Walt nods a silent thank you to Harrow, takes a long slow sip of his smoothie making an excessively loud slurping sound to draw attention to himself. 

"Friends...come now. Do we really need Kasem to answer that question? Trust your own eyes! Three cages, hidden in crates labeled 'peppers' are concealing this mischievous little creature!" Walt looks Kasem square in the eyes, pauses for affect before continuing. "The real question is, where are the other two creatures? Out harassing the Xungoon and Tyenmo families? Are they out creating mischief, sowing discord amongst the night market vendors? To what end? Don't play the fool, Kasem. Explain yourself!"

Walt takes another long slow sip while making an obnoxiously loud slurping sound while he stares at Kasem waiting for a reply.

Tuuli, probably now entangled herself, possibly getting bitten by the terrified creature, nevertheless manages to give Kasem a stern look.

The tent is a chaotic tangle of strange vines. (Difficult terrain.)
Tuuli tries to soothe the panicked creature. (Roll an animal handling check.)

In the meantime, it continues to squawk in alarm. "እርዳ! በነዚህ ወይኖች ውስጥ ተጣብቄያለሁ! አውጣኝ!"

(Only Harrow recognizes what it is saying:)

Kasem is caught off-guard, glancing around, stuttering, flustered, trying to compose himself in the chaos.

"My Wynlings? They're my pets! I was going to get a parrot, but I found these! What are you doing in here? What happened in here?"

Harrow cleans up Walt a bit.

(Ha! I am pre-emptively laughing at what is likely to happen with this check…)

Tuuli’s Animal Handling check: 3 

The Wynling swipes at Tuuli hand trying to grab it.

Grapple attack: 
Strength check: 0 vs Tuui's contested Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check.

"ከኔ በኋላ ነው!" it shrieks.

Harrow only:

“Hey now!” Tuuli says, twisting her hand out of the way. “That is no way to greet a nnew friend.”

Acrobatics (just for fun): 9 

It takes Harrow a moment to recognize the words that the little bat-thing -- the Wynling -- is saying. "It's speaking Sylvan," he whispers unintentionally, the color draining a little bit from his face. He looks at Walt and Tuuli, a little dazed, and repeats himself, louder: "It's speaking Sylvan! It's asking for help -- I think it's fey. You cannot keep fey as 'pets,'" he spits at Kasem, suddenly thunderous. He rocks on the spot for a half second, warring emotions passing like clouds over his face, before he settles on a somewhat perplexed calm. Suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he only spoke Sylvan for magical incantation and transcription, he licks his lips nervously and calls out to the Wynling in a halting, singsong tone:

 Then, looking to Walt, he asks, "My friend, please release the Wynling. At the very least, we've seen enough."

Persuasion (I'm giving myself disadvantage because there's no reason Harrow should speak Sylvan conversationally): 7

“Yes…of course friend. I’ll release the wynling.” Walt quickly waves his hands and stutters a barely audible phrase and calls off the tangled mass of vines and frees the creature. 

“My…sincerest…apologies…Wynling. I meant…no…harm,” says Walt, slowly and over enunciating his words hoping it will understand. Sensing that he and his friends are on the verge of a break through, Walt glances up at the stars and asks the wild mother for guidance. Walt casts guidance on himself.

He then turns to Kasem and says in a stern voice “enough with your lies. Explain yourself!”

Persuasion: 19

The vines dissolve into vapor at Walt's command.

"Lies? What are you talking about? These little creatures are friendly! They're my friends! They live here with me!" Kasem seems to be growing more upset. 

As if on cue, the wynling flies to Kasem's shoulder and peeps in Sylvan:

Tuuli starts to smile. “I’m thinking these little guys might have an agenda of their own. A little chaotic, mind you.”

Harrow shakes his head at Kasem, too focused on the wynling to reply to him. He gestures at himself and his companions while he talks to the wynling, clearly introducing the group before taking the persimmon out from his pocket again.

"Oh, yes!" agrees Kasem. "They're little troublemakers, to be sure." He begins to try to escort you out of the tent and attempts a smile. "Can I get you a snack? I have customers waiting."

The Wynling takes flight, and tries to take the persimmon from Harrow. It chatters in Sylvan:

 It chitters with laughter.

A second wynling appears in the doorway, cautiously peering in. 

Walt stands pat, sipping on his smoothie listening to Harrow and the wynlings converse in some otherworldly language. He has no idea what they're saying, but he notices Kasem's demeanor change as he attempts to escort them out of the tent. 

"Now, Kasem. Don't be so rude. Let your friend speak. Actually, I do have a question for you Kasem" 

As you know, my friends and I competed in the games and we did quite well. Our performance broke the ice with some of the locals...some of which shared interesting information with us." 

"We've learned that the stalls are kept within a family and passed on for generations. The Xungoon, Tyenmo and even your family has kept their stalls within the family for generations. Is it true that you are attempting to buy out another family run stall? Even though this is highly irregular and against market tradition?"

"What would cause a family run business to buck tradition, throw in the towel and sell out to an outsider? What would force the hand of the Market Collective to allow such an affront to tradition. One way to shape the narrative would be to sow discontent with some of the vendors. Are you stoking the fires of multigenerational conflict between the Xungoon and Tyenmo families, hoping to destabilize their businesses, thereby tarnishing their reputation and putting yourself in position to swoop in and buy out one of the businesses?"

"We have a witness putting you at the Xungoon stall, hiding an orange object at that location just before the persimmon rain shower. My friends and I looked into this accusation. We found a persimmon hidden at the stall in the exact location where we were told we would find it. Do you recall that friendly mastiff that came into your shop and sniffed at your hand?  Well, that was me...in beast form" 

Walt smirks at Kasem, hoping to catch a reaction from him, before continuing his rant. 

"You know, dogs have superior hearing and smelling abilities. While in beast form, I detected a distinct, otherworldly scent on that persimmon that you stashed at the Xungoon stall. I followed that sent to your stall. I smelled a faint trace of it on your hands as you shoed me away. I then snuck into this tent, and my beastly olfactory senses lit up as I tracked the smell to the cages that house your wynlings. Amongst their hidden cages, we found crates of persimmons. A rare fruit in these parts. The very same rare fruit that rained down on the Xungoon stall causing further troubles for their business. Are you manipulating your wynlings friends to cause chaos by raining persimmons on the Xungoon stall?"

Harrow allows the wynling to take the persimmon from his hand while testing out the Sylvan word for persimmon a couple of times, his expression thoughtful as Walt lays out the case against Kasem. He smiles gently to the new wynling and says to the both of them:

Then, once Walt pauses to let Kasem answer, Harrow tells the group, "The wynling there says that Kasem asked them to throw persimmons at the stall, so at least that's cleared up. It thinks it was playing jokes." He gives Kasem a hard look, trying to see any guilt or shame in his features.

Insight: 13

Tuuli's head is whipping back and forth trying to follow the conversation, from Walt to Kasem to the wynling to Harrow back to Walt, and over. As she begins to understand what is happening, her expression clouds over, and by the end her teeth are gritted and her hair is lifting with just a hint of static.

Walt confronts Kasem in the tent:

"We've learned that the stalls are kept within a family and passed on for generations. The Xungoon, Tyenmo and even your family has kept their stalls within the family for generations. Is it true that you are attempting to buy out another family run stall? Even though this is highly irregular and against market tradition?"

"Look," sighs Kasem with exasperation. "Yes, maybe I'm looking to buy another business. Vi abandoning this one. I'm looking out for my future. I don’t care if there’s no precedent for buying a family business. What concern is this of yours? There's enough gossip in this market already." He tries to force a laugh.  

"What would cause a family run business to buck tradition, throw in the towel and sell out to an outsider? What would force the hand of the Market Collective to allow such an affront to tradition. One way to shape the narrative would be to sow discontent with some of the vendors. Are you stoking the fires of multigenerational conflict between the Xungoon and Tyenmo families, hoping to destabilize their businesses, thereby tarnishing their reputation and putting yourself in position to swoop in and buy out one of the businesses?"

"Oh, those two families have been at it for generations..." he dismisses.

"We have a witness putting you at the Xungoon stall, hiding an orange object at that location just before the persimmon rain shower. My friends and I looked into this accusation. We found a persimmon hidden at the stall in the exact location where we were told we would find it. Do you recall that friendly mastiff that came into your shop and sniffed at your hand?  Well, that was me...in beast form" 

"You're a dog? I don't understand... This is absurd. Listen, I have customers waiting. I really have to get back to..."

"You know, dogs have superior hearing and smelling abilities. While in beast form, I detected a distinct, otherworldly scent on that persimmon that you stashed at the Xungoon stall. I followed that sent to your stall. I smelled a faint trace of it on your hands as you shoed me away. I then snuck into this tent, and my beastly olfactory senses lit up as I tracked the smell to the cages that house your wynlings. Amongst their hidden cages, we found crates of persimmons. A rare fruit in these parts. The very same rare fruit that rained down on the Xungoon stall causing further troubles for their business. Are you manipulating your wynlings friends to cause chaos by raining persimmons on the Xungoon stall?". 

"Persimmons? What? Lots of people sell persimmons!..."

Harrow tells the group, "The wynling there says that Kasem asked them to throw persimmons at the stall, so at least that's cleared up. It thinks it was playing jokes." He gives Kasem a hard look, trying to see any guilt or shame in his features.

"You speak Wynling? Oh, gods. Okay, fine. So I admit I tried to sow a little discord between the Tyenmo and Xungoon families to make it easier to buy their stalls. Sometimes you have to play a little hard in business to get ahead. My little prankster friends here are good at playing tricks. But they're not evil or anything."

Harrow senses that these last statements, at least, seem honest.

He picks up another persimmon from his box and offers it up to the second wynling, who flies up and grabs it with delight. "They love persimmons," he mutters quietly, avoiding your eyes.

"Why do we care? Good question. We're not locals. We're just visiting the night market. We have no skin in the game." Walt looks around and pulls up a crate to take a load off.

"I can only speak for myself here, but I'm a bit disappointed in you, son. Perhaps you should follow your brother's lead and head off into the world and make a name for yourself. Or open your eyes and be thankful for what you have here. Trust me, those who call the Citadel home are quite lucky. There are many in my land who would willingly give up struggling to make ends meet to have a mere fraction of what you all are so fortunate to have here."

"Have you ever tried building relationships, instead of breaking them? You have it good here. Imagine what you could accomplish if you played off the strength of your fellow night market vendors, rather than pitting yourselves up against one another."

Harrow nods along with Walt. "I'm assuming that Vi wasn't involved in your plan, then. Honestly, Kasem, what were you thinking? Did you summon these wynlings? Did you buy them? Can you even speak to them?" He looks at the two wynlings, a flicker of sadness at the edges of his eyes, before looking back to his companions. "Never mind. I have no energy for listening to the babbling egos of thoughtless men. What do we do with this?"

"Who are you strangers, telling me how I run my business?" he asks in a huff, angry again. "I give you a tour, I introduce you to the locals, I give you free samples, and to repay me you trespass in my tent and criticize my business choices? You don't know this market! You don't know who these people are you're dealing with! Business is business! My brother is abandoning me, so you do what you have to do! I'm not hurting anyone, it's just business. Get out of my tent, please." Agitated, he waves you all out.

"Kasem," Tuuli says, her voice surprisingly gentle. "You sought to use us, just as you have used these creatures. You are hurting, I can see that, and so you have hurt people. Me, your brother, your friends. I do not know this market, you're right, but I do know people, and people will always give you a second chance, if you really ask them for one. I'd start with your brother."

She makes her way out of the tent, as bid, her mane of pale blue hair calm.