11: Shamira

It had come as no surprise to Calleslyn when Almandar had returned to the villa in the morning, and looking as if he had not had much sleep the night before. She had not met Raylana, but the inference about what had happened was a fairly easy one to make. It had been rather more surprising, however, to realise that Dolrim had also returned home at around the same time. It seemed unlikely, from what she knew of dwarves, that anything of a similar nature had happened to him - and, indeed, if it had, she would have expected him to appear rather more cheerful than he actually did.

But, instead, he had shut himself away in his room at the villa, brooding on his own. Presumably he was looking over the secret dwarven documents that he had acquired, wanting to look over them before he shared them with the rest of the party. When Almandar had returned, a couple of hours later, he had briefly tried to talk to the dwarf, even going into his room, but he had obviously been sent out again almost immediately, apparently without much of a word of explanation.

Still, it was not long after that that Dolrim had finally emerged, looking somewhat sheepish, and bringing the documents with him. Much of the writing was in dwarvish, so although the maps were reasonably clear, actually fitting them to the above ground street plan was probably going to take a while. So they left him to examine the maps further with Vardala, and Calleslyn had suggested that, in the meantime, she and Almandar try to find out what they could at the Wizards’ College

Almandar had, in fact, slept much of the morning, which suggested a certain degree of vigour on Raylana’s part, but now they were both here heading across the lobby towards the College library. The Wizards’ College was, in effect, a guild, although, unlike most others in the city, apprentices were often taught on the premises, rather than in private businesses elsewhere. Almandar himself had learned magic here, many years ago, although Calleslyn had only joined after her own education was complete.