Elminster Speaks Part 45

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Elminster Speaks - Part 45

By Ed Greenwood

Doings in Delzimmer, Part 4

So now to the current clack resounding in the streets, stalls, taverns and back rooms of Delzimmer:

Among the hottest themes in current Delzmaeran news is ethrael fraud: the selling of false or stolen deeds to outlanders, far away. In this manner, many citizens unwittingly live in structures that distant folk believe they now own and may descend upon at any time. Recently the rising pottery merchant Eloem Elchantragar, an energetic importer of luxury goods from Amn, Tethyr, and Sembia, was broken in upon in the middle of the night by a large and well-armed party of visiting Sembians. They were the traveling household of the wealthy Selgauntan stonecarver Ildel Morusk, who'd come for the first time to occupy "his" Delzmaer mansion and survey his property and the city he'd correctly been given to understand was an important trade crossroads of the region.

Morusk's skilled-at-arms retainers numbered over four dozen, and it was only with difficulty (and the assistance of Delzmaer citizens and visiting mercenaries hastily hired by Elchantragar) that the nagra managed to restore order and quell the ongoing bloodshed as Morusk attempted to slay or capture all of the squatters and thieves residing in his property and enjoying his goods.

The Sembian was only partly mollified by being given free temporary use of a nagra-seized (but empty and somewhat crumbling) grand house, and a commission from Elchantragar to find and slay the sly Sembian serpent who'd sold Morusk the false deed back in Selgaunt. The stonecarver has since departed Delzimmer for his home (though he's thought to have come no closer to Selgaunt yet than Turmish), but the kala are well aware that this is only the latest such incident to be discovered -- and that other stolen or false ethrael may well be on sale all over Faerûn.

A honey-tongued and enterprising Lapaliiyan by the name of Imriskril Melsamber has offered to set himself up as a "maevor" or trade agent (what other lands call "factors" or "daeasaunce") to represent distant outlanders and costers. The kala of Delzimmer have reluctantly agreed to recognize him -- though open debate continues among their ranks (and even moreso among the citizenry, spurred by announcements from various satraps of their own desires to become a "maevor for many") as to how a meavor might be trusted and his claims of representation verified.
Other current Delzmaer gossip revolves around the amorous conquests of the aforementioned Imriskril Melsamber; a tall, bronzed, and muscular swordsman who calls himself Thorongh Davarragar (who claims to be a dragonslaying barbarian of the Savage North" though the mage Shonsarra Tel of Oslin tells me she doubts Davarragar has ever seen snow in his life, let alone a dragon); and the native Delzmaer merchant Marlyar Nilthrul. "Mighty Malryar" is an increasingly fat, jovial seller of imported scents, perfumes, and herbal baths whose moustache has grown very large -- and who has long enjoyed a reputation of being an able consort.

Many husbands and fathers of Delzimmer are outraged at one or more of these three Night Scourges, and more than a few now attend every feast and tavern revel attended by any of the three -- and do so glowering and toying with openly worn weapons.

Taverns, stalls, houses, and wellhead womens' water-drawing gatherings around the city are alive with ever-wilder and more colorful tales of the Night Scourges leaping into bedchamber windows or hiding on balconies or racing away across the rooftops chased by furious menfolk.

Yet the most sober citizens caution that none of the three men has yet been caught at anything more than vainglorious boasting -- bolstered by spiteful feminine whispers and certain women making boasts of their own. And if Delzimmer were to lock up every inhabitant guilty of baseless boasting and deceit, nigh every house would have a lock on it, with its habitual dwellers shut up inside! (If, that is, there was anyone left to apply such locks.)

As Delzmaer say, "Keep thy ear to the doorposts for more."

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