Take the ruby to Margaret

VOTING CLOSED! Thank you for voting!

[Another chapter that ended up being much longer than I expected.]

Cassandra wanted to help – partially because she was curious about the ruby and partially because it was the mother of one of her friends that was asking her. However, one of the first things she had been taught about magic was that when it came to spells, curses, and the like, things were not always as they seemed. Because of that she decided to err on the side of caution.

“I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind.” Cassandra began. “First, how, exactly, did you get this ruby? You said someone gave it to you?”

Lena blushed again before answering. “Like I said, it was a few nights ago. An odd visitor... put it in my slit along with a few coins. I'm not sure how he did it, but his hand passed right through my dress and my underwear, as if they were not there at all and I was naked. The coins were perfectly normal and the ruby seemed that way too, but when I took a closer look I noticed the rune.” The older woman explained.

“Wait, what do you mean by 'odd visitor'? In what way was he odd?”

“Well, at the time he seemed like a perfectly normal young man – at least until he put that ruby inside me. But I later discovered that my husband remembers him as a much older man, Lisa remembers a girl slightly younger than her, one of the waitresses remembers an elven woman while another waitress remembers a guy with a scarred face... It seems everyone that saw him – or maybe her – remembers a different person.”

“I see... That's... interesting...” Cassandra paused briefly before moving on to her next question. “Anyway, do you have something I could use to carry the ruby without touching it, just in case? Like a small box to put it in, or a piece of cloth to wrap it in...”

“Sure, I believe I have a suitable piece of cloth somewhere in here... just give me a moment to see where I put it...” Lena left the ruby on the bed and started looking.

Finding the cloth in question took a bit. While the older woman was searching Cassandra focused her attention on what to do with the ruby. The logical first step was to ask someone more knowledgeable about it. I should go ask Margaret. If she knows about the rune – great; if not she should at least have some idea who to ask about it. After that-

“Ah, there it is!” Cassandra's thoughts were interrupted by Lena's exclamation. She looked right on time to see the other woman get up from the floor. “Sorry for the wait, Cass. I didn't notice it had fallen on the floor.”

“That's alright, it was hardly a long wait.” Cassandra replied. “So, what do you want me to do with the ruby after I have learned what I can about it?”

“I leave that to your judgment, based on what you discover – keep it, sell it, bring it back to me... whatever seems best to you.” As she was talking the older woman quickly wrapped the small ruby in a thick gray cloth, making sure that it would be impossible for anyone to accidentally touch the gem.

“Very well. Then I will ask Margaret about it the next time I see her. Is there anything else you need?”

“N-no, that's all I needed. Besides, I wouldn't want to impose, I have already taken enough of your time as it is.” Lena replied, sounding a little hesitant, and offered the cloth-wrapped gem to Cassandra.

“Alright, then I guess that is all for now.” She's probably still horny due to the side effect of the spell. I could use that to have sex with her before leaving… but I don't want to take advantage of her like this. I can always seduce her later... right? Cassandra took the cloth-wrapped ruby and put it in a hidden pocket of her dress. “I will go say 'goodbye' to Lisa and then I will be going.”

“Speaking of Lisa, I should go check on her and the rest of the staff, just in case.” With that said the two women left the bed room together, Lena at the front and Cassandra right behind her.

They had almost reached the door leading to the main room when Lena stopped and turned to face Cassandra, who gave her a questioning look. “One last thing, Cass... Thank you.” Lena gave her a warm smile as she said that.

“Huh? For what? I haven't done anything yet...”

“For not taking advantage of me.” Lena answered in a quite tone of voice. “Even after using the dildo for as long as I did I am still very horny and was in fact planning to come back and continue using the toy after checking on Lisa. If you had wanted you could have easily taken advantage and... convinced me to sleep with you. I appreciate it that you did not do so.”

“You really thought I might do such a thing?”

“A part of me feared you might. Another small part of me hoped you would. In the end I see I was worried for no reason. Again, thank you.” Lena gave her another warm smile.

“No need to thank me.” Cassandra returned the smile and the pair resumed walking. That surprised me... Now I'm glad I didn't try to take advantage of her.

Almost as soon as Lena and Cassandra returned to the main room the front doors opened and a large group of people walked in, most of them guards and servants. “I need a room!” A loud voice announced. It belonged to a bald man in the middle of the group. Immediately the serving girls and the bouncers went to greet the new arrivals while the cook that had been with them went back to the kitchen, giving Lena a brief nod as she passed her in a hurry.

“Well, looks like break time is over.” Just as Lena said that Lisa came down the stairs in a hurry, likely having seen the group arrive through a window. Upon seeing her mother and Cassandra she went over to them. “The rooms are all ready, mom. It was just that one room that was a mess.”

“Good. Then let's go greet the visitors. See you later, Cass.” Lena made her way to the new arrivals.

“See you later, Cass. Sorry we didn't get a chance to... talk. Maybe next time.” Lisa turned to follow her mother.

“Later, Lisa.” Noticing that no one was looking in her direction Cassandra quickly reached with her left hand and briefly grabbed Lisa's ass before pulling away. She got a brief look and a smile in return as Lisa followed her mother.

Now that she was alone Cassandra took a longer look at the new arrivals and noticed that the man wasn't just bald, his head was completely hairless: no hair, no beard or mustache, no eyebrows, nothing. Apart from that he was pretty normal-looking – as far as rich fat merchants went, anyway. Next to him was a raven-haired woman wearing an expensive-looking bright red dress. Her large breasts looked like they were ready to spill out of the dress any second. It was impossible to guess if the woman was the merchant's wife, or a concubine, or something else. The rest appeared to all be guards and servants working for the merchant.

As Cassandra watched more of the inn's employees arrived from the back rooms and stood ready to receive any orders or requests. The bald man spoke to Lena briefly and gave her a pouch full of coins. In turn she said something to Lisa and the two of them led the group to the next floor, the guards and servants following closely behind.

When most of the new arrivals had gone up and out of her sight Cassandra decided that she would not get to see anything more of interest and left the inn, heading towards the Academy – and to Margaret, assuming that her sister was still there.

Random Encounter roll (1d100): 93

The trip to the Academy was long and boring, the only thing of any interest being a group of four armored guards chasing – and somehow managing to keep up with – a lone thief.

Once she reached her destination Cassandra realized that she had no idea where to look for Margaret. By now all of the morning classes were over and she had no idea where her sister might have gone afterwards. Dammit, I should have paid more attention when Margaret was talking about her classes... Oh, well, too late to do anything about it now, so I'll just ask around and hopefully I'll get lucky.

It took a while, but eventually Cassandra found a teacher that knew Margaret and had an idea where she might be. After that it took only a little longer to find the library in question (it helped that Cassandra had actually visited it once or twice before, during previous visits of the Academy) and to locate her sister among the small number of students currently there.

Margaret was wearing a bright yellow dress that made her that much easier to spot. She was sitting on one side of a small table, reading a book. Across from her, on the other side of the table, was sitting a redhead in a dark red dress. She too was reading a book. Various books and scrolls could be seen on the table between the two. Neither one was looking in Cassandra's direction and so she remained unnoticed until she had reached them.

“Can I help- Oh, hi, Cass! What brings you here?” Margaret asked, surprise evident on her face at seeing her little sister.

“Hi, sis! I came to see you. I hope I am not intruding?” Cassandra made sure to not speak loudly, so as to not disturb the other students there.

“It's not a problem. Let me introduce you. This is Silvia.” Margaret pointed at the redhead who turned to look at the younger girl. “Silvia, this is my younger sister Cassandra. I've told you about her.”

“Nice to meet you, Cassandra. I am Silvia, as you just heard.”

“Nice to meet you too, Silvia.” Cassandra returned the greeting.

“Well, have a seat and tell us what brings you here, Cass.” Margaret pointed at one of the empty chairs around the table.

“Well, I mainly just wanted to see you, sis.” The young noblewoman answered after sitting down. “I also want to ask you about this ruby.” She took out the small bundle of cloth and left it in the middle of the table.

“Let me see...” Margaret unwrapped the ruby and examined it. “Hmm, at first glance it appears to be a normal, if small, ruby, but on closer inspection I can see some sort of protective rune... give me a moment.” She closed the book she had been reading and moved it to the side of the table, then got up and went to a nearby bookshelf. “Where did you get it?” She asked as she began searching through the books on the shelf.

“Lena gave it to me.”

“Lena?”

“Lisa's mother. I stopped by their place before coming here.”

“Ah, yes, now I remember her.” Margaret pulled one of the books from the shelf and returned to the table, where she started searching through the book. Before long she found what she was looking for. “Here it is! Apparently this rune is used for preventing pregnancy.” She looked at her sister. “The person who sold this ruby to Lena should have told her about the rune...”

“Actually, she didn't buy it...: Cassandra gave a brief summary of what she had heard earlier, without any potentially embarrassing details such as exactly where the ruby had been put. “...and that's why she needed someone to look at the ruby and make sure it's safe.”

“Now that I think about it...” Started Silvia, causing both sisters to look at her. “I heard a story about a student here – Evan, or Ivan, or something like that – that helped an old woman and she gave him a small ruby as thanks. He later examined it and found a protective rune – one that prevents bleeding. No idea if that story is in any way related to the one you just told us, but I find it curious that both involve rubies and protective runes...”

“Yes, me too.” Cassandra agreed. “So, how, exactly, does the ruby work? And also, any idea why people would remember so many different things about its previous owner?”

“The ruby has a range of two meters, maybe a little more than that. Any woman within range is affected and will be a lot less likely to get pregnant – but not completely safe, no matter how small the chance may be. As for the previous owner: This is just a guess, but most likely that person was carrying some enchanted item that combines illusion and confusion spells to obscure or outright hide their identity. I can't even guess at their reasons without more information... What, why are you looking at Cass like that?” The last question was aimed at Silvia, who was silently staring at Cassandra.

“Oh, sorry, I did not mean to stare, I was just wondering... do you have any plans for the next couple of hours, Cass?”

“Plans? Why?” Cassandra looked at the redhead, confused by the sudden question.

“Yes, why are you asking that all of a sudden? I thought you said you already have a boyfriend and are not interested in any 'side relationships', as you called them.” Margaret added.

“No, no, it's nothing like that. I was just thinking that we could invite her for some combat training.” Silvia explained.

“Combat training? I'm not exactly dressed for combat, as you might have noticed...”

“That's precisely why! We won't always get a chance to prepare for combat. Sometimes we will get surprised and **** into battle unprepared, or **** to work with non-combatants, or even both... That's why we should do some training to prepare for such an occasion.”

“Hmm, that actually makes sense. What do you think, Cass? Wanna give it a try?”

“Well, I appreciate the offer, but aren't the two of you busy?” Cassandra pointed at the books Margaret and Silvia had been reading when she found them.

“Nah, that's a long-term project that will take a few months. A delay of a few hours won't make any difference.” Her sister waved the objection away. “So, what do you say? We could do the training fight right now, or after lunch – it's your choice...” Both older women looked at Cassandra expectantly, waiting for her answer.

“Well, let me think...”

Vote: Should Cassandra stay and train with Margaret and Silvia?
A. Agree to join them for a training fight
A1. Right now, without any delay
A2. After having lunch
B. Agree to train with them, but at a later time, not right now
C. Refuse the offer

[If you picked any of the A options above you can ignore this question]
What should Cassandra do next?
D1. Stay at the Academy (specify what to do, and whether to remain with Margaret and Silvia, or go on her own)
D2. Go back to the “Traveler's Rest” and tell Lena what she learned about the ruby
D3. Visit Evelyn's home (she might get lucky and find Evelyn there, or she could do something else, such as speake to Evelyn's mother)
D4. Visit Catherine's home (Catherine might be back home by now, or if she's not Cassandra could try to speak with someone else there, such as Catherine's mother)
D5. Visit the Market (you can specify whether to look for Evelyn, or just to look around the market, or to do something else there)
D6. Visit the Temple
D7. Visit the prison
D8. Go back home (optional: specify what to do there)
D9. Walk around the city at random and look for anything of interest
E. Do something else (specify what)

X. Minor action(s)

Result: A2

VOTING CLOSED! Thank you for voting!