"Oh, nothing much, nothing much; just the way you were describing them as being all about requiring the
sacrifice, or else hunting you down and tearing you apart like a piece of meat." Graydon walked onward, not wanting to be
too close to Shard while asking her things- preferably just out of spear's length. "It made me think of some twisted combination of an owlbear and a tax collector- 'Now everyone in the village line up and let me eat your
left arm. Just the left, it's basically why you have two, this is the price you pay for being alive... and if you should have the
unthinkable effrontery to object to the situation, well I'll be more than happy to devour you from the feet up so you can watch me do it.'"
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. "Still, that's just working from incomplete information so far; you've said a couple examples of what they're
not, but negative classification can only go so far in describing something. So what
are these nasty things? Maybe some sort of organized crime ring of the Far Planes, or suchlike?"
@
Unsung, @
Quickleaf- The plain plan to me seems to be that Graydon casts Find Familiar, and his spellbook (already imbued with an archmage via portal-fiddliness, unbeknownst to him) wakes up for the first time. Now, it seems to me the way to speed Shandrizar's waking is to get Graydon into a position to cast that spell ASAP- which would involve having a brass brazier available and Graydon already having the spell components to cast it available in his pouch, as well as an hour of uninterrupted time. Maybe he borrows one of the bartender's braziers and takes a really long bathroom break, maybe he doubles back to grab his backpack of stuff from whatever respectable place he stayed in last night (say, 'Comfortable' level) and does it there, maybe the party wants to see him do some kind of fancy magic, just throwing out ideas; we can always figure out a way to quicktime the casting part.
In any case, Graydon's going to WANT to grab ahold of a familiar as soon as he possibly can! That little slumtrip convinced him that he'd definitely like an extra set of eyes, especially when he's asleep; that faun in particular (IC opinion only, not any OOC problem desired) seems like the kind of smartass who would sneak into somebody's bedroom and draw dicks on their face or put their hand in a bowl of warm water. He'd like to leave the student pranks back with the
students, thank you.

(Of course, the down side is that Shandrizar might well find that kind of thing hilarious, especially if Graydon's managed to piss him off. Wizards can be DICKS, y'all.)