"Aww! Thank you. I'll see what I can do with just my own money, though."

Finding something that fits Ciaveth's preferences of 'practical, comfortable, pretty, and actually useful' is rather tricky. It takes some searching, some amount of wheedling to see all of a merchant's stock, careful analysis of where the heart of the enchantment lies, and eventually a trip to a skilled tailor to get the skirt part of a robe removed without damaging the enchantment located on the torso. Ciaveth pays the tailor a bit extra for speed, because Okku's spirit army does not wait for fashion, and fortunately 'remove the skirt please,' is not actually very difficult for a tailor to do in a rush job. The result is worth the trouble, though, and it's pretty and comfortable and reasonably protective, and allows much more movement for dodging around enemies like a lunatic. While the robes are being tailored, Ciaveth purchases a modest cloak of protection, uses most of the rest of her money on potions and a couple of scrolls to transcribe to her spellbook. She leaves Safiya's portion of the spending money alone out of a mix of principle, respect, and the knowledge that they might want to save money for if they decide to try to get Lienna raised.

The tailor is complete by the time she digs up all of this, and she happily switches to the much more comfortable clothes. She'll keep the armor for now, in case she turns out to be wrong about being better off without it, but once she's sure she's past it, it's getting sold. Ciaveth also takes the time to obnoxiously braid her hair back into an out of the way ponytail to reveal her delicately pointy ears as much as possible, because one of the local witches was racist and she kind of wants to tweak the noses of anyone of similar mind. Hey, she is not going to be able to pretend to be a native by any stretch of the imagination, so she might as well look interestingly foreign. .... Also pretty, she decides on a whim that she'd also like to look pretty. She can spend some small sum of money on 'indulging in feminine vanity' for makeup. Look, she has some kind of monster thing inside her, probably, she feels like being as aggressively herself as she can be is the way to go. And if she is being maximally herself, she is going to be gorgeous.

Her somewhat self indulgent set of tasks complete, she decides (after having lunch) that it's probably wise to go recruiting at the local prison, since the Wychleran were so kind as to let her do so. First order of business: find the prison. She begins her search of the city, smiling prettily at the many suspicious and dirty looks her obnoxious foreign half-elfness is earning her.

Among these lookers is a pair of teenagers, looking possibly even more foreign than her (on account of their wings), arguing quietly while sneaking (not suspicious but hopeful) looks at her. Eventually the boy of the pair, wearing a helmet with an impressive rack of stag's antlers attached to it, approaches them, followed by the girl.

"Hello. I am Efrem the Stag, and this is my sister, Susah the Crow. We couldn't help but overhear your... discussion with the Wychlaran yesterday," he says. "An army of angry spirits approaches the gates of Mulsantir. You will likely require help against such a host."

"My bow and my brother's sword will aid you," says his apparent sister, "should you agree to first help us find our lost sister, Kaelyn the Dove."

Huh. That sounds very useful, even if she's.... perhaps a little bit uncomfortable about strong-arming teenagers into battle.

"All right, I can try. Do you need someone to search with you, or is there some other reason you need help?"

"Kaelyn came here seeking the abandoned stronghold of Myrkul, the Death God's Vault, which is in Shadow Mulsantir," Efrem explains. "To enter Myrkul's sanctum would be a violation of our faith to Kelemvor, and so we cannot seek her out ourselves."

"Oh, I see. And Kaelyn's not a member of your faith, so she could go inside freely. All right, I'll look for her if I get the chance. But it'll have to wait for nightfall before I can, if she's in the Plane of Shadow, and depending on how close Okku's army is by then, it might end up being wiser for me to start the battle early before he can gather more spirits. You might be wise to also try to find someone else that can help find her, but I understand if I'm..." she glances at the nearby people that have been giving her dirty and suspicious looks, "probably your best hope. I'll do what I can, all right?"

Susah nods, awkwardly sidestepping the "Kaelyn having abandoned her faith" issue. "Thank you. That is all we can truly ask."

"We will be very grateful to once more lay eyes upon our beloved sister," Efrem adds, "and convince her to return to the fold."

Susah elbows him.

"Ow!" he says.

"Don't burden the lady with family business," Susah hisses.

Ciaveth suspects that Kaelyn might have had reasons to go to a specific place her siblings couldn't follow, but doesn't observe this out loud.

"Good fortune to you in your search," she says, because she doesn't actually know the thing to say to followers of Kelemvor, and nobody really dislikes extra help from Tymora.

The siblings are not offended, and thank her again before heading off to investigate the sights of Mulsantir.

"Interesting... did you notice the symbols on their armor?" Safiya asks. "Those weren't mere Kelemvor-worshippers, they were bona fide Doomguides. And half-celestials, too, if I'm not mistaken. They could be powerful allies."

"They could be, and I'll welcome their help if we can manage it, but... I'm not so sure their sister would want to return willingly, if we did find her. What with how she went to a place they specifically can't follow her because of their faith."

"Admittedly, that is potentially a confounding factor, but we should at least ask her. She may have had a good reason... besides the desire to avoid her family and their religious pestering."

"Yeah, I'm just saying I'm not willing to drag a woman kicking and screaming back through all of Shadow Mulsantir and then ordinary Mulsantir just to get their help. Not that I'm not going to investigate. Of course I'm going to investigate, I'm an adventurer, investigating is basically my job, and there's going to be an army out to kill me soon!"

"I think we're on the same page about all of that," Safiya says. "Besides, I'll admit to a certain amount of curiosity regarding this Death God's Vault. If we must be in Mulsantir, we may as well see the sights, no?"

"And systematically raid the less beloved sights for shiny things to sell so we can buy more appropriate shiny things for ourselves," agrees Ciaveth, sagely. "... And also making it safe for people and stuff. Ahem."

"Definitely on the same page," Safiya nods.

Ciaveth grins. "Now! Off to prison, that'll likely be the easiest place to recruit, considering."

The prison's pretty easy to locate; it's one of the only buildings in the city with its doors open, and there's a gibbet out front.

"What a charming piece of local flavor."

"Eh, it's more honest than Neverwinter, at least," shrugs Ciaveth. "There, you can go through a whole trial with evidence and arguments and everything, and then at the end someone can go 'Oh by the way, I declare Trial By Combat,' and the whole evidence thing is rendered null and void and you get to prove your innocence by showing how good you are at killing people. Honestly, this is much more palatable."

Is she bitter about this aspect of Neverwinter's justice system? Yes. Yes, she is bitter, and offended, and it personally burned her the once and she managed to personally prove her innocence in both the Trial and the Trial By Combat, but it was still incredibly wrong that she had to do the latter after having done the former at all.

"How... completely arbitrary," Safiya says. "Trial by combat? Is this because of their unnatural preoccupation with Tyr?"

"I have," she says seriously, "no idea. But it was very offensive. Along with how if you were not sworn to serve Neverwinter and therefore of Neverwinter's high class, they would not actually lift a finger to defend you from false enemy charges and would instead just ship you off to a foreign city to have a mock trial and summary execution. Until you swear an oath of fealty to Lord Nasher, the king-who-doesn't-call-himself-a-king of Neverwinter. Then you get to actually have a trial where they decide if you're innocent or not."

Is she bitter about this part of Neverwinter's justice system? Yes, very. Is it because it personally burned her? Yes, absolutely. She is very bitter and she has excellent reason to be.

"Or at least a trial where they decide provisionally if you're innocent," Safiya says. "That sounds utterly deranged. At least in Thay, we're sensibly corrupt. Bribes and spurious charges, not invalidating a trial because the defendant can't stab someone effectively or extraditing someone to our enemies because they're not nobility."

"See, that's still offensive, but that's less infuriating and at least more navigable. I navigated through Neverwinter's politics, but I really couldn't get through it without wondering if the fallen paladin Aribeth de Tylmarande didn't have the right idea all along. With how she tried to burn the city down." She coughs. "Anyway. Onwards to prison?"

"Onwards. To the prison."

Inside the prison, at the front desk, is another masked witch, this one even older than Sheva Whitefeather. "As you have disturbed the spirits," she mutters, "you now disturb me. For what reason are you here, foreigner?"

"Sheva Whitefeather said I could find help here against the Spirit Army. Was I mistaken?"

"You certainly are if you seek aid from these villains. But if you wish to persist in this foolishness, you may speak with the prisoners. Be warned: of the three in this cage, two you need not fear, but around the third... guard your thoughts."

"... From what, precisely? Telepathy, psionics? Do you have a mindflayer in here?"