Surreal Suspicions
Twelfth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
Elbert was rather glad they had managed to procure some alchemical cure for sea sickness... there was little more embarrassing than a Braavosi who couldn't stomach a sea voyage, but for all that he could have wished for swifter passage it would not have come sooner than on a Silver Serpents vessel he had gained passage on with his partner of some half a score of years, Dos, whom was irate not because of the rocking motion of the ship at sail, but because of him.
"The worst part of this mad fool idea of yours is that it wasn't all over a woman," he groused, adjusting his spectacles of Myrish glass. "Had you admitted to such, I would have tossed you overboard not a moment later, but I would have at least understood the sentiment."
"Is it not better that passions did not rule me but opportunity? We weren't exactly swimming in business," Elbert mumbled weakly in reply. In truth he wanted to see Beryl again but it was hardly out of some boyish fancy but knowledge that she would likely be in need of some legal advice in the future as their work on admittedly volatile or experimental engines and devices resulted in some damage or injuries--and doubtless these things could be smoothed over by her sworn liege, he had come to the understanding that the spirit-kin woman as remarkably independent, so even possessing her own advisers in such matters would inevitably come to appeal to her.
Moreover from that patronage she herself had claimed there was indeed opportunity for work as a solicitor in Sorcerer's Deep, a burgeoning part of the Deep that was still scrambling to expand with the city's constant growth and the need for businesses and other well-to-do citizens seeking representation... though he had done much work for those who could barely afford representation in matters of law
at all, much to his partner's chagrin.
He likes a story where the downtrodden spring up victors, too, he thought with some fondness. Dour as Dos was, and the alliteration aside, the man was someone he had barely stomached during those first few years of uncertainty, for lack of many other options, even as their
stranger and stranger circumstances in the Secret City had drawn them together through many a trial, most of them in the past few years with an upsurge in oddities getting them all kinds of fair and fell clientele, Beryl, known as "the Strategist", among them. That tolerance had grown into near enough the most rock solid friendship either of the two could lay claim to, not that they would admit it to each other.
"Are the sights not worth the risk, at any rate?" Elbert quietly ventured, awed in an instant of finally laying eyes on the organized chaos of the quayside. A huge man of stone, some eighteen feet tall loped past them carrying a crane over one shoulder, trailed by bull-men with crates of construction equipment under arm as easy-as-you-please despite their obvious great weight. Chattering monkeys who's cadence and tone could not be mistaken with nonsense but actual language rushed past with the flow of traffic. Other people on foot, including men and women in scholar's garb, doubtlessly here for the famous reliquaries of knowledge in the Deep... and mages in soft-grey clothes, doublets and fine lady's garb, strolled through with gazes alike to predators that pinned the two easily in place.
Worn upon on their breast they could spy the silver brooch bearing the open tome and sword prominent.
The Inquisition, Elbert thought. One carried a staff openly, and the other had a tome strapped to their waist upon a harness bearing a number of crystal or glass vials.
Given their growing reputation, he wondered if those two were meant to draw the eye of visitors, all the better to distract from ones hiding among the crowd. "The blandishments do have their appeal," Dos eventually replied, before turning his head in the direction of a sharp whistle.
"Looks like your friend wants a word with you," Dos said, elbowing him in the side. Elbert rubbed his sensitive rib, wondering how his friend always managed to hit the same spot every time. He looked up to spot a flash of red hair and then a waving hand. A moment later Beryl rose above the crowd on invisible wings of air, a pleased smirk on her face. "Go on ahead, I will see about getting accommodations at a somewhat reputable inn or tavern." Needless to say the undertone of that was doubtlessly to acquire them some honest work before the day was out, or he might have survived an oddly calm if bile inducing sea voyage only to be strangled overnight.
***
"A case? Already?" Elbert wasn't sure what to make of Beryl having gone ahead and sought them something to set their minds to, claiming to have made use of the so-called 'House of Mirrors' to guess at their intent after a couple of exchanged letters using a borrowed 'false raven'. That she'd even bothered was as bewildering as it was touching, but he was coming to regret that impulse to be grateful,
and it wasn't as if the case wasn't just as odd as some of the other ones we've taken, Elbert admitted quietly in the confines of his own thoughts. Best not to imply outright he'd welcome more of the sort before present company. Beryl quickly got him up to speed before introducing him to the 'Triton' who would be his client by the pier they were known to come to regularly, leaving him with a mage to act as interpreter for him, though the man offered up the spell to both he and Wave Seeker so that they might understand each other promptly, calling that bit of absent-minded thoughtlessness of the spirit "expected, but frustrating" before leaving.
A Knight visiting from the Sunset Lands had claimed to be stranded out in a dinghy a few nights past with only a few Tritons in plain sight and missing all of his clothes, purse and even his sword, caught in naught but his undergarments, and he claimed that he had seen one of them in a tavern earlier and must have been responsible. The fact that the accused was sorely regretting keeping a blanket dry enough to keep the man from catching his death in a swim across the harbor was not lost on Elbert, either.
"What was he doing out there in the first place?" Elbert questioned the Triton, a venturesome youth who had scouted for the King's navy and guarded caravans and fat-bottomed trading vessels from as far as Qarth to Ibben. Brave and kind in equal measure, if he's telling the whole truth.
"He had started arguing with some other men from the land of the Dragon's walking kin, men in suits of iron. They did not seem to get along, but nowhere that night did I see them draw steel or lay hands on one another. Differences might be handled in Circle if it were not being torn down," the fish-man laughed. "I only tried to keep the man from freezing to death since he had hardly stayed dry the entire evening... truth be told I am not sure how he got placed in the boat either, or why he was soaked to the bone." The blue-skinned almost-man smiled with nearly guileless charm. "Perhaps a prank from less kindly quarters?"
"There any fey around here likely to have played a part?"
"Oh
yes," the fish-man agreed, and suddenly Elbert didn't feel so out of his depth. You didn't stay afloat in Braavos during these days without being used to dealing with Fey and the chaos that unfolds from their merest mention, to say nothing of their direct involvement. Business empires have floundered and bounced back on the whim of such dealings. "More than you can imagine."
Finally, Elbert felt like he was walking on familiar ground once more. "Let's go over the events again, this time with all the details you can recall... names especially."
OOC: I hope you don't mind, @DragonParadox, but these two were just too interesting not to reuse and keep reusing.
