"Um, yes, right. Well, um... POPS," the boy calls towards the back of the shop. The jangling of tools being set down can be heard from the back and out strides an enormous, heavy-set man with a thick black beard.

"Ah! Customers, yes?" The jeweller greets Astrid and her friends with a thick Ruslan accent. "Diamenty, hm? You are Mag? Yes, yes. We have lots for you! Come, come, follow Kazimierz..."

The man disappears behind the counter, unlocking a particular drawer, from which he retrieves a handful of small diamonds.

"These are to your liking?"

Deeper in the Krasnoselsky district, Nikolai is soon seen to by Jakub the tanner.

"What can I get you today, Nikolai?" Asks the weathered, dusky looking man.

Nikolai smiles as he attempts to turn on the charm. "Jakub! How have you been, my friend? My companions and I are going on a long, arduous journey to Littlewood. I need to look at reinforcing some of my armor that you made for me sometime ago. There are a few spots in which I worry could allow an errant blade to slip into." He spends a few moments indicating the weak spots. "You have anything available?"

Caio hangs at the back of the group as they walk, his nose already buried in the new book. "Oh. That's interesting." Something has stopped him in his tracks, right in the doorway of the store. "Nimue, look at this." He beckons her over as Astrid begins talking to the shopkeep. "I purchased this book hoping to gain insight into how these human nobles think, seeing as we're suddenly finding ourselves surrounded by them. I didn't even consider that it might have information on your Haus Sternental. But, lo and behold," he holds out the page to her and points one shiny black nail at a word on the page: Morgenstern

     "Uh... Cleric of Brightmantle, actually," Astrid replies as she follows the man. Reaching into her pack, the dwarf pulls out a jewelers loupe from her tinkering supplies. "Would you mind if I take a look..?" she asks pointing to the gems. 

    "Of course." Kazimierz watches the dwarf very closely as she picks up one of the diamonds. 

    "Quality doesn't matter much." Astrid affixes the lens to her eye socket and begins to examine a handful of the stones. "I just need to make sure they're genuine. No offense, but if I'm trying to bring someone back from the dead a handful of quartz isn't going to do me a bit of good... I'm sure you understand."  The rock-savvy dwarf nods her approval as she examines the diamonds and, after a moment, finally states, "Yes. These will do just fine, I think... I'm needing 300 gold worth."

Nimue comes close to Caio, looking at the section in question, her hand brushing his as she trails her finger down the page. She looks back up, her light amber eyes meeting his, incredulity radiating outwards. "This changes things. Haus Sternental is the home of the Morgensterns? You're trying to take them down, yes?" She glances over to where Astrid is negotiating with the jeweler. She can't help but smile. So it was fate. 

"You doubted me, Melda?"  Nimue groans internally. This wasn't your doing, Grandmama. This was me. She pauses. And I'm still mad at you. 

"Yes, I suppose we are. And given their proclivities I suppose the difference between assassins and slayers is only semantic in this case. For all we know this haus could be the base of their operations here."

Nimue's smile doesn't diminish. "Only one way to find out, I suppose." She gives Caio a grateful look, and glides back towards Astrid and the shopkeeper. 

As Astrid finishes her inquiry, Nimue quietly tacks on her own. "I'm needing a single diamond worth about 50 gold for one of my spells." She gestures to the grouping of diamonds Astrid is inspecting. "Would you have one that would suit?"

Jakub is a man of few words, but he nods solemnly and fetches some patches of padded armour that he can use to accessorise the limbs of Nikolai's leather tunic, along with a padded hood to protect the head.

"10 Mark, okay?" He tells the Tiefling as he works.

"Cleric just another type of Mag," Kazimierz replies with a smile full of sparkling teeth, fetching a good sized bag of the cloudy little chipped diamonds. Nimue's request is a different matter and from another drawer the jeweller produces a single finely cut stone of perfect clarity.

"For a popular evocation, hm?" He asks the Elf knowingly.

Nimue returns the knowing smile, and pulls from her bag two small pouches, one of them empty. She counts out and transfers the required coin to the empty bag and passes it across the counter. "Indeed."

    Astrid reaches under her robe, unhooks a full coin bag from her belt and sets it on the counter. 

    "I believe Brightmantle continues to weave our fates together. It seems more and more that our crossings have not been up to fate," she says turning to the pair of elves while the shopkeeper counts her payment.

Quote from Aramalian >>

The knight makes their way back to their quarters and dresses for street work. They smudge their makeup with dirt to hide any distinctive shine of their heritage, and don an older set of tatty garments, lovingly maintained for such purposes. Slipping out through the almsway of the temple, they wander and mingle with other streetfolk, asking questions to learn which livery in this part of the city has a reputation for fair dealing and quality animal husbandry.

 
Piotrgrad is full of livery stables, it seems, with each one sounding much the same as the last. Old Manor Stables, Thundry Livery, Peacock Stables, Wood and Grange. The list goes on and on. After spending quite some time trying to assess their relative reputations, Alaris stumbles upon Bolton Gates, which seems as good as any.

Alaris walks into Bolton Gates, enjoying the aroma of hay and warm beast. "Hello? Is anyone here? My master sent me to inquire about riding stock." 

It wasn't a lie, precisely...

A gaunt, skinny man in a long, dark coat steps out from a building at the far end of the yard.

"Good day, boy," he greets Alaris wearily. "What kind horse are you looking for?"

As the others depart for the library, Shiva finishes her breakfast and goes about preparing for her day. After accidentally tearing through one of her undershirts with her new musculature, she decides that less may be more, and leaves the Black Sheep in a simple black outfit, with Ling walking eagerly by her side. With a short jaunt through the Primorsky district, the dark wood of the Laughing Lauda comes into view.

This early in the morning, the streets of this part of Piotrgrad are empty, but a bouncer still leans sleepily against one of the pillars outside the door to the Laughing Lada.

Strolling up the steps to the entrance, Shiva realizes that this bouncer is not the one from the previous day. Putting on a relatively innocent expression, she does her best to be courteous. "Guten Morgen, sir. My dear friend and I were patrons of this establishment yesterday, and received such enthralling service that we had no choice but to return. May we go inside?"

Ling stands behind Shiva picking boredly at her nails while the bouncer rouses himself, trying to shake the cold out of his limbs.

"Oh? Um, yes. Are you girls members?"

"Hm, I'm not sure. But they seemed very eager to have us in yesterday." Just as she had with the previous bouncer, she crosses her arms under her breasts, raising them up and nearly out of her low-cut shirt. Giving the man a sickly-sweet smile, she hopes that she's able to convincingly perform the method of persuasion that always seems so effortless for Ling.

"Oh yeah?" The bouncer leers, leaning forwards and brushing a stray lock of blue hair back from Shiva's face. "Have fun then."

Shiva's right bicep tenses as she resists the urge to strike the man square in his face and forces another sweet smile. "Thank you!" Without another word, she steps past him as quickly as she can, taking Ling's hand and pulling her along. Once inside, she has to take several deep breaths while allowing herself to be checked for weapons. "I don't know how you do it, Ling."