Outside of town stands the Teshford Arms Inn (13). It is a poor inn with pretensions of grandeur, but the smells of hearty food and promise of an actual bed upon which to sleep make it a welcome sight indeed. As the company enters, their eyes adjust to the darkness and pipe smoke quickly. The party sees a stout middle-aged matron moving among the tables delivering drinks and picking up empty tankards. They surmise she must be the owner. Seated by the cold hearth is a man in a yellow uniform, which they assume to be the dress of a Zhentish soldier or one of the city guard. Six other people are seated at tables or leaning on the bar in the tap room. A slender young female bard plays the flute, though no one seems to be listening.
Olavia Tsardruyn, the owner of the inn, eyes the newcomers with suspicion as she returns to her station behind the bar. Stago and Selina approach her."We're interested in rooms," Selina says without introduction.
"2 gold per person, per night." Olavia replies.
Stago is shocked, sputtering, "2 gold per night! That's a bit steep, don't you think?"
"Steep or not, it is what a bed costs at this inn, and this inn is the only inn in town," Olavia returns.
Selina arranges a private room for herself and her cats, a room for Stago and Routunious to share, and another room for Elessaria and Merle. She pays in advance for three nights, promising to give two day's notice for each additional day they would like to keep the rooms beyond the initial reservation. Olavia accepts the 30 gold pieces, and Selina notices that the bartender counts them out into two seperate piles of coins on the bar.
Stago, in an effort to grease the wheels for information gathering, orders a round of drinks for everyone in the bar. The Zhent soldier comes to the bar to claim his tankard and Selina notices Olavia gives him one of the two piles of coins in addtion to his beverage. She now undestands why the prices are so high, half of the profits go to the Zhents.
With accomodations secured and social lubricant applied, the company begins the information gathering stage. Stago, Merle and Routunious approach the Zhent at the bar.
Selina moves to a table where the youngest man in the taproom sits playing with his food, but fails to attract his interest. "I'm new to the area," she purrs, "What is this town like?" The young man, without looking up from his plate of beans and hard bread replies, "What you'd expect from a frontier town. A backwater. Rough and tumble and utterly unintersting."
"Are you from here?"
"Gods no. I'm only stuck here waiting for the caravan to move on and take me with it to Waterdeep. Now that is a city."
"Well, any city makes any town look awful by comparison."
"More true with Dagger Falls than most towns. The people are all under the thumb of the constable and don't dare hope for any sort of lasting happiness or freedom. They keep their heads down and imaginations in check, and avoid getting involved with anything that doesn't concern their immediate survival. The Zhentish garrison commands is composed of brigands and looters, who bully everyone. The town is as full of intrigue and treachery as it is vacant of anything remotely interesting to a person of refined tastes and lofty dreams."
Selina stands, satisfied there's nothing more worth mining here. "Enjoy your beans and I hope your journey's end makes undertaking it worthwhile."
"Same to you," the young man said without much conviction. Selina moves to another table, this one with a pair of bearded merchants.
"Hello, beautiful lady. Please join our meager table and increase its worth a thousand fold simply by sitting bewteen us.""I'm always glad to converse with those who know great beauty when they see it," she replies.
"Beauty is our stock and trade, my dear. We are traders in fine silk and dyed garments."
"Are you based in Dagger Falls?"
"Oh, no...we travel between Zhentil Keep and the Kingdom of Ool. Transporting goods back and forth across the desert is our speciality."
Selina motions to the meloncholy young man at the other table, "Is he one of your goods?"
The two silk merchants laugh out loud, drawing a confused look from the young man, but he is too morose to worry about whether they might be laughing at him.
"We're transporting, him, but he's not anything we could get a profit from selling," the merchant with a thick ledger said. His friend finished the thought,"No, he's paying his fare and riding on a wagon of carpets."
"Well, you'll be moving on soon, then?"
"With the morning sun, though until we met you we were looking forward to leaving. You wouldn't be looking to book passage west, would you?" Asks the older merchant hopefully.
"No, I'm staying in Dagger Falls for at least a few days on business."
The younger blurted out, "Cyric keep you from the plague, then. Someone as delightful as you are shouldn't waste time in bed sleeping."
"Plague?"
"A terrible wasting disease has come to Dagger Falls. Haven't you heard? They are calling it the Dream Fever. You catch it, fall asleep, and you don't wake up...at least not in this life."
"Tell me more," Selina encourages the young merchant.
"They say it hits anyone, it does not seem to discriminate in any way. The symptoms of Dream Fever start with a normal fever, like many minor colds. After a day or two of fever and sweats, the victim falls into a fitful sleep and doesn’t wake up. About 190 victims have been claimed in Dagger Falls and nearby 11 farms, 60 of them from the garrison. Most victims have been asleep for several weeks, a few have disappeared, and several are dead."
"Terrible!" Selina says, and walks her fingers up the arm of the younger merchant to twirl her finger in his beard. "Maybe you could tell me more about it while you show me samples of your silks...in your room?"
The older merchant laughs out loud as the pair leave his table and head up the stairs.
Meanwhile, Stago attempts to engage the Zhent soldier in conversation and instead of chatting, he gets a drink poured on him. Olavia offers him a towel and the gnome sits with the rest of his party at a table. They order food and dine.
11:00 pm
As the party eats, Olavia comes to their table and joins them.
The tavern owner asks, "Anything more I can get for you?""We'd be interested in hearing any of the local news," Routunious says.
"Or local history," Stago chimed in, "Such as histories of undiscovered treasure ripe for discovering!"
"Adventurers are all alike," Olavia said with a smile. "Well, you no doubt saw the mountain beyond the farm, behind this inn on this side of the river?"
"Of course," replied the gnome.
"That small mountain is called Eagle's Eyrie, and at the very top, they say, is where an outpost of dwarves used to live."
"Dwarves? They usually have treasure."
"These were the Brightblade clan of Dwarves, and they say they made a great many treasures for the evil mage-lord who ruled this dale a hundred years ago. The very best treasure, them that speak of such things say, was a sword enchanted so as to be lethal to magic users."
"I see...and how did the Mage Lord feel about that, I wonder?"
"There ain't no more dwarves and there ain't no more mage-lord, so I think you figured right. People have poked around these parts looking for that sword for decades, but so far as I know, its still something to be looking for, though there are somethat say the sword was recovered and that's what brought back the curse of the dwarves."
Elessaria asks, "Curse?"
Olavia answers, "The Dream Fever. Nobody knows what it is, and blaming it on dwarves nobody has seen in a hundred years seems as good an answer as any. I've heard people say they've seen dwarven ghosts come down into town, Evil dwarven spirits from Eagle's Eyrie, bringing plague and mischief with them. They must be appeased with a blood sacrifice. The things people make up. Several children vanished recently, they blamed that on goblins taking them up in the hills. A few of the religious types were in here recently saying we're suffering from the Gods turning their backs on us."
Routunious speaks up, "Do the people here suffer life without religion, or are there any temples?"
Olavia replies, "Oh, we suffer through life, alright, but not from lack of religion. Most of us worship in private, there isn't any formal temple in town any more. We had a temple to Lathander, but it burned down quite a while ago. Half a dozen of the priests died in the fire and the temple has been a ruin since then. The rest of the priests left town...I suppose since the Cyricists started acting like the official religion of any place where a Zhent sits his bum down. They didn't feel like they could raise the money they'd need to rebuild, so they left."
"So, Cyric is the primary god for the people of this Dale?"
"If you ask a Zhent or the Constable. There was a priestess of The Dark Sun who came to town. She claimed the ruined temple for Cyric and started excavating the foundation. Then she disappeared. Just about that time the Dream Fever started."
"Do you think the two events are connected?"
"I wouldn't know. But if they ain't, its kind of a funny coincidence, ain't it? Maybe she woke something up down there that would rather have stayed asleep, so now its getting revenge." Olavia says ominously, as she picks up the dirty plates and starts heading for the kitchen.
MIDNIGHT
Stago steps outside to charge his ring of spell storing with magic missle and spook.
1:00 am
Selina returns from upstairs, somewhat surprised that a number of her compatriots take exception to her methods of information gathering. Nonplussed, she tells then that the townies blame the Zhents for the sleeping plague, but that her silk merchant doesn't believe the Zhents are to blame.
Stago asks, "Well...isn't he a Zhent?"
"I think so," Selina says, "but he isn't too patriotic. He just doesn't think that if the Zhentilar had the ability to infect an entire town like this that they would waste such a weapon on a backwater like Dagger Falls."
"Good point," conceded the gnome.
"I don't know about the rest of you," Selina says, "but I'm bushed. Shall we retire and meet for breakfast before we wander into town?"
The rest of the company agrees, and they all exit to their rooms.
Sources:
- Daggerdale 1370 (caution, Angelfire pop-ups)
- miniature building authority
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