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She was napping in the woods on a Nexus of energy. Nobody bothering her. No urgent responsibilities. Trying not to let her ever-present angst get too big.
Weiss Faron knows she is troubled. Perhaps even depressed. A hero complex, or something like that.
The long details of her inner turmoil and angst could fill quite some pages, but now is perhaps not quite the time.
"Yeah, good riddance to the creep, here's to a job well done!" Oriana says, raising a toast.
"Thank you," re the cider.
"I'm just glad nothing went horribly wrong. And we rescued people! Not a bad use of an evening."
"Yeah, of protection, apparently. I wanna stack passive buffs as much as I can since I got a big payday from stuff I sold to the Abadarans that was from my last dungeon, before here. That one was a nightmare that nearly killed us all though, so, nyeh! Vavana, did you write a full list?"
"Can't have too many potions, I could take those, and I'm guessing you want the scrolls and books?" Oriana asks Vavana. "So then we sell the leftovers, add up the value of what we're each taking, and put in or take out coin from the pot until we're all square?"
"What's a traveler's anytool, actually? That sounds like it could be handy. I had a friend with something like that- Little leather satchel they could open up to show carpentry gear, or jewlers' stuff, or butchering tools, or parchment and pens..."
Vavana helpfully takes it out from the Haversack. It is a foot-long greebled iron bar.
Out from behind one of the panels on it, she pulls out a short curving blade with a circular hole in it like a cigar cutter.
"Wand-whittler," she announces, pushing it across the table to Tisharue.
Tisharue picks up the tool, frowns, then bends it in half. Out from the bent part telescopes a prong with a hook on the end.
"Borer extractor?"
She pushes it across for Weiss to inspect.
She fusses with it and produces a stand-like arrangement with a looking piece... "This'd make a passable theodolite." Hmm. Well, she still has her illusions which can become real enough to matter, at a minor energy cost. Is this thing worth that much to her, on margin? "I think I retract my interest."
"My father has one in his workshop, it's more convenient than having a separate set of tools for every craft, and cheaper once you're using half a dozen of them."
Fold, pull, twist.
"Hippogriff-talon trimmer."
And now she's made herself sad. She sends it Oriana's way to continue the game, to distract herself.
They can be Raised, Caron knows that. The greatest commandant in the history of the Sable Company brought his one back personally. But she's not going to make fourth circle within a week, or find a Limited Wish diamond in that time.
Vavana, sensing the downturn in the mood, takes out another item from the Haversack: The strange key-shaped dagger.
"Our job may not be entirely complete, you know."
"The Key-Lock Killer?"
Oriana and Caron draw in a breath of surprise.
For the benefit of the newcomers to Korvosa, Oriana lowers her voice. "The worst serial killer the city has ever seen. Broke into homes at night, murdered the occupants, dissected or vivisected them to make a grim display of their organs, leaving a shiv made from a key as a calling-card and locking up again after. A body a year starting in '91, then nine deaths in '97, then nothing. My money's on him being some kind of renegade Abadarian from the key motif and most of the victims having disputes with the arbiters.
"You think the derro was an admirer, a copycat? He couldn't have been the Killer, we've got enough tracks and witnesses to say Key-Lock was a Medium humanoid."
"I think the derro could be the student of a more powerful human necromancer, and the human is the admirer."
She taps her wand against the table for each point that she makes.
"The alchemy lab was laid out for a Medium user, a derro alchemist would need to drag a step-stool around. So were the other tables for necromantic work.
"There was an extra bedroom, one more than the derro needed, with a human-scale bed.
"None of the books in the library had been defaced by any mad Aklo scrawling, except for the ones already in Aklo.
"And our derro necromancer doesn't have Animate Dead in his spellbook, but there were animated skeletons guarding the entrance."
"Sheesh. The rot runs deep, huh. And people wonder why I avoid cities... He'll figure out his lab is compromised, I assume the Pharasmins are going to go in and purge and seal it..."
"I's too late to keep his freed captives from talking, but I have shared my suspicions with the Pharasmins. When they clear the place they'll be collecting any hair or nail clippings they find in his bedroom, so that when Bishop d'Bear has a slot and an hour free she can attempt a Scrying on him."
"...I wonder if I could pull off something complicated and abstract like a Scry with contingent illusions. The-" use local idioms to throw them off, "-Slot cost would be ruinous at any serious range..."
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