Trial by Cunning Fire - Celina Zabinski - 27/01/22

Team Work Makes The Dream Work…
I mean it shouldn’t be so guard, right?

Written by Celina Zabinski

---

As I finish reading the letter, even though it's not signed, I know that it’s from the Patriot. It’s similar to her last letter. Ok now to think, who should I bring this time? It’s probably best if I bring some new people and I definitely am not admitting the truth like last time. That ended up being… interesting. Especially Ivan, I wonder if he’ll ever come around...

I start thinking of people to bring and I finally work out the perfect people. I decide I want to ask the following people to join me. Sorrel, the human, she is extremely sneaky and deadly with a sword. Derthaad, the dragonborn, incredibly smart and knows powerful magic. Even though he’s suspicious of me and he’s part of the Citywatch, it could be interesting to see how it goes. Kavel, the goliath, super strong. I mean after him lifting those massive weights last time there’s nothing he couldn’t handle. Always handy to have some muscle on the team. And finally Nimble, the Halfling. Also very sneaky and quick on his feet. Even though I only met him a few days ago I know this mission could do with another rogue person, like myself. I smile… this can work. So throughout the week I reach out to everyone to come meet me at the Dragon in Daring Heights. I have a liking for that place. I organise the same booth as last time. Right at the back of the place and way from the other customers. It’s very much private.

It’s late in the afternoon and one by one, everyone arrives and comes join my table. Once everyone is seated, I get right to it. I want to convince these people to join me without knowing the full truth… I mean a little lie never hurt anyone… right? I tell everyone that a local business owner came to me because they trust me, Celina, a fellow business owner. That this person wanted me to investigate a suspicious shop owner and find evidence on them. Kavel is first to ask if this job should go to the Citywatch? I find it interesting that Kavel asked this question. Derthaad chips in that he agrees it should be with Citywatch. Typical… now I got to stretch these muscles and prepare for these juicy lies. I think quickly and explain that this job is meant to be kept out of the Citywatch. It’s only a simple bit of snooping. Derthaad and Kavel don’t look convinced but Sorrel is the first one to back me up. Thank you Sorrel. I also add that it’s the first time someone has ever come to me for a job and I thought it would be fun to organise my own team. This seems to convince some more people. I offer them all 20 gold pieces each to come join me. If I am honest, I am probably willing to pay then about 60 gold pieces each… but we’ll see where we get to when all of this is over. I love negotiating. Derthaad enquires more about who exactly was my source for this information? I mean of course I’m not going to tell him the truth. So I just kept saying it’s not for me to share. It’s private. I try to distract him by saying I know what he is really after and that he’s twisted my arm, so I am willing to go to 30 gold each now. But that’s my final offer… another lie. I am waiting for him to argue… Surely he’ll want more… right? And it seems… he doesn’t. He sighs and accepts my offer. Kavel chimes in and says that he would have joined for 20 gold. Ahh Kavel. Too good for this. The others all agree to helping on the job. I smile happily.

Suddenly as I am sitting there something catches in the corner of my eye and I look towards the entrance. I freeze. In comes in a familiar Halfling, I know all too well. Sammy Plumbstead. Oh course wearing his nice clothes. Not looking too fancy but looking exceptionally handsome. Our eyes meet and it’s strange, he doesn’t look away awkwardly or look upset. He actually holds my gaze for a few moments and smiles. My heart literally skips a beat. And after a few moments, I feel very confused. He makes his way over towards our table and sits next to me. I stare at him puzzled. I have so many questions. Like why is he here? Why is he smiling at me? Are we back talking now on friendly terms?

If this were anyone else, I would make a joke, use some flirty move on him, ask to have a talk with him privately, ask him what the hell is happening right now… I think of so many things. They all swirl around my head in an instance, to the point where I lose focus and I do nothing. This is highly usually for me. I get angry at myself. Stop being such a fool and stop acting so weird around him. I figure I get confused as I don’t know how to act around him anymore. But also I can’t figure out which version of myself I want to be around him. I snap back to attention when he hands me a letter. He says he was told to bring this to me. I thank him and ask him if he was joining us today. He says he won’t be. I am disappointed but also secretly relived, as I not sure I would be able to function normally to get the job done. Kavel asks him how he is doing. It appears they have met before. Interesting to note. Sammy says he’s fine and thanks him for asking. He gets up and says he has to go. He stares at me and says goodbye. I also say goodbye. I want to add more but I think now is not the right time. Maybe again someday…

As Sammy leaves, I take one last glance. Ugh no… Stop being desperate. You are better than this. You’re still upset with him… remember … I quickly distract myself from my thoughts for a few moments by opening the letter Sammy brought. I take it out slowly, read it very quickly and out of view from the others.

Again I know it’s from the Patriot. I think does it seem like she’s mad? I mean like I got her the information. Why would she be mad? Also interesting… to know. I need to meet the Patriot with all the stuff I find at the temple. Ok this shouldn’t be too hard, right? I slip the note back into the envelope and put it in my bag. I quickly and realise the others probably noticed how odd I acted there. Damn you Sammy making me… look weird. Nimble chips in that he thinks the Halfling likes me. I grin but say nothing. I move on quickly and ask if everyone is ready to go. They all agree and we take off. I tell them the place we are looking for, Thistle do Nicely Boutique. I myself have no clue where this shop is but I think how hard can it be to find?

We wander out to the Dawnlands market and we all set off trying to locate this shop. I ask around but don’t seem to have any luck. Some of the others aren’t having much look either. But promptly, Nimble finds out the directions to the shop and leads our group. The directions are like going through a maze, lots of lefts and rights and twists and turns. It feels like we get lost at one point but then swiftly we arrive at a shop. It’s an interesting place. I see the faded green door to the shop. I also see the shops faded sign is propped up to the side. The ‘e’ in ‘Thistle’ seems to be rusted. I guess the sign is supposed to look like a thistle plant. But it’s definitely in need of some maintenance. With the location and the shops appearance, I think this place seriously can’t be getting much business... can it?

We hide around a corner, just out of view from the shop. Derthaad and Sorrel ask me to explain exactly what we’re looking for in the shop. I just tell them suspicious things. I mean how can I say I need to steal gold and basically everything from a vault for my new employer? They give up after a few minutes of questioning. Then they move on to ask me about the letter. They want to know if there’s anything useful it said. I say no. I mean there isn’t really anything useful in the letter for the job. I am not lying to them. Its more instructions for me after… they don’t need to know. They start asking who the person was that gave me the letter. I think fuck it and say “Well actually he’s my husband… I mean… it’s complicated…” Husband… ugh… such a weird word to say. Also I don’t even know what’s happening with it anymore. But hey first time saying it out loud. The other look confused for a moment. Then they think it makes more sense now about our interaction earlier. I shut down further questions.

After more talking about what to do, we come to the conclusion that it’s best if we come up with a plan before going in. Sorrel asks Derthaad if he can go in and shut the place down. She suggest saying something like there for a routine inspection, flash his badge and get the people in the shop to leave. Derthaad mentions that he doesn’t want to abuse his authority that way. So we continue brainstorming other ideas. The best idea we come up with is that some people can distract the owner of the shop pretending to be customers while the rest of us, mainly me, can go looking around for suspicious things. Everyone agrees, even Derthaad. However he mentions that if he is going in he doesn’t want to look like himself. So he uses his spell disguise self and completely changes his appearance. He looks like a completely different dragonborn. Sorrel also mentions that she can change her appearance. She also uses the spell disguise self and she suddenly appears like an old lady. She mentions that her name will be Lady Alice. Kavel agrees he’ll join the distraction team and be Lady Alice’s body guard. While I agree its best if Nimble joined me with sneaking around the place, while the owner is distracted. I mean two sneaky people can cover a lot of ground, it’s perfect. I decide not to change my appearance. Just in case it’s actually useful to be Celina.

With the plan in motion we make our way in. Sorrel, or I mean Lady Alice, takes the lead walking into this place. As we enter the building, I can’t help but have a quick look around to see what type of shop this is. I see various items around the place. Instruments in a barrel, like a violin and a ukulele. Animal skulls mounts on the walls, giving me a creepy vibe. Plants of various kinds, I also see some terrariums and there’s children’s toys like dolls. The whole place has so much of everything, this really is a shop with lots of odd bits of everything.

All of a sudden, an elderly gnome with curly white hair appears. She smiles kindly and shows her yellow teeth. She greets everyone warmly and introduces herself as Mrs. Loopmottin Fabblestabble, the owner of this shop. I wonder what the hell makes this pleasant old lady suspicious to warrant the Patriot asking me to look into. While I ponder this, Lady Alice takes the lead in the conversation. Sorrel puts on an amazing old woman voice. It’s very convincing. The others walk ahead. I hang at the back with Nimble. I look to him and nod, we head towards the door at the back end of the shop. It looks like a perfect place people can hide stuff. As I just get to the back, I can just about make out Lady Alice spelling her exceptionally long surname to the shop owner. I laugh quietly to myself. Sorrel is doing great. Nimble and I continue onward and silently make it through the back door unnoticed.

When we enter the back room, we both see a room that has a desk with some notes in the corner and a massive safe in the middle of the room. I turn to Nimble and point at the safe “I mean that’s suspicious… right?”. He nods. We look closer at it and we can see that the vault door is already open just a crack. I am thinking this is too easy. I tell Nimble I’m going to use my mage hand to open the door more. However as I am using it, I am struggling to open it fully. The damn door is just too heavy. Nimble chimes in that he also has mage hand. He casts it and both of us work together. After a few moments, we manage to finally get the door to open fully. I am panting but I smile with our good work. I decide to high five his mage hand with my mage hand. Team work! Inspecting the inside of the vault further, we can both see a set of stairs leading down somewhere. But the rest of it is entirely pitch black. Even with my dark vision I can’t fully see where this leads.

Nimble mentions he has an owl familiar called Feathers and he can send them down to check it out. It’s not like Feathers can properly die. I think it’s a good plan. I mean who knows what traps or creatures are down there. Nimble sends Feathers down and it takes Feathers a few minutes to get down. Nimble says that the way seems to be clear for Feathers, so he thinks it safe for us to go down. Before we move onwards, we debate what to do about the vault door. We don’t want it to close behind us and lock us in. We decide someone can go down first and someone else can stay close to the door in case it swings closed. Nimble offers to go first, he casts light on his rapier to light up the way for everyone. I don’t argue as I don’t want to have to deal with any hidden traps first. I’ll leave that to others. Nimble makes his way down and I slow make mine keeping an eye on the door. However as I am slowly moving I can hear voices in the distance. I can just about make out Sorrel’s. I quickly cast message to her and tell her where we are. I also mention someone needs to watch the door. Sorrel replies she’s on it. I make my way down and just as I get near the bottom of the steps I hear a massive loud clank sound, which makes me jump a bit. I move quicker down the stairs. I have no clue what the hell that was. I found out later that it was Kavel ripping the door of the vault. Freakin hell that man is so scarily strong but I guess that’s one way of making sure that door doesn’t shut on us.

As I make my way into the vaults room, I look around and inspected the room. I can see it’s a small fifteen by ten foot chamber. It’s a bit unfortunate for some of the tall members in our group and they have to couch in the room. However I was perfectly fine in the room. Cracked skulls were all over the floor in this room. Looking around more, I noticed a large gargoyle with a stone key in its mouth. Next to that was a stone archway with a door underneath it. On the archway there were words written on it and I worked out some of it was written in infernal. I ask if anyone else can read infernal but no one can. I look pleased and get to work translate as much as I can. However I soon work out, there are some lines that I have no clue about. I can’t even tell what language they are. Nimble and Derthaad mention they both have comprehend languages. However Nimble seems to be quick and he’s the first to cast his spell. He mentions it’ll take him a few minutes. So we wander around looking at what else is in the room. I decide to venture over towards the gargoyle. I choose to take the stone key from its mouth. I mean… we might need it to open the door under the stone arch. I play it safely to use my mage hand incase it’s a trap. However nothing happens when I take the key. I look at it up close but keep it in my mage hand. It seems like a normal key from what I can tell. I decide to pocket it.

While I was doing this Sorrel is the first to spot something usual. She finds a long curtain in the room, made entirely out of shadows. Everyone is curious and goes to look. I wander over as well, just as Kavel pulling out his poleaxe. It seems it went somewhere. Nimble mentions his spell is ready and he goes to translate the full text on the stone arch.


Tell me, where is fancy bred?
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.


I have absolutely no clue what it means. Even with everything translated. A debate happens quickly on what to proceed with next. Do we go through the door under the stone arch or the shadow curtain? I chime in and say “I mean if I were to hide something suspicious I would put it in a place no one would find, which is the shadow curtain. So I vote to go there”. The others all agree. Some people even speculate that the door under the stone arch could be a red herring. I mean that would make sense. It’s decided to go through the shadow curtain. Nimble mentions he can get Feathers to go in first and see what they find. Feathers flies in. Feathers doesn’t see anything super suspicious. He sees a stone relief with large letters on the wall. The stone relief looked like a faceless female figure with her arms held out. Feathers goes over to look closer at the faceless woman and suddenly Feathers is no longer in the room. Nimble mentions the woman attacked him. I note to myself there’s clearly something dangerous in there. Everyone gets ready to go in. Kavel even goes into a rage and leads the way into the room first. I brace myself and follow after the others.

As I enter the room, I notice the details that Nimble’s had described Feathers seeing. Except I also notice some other things. I see three levers with three bells in one corner. And there is also masks floating around with different expressions on them. I can make out joy, sadness, terror, anger and love on the masks. It is interesting. I start to look around at the rest of the room. I feel like if the last room had red herrings maybe those levers are also one, so I ignore them for the time being. However, Sorrel, Derthaad and Nimble make their way over to the levers and start investigating them more. Suddenly the faceless statue tries to attack us. I luckily just miss its range. In the corner of my eye, I can see that the others are actually making progress in this room. I am not sure how they do it exactly but suddenly a door to a new room opens. I see Derthaad run extremely fast into the new door. I think to myself I have never seen him like this, he must be really excited to have figured out the puzzle. We all make our way into the next room safely.

As we all enter the next room, the door shuts behind us. At the far end of the room is a large stove with fire opal on top. The room has many paintings on the walls. They seem to tell a story. I look closer at them. I can see the paintings are about a red skinned elven woman welcoming home her husband. However looking at the man it seemed like he had a sharp canines in his grin. Looking more sinister. More of the painting show parties and balls. Two people very happy. Two people's lives keep crossing over. Another painting showed one of the figures trying to bite the woman. Looking at the painting it’s unclear if it’s depicting love or a rivalry. The last painting shows a messy painting of passion. I completely get lost staring at the painting. To the point, I didn’t even notice Derthaad working on the next trap. Suddenly there’s a bang and the fire opal on top of the stove is disarmed. Derthaad is a genius.

I smile and look to everyone “Look at our little team go! I knew it was a good idea to bring each of you. I am so glad I brought each of you”. I genuinely meant it. If I came here on my own I know for a fact I wouldn’t be able to solve any of these puzzles so far. I would probably lose my mind and start smashing things in frustration. I chuckle at how well this is all going. I look further down the hall and realised there could be traps. I decide it was time to summon the all might and powerful Barry, my unseen servant. I summon him and ask him to go ahead and let us know if there’s any traps. Kavel asks me if Barry has been summoned yet. I tell him I think so. I mean it’s hard to know since I can’t see him. I also tell Kavel that if he does die I can usually tell and I haven’t felt him die yet… so it must be a good sign. Suddenly Barry comes back and he does his best to relay the coast is clear. I tell this to the group and Kavel is confident enough to go ahead. He marches straight into the next room. The rest of us follow after. I also tell Barry to follow us as I think he might still come in handy.

In the next room, we come across three faceless statues. The first statue on the left had a key made from a white material. Which was in fact bone, the head of the key is in the shape of a sinister skull with a question mark engraved into the forehead of it. The middle statue had what looked like a dark ash key. Was actually iron-hard wood, the head of the key shows a beautifully detailed, twisting mass of vines, with what looks like a hooked tooth forming a question mark in its centre. And the last one, on the right had a key which looked like liquid crimson. Which is actually blood. All very peculiar. I look closer at the statues and I actually spot some slits in the statues where I believe knives or blades would come out. I relay this to everyone and mention we need to be careful. Someone else agrees they see the slits as well. We debate how to get the keys. I suggest using my mage hand. Nimble says he can also use his mage hand and Derthaad also mentions he can use his. So we decide this is the perfect plan. We stand a distance away and on the count of three we would grab the keys. I focus on the red one. Someone counts us in and we all simultaneously grab the keys at the same time. As we pull the keys the blades from the statue immediately pop out and start slashing ferociously in the air. It’s so fast and quick. I can imagine if we were standing in the line of it we would get seriously hurt if not killed by these statues. Luckily, I did not have to worry about that.

Unexpectedly there’s a scream that can be heard coming from downstairs. It’s loud and high pitched. I ask Barry to go down and check what it is. He goes down and suddenly comes back up again doing his best gestures and motions an invisible creature can make to relay the way was clear for us. We head down.

At the bottom of the stairs was another archway with more writing on it again. Some in infernal and some in another language again. I am very curious to know what the other language I can’t understand. Nimble used the comprehend languages spell again and translates the whole message. 


Yours, freely given
Yours, never taken
Others call it, granting power
O’er you, quickly to devour


In unison, Sorrel and Derthaad both shout out the answer, “Name”. They explain that we have to say our names to get in through the next room. I immediately curse under my breath. No fucking way. A door that needs my real name. Screw this absolute crap. How the hell will I manage this one? Derthaad suggests I go first. I immediate act like this is all too scary and that I would feel safer if someone else goes first. I purposefully watch the others go through the door saying their names. I also glare at how easy they make it seem just walking through. One by one they all safely make it through with nothing out of the ordinary happening. It comes down to myself and Kavel left. He encourages me to go before him and I politely decline. I tell him he’s the one that should have gone first anyway. I wink. He seems to get embarrassed and walks in. I am left alone in the room. I debate for a while what would happen if I say Celina. But the door seems magical and I don’t think it’ll work. My real name is Natalia. Fuck. I don’t want to say it…. but I think I'll have to. I build up my courage and decide to say my name in infernal walking through. None of the others know the language so hopefully it’s enough to not get notices. I step through and whisper Natalia in infernal. I panic for a moment wondering what will happen. But nothing seems to happen. I manage to get through untouched. I feel angry that it made me do that. I want to smash the door but I think what good that would do. I turn to face the others and put on a fake smile acting like that was so straightforward. Tah-dah!
There’s more scream. This time, it seems as if they’re getting louder but it is still hard to see where it’s coming from exactly. We all look around the room and we can see more text up quite high on a wall. Kavel lifts up Nimble so he can translate for us. Nimble tells us it reads:


Your eyes to here, keep
For freedom to ne’er weep.
Treasures sought lay ahead
With backwards walking dread.


Sorrel immediately announces she knows what the clue is. She tell us all that we have to walk backwards in order to leave. I am confused but she immediately demonstrates it and she disappears out of the room. We all look around and decide to copy exactly what Sorrel did. One by one we go and we arrive in another room. Looking around it seems familiar and I realise it’s the same room that we entered into the vault at the beginning. I immediately spot the vault door ripped off its hinges and placed up against the wall. Damn Kavel! I laugh out loud. Taking a further look, I realise it’s not exactly the same. There’s some differences.

Firstly, I notice spot where the screams were coming from. I see a woman in the room, sobbing away. Secondly, my eye wander to the three chest that seem to have appeared on the table with three distinct locks. The locks seem to match the keys we have. My eyes wander back to the old woman. She definitely looked old and frail. Extremely gaunt and her clothes were completely filthy. She has manacles on her wrists. She cries out for help, seeming extremely desperate. She tells us that her name is Mrs. Loopmottin Fabblestabble and that she’s the owner of the shop. However, one difference between this woman and the first woman we saw is that this woman was indeed missing her face. Like it had been cut off her. Thinking selfishly, I immediately curse at the fact this is the owner and I decide I need to act quickly. If she I indeed the owner, she won’t want me stealing items from her safe. Everyone instantly flocks to help her. Nimble works on getting the manacles off. The others quickly tend to healing her to help with the pain. I use this as the perfect opportunity to go check out the chest with the key I have. I pray that I have the right key with the exact loot the Patriot wants. I go over and open the chest. As I hold the blood key in my hand and notice that it actually beats with a rhythmic pulse. It’s very creepy. However I choose to ignore that for now. I use the key and open the chest, once I open the chest the key dissolves and turns into a pile of blood which drips to the floor. Ewwww. I quickly look in the chest and I spot documents, a ledger, letters and papers. I immediately swipe everything quickly and store them safely out of sight. I do it so fast I am fairly confident that no one could have seen me take anything.

A few moments after I am done the others come over to the chests. They see my chest completely empty. I say “Aww man I got a dud chest. There was nothing in mine”. The others seem confused at that but they agree it’s odd there was nothing else in the chest. Nimble and Derthaad also use their keys to open their chests. Same as what happened with the crimson key, once the keys get inserted into the locks they open and the keys crumble away into ash and dust. One of the chests had lots of items, potions and boots. I debate how the hell I am going to hide these items and bring them to the Patriot. She did say she wanted everything from the vault. The last chest opened, was very odd. Inside it had some skins of faces of people. I think to myself what the absolute hell does the Patriot want with these. But I also think that it is not my job to judge. I bring what the client wants. That’s always been the way. Derthaad immediately suggests bringing these boxes of faces back to the Citywatch. That they could be missing people and he could look into this further. Damn, Derthaad is always too good and sensible. That’s exceptionally good of him but it’s not the attitude I need right now. Fuck! I rack my brain with a good excuse on how to get these goods where I need to go. Everyone is focusing on getting Mrs. Loopmottin Fabblestabble to a healer. Sorrel mentions that we could bring her to the temple of Selune. It’s not too far away. Then I immediately remember my note. I need to meet the Patriot by midnight at the temple of Waukeen and it’s getting close to midnight.

I suggest that we all go to the temple of Waukeen, as its much closer. They more than likely have good enough healers as well. Sorrel immediately agrees with me. Nimble and Kavel think about it and also agree. Derthaad is the last one to agree. He says he’ll agree under one condition. That after he brings the chest of faces to the temple he wants to bring them back to the Citywatch. I think for a moment and decide that if the Patriot wants to keep these boxes of faces that she can convince Mr. Citywatch to give them to her. I am running out of excuses to use with Derthaad. So I agree to his demands. It’s a lie as I don’t want him to have them if she needs them but the letter did request everything so at least in this sense, she getting everything. I sigh and hope it’s enough.

We all walk towards the temple of Waukeen. Instantly, we are greeted by a noble woman, who I quickly recognise as the Patriot. She puts on an incredibly sympathetic act. She looks unrecognizable to how I usually know her. She spots Mr. Loopmottin Fabblestabble and hears she needs a healer. The Patriot quickly gets the attention of some acolytes in the temple and explain we need healer. They seem completely stunned and quickly jump in to assist. The acolytes start debating what healing spell they need for her. They take her, bring into another room in the temple and mention they will look after her well. I tell the others that this is the person who wanted my help for the job. The Patriot smiles and looks to the rest of the group and ask us to explain what happened and what we found. I decide to play into the act she was putting on, I get the group to show all the chests. When the chest opens with all ith the items, the Patriot eyes them up and she quickly estimates how much the loot would come too. Everyone is quite impressed. It’s more than the 30 gold I was offering them. Everyone agrees they don’t want my payment. They’re happy with an item from the chest. The Patriot turns to me and asks again that I was willing to pay them? I mention of course I was. I know you don’t have much, so I wanted to help out a fellow business partner. The Patriot says kind words in response. I think to myself this act is working. Is it working? Is it too wholesome for me? Who knows? The second chest gets opened, and shows the faces. The Patriot looks horrified. She tells them to get them out of her sight. That the Citywatch should have them. She looks around asking if that was everything that we found. Everyone agrees. I chime along. I also cast message and tell her directly I have the rest of the stuff she’s looking for. The others didn’t see. She doesn’t respond but smiles looking pleased.

I thank each of the others of all their help. Kavel suggest drinks in the Dragon. I mention I will join them but I need to speak to the noble woman before I join everyone. I wait until I see the others take off. Then I hang around to have a private conversation with the Patriot. I debate in my head will she be pleased or not…

---

Ceina's conversation with the Patriot is continued here: thekantasexpanse.boards.net/thread/2399/loot