The city breathes in before the rebellion

See Also: Bardic Knowledge

While Brizanthimus is helping Tomacarne clean out the damage and help people a small hashan approaches with an offer to help. Briz, seeing so much damage to the area, readily agrees to help from the diminutive person. Her name is Fidget and although she does not live near this area she loves to help and in fact seems eager to do so. She is not strong enough to move burned beams, but she seems to be everywhere at once – always helping people. Briz also notices that she must have a deep purse because he sees her pressing coins into the hands of those who lost their homes or businesses.

Briz knows little of the hashan because they generally do not travel inland much, so during a break they head to a local tavern to eat. Fidget loves to talk and Briz loves to learn new stories, so they spend several hours simply chatting and drinking. Their conversation is interrupted when they overhear a conversation between several Mladovian men concerning a “cleansing” that is coming to the city. When the men leave they follow them to a pair of row houses in the wash. There are a couple of men looking out the outside windows – watching the streets. Briz pretends to be a very loud drunk – allowing Fidget to sneak inside.

Upstairs she finds a score or more sleeping pallets each with a sack on top. Inside the sack is a set of common clothes and a leather wrapped bundle contained a fired clay bottle and a very well-made dagger. She takes on the bundles and sneaks downstairs. She gets past a very heavy door with a complex lock – revealing a large hole dug in the floor. A nearby knotted rope looks to be the only safe way up and down. The sound of flowing water can be heard below.

Fidget wants to investigate more, but the mladovians in the house have already run Briz off and so her distraction is gone. Still, she does overhear a conversation as she is leaving that indicates the men in the rowhouse is expecting some more people to show up tonight. Fidget manages to and meet up with Briz a few blocks over.

Briz examines her find – discovering that the bottle contains ensorcled spider venom. Unfortunately it nearly overcomes him, causing him to drop the bottle which breaks. Fidget reveals that she is working for the Lord Marshall and they must get the information to him. She takes Briz to Master Friedgart, a potter, who passes along the information. Fidget and Briz return to Briz’s room for some supper and await the Lord Marshall's response.

amer_terrante, Pox, and Xarth work together to come find out the pieces moving around the trading house. Pox heads to the docks to inquire about the thugs that attacked Cristobal Erasmus. He find out that a Mladovian named Waclaw has been hiring men for a upcoming job. There are also rumors that Girardino da Liovia has given money to many dock hands to be ready to come when he calls them.

Xarth, with a list of employees, searches for one with a limp. The assassin was definitely someone Pox remembers from the trading house, but he did not know him by name. However, he was limping after the fight in the warehouse. Xarth gets the same information from the first three houses. Girardino sent a messenger that he had re-opened the trading house and needed them to return to work. Only the messenger knew where the location was and he left with the employees. Sensing something wrong, Xarth returns to Amer's house.

Fidget and Briz are drinking, story-telling, and waiting for word from the Lord Marshall – when they notice a slovenly man look them over before scurrying out the door. They follow him and find that he was paid by someone to locate them. The man says that he represents Girardino da Liovia and wants their help to negotiate a neutral ground for a meeting with Amer. He claims that Amer has sent assassins after Girardino and he demands a public meeting area. With great reluctance Briz goes to Amer's house and gives him the news. Along the way they stop in Master Friedgart and get word that the Lord Marshall wants them to investigate the building as he believes something will happen tonight.

Amer tells Xarth to bring Cristobal to the clock tower in the marketplace so that everyone can meet in a public place. Amer sits in the central plaza, while Pox finds a hidden spot where he can look down along the avenue. Xarth, feeling the power of the ifrit fill him, wants to go with Briz and Fidget – so he just grabs Cristobal like a sack of flour and runs as fast as he can to the clock. There he drops the man and then sprints away towards The Wash.

Amer has a rather one-sided conversation with Cristobal who is treating Amer as little more than a traitor to his family. It is more difficult because the jostling by Xarth has re-opened his wound from the previous attack. While they are talking, Pox notices two groups of laborers carrying large boxes making their way close to the square. Laborers are not allowed in the square, so this seems very odd. He shoots one of the laborers in the leg. The laborer drops the box, which sets off a crossbow hidden in the box – which nearly hits Amer.

In the next confusing moments Pox hits the other box and pins down the first group. The second group pushes forward, but Amer grabs up Cristobal and sprints for the crowd. He manages to lose the trailing group and the pinned group manages to flee into the crowd as well while Pox is running down the stairs toward the street.

Pox, Amer, and Cristobal reach a safe house that Pox knows but has never used. Once upstairs Cristobal asks Pox to retrieve some documents for him. When Pox returns Cristobal says that these documents prove that the vulfgrau_trading_house wants civil war in the city and that Amer and his uncle, tycho_terrante, are tied up in everything. He never took them to the Lord Marshall because Girardino captured him by then. The documents are definitive proof, but given Cristobal's weakened state Amer manages to convince him the documents are wrong.

The most dangerous bit of information Cristobal has gathered is the information about a Cult of Danshi in the city. Danshi is the demon-goddess of slaughter and is probably the only universally reviled figure in any pantheon. He says that a blood priestess will arise in the city wielding the Bloodstaff and call forth a Reaver army to overrun the city.

Briz and Fidget are watching over the row house when a flaming Xarth jogs down the street and crashes through the front door. With little choice at stealth, Briz and Fidget follow in his wake. Xarth cuts his way through several guards and slams through the sturdy door over the tunnel. Just as he steps through a spider the size of a large bear climbs out of the hole – it has an elongated face of a man with eight human eyes. Instinctively Xarth knows that this is one of the Esideor and his eternal enemy.

A fight ensues in the tight confines. The spider is supernaturally strong and mostly resilient to Xarth's sword. Fidget's dagger has more success as does Briz's magic; although one large spell draws another of the spirits to him, forcing Briz to retreat a few steps. Xarth and Fidget are hard-pressed, with Xarth bitten and envenomed often enough to slow him down. In the end Fidget corners the creature towards the ceiling and Xarth uses his fist to physically tear its body apart.

Outside the room, Briz cannot seem to stop the creature from joining with him again until the Incar intervene. They expand and encase his arm in their body turning it into a weapon to fight the spirit. Briz opens himself up to the Incar and banishes the spirit back into the Shadow Realms. He is barely standing in a constable with squard of dwarves charge in. The dwarves look with disgust at Briz’s arm, while the constable tries to straighten everything out.

While the dwarves of the stonearm_clan clear the rest of the rooms Xarth, Briz, and Fidget go into the storm tunnels following some small echo of Esideor power. After a couple of hours they are forced to give up the chase and make their way to the exit as they cannot find their entrance anymore. They reach the large washout where many of the drains flow into the bay just as the sun begins to set.

Night falls on a city tense with rebellion.