#bryth is younger

[imorphemi]

some skids because i like them

[liawynstone]

Morning light hit Lia’s face and the song of birds started to fill her bedroom. A white wolf stirs at the edge of her bed and starts to make their way over to her to give a big good morning kiss.

“Alright, Ham, I’ll get up.” Pushing the wolf aside, Lia sits up stretching and looking around the room. How is it morning already? Getting out of bed Lia heads over to her dresser with a mirror and starts putting her dark brown hair back into a ponytail. She puts on her normal daily attire. A simple white tunic and brown pants with a leather belt that she attaches a green pouch to. Inside is a small notebook and a pencil. She pulls on her leather boots and drapes her green cloak over her shoulders.

Lia lives in a two-story building in the capital city of Aria. Her residence is on the second floor. The first floor is the bookstore that she runs. The store had belonged to her mother and father before their unexpected passing. Lia has lived here in this very building her whole life and doesn’t ever want to leave. These walls kept her safe.

Lia walked through the living room, before getting to the kitchen. She grabbed a pastry to eat that her friend had brought her the day before from their bakery. Then set to work making a meal for Ham. “Eggs and maybe some rabbit sound good this morning?” Ham left out confirmatory bark.

After breakfast, the two head downstairs to the bookstore. Curtains we still pull shut leaving the space to be very dim. Thankfully, Lia could see well in the dim light due to her fae eyesight. One thing she was glad for. Looking around the room she could see books strewn about. A few had fallen off the shelves and a thin layer of dust had collected. The smell of books filled the air. This and the smell of coffee were one of her favorites.

Lia strolled over to the counter and pulled a notepad out from under it. “First thing is first, we need to write a to-do list.” Pulling a pencil out of the cup situated next to the register. She began to make a list:

Dust down the bookshelves. Begin making coffee. Reorganize the featured book table. Clean the front window. Open the store. Brace for Brythe.

Lia chuckled at the last item on her list. Brythe was her one friend here in Aria. They have known each other for many years now. She was very different from Lia, one main difference is that Brythe was so outgoing. While Lia was, well not.

Going around the shop, Lia dusted down all of the bookshelves. She fixed any books that may have fallen down or been placed back incorrectly. They were one of the few bookstores in the city, so they got a good amount of customers daily. Lia has been manning this store alone for a few decades now, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

She grew up in this store. This is where she learned to have a love for books. Where she would listen to travelers tell their tales as they passed through the city. She was so fascinated by them. When she was younger, she dreamed of going on an adventure herself and writing her own book, but not now. Not after what had happened. Aria was safe. This store was safe.

She looked down at her list and looked over at the clock on the wall. Just the window was left and then it would be about ready to open the shop.

She wiped down the front window until it was barely visible. Pleased with her work she walked over to the door. Flipped over the closed sign to read open and unlocked the door. Lia stepped outside and glanced up at the sign.

Once Upon a Page

This shop was her mother’s dream. Once she and her father had decided to settle down. Aria was just the perfect city to set up shop. Lia looked around the street. It was still early morning on this brisk spring morning. Other shop owners were starting to open their doors. From down the street, she could smell fresh bread. The Aldrells had one of the best bakeries in the whole city. At least she thought so, she might be biased though as that was Brythe’s family bakery.

Customers trickled in that morning. “Do you have a book on medicinal herbs?” or “I’m looking for a fantasy book with an enemies-to-lovers plot.” Were among the few inquiries she had. Of course she recommendations for both of them. She had read almost every book she sold.

“You should try this book. It has hundreds of recipes for herbs and other plants. Plus the author goes into depth about each plant.” She told the first customer.

“Hmm. I recently got in and read this book. It’s about a rogue who was told to spy on a prince from a far-off country. Full of lots of adventure and some spice.” She winked and handed the book over.

Both thanked her and were on their own ways. Thus how much of her days would go. Even though she was shy and sometimes quiet. Books brought her out of her shell. She would talk your ear off about books or coffee. Her second love.

The bell on the front door rang while Lia had he back turned making herself a cup of coffee. “Welcome to Once Upon a Page!” she said without turning around.

“Lia! You wouldn’t believe what I just heard!” A girl cried while storming into the storm.

Lia smiled and with her back still turned. “Well good morning to you too, Brythe.” Second cup of coffee in hand she pushed it towards her friend. “What is that I just wouldn’t believe it.”

[letterstosestrilles]

Dear Tyko,

We've mostly been spending the past couple of days dealing with the lingering business here in Caystone, without too much interesting to say, and interspersed with trying to get Brythe Drichye to face justice—which he did in the end, at least, though in the meantime Maliah and I were both hard pressed not to haul him out of his comfortable house and punch him.

We started, though, with a visit to Lasym Aner, once we had Drichye's name and finished packing up the treasures Ella had left us. He was rather stunned, in the aftermath, to find everything out, and his first question when he found out there'd been a coven of hags was if we'd been able to negotiate with them. We explained that one was dead, one was gone (and told him he might want to let people downstream and on the coast know she might be coming through), and we'd negotiated with the third but she wasn't staying.

After that, we got onto the subject of Brythe Drichye, which was even more of a shock for poor Lasym. He asked about evidence, which we unfortunately didn't have much of, especially with Ella gone (not that I think she would have happily walked into town to testify in a trial if she'd stayed), but he was willing to investigate and take it to the city council, and had us give testimony of our own. We've also ended up getting in touch with Maliah's mothers, who can either testify by video themselves or be in touch with someone on Caliz Beta to testify on this plane about fey contracts and bargains, to assure people that a hag making a bargain as we'd made wasn't going to lie about names.

Once that was done and the wheels were in motion, we went back to the Morleys, since we'd promised them answers, and ended up talking to Rowan, her parents, and Sendra. Anet was devastated, and confirmed what Lasym only knew the edges of—Brythe Drichye and Anet's mother Elea had a poor relationship, and from the Morley end (and, as we later learned, the younger generations of Drichyes too) it was an unpleasant personal rivalry, with the petty human kinds of sabotage and meanness. For Brythe Drichye, though, it was something of a blood feud, and it took Anet completely by surprise, and gave her no small measure of guilt, to know that her family had an enemy she knew nothing about.

Sendra apparently has some connections to the younger generation of the family and offered to put us in touch when we said that maybe looking through the treasure we found in the hags' cave to see what price the Drichyes might have paid could be helpful, since none of them knew them well enough to guess.

We also got the chance to check in on Rowan a little, who is still grappling with missing four months of her life, and we've asked her (or her family, if she'd rather not) to let us know how she's doing once in a while, since you know how attached we get to the people we try to help. I think she'll be okay, after some time and a lot of counseling, and she asked us to put her in touch with some of the people we've met who made better bargains with the hags. I sent messages to Anneth Spery and to the Cingas passing on the request, and since both of them were mostly swayed by hearing that Rowan was missing, not off on a bargain of her own, I suspect they'll get back to her, and that she'll be able to get a more full picture of everything.

Sendra put us in touch with one of the younger Drichyes and his very pregnant wife, who were very horrified at what their grandfather had done to a child and vowed to turn the house upside down, discovering that they were missing some arcane tomes from the family collection that were likely Ella's price. (And that she must have taken with her. I suspect the bag she took with her might be a bag of holding like ours.) Between that and our testimony, they were at least able to bring him in for questioning, and Maliah and I stood there and watched as the investigators interrogated him into confessing that he'd done it, that he's an old man and he wanted to strike out with one last huge hurt against the Morleys before he died.

(Yes, fine. Both of us were glaring and there might have been a bit of witness intimidation. But for once, I can confidently say that I don't think you would have done any different. Don't think I don't know exactly what you would do given the opportunity to have a chat with Kari and Thari's birth parents.)

At least we know he'll face consequences, and that his family isn't going to easily forgive him this. The Morleys know why Rowan was taken, and that it's unlikely to happen again. Lasym is going to go through the files of people who went missing to see if there are ways to reach them and let them know it's safe to come home, if they want to.

In between all of this, we've been sorting through what we found that Ella had left behind, aside from a heap of money that we're depositing in the bank along with the payment from Caystone. Some of it is pretty, without magic on it, just worth money and looking at. We were hoping the banner with the dragon device Maliah recognized would have some magic that would let me identify it, but the only magic was in the weaving, to keep it from tangling when left to fly. There was a glass eye set to glow in the presence of dragons (which really makes you wonder about the person who commissioned it, though I suppose it might come in handy), a very strange scroll that I think must be meant to train the apprentices of artificers to make neat copies of scrolls, a grimoire in a language I can't even identify, much less read, and a die that when rolled has a chance of healing poison, as well as a few other curiosities.

While you're asking Lindanas about that dragon device, maybe you can also ask about this language? I've enclosed a picture. We do have plans to go to Nellaser's Landing at some point, a trip to the library among the reasons why, but if there are other resources right at my fingertips, why not use them? I could even stop by to get the report in person!

Not, though, until after our next job. It's rare for us to go from one right to another, but the situation on Zarakib sounds no better than it was before, considering how quickly Lady Hadei got back to me when I asked if they were still in need of help. We'll be looking into transportation there pretty soon, I think, likely even tomorrow, and I'll be making my first trip to the Underdark. It sounds like a fascinating place to visit, but when we're dealing with something decimating villages in the night, Maliah's bestiary spits up possibilities like spiders even bigger and more unpleasant than phase spiders, and driders, and a hundred other things I don't want to meet in a dark alley. When we get there, I think we need to look into a bunch of Darkvision scrolls, or another pair of Goggles of Night at least to rent, because Maliah has hers, but that doesn't mean Squirt can see, and we need him with his senses on alert if we're going monster-tracking.

Maliah and Squirt between them are very efficient trackers, so I'm hoping we'll find whatever it is fairly quickly and maybe get a chance to explore Lade or another town or city a bit once we're done. There's another job we're considering involving a thief, but that seems less urgent than missing girls and dead people, so we might take a bit of a break.

And I know that Maliah owes Marsa a vacation together, since they can't exactly see each other for regular date nights like you and Lindanas might. If she abandons me (as she ought, they certainly need some time to figure out what their relationship might be), I'll likely strike out for Nellaser's Landing, to spend some time learning magic from Gaizka, doing a bit of library research, and checking on how things are going with Kirim, though depending on how long we've got, I might come back to Sestrilles for a day or two as well.

And you know how to increase my likelihood of doing that, especially if there are reference questions to be answered.

(Yes, I've resorted to blackmail now. You need to lock down your information better, I hear from Tiriel that he introduced you to his mother when she flew through and that you've booked a weekend outside the city. I think that's meet-your-sister serious.)

I'll let you know our transportation plans to Zarakib, and then probably start sending very nerve-wracking messages about tracking down monsters. Sorry. At least you're prepared this time?

Love,

Elyn