Sleepless in Oeble

The major of Oeble South-West Alistar Byth arrives at the crime scene at Goved Inn and asks the party to wait for further instructions regarding the investigation. As she and her guards are investigating the murder scene, Manasa arrives and meets with Kilijan in front of the Inn. He tells Kilijan about the tunnels he found underneath Oeble and a fight club he spent the past few days at, promoting one young fighter he started to mentor. Weneon and Lorkhan are in their rooms. Weneon manages to listen-in on the conversations Alistar has with her guards. He overhears her asking for the missing dwarven box from Elisa's room. Hearing this, Weneon tosses the box onto the streets, where Manasa picks it up and shoves it down his pants. When asked about the box, Weneon plays dumb knowing anything about it. Alistar sees through him and orders the party to be arrested. Kilijan and Manasa are also brought inside, as well as Mycha, who is picked up by guards in the Star Garden and brought to the inn. Alistar interrogates them and Manasa decides to confess and tells them about the box in his pants. Alistar then releases them, apologizing for the inconvenience and acknowledging their bravery in preventing a second death that night, and how she, nonetheless, has to give them a fine of 50 gp for delaying their investigation by lying. As the party is being escorted out of the inn, Weneon notices one of the patches with Oeble's emblem on one of the guards being slightly off. He starts being suspicious about the legitimacy of the guards' identities. As they leave onto the street, Weneon climbs the outer wall of the inn and spies through the window of the interrogation room. He sees Elisa being laid onto the bed and Alistar opening the box. With a tweezer, she starts pulling out gold coins from out the box and places them easily onto the table. Weneon tries to listen in onto what she is saying to the surrounding guards, but he cannot make out any word she's saying. The last thing she pulls from the box is a yellow ribbon. She inspects it and brings it close to her eye. The rest of the party see guards existing the inn. Lorkhan manages to warn Weneon about them, and Weneon climbs down to the street unnoticed. The guards advise them not to linger, and the party obliges, asking for a convenient place to sleep at such a late hour. The guards mention Duga, an establishment in the far east of town.

On the way to Duga, the party encounters at 3 AM a couple with their newborn child arguing about a possible name for her. At first, the party is suspicious of them, but then the woman trips and almost falls with the baby onto the sidewalk. Kilijan reacts by casting feather fall onto them and saves the baby and the mother from hitting the ground. The couple thanks Kilijan for his help, and the father gives him a few copper coins as a thank-you. The party arrives at Duga and spends the night there. In the morning, Lorkhan and Kilijan decide to stay in their room to decipher Endolynn's Notebook. The rest of the party goes out shopping for Mycha's new sword. He finally finds one at the shop of a blacksmith by the name of Kuren Crni. Seeing Mycha's handling of the weapon, he proposes to give him a discount in exchange for engraving his name onto the blade of the sword for promotion. Mycha names the scimitar Mea Culpa. Kuren then tells them that he his eager to buy raw material like mythral and adamantine if they come across it, offering 100 gp for adamantine per kilogram, and 200 gp for mythral. When asked where they could find the metals, he points them to a warehouse on the docks and shows the location on the map, implying that he takes material regardless of previous owners. Lorkhan and Kilijan are interrupted by Sen and San, two local drunks who want them to come out of their rooms to "help them with something". Kilijan and Lorkhan refuse and chase them away from the door. Weneon, Manasa, and Mycha visit Maltser to ask around for jobs. He tells them about escorting missions they could do in Shantal, but then remembers a carriage of raw ore adamantine, iron, and mythral that went missing in the mountains south of Thur. The package was supposed to be delivered to Oeble. A fine reward could be collected for returning it, Maltser speculates, and offers the party his connections to teleport to these locations for a wizard's fee. As they leave Maltser’s shop, they comment on the safe they saw behind his back in the office, glimmering with gold bars. Mycha tells Weneon not to even think about it, saying: "Don't shit where you eat."

As the three of them return to Duga, Kilijan manages to decipher Chapter 1: Severin Dauther in the notebook with Kilijan's help. They learn about Endolynn's suspicion towards Severin Dauther and list her reasoning for it. They all decide to have dinner downstairs. They talk about Maltser's jobs and decide to go to Thur. Manasa is focused on one drunk man without underpants leaning over a bowl of soup at the other end of the establishment. Kilijan and Lorkhan decide to do an all-nighter to decipher another chapter of the notebook, and retrieve to their room. Weneon and Mycha go visit Maltser to ask him to arrange a teleportation to Thur. Arriving at Maltser’s Junkyard "Vodopoad" at 9 in the evening, they notice that two terminadogs are surrounding them. When Malcer sees that's them, he turns the constructs off. They ask him to arrange the teleportation for tomorrow evening at 9 PM. When they return close to midnight back to Duga, they join Manasa, who has been studying the drunk man and his soup for hours now. Manasa tells Mycha about his brothers Atlas and Kronos, trying to label their personalities to the other members of the party for reference. As the guitar player is being slowly robbed by other patrons, he refuses to play. Galijan, a young half-elf, gets up to the piano and starts playing the song Silis listened to after the wine heist. Weneon suddenly remembers that one of the chapters is an ode written in verse, and that they suspected that a qualified bard could decipher the meaning behind the poetry. He runs up to the room and writes down the verses onto a sheet of paper to bring to the piano player. Weneon runs down the stairs and approaches Galijan, who recognizes him and starts asking where he's been. Weneon plays along and gives the song to the bard, who immediately starts to commit the words to memory. All of a sudden, Lorkhan appears, grabbing the paper out of his hands, yelling at Weneon telepathically to not show to strangers the coded messages. As they argue, Galijan starts singing the song verbatim, but does not seem to discern any of the possible meaning behind it. The whole tavern falls quiet, however, while he sings and listens carefully to the words. Galijan tells Weneon that the lyrics are nice, but bland, and apologizes to Lorkhan for intruding into his verses (Weneon mentioned to Galijan that the verses were written by Lorkhan). The drunk man without pants causes a few scenes with the staff and then approaches Manasa. He introduces himself as Sin and tells Manasa about his other two brothers, Sen and San. He then asks Manasa to adjudicate tomorrow's race between them at noon. Manasa agrees. In the middle of the night, while Kilijan and Lorkhan are still deciphering a chapter, Galijan knocks on the door, asking for Weneon. He gets up and learns from Galijan that he could not fall asleep, thinking about the song they showed to him. He tells them that there is something in the verses and suggests asking his boss Astoria for help in interpreting the meaning. Kilijan, Mycha, and Weneon realize at that moment that they know Galijan from the One-Legged Donkey, where he played with Astoria a month or so ago. He tells them that they are leaving for Free Barony of Felshroun at noon tomorrow and that they should come to the east gates to talk to Astoria. Just before sunrise, Kilijan has a breakthrough, realizing what kind of skin has to be used to lay over the chapter in order to decipher it: a blend of otter and humanoid skin. He remembers suddenly a story about Traxigor, a human wizard who was punished by being turned into an otter, condemned to live in the Sea of Swords for eternity.

After waking up close to noon the next morning, Kilijan, Manasa, and Mycha witness the race of the three brothers. Manasa strikes a bet with the brothers and wins some 50 gp. Weneon and Lorkhan meet with Astoria and tell her about the song that came to Lorkhan in a burst of inspiration. She tells him that most good verses happen in that spontaneous manner. They give her the ode, and she tells them that she will give it her best. She then starts flirting with Weneon, remembering their interaction at the One-Legged Donkey. Lorkhan tells her that they will visit Felshroun in ten days time and meet with her day to see if she made any progress witht the ode. After the race of the brothers, Kilijan, Mycha, and Manasa decide to go to Binka, to see if the renovations are finished. They find a set of keys at the door, and Kilijan immediately starts inspecting the building in order to see if further refinements could be done. As Weneon and Lorkhan travel through Oeble towards Binka, Weneon suddenly realizes the thieves' cant behind Astoria's flirting. She told him that the combination to the Oeble City Vault is underneath the night stand of Godiva Fenwick. Arriving at Binka's, Lorkhan and Weneon are greeted with a warm common room and a homemade meal. They finish dinner at 7 in the evening. Kilijan wants to start doing the dishes, but Lorkhan does it for him with magic. Kilijan retrieves to their bedroom and starts packing so they can make it in time to Maltser for the teleportation. Binka's However, as Kilijan is packing his things, he notices a wall from before that has a few boards hanging loose. As he investigates, he discovers an additional room filled with fine black soil. He looks around and discovers a wooden trapdoor. As he opens it, he calls for the rest of the party to come and see. The trap door leads way down below the house. Weneon notices a faint smell of lavender emitting from the hole. As Kilijan tries to close the trapdoor, a strong power from the hole prevents him to do so. Lorkhan and Mycha try to help. They suddenly hear a screeching and, as they look around the room, they notice that the boards that were taken down to enter the room, are boarded up again. A shockwave throws them to the walls, and the voice of Endolynn is heard yelling out: "Do not unlock my notebook any further." The trapdoor suddenly closes and everything is quiet. The hole in the wall is present again, and only a faint smell of lavender lurks in the air.