Re: Chapter 1 - Ashes to Ashes
Kendra invited our heroes and Count Galdana to sit around the scrubbed wooden table, a tight fit but not particularly uncomfortable. Cozy. She served a hearty but simple dinner, potatoes baked in cheese, smoked ham, tea, and dark wine.
The meal was intimate and remembrances ran deep. The Count was known to Garland by reputation, both residents of Caliphas, and they shared a little banter about the city's politics. Stories of the professor's adventures flitted like ghosts of a friendlier past about the table and Kendra seemed eager to hear anything she could of her father's professional life.
"Thank you for making the journey to Ravengro." She said when everyone was settled and the meal was beginning to wind down, lifting her glass to the table.
"I'm glad that you came, Count Galdana, I know you were a good friend to my father. The six of you," She said, addressing our heroes, "I am especially glad to see. You see, each of you is named in his will. I haven't read it myself, his instructions were for the will to be read in the presence of all beneficiaries after his passing, but I understand that he's left something to each of you.
Finish your supper, the town barrister Mister Hearthmont should be here shortly for the reading."
After the food had been cleared away there came a sharp, clear knock at the door. Kendra bustled over to admit a short, portly gentleman with a bristly beard and immaculately pressed barrister's robes. Kendra introduced him as Councilman Hearthmont, the town's barrister and the head of the town council. Like most of Ravengro's inhabitants he looked sullen and distrustful of outsiders, although he had character to at least act polite and professional.
He bustled his way to the head of the table, retrieved a pair of small spectacles from a case in his waistcoat pocket, and produced the professor's will from a wax-sealed scroll case. He cleared his throat, glanced around to be certain that he was being granted the proper gravitas, and began to read.
“I, Petros Lorrimor, being of sound mind, do hereby commit to this
parchment my last will and testament. Let it be known that, with
the exception of the specific details below, I leave my home and
personal belongings entire to my daughter Kendra. Use them or
sell them as you see fit, my child.
“Yet beyond the bequeathing of my personal effects, this
document must serve other needs. I have arranged for the reading
of this document to be delayed until all principals can be in
attendance, for I have more than mere inheritance to apportion. I
have two final favors to ask.
“To my old friends, I hate to impose upon you all, but there are
few others who are capable of appreciating the true significance of
what it is I have to ask. As some of you know, I have devoted many
of my studies to all manner of evil, that I might know the enemy and
inform those better positioned to stand against it. For knowledge
of one’s enemy is the surest path to victory over its plans.
“And so, over the course of my lifetime, I have seen fit to acquire
a significant collection of valuable but dangerous tomes, any one
of which in the wrong circumstances could have led to an awkward
legal situation. While the majority of these tomes remain safe under
lock and key at the Lepidstadt University, I fear that a few I have
borrowed remain in a trunk in my Ravengro home. While invaluable
for my work in life, in death, I would prefer not to burden my
daughter with the darker side of my profession, or worse still, the
danger of possessing these tomes herself. As such, I am entrusting
my chest of tomes to you, posthumously. I ask that you please deliver
the collection to my colleagues at the University of Lepidstadt, who
will put them to good use for the betterment of the cause.
“Yet before you leave for Lepidstadt, there is the matter of
another favor—please delay your journey one month and spend
that period of time here in Ravengro to ensure that my daughter is
safe and sound. She has no one to count on now that I am gone,
and if you would aid her in setting things in order for whatever she
desires over the course of this month, you would have my eternal
gratitude. From my savings, I have also willed to each of you a sum
of one hundred platinum coins. For safekeeping, I have left these
funds with Embreth Daramid, one of my most trusted friends in
Lepidstadt—she has been instructed to issue this payment upon
the safe delivery of the borrowed tomes no sooner than one month
after the date of the reading of this will.
“I, Petros Lorrimor, hereby sign this will in Ravengro on this
first day of Calistril, in the year 4609.”