A week or so prior Aleira had, without much thought or care given, climbed through an open cellar window. The cellar itself offered horror and mystery in equal measure, the damp locale infested with suffocating black mold and bedecked in ominous cobwebs, woven by the smattering of eight legged creatures that swarmed to her feet even before she had found her baring on the stone floor. And there in the murky dark, amongst remains of long dead precursors to her hapless investigation she found it, the key that would later lead her to the Earthspurs. She thought little of it. That is, until she shared her find with a newfound friend, or as that friend might have it, a newly discovered sister. Aleira argued that mayhaps the key would lead to nothing, a poetic notion, she thought. Yet, friend objected, clearly the key would fit a chest, filled with riches to defy enumeration. A few idle rolls of knucklebone die later, to determine the whims of gods and the fortune awaiting the pair, they were off. To once again investigate the damp cellar in which the key had first been unearthed.
Hours later, the pair hopped out of a window. For once, the greeting that cold wind and freshly fallen snow felt welcoming. A pleasant change from the damp cellar, the cramped tunnel and the rude air of the abandoned building whose window they had leapt from. They find themselves in a strangely familiar place, however - the battlements of Sarshel's city walls. More specifically, near the docks. Aleira froze then, for over the low din of the slowly waking city she heard hushed voices echo against stone. And as she peered over the battlements she saw them. Two figures, bearing hoods and armed to the teeth. They were stood over a man, do doubt discussing what to do with the spoils that recent bloodshed had earned them. The two friends hurried then, to the aid of the fellow who had fallen prey to the hooded figures. Off the battlements, through narrow alleys they scrambled... Until the inevitable confrontation with the two blaggards broke loose. The burgeoning light of early dawn shining through light grey clouds dimly reflected against the steel drawn as the struggle, brutal but quick, played out. After the fight concluded, they both rushed to the fallen man's aid, but not perhaps unexpectedly he was already dead. Lifeless and limp upon the slush of snow and mud that laid like emulsion of the city's streets. Hoping to find anything that might identify the poor man Aleira would grit her teeth as she struggled to shift the listless body, all that she found however was a folded piece of old parchment, the faded scrap stained with dried blood. Belonging perhaps to it's most recent owner, or to some other poor sot who had been in possession of it. She could only guess.
Then, the tavern. The Crowning Glory off of Sarshel's main square. An establishment that had come to be Aleira's favourite haunt whenever she visited the city to seek comfort from the cold that held the region in it's unyielding grasp. Joined by not one new friend this time but two, or as one in the trio would have it, two newly discovered sisters. She presented the map. It remained cryptic as ever, only a few symbols and features recognizable. The marking of a mine, a large body of water and a triangle drawn in deep red ink. The dried splatters of blood, ill portent as they might carry ignored by the trio of women. They decided that the only reasonable course of action was to seek aid in deciphering that dense mystery woven by the ink upon that torn parchment. First, off to the gem dealer, a man who dismissed them with no small amount of rudeness. He didn't have time for such petty dealings, gems were his interest, not pitiful scraps of parchment. Then, Faile chimed up, suggesting they travel farther afield.... Towards the library of Songhall.
And so the three, Trish, Faile and Aleira sat out upon that cold windswept trail. A trail that might soon prove to be cold in more than one sense. But hope flared within them all, that the map could be deciphered. That whatever meaning laid behind it's three discernible symbols would lead them towards fortune. It had certainly already led them towards adventure. The long journey towards Songhall however was uneventful, nothing beset them upon that wild road. Perhaps they had the lucky roll of die that Trish had triumphantly boasted back at the Glory to thank for that stroke of luck? Or more likely, it was Faile's confident yet careful blazing of the trail that led them unmolested towards the safety of Songhall.
Well there, at the foot of that grand library, the trio separated. Aleira, firm in her determination to find having taken the task of finding a scribe to aid with the interpretation of the map lingered for several long hours in The House of Many Tomes. The halls themselves and the scribes that would, at more reasonable hours, inhabit the selfsame were asleep; as she fruitlessly scanned the countless bookshelves that lined the great halls. Come morning however, after a nights of uneasy rest at The Thirsty Fool she found them. The seemingly learned pair that whiled away the early hours in the common room of the establishment. She approached, the unfolded map in hand. The question of where it would lead burning within her chest, causing her heart to beat just that bit quicker.... Then she addressed them.
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((Sorry for the long post, as well as any and all grammatical errors and the poor application of spell checking!))