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Unable to arrange recent events in a way suitable for her family's eyes, Sofia begins a diary, in a combination of her school shorthand and mirror writing: 3/2 - When I returned from conducting poor Fergus's funeral this afternoon, I found the place in an uproar, for Decimus had been shot from ambush! He was walking alone down a quiet street when the crossbow bolt came out of an alley, and he heard someone run away. There was a note wrapped around the bolt: "You and your master aren't wanted here. Get out of town or else." In that rather phlegmatic way of his he continued walking, with the quarrel sticking out of his ribs, reading the note, until a bystander saw him and cried for the vigiles. The healer they took him to was rather ham-handed (I understand Decimus told him: "I'm not paying for this!" after a particularly painful failure to extract the bolt), but fortunately they brought a priest and patched him up more effectively, by the grace of Orus. Afterward, he took Robyn, Tamara, and me back to the alley to view the site of the assault. It had been much trampled by the vigiles, but Tamara found a small piece of wool, of an unpleasant color she inelegantly described as "puke green." Naturally we first thought of Senator Sergius Valerius Felix, given our unpleasant experience with his employees the previous day. This scarcely seemed likely to be related to the kidnaping, though, since Decimus had no involvement in that, and this was clearly intended as a threat to Uncle, so we decided that we must investigate. In the course of my errands the next morning, therefore, Decimus and I made a point of going to the patrician neighborhoods and gossiping more than I normally do. The ladies of this town are fascinated with everything that doesn't concern them, and there was no difficulty at all. I never got around to mentioning to anyone who I was with, and the Napea-Simpronius connection leaped to no minds, so no one was at all constrained in talking to me. The rumors were all about the purges of the traitorous families attempting to restore the old Republic - many of whom had town estates which are up for sale - and also about the heathen ruins recently uncovered on Uncle's property. Supposedly they are full of treasure etc. They were also convinced that Uncle has come to town primarily to investigate the Proconsul for skimming too much and possibly undermining the province's ability to produce able legions, in the event of war with the League; and there is a strong secondary opinion that he is here to disrupt V's activities. There is a general opinion that V is doing something shady with barbarians, but kidnaping was not on the list of probabilities. Well, not until I mentioned it. Tamara and Robyn spent the day finding out the source and users of the peculiar green wool - she claimed to be interested in using it to clothe her bridal attendants. There were such unpromising prospects as a color-blind halfing cook, and such dismaying ones as a member of the vigiles, rumored to be in V's pocket. We attempted to relax at supper, and just as I was coaxing Scipio to talk for Decimus one of Uncle's explosive runes went off overhead. We dashed upstairs - Decimus and I had to ask Uncle to let us through first, so anxious was he about his possessions - to find the room full of smoke, a window open with a rope dangling from it, and a thief dead on the floor next to an empty chest. Decimus climbed down the rope, followed by Robyn after he retrieved his weapons, while I asked Uncle what had been stolen. He said it was a highly decorated book. Fortunately, Tamara had left her weapons downstairs and had spotted the surviving thief as he ran away, pursuing him with her usual excess of courage over good sense. She impeded his progress by hurling darts after him, and when Robyn and Decimus caught up they also attacked, bringing him down. Alas, they hit too hard, and by the time I arrived it was too late for my services to be of any use. At least we had retrieved the book, which Uncle says is central to his reasons for being here. Decimus and I urged that he attempt to scry the note and piece of wool to locate the source of this persecution, and he sent us down to the warehouse where his goods are assembled to fetch his crystal ball. The results were less than satisfactory, revealing only that the garment the wool came from was in a chest in a tenement somewhere, and that the note had been written by a public scribe. However, this was more than we'd had before, so the next day we located the scribe and questioned him. The note had been brought to him for copying by a street urchin, whom he described as having close cropped hair. There are a great deal too many urchins in this city! One of them, with visible traces of elven heritage, approached us offering to sell us information for a silver piece. Apparently a half-orc named Rurik is hiring bruisers to chase us out of town. The brother of the kidnapper who killed Fergus, I supposed. We didn't even trouble Uncle with that information, but spent the rest of the day in a fruitless search for the boy who brought the note. Well, not quite fruitless. Toward the end of the day we were approached in an alley in a part of town I would not normally have entered, by an unsavory character with a club and an equally unsavory friend. I had a little conversation with him, at which we talked at cross-purposes, he being primarily interested in threatening me and I being concerned for the state of his soul, which is surely in danger for using such intemperate language to a member of the clergy. The power of Orus prevented his attacking me, but Tamara and Decimus noted that two dwarfs were creeping up on them, and they and Robyn defended us ably. By a miracle we did not kill anyone, but rendered them all more or less unconscious. The ringleader very nearly escaped, but Robyn was too swift of foot to permit that. We bound them with bowstrings, belts, and my sash - fortunately not my best one, and I believe one more washing will take care of it - and summoned a sedan chair to bear them back to the hostelry. At the back door we encountered the half-elven urchin again. Next time - and after the gold piece Decimus gave him, there will be a next time - I must remember to ask his name. Having covered his face so that they would not know him again if they escaped, he helped us to bring the malefactors upstairs, and told us that Rurik worked for a color-blind halfing who works as a cook in a tavern of the lowest sort. Since we had already established in our conversation that our assailants were indeed sent by Rurik, this was a good starting point for questioning them. Another asset was that they were convinced Uncle would turn them into frogs if he got sufficiently angry, and they found the prospect distasteful. This explains why they were waylaying us. Uncle is the real target, but they hoped to intimidate him without confronting him directly by murdering all of us. There is a flaw in the logic there, which tends to show we are not, at this stage, dealing with a criminal mastermind. V certainly should know that this would not work, though he might reasonably wish to remove Uncle's confidential staff on general principles. A secondary motive mentioned, which may well be V's primary motive, was to distract us from "poking our noses" into local matters, a reference no doubt to the rumors that Uncle is investigating both V and the proconsul. Having learned how to find the halfling and Rurik, we were done with them, and consulted Uncle as to what he wished to have done with them. They are now more or less comfortably bound across the Mare Nostrum in the custody of a captain of his acquaintance, to whom Uncle now owes a favor. It was at about this point that I finally realized Robyn had been wounded! I must remember to keep a closer eye on him in future. He is naturally reticent and uncomplaining, and this is a dangerous trait in a city so full of villains, and alleys to hide them. As I write this, Robyn, Tamara, and Decimus have gone to the tavern to accost the halfling and possibly Rurik. I should have gone with them. They are almost certain to get into another brawl, and if one of them should die I would never forgive myself. Not that I did poor Fergus much good. I was supposed to go with them, but the nature of the place was such that, in order to avoid misunderstandings, I would have had to go disguised as a boy, which would have meant cutting my hair. No one had any faith in my carrying off the deception, least of all myself, and mercy knows I'm no good in an actual fight. I keep telling myself this, and honestly I don't believe they miss me. I'm not sure I'm suited by temperament to these intrigues. Tamara cut her hair off without a second thought. I scribed a healing scroll this afternoon. Orus grant we not need it. Later - Mercy on us, what a time! I waited up for them, and they came in about midnight, carrying the halfling - whose sartorial taste was no better than advertised - with Decimus's crossbow bolt in his back. They had waylaid him quietly enough in the alley, but he had attempted to escape by climbing a down spout, and Decimus had shot him in the back in such an awkward place that every attempt to extract it did him harm. Just as I was deciding that I must use magic on him to stabilize him, despite the risk of healing the bolt into his flesh, we lost the pulse, and never regained it. It is bad enough that this is the second time in two days that we have as good as committed manslaughter; but it will be ages before I have the power to extract information from a corpse. Decimus, against my advice, woke Uncle, who was as cross as might be expected, but prepared to don his full senatorial regalia and wake the local priests up in the middle of the night if we thought it was that urgent! I persuaded him to go back to bed, and had a slave wash and lay out the body. I said a few prayers over him, too, much good may that do him. First thing this morning, then, we made a full senatorial procession to the Temple, where Uncle arranged for a discreet Speak with Dead, and permitted me to frame the questions. The halfing named his accomplices - Rurik, a wizard named Faginus, the aforementioned urchin (the one with close cropped hair, not the half-elven boy), and a man known only as Rufus, who was the contact with the man who hired them all. The purpose of the attacks is to prevent Uncle from asserting his rights and control of the heathen ruins, which Uncle has informed us is an ancient stronghold of the federation of wizards who held power in the years before the Empire. A sizable library is being recovered, in a surprising set of preservation, and items of power, both benign and malign, are expected to come to light. V and many others are interested in gaining access to these items, in disregard both to wisdom and to Uncle's clear claim of ownership. The vigiles can be counted on to find Faginus for us based on the minute directions given us by the halfing's corpse - I hope, or what are they paid for? But I can't help remembering that V has, or may have, a pet vigile with bad taste in color. No halfling fired the huge bolt that struck Decimus. Now I must go discuss the next step with the others. Though it is barely possible Faginus or the halfing have some clue at their dwellings, I am inclined to think that we will not find anything useful before we find Rufus. If only I could finish preparations for the journey, so we could leave directly! I can't help thinking that all of this is a ploy to keep Uncle in town while V's other minions ransack the ruins.
Last Updated:
Saturday, 26-Apr-2003 21:27:00 CDT
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