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[Peppermint_M]

Tesni regarded the gems in her arms and then looked to their guide. "I'll hand these out first then we can go looking around the place. I don't want to walk into more trouble just yet."

Holding the gems up to the light she smiled eagerly. "So lady and gentleman, what claim ye?"

[Quarryman]

"Well Tesni dear, the only one of those that I'm missing in my collection is the Sapphire, so if I could get that I'd be most grateful. The others I don't find to be that interesting, so I'd be happy to let the two of you pick whatever you want and then I'll take the one that's left. That is, unless mr Bocaj wants a gem too? In which case I'm sure we could come to some sort of agreement."

"That being said dear, I do think you need a Diamond to balance your darker sides. (though they are very attractive )"

[Khorne]

Eric brushed the blood off his blade and retrieved his Silverfish Wings from the bodies of the dead badgers. He had been reluctant at using these at first, but now they had become an integral part of his arsenal.

He sat down as Bocaj went to check the doors and Tesni was looking at the gems.
"I'd like the Garnet. Don't really care much for the others"

[Peppermint_M]

Tesni handed the requested gems over and took a look at those left. "Well, Namyrra you are right a Diamond will be a nice balance to my darkness, Dryw needed a little extra. I already have a topaz... Mr Bocaj, would you like a gemstone for your troubles?"

[Darkdragon]

"Thank you kindly but no. I don't care for all that silly magic, look what it's done to Favarious! Horrible stuff. I'm sure you can sell them to that crazy lady in the shop accross from mine though.  For my trouble, I will just have to charge Favarious extra delivery fees for a while." He gives Tesni a little wink.

"Are we all ready to go then? I don't know what's going on in the other room but I thought I heard some hushed arguments a moment ago."

[Peppermint_M]

Tesni pocketed the Ruby and placed the other gems with the group loot. "Yes, time to fingd out what is going on." She sheathed her sword with a metallic click and made her way to the door.

[Darkdragon]

The heroes, and Bocaj, head out of the strange room. When they step through the doorway they are surprised to be "greeted" by some familiar angry faces. Favarious is standing there too, his face spotted and crazed, he seems to be chanting something.

"Look what we have here, a troop of heroes. I think you've gone far enough, I honestly am surprised you ever made it out of the sewer in the first place. A man just can't hire good help these days."

"Yesssss, thatssss enough from you twerpssss! I'll be taking my sssstaff back now!"

"Really now guys, you have nowhere else to go. Better for you to just leave peacefully this time, for a change."

"Hmph. Amateurs."

How wil the heroes respond?

[Peppermint_M]

"Hello boys and... reptile? Man-Snake? Ninja mask-ed hissey bloke?... ah I digress... I would like to know what in the frozen depths of hel, the burning flmaes of hell and the cold dark embrace of hades is going on here? First we get attacked in the night, then we get sucker-punched by a namby in spectacles at the bank, then off to see if we can give a little help delivering a scroll tube to the named owner we get hauled into a fight for our lives with hellspawn BADGERS and walking rocks. Now a bunch of mugs walk in and expect us to walk off nicely with no clue as to why!" Tesni put a hand to each of her team-mates shoulder to stay any premature attack.

"Now, three things: No you can't have the staff, you should have held onto it better and I have a backload of blades and a hefty chunk of steel as foundation to that. Second, in the noble cause of Heroica, how much are you willing to pay to get rid of us? Third: The more you explain about what in the afterlife is going on the less gold it will cost you for a quiet night."

As she gave the ultimatum, Tesni found the box of minimizing dust from the bank job. Shrinking her enemies to Foe-in-my-pocket size would shut them up. It was looking like the entire quest was as much a set-up job as her encounter with Wren.

[Quarryman]

Content to let Tesni do the talking Namyrra decided to stand quietly in the back while waiting for the others to reply.

[Darkdragon]

"Look lady, we don't want to have to fight you. Just that Favarious here has paid us well to protect his artifacts and that's what we aim to do. We'd wanted to just snatch the boxes and save everyone the trouble, but you guys can't let anything go the easy way."

"Good thing they were here to take out those badgers though!"

He shoots a glare at young thief.

"Hush! I'll handle this."

Turning back to look Tesni in the eye, he continues.

"You've managed to bring the boxes he wanted, now why don't you just head back to Eubric and forget about the artifacts? You still get the gold from Began, you've fulfilled your contract with him. Leave Favarious here with his precious gear and we won't have to beat you and send you home to mommy. What do you s..."

"Badgerbaderbadger...badblerrubger...BADGER BADGER BADG-"

*WHACK*

Sir Favarious falls to the ground, still mumbling and convulsing.  The Orc woman from the gate runs in and kneels beside him.

"Oh! What have you done, you brutes?! What's wrong with his face?"

"He was about to call the damn badgers again! I'm a treasure hunter not some sort of petty battle-hungry idiot, so I bopped him on the head. He'll be fine, jeeze, quit being so over-dramatic.  I don't even know what happened to his face anyway, probably these lot's fault." He points at the heroes and shrugs.

She stands up with her staff, the Amethyst and Ruby begin to glow slightly as she looks the white haired man in the eye and gestures with her staff as she speaks. While the party stands, watching events unfold before them, they men start backing away for the angry Orc.

"Listen well and good you. I don't like you, ANY of you, and I want you out of this house. If you don't leave, I'm sure I can convince these fine Heroes to usher you out post haste. You've all been bested by them before, what makes you think you can win this time?"

The Amethyst takes on a deeper glow.

"You know what? Forget them, if you don't leave now, I will deal with you MYSELF!"

The last statement, sends a shockwave of fear across the bandit's faces. They all look at each other for a moment.

"Woah now. Just woah! We'll go, calm down. No need to resort to magic. We're going ok? Jeeze."

With that, the hired thugs head toward the door, talking under their breath to each other. The snakeman *accidentally* bumps into Tesni on the way.

"Yessss we already got paid anyway. Ssstupid old man."

Slamming the door behind them, the Orc woman turns to the party.

"I really must appologize for them, I don't know why or when Favarious let them in! Do you have any idea what has happened? Why is he mumbling and what's wrong with his face? He's hot as fire too, some sort of fever? Is there a cleric with you?"

How will the party respond?

[Khorne]

"Well, we used to have a Cleric on our team. Past tense, though. He bailed on us" Eric replied to the woman. He was standing in the back, taking in the scene from a distance. He leant against the wall, looking at ease and relaxed. Truthfully, his nerves were racing fast. He had held his hands closely to his Silverfish Wings the entire ordeal. You never know when the flames of battle spring up again. Thankfully, the Orcish mage had defused the situation. Still, there was something awfully fishy about this entire operation, but the Nord couldn't really put his finger on it.

As the mercenaries exited the room, Eric looked down upon them in a patronizing way. He shugged his head. "Idiots. Never let amateurs do a professional's work"

[Peppermint_M]

"Thank you for that madame. I am afraid that once he came upon the boxes Sir Favarious got rather excited and placed them in gems... He got more and more moonstruck and chanted odd words..." Tesni paused and gestured for Namyrra to fill in the magical bits. "It called up some tough monsters that we luckily managed to fight off. Once we had beaten back the summoned creatures we came out here to see a who's who of annoying faces from our journey."

[Darkdragon]

"That's a real shame about your cleric. We need to do something about Favarious, He's burning up, and he won't stop the mumbling. I'm no healer though. Do any of you have a remedy perhaps?"

[Peppermint_M]

"Blast that man..." Tesni muttered under her breath. "No, I'm afraid that not. We used what we had and the cleric had more."

[Quarryman]

(quietly whispered to Tesni) "I'm pretty sure the Elixir I have is as good as a Remedy, should we offer that or do you think it's best to let him burn?"

[Peppermint_M]

Tesni looked at the sick man. "I think we are better suited to offer it... We may be able to get information on what is going on and now the boxes are gone he has no threat for us. I hope." She whispered in reply.

[Quarryman]

"Okay"

"Well miss(?) we don't have any remedies to offer, but I do have an Elixir here, it should work just as well."

[Darkdragon]

"Oh an Elixir should do the job nicely, how kind you are."

She takes the vial from Namyrra and carefully pours it into Sir Favarious' mouth.

"Down the hatch." She says to him in a quiet tone. She strokes his hair as he lay there convulsing. The spots on his face start to fade though and he becomes more still, his breathing slows to nearly normal.

"Looks like it's working, he seems to be getting better."

Soon his face is back to normal, he opens his eyes and slowly sits up. Looking at the Orc and the Heroes and then around the room.

"Owww my head. What happened? I remember you folks coming in and giving me the boxes, then I wake up here on the floor with my head in dear Frava's lap. Why is my staff on the floor, it better not be damaged that was a gift from...oh, right, nevermind that, can anyone tell me what's happened?"

He looks first at the Orc, Frava, but she shakes her head. Favarious looks up at the heroes waiting for an answer.

[Peppermint_M]

"Well sir, you took the boxes and entered a lunatic state. You then summoned six creatures that attacked us. In a very narrow victory on out part we vanquished the brutal beasts only to find a troop of hooligans and thugs outside the room making demands. Frava gave them the boot but not after one gave you a good knock." Tesni left out the gems, it would certainly not do to lose them.

"We were wondering if you could fill in any details on the boxes, our sponsor did send us to collect them but your actions have lost them to us."

[Darkdragon]

Frava helps him stand up and he picks up his staff, inspecting it for damage. Then looks back to Tesni with sorrow in his eyes.

"I'm sorry about that my dear. I had heard of the six boxes that would call forth a great power when placed on the correct pile of 100 gems. I've been searching for the gems and the boxes for twenty years and honestly had no idea what would happen when I set them atop the gems."

Walking over to the table, he straigtens the papers a bit and shakes his head while looking down at them. Slowly turning back to the party, he takes a mournful look at his artifacts before speaking.

"As for the the men that I beleive you are talking about. I must admit, I did hire them."

"Favarious! Why? How did they get in past me?"

"I hired them months ago, just after I asked Drakes to post the notice in Heroica Hall. You see, I needed you folks to collect the boxes. I knew nobody would do this for just gold, at least not the amount of gold I was able to offer. So, I had him add into the posting that you would each get an artifact."

He looks over at the artifacts again, clears his throat, and turns back.

"The problem is, I just couldn't handle parting with them. These artifacts are like my children, even moreso because it took blood sweat and tears to find each one and I love them! So I found a strong man in each area you were to travel through and paid him to find a group and take the boxes from you. I needed the boxes, you see, and yet I wanted to keep the items. I'm sure you can understand an old man's madness?"

"When I heard you had made it to the city, I let them in here last night through a passage after Frava had gone to bed."

[Peppermint_M]

Tesni sighed gustily and put a hand to her forehead, brushing back some hair that had escaped the ties. "That is certainly unfortunate sir. It had quite the... negative effect on our experience."

She held her other arm out to stop Namyrra. Eric would walk off for the right gold but her itcy casting finger friend might not be as well behaved.

"Now we are out of pocket on items, sore and still awaiting our promised items."

[Quarryman]

Realizing from Tesni's gestures that this one isn't okay to kill (though he clearly deserves it) Namyrra decides to keep waiting quietly in the background.

[Darkdragon]

"Thank you very for helping me, possibly saving my life today. You were promised some artifacts and so you shall get them."

He walks over to the small statues at the back wall, motioning the Heroes to follow him.

"These are my precious artifacts. Each statues has three, as you can see. I am afraid some of them are just too dear to me to even offer, but I will let you each pick one from what I'm about to show you."

He walks to each statue in turn, pointing at an artifact and explaining it's use. The party does notice that he skips over a couple of them and does not mention what they are for or even name them. The list is fairly long though, and each hero is given a chance to walk up and inspect the artifacts before selecting one to keep.

Gloves of Deft Hands (handwear) - Allows the wearer to make a Free Hit with a throwing weapon. Suitable for rogues and rangers.

Boots of Evasion (footwear) - Allows the wearer to switch rows quickly so that they can fight from the front but take damage from the back row. Suitable for barbarians.

Brass Boots of Grounding (footwear) - SP: 3, nullifies all damage from lightening(topaz). Suitable for knights, barbarians.

Shroud of the Serpent (headwear) - SP: 3, nullifies all damage from wood(emerald) attacks. Suitable for mages, clerics, rogues.

Ethereal Cloak (backwear) - SP:2, +4 max ether. Suitable for mages and clerics.

Dragon Bone Armor (bodywear)- SP:4, +2 max health. Suitable for knights.

White Cleric's Necklace (accessory) - SP:3, nullifies all damage from Darkness (amethyst). Suitable for clerics.

Gloves of Do-Over (handwear) - Allows wearer to re-roll the first roll of '4' in a battle. Suitable for anyone.

[Quarryman]

"Well Sir Favarious, if you are willing to part with it I'd love to get that Ethereal Cloak, I think it would look very good on me. "

[Khorne]

Eric disliked the mage even more after his confession, but he was glad that he would receive an artifact after all. There would've been some sort of reward surely, even if Eric had to beat the man to a bloody pulp to get it, but there would've certainly been a reward. However, it's was nice change not having to fight, threaten or extort the employer to receive a payment. The Nord scanned the artifacts. THe faint smile on his pale face quickly turned sour. There wasn't a whole lot for him to pick from. He shrugged and then pointed at the Boots of Evasion. "I'll take those"