A Spindle's Story
Twenty-Sixth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC
When you reach Lys, Haldon still eyes Melisandre warily, as though he might see through some veil or disguise, a fact which she finds ever so slightly amusing to judge from the shadow of a smile upon her lips as she bows to the Flame Keeper, her ruby pendant swaying and winking like a tiny crimson eye, whether by candle light or some hint of inner radiance. "Bring me this spindle that I might know its worth," her voice is soft, but you do not mistake it for a request and neither does Haldon.
The last of the lost treasures of the fey is a thing of flowing gold and half glimpsed shapes filled with a light that does not reveal but rather veils like an image seen in rippling water. To eyes that see the threads of sorcery, it is brighter still but no more clear. A subtle desire to hold it, to possess it comes over you almost too faint to be called enchantment... almost. You wonder how strongly Lys' last archon was ensnared by it.
"No gift of the Lord of Light this, but the trickery of petty spirits," the priestess proclaims eyes closed, her inner gaze upon some distant sight. "The one called the Hooded Lord did not mean for this to happen. He is not knowingly your foe, King Viserys, though he might yet be as dawn turns to noon and noon turns to dusk. No fiends are there where goblins walk, no spirits clad in tainted brass. Yet servants of the false flame Ymeri and others crowned in fading starlight, all those dance under witch moon and false sun." Her eyes open with a weary sigh, hands going to her temples. "It was like trying to catch fireflies through evening mist in Braavos... something was veiling my sight."
"You know Braavos my lady?" you ask curiously. You can't imagine someone well traveled to not have at least passed through the city once or twice, but the expression is not so common in the Secret City that one would catch it upon sailor's lips in passing.
"I know most places one would think to visit and many that one should probably avoid," she shakes her head as though to dispel some memory your words had conjured. "Come, we must speak to the bones of the dead widow to learn of her lying visitation. There are bones, are there not, Holy One?" she asks turning to Haldon, her imperious tone a contrast with her words.
"Aemie has been burned in accordance to her will," the priest replied. "Is it truly necessary to trouble the dead?"
"The dead are at peace in the Halls of the Lord of light where no sorrow dwells," Melisandre replies, her expression softening somewhat. "It is the living who are yet troubled by the evidence of the crude vestment of flesh those souls no longer need. I'm going to need some time to restore the bones so that we may hear her tale..."
"No need, I can use wishcraft," you interject, making a mental note to ask her how she would have restored the ashes when time is less pressing.
"Ah... good." The priestess seems as surprised as she is pleased, perhaps still not wholly accustomed to others' magics bar her own.
The four of you walk in silence to the reliquary below the temple to find the urn set at a place of high honor by Haldon with the old woman's passing. There is likely more gold encasing it than she had seen in all her life as a slave... and all of it for some hollow lie, some fey plot. Willing the anger away with the skill of long practice, you summon the ashes forth and bid them speak, for the miracle she had witnessed and the light she had seen.
"I saw the garden... bright flowers under the summer sun... and the sun spoke..." The voice beyond death replies.
"What garden? What sun?" you press.
"The garden from when I was a girl and could still see. It was just like I remembered it, but the Lord of Light was there and he said to me that I did not deserve to have my old bones in the cold and darkness, my hands picking at dirty threads. I would spin gold..."
"So we are dealing with something that can both see her memories and spin false dreams into her waking mind," you muse. "A skilled mage, if it was not some great spirit," you only just keep yourself from saying god, more for Haldon and Thorros' sake than Melisandre's. She is deep in thought herself.
"To project such a vision, a mage would need to be close at hand while a mighty fey spirit would need some token or other connection. It might be worth investigating the place this all began."
"She used to work for Yorvik the Tailor on Swan Street," Haldon interjected. "The man has a habit of sweeping up the desperate and starving to do work for him for a few bowls of gruel before tossing them back out into the street."
What do you do next?
[] Return to the Goblin Market and try to follow up on the rumors
-[] Write in
[] Go the the tailor shop see if you can learn something more about Aemie's visitation.
[] Write in
OOC: You guys did not specifically say to use speak with dead but there was a question about the one who brought the spindle to the temple and that was the old blind slave,. now dead. I took the next logical step so we can have a more substantive vote. Not yet edited.