Sapphire:Sessions:20170325
A few hours past noon, while the trial is still going on, Ahn-Lee returns to the alley where he'd left the two attackers tied up. One is awake and struggling, but the one Ahn-Lee thinks of as "the beggar" is gone. Ahn-Lee pulls out the remaining man's gag. Immediately the man (whose name, it will be learned, is Gavin Dimtris) exclaims, "I haven't got any money, why did you kidnap me?" Ahn-Lee retorts, "What's the deal? Why did you attack me?" Gavin claims that last night, after his wife and kids were in bed, he'd sat up thinking about how much he needed money, and next thing he knew he had woken up in the alley. As Ahn-Lee administers a knock-out drug, he cracks, "Hope this isn't the bear poison!"
At the end of the trial, Chalker and Shawna explain to the judging priests that Baroness Sylan Giles (currently in imperial custody) was the inspiration for Countess Harow's dark mithril involvement. Chalker names four of the twenty university students from the psionic group, and the priest of Solash says "We are here to help them as they develop their abilities."
Ahn-Lee leads Chalker, Shawna, and Branamin to where Gavin is tied up. "This guy was mind-controlled and tried to attack me." Chalker checks and there is no implant or changes to the brain. His aura shows he has been "touched" by Aup (envy). Gavin claims that he manages a merchant's shop but doesn't get paid enough and can barely keep food on the table. Chalker lets him go on the condition that in two days time he must report to the envoy from Dolyena.
Ahn-Lee gives the beggar's description to one of the "copper kids," offering a silver piece to the finder. The kid demands another 20 coppers to divide among the searchers. Near sunset, three kids approach the table in the bar where Ahn-Lee has been waiting. They lead him to a market square in a poorer part of the city. The shops are closing up, and Ahn-Lee observes that most of the people have small, incongruous items hanging out of their pouches. The beggar buys a copper's worth of bread and dried meat and walks away, gobbling up the food. Ahn-Lee buys out the same vendor's remaining bread and meat and follows the beggar until the latter beds down in an alley. Sitting down beside the beggar, Ahn-Lee offers a piece of bread, which the beggar eagerly accepts. Only after he wolfs it down does he ask, "Who are you?" "A friend," replies Ahn-Lee. The other man complains "It's been really bad lately... things aren't working for me... people aren't as generous as they used to be." He claims he used to do odd jobs for a living, but had to take up begging last year; "I can't move as well as I used to." Ahn-Lee: "It's not going to get any easier. But if you come with me, I'll give you this big bag of food."
Ahn-Lee leads the beggar to Chalker's house and explains to Jeeves, "Chalker, Shawna, and Branamin need to talk to this gent." Chalker and Shawna are already sound asleep, and Jeeves has accomodations prepared for Ahn-Lee and the beggar. Branamin is elsewhere, playing strategy games and winning gold.
In the morning, Chalker determines that the beggar, Tren, is weak-willed, "not that smart," prone to excess/addiction, and very strongly envious. Tren had had a bad day, he says; he was hungry and cold but didn't want to go to a charity house, and had bedded down in an alley, where a man said to him, "They're not much smarter than you, so why do they have more than you?" Tren woke up, sore and with rope burns. The man wore a fancy silver ring on his left hand with a symbol etched into the band; at Chalker's prompting Tren draws the symbol, which is the holy symbol of Aup. Yes, Tren had seen other beggars with trinkets and such, and one even had a belt knife. Tren had had a ring, but he sold it.
Ahn-Lee seeks out his buddy Kalid for training; his split of the take is 9gp. Branamin goes off to study Mind spells, starting with Sense Foes. Shawna is doing elf stuff.
Chalker visits his cousin Frederick. "What have you done, Freddie?" The ambassador admits there had been a disturbance; "I was insulted by a Bicarn functionary." Yes, he had been given a formal apology.
Chalker rides to Temple Row and runs up the steps into the temple of Aup. As he approaches the altar, a young priestess demands 1gp, saying cryptically, "You do this way too often." Chalker hands over the gold piece; the priestess tosses it into the air and it disintegrates. Chalker gives observance before the altar, then begins walking around the sanctuary. "Why are you trying to rob Ahn-Lee Gad? A priest of yours is tasking ordinary people to harass an associate of mine. I am not important enough for you to harass him to get to me. I know it's been awhile since we spoke. Has something changed? Why are you upset with me?" He is surrounded by four young women who match him step for step. "What has Ahn-Lee done to deserve your attention? He is greedy; he should make you proud."
The four women finally respond, each speaking one word of the answer in sequence, "He had things they were envious of and wanted to take." Chalker: "Were you involved in the Venettian-Xanthypian war?" Acolytes: "They were most devoted followers." Chalker notices that several other people have come in off the streets into the sanctuary, and another eight priests stand nearly hidden in the shadows. Chalker makes his closing observance and as he starts to leave, a high-priestess confronts him and says, "You're becoming too predictable."
At noon, Chalker, Ahn-Lee, Branamin, and Shawna meet at Chalker's. Chalker: "Ahn-Lee, I confirmed that a priest of Aup is charging people to rob you, but I didn't find out why. I think Aup is looking for a disciple." Ahn-Lee: "Think they'll be upset if I kill the next person?" Chalker: "I think they're surprised you didn't."
Chalker proposes an expedition to determine the fate of Cray Stonemover, the dwarf who created the tiny gold hammer. Based on Stonemover's last known whereabouts, Rory says the nearest we can get by portal is 100 miles by land or 40 miles by air. The portal opens into a room with no other exits. There's a table with four chairs, and atop the table is an 18" crystal dome. Chalker looks into the dome and sees a swirling mist and briefly glimpses a pea-sized piece of metal that appears to implode. On one wall is a large, colorful, wood-framed abstract artwork "painted" with high-grade steel. Branamin comments that its pattern brings to mind the chaos of battle. He creates a tall servant to press a hidden button; the painting glows with magic and the colors become more vivid and the artwork appears three-dimensional. Touching the painting brings no effect, but When Branamin has the servant push the frame to one side, a scythe-like blade emerges from the painting, slices the servant in two, and vanishes, all in an eyeblink.
The wall opposite the painting is splattered with dried human blood. Ahn-Lee determines from the splash pattern that a body had been impaled by several spears. But there is no corpse and no spears.
Inside a mahogany storage cabinet Chalker finds a number of broken crystals, all 2" in diameter. He takes the one crystal that remains intact.
The walls are solid as far as Chalker's penetrating vision can detect. He asks Trace to step in and carve a passage up through the ceiling. Thirty feet up Trace breaks into the floor of a cavern, which Ahn-Lee, Branamin, and Chalker enter. The cavern is 75' across. Bats hang from the ceiling and guano covers the floor; there are narrow flues in the ceiling which the bats use to fly in and out. There are several tunnels leading out of the cavern but only one is lit, evidently with crystals reflecting sunlight. Chalker tells Ahn-Lee, "Go check out that trap." Ahn-Lee picks up a rock and without looking tosses it into the crystals; the light intensifies and he and Chalker feel an intense wave of heat. Ahn-Lee: "It sounded like a rock getting hit with a giant Sunbolt." Chalker takes a copper piece, drapes a handkerchief over it, and sends it into the room; it gets zapped and he pulls back incinerated cloth and melted copper.
Branamin levitates up through one of the flues and emerges upon a mountainside.