Jon Chess opened his eyes, and immediately regretted his hasty decision; daylight was far too bright. His head felt like a minotaur has performed a hat dance on his cranium. A moan reached his slightly-pointed ears, and he recognized it as his own voice.
"Ah, the young hero awakens!" spoke a voice, characterized by both excessive cheer and excessive volume.
"Have you no respect for the dead?" Chess complained in a whiney voice. He winced - he hated how pathetic he sounded when he whined.
"Oh, hardly dead - what kind of a healer would I be if I lost patients with such slight injuries?" chuckled the voice. "You have suffered some violence to the back of the head, but hardly life-threatening - the most danger you are in is if you don't pay my bill... and Mother Freona has pledged to pay for your treatment in any case, so you should be quite safe."
Chess gathered the facts he had just learned; first, he had been injured. Second, he was in a clean bed. Third, someone - this "Mother Freona", whoever that was - had engaged a healer to attend to his injuries. Fourth, his injuries were not considered serious by the healer. Fifth, he felt like a cow whose carcass had been violently rejected from a dragon's stomach. He weighed all the information, and went back to sleep.
* * *
When Chess woke again, the sun had gone down and he was no longer afflicted by its insufferable brightness. His head ached, but at a tolerable level, as if he had merely tried to match Dwarven mercenaries ale-for-ale. Chess sat up in the bed. The movement inspired a wave of nausea - perhaps he HAD engaged some dwarves in a drinking contest... but no. The pain of a hangover was a generalized pain, and this headache seemed localized to the back of his skull. Chess gently explored his cranium with his fingers, wincing as he found the swollen, tender area from which the pain emanated.
He was in a bedroom, with a door on one side of the bed, and a window with frilly lace curtains on the wall opposite. Under the window was a writing desk. Next to the bed was a small table with porcelain basin, ewer, and a small folded towel.
Under the bedding, he was quite naked. Ordinarily, that might have alarmed him, but he saw that his weapons harness, containing his brace of knives and the baldric holding his longsword were hung with care from a hook at the back of the door.
Rising naked from the bed, he washed his face, and drank some of the water. Crossing to the window, he looked out upon the dark street. The street was cobbled, but the side street and alleyways leading from it were muddy dirt.
"Well, I don't seem to be a prisoner, at any rate..." he muttered. He considered this a step up from other times he had found himself awake in similar circumstances.
He thought back to the last thing he remembered. He had arrived at the gates of the city Phlan after dark. Phlan was a study in contrast - technically over a thousand years old, the city itself had been razed and destroyed several times, but the prime location on the north bank of the Moonsea ensured that there was always a financial reason to rebuild, time and time again. The city had itself been destroyed by dragons, and recovered by the Zhentarim lord Cvaal Daoran, who had begun the most attempt at rebuilding. Cvaal Daoran's grandson Anivar Daoran died without issue, and the commander of the corrupt Black Fists, the city guard, had declared martial law. In short, Phlan was a dangerous and chaotic place to live, and justice only for those who could afford to purchase it. It had sounded like the perfect place for someone like Jon Chess, who made his living as a private investigator and privy agent.
