With Varielky at his side, Auger proceeds to the Queen's Highway entrance.

Auger and Varielky’s entrance into Kalahata is less dramatic this time. There are twenty garrison guards posted at the gate, checking passersby carefully, ripping back hoods, insulting, and sometimes pulling aside individuals into the guardhouse, seemingly at random. 

You pass through the gates without incident, overhearing something about a curfew. Within, Kalahati-ur, the inhabitants of the desert city, rush about, and there is an air of nervous energy. Whereas your experience has been that the Kalahati-ur take their time, yelling greetings back and forth across streets — across plazas, even — and stopping for a conversation, even when the city was overrun with tourists attending the spring festival, now men and women, cats and chimps seem to have no time to spare.

You make your way toward Salakta Amboule and the guildhall, dodging barrels rolling through the street as a camel team bucks and pulls, spooked by the crush, and the load from the cart they pull bursts its bindings. The cutpurses are oddly absent as you hear 4 bells ring from plazas and fountains. Making your way to the guildhall, its proud entrance atop a broad staircase facing docks and a dry dock extending to the canal, at the foot of the stairs amid the hurrying throng, an old man stands in front of a city crier. 

“What??! I can’t hear you, miss! I’m half deaf. Again??”

The crier, a young lady, dressed in the dusty livery of Salakta House, screws up her face, inhales deeply, and yells, directly in the old man’s face, her lips sculpting the words brutally, “Someone tried to kill the Princess! A dwarf! You must stay home after dark!” The man’s hoarse response is, “That’s terrible! But no one keeps me locked at home!,” to which the woman replies, “then the garrison will put you in jail!”

Behind the crier, upon a board, posted, slapdash, over advertisements of all kinds, is a new row of parchments, all stating the same message:

“An attempt was made last night on the life of The Princess Layla Kahina, Shian Dauphin and Regent!

Ritha Demsha has willed that The Princess live, and The Princess is unharmed!

A fugitive, accused of this treachery, has escaped and is guilty of high treason. His name is Granophyre Strewn, an elderly dwarf.

The city gates are to be locked at sunset, and all Kalahati-ur are ordered to remain in their homes until the fugitive is caught, by order of Governor Ulloz. You have until sundown to complete your business for the day, after which, the garrison will question or incarcerate any individual found on the streets.”

Entering the city, Auger wonders at the strange behavior of the citizens and shares an uneasy glance with Varielky. Upon reading the board Auger thinks 'Lots of people seem to want that Princess dead, but certainly not us and not Granophyre'. Auger finds he is angry at the thought of someone else following through on his cousin's plans or even pretending to and accusing Strewn.

Py, go to Granophyre and inform him that a curfew may delay us and that he is named as an attempted assassin of the Princess Layla Kahina. Actually hold here, a moment, let's see if it is possible for us to book passage or not before I send you away.

"Till sunset, that does not give us much time," Auger says to Varielky, trying to keep his voice level, despite some of the local's anxiety and urgency affecting him.

Auger continues in to the guildhall to see if passage can be booked or not.

(OOC: When is sunset? How much time do we have? Was anyone leaving the city when we passed through the gate before? Would it be possible for V and A to stay at the hotel suite? Presumably with Ednyss, Benita and Tamazaert? Or did we arrange to close out that reservation? How much time does it take to get to the city gate and through it?)

Entering the guildhall, Auger sees a familiar face at the functions table near the entrance, where he first met Baragsen a week or so earlier. At the table sits the female Cat named Basil, who peers at Auger guardedly over thin spectacles, and who, in brief bursts, answers his questions.

“As you see, everyone else has left for the day… taking care of things before this curfew,” at which she fitfully grooms the fur on her shoulder for a moment, pouting. 

“Passage north? This late? Most of the logged vessels have already departed. Let me fetch the log.”

Basil enters a side room filled neatly with ledgers on shelves. She withdraws a volume and brings it back to the functions table, flipping to a bookmark at today’s date.

“Let us see. Gone. Gone. Delayed. Heading south. South. Gone… hmmm.” She scratches here head. “Mmm, this one is available. The Animu Borongo, 20’ sloop, heading north to the vale ASAP. Can carry three passengers, maybe four, messages, documents, etc. The hire fee is 100gp at the outset, plus additional fees depending on cargo. Moored in a slip on the south landing, just downriver from the southern city gate. If you’re interested, I send a runner to the boat and the vessel will hold for you. And that will be a 5gp booking fee for the Guildhall.”

"Please send that runner immediately and I will head down there to meet it along with 2 others."

Auger honors the forms of a transaction to try and get the price down, though he is not pushy about it. It is just a single boat and time is wasting. (Persuasion, if needed): 22.

Auger pays the agreed upon price. (OOC: is this all 105gp right now?)

After there is agreement on the transaction Auger sends Py to find Granophyre and tell him where to meet. Make sure he understands the wider situation and the urgency of getting to the boat quickly. Stay invisible on his shoulder and send to me when you get back in range so that he can be invisible up to the last possible moment.

Basil, who is one of the head bursars for the guildhall, as you come to learn, seems very extremely put upon to have to say ‘no’ to Auger, whose words, echoing with whispers of the Feywild, possess superhuman persuasive powers.

Her eyes bulge behind her glasses and she pleads with Auger that the fee is the fee and can’t be reduced. But for him, she finally groans, “because you’re a friend of Baragsen,” she lowers the cost to 4gp. 

“The rest is up to the vessel’s owner!,” she pleads, looking disheveled.

(OOC: 4gp is due now, 100 to the owner of the vessel when you board.)

Basil’s dark-furred paw pulls a cord attached to a bell, and in a moment, a young, wiry-framed human appears, who bolts off after Basil instructs him to run straight away to the south landing to inform the Animu Borongo’s pilot that they’d been hired and to await three passengers. 

Auger and Varielky depart, and Auger gives his instructions to Py. 

‘Yes, master,’ sends Py, who waited outside the guildhall. ‘There is a Ward against my kind here!,’ Py had warned the warlock, ‘Just as there was at the Poppy Citadel, which destroyed my form yesterday morning when you sent me after Master Strewn.’ Now, as Auger sends the Fey alyasub on its mission, it vows, ‘This time I will bring him without fail, master.’ Py’s buzzing wings carry him up and away to the east as heads turn, searching without avail for the source of the sound.

Where do you go to await the execution of Py’s tasks?

Auger heads to the instructed spot to board the vessel and there tries to find somewhere nearby to sit and wait for Granophyre to show up.

Auger and Varielky reach the city gates after passing back through Benepota district, the inhabitants now even more agitated as the sun has slowly ticked westward and down, now hanging above the tall city wall as you see amboule functionaries preparing to ring 5 bells, which means the curfew goes into effect in about 2 hours.

As you pass through the gate, you see the runner whom Basil had dispatched, sprinting in the opposite direction, back toward the guildhall. His frizzy hair arcing out to either side, he skids to a halt when he sees you, informs you in a few words that the boat’s pilot is making preparations for your departure, and then he is off again, dodging through foot traffic. 

You continue south on the Queen’s High Way for a quarter mile, beside various farmers leading carts, whose relief at leaving Kalahata is immediately evident as soon as they pass through the gates, having been subject to the same rude scrutiny you witnessed upon your arrival.

You soon reach the landing, a wooden pier built up on the riverbank, from which extend a row of boat slips occupied by barges, dinghies, and a 20’ sloop, which you take to be the vessel upon which you have reserved passage. Upon the boat are several men taking down the mast and making fast the sail, one of them in foreign garb. Three chimps, two of them armed, one old and bent over, stand upon the landing, impatiently viewing the proceedings, and an amboule guard wearing Benepota livery and holding a crossbow is focused on the river farther south. 

As this scene comes into view, Auger hears Py’s voice in his mind, informing him that Granophyre and the fey alyasub have arrived to a position due east on a slight rise overlooking the river, near enough to see Auger and Varielky.

______________
THE STORY CONTINUES IN THE AGE OF RESURGENCE, BOOK II: The Vale of Deshar game thread. See you there!!

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/128218-age-of-resurgence-book-ii-the-vale-of-deshar