A clue!

SUMMARY: Sandy rescues Yelrona from a street gang and reveals a clue to the fate of Yelrona's father.

It's Tariday, Aestry 05 22:35:21 1018. The full moon isn't up. The tide is high and rising. The deep blue night sky is clear and cloudless, and the stars glitter. A cool breeze blows from the west.

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Inside The Prestigious Moon maternity shop, the wall leading out to the street is almost entirely made of windows. Mannequins line the windows, tilted this way and that. Supported by boxes, they attest to the nearly constant and ongoing work, and the shop owner's haphazard attention to her store. The shop's counter space, along the left side of the store, is filled on one side with notes for orders and fittings, and the other an artifice-derived register. Nearby the register is a donation jar for a local orphans' club: Lady Sandiel's Young Adventures. Donations to the jar buy them belts for their stick-swords, patches for merit badges, and other wholesome items.

Outside, the heavy clomp of racing footsteps is audible before anything untoward can be seen through the store's wall of windows. The first visible sign of trouble is sudden anxiety on the part of strolling late-night shoppers looking for late-opening stalls and potential bargains. Not running away, precisely, but definitely changing their destinations and walking quicker than tehy were before.

It's not long after that that a nearly noiseless elf darts past the windows and, noticing a light still on, deftly slides through the unlocked door, opening it hardly more than a crack to do so before diving underneath a rack of long maternity dresses that reach down to the floor.

A couple of moments later, a group of goblinoids collect near the shop entrance, looking uncertain. From the way they're dressed, they are most likely a local street gang, probably well enough known to long-time residents of the area. Two of them clearly decide to check out the store, opening the door and barging their way in.

"The fuck are you doing?" says Sandy, another elf who' looking really annoyed that someone's entered her shop at later hour than usual. She pauses a moment, then narrows her eyes as she catches a glimpse of the goblin gang just outside, who are hesitating at the entrance of the shop. They HAD been chasing her, but for whatever reason, they seem rather leery of crossing that particular threshhold.

She begins to mke her way towards the door, thereafter. "These idiots hassling you?" she asks.

Yelrona pokes her head out of her not-terribly-effective hiding place and looks towards the door, where the two who'd entered are being hastily pulled back by their compatriots. They glare at her through the windows until Sandy approaches the door, at which point they scatter. She looks back at the shop owner. "Ah... sorry. Yes, you could say that. They apparently took exception to an elf walking through their territory." She shrugs. She hadn't been looking for trouble, but she hasn't been in Alexandria long enough to know all the local street gangs and their particular issues.

Sandy walks out front.

The goblins eyeball her.

"I don't think you're as tough as they say you are, you fat bit-,"

And then Sandy says a single word, points at him, and he's just /GONE/.

Did she disintegrate him?! He just../vanished/.

The rest of the goblins immediatly begin to scatter in EVERY DIRECTION, running as fast as their tiny legs will carry them. Gone.

Sandy walks back in like she didn't just disintegrate a goblin. Yawns.

"So, you hear for some clothes?" she asks.

Yelrona blinks, regards the woman with far more cautious respect as she gets smoothly to her feet. She has a few nasty-looking bruises and a small cut on her cheek, but seems mostly uninjured. "Ah... let me be completely honest here and say that I will give you whatever answer you would prefer to that question just as soon as I figure out what answer that is," she says hesitantly. "In the meantime, I'll go with something cautiously neutral, like 'Well, it certainly is a delightful collection!' Does that work for you?"

"Buy some clothes," urges Sandy, cheerfully, leaning against the counter. "Something expensive, ideally, that won't break your budget. I have a profit to turn, you know." She nods towards Yelrona, solemnly, observing the other elf for the time being.

Yelrona nods, and looks rapidly around the store. While she has no personal need for maternity clothes, she had been thinking she ought to get something for Diemma as a 'thank you' for the nun's help with the temple archives, and baby clothes seem as appropriate a gift for an abbey that cares for pregnant women as anything else she can think of. So she drifts over to the less expensive, more practical selection and picks out a dozen or so outfits in varying sizes and colors, piling them on the counter. "If I could get a bag for those," she adds as she drops a large pile of copper coins on the counter, "that would be lovely."

"Sure. That works," says Sandy, "Can't believe the Altheans keep me in stock on those." She makes a face, then begins to count the money.

As she does, the goblin suddenly reappears right where he vanished from. He looks terrified, of course, and then breaks off into a run all on his lonesome.

GAME: Sandy casts Maze. Caster Level: 20 DC: 31

Yelrona startles at the goblin's reappearance, her hand grabbing the hilt of her rapier but not actually drawing it. She relaxes again as he runs away. "Huh," she says. "Neat trick. Where did he go, when he wasn't here?"

"Just sent him somewhere else. He was sort of asking for it," says Sandy, shrugging her shoulders. "He'll have learned his lesson, I hope, and won't darken my door or chase any more elves into it." She tucks a bit of hair back over her ear with annoyance, rolling her eyes up towards her bangs which she blows out of her eyes. "I need to cut my bloody hair," she grumbles.

Yelrona's eyes widen as she looks over Sandy's hair more carefully, but just for a second. Then her brain catches up with her. "Right. Bloody. Expression. Got it." she says, mostly to herself. Then she thinks of something and slowly half-draws her rapier, with no sudden movements, revealing the blade sticky with blood. "Unintentended half-demon offspring," <Mynsandraal> she mutters. "Speaking of... I should clean my bloody sword. And scabbard." She glares out the window, looking to all the world like she's about to shake the blade angrily at the long-since-vanished gangers. "I'm Yelrona, by the way. A pleasure to meet you, in more ways than one."

As Yelrona examines her hair, Sandy gives her ye olde hairy eyeball. "What?" she demands. "And 'unintended half-demon offspring', eh?" She keeps eyeing her. "Call me Sandy."

Yelrona raises an eyebrow, surprised and delighted. "Yes! Almost nobody speaks Mynsandraal," she observes sadly, "another few centuries and it will be a dead language, if it isn't already. Which is unfortunate... it's a delightfully satisfying language to swear in, even if nobody understands it. If you don't mind my asking, where did you learn it?"

"Already pretty /dead/," says Sandy, "given that there hasn' been an elf out of Myrsaandral for untold bloody centuries." Sandy lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "From the Mythwood elves some years ago. Over a decade now, actually."

Yelrona raises a second eyebrow to match the first, grinning broadly. "Where in the Mythwood? I'm from Yles Namvadin," she explains.

"Ah, how sweet," says Sandy, a tinge of mocking in her tone, thoiugh it's not harsh. "Just the edge of it. I met Chieftan Aluviel some years ago," he is, after all, one of the top leaders of the Mythwood. "Helped him with a problem. That's where I got my bloody Ladyship from." In other words, she's a noble.

Yelrona blinks again, stops, shakes her head, laughs. "This is one of those moments," she observes judiciously, "when really the best thing I can do is go out, come back in, and try this whole conversation again. Or, perhaps, not." She laughs again, clearly at herself, and offers a graceful curtsey, suitable for court use. "I apologize, Lady. I'm honored to meet you."

GAME: Yelrona rolls diplomacy: (11)+7: 18

Some more essentially meaningless but perfectly proper noises come out of her mouth thereafter.

"Oh, like anybody expects to meet a Lady running a gods be damned clothing shop in the middle of Alexandria," snorts Sandy, "It essentially couns for nothing in my view. " She waves her hand, dismissively, seeming to find Yelrona's reaction rather amusing to ay the least.

"No more so than we expect a wizard," 'rona replies easily (if not quite accurately), gradually deciding she _likes_ this woman. "Though that counts for more. At least, when dealing with street gangs, who I imagine are no more impressed with your Ladyship than you yourself. What is the Chieftain like?" she asks, equal parts curious and intrigued. "I met one of his 'Ambassadors'<sildinyari> once, when she was visiting all the northern settlements... something to do with tithing for an army, I think, though I was very young at the time."

"Eh. I'm not a wizard anyway. They have to have stupid books and generally build towers to compensate for something or other," says Sandy, "My magic is innate to me." She drums her fingers on the table for a moment, thoughtfully. The slight intdentations this has left on the counter indicates she does it a lot, and may be a little on the freakishly strong side.

Yelrona nods. She understands in principle the distinction between wizards and sorcerors, but has run into enough people who treat the latter term as an insult that she prefers not to use it in conversation with this casually terrifying woman. She considers apologizing for her error, decides that didn't work so well last time, and lets it drop, which leaves her searching for a new topic. "So," she asks casually, "how _did_ a Lady of the Mythwood end up running a gods-be-damned clothing shop in the middle of Alexandria?"

"....I like it here, even for all the idiots I have to deal with on a daily basis," says Sandy, thoughtful. "Also, a lot less dull. And there's more booze and food, generally." This seems to explain everything so far as she's concerned.

Yelrona smiles. "There is that. Or at least more variety," she agrees. "And, yes, less dull. We didn't get many demons back in Yles Namvadin." She seems to roll that thought around in her mouth like an inferior entry at a wine-tasting before spitting it out. "I am growing more partial to 'dull' than I'd previously thought possible." Then a thought occurs to her, which would have occurred to her sooner had there been room. "Wait -- how long have you been here? I ask," she explains, "because I'm trying to find some trace of my father's whereabouts, and I think he passed through Alexandria about thirty years ago, when elves weren't too common hereabouts, I'm told. Humans... well, they're delightful, but they remember _nothing_, and their records are... incomplete. But if you were here and perhaps met an elf of five centuries or so, with my coloration, carrying a blade not unlike this one?" She draws the sticky blade again, wipes a few inches of it clean on her leathers to reveal some high-quality engraving... "Avourel was his name, though he might not have been using it," she adds, trying to not let her hopes get raised.

"...aw, shit. Yeah, that name's familiar. I didn't work with him, but he did meet me once," says Sandy, "He spent the entire time staring at my bloody chest and tried to get me totangle in the sheets with him." She makes a face. "I punched him."

Yelrona 's eyes widen almost comically with excitement when Sandy reports having met her father, then squint uncertainly as the rest of the story comes along. "I..." she starts, then stops. She wants to say her father would have stayed faithful to her mother, but on the other hand, she's _met_ her mother. "Er..." she continues, her gaze resting on the dents in the counter. "Did you... I mean, did he, um..." She stops, takes a centering breath, meets Sandy's gaze squarely. "Did you kill him?"

"...kill him? Are you kidding? He wanted to fuck me, not murder me," says Sandy, dryly.

Yelrona nods, relieved. "Just... you seem very strong," she observes. "So. Good! Or, well, I mean... well. That's more of a clue than I had before. Do you remember when that was?"

"Twenty years ago? Kissing me was not his brightest move." She clears her throat.

Yelrona bites her lower lip and her eyes scan the ground. She's not thrilled by this picture of her father, but on the other hand, a decade can be a long time for some people. She wonders if her parents had an arrangement... many adventuring couples do, she's been told, but had never considered it to apply to them. To be fair, she'd never really thought seriously about her parents having sex at all, though evidence indicated they'd done so at least once.

"Well. I, er, apologize for his rudeness," she eventually says, feeling vaguely like she's betraying her father, but dismissing that notion as nonsensical. "Do you happen to remember anything else about him? Like... where he'd been, or where he was going? Did he look well -- er, before you punched him I mean?"

"...well, aside from the broken nose," says Sandy, "But he went to the Altheans after that to get it fixed." She shrugs her shoulders. "After that, I don't know anything else about what became of him. Maybe you coiuld search throiugh the records of the Guild of Explorers? They might have some transaction records."

Yelrona nods excitedly. "I've been working my way through the Altheans' medical records," she explains. "Actually, that's why I bought these, as thanks for their assistance," she adds, indicating her bag. "But it's slow going, and I haven't reached twenty years ago yet. So that helps a lot. Having a time simplifies things _enormously_! Thank you!" She is practically hopping on one foot with excitement, eager to chase down this new lead.

"Go on," says Sandy. "Get out of here and chase it down. Have fun. And don't think about what I told you. It's probably too horrific." Her tone is dry. Very dry.

Yelrona laughs, not entirely convincingly. "I'll add it to my list of things not to think about," she promises insincerely, "right after elephants. Thanks again!" She bolts excitedly to the door, stops, returns, picks up her bag. "Goodbye!" she says, before actually leaving this time.