Emporium in Nu'Jelm
The talks with the Sultan of Nu’Jelm had lasted several days, but finally things were proceeding. It had taken some amount of time and clever thinking on Spencer’s part. But what powerful man could resist something as fascinating sapphires that had been mined deep within the earth, and were so large that a man could not even close his hands around them. The sapphires were like shards of blue ice and so cool to the touch they caused the slightest shiver to slip down the fingers and work its way to the spine. The sensation was remarkable and it made the gems all the more fascinating. The Sultan was a shrewd man though and Spencer ended up with less than what he had wanted. If he’d had time he could have bought half of the city of Nu’Jelm, but time was not on his side. What he had purchased was a shop not too far from the shore line, and also quite conveniently near a shop called The Jewel of the Isle. Which was conveniently the last place anyone had ever heard rumors of a man named, “S.L.”
The Jewel of the Isle of course had been emptied out for days now and still men were coming and going at odd hours of the night. He’d had the men followed but they had always managed to somehow slip away from his agents. Most of the agents reported suddenly feeling ill and then waking up in the streets later with no memory of what exactly had happened to them. This of course he had found quite curious and upon further investigation into the last area they could remember being in he had found a strange sort of silvery dust. His agents had always been reliable and he had decided to check the situation out before needlessly punishing good women and men. The hunch had been correct, some sort of magic was at play here, but exactly what he could not grasp.
Alaira’s information had been spot on as he had not doubt it would be. He might not always agree with how the Traversis deemed to do its business and indeed a large portion of his own time was taken up with cleaning up their messes, but they were resourceful. With their resources he could spend far more time on other matters and leave the more trivial aspects of gathering information to the Necromancers. Without having to waste his time on the mundane matters, he could work in the shadows more easily, on the intricate details of things that people normally did not bother themselves with. But it was the intricate details that were both the most wondrous and the most revealing of a thing.
Anyone could approach a person and ask them their favorite colors, their favorite foods, who their friends were and what they loved. But not just anyone was patient enough to stand around in the middle of a room, or a square or on the corner of a street and watch what made people work. Observe a man or woman long enough, and you can see just what makes them work inside. Every little smile on a person’s face was different and meant something else. Every word made a person respond on the outside, the twitch of a lip, the dancing of fingers, the movement of a foot, the raise of a eyebrow, a half-smile gracefully curtailing annoyance but carefully hidden beneath that graceful half-smile. A tongue catching a lip when they thought no one was looking, a sudden moment of breathlessness when staring at a work of art, or at another person in the distance who had no idea of the other’s longings. Secrets like raindrops tracing skin in invisible lines and leaving tell-tale paths on the skin, every little movement no matter how subtle and no matter how unnoticed by everyone else, lay there bare on a persons outside appearance and manners.
He could speak a single word and learn entire stories from it from those around him. All without their even noticing that he knew, every little dark secret that they had, all leaping out to be heard. Because in reality all people really wanted was someone to know them. And Spencer was more than happy to understand. Every word, every motion, every movement and every inflection. Every smile, or frown, or cough, every change in breath, every change in attitude, and every change in mood. His smile was always polite and he meant every word he spoke.
Any fool could lie to your face. But the truth was unrivaled and an honest man was someone anyone would tell anything to. And Spencer himself valued the truth above all else.
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