Whilest you Slept

There is a pale-haired man in the dungeons, cleaning it up a little bit. As that they're dungeons they tend to get untidy rather quickly, but Menel takes the task upon himself to keep it in the best condition that can be expected. Well, at least the cell that he sleeps in most of the time. The other cells where the prisoners are kept are left to their own owners to take care of.

Menel finishes folding the blankets and sighs to himself, looking around at his good work before settling down on the bed. He makes himself comfortable there, and then picks up a book from the pile; it's one on top and much dog-eared. Its title reads: "Magic for the uninitiated".

Erendriel has returned to the dungeon after that day out, making her contacts and such, acquiring more medicine. She sighs, sits down on her cot, and then lays out, groaning softly. This place is so painfully stifling.

Given Erendriel's most recent experiences; having been abducted by the vampire known as Kol, Menel looks... almost disturbingly familiar. Menel appears unaware of his own familiarity, and though they'd met previously the sense of familiarity transcends the sort of feeling that one gets from a brief encounter once before. He feels like an old friend that one hasn't seen in a while.

"How are you feeling?" Menel asks the question and then winces slightly at it as if it had slipped out before he could stop it. "Sorry, I know you aren't feeling well at all."

Erendriel rolls onto her side when she's spoken to. Looking up to Menel from the cot, she blins, clears her throat quietly, and shrugs. "Hi. I um.. I'm not sure. My memories are a little foggy of the last day? Does the medicine do that? Or do I need to stay in here more?"

"Has anything happened recently to disturb your memory?" Menel has a confused expression on his face. "Nobody's mentioned that the tonic has any sort of side effects, but... maybe you're one of the rare people that is going to have one." He offers an apologetic grin. "Sorry, I know about as much about alchemy as I do about magic which is to say nothing at all."

Erendriel looks up at Menel, taking a slow breath. "I um... well... I remember yesterday having some medicine, going out a bit for the day. Then I had some more... and the next thing I remember I'm on my way back from the forest."

Menel blinks at this. "That's... very odd. Nothing unusual happened before you lost track of time and where you were? Perhaps while you were out and about for the day?"

Erendriel makes the best shrug she can lying down. "I don't remember. I was... I knew it was time to take more so I don't die.. but then... there I Was."

"Some kind of magic perhaps? I'd talk to Mikilos about it. He's a really good mage and he knows more about this sort of thing than I do; and he is the one that concocted the cure so perhaps he knows if it might cause this sort of problem." Menel shrugs his shoulders, clearly deeply considering her problem.

Erendriel hums. "Is this a kind of magic? It's a kind of magic... that I don't know anything about. My magic is... well, I want something to happen and it happens. Did someone use magic on me?"

"It's possible!" Menel nods once and meets Erendriel's gaze, wiggling his book a little. "I can't say I know a lot about magic, but I do know that there is magic that can erase your memories. I know of someone who uses just such magic. So it's possible that someone did something similar to you."

Erendriel shifts a little, a little anxious as she always is in this place. Taking a deeper breath than she might normally have the day before. "Who?" she asks very simply.

Menel presses his lips together and shakes his head. "Her. The woman that controls the vampire Kol Demontry." He shudders saying the vampire's name as though a chill ran down his back, and it had. "She uses all sorts of magic, but that one more than most. To keep people from remembering what she does..."

Erendriel nods. "I... got chased by that vampire once. But that was a little while ago." Shifting onto her back. "So it would have to have been very delayed."

The swordsman shakes his head. "No, it doesn't work like that I don't think. He can control people, make them do some pretty insane things, but I don't think it's his power that makes people forget what happened in the tower. I think that's Her and if you were there you might not remember anything at all." Menel seems to consider this then shakes his head. "But it doesn't have to have been Her. It's possible that there's some other mage out there that did it."

Erendriel shrugs. "I've never gone particularly close to that tower anyway. And yesterday I don't even remember leaving the city."

"Who knows then. It could have been anyone with the magic to do it for any reason." Menel frowns. "All I can think of is that perhaps we should go out and look to see if we can't find someone who saw you yesterday."

Erendriel nods. "You think? I could.. I have som more of..." She reaches over to her pack, and pushes into it to pull out a treasured vial. "It's pretty awful but it seems to work."

"It'll go easier if you're with me. People remember a person they've seen better if that person is standing right in front of them." He stands up and offers his hand to Erendriel. "Come on, it shouldn't take too long to find someone who saw you yesterday. Especially if you can maybe remember where you were right before you lost time?"

Erendriel sits up slowly, still holding the vial. She carefully opens it, tilts her head back, and pours it into her mouth. Tasting a little as possible, she twitches anyway, and really scrunches up her face as she sits up, and slowly put sher backpack on. "Thank you."

Menel offers a broad grin. "No problem. Gives me something to do besides sit in here and worry about whether or not someone can find me in here." He laughs a little, but it's the sort of laugh that doesn't really mean that he's happy. "Besides, I want to help you if I can."

Erendriel shifts in her boots, getting the backpack on just so. "Well let's go... but... did you see me yesterday then?"

The swordsman looks surprised at the question. "No. Wish I could say that I did. It'd certainly help figure out what happened."

Erendriel tilts her head as she follows him on out. "Well.. then why would seeing you help people remember me?"

"I don't think seeing me will help people remember you. I think that seeing you will help people remember you." Menel offers these words as he leads her out of the cell. "I'm just coming along for the company, and also because I have a lot of friends around here so people might be willing to help out a little more. People can be surprisingly difficult to talk to if they don't know you."

Erendriel nods as she holds her breath, while coming out of the place, then sighing deeply once she's out of the wards. "Well I hope it works."

Erendriel is walking, slowly and deliberately, with Menel. Making various faces, with the obvious look of someone who just ate or drank something very unpleasant, she looks around. Passing a dried weed, she zaps it and leaves a trail of smoke behind her as she speaks. "I hope somebody remembers."

Menel offers Erendriel a friendly and gentle clasp of the shoulder. "Someone somewhere has to remember you." He moves over to one of the stalls and grins at the shopkeeper. "Hi! Did you happen to see my friend here yesterday? No? Okay, thanks! How about you sir, do you remember seeing her yesterday?" Menel goes from one person to the next asking everyone if they'd seen Erendriel.

A streak of squeaks and swearwords precedes the arrival of the Gobbo and her Worg mount. "WILLLLLFREEEEDDDDDDD STAAAAAAAHP!" Something the Worg refuses to do, until Menel and Erendriel come into view. Then he skids to a stop before them, and sits down. Murder, on the other hand, goes flying over the canine's shoulders, and is kept from going too far by her tight grip on Wilfred's leash. The Gobbo ends up on her behind in front of the Worg. She huffs and slowly stands up. "You are so not getting any treats later.", she grumbles, before turning around to peer at Menel and Erendriel. "Euh. Hi!"

Erendriel probably wasn't seen by THAT many people. she does stand out a little in her own way, but until the incidents that led to her capture it wasn't that big of a deal. "Hello. Did you see me yesterday?"

Menel offers a nod of his head to Murder. "Sorry to just drop questions on you, but we're trying to see if anyone around here has seen her yesterday." The swordsman smiles somewhat apologetically.

Meanwhile an elderly dwarven man overhears the conversation and eyes Erendriel. "I saw her yesterday! Nearly got myself killed two or three times!"

The Gobbo cants her head slightly at the question, and her eyes narrow. "Maaaybe. Why?", she wonders of the two. "Is it illegal to view her on that day?" Murder slowly shifts her posture forward a little, and she crosses her arms. When the old Dwarf speaks up, she looks to him and then the other two to see how this will transpire.

Erendriel shakes her head to Murder. "It's not illegal, but something happened to me yesterday. I was magically transported someplace, and I don't remember what happened. We're hoping somebody saw something." Then the dwarf is coming over, nad she turns to look. "You did? Where?"

Menel gives the goblin a smile, nodding to Erendriel. "What she said. We're just asking around for information. If you know anything it'd really be helpful. You too sir." His eyes fall on the stout dwarf who is eyeing Erendriel like she's a bad influence on his grandchildren. "Anything you can tel us; please."

Maybe it's the please, or maybe it's Erendriel's words and clear concern. Either way the dwarf shakes his head. "Don't know how anyone could forget the /air/ turning into fire. Or a vampire descending on Alexandria. Or lightning just about killing six people. You were there missy; right in the middle of it by that there vampire. Or at least I think it was. That's what the mage Mikilos was yelling about. The one who turned the sky to fire."

The Gobbo blinks, and shakes her head. "I did not see her yesterday, but I have heard of this vampire. I think I even fought against him. He kidnaps people to somewhere else... no one has been able to follow him, as far as I can tell. But uh... did you find yourself with a snowflake tattoo or scar somewhere?"

Erendriel is watching the dwarf, and listening carefully as he speaks. "Fire... vampire... Mikilos... I don't remember any of this. And I was there? Was I shooting fire?" Then looking to Murder. "Scar? Um..." She starts looking at herself, moving bits of fabric, then seeing something on the inside of her upper arm. "Um..."

"Kol." Menel says the word, clearly disgusted. "He and his..." He /refuses to say the word, instead hesitating a brief instant. "She sends him out to collect people sometimes. They're the reason that you don't remember anything from yesterday." His eyes fall on the snowflake scar and he lets out a long breath. "I'm so sorry Erendriel. I wouldn't wish that place on anyone."

"What about me! I'm the one that almost got flash baked! Or eaten by a vampire! Doesn't anyone care that the mage went off the deep end and nearly killed us all?" The dwarf stomps off in a huff.

"You look pretty lively for someone almost dead, sir.", the Gobbo calls after the huffy Dwarf. She grins toothily and looks back to Erendriel. "Yeah, that's about the size of it. But uh, on the upside, if you had the plague before, you should be cured at this point. And probably immune to it, now. Or so the rumours say." Murder shrugs and looks to Menel. "There are far worse things to be tattooed with, all told."

Erendriel looks to each of them. The dwarf is starting to get on her nerves, to be honest, with his opposition to fire. "If Mikilos was shooting fire I'm sorry I don't remember it," she says softly, though doing her best to put on a very chipper and polite face to the poor guy. But then she's whirling back to the others. "A snowflake? They put... a snowflake on me? And it... cured me?"

GAME: Erendriel rolls bluff: (13)+18: 31

Menel isn't sure how to answer Erendriel's look. If anything he looks uncomfortable with the whole situation, his blue eyes flicker toward Murder. "Maybe you're right, but considering that you haven't gotten one... maybe you could withhold judgment on what it's like to have someone else carve a design into your flesh without your consent." He looks at Erendriel, reaching out a hand and touching her shoulder again to try and comfort her. "I don't know. But She's cured others of the plague."

Murder glowers at Menel. "And just how do you know that I haven't had someone else carve something on me without my say so?" She crosses her arms, and huffs, looking from Menel to Erendriel. "Well, I don't know if it was the snowflake or not, but I know that Alba was cured of the plague when she was taken. She was working on a cure for the plague, and she got kidnapped by Kol, and when she returned, she was plague-free." The Gobbo rubs a cheek, and gestures to the mark on the Half-Elf. "It can be healed, at least... removed. Or changed into something else. And we'll get the vampire, and his mistress, and cure the plague."

Erendriel lifts her sleeve up, holding it as she looks at the mark, and then back to the others. "Oh gods..." she murmurs. "A snowflake? A SNOWflake? Yes, I will have to get this... healed or changed or something. Unless it really did cure me, and then I have to keep it. I wonder how to check if I'm cured, without risking dying..."

Menel blinks at Murder and has the grace to look chargined. "I guess I didn't think about that. As to the snowflake itself. I have no idea what it does or doesn't do. Might not be safe to remove it. And it's not like everyone that gets free of her gets cured. I know that a few people /got/ the plague from Her that way." He shakes his head.

Azog is heading up the road toward the pub. It's lunchtime.

Murder looks to Erendriel. "Did you have the plague before Kol snatched you?", she wonders. Looking back to Menel, the Gobbo shrugs. "I wasn't trying to make light of her situation."

Faranmidahn guides her big black spider through the convenient bubble that forms in the crowd as people notice the pair approach. She walks with no major hurry, but seems content to look around.

Erendriel tilts her hand back and forth to Murder. "I didn't take it that way. It's fine. And yes, I did. One of those things jumped into me." She closes her eyes a moment. "But if it cured me, I wonder why."

"All I know is that I don't know what Her endgame is. Whatever She wants, She never shared it with me." Menel shakes his head and looks around the area which is growing more crowded now for some reason. "Perhaps it's best not to ask why. Be glad you're cured and you're safe now."

The Gobbo offers Azog a wave, and nods to Menel. "Yeah, no one knows what the heck her game is. Hmmph. There's a guy who used to make golems... think the name is Zeheir or something close to that. His wife contracted a disease, and this mage dropped everything to try and cure his wife. Could it be that this plague in Alexandros and the disease Zeheir's wife had are one and the same? I mean, it is said that this mad Queen, this mistress of Kol's... is using a tower matching the description of Zeheir's tower. What if there are a bunch of ... I dunno, experiments to recreate the plague sitting around in that tower? What if Zeheir managed to cure the plague?" Murder rubs at her cheek, and pulls on Wilfred's leash a little. "We gotta get into that tower somehow."

Azog ehs at the goblin, "What? What tower? What's all this about, then?" Azog does not keep up on current events.

Menel has an expression of deep thought on his face, nodding along with Murder's words not as though he agrees so much as in understanding of the concepts that she's expressing. "If he managed to cure the plague, then would he not have cured his wife?" His question is barely out of his mouth before Azog wanders up and the swordsman eyes the other man. "You know, I really should be getting back. If you'll all excuse me." He nods to Murder and then to Erendriel. Even offering Faranmidahn who is only slightly familiar to him a brief wave of his hand before he begins to walk away into the crowd of people.

-End