Here we are in the magical land of Abhaile! Here's last time.
Our heroes trek north for another week. Zook re-summons his spider familiar, names it Edna, and lets it ride on his shoulder as they walk. Dara chats with the critters they see as they walk, looking for weirdness (though "weirdness" expectations have to be adjusted when you're talking to, say, rabbits: "IT WAS A HORRIBLE SLAVERING BEAST, IT ATE MY FAMILY-" oh, it was a fox). Clara tries to figure out the mysteries of a little trinket she found a while back - it's a little mechanical crab that moves if she's not looking at it ("Maybe I'm just not fast enough?").
Eventually they start getting close to the capital city of Cian, and they can see the stone walls in the distance. Zook, of course, is familiar with Cian - he trained to be a wizard here - but the others have never been, and Dara and Aisling have never seen it (Clara saw it in the distance as she headed south originally). Aisling notes with wonder that it just keeps getting bigger every time you look away and then look back.
Cian itself is surrounded by stone walls. The north entrance (the "back," from the characters' perspectives, since they're coming from the south) has an immense portcullis that's kept closed, but opened for travelers, traders, or other entrants as needed. The southern entrance, the huge wooden doors, are always kept open except in times of emergency. The last time they were closed, a necromancer raised an army of the dead and marched on Cian to try and retake it, and when the people retreated inside, tried to wait them out (dead soldiers don't starve, after all). They were defeated through patience and archery.
Anyway, the lands immediately surrounding the city are a melange of small villages and farms, mostly growing stuff you don't need a ton of land for. As the heroes approach, they spot a man hoeing a garden of cabbages and stop to chat a minute. He tells them if they head west they'll hit the main road, and that'll lead them right into the city through the southern gates. If they keep going north from where they are, they'll come to the Glass River (the city sits on the confluence of the Glass and Hidden Rivers), and they'll have to find a bridge to cross. They decide to just head west; they're in no particular mood to wander around. It's been a long trip.
As they're walking through the villages, Zook spots an old man sitting on a bench, and feels for a moment that he knows him...a second later it hits him. That was the old man they saved from the doppelgangers, wasn't it? He tells the others, but when they look back, the old man is gone. This concerns the heroes somewhat; if that guy was Sennin, there's no way he moved that fast. If he was a doppelganger, that means these monsters are in the area. But maybe Zook was just mistaken? The heroes move on, and come to the main road.
The main road is lined with vendors with makeshift booths and tents. Unlike the people the heroes have met on their travels, these folks sell their goods, but fortunately the heroes have managed to accrue coin. Aisling goes a little nuts buying ribbon and jewelry and so on (she's a sucker for a pretty face, and there are lots of pretty people selling things). She also buys some strings for her lute. Zook does the same thing with food and drink, and Clara is amazed at the different things that can be done with corn. Dara is not a fan of the noise and the chaos, but finds a stand that sells trinkets with minor magics and buys a set of earrings that mute the noises around her, and that helps.
The heroes head into the city through the gate, stopping to talk to a couple of the guards. Zook explains the "authority" structure of Cian a little - at the top are the Monarch and the Voice. Monarchy in Abhaile isn't determined through lineage or "divine right" (remember that Abhailans don't really see the gods as having much direct input in their lives). If you want to be Monarch, you can be, if you've got the reputation and support to hold up your claim. The Voice is elected by all the people of Abhaile, though in practice it's usually just the people of Cian who vote.
The Monarch is protected by ten hand-picked Sworn. The Sworn are often adventurers who put their heroic careers on hold to join this force, and then pick it up when the Monarch steps down or dies. Beyond the Sworn, there are the Delvers (detectives empowered to arrest, question, and investigate - there are eight at any given time, four each chosen by the Monarch and the Voice); the Strikes (professional guards and watchers who work in 8-hour shifts, five for each shift, the Day Strikes, Noon Strikes, and Night Strikes); and the Posted (volunteers who act as kind of guardians and first responders). The folks at the gate are Posted.
The two guards chat with the characters a bit, and one of them gives the characters directions to an inn called the Clumsy Archer on the north end of town. He warns them that it's cheap for a reason - the inn is near the outflow pipes and it gets kind of ripe at certain points in the day (the heroes concede that what happens to the city's waste never really occurred to them), but if they're looking for modest prices for long-term, it's a good bet. The heroes thank them and give them some snacks, for which they're very grateful (both of them are coming to the end of their shift and haven't eaten), and then head into the city.
The city was chaotic outside, but it's so much more so now! The characters marvel not just as the noise and the density but the diversity. They're used to seeing villages where most of the clothes are made by the same people out of the same materials, but here there are folks from all over the country and therefore different styles and colors. Likewise, they see not only humans and elves, but half-elves, halfings, and even the odd tiefling!
Clara looks for a monastery, and finds a monk in fairly short order (Zook mentions, too, that the current Monarch, Queen Niamh, was a monk before becoming pregnant with her daughter and giving up life on the road). Clara asks the monk where to find others, and he leads her to a structure blocked off with a wooden fence. Inside, there are monks sparring and meditating. The man tells Clara that this is just a place that monks of any tradition can come to rest and interact, but there is an actual monastery of "city monks", to which he gives her directions.
Meanwhile, the others head on. Zook spots an establishment that cuts hair! He goes in to get a haircut ("I want something that'll look nice even after I've been wearing a hat"), and the half-elf cutting his hair mentions that he trained as a wizard briefly, but really wasn't much good at it ("could never remember all the spells; did you know if you mispronounce part of a Color Spray spell you get something more like a Stinking Cloud? Pretty awful"). Zook asks where he might find a leatherworker who could make him a saddle for his dog, and the hairdresser says to check with a trinket shop run by a gnome named Darragh Bumpshadow. She probably knows someone who could help. He mentions that the shop was actually run by Darragh's father, Trice, but he passed away recently.
Dara and Aisling, meanwhile, find a bath house (after grappling with the local accent a little - "yer lookin fer bats?" "Bats? No, baths." "Swat ah sayed, bats."). The halfling who runs the bathhouse lays out the options and they plump for the gold package - hot water as needed, scent, and snacks. A man made of copper walks in to fill the baths, and the halfling tells them that this device was a gift from her brother, an adventurer. He died out on his adventures and the copper man walked all the way back to Cian with a note saying that it belonged to her now. Fascinated by the prospect of having a metal butler on their travels, the two of them relax in their tubs.
Zook winds up being the first to the Clumsy Archer, and books them a room for the weak. The innkeeper gives him keys ("Ah onleh got tree keys fer thas rum"), and he waits for the others to show up. The four of them go down the block to a restaurant (the Clumsy Archer doesn't serve food), and compare notes, make plans for the next day, and hear a loud DONG (which Zook explains is the bell changing the Strike shift).
They wake up the next morning to a really terrible smell. They go downstairs and find the proprietor wearing a strip of cloth over his face ("sarry bout the shite stank, nawt ah I can do"). They head out into the city and split up - each has some things they want to check out.
Clara goes to the "city monk" monastery, and discovers that it's much like most of the buildings here, rather than the open-air affair that she saw yesterday. Monks play board games and spar, but the windows are open, letting in the noises and aromas of the city (fortunately they're far enough away from the north wall that they don't get that aroma). Clara speaks to an elf, who tells her that the noise of the city is its own enlightenment, and learning to think through it is much the same as learning to think through the birdsong and forest sounds of his home in the south, or, presumably, the rushing winds of her home in the north.
Aisling finds the college of bards and demonstrates playing a harp-lute (she doesn't have hers with her, but they have one on hand, though few can play it). They trade songs and stories for a bit, and Aisling invites some of them to come and play music with her at the Archer later.
Zook and Dara head first to Bumpshadow's Trinkets, where they meet Darragh. Darragh tells them that there's a halfling named Ioan Glassbeard who has made dog-saddles before. She also sells Zook a vest that will take on the scent of anything put it in the front pocket, and a button that changes the color of a garment it's sewn to (Zook wants the vest to match his hat). She warns him to be careful what he puts in the pocket; her father forgot and put a bit of cheese in there once. Zook expresses his condolences about her father, and she thanks him - she always thought he'd live forever.
From there, Zook and Dara go and visit Ioan Glassbeard, who takes measurements for Maeve (the dog) and says he'll send word when the saddle is done. And then they head to the Arcanum, where wizards are taught - they have questions about demons and spiders. Zook speaks to Magister Rose, one of his old teachers, and she points him to the library and sends one Magister Luch to meet them.
Luch is not a halfling, but is short enough to be mistaken for one. Dara and Zook tell him about their experiences with the gnolls and the Bride, and he tells them that gnolls originally came from a demonic bargain with the Queen of Hunger, also called Yeenoghu. There's no reason that couldn't be extended to other animals besides hyenas, but he's never heard that happening before. Zook also shows him the head of the spider-creature they killed, and he marvels at it - it looks like it is partially an elf, but...those eyes! ("Yes," says Dara with a shudder.) Zook shows him the transcription he made of the chant the creature was forcing his victims to repeat, and Luch says it's not any tongue he's ever heard of. He makes a copy and says he'll do some digging, maybe he can at least identify the language. They also tell him about the succubus they've fought, twice, and he tells them that the odds of summoning the same succubus twice by accident are virtually nil. That means someone summoned that particular demon for some reason, and the heroes wound up "killing" it both times. Very curious.
Clara and Aisling show up, as well, and they mention what they saw yesterday (that is, the possible doppelganger). Luch says that doppelgangers are generally lazy and opportunistic, but also evil by inclination. That is, it never occurs to them to be kind and therefore it doesn't make sense to them when others show kindness. The thing they saw yesterday might have been a doppelganger, but it's not like them to follow enemies or hold grudges; they're not usually that motivated. Likewise, although a doppelganger might learn spells and therefore have become invisible, they don't normally that sort of focus. They can, however, skim the thoughts of those around them, which is what lets them impersonate people effectively.
Aisling tells Luch about her tactic of casting a Sleep spell to reveal a doppelganger, and Luch is impressed - of course such a spell wouldn't affect a doppelganger, so in the right circumstance it's a clever way to reveal one. Luch thanks them and tells Zook to give him a day or two, and hopefully he'll have learned something.
It's getting later in the day, so the heroes start heading back to the north end of town. They had noodles for dinner last night, maybe pies tonight?
