All of you receive at your home, office or via a young messenger a small note asking to meet tonight at The Cradle on a matter of some urgency. It is signed with the named Hook Korat.

After your time in Drynna, some longer than others, you know the following of Hook:-

Hook is a charming rogue of a man, with bronze skin a well kept beard and somewhat flamboyant dress. It is rumoured he used to be a captain in one of the military forces on Marquet, but chose to step down and move to Tal'dorei and unltimately Drynna a few years ago. Since then, he’s worked as a private investigator of sorts, investigating crimes for individuals and occasionally butting heads with the Lodge leadership of the Drynna Watch.

 When off the case, he can usually be found in The Cradle, nursing a heavy dose of Oloore Root tea. He’s a bit too fond of the hallucinogenic beverage, but he’s functional and he’s also well-known for getting the job handled, which makes him equally respected and disliked by most of the Watch regulars and other townsfolk.

Arriving at The Cradle or coming downstairs for those of you who board here you are shown to a door and ushered through by Calica ( the duty manager) once she learns you were invited by Hook.

You’ve never been in this back part of The Cradle before. Winding your way past the regular patrons’ seats, you follow a single hallway with a very low ceiling to a stoutly locked and banded
door. There is one small window in the hallway, large enough to squeeze through if necessary.

Calica, carrying the keys, is quite elderly and almost blind. She feels her way by touching certain places on the walls. She slides a fat, bronze key into the lock; it clicks open, and she motions you inside.

At the table is Hook Korat, the investigator for hire. He’s got a pipe in one hand and a steaming cup of Oloore tea in the other.  Whatever mixture he’s drinking has already
started to hit him pretty hard, and he’s got a big smile on his face as you enter.

“My friends, I’m not sure if you know one another, but please, take a moment to introduce yourselves if you don’t!”, the knowing smile on his face indicates that he knows exactly who knows and does not know each other.

Normont saunters down the hallway, not noticing how low the ceiling is being a gnome of only 3’9”. His hazel eyes greedily take in everything as he enters the room, and he runs a hand through his spiky blonde hair as he smiles broadly at the slightly addled Marquesian inside. 

“Captain Hook, this is all very curious”, he says by way of greeting to his host as he climbs up onto one of the taller seated empty chairs, the tools at his belt jangling as he does so. As he settles, he looks about at the others present, recognising the majority of faces from around town but being most familiar with Jasper, the half elven militia member.

“I guess I don’t mind going first. The names Normont Fizzlepeak, but most folk who know me call me Monty”, he says, standing up on his chair to give everyone a better view. Anyone familiar with gnomes would recognise that he is very young for his kind, only just having reached adulthood. Other than a chain shirt, he is dressed in pretty plain common clothes with a belt containing a mixture of tinkers tools. Alongside those is a simple dagger and what some would recognise as a small firearm.

“I have a little experience in investigations from my time in Whitestone, which I assume is why I have been invited here. Unless it is my skills as a tinker you require?”, he adds to Hook.

He then looks expectantly at everyone else.

In walked Theron Grimwald. A man with an air of mystery woven into the very fabric of his existence, he was a priest of the Raven Queen by day, tending to the final resting places of souls departed. A mere grave digger to those who lived in Drynna. But when the moon claimed its throne in the velvet sky, he shed his somber robes for the cloak of a different identity – a private investigator.

His steps were measured, a rhythmic echo against wooden floors of The Cradle worn smooth by the tread of countless souls. His eyes scanned the room, his gaunt features bearing the weight of a past he sought to atone for. Jet-black hair swept back from his forehead like the secrets he unearthed, and his eyes, the color of deep night, held an intensity that could pierce the veils between life and death.

Theron's silhouette was a lean form that moved with purpose, like a raven hunting its prey. His trench coat whispered of countless enigmas hidden within its folds, and a battered top hat sat on his head like a sentinel guarding the secrets held beneath. A pendant, the emblem of the Raven Queen, hung at his chest, a symbol of his dual roles – one as a guardian of the final journey, the other as a seeker of truths that lay buried in the depths of the city's underbelly.

Theron Grimwald was no stranger to the shades that lurked within men's souls, for he bore his own ghosts, his own tales of redemption and guilt. In a land where despair clung like a shroud, he stood as a sentinel, a beacon of justice that emerged from the gloom. A priest of the Raven Queen by day, an investigator by night – his existence was a tapestry woven with threads of enigma, a figure who traversed the dim streets of the city, chasing the echoes of the past in search of a chance at redemption.

He knew of all the others present, and he didn’t doubt they knew of him, though he hadn’t spent significant time with any of them. He nodded to each in turn, mostly focused on Hook Korat and curious about the case. Taking off his hat, he sits in the chair closest to Hook. 

"Theron Grimwald," he says. "I dig the graves."

Why on Tal'dorei does Korat want to see me, I thought he did not even know my name as he has never even been in my office and seems to avoid my predecessor, Magnus thinks to himself, and why tonight of all things, I have so many reports and forms to fill out that I don't have time for any type of meeting.... Then Magnuis laughs and tosses the unfilled reports onto a corner of his desk, almost got through saying that before laughing this time, reports can wait as they probably go unread anyway, especially since the last report I sent in mentioned a dragon rampaging around the countryside killing everything in its path and not a peep from anyone back at HQ.

Thanking Calica for the escort Magnus enters the room and looks around for anyone else just seeing Korat seated at the table, This should prove interesting I had heard he enjoyed his tea but not to this extent, I wonder just how good it does tastes, maybe next time.

"Evening Sir, Magnus Saurbranch, which I assume you know already, I assume there will be more arriving shortly?" He nods his head in the direction of the gnome, Normont, having seen him around town but not officially having met him yet, though it was on his list as he has heard large things about the gnome and his tinkering. He then moves to sit next to Theron, greeting his friend and whispering, "Do you know what this is all about?"

Theron looks to Magnus. "I know as much as you do, which is to say not much."

Normont smiles and waves at both Theron and Magnus.

"Just to be clear, Theron. When you say you dig the graves, you mean you physically dig them, not just find them groovy?", he asks the grave digger with a cheeky grin.

"A little bit of both," Theron says.

Hearing Normont's question to Theron, "What is there not to like? The dead are incredibly intriguing and the knowledge we can learn from them is amazing, see just last week I was researching......" Magnus's eyes scan the room, "Well maybe for another time."

Down by the docks on the Mooren Lake, a crowd is forming around a group of prospectors and native fishers facing off against one another. It hasn't come to blows yet, but the seething tension in the air indicates that time is coming soon. Just as a burly half-orc fisher is about to take a swing at a sneering human prospector, a half-elf in chain mail armor with a militia sergeant's badge steps between them and yanks them apart. "Alright, break it up! Yagra, keep your crew in line. Set a good example. Tomas, this is the second time I've had to keep you from getting yourself clobbered. Next time you pick a fight, I'm tossing you in a cell. Now go on, get out of here. All of you, as you were!"

The disgruntled fishers and prospectors reluctantly comply. The crowd goes about their business. Jasper can't help but let out a sigh. They reach into the pouch on their belt, pull out the message they received from Hook Korat, and scan it over with their amber eyes once again. Korat moved to sleepy Drynna from Marquet a few years ago. Jasper thinks highly of his investigative skills but doesn't know him well personally. His butting heads with the Sunrise Lodge certainly doesn't motivate Jasper to leap to his aid in whatever matter this is. But Korat isn't one to ask for help lightly. If he's calling for help from Jasper personally, it must be important.

"Thank you, Cal, good to see you," Jasper says with a smile as they enter the Cradle Lounge and pick up their usual lemonade. They then follow Calica to the back room where the others are waiting. Entering the space is a half-elf standing at 5'9" dressed in Drynna militia chain mail with a sergeant's badge on their chest. A sheathed scimitar rests on their hip. They have shoulder-length dark hair with a white streak. A spread of white freckles covers their face. As soon as they enter the room, their eyes immediately check the corners and inhabitants before they open their mouth.

"Hook, Magnus, Theron, Normont. Evening," Jasper says with a nod. "I'm Jasper Finch, by the way. Just in case any of you folks don't remember."

“I have no problem with graves, or the dead. Put them together and you have best case scenario”, Normont responds to Magnus.

”The folk of Whitestone have some horrific stories of a time when the dead decided not to stay in their graves”, he adds with an exaggerated shudder.

He salutes Jasper as they arrive and introduce themself. ”Oh, hey Sarge. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised you got the invite too”, he says seemingly having put the talk of undead behind him already.

The messenger had a hard time finding Dev, for he was not at home and nor did his parents know his specific whereabouts, and it was nearly time or past time for the meeting to begin when Dev was finally spotted in the square playing his panpipe. In fact, he’d been avoiding the messenger, who used to tease him when he was younger. But business is business, and after reading the note with some curiosity, the teenager insisted that the messenger promise it was real and not a prank, first of all. Finally, he gathered up the single copper penny he’d earned so far, and ran across the square to The Cradle. 

All this to say that he may have been the last to have entered the banded-doored room after the others had already arrived. Thus he enters the room, and, what can one say of his appearance?

Dev Hornd’s eyes are guarded, blood red irises shine mournfully from under long dark lashes, and they are hard to read. They swing shyly away from your glance, but sometimes whip back around, burning with intensity. A teenager, barely a man, lanky, still with baby fat on his cheeks, and a roundness to his features which seems not yet fully formed. Yet, with a complexion like the red dawn before a storm, splashed with a few freckles of coal black, under a shock of dark hair, one lock falling repeatedly over his brow, one imagines he could be handsome if only he stood up straight.

But he does not stand straight. His head is bowed, a pained expression belying the innocence of his years is apparent in the set of his sculpted lips, and he seems always to turn away, not quite to look at you when he speaks. 

Dev wears a short cloak with a broad hood which arcs high over his head though made of nothing tougher than rough canvas. Still, its shape is in some manner imposing – or would be, if his manner were not so passive. Under that, a thickly laced leather jerkin, an old off-white cotton shirt, and beige pantaloons over low boots with upward turned toes, stylish a decade ago. Which is how long they’ve been worn, judging by the faded colors and patches.

Dev is surprised and overwhelmed at the strangeness of the gathering, for he’s spent little time in The Cradle to begin with, and certainly has not been in a closed room among a group of adults like this since the last school meeting at the principal’s office. That was a memory best left to rot, he thinks.

He looks around at the others, holding the eyes briefly of those he knows, mouthing silently, “What is this?”

After the others have spoken, Dev’s voice is heard from the farthest corner of the room, a vivid tenor, hardly more than a whisper, but it fills the space, so curiously, with an unmistakable presence, cutting through the air like a kestrel knifing into Mooren's waters to claim a trout in its talons.

“I don’t know why I’m here. Did I... do something wrong?” His mind is of course pointing toward the time he did indeed let himself into The Cradle's back door to filch a few potatoes to bring to his parents when he was twelve after the other kids had robbed him of the few pennies he'd come to market with.

He looks up at Jasper for guidance. Trusting, but ready for his trust to be broken.

Jasper smiles at Normont. “Right back at you, Fizzlepeak. I’m guessing whatever Korat’s got prepared for us will require some sleuthing if we’re here.”

Jasper then gives Dev a nod. "Don't worry. I don't think Mr. Korat would bring us out here just to scold us. At least... I hope not."

The young man’s eyes search Jasper’s for a hint of betrayal but finding none, turns back to the others. 

“Dev,” he says to the room, almost a question.

"Wow! There's actually a room back here? I never knew!" The light feminine voice comes through the doorway just before the young half-elven woman it came from. Her short and very light blond hair has a wind swept look to it.  A few light freckles run across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks have a very slight rosy complexion - perhaps because she had hurried here. She scans the room with her bright amber-colored eyes. 

"Thank you for showing me here Calica," she says in a kind tone to the old woman. She turns back to the room. "I miss anything? Oh nice, good to see you Jasper!" she says as she recognized the half-elf. "And you guys too - Magnus, Theron, Normont. My! You're much taller than usual tonight there!" she adds to the gnome, as though she can't see he's standing on a chair.  It takes her another moment to note Dev off in the corner. She makes a brief motion with her hand, maybe a wave, and a slight breath of wind ruffles through boy's hair. "Almost missed you over there Dev! I must be in good company if you got invited too."

She is wearing a loose fitting tunic of a light blue color with darker tan pants.  On her feet are a pair of sturdy leather shoes and about her shoulders is a cloak that's just a slightly darker blue than her shirt.  She carries a staff that seems to be carved with various symbols and has a number of pouches that hang from her belt.  Some may notice a little carved wooden eagle, it's wings spread wide, hanging from a chord around her neck. 

As she's made her greetings to everyone, she finally noticed the other person in the room. "You must be Hook Korat. Great to meet you! I'm Lokilia Vaelphin. Can't wait to hear why you invited me here!" She has a serious expression on her face, though she sounds very eager from her words. 

“What is this, a party? How many more people are going to show up? What’s the game, Hook?” Theron sat back and crossed his arms. 

" No....no...I think thats all of you...probably...", his eyes dart about as if trying to chase a thought but it apparently evades him.

 “Now that’s out of the way, let’s have a cup of tea, or I have a little Skein if you'd rather, together and get down to business!"

" You see, I’ve got a case I can’t make heads nor tails out of. There’s this merchant from Westruun making passes around all the prominent houses, though he seems to have avoided the Finch residence."

"Not too strange, but it’s where he’s going after dark that has my employers spooked. You see, he’s hitting The Saddlery and Rings Ruin during the day and The Hidden at night."

( Locals- though perhaps not everyone in the room knows that The Saddlery and Rings Ruin are pleasure houses, with The Saddlery catering to more unusual tastes.  Only those of the watch know of the Hidden, it is a private club of some mystery that seems to randomly open up and close down...whilst the location is known any time the Watch has raided over the years the place has been completely empty almost as if they were warned beforehand.  Rumours among the watch are that it is a front for The Clasp...others say The Myriad and a few...The Remnant.)

" You know how important references are for those establishments yet he’s being let in without any question. My employers want me to figure out what he’s up to, but I’m in a pickle. I want to talk to him, but he already knows who I am, and I think it would be too obvious what I’m after. I was hoping you folks could try to see if you can figure out what his game is. You interested?”

[ooc: is it unusual that he would go to more than one pleasure house? Should I know what the clasp, the myriad, and the remnant refer to?]

Quote from chrisbodmann >>

[ooc: is it unusual that he would go to more than one pleasure house? Should I know what the clasp, the myriad, and the remnant refer to?]

(   It is unusual that visitors visit the pleasure houses, they tend to cater to Drynnas upper crust and are invitation only;  not sure if Theron would know this or not...up to you.

Theron has likely heard of The Clasp as a criminal organisation. Give me a history check and a religion check for the other two.)

Jasper's rolls: 

Jasper smiles as Lokilia comes in. "Evening, Miss Lokilia. Always good to see you," they say, raising their glass of lemonade in her direction. They then listen intently to Hook's briefing. At the mention of the Hidden, they shake their head and suck air in through their teeth.

"The Hidden, huh? I've raided that place twice, never found hide nor hair of anything in there. Never sat right with me. I'd appreciate a chance to figure out the deal with that place. Maybe this'll be the wave that breaks the dam. If there's something to find at the Saddlery or the Ruin, I reckon we can find it. But if you don't mind me asking, Hook, who're you working for? And what's the name of this Westruun merchant?"

Lokilia listens with interest to what Hook has to say. "Are you just asking all of us to talk to this merchant? Or you want us to try and figure out what's going on?"  Her eyes move to Jasper as she asks about the Hidden.  She's not really familiar with these places, so she's not quite sure what to make of that part of the story.  "We solve the case, we get the payment?"