"A pleasure to meet you, Ruby. Come." Nelacar walks over to the counter and asks the barkeep for a room and a bath, on his tab. Then he leads the way past a back door through a corridor and out the other side, where a large tub awaits. There's a roof over it but it's otherwise open to the elements. It's already filled with water, but "Don't get in yet. I usually ask to not get heating because I can provide that myself so unless someone just used it the water will be cold." He puts a hand inside the water and starts heating it up.

Ruby watches this quietly for a bit, but then starts looking for somewhere to put the dagger and book. There's a little table over there, which seems good enough.

There isn't enough time for him to get cold again, because the water is soon hot enough the steam is fogging up the place. "Get in," says Nelacar, offering a hand to take Ruby's furs.

He gratefully goes up the wooden steps to the tub then into it, and there's just something different about getting a warm bath that just being in a warm room lacks. He grabs a scrubbing stone from a nearby shelf and starts getting rid of all the grime on his skin.

Nelacar vanishes the furs and then vanishes (what passes for) his clothes to follow Ruby in. At Ruby's questioning look he says, "You mind? I'm paying for it so might as well use it."

He shrugs. "Sure, suit yourself."

So he sits down and grabs another scrubbing stone. "So, ready to satisfy an old man's curiosity?"

"...yeah. But I don't have much. I woke up swimming. Then I wasn't swimming, and needed a fire, and I saw smoke and," grimace, "some experiment gone wrong. There was a charred circle and a burnt corpse and a campsite and," he taps the amulet, "these. Not sure what they're for but I wanted to find out who that person is and maybe give these to their family or something.

"And from there I walked here." Shrug.

"...huh. Maybe I should take you to the College." Pause. "Yisra, Ilas-Tei, Borvir, Rundi. Any of those names ring a bell?"

"...no?"

"You sure none of them is you?"

"...no but I don't think so."

"Shame. Ask for Phinis Gestor when you're there and tell him about where you found these, he'll be interested."

"I will."

They spend a few minutes in silence, but then Ruby asks, "Why are you helping me?"

The elf smiles. "It pays to be kind. People remember you later. And when strange things happen, it's always good to make yourself part of them, so that you'll know how to learn from them." Or profit from them.

"So you don't want me to pay you back?"

"If your conscience moves you to, I'm not going to refuse gold, but I see these things as investments."

"An interesting mindset."

Nelacar smiles but doesn't reply.

And Ruby finds himself in the uncomfortable position of not particularly enjoying silence but not having anything to say and not wanting to be annoying. So silence it is, and he tries to be quick and efficient with his scrubbing and soaping.

It helps that he really hates the feeling of stickiness on his skin and in his hair. By the time they're done he's pretty sure the owner will need to change the water, but presumably that's included in the price, so he tries not to mind it.

Nelacar steps out of the bath, then, and once Ruby's done the same he says, "This might burn a little," before casting a spell.

It does, in fact, burn, but not very much. The kind of burn of being put into very hot water, but not hot enough to actually cause damage.

And then he's dry. "Thank you."

"Don't mention it." He reaches into whatever magic subspace he has to grab his "clothes"—if they can even be called that, they're not concealing much—and form them around his body.

And Nelacar doesn't offer Ruby the furs again, so presumably he was the one who lent Ruby them. He grabs the book and the dagger from where he placed them and follows Nelacar back inside.