Long Lost

I once heard someone tell me that sometimes, the more you want something to happen, the less likely it is to occur. In our case, the more we want to sleep, the more things crawl from the woodwork and keep us from it.
We decided to walk back from the party, what with it being a nice night and all. On our way, a tall mysterious woman called out to us, blowing a kiss in the general direction of Audric and Grumble. I was just getting angry when it turned out to be a cold spell! I tried to dodge, and did a pretty good job considering how utterly smashed I probably was, what with all the drinking I'd done throughout the day. When I recovered, I took off after the woman, who was laughing in the most annoying manner. I thought I heard Audric behind me calling for me to stop, but it didn't matter. I just wanted to shut her up and teach her a lesson for antagonizing us.
As it turns out, it was an ambush. I should have guessed. At least we got out all right. Audric and I were able to take out the sharpshooters on the walls above the alley, and Grumble and Rowan made sure that mysterious lady would never bother us again.
After the fight, we managed to make it back to the inn for some sleep. Sort of. Audric wanted to visit the temple of Pelor to get a few things for us, so he took off. I went upstairs and face-planted into the bed. I was so looking forward to some rest. Instead, I had a nightmare. I was wandering through fog towards the ruins of Brindinsford. As I crossed the bridge, the only thing that stood before me was the town gate. It opened and a terrible sight met my eyes, along with an evil voice saying something about doom befalling the city. I awoke to Audric shaking me, looking concerned. I tried to tell him about my dream, but I couldn't really make sense of it I was still so groggy. Audric slipped into bed with me and told me he was unable to enter the temple. Apparently it was closed and the city guard turned him away. I didn't like the sound of that, but it was far too late to figure anything out. I pulled Audric closer to me and drifted back to sleep.
After what felt like only seconds later, I was jolted out of sleep by the sound of trumpets and shouting. When the noise didn't stop, Audric tumbled out of bed and threw open the shutters shouting out the window at the perpetrators of the noise. There was a town crier below, announcing that the baron was to make a speech today. We decided to attend and see what had to be said.
The area around the tower was packed with folks from town, and the weather seemed to have turned for the worse. The darkening clouds above seemed to foreshadow things to come as the baron stepped out onto the balcony. What he said came as a big surprise to all who heard it. Effective as of noon, the city would be closing its gates to the people inside and out, weapons banned, and the temple of Pelor was closed with all its priests under arrest. I was a little concerned for Audric looking like a cleric of Pelor but he didn't seem concerned, so I put it out of my mind.
As the baron left the balcony, a very tall and frightening figure made his way to the rail and looked out over the crowd. He must have been about 9 feet tall, skin and bones, and scary as anything in my most horrible dreams. He seemed to be enjoying the reaction the crowd was having to the news. He drank it all in for a moment, and then made his way back into the tower, the baron's bodyguards turning pale as he passed.
From behind us, we heard a woman speaking in dwarf. She seemed to be just as disappointed by the news as everyone else. Audric, Grumble and I turned to speak with her for a while, while the elves decided to make disparaging comments about the dwarven language. To my surprise, the dwarf woman turned and responded to Nialia in Common! Oh, dwarves and elves! So amusing! This mystery woman invited us back to our inn for drinks, and how could we resist?
We got back to the inn and talked with her for a while, until she said something that seemed to upset Grumble and he asked her to leave. She got up and walked for the door saying "See you around, Mordi." At this, Grumble froze. He stood up and called after her. "How do you know that name?" He demanded. The woman turned around and removed her hood. What met my eyes was the face of a beautiful dwarf woman who looked unmistakably like Grumble. I was speechless.
Sitting back down with the woman, Grumble told us her name was Glorwyn, and she was his sister. Then, the troubled past I had always wondered about came spilling from Grumble's lips. How he had failed in his duties on an important mission, how his sister had been killed, how he had been banished from his clan. It was so hard not to cry listening to such a sad story. I wanted to put my arms around him, but I figured it would only embarrass him in front of the elves.
Grumble began relating to her what we had all been up to, to the apparent dismay of Rowan and Nialia. Eventually, they sent Glorwyn away so they could discuss things without her, but I followed her off to a different table. Glorwyn told me some about Grumble before I had known him, and asked about how he was now. It was nice to hear about Grumble's past, since he never feels moved to tell me anything. Glorwyn seemed very friendly, though a little distant, but Grumble gets distant as well, so I didn't think much about it.
After a while, Audric came over and got me and after bidding farewell to Glorwyn, we all headed out on our own errands. Audric filled me in on our mission, which was to head to the Gold Tabard Trading Company and see if we couldn't use my Thieves' Guild connections to try and acquire cloaks of concealment, and maybe a place to lay low.
On our way, Audric asked what Glorwyn and I had been talking about. I told him "girl stuff," but as we walked on I felt something in the back of my mind waving its arms frantically and begging to be remembered. What was it about her? It was...something...she said? Something about... And then I remembered. She had said "Especially when you have the House of Bel after you." I stopped cold. Audric turned to see what was wrong, and I told him. I had never mentioned the House of Bell, nor had Grumble. We decided that whoever Glorwyn was, there was something wrong with her, at the very least, and someone had to tell Grumble. Neither of us wanted the job, so we rock-paper-scissors'd it and I won. Audric looked a little pale, so I promised him we could find some way to tell Grumble together.
Arriving at the Trading company, I discovered I wasn't very good at getting what I wanted from the woman up front. I didn't want to let too much on in case she wasn't in on certain things, but I was having trouble convincing her Arch would want to speak with me despite not having an appointment, or apparent good reason. Still, she went and got him anyhow, and I told him our troubles. Sadly, he wasn't sure he could come up with the cloaks we were looking for. At least he was able to give us the location and password to a place we could go to hide out so I didn't have to feel like the trip was a complete failure.
Feeling a little downcast, and nervously turning over ways to break the bad news about his sister to Grumble, Audric and I headed for the grove where Nialia had gone to ask Amrauthlen if we could stay. He had apparently said yes, and welcomed us to the grove as the gates swung open. Hopefully the grove will provide us all with a little peace and safety, if only for a while. It sure would be nice to not feel the constant press of evil for five minutes...