Trial By Cunning Fire - 27/01/2022 - A Kavel Perspective

Get Together at the Three Headed Dragon

I do not spend much time socialising with my adventuring friends quite as much as I would like. I do see them on adventuring missions. But, in my spare time, I keep myself quite busy; I make improvements to Kavel’s Corner, I spend time with my bros; Tim and Sampson, and obviously; I work on my strength and conditioning, because strength comes first.

I will have more time to socialise soon, when my woodcarving lessons are done. Until that time though, I do have regrets that I don’t spend enough time with my new comrades. So, it was a delight to receive an invite from comrade Celina ,my red-tiefling pal, to come meet in the Dragon for some drinks with a few of our mutual friends. I think we both got some stylistic upgrades to our weapons back in Gadenthor, but I haven’t seen her upgrades. It would be nice to catch up and see.

Sat at the table in a booth at the back with me and Celina were comrades Derthaad, Nimble and Sorrel.

Derthaad, I saw recently when we went to the Sunset Spines to kill a lamia. My blue-scaled dragonborn friend helped me free my old comrades, Tim and Sampson, from the lamia’s mental control. In fact, so did my halfling comrade, Nimble, who I met for the first time there. He is much like comrade Celina in that they are quite roguish in their way of confronting the enemy, and they have a hint of magic about themselves too.

Lastly, there was comrade Sorrel, the most dangerous human I know. She can stalk you from afar and suddenly appear before you. I have been working on the improvements she suggested to me when I introduced her to heavy club training. Her training methods disappointingly do not focus on strength, but the movement drills she suggested, I’m actually enjoying. I don’t have to worry as much as others do, if they tie a tree trunk to the branch of a tree and let it swing back at you. I do try to avoid the tree, and I think I’m getting better at it, but I can punch the tree if my legs are too slow to move me away from the tree as it comes back at me, and my hands aren’t sore from doing so. I wonder how she’s been getting on with heavy club drills, ever since she got rid of her curse, and dedicated herself to the goddess Selune?

There wasn’t much time for catching up unfortunately, it was straight down to business.


City Watch Investigator Private Derthaad… interrogates shop-owner Celina?

Celina told us about an old shopkeeper who was doing suspicious things - no specifics - and how Celina herself has been tasked to find ‘evidence’, and that she would pay well.

“Is this not a better job for the City Watch?” I asked.

“Yes it is,” Derthaad replied, “where did you get your information Celina, and how trustworthy is the source?”

Celina did not divulge much factual information, or so it seemed to me. She did mention that this would be fun, and private affairs don’t require the City Watch. Sorrel agreed. I was relying on comrade Derthaad and Sorrel to determine whether this was a perfectly legal matter. Derthaad appeared to eventually come round, even though I’m not sure Celina ever answered his question about her source, even though he asked her several times. With Sorrel and Derthaad both in, I also accepted, and so did Nimble.

Celina offered us 30gp each.

“Okay, I would have joined in for 20gp,” I said. To which, Celina smiled. But it was a very slow smile and her eyes seemed funny. Must have been because of the drinks.


A Wild Halfling Farmer Appears

Just as we had all agreed to help Celina, a small person came up to our table. It was the halfling son from the New Hillborough farm. I went there with comrade Derthaad to procure some magical pumpkins for Leona, the shopkeeper of Fiore Poplare.

“... I’m glad I caught you,” Sammy said to Celina as he arrived at our booth, ignoring everyone else. “I was given a note to give to you.” Sammy passed on the folded note to Celina. “I… also wanted to see how you are doing?”

It seemed to be much effort for Sammy to talk with Celina. I guess the poor man is still not over his heartache about a woman, and it’s affecting him as he talks to Celina.

“Sammy. How are you doing?” I asked the sheepish halfling.

“I’m good, urm Kavel. Thanks for asking,” came his reply.

“Good,” I responded, and then as he continued to chat awkwardly to Celina, I leaned in to Nimble and said, “last time I saw Sammy, he was a wreck. Heartbroken over a girl. I thought it polite to let Nimble know what’s going on, since he hasn’t been in the adventuring community for long.

Sammy soon left us, and only really said goodbye to Celina. I think Sammy’s low spirits are contagious, because it seemed to affect how Celina was responding back to him. Normally she’s quite chirpy. Sammy will have to work on his happiness. He’s never going to get over whoever broke his heart otherwise.


Let’s Go Stake Out This Shop

We went off to the Dawn Market down the Swamp Road. We could hear the bustle of the Dawn Market before we got there. The shop we were after was the Thistle Do Nicely. Nimble asked around and got the directions. Thistle Do Nicely was down some back alleys, off of the main thoroughfare.

Through a zig-zagging street we went, and eventually we could see a door with a stone archway, and a copper plaque with the words, ‘Thistle Do Nicely’.

Derthaad and Sorrel were questioning Celina about the note Sammy gave her. What came from their exchange was learning that Celina and Sammy were actually married. This further complicated how Sammy was heartbroken over another woman. Were they in an open marriage? I chose not to ask.

From where we were peering round the corner and looking at the shop front, the shop did not look like a shop I would normally enter. I could appreciate the good stone archway of this one storey building, but from the windows all I could see inside was weird bric-a-brac. Every object I could see was off-putting and gloomy. Different skulls, mounted animal heads, creepy busts, creepy hands - real hands? The shop was a collection of weird stuff. A lot of crap. Possibly a shop for a witch? A magical supplies shop?

Sorrel wanted to scout around for a second entrance or, ‘weak point of entry,’ as she put it. Unluckily, we found the front door was the only entrance. Curiously, the architecture of the building was different from the surrounding buildings. It was older and the only one of its type.

Sorrel pointed out a further complication - we didn’t know what we were looking for in the shop. Celina swore all she knew to look for was, “suspicious stuff. Something out of place. We’ll know when we find it.”

Looking through the window at the bizarre items the shop had for sale, I pointed out yet another complication, “but, everything in that shop looks out of place.”

“You want the shopkeeper alive?” Sorrel asked Celina.

“Yes!” Derthaad replied immediately for her.

Sorrel was undeterred from finding the optimal solution to our problem, and suggested, “Derthaad can we use your City Watch badge to lock the place down? Some important Watch business that will keep other customers from entering?”

Derthaad was not pleased with the idea of misusing his powers. He did however use his Disguise Self spell to look like a different dragonborn without any item a City Watch member would carry. Sorrel also used the same spell to disguise herself as a wealthy old lady - ‘Lady Alice’, she said. To further carry off this subterfuge, I was to be Lady Alice’s manservant. I was fresh from an adventure with Glint and Dwirhian where Glint also used illusion magic to make appearances not what they seemed and me and Dwirhian acted like a married couple. So, I had roleplaying experience.

The plan was for Celina and Nimble to subtly look for whatever Celina needed to find, while ‘Lady Alice’, her manservant, and this non City Watch member dragonborn would distract the shopkeeper.


Thistle Do Nicely

We stepped in through the door and we met with bookcases, tables’ all full of someone’s idea of interesting curios. Not mine though - definitely not mine.

Inside the shop, I could now see some ordinary things here; stringed instruments. Also some other less weird curios; rocks, crystals, plants, children’s toys. But then there was the portrait of a baby’s face sticking out of a wall, crying. Delightful. Truly.

(Note to self: if ever you come across these thoughts again, remember you were using sarcasm when you said the freaky portrait was delightful - it really wasn’t).

From the back corner of the shop an elderly gnome woman approached us, and introduced herself as Mrs Loopmottin Fabblestabble. She bowed to Sorrel’s Lady Alice. Sorrel pretended that Lady Alice ran an export company and was interested in selling Mrs Fabblestabble’s goods - if ‘goods’ was the right term for her crap. Lady Alice asked me to prepare some tea for her and Mrs Fabbelstabble, as she took her on a tour of the shop. I headed for the back of the shop, but Mrs Fabblestabble stopped me before I got to the door, “there’s no kette there my dear. I get my tea freshly brewed at a stand in the Dawn Market. Go there and tell them I sent you.” I nodded in response, and looked at Lady Alice for permission. She nodded back and off I went, out through the door and back into the Dawn Market on a tea-run. As I left the shop, I noticed I could see Derthaad in his disguise browsing the shelves, but I couldn’t see where Celina and Nimble had gotten to.


Coming Back From the Tea-Run

I was walking through the zig-zagging alleyway back to Thistle Do Nicely. On one hand, I held two teas in two light wooden cups that were meant to be used only once. I held them in a light wooden frame, where I balanced a couple of light wooden stirrers and some sugar cubes. I was about ten feet away from the Thistle Do Nicely entrance, when Mrs Fabblestabble emerged, forcing her own shop door open. It looked like her shop was strangely foggy. She saw me and snarled, then ran off in the opposite direction. Her movement was more agile than it was inside her shop.

“I have your tea!” I shouted at her.

What was going on? Still outside the shop, I shouted to the inside, “Sorrel! Why is Fabblestabble running?!”

“Get her Kavel!” Sorrel shouted.

She wasn’t too far ahead of me, maybe forty feet. As I began to run after her, I had an idea to maybe slow her down. I put my empty hand in front of me for balance. The tea carrying hand was behind me, and I hurled the teas at Mrs. Fabblestabble. It was a beautiful arc with an unbalanced throwing object. The boiling hot content missed her main body, but caught her on the back of her thighs. Not great, but quite good considering the unconventional shape of the objects I was throwing. I was quite happy with that. Mrs Fabblestabble was not. I heard her guttural hiss, and annoyingly what I thought would slow her down, only made her run faster - really fast in fact. I chased her through alleyways, but soon lost sight of her.

I had to give up. I lost her. I had to report back to the others.

Rejoining the others, I discovered that Celina and Nimble had actually made it to the back room before I tried to get there and Mrs. Fabblestabble suggested I go get tea in the market. She had been talking back and forth between Sorrel and Derthaad’s disguised personas, until she noticed her large safe door in the back was more than ajar - Celina and Nimble had opened it and gone through to find a set of stairs that went quite far down to a corridor with a single door at the end. The others told me Mrs Fabblestabble’s elderly posture changed when she noticed a problem in the back room, and she magically filled the room with fog and then ran out the door, where I met her.


Down the Corridor We Go

With Fabblestabble gone, we decided to go down the corridor and see where that door led. There was no light here. Nimble cast the Light spell on his rapier for us. Down the stairs we went. Both me and Derthaad had to bend down a little. No one makes corridors tall enough for our kind.

There was a rough stone floor beneath our feet, and a swirling pattern on the stone wall of the corridor. When we got to the downstairs door, we really felt distant from the safe door upstairs, which worried us.

“... retrospectively we should have bolted the front door shut. I don’t want someone locking us in here,” Sorrel said. It was pointed out to her that we could just go back now to do that, but then our bigger safety concern was someone locking the safe door entrance. Sorrel then had another thought about our safety:

“Kavel, could you break the safe door?”

“Probably,” I said. It didn’t seem too difficult to me.

“Okay,” Sorrel continued, “Can you do it now then?”

“Yes.”

So I went back up with comrade Derthaad who wanted to have a look at the shopkeeping books up in the office.

I started eyeing up the safe door. It seemed smashing the hinges while the door was fully open was the way to go. Derthaad had finished looking at the books while I was inspecting the door. He said the books’ records looked ordinary enough. I told him to stay back a little. I got my maul out, it seemed like the best tool for this. I lined up a swing at the middle set of hinges of the three hinges that held the door up, and then swung. I was told the crashing noise could be heard from below in the underground corridor. We certainly heard it upstairs as the middle hinge came loose. I lined up another swing. This time an overhead swing at the top hinge. Another crashing noise. The top hinge broke off, and with the middle hinge snapped as well, the door fell away from it’s frame and twisted the bottom hinge, as it fell. The safe door was still connected to the frame by the bottom hinge, but that hinge was stretched out of position. The door was unlockable. Job done, Derthaad and I went back down the stairs to join the others.


Room 1 Puzzle 1 - The Door Or The Curtain?

The door down at the end of the basement corridor was unlocked. Everyone steeled themselves for danger. I might have seen more than one of my allies cast Mage Armour on themselves. We walked in. Nimble had the Light spell cast on his rapier, Derthaad too; but on his horns like I have previously seen him do.

We found ourselves in a small fifteen by ten foot chamber. Again - some in the party found they had to bend down. Cracked animal skulls filled the corners of the room. Behind us, in the southeastern corner was a squatting gargoyle, carved to look like it was holding the room up. It held a stone key, and there was a stone door away from the gargoyle, with a poem written on it in infernal. At least, the first part was infernal, the rest was completely illegible. There was a torch by the stone door; unlit. Celina could read infernal. I guess that’s tiefling text? I wasn’t sure. Nimble and Derthaad had a spell for the text that none of us could read, and I’ve seen Derthaad cast it before; Comprehend Languages.

Sorrel intuited that the door was magically reinforced, and the torch too. Derthaad agreed with this assessment and added that if the torch was lit, it would likely reveal something that our own light wasn’t revealing. He used his Prestidigitation spell to light the torch from afar. The torch light magically spread throughout the whole room, and in the southwestern corner a shadowy curtain, that we couldn’t see before, was now revealed. I went over to the curtain with Sorrel to examine it. I poked my poleaxe through the curtain. The front half of my poleaxe went through the curtain to somewhere.

Nimble’s Comprehend Language spell was ready, and he read to us the entire poem on the stone door:

Is it in the heart or in the head?

How begot, how nourished?

Reply, reply.

It is engender’d in the eyes,

With gazing fed; and fancy dies

In the cradle, where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy’s knell;

I’ll begin it – Ding, dong, bell.

“So what does it mean?” I asked.

My comrades all felt the door was a red-herring, and the curtain was the right way to proceed.

Nimble had a familiar. I don’t know how it is that always someone in the group has a magical animal, but it is always the case. I should probably get one myself. Nimble sent his owl familiar through the curtain.

Nimble described to us what his owl could see. It was another similar sized room. On the north side of the room was a large winged creature behind a set of black and green curtains. There was also a stone relief with large letters on the wall. The stone relief was of a faceless female figure, arms held out. But then Nimble said as his owl looked at the faceless woman, the owl was terminated and the familiar went back to its home plane of reality.

Sorrel prepared us to enter the next room by casting the Bless spell on several of us. I raged. And we walked into the next room.


Room 2 Puzzle 2 - Ring The Bells Correctly

We saw the large winged creature behind the curtain, but also saw three levers for three bells. There were masks too with expressions of joy, love, sadness, anger and terror.

We all took a look at the statue and in our minds we were hit by something. A sharp headache like someone stuck a spike into your head. I felt that. My body is a finely honed machine. But, the magical strike from the statue hit me straight in the brain, and that sort of pain hurts me more than fire or lightning can. Ouch. Well, at least I’m not an owl.

Nimble’s language spell was still active. He read the text by the levers, “Pull The Bell.”

Sorrel gave a giggle. She had figured out that you need to pull each lever a number of times equal to the number of letters in the instructions - each of the three levers corresponded to one of the three words in, ‘pull the bell’. Sorrel pulled the first lever four times, the second lever three times and the last level four times. An outlined door by the faceless woman slid down revealing a new room.’


Room 3 Puzzle 3 - Careful It’s Hot

A rookie error by me and Derthaad, we glanced at the faceless woman again. I shook off the mental attack. Derthaad was frightened, and seeing the next chamber open; ran straight in and away from the statue.

It was well lit in this room. There was a mural on most of the four sides of this chamber, which was of similar size to the previous ones. To our left was a hallway. In the centre of the northern wall was a large stove with a fire opal.

The mural told a story. There was a land shrouded in mist. An old woman inviting figures into her house. Some dining and conversing. Gatherings. Two people's lives keep crossing. One tried to bite the woman. The woman cast a spell. These two people catch each other. What is going on here? I haven’t a clue.

Everyone but me noticed the stone floor was blackened in a way that suggested a cone of fire could be emitted from the fire opal onto the back wall, where the next door appeared to be outlined. A dangerous trap if it couldn’t be disarmed. Derthaad used his anti magic spell, Dispel Magic to render this trap useless. The next stone door slid open.


Room 4 Area 4 Puzzle 4 - Nothing You Can Take Is Ever Free… From Causing You Harm

“We’re doing well!” Celina announced, “I’m so glad I brought you all along. I’ll do some scouting now.” Celina uttered some magical words and waved her arms around in that way magical users do, and I believe something happened. Celina was talking to someone called Barry, or so she claimed. She referred to Barry as her Unseen Servant, and sent him into the next room.

“... has he gone?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Celina replied, “seems fine. I don’t think he got mind blasted.”

“Okay then. I’ll go first,” it fell on me to spearhead our entry into rooms. Makes sense, I have the best honed body for taking whatever damage is thrown our way.

We walked down a curving set of stairs. We were really quite far below the city now.

We came across three stone figures in a nook. Once again, faceless figures like the woman in the second chamber. But they were younger. The first figure held a key made from a white material. The second an ashen key and the last one held a key that looked like it was made out of a liquid crimson material.

Since there was no immediate danger here, and instead what seemed to be a puzzle, something dawned on me, “why am I at the front?” I moved out of the way so the others could get a better look. This was a good idea. When Celina got a better look at the figures, she noticed slits between the statues, where she felt projectiles would spring out of, if we triggered whatever trap was set here.

As it turned out, Derthaad, Celina and Nimble could all perform the cantrip, Mage Hand. They all hovered their Mage Hand over the open hands of the young, faceless statues ready to pick up the keys, whilst we all stood about ten feet away from where the projectiles would emerge.

My clever magic-user comrades all picked up a key as arrows flew into the opposite wall from the slits where they came out. A loud scream could be heard down at the bottom of the stairs, where we hadn’t ventured yet.

Looking more closely at the keys, one of them had a sinister looking skull as the bow of the key. The ashen one had a twisting mass of vines at the top, and the blood-like one had a beating heart as the bow - these keys all fit in with the general creepiness of the trinkets back up in the shop.

“Let's go see what the screaming is,” I said. Celina sent Barry further down the stairs to have a look. When he came back, Celina said there were no traps further down, but there was another door.


Room 5 Space 5 Puzzle 5 - I May Smash Doors Down But My Allies Talk Their Way Through Them

We descended further down the curving staircase. Another faceless female statue met us, standing on a pyre, clothes and skin burning and melting away. More delightful imagery. To be fair, I suppose it was intentionally designed to maybe make people turn away.

Next to this delightful statue was, as was regularly the case here, another door with writing on it, which Nimble had to magically read for us:

Yours, never taken

Others call it, granting power

O’er you, quickly to devour

Both Sorrel and Derthaad said, “name!” at the same time. But more precisely, as they explained, we had to say our own name, and then we could pass through the stone door. Thank the gods for my clever comrades. I did my bit by breaking the safe door. Here; I was useless.

Nimble said his name, and passed through the stone. We all followed likewise.

It was just me and Celina left to go through. “After you Celina,” I said.

“No. You. You should have gone first through anyway, Mr Muscles,” she replied. This was a good point. I was embarrassed. I nodded in response, said, “Kavel” and walked through. Celina followed.


Room 6 Puzzle 6 - To Go Forwards You Must Go Backwards

Through the magical door there was a hundred foot hallway before us. We could hear someone whimpering at the end of it. It seemed to be the same voice that was screaming just a while ago.

Sorrel took in the surroundings and noticed some words written above and behind us. I lifted Nimble up towards the writing, and he used his active Comprehend Language spell to read the following to us:

For freedom to ne’er weep.

Treasures sought lay ahead

With backwards walking dread.

“Got it!” Exclaimed Sorrel. “You have to walk backwards to exit this hall!”

How is Sorrel solving these riddles so fast?! Is there a way you’re supposed to work out the mind that I’m missing?

… I had one job here. I smash safe doors. I’m glad I do this well.

Following Sorrels instructions, we walked backwards into the rear wall and away from the noise we could hear at the end of the corridor the other way and one by one we all backed into a traversable stone wall and entered a new chamber.


Room 7 - Final Chamber

Another ten by fifteen foot stone chamber. Although there was also iron here. Wait a minute, I thought to myself, and I could see we all noticed it. It was as if we were inside the safe door, as if the safe door itself had a chamber in it. We could see the actual safe door exit from this chamber and out into the back office on one of the walls. But, more importantly there were three chests in this room, each with a different lock and design. But, also there was the source of the screaming and whimpering; an elderly gnome woman in very dirty clothes that if not for the dirt looked very similar to Mrs Fabblestabble’s clothes. Grey, messy hair covered the elderly gnome woman’s face, and her wrists had manacles attached to them, which were attached to the floor.

“Please help me,” came a sobbing response from the woman whose body and clothes resembled a ragged Mrs Fabblestabble. Nimble asked for her name.

“I’m Loopmottin Fabblestabble. I own the shop above,” came the actual Mrs Fabllestabble’s response.

Derthaad cast his Aid spell to alleviate her pain. She was gaunt, and had lost a lot of blood through some open wounds. Her blood was both fresh and congealed on the stone floor below her. She looked truly horrible.

“Can any of you pick the locks or should I break the manacles?” I asked.

“Let’s do it delicately,” comrade Nimble suggested, and he was right. As it turned out, three of my comrades here had lockpicking tools on them. I wondered if this along with a familiar was another thing I should get. Nimble picked Mrs Fabblestabbles manacles open.

Derthaad assessed that Mrs Loopmottin could be healed, but it would take a higher form of cleric magic, and whilst Sorrel was newly herself now a divinely blessed magic user, the magic required here was beyond her new skills.

Nimble, Celina and Derthaad all had keys from our forth puzzles. The designs of the keys all had a pairing match with one of the chests each. They opened them all at the same time.

Celina’s chest of gold had a blood-like heart shaped lock, which matched the animated heart key she had. I was paying more attention to Nimble opening the larger silver chest at the time. I looked back at Celina and saw her golden chest was empty. Damn. Nothing there.

Nimble had the vine-like key and opened the dark wooden chest. The key disintegrated as the lock opened. There were lots of items inside. A few vials with liquid in them, a cane, tall boots. Hmmm. Strangely I think I recognise one of the vials, the one with the bubbling heart bubble - it’s one of those love potion things. I wasn’t a fan of these. I guess though, at least this chest had items in it.

Derthaad unlocked the chest made of bones, with his key with the skull bow. The key also disintegrated. Another ‘delightful’ looking collection of objects were found here to blend in with the horrible tat in the shop. Inside this bone chest were three peeled faces on mannequin heads. There was a masculine, dark looking face. A half-elven, middle aged face, and a red skinned tiefling face. I was holding Mrs Fabblestabble in my arms, ready to carry her to a temple for aid. Derthaad put a hand near her hair covered face, and asked if she wouldn’t mind. She wasn’t in much state to object. He swept a little part of her hair away from her face, and not for the first time for me, I saw a living person who was missing the skin of their face. I guess the fake shopkeeper from earlier had stolen it. But, was this also a case of one of those face-stealing daggers? One for comrade Glint. Derthaad said he would post a notice with the Watch to look out for the fake Loopmottin Fabblestabble.

I turned to Celina, “did you find the ‘out of place’ things you were looking for?”

Celina placed a hand on her chest and responded that she wasn’t certain. It could be this stuff, we all supposed.

“Okay. Well then, can we take Mrs Fabblestabble to the temple of Selune, Sorrel?” I asked. But, before Sorrel could respond, Celina made a suggestion:

“No. Let's take her to the temple of Waukeen instead. It’s much closer!”

It was a fair point. We agreed to do that. I took our injured shopkeeper, since I was the most physically stable. This meant the others had to divy up the carrying duty for the two chests with items in them. If I was assigned to the chest carrying, I could have carried them both single handedly. But Mrs Fabblestabble was the priority here.


The Temple of Waukeen

As we entered the temple, some acolytes took Mrs Fabblestabble from me. They and Derthaad acknowledged that the high level spell like Heal was needed. With this, one of the acolytes agreed to dash to the temple of Selune, while at the temple of Waukeen, they would keep Mrs Fabblestabble comfortable until one of the Selune clerics arrived.

What I guess was the head cleric here approached us. She seemed to know Mrs Fabblestabble. It turns out this temple lady actually hired Celina to check on her shopkeeper friend Mrs Fabblestabble. This priestess then remarked that the chests we had were part of why she hired Celina, so I guessed that the chests were the ‘out of place’ items Celina alluded to back in the Dragon.

The priestess wasn’t interested in the one with faces. She was disgusted by them - although she got a good look at the faces. Derthaad was happy to take that chest back to the Watch as evidence. The Waukeen priestess then confidently estimated the sum value of the items in the silver chest. Roughly 1,630gp. This chest, the priestess, was also not interested in, and neither was Derthaad as an investigator for the Watch, so since we could split this between us, I told Celina she could keep the 30gp she promised me for coming with her today.

The priestess woman struck up a conversation with Celina and they seemed to be getting on.

“Drinks at the Dragon, Celina?” I asked. She said she’d come and join, but she wanted to finish the chat she was having with the Waukeen Priestess first. Fair enough.

The rest of us left for the Dragon. Though we wanted to relax over a few drinks, we couldn’t help but be vexed by questions like, who was the woman pretending to be Mrs Fabblestabble and who do the other faces belong to? Also, how weird that the chest Celina opened was empty - it was well hidden after all, so why was it empty, especially since the other two chests had stuff in them?

Celina eventually joined us. I was about to ask her about the empty golden chest, but then she asked me if my helmet, breastplate and maul’s aesthetic upgrades in Gadenthor pleased me, and I became distracted telling everybody about mine and Celina’s time there recently and how I squatted and pressed the heaviest weight anyone had ever lifted.