Oh good, he didn't want to be the one to say it.

"You really are new to the city, then... I'll have you know that I am one of the richest and most distinguished men in Kenabres! The Gwerm trading house is a pillar of the city! Did you see the festival bunting, or try the wine? I paid for that. Did you notice the streets cleaned on Sundays, the Molthuni spices sold at a fair price? You have Horgus Gwerm to thank for that!"

This Abadaran merchant makes himself sound like an actually nice person!

"I too fell down here. Unlike you, I'm not strong enough to make it back up by myself. Lead me safely back to the city, and I will pay you a thousand crowns."

"We'd be doing that regardless," Seelah says. "We're going to clear a safe passage through to the city tomorrow, and then it sounds like many of the mongrelfolk will go through, with all of their guards, and you can join them. I might also help guard them, but it depends on the situation in the city, I might be needed more elsewhere."

"The mongrelfolk may go or stay, they may go tomorrow or later, they may let Horgus Gwerm come with them or charge him money. I want all of you to guarantee my safe passage, tomorrow if possible, for which Horgus Gwerm will pay you a thousand crowns."

Gord would happily take the job for that price, if it's still on offer after they've already cleared the route, but something could happen on the way up that would make him change his mind.

"After we clear the route, if it looks safe, I'll come back for you," he offers.

"I'll be coming back to guide the tribe anyway and I'll also promise to guard you specifically for a share of the payment." Lann has lived on the surface long enough to know that a thousand crowns is rather a lot of money for one man to be offering for a one-day job, but the other surfacers vouched for this Horgus Gwerm, so he trusts him to pay up. And the tribe will need the money if they move to the city.

(Lann's surfacer days did not include any interactions with the adventuring economy.)

Horgus Gwerm harrumphs and frowns but ultimately has to be satisfied with these conditional promises; raising his offer won't make Seelah change her mind about her duty, or Gord's about his own safety. And he is a good Abadaran, so he indeed won't pay them for anything they would be doing anyway.

With Horgus Gwerm safely away chatting with Anevia and the rest of the impromptu party spread around the mongrelfolk village, Gord approaches Camellia.

"I couldn't help but notice," he says quietly, "the magic locket around your neck. Would you mind telling me what it does?" It looks the same as the one he found, or rather was found with, and has the same divine Abjuration aura (to the limits of his admittedly nonexpert perception), but he doesn't recognize the spell.

If it's a common enough item to be duplicated, it might have some unremarkable function that Camellia won't mind sharing. And if it's not a standard item, then perhaps she holds a clue to his recently-mysterious past.

Camellia stiffens. "It's none of your business," she says frostily, followed a moment later by a reluctant - "why do you ask?"

If she won't share the information, Gord doesn't have any obvious levers to pull, so he'll try asking nicely first. 

"I have recently... come into possession of a similar amulet, and I would like to know what it does." He takes his own amulet from his bag and shows it to her briefly.

He's walking around Seelah without wearing the amulet; he took that amulet off someone who had reason to have one. The conclusion is rather obvious.

But if he wanted to tell the paladin she's an Evil mage and hiding it, he wouldn't need her confession. There's a change he really doesn't know what it does, and is just fishing, in which case...

"I am a shaman; I cast spells by calling spirits to my aid. My familiar spirit, Mireya, lives in the amulet. The one you have may have belonged to a shaman too; if you give it to me I can try to commune with the spirit inside it, if there is one."

Translation: there is a soul, imprisoned in the amulet by Abjuration magic, from which Camellia extracts power.

Gord has never been privy to the shamanic lore of old Sarkoris, but he has long resigned himself that learning more about how the world works usually means learning something terrible. And so it doesn't come as a terrible shock to learn that at least some of the spirit-callers of the old country didn't ask or bargain for the spirits' aid so much as enslave them. Mages have fancy words they like to hide behind, binding and calling and warding, but in the end it always comes down to slavery.

He still has no idea how or why he ended up with one, but at least now he knows what to do with it: find a wizard (preferably Desnan) with sufficient spellcraft and pay them enough money to figure out the appropriate ritual to set the spirit free.

He'll need to get Camellia's amulet too. That will nicely solve two problems; she looks to be rich enough to pay for the wizard. But he won't make a move until they're back in the city; there are too many people in the camp who'd object or at least demand a better explanation than "I killed her for her amulet, which contains an enslaved spirit, whom I intend to free but don't know how yet."

"I see," he says evenly. "It is useless to me, then, but I will try to find a buyer for it. Thank you for the information."

This underground village is tiny. It is cut off from almost all contact with the world, has no industry to speak of, no tools or materials for smithying or cloth or even leather, barely any agriculture. Nothing a surfacer would call technology, or civilization.

From another point of view, it is a shining light in the literal darkness around it, because the far too easy alternative is not this, it is every man for himself, no safe places to sleep, no children playing, nothing but the feral growling in the dark. And yet these people, forever teetering on the very brink of losing everything that makes them people, have managed miraculously to preserve a slice of sanity - language, tools, buildings, leaders who are not wardlords, laws - for ten too-short generations.

It takes someone special, in such a world, to keep going and to strive to make things better. And when the light of Heaven that you venerate contemptuously rejects your very touch, that someone is -

Dyra, cleric of Abadar.

Even this tiny village can't escape the grasping tentacles of Abadar! These people have been abandoned by the gods and they deserve better. Maybe there's not enough travel here for Desna and not enough sun for Sarenrae and not enough fighting for Gorum, but even Pharasma would be an improvement!

Oh, come on! You came all this way down from the surface, you must have so much to trade! I've waited and waited for so long and now you've finally come!!

Please please pleeease trade with me?

Damn it, she's looking at him like Sull looked at the shiny sword. ...he can't say no to those pleading eyes, can he.

Gord makes a through inventory of the contents of his bag for the first time since he woke up. Nothing seems to be missing, except that the cheese he bought yesterday morning has gone moldy terribly quickly; he chucks it in the lake.

He'll buy some of the local food! Lizard meat in mushroom sauce, with weird-looking purple eyes floating in; he gives it a 3 out of 10 on the Gord Weird Worldwound Food Scale (and a purify). 

And he'll sell her - this shirt. That someone dressed him in for some reason. It's not his shirt, he has other clothes in his bag for disguise days, he doesn't need it.

Having eaten dinner and freed himself of the inexplicable shirt, Gord checks in with Seelah to plan for tomorrow.

"I thought your shirt was some kind of magic armor! Why... are you wearing... only chainmail leggings?" Seelah is honestly baffled by this one.

"You know how some people wear chainmail, but some only buy chainshirts? What did you think happened to all the spare chainpants?"

That can't be how it works... can it? Admittedly, magic armor is made by wizards and they're never the sanest bunch, but still!

"He's joking," Anevia sighs, taking pity on Seelah.

"You seem very sure of yourself."

"We'd notice. Do you think the Crown wouldn't field a chainpants regiment if it could save them money?" She looks at Gord with complete sincerity.

He tries holding her gaze for a few seconds, but is the first one to break down laughing. (Damn, that woman has an admirable poker face.)

"You got me," he admits. "It's a custom job. As good armor as a chainshirt, 'cause they both cover half the body, but it's lighter and looks better, too!" And more than twice as expensive for being custom, but that's really not the point.