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Yesterday evening (OOC: Here comes a little bit of comedy)
The others left soon after Daiyanissa did. Long did Neshi but stare at the food and the key. He pondered many things within his heart, but most of all, the dilemma that Daiyanissa left for him. I displaced a lady AND took her uneaten meal--- how much more dishonor shall I suffer this night? No. She gave them of her own free will… but, how fare shall she? And what did she mean by ‘a bed of feathers’? Why in blazes would beds be wrought of feathers?
But then, his body decided the debate for him. His stomach growled and he frowned. “May the blessed Bast consecrate this meal. So mote it be”, he prayed.
With that, he took one of the strips of snake meat and ripped off the head in one mighty bite. He chewed it slowly, letting the bread and beans that had been stuffed into the snake upon its preparation come to the fore. “The Madness of Seth seizes those who are not moderate”, he recalled his grandfather’s saying.
Finally, Neshi’s hunger and curiosity overwhelmed his discipline and he took a tentative spoonful from the trencher of food that the kind paladin left. He distinguished by sight and smell of the onions, the beans and the lettuce, but it was the strange, red meat that truly intrigued him.
As he bit in, his eyes suddenly lit up and his nostrils flared with the sudden heat. “GWAH!” he gasped. Fumbling with the cap of his waterskin, he guzzled rapidly the liquid gold within, seeking to quench the fires that had sprung within his mouth. Once the exotic spice was quelled, he practically dove into the dish and finished it with all a soldier’s alacrity in under a minute.
He drops two coins of gold on the bar and says to the barkeeper, “Ho, thou tavern-tender. My compliments on the cooking--- ‘tis excellent fare ye have. Hast thou but nine candles I may use?”
The scrawny man in the grimy apron looks at him askance and bites into both coins to check their authenticity. Then, suddenly, he holds them to the light and turns them every which way. He beams at Neshi, his gap-toothed grin radiating greed. “Haaail, mighty traveler. Dese ‘ere gold be more’n hunnerd years ol’. Where’d ya gettem?”
Neshi looks at the little man quizzically and frowns. “Aye? I had them yesterday. And the day ere then and the day ere then…”
“Yeah? Well keep yer secrets then. Dese ‘ere pieces ye gives meh, der worth more’n a year’s wage, methinks… damned hells! Take ninety candles iffen ye wanna!” He drawls, then winks, saying, “Heh, looks like I owe the paladin a refund…”
“The nine candles shall do me fine enough, sirrah” Neshi relaxed his frown and said, “Well, mayhap if sometime, of a favor I am in need, I shall come to thee and thou’lt pay thy debt”
“Yeah, yeah, gerron wivvit alrea’y”, the taverner drawls as he hurries to pack the nine candles into a small burlap bag.
Neshi takes the bag of candles from him and checks if he had gotten the key to his borrowed room. His face flushes as he pats himself down and swears beneath his breath, “Misbegotten son of Seth!”
He leaps back to the table and prays a thousand thanks that it was still where he’d left it. What are ‘keys’ anyway, and, by Djauwety, are these things magical? Nodding his thanks to the scrawny man exulting in his ancient gold, he hurries up the stairs. Third door on the left… was that what she said?
He arrives at the third door on the left and stares at the doorknob and the lock mechanism below. He stares at it for a long while, then crouches and cranes his neck, inspecting it from every angle. He tries turning the knob but the door won’t open. He fumbles with the key and, after several tries at inserting it into the keyhole, finally succeeds. He turns the key with much trepidation in his heart and leaps back, gasping and astonished when the door opens. It IS magic!
He enters the room and finds that it is an affair made mostly of wood. Curtains dance from an open window and Neshi shivers with the night air. There is a large copper tub and a copper chamberpot in one corner. There are only around five square feet of open floor space. Pushed up against one whitewashed wall is a massive bed… or at least that is what it seems to Neshi for all that he had to sleep on back in the Sanctum were slabs of stone.
He inspects the bed more closely and is shocked to find that it is covered in various cloths and sheets of linen. Truly, these folk are rich beyond belief to afford so much linen but… how strange. Where is the neck-rest?
He tries sitting down on the bed and is shocked once more to find that he sinks into it. He pokes it with one finger and feels the softness of the fabric. He takes his dagger, cuts a small hole in the soft, fluffy thing near the headrest. He peers in and suddenly sneezes. Dear Djauwety! She spoke true, then--- ‘tis, ‘tis full of feathers! Most strange, these folk are, indeed…
Neshi frowns and drops his pack on the floor. He then takes off his all his arms and armor except for his ancestral khopesh. These he lays carefully on the bed, piece by piece, ending with the shield and helm on top of the neat pile.
He lays out eight of the candles in a circle. Taking his flints, he painstakingly lights every candle and murmurs a litany over each. Neshi continues his prayers as he puts away the flints and, cradling his sickle-sword on his lap, he settles into the center of the bright circle and begins to meditate in earnest.
“Hail to Horus-Re, King of Falcons
Praise Horakhe, Lord of Virtue and Vengeance
Honored be the Lily-born, Son of the Sun’s Scion
Gracious and loving, wonderful and mighty is
Horus-Aton the Sun-Sword and Scarab-Shield
Hail to Horus-Re, King…”