[closed] Nenius Vale and the Mirror of Urthemiel

[glossator]

WHO: Evelyn and Laurentius
WHAT: Riftwatch has intercepted an invitation to a black market antiquities auction in Wycome. Obviously someone has to impersonate the Tevinter archaeologist who was supposed to show up, and someone has to help that someone not sound like a complete idiot.
WHEN: Now
WHERE: Wycome, the Free Marches
NOTES: n/a, will add if necessary

On the plus side, Nenius Vale—a Tevinter archaeologist which the available published texts scraped hastily together in an effort to assemble a few key bits of information that might be used to convince someone questioning his identity suggest is something of an academic maverick—is definitely a mage. He is probably not six foot two with a face like flesh stretched over an assortment of gravel or the bearing of a morose vulture, but those are probably negligible oversights.

He is a mage. He is Tevene. He is here in the south answering an invitation that he was sent. Probably, that's all the matters. It certainly got the two of them through the door. Or rather, down the secret lift and along the more secret passageway, and then through the door and thus into the lavish underground vault in which this particular evening's festivities are being held.

The room is decked in rich trappings—fine hangings from fallen houses, and elegant vases on pedestals, and beautiful furniture, and geometric dwarven jewelry mined from lost thaigs, and strange artifacts of inherent worth but debatable provenance. And here too are their fellow attendees in all manner of styles, and servants scurrying about with delicate flutes on trays rendering the whole affair more in the design of a small party of very particular and very rich guests.

(He's been to a few of those.)

In the middle of the room is a marvelous Glory Age chariot in shockingly pristine condition, allegedly dug up out of some dreadful battlefield. Four life sized horse statues have been harnessed to it in order to complete the enticing display. Laurentius, dressed in the most (artfully) roguish coat that could be found to fit his broad shoulders and excessively lanky frame, examines the placard posted near it. Lot No.22, it says, beneath the item's description.

"Well, I suppose we know there's a back entrance somewhere," he remarks idly to his assistant.

The chariot can't have possibly fit down the same lift they rode to get here, much less traversed the narrow wood paneled passageway.

Comments

[delven]

"This is incredible," Evelyn replies, "Do you know how rare artifacts from the liberation of Starkhaven are? Does it say where they found this? Are these wheels original?"

She's speaking in an appropriately low tone, dressed in fine but demurely plain livery, carrying a narrow leather case as if Magister Vale is prepared to do some on-site appraisal or just doesn't like filling his pockets with sundries. But the eager way she starts to crouch down to peer at the lacquered wooden spokes is not at all in keeping with the role she's meant to be playing here. She leans in, squinting, trying to find an angle in the light, and then gives in and runs a finger along a seam.

"Repaired," she pronounces it, "Could be real."

[glossator]

"Interesting," is not dismissive. It is, actually, very interesting, and Laurentius has a general fondness for a great deal of old cultural ephemera. But also—what does he know about Starkhaven, liberated or otherwise? And how much of that has anything to do with the lacquer on a chariot wheel?

Effectively none, is how much. And so this less than insightful remark is more or less the limit of his thoughtful commentary save perhaps for—

The prudent clearing of his throat, Laurentius having glanced across Lot 22's display to not another attendee of the auction flicking a look in their direction.