Aw'wal.
[Note: Susan was delayed, so the game started as a solo run.]
Leaving Fiamma and Orlando to discuss the trial and amuse themselves at the Inn, Shadya resolves to deal with the practical matters thus entailed. Fiamma seems to think that the Evil Wizard's books will provide the funds they will need and Orlando is so obviously a lordling, that... ah well, 'twill entail far less questioning if Shadya does this herself.
The Caravan Master was an honest master and Shadya has her pay. With it she arranges for travel foods for man and beast, the simple medications anyone can apply, flint and tinder, ropes, and some basic materials from which various things can be constructed - canfas, leather, yard-length poles, bits of ironmongery (nails, buckles, pole seatings - but not to the full extent of her money. A prudent man keeps a reserve.
Thence she makes her way to the tower of the Second Mage, Hassan en Ashop, who witnessed this morning's trial. Her entrance is blocked by the usual officious door man. But Shadya insists that she bears a message to his master concerning the Trial, and calmly plants herself in the doorway. A tall black-robed warrior in desert armor and well-worn sheath with scimitar may well make a better door than doorway. The doorman decides the better part of valour is to acquaint his master with the situation.
Shadya is ushered up - not deigning to comment on the length of time it took the doorman to return - and the Wizard expresses some surprise at recognizing her. "Your Honour," she returns. "I have volunteered to be the sword for the maid Fiamma and the lordling Orlando in their quest to restore the latter. I feel the need for further information on the destinations you described for that quest and would so seek knowledge of you." The Second Wizard commends her prudence and evidences no unwillingness to help. He provides the following information.
On Dragons and the Well of Al Arzum:
The mountain range in which is the mine of Al Arzum is said to house more than one dragon. Dragons are evil and powerful and not to be trusted, though some have talked of bargaining with a dragon. It might be possible to set dragon against dragon. It is also said that there is a tribe favoured by a dragon because that tribe sacked a city and deposited its treasures into the Lake of the Dragon. But the Second Wizard wonders if they are favoured for that act or as food.
The Dragon in the mine of Al Arzum is at least 200 years old, having taken the mine some 150 years ago. Few escaped the mine, and the dragon has been known to attack villages within a certain distance from the mine. The case has been that some huts burn and some people die so, but the dragon's intent seems not to be total devastation. By checking tax and church records, various people (apparently the Second Wizard is among them) hypothesize that at least some of those victims may have been originally survivors from the mine of Al Arzum. It is not known how, but, it would seem, the dragon knows who has been in the mine and seeks to destroy same - if they come within its range.
For the price of a promise to try to bring the Second Wizard a flask of water from the well at Al Arzum, the wizard will provide a list of names and villages of people who may be survivors of that mine.
There are no stories of the virtues of the water of that well before the coming of the dragon. It is hypothesized that the people of the mine tried to save some of their treasures from the dragon by throwing them down the well and that the dragon has not been able to recover those treasures. Perhaps their loss is what drives it to destroy survivors.
How then is it supposed that the waters have any virtue at all? Once a wizard, Jafar, of the College of Wizards at Almazur in the foothills of these mountains, acquired a very intelligent monkey. It, apparently, was also a rather annoying monkey for, at one time, one of Jafar's colleagues attempted to destroy it with a magical fireball. The monkey, amazingly, escaped harm. Experimentation, which Jafar eventually put a stop to, determined that the monkey was immune to magical fire - but not all fire - and that this immunity had to be rebuilt by time after it had exercised its powers. There was some indication that, in fact, the monkey had this temporary immunity to all spells, not merely fire spells. The monkey's origins were tracked down and, while the wizards were investigating near the mine of Al Arzum, the dragon attacked Jafar and his simian companion. A quick wizardly exit saved them both, but the attack was taken as evidence that the monkey had been inside the mine. How the wizards extrapolated from that to magical well water was not explained.
The stuffed remains of the monkey are kept at the College. Jafar himself is in retirement in Almazur.
On the Spirit of the Burning Pit:
There is a hermit who lives in a city (the wizard recognizes the incongruity) who works magic that does not belong in the Schools of Magic. It is not strong magic, but very strange. Amongst his traits is a weather sense that sends him to the ocean before a large storm. He ekes his subsistence with the sale of flotsom left by such storms. He takes no more than what he needs within his spartan frame of existence.
As a child he was found and raised by a fisherman. Little else is known of him; but his are the only footprints that lead through the Plain of Glass to (and perhaps into) the Burning Pit. The hermit evidenced no magics before that trek to speak with the Spirit - so, if his powers are outside the limitations of the Desert People's magic, stronger yet and more strange must be the powers of his teacher, the Spirit. Perhaps those will be able to dispel permanency.
On the Light of Truth:
This is the only sure cure for the spell upon Orlando. But there is no knowing whence the Light may be found.
Shadya comments, "If we must spend our lives hunting for the Light of Truth, then it matters not if the first few steps are spent hunting the more specific sites of the Well and the Pit. All directions are the same at the beginning of that quest." She promises him the flask of water if it is within her power, and the Second Wizard promises to send the list by as ordinary a messenger as he can. He also promises a flask but assures her that he will take the water whatever the container she has to use.
The muzzim calls the prayers, and Shadya bows her farewell to the Second Wizard.
After prayers, Shadya heads back to the Inn but is distracted by a small boy weeping at street side. Slowing her stride, she sees that he has slightly strange features - vaguely reminiscent of Fiamma's - and is mourning a dead alley cat, his "only family and friend." Pitying such forlornness, Shadya asked, "May I be of assistance?" Coming from such a small youngster, the maturity of his answer surprises her. "I cannot afford a funeral for Abu." Taking the cat up, Shadya leads him to a temple and arranges to pay for a proper funeral. The boy, Nasir, is comforted and vows to server her. Bemused by this acquisition of a self-proclaimed servant - and puzzled by the hint of "Fiamma-ness" she senses, Shadya invites Nasir back to the Inn to see what her other companions make of him.
On route it occurs to Shadya that - whether he adventures with her or not - giving Nasir another "friend" might be a mitzvah. And, lo, there is Hasim's House of Hooves. Hasim seems a bit dense but his animals are fine and so Shadya concludes a bargain for a donkey. Nasir is delighted and gamely takes his first donkey-care and riding lessons. Albeit, he seems a bit put out by not recalling Hasim's establishment before.
At the Evening Star Inn, Fiamma, Orlando , and the locals have been swapping fold songs. Orlando is a bit disconcerted to realize that he doesn't really have a singing voice at his current size: "Guess their won't be any love songs for awhile." 2
Over dinner, Shadya introduces Nasir and warns him of the dangers they expect to encounter. Nasir is a little disconcerted by her apparent refutation of his servitude, but resolves that if she wants to believe that he comes "of his own free will" than so he does.
Nasir claims that gypsies - it takes both Nasir and Fiamma to explain the concept of gypsies to Shadya - call the dragon of Al Arzum "Blue Demon."
Orlando is persuaded to talk of himself. He has met dragons before: a large red evil-natured one who crisped an interloper for rudeness, and a humourous small blue one who charmed a tree into the appearance of a milkable cow to the misfortune of a farmer. He also told of one who was, perhaps, a force for good, having taken over a strategic island in the midst of a bay that had been contested bloodily by the neighboring governments. It preferred to be left alone and extorted toll, occasionally, from passing shipping.
Apparently a cup of gems taken as he escaped the red dragon had paid for horse, armor, etc., lost on that journey. Orlando started to muse on what the current journey had lost him: favourite horse, armor, size, perhaps his title.... Attempting to distract him, Shadya promises to help him choose a desert horse when he was of size again. (Obviously an Arab warrior would believe that a horse of the desert would be major consolation for many loses.)
A moth flutters in and Shadya extracts a tiny scroll from its wings, admitting to Fiamma that this is not quite the way she sends mail. The scroll is a list of towns and surnames, including Arzum in the gown of Shamar. Shadya determines that their first stop will be Almazur - and then Shamar. They will leave, she suggests, early in the morning.
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