Walt stands by listening to his friends share their words of wisdom with Kasem. He steps forward, looks him in the eyes and says his goodbye in a somber, somewhat defeated tone, “Thank you for the smoothies. They were quite delightful. Good luck to you.” 

Walt reaches into a pocket in his robe, pulls out a visibly squished package wrapped in parchment. He unwraps the package revealing a cold, squished and now crumbling shrimp cake. He breaks off a portion and hands it to Kasem before turning to follow his friends out of the tent. 

Walt stands by Harrow and Tuuli and stands silent for a moment or two.

“I could use a drink. Tuuli, do you know of any small family run breweries or distilleries in the night market? Somewhere we can sit and chat about our next move?”

Walt breaks off two more pieces of shrimp cake offering them up to his friends. 

(Does she?)

"I don't need your family advice right now, thank you," he says to Tuuli cooly, striding back out to his counter, where customers have queued up. He begins to take a new order.

Tuuli doesn't know any drinking spots here in the night market, but they've passed a few that can probably find again. Small, casual outdoor bars where people stop to have a drink and chat or people watch. 

It's getting late, however. The midnight hour approaches. You probably have 45 minutes before the market will close, and your jewel is scheduled to depart.

Tuuli doesn't bother leading the boys to drinks. "We don't have a lot of time. We can take Kasem's actions to his brother, he seems to care about Vi's opinion most of all. Or we can go tell the other families what we have learned. I'd rather tell Vi, it means less public embarrassment for Kasem."

Before the group departs, Harrow silently gives Kasem the two gold coins he owes for the smoothies.

Once with the others, Harrow waves away Walt's offer of shrimp cake. "Thank you, friend, but all of this has turned my stomach. I fear I may have been too harsh with Kasem, but something about his involving the wynlings in his plan left me livid." He shakes his head for a moment, a sad look on his face, before he nods to Tuuli and says, "If your judgment is that we should go to Vi, then I'll stand behind you. I hope Vi can talk some sense into his brother."

"Oh my, I lost track of the time. Drinks can wait. Yes, let's try talking to Vi. Lead the way!"

Walt crams the last of the of the shrimp cake in his mouth a and begins power off to find Vi.

Tuuli looks for Vi, and makes her way towards the challenge area, where she last saw him.

Kasem accepts the coins without a word and returns to his customers.

The party heads back to the golden tent in the event grounds where they last saw Vi. He is indeed there, consoling the final loser of the pepper challenge, an old, weepy dwarf in the last throes of the effects of a skull-face pepper in the final round. Vi looks up and grins. "Ah! My fire-resistant champions! I'd challenge you to another round, but I'm afraid we're closing up for the night."

Tuuli, forthright as always, smiles as she comes to him. “Oh, no mind, I’ve never had a taste for spices. We are here on another matter. Did you know of Kasem’s blue pets? The ones he has been using to harass other merchants in the market?”

"Those Wynlings? He's been using them to do what?" He steps away from his Dwarven patron and beckons them over to a more private corner of the tent. He has a furrowed look of concern on his brow. "Kasem is doing what with those animals?"

Harrow walks Vi through the investigation's timeline, explaining what they learned from the other vendors, what they learned from their own snooping, and what came of their confrontation with Kasem. "He thinks he's just doing business, albeit in a cutthroat manner, but the Xungoons and Tyenmos are suffering badly for it. As we were arriving, the little Xungoon boy was in a physical altercation with one of the Tyenmos; if both of the families knew what havoc your brother's new fey friends were wreaking, I'd be afraid for your brother's safety, not to mention the wynlings'. They need to be brought to their home, and Kasem needs to understand the harm in what he's done."

Tuuli smiles softly. “I think he’s real worried about being on his own, and that’s causing him to make some squirrely decisions. Or should that be wynlingy? In any case, I think you should talk to him. There’s no need for the Xungoons or the Tyenmos to learn about what’s been going on, if it stops.” She glances at Walt and Harrow, but not to ask their permission.

Harrow meets Tuuli's glance with a warm (if weary) smile. He shrugs his shoulders very lightly in that moment, as if to say This is the right call in a bad situation.

Vi lets out an exasperated sigh. "Thank you," responds Vi quietly, his face flushing with anger. "He's such a... difficult brother sometimes."

He pauses for a moment to quietly think and curse. "Yes, I would appreciate it if you keep this quiet. I'll straighten Kasem out and see that he returns those blasted wynlings to the mountains. We would be in your debt. I'll try to pay it back to the Xungoons and the Tyenmos somehow. Thank you." 

He looks for your assent. 

Harrow nods, looking at the others for their agreement. "Just... Be kind to the wynlings, please. Oh -- hold on..." He rummages in his bag, noting for the first time that the book he'd bought earlier had gotten torn irreparably, presumably in the shrimp cake challenge. With a flush of sadness, he tears a mostly-empty scrap from the very back of the book and writes on it a phonetic guide for a phrase in Sylvan. "Try saying this to them; it means, 'All will be well. We're taking you home.' It's precious little comfort, but hopefully they'll understand. They think of Kasem as their friend, and it can be hard to say goodbye to friends."

Tuuli just nods at this process. 

"Thank you," replies Vi, taking the scrap of paper from Harrow. "I appreciate that you came to me in confidence. Rest assured I will take care of Kasem and put a quick stop his nonsense. We'll return those wynlings to the mountains where Kasem found them, you have my promise."

"But I have to get all this cleaned up, so I need to bid you goodnight for now. But I am here for the next couple of weeks. Drop by any evening for as many free cucumber fire smoothies as your fireproof stomachs desire." He smiles and returns to his cleaning.

"I'll be sure to let you know how this goes over," she pulls out her thing-glove-wrapped deadly pepper half, and waggles it a little, before putting it away again carefully.

As Vi goes off to his business, she turns to the others. "We seems to have lost a few of our new friends in the crowd, but it's getting on time to catch the crystal back. Are we done here?"

Harrow nods, suddenly aware of the ache in his legs and the traces of bruising left after the shrimp cake challenge. "I'm very much ready to go home, myself."

Walt smiles at Harrow and Tuuli. ”Good show, friends,” he says as “I’m quite happy with how things turned out.”

He turns to Harrow and groans, “I agree, I agree old friend. I am sure gonna pay for this tomorrow.”  

He the  looks to Tuuli and says “can we ride a rickshaw back to the gem? My treat? I’m not sure I can make the trek back.”