let me look at it again, maybe I've read it wrong. It's only that it doesn't quite make sense. Or perhaps she was doing her best to be cryptic, since she's obviously concerned about whose eyes this reaches."

He underlines some of the glyphs he's written, frowns at them, draws a few arrows back and forth before finally reciting slowly:

"The man you trust...was...six years...not among us. That seems about right, I think, or the best I can figure. I can only hope it makes a lick of sense through three different layers of translation," he observes in that wry drawl.

[weifinder]

He smiles, brief and wry, before humming to himself and crossing his arms over his chest. "Sense in its own way," he says. "Aimed at me, saying the man I trust... aimed at us, the assumption of the man we trust? My first guess would be our hidden merchant going about by the Raven call, for nothing else than how he's been pulling strings and promising ways out of the citadel. Merchants given to travel, disappearing for years, coming back... but why now, if that's the case, and what kind of warning is it."

Another pause, and he uncrosses his arms to rub at the side of his nose. "I suppose we've a limited number of people here we're dealing with... Haltham, Karsa, the Madam, and Master Raven, two of them men, as far as I know. Haltham works the mines, as of yet I haven't heard of him having left. Master Raven, on the other hand, is by profession one who does." Another, longer pause. "So why now? What tipped him off to knowing Unhalad's forces had both taken over the citadel, and were summoning people from other worlds to absorb their powers? Anurr held that time before, did they never do the same, or was it only an issue because of the change in who holds the local power structures?"

[darkeststars]

Arche sets down his pencil to wrap both hands around his cup, taking a long sip again as he continues to frown thoughtfully at the note and his translation.

"I would say that none of us precisely trusts that merchant, and being a simple laborer has never precluded anyone from harboring backstabbing ambitions... but on the other hand, were the lady referring to Haltham I've no idea why she would feel the need for such secrecy. That certainly does seem to point the finger in just one direction."

He slowly taps one finger against the side of his cup.

"The man certainly has been... very cagey in terms of what he, specifically, expects to get out of this venture. I question the intentions of someone who, given the opportunity to keep information from us, has withheld absolutely every tiny scrap he possibly could. If he was the one gone for six years...does that mean he returned to the city just in time for this conflict to happen, as though this was his whole reason for coming...?"

The Sith muses this aloud for a moment before pausing to sip some more boozy tea, cocking his head to one side a little, lips dubiously pursed.

"If she was willing to give you this much, albeit in such a cautious fashion... I wonder if that signals a willingness to -- talk further on the subject."

[weifinder]

Alcohol was a balm that either was going to take his mind off everything, or given recent trends, land him in more troubles than he already had. He still drank, listening to Archeval and thinking over the possibilities.

"With some means of proper privacy, I wouldn't be entirely surprised, but to what degree does she trust us? To whatever degree she felt necessary to warn me, and through me anyone I spoke to, that this man I trust was gone for six years."

As a man who had been gone for sixteen, he finds it a touch darkly amusing to have been given that message.

"She may be receptive to any message likewise delivered with another gift, or some kind of silence warding... a talisman set to encompass a room, perhaps."

[darkeststars]

"If I were able to speak with her in person, I can, hmm, sometimes encourage others to reveal information," muses Archeval with a thoughtful hum, tapping a finger against the side of his cup a bit as he sits back in contemplation.

"But sadly I don't expect she has any particular reason to want to speak with yours truly." The opposite if anything -- he hasn't been turned away from the House of Dew's doors since apparently endearing himself to the Merchant, but during the brief period he was on the outs he certainly didn't exactly take the bouncers' nos for an answer. "And I suppose anyone showing up bodily at the House for prying eyes to see might overly tip our hand. Hmm... a conundrum."

He sips some more of his drink with a thoughtful frown again.

"Well... if we assume this is all that we are getting for now. Someone left the city for six years, and conveniently returns just as the situation here seems to grow the most perilous, where wisdom would surely say to head in the opposite direction. Certainly... they have to be directly involved somehow. There's no reason to run toward a brewing conflict if you have nothing to gain from it. Well, pure altruism, I suppose, but--" He gives a contemptuous snort at his own words; it certainly goes without saying that those are not the Merchant's motivations.

"Seems to me you've collected one puzzle piece, Wei Wuxian, but finding out how it fits in with the others might require wider consultation."

[weifinder]

"Which is going to go as well as one might guess," he says with a wry smile, taking a drink of the alcohol again. It doesn't spill everywhere, the best indication he's not at a particularly low or particularly happy point.

"We don't have the papers to travel alone, or the maps right now to inform us. If we don't know where the gateways that let people be summoned are, we can hardly try using them to go home, and we rely on this world's magics to even fully understand each other."

Another tap to his quartz, thoughtful.

"Beyond sending her another response thanking her for the wine, saying it helped my spirits soar, but I'll make sure to keep an eye out for everything else on wing with the tensions, no worries, no worries, I don't think bothering her will help. She's already done what she needn't, and whomever it ends up warning for in the end—the last thing I'm surprised by anymore is being sold out."