The room where they met Luc had some unusual maps of Steinhall on the walls. Vrba recognised them as maps of the ley lines running through the country. Luc said that he's been studying the "mystic balace of energies" in the area, and had detected a shift, or an imbalance. In the past, there have been four major "confluences of mystic energy": one in the River's End area, one north in Bergstadt (where Draco lives), one near Goebels, and one in the Royal Woods (elf territory) in the east, near Owl's Hoot. Even I can figure out that these sites correspond to the abodes of powerful magic users, the question is whether the presence of the mages causes the "confluence," or if the mages choose to live in these places because of the knots of power. Now, recently, Luc and/or Throntax detected a new "confluence," up in the north, beyond the Steinhall border, in the territories of the Mountain Folk. Luc said that this implied the presence of a new power. He asked Keef and Vrba to get us to go and investigate to see what this power was, and if it would be suitable for an alliance (or if it was possibly working with G.). We all agreed to go for our various reasons, so we packed up and set off north.
Our route led us through Bergstadt, and we decided to stay the night there. The inn (Inn of the Swinging Sign) was clean, but small (only 4 rooms), so I suggested that, since Erose and Keef knew the baron, we should see if we could stay at the castle. They agreed to go up to the castle, and talk with Draco. The rest of us went to the inn for a nice supper. They had some very good wine from Franconia.
Keef and Erose totally fell for the sheltered innocent act, and told her about our mission to find the magic confluence in the mountains. She said that going through the mountains was dangerous, we'd have to cross the territory of the mountain lord Zandar, who led a "race of assassins and thieves." The area is supposedly full of dangerous creatures. The safest way to the spot where we were supposed to go is through the Dwarven kingdom of France. Keef hit on Grace; she sniffed at him. She left.
Right after she left, Draco came in, bare-chested, with sigils written on. He had cut his hair very short. He cleaned himself up, and put on a shirt. Erose mentioned Grace, and Draco seemed very confused and concerned--he has no daughter. (Duh.) Draco's cat, Fifi, came in, and he patted it. Keef and Erose told him about the mission, and asked if he had any advice. He said that he had an old "acquaintance" in the mountains, a human named Malthus, and that this power node was probably due to him. He told them that we must be cautious in dealing with Malthus, that he was much more evil than Draco ever was. He also said that, if we had the opportunity, that it would be best if we killed Malthus.
With respect to staying at the castle, he said that it probably wasn't that great an idea; since there was clearly Weird Shit going on there. However, Erose pushed, and he reluctantly acquiesced, although he insisted that we sleep two to a room. A messenger was sent down to the Swinging Sign to fetch the rest of us.
The parapets were indeed very nice, and almost romantic. Grace made a few blatant passes at Erose, which she declined. She did offer to escort Grace to her room, though, so off they went. When they got to the room, which was in a different section of the castle than ours, Grace tried to get Erose to come in, but Erose rebuffed her and said goodnight. As Erose turned back towards her room, she met Draco's cat again. The cat had a piece of fabric in its mouth. Erose took the fabric, and saw that it was similar to the lace she'd seen in Grace's room, and that it was stained with blood.
She ran to the central tower, where Draco has his workroom. She was stopped at the door by a guard, who said that Draco could NOT be interrupted because he was in the middle of some very delicate stuff. She explained about the mysterious lady. The guard, who was named Lisbon, said "Oh, no, it is happenning again!" and asked Erose to lead him to the girl's room.
When they appeared, the guard explained that the door in front of us didn't usually exist. Erose convinced Grace to come to the door, and open it up. As soon as the guard saw her, he charged at her with his sword drawn. Sanjay followed suit, and attacked the woman with one of his "batteries." She exploded. As soon as she did, the rest of us, who were waiting in the hall, were somehow sucked into the room, and the door vanished behind us.
We walked for a while, when we heard voices up ahead. We saw a couple of pale, white-clad women walking towards us. They were speaking in Steinhall, and were talking about their "masters." Sanjay was scouting ahead, and met up with them first. He played mute. When we caught up to him, I thanked the ladies for finding my "pet," and continued onwards.
We came to a large corridor, which was lined with shops of various sorts. Goblins, Drow, and humans walked around. Some of them seemed to be slaves. It was a wretched hive of scum and villainny. Needless to say, there were no elves. Fortunately, my hair was unbound, so it covered my ears; I figured that if I didn't attract attention, I could pass for a human with some elf in his ancestry. Keef and Erose went to a merchant and sold the lacy stuff for some of the local currency. This consists of white and black disks. Keef bought some trousers (very nice ones, black, made out of the hide of some scaled creature), and some hats for us pointy-eared types. (Keef got a floppy, wide-brimmed hat for Vrba, a pointy, brimless black one, with silver-thread designs on it for Sanjay, and a top hat with a scarf for me.) There were no weapon shops on the street at all.
Note: In order to keep Vrba from going nuts and attacking every Drow in sight, Erose grabbed hold of him, and shoved the non-poisoned end of the vibrating dildo into his gob. It seemed to have some sort of magic power, because he became very relaxed when he had it in his mouth.
I had the idea that we should look for some sort of guidebook or map of the local area, so that we could figure a way to leave, and hopefully get back to Draco's. We found only one likely-looking place, a run-down old scroll and book shop. The shopkeeper was a blind, crippled old Drow. He was quite creepy, as one would expect a Drow to be. The store had nothing of the sort I wanted, although there was an interesting-looking tome called The History of the Underworld. It cost too much, though, so we didn't get it. We talked to the shopkeeper for a while. He must have been half-mad; he claimed that he could "smell people's souls." He hinted that he could tell I was an elf and that I should leave the town quickly. He also said that Keef smelled a bit elfy, too. He said that he was an outcast from Drow society, and that his own people had blinded and crippled him, because he "knew too much." He said we could go to the gambling hall to get info on how to find our way out of this place. As we prepared to leave the shop, he cackled and said that we could go to Malthus, the lord of the place, and ask him to send us home. He said that Malthus wasn't as interested in the underground kingdom, he was more interested in gaining power and making a kingdom in the surface world, and that he hated Drow (well, that is one good point in his favor). He might be willing to send us home, for a price. When I mentioned our impoverished state, the old Drow said "hehehe, I bet you have something...." We thanked him for his information, and left the shop. I was happy to get away from the creepy old geezer.