“Oh.  That.  It was passable.  He cut the text atrociously, and most of his substitutions were not to its betterment.  Too much leaning on the final two syllables, line after line.  But if they were the work of the young man himself, then nothing to be ashamed of for a student.  Ignoring the dreadful delivery of course.”

“I don’t have much ear for verse. ‘To brand the firmament with greater fire’ is the only sequence I can recall. It’s pretty enough.”

A distant look comes across his features. “Singing is a strange thing though. I can see the attraction of being a bard. I imagine I might have liked to have trained and taken that path… if only there were more advantage in it.”

“Oh yeah?  You sure you haven’t already peaked, chief?  Seems to me you’ve been spending decades practicing only to get where you are now.  Probably wiped your headcage just to forget all the years of cat calls and heckles from the crowd.”

He laughs.

“I remember a kind of ghost story that boys would tell each other in my day. The way it goes is there is this leviathan of the outer voids who takes the form of a giant pillar of writhing insects. And when you told it to your chums you were supposed to communicate both that it was very important and absolutely true, ‘on your honor’ and so forth, but you would also be quite vague and drop little scraps of bait in your description, hinting at its mysteries. And then when the boy you were speaking to would ask you questions about it, you would start to reveal. On the second or third question you would tell him that the thing’s true nature was as a mind virus. For every fact you learned about it, its hold over you would increase, and eventually if you learned too much, one of its chitinous spider legs would burst out of your abdomen and your flesh would be added to its mass in undying horror for all eternity.”

Morte makes a surprisingly persuasive display of shock, followed by a shiver.  “Oh thank you.  You realize you’re talking to a mimir, don’t you?”

“Ask me about the sound it makes when it’s nearby. It’s really quite remarkable. You’ll want to hear this.”

"I will pass."

He makes a left turn, leading them into a cul-de-sac.

The silhouette of a tall and rickety building with a double-piqued roof looms ahead of them against the darkening sky.

“You know. Come to think of it, I believe it’s ALWAYS nearby. Something about adjacent curved planar tangents… but it’s hard to know for certain. I keep forgetting important facts about the creature, myself, just like the poetry.”

Drovna has never visited the inn described in her note, but it’s easy enough to find:  Sign of the holly tree, half a mile from the Sensorium, due south along the Rexnard way.  

Upon stepping inside, she actually feels a twinge of regret that her vows oblige her to wear the Advocate’s shapeless blue sack of a dress at all times.  At least until she passes the examinations.

The place is lively.  It’s crowded, but not so crowded that you can’t see the people.  There are three open rooms at ground level. The tables are set and trimmed.  The air is free of overbearing wood smoke, and the flagstone floors have been swept clean.  She spends a minute wandering about until she locates the indicated “three yellow, one red” candles on one of the wide tables.  There are already three figures seated.  Evidently she’s the last to arrive.  

“Right.” she says brightly to the group, making a peremptory curtsy. “Drovna, daughter of Nidor, Advocate Attendant and acting solicitor for an agent who shall not be named but who has arranged for you to meet here.”

The two men and one woman seated before her wear nondescript traveler's clothes. On deeper inspection though, they share a demeanor clearly not quite right for the place.  It's far too sober, and too dangerous.  They each have a stein of ale placed before them, though none are taking draughts.

They introduce themselves: The man with the mustache and teased brown hair, “Karkosa”, the woman with the terrifying Aasimar eyes, “Neollo”,  and the fat-man-who-is-clearly-the-cleric, “Grannik”.  They don’t extend her any courtesy beyond speaking their names, and they look at her in a manner deeply unsettling.  There's a quality of restrained alarm that hangs about them.

She smiles nervously.  She can’t help but pattern-fill what their thoughts must be behind those looks:  

Why are you the one they sent us?  Does this mean we are all disposable?  What is going on here?

When she first saw the size of the envelope waiting at her dormitory room door that afternoon, she had an immediate inkling as to what it was.  It had a garishly large wax seal, taking up more than a third of the width of the paper, and an intricate design in the relief of a lion’s head with full mane.  

Some powerful secret society must have taken notice of her and desired to use her skills to commit interplanar crimes. And as a fashionable young lady endowed with every possible gift, save wealth, she was absolutely ready to join them in a relationship of intrigue and profit.

Inside the envelope were enough silver coins for room and board for a month and a note whose very first line promised an additional three times that sum for prompt and faithful completion of solicitor services to be described therein.

“I am to ask each of you in turn,” she says.  “You each received instructions to meet here with a list of spells to prepare.  For us to continue to discuss the operation, you are to state to me the following: ‘I have prepared all the spells listed in my brief.’ Karkosa.”

They each repeat the line exactly.  

Again, that look.  Something about that attitude within this tavern is positively eerie.  It’s as if they are treating their situation as one of maximum danger, one in which they are about to be ambushed.  Grannik wears a wide smile on his face, and of the three, seems to be the one most frequently scanning the room. 

The sound of a platter crashing to the ground rings out, and someone nearby lets out a loud guffaw of laughter.

She continues. “I have a few questions to ask you.  Does any one of you have prior experience with any of the others?”

Karkosa and Neollo exchange looks.  There is a quirk of the lips in Karkosa’s expression, and then Neollo nods.  Karkosa says, “She and I are familiar with one another.  I am unfamiliar with Grannik.”

“Grannik, have you had intercourse with either of these two in the past?”

He smiles and regards her with his full attention.  “Intercourse?  Not to my knowledge.  I usually have a good memory for that sort of thing.” 

Drovna says, “Karkosa and Neollo.  If you accept the job for which we are gathered, you will be asked to swear that you will pursue completion of the stated objectives at all costs, including at risk of death to you or your comrades.  Will your familiarity with one another prevent you from making such a vow?  Neollo?”