After days of unsettling dreams, dreams that seem to be less somnambulic excursions then portents of a coming event, Claire feels that getting out of the guild hall and into the streets would do her some good. The air in the late day Erastus sun is cloying and uncomfortable but it is better than the overwhelming gloom that permeates the hall of her peers.
Wandering through the rebuilding city of Augustana is a welcome respite and, while going shop to shop, she spends a quick coin on sundries that will be forgotten soon. After she walks from the stall she hears a raucous crowd gathered at the recently reopened Sea Wench Tavern. Deciding to test her will against the seething hordes, she quietly casts a minor incantation to make her face darker in her hood and wanders inside.
A crowd sways and cheers to a tune that would make most sailors blush. Unable to see who is on stage, she moves to the bar and orders a quick mug of ale, slipping quietly into a booth to allow the mixture of hops and barley calm her jittery nerves. Finally the music comes to a halt and the gathered miscreants rise as one to an enormous round of applause that threatens to shake the very walls to the ground.
The crowd moves off to their collective activities, strangely in a daze as if enchanted or charmed by the singer. A quick flip of the fingers does reveal that a strong level of magic has been put upon the crowd. The bard stands, pulls a cowl over his head and picks up his lyre on his way to the door.
Claire loosens Tempest in its sheath and follows the bard out the door. She's invested a lot of sweat and blood in this land; if it's going to be undone, she'll be on the front line holding back the tide.
She quietly moves out the door into the throng of enthralled people; the bard moves quickly down the street and hooks a quick left up an alley. Moving deftly, she makes it to the corner in three steps and rounds the edge of the building, peering into a dead end alley to see that the man is gone.
A quick look over her shoulder, and a notched arrow later, she moves into the passage looking for the missing man, only to find nothing in his place. Stunned by the lack of escape from the area, she begins to search around for some means of egress when she feels a presence behind her. Wheeling around, she fires off an arrow out of nervous energy and it plunks dead center into the chest of the man she was looking for!
She feels the blood rush to her face, adrenaline burns through her veins, and the sickening feeling that she has made a terrible mistake all flood her senses. The man, on the other hand, makes no move, seems to not even notice the shaft poking outside of his shirt and, in point of fact; there appears to be no blood. Standing mouth agape, she sees a large – and familiar – mastiff move from behind the robed man and sit at his side. The man, now not looking like the bard of the tavern but the man of her nightmares, smiles at her as he pulls the bloodless arrow out of his chest and drops it to the stones at his feet.
Cursing at her own clumsiness, Claire lowers the bow (but doesn't put it away) and takes a step back, eying the dog. She doesn't want to drop a fireball in the center of town and has a funny feeling that her sword isn't going to do much against something that doesn't bleed, so she decides to diplomacize my way through this.
“My apologies, good sir,” she says, “but you'd do well not to sneak up on someone in an alley.”
She turns her head a bit, as if noticing something she hadn't before. “Say...don't I know you from somewhere?”
“Child, you have no need to apologize, it is I that should beg forgiveness, sneaking up on you in a blind alley. Your precision with that bow is to be applauded but will not be needed in my presence.
Her eyes shine as she puts the bow away, not seeming to notice what she's doing.
The dog pads a bit, then lays down at the man’s feet, paying her zero mind and oblivious to the actions that just transpired.
“I am known to you Claire, but my current appearance will not trip forth your memory outside of a fever dream. I have many names, but you can call me Curchanus the Traveler, former master of beasts and the road, proxy of Desna and one time resident of the Daoine'Nyr'Shana.” He bows deeply, then extends his hand to her. “Shall we walk a bit?”
"Thank you for your kind words," Claire says, bowing in return. She takes his arm with her left hand and escorts the gentleman back out of the alley. "A resident of Daoine'Nyr'Shana? I didn't think there were any...I mean, well, you don't look elven and I thought the elves were the ones that built that. Though, I must admit, Brother Kassuth and young - well, young-blooded - Tonus were always much more interested in where it came from than I was."
“Daoine'Nyr'Shana was my home for many an eon, but it was not under my control. He proceeds to tell her a long story as they walk through the city.
After he finishes, she simply gawks at him, believing and disbelieving at the same time, but the look on his face tells her that the story is all too true.
“I am sure your young friend Tonus would be well hailed for that tale in the guild halls of the Pathfinder Society, but that is for another time. When I was resuscitated, so to speak, I was able to manage out a small portion of my essence to the cosmos, hoping in time that this fragment would gain enough understanding and insight as to my location. It was only through the grace of fate that the startree came back to Golorian and that my splinter was able to locate your band and finally free myself from what I once thought was eternal bondage.”
They walk through the remains of the town square, moving back to her home and up to the front door. “You have many questions, I know, but we have little time. Tomorrow a man will appear at your door, this man will ask you and your peers to undertake a quest that you might have otherwise balked at, but it is of the utmost importance that you assist him and follow along with what he asks. If there is time, I will meet with you again but for now I ask that you take this and use it when you need to.”
She gazes down at the glass bottle that is now in her hand; inside is a miniature sailing vessel, perfect in every detail. She looks up to find that she is alone on the steps, leaving her clueless as to what his missive means.
She puts the tiny bottled ship in her haversack, muttering to herself about the absurdity of what just happened.
"I suppose I should make sure everybody's home tomorrow then, eh?" She heads back into the street, stopping a passing page to send word out to anybody that's not already at the home place, then heads back.
She climbs the steps up to the door of the Raven Company and heads inside.
“Tonus! Come down here. And bring your book and quill!”
At seven bells, Claire is standing next to the seated Tonus, who is scribbling away in Brother Kassuth's Pathfinder Society journal, periodically stopping to ask Claire a whispered question. Sitting on the table next to the book is a small glass bottle; inside the bottle is a tiny model ship.
They hear the front door open and close, then Isadora and Varn step into the dining hall.
A few seconds later, they notice that Lariss is already seated at the table across from Tonus.
Claire sits down next to the boy.
“The man in our dreams is Ahric Zhan,” she says, without preamble. “Or, at least, the entity that he was a splinter of. A stranger came to me today while I was near the Sea Wench Tavern. He could disappear and reappear without word or gesture, had a huge mastiff at his side, and he also seems <koff> to be invulnerable to weapons. He calls himself Curchanus the Traveler, and says that we helped free him from his bondage to Daoine'Nyr'Shana. He also said that, tomorrow, we will be visited by someone seeking our aid.”
“He says that we must help him, even though we may not want to. He also gave me this.” she picks up the bottled ship and tosses it to Isadora, counting on the barbarian's reflexes to catch it before it crashes to the floor. “He said we should use this when we need to, whatever that means.”
“I've been retelling Curchanus's tale to Tonus. I'm sure he'd love to read it to you, if you like,” she says, patting the teenage elf on the shoulder.