[[ OOC: Maybe... Or an illusion spell would also work - the caster could create the illusion of the imagine to show... ]]

Brother Malark smiles and raises his hands in a symbolic gesture of 'surrender': "Agreed! After all, if you are a gift sent to me by Torm in that you possess invaluable experience, why should I not trust your decisions? By all means feel free to choose which crusade to take on first - and may the Hand Resolute guide you!"

With Spira on a roll with her questioning, Roxana is fine with hanging back quietly for a bit. With Brother Malark's 'surrender' she finally speaks up. "Well, with that I think we should be on our way.  Thank you Brother, we appreciate your time. I am sure we will be back to investigate the swamp once we track down Mival." 

She makes sure the others are ready and heads back out. 

Brother Malark continues to bless from the doorway, as the party moves away and back through the hamlet, reaching the Keep Woods on the other side.

The vegetation is lush, but not so thick as to impede passage. A soft but pleasant scent of flowers hangs in the air. Bird songs, rich in trills, rings and warbles, resonate in the air with a harmonious rhythm, suggesting, at least for now, the absence of immediate danger.

"This melodious call, with such a clear and distinctive sound..." Gaer smiles "The birds that are singing... are blackbirds!"

A ten-minute walk should be enough to cross the woods and come into view of the ruins that are everyone's destination. All that remains for our heroes to do is decide on the order of march and enter...

[[ OOC: Of course, if you want role-play characters interaction even when you're still at the Church or walking through the village, go ahead! Else... time to decide on the layout and marching order ]]

(idk if it needs to be a full roleplay, but Spira's definitely sharing with everyone what Aedion revealed, as soon as we're out of Brother Malark's hearing.)

Quote from OisinmacCameron >>

(idk if it needs to be a full roleplay, but Spira's definitely sharing with everyone what Aedion revealed, as soon as we're out of Brother Malark's hearing.)

[[ OOC: OK, I'll summarize Spira's report and see if anyone wants to respond/ask/role play... or if we should think about training for the journey into the woods ]]

Once the party is out of earshot of Brother Malark, the Sergeant of Arvandor shares with everyone what Aedion has secretly revealed to her through telepathy: Malark is not a human, but a different waxwork, generally humanoid in shape but much uglier, that has taken that form!

"So, Aidwyn, you were right to have reservations about him..." Dawnborn observes, prim and proper, "Perhaps, once we return from the ruins, we should force him to tell us who he is and why he has taken that role... Those who resort to deception are usually not well-intentioned."

"Deception, like all strategies," Anita interjects, feeling called into question, "can be used for evil or for good... But a preacher who uses deception, yes, probably has no good in mind!"

"Well done, my nephew!" Gaer approaches Aedion and caresses him with one hand - while with the other he caresses Rubybreeze, whose gaze indeed seemed potentially jealous "It's becoming a habit, for you, to detect cheaters... You are all your mother!"

"Spira has always had a great talent for this," Darvin recalls, proudly. "Just one of her many good qualities! In fact, this 'Malark' I don't remember... so he must have arrived recently. He is not native to the village. He could very well be an impostor who has changed shape with magic."

"Sounds like this preacher will need to be dealt with once we find Mival," Roxana says. "That was indeed a great find Aedion." 

Now nearing the ruins, Roxana suggests the group get organized. "Perhaps Aidwyn and Spira up front? Gaer and I to the back. Maybe Dawnborn, Rash, and Anita in between?"  She pauses a moment. "Oh dear, I've forgotten Davis! I presume he would be further forward near Spira?"

The party is used to collaborating, so, quickly arranging themselves according to Roxana's suggestion, the journey through the pleasant woods begins...

Fortunately, no hostile presence enlivens the short journey - but as the ruins get closer, the cheerful birdsong fades away, until, after passing a final curtain of trees, here are the mysterious ruins!

They are perhaps 300' away and, seen from this distance, they appear to be nothing more than a pitiful collection of low wall stubs and piles of residual rubble, with a generic vaguely rectangular shape of about 160' by 120'. Our heroes are facing one of the 120' sides. No life forms are immediately visible. But certainly more details can be distinguished by getting closer...

 "Congratulations, General..." Gaer jokes with Roxana "Your well-thought disposition of forces has discouraged any enemy from engaging us!"

Once the group of heroes is at the edge of the piles of rubble, a living creature finally appears: a skinny gnome with bright amethyst-purple eyes and hair, gathered in numerous braids, as walnut brown as his skin, so much so that it almost seems carved from wood, is sitting cross-legged in front of a carpet on which various objects are arranged, as if he had chosen this unusual place to open a market stall!

The gnome in turn sees the characters and waves at them with a friendly smile, greeting in common: "Welcome, dear customers! Do you want to come and do business with me? They do not call me Fonkin 'Good Dealer' for nothing, you know... I am the most good-hearted dealer in the Cloak clan - and probably in the entire area!"

Roxana rolls her eyes at Gaer as she dismounts and walks over towards the gnome. She narrows her eyes a bit at him. "An odd location to set up shop," she says as she waves a hand about at the ruins. "Good-hearted you say? Does that mean you offer good deals, as your name suggests?"  She does caster her eyes towards his carpet and the objects there. She is curious just what sort of things he hopes to sell here. 

"Admittedly, we are here searching for a person, rather than for a good deal."  She turns her head back to Fonkin, a grin on her face. "Well, not just any person. We were asked to help find a young man named Mival. Since you seem so familiar with this place, perhaps you saw him.  He was last seen walking towards these very ruins." 

"Ah! And where are my manners? I am Roxana Raincrest. Pleased to meet you Mr. Fonkin 'Good Dealer'." 

"Of course I offer good deals!" the gnome gestures to hisxwares that, on an elegant carpet decorated with patterns that reproduce in detail different leaves of different tree species, are laid out:

- a pair of engraved bone dice

- an embroidered silk handkerchief

- a painting with the portrait of a man in armor

- 2 ancient scrolls of written parchment, partially ruined by water

- 8 vials containing liquid (6 contain a red liquid that glimmers when shaken - 2 have the content that is separated into brown, silver, and gray layers resembling bands of stone and shaking the bottle fails to mix the colors)

"Can you see? Potions of healing, potions of climbing, spell scrolls, fine art objects... and all for a fair price!" Fonkin insists.

"A young man?" the gnome finslly scratches his head "No, I did not see him. But if he was young and went to the ruins alone... Well... I doubt he lives still".

 For Spira:

"Have you been here for long?," Spira asks the gnome cautiously. glancing over his wares with what seems to be idle curiosity.  In fact she is examining them carefully, and the carpet they rest upon too, using her training from the old Berdusk Watch days to look for subtle clues that might indicate how long the things have truly been in their current positions (Perception 12; or Investigation 11 if Painted allows *)  "Or set up shop here regularly?  It seems a little curious that you wouldn't have seen Mival at some point.  He was a young man, just newly come of age."  She follows up with the rest of the description Tarsakh Flower gave of her son,  concluding, "Are you certain you've seen nothing of him?"  It would take a close observation of her hooded face to detect the extra motions of her lips as she weaves the whispered syllables of a chant to Angharrad among her more loudly spoken words, or the flicker of her eyes as she darts quick glances away from Fonkin's face to examine his wares once more (detect magic)

=========

* really is a DM's call.  I personally prefer the 2014 interpretation in my games ("Investigation. When you look around for clues and make deductions based on those clues, you make an Intelligence (Investigation) check"); but I must admit that the CURRENT 2024 rules take a different tack. ("Investigation.  Base ability: Intelligence. -- Find obscure information in books, or deduce how something works.")  It's just that this seems to me to not allow for the distinction between just casually glancing around to find stuff out, and actively looking for clues to deduce INFORMATION as opposed to figuring out how something WORKS. ... they're both a Perception roll now.

"Oh, surely mighty devil lady!" Fonkin assures "I set up shop here regularly, because my main target are adventurers... and every now and then some of them pass by, eager to explore the ruins. But that doesn't mean I'm always in this position... I go away to eat or sleep. Maybe this 'Mival' you're looking for passed by while I was gone."

The Sergeant of Arvandor's detective skills tell her, judging by how they've settled on the carpet, that the objects have been set up there for a while... The 'Good Dealer' should have 'opened shop' an hour ago today.

"But as I already told Miss Raincrest," the gnome gives a slight bow to Roxana, "I'm afraid there's little that can be done for the young man... I've seen a whole group of adventurers go into the ruins more than once... and never come back. What hope could a young man alone have?"

Meanwhile, Spira's stealthy spell reveals to her that a scroll and half of the potions (i.e. 3 of the 6 containing a red liquid that glimmers when shaken and 1 of the 2 that have the content that is separated into brown, silver, and gray layers resembling bands of stone and shaking the bottle fails to mix the colors) on display are indeed magical.

Rash looks thoughtful... and a bit disheartened after yet another person tells them that the boy is dead.

"Well... if nothing else, the boy's mother should know what happened," he says somberly. "But I'm not convinced this is a funeral yet... if he went in there, he went for a reason. Might just be that someone wanted him alive for somethin'. So I got hope we might still be able to find him before it's too late."

"Well, I'm not sure I have anything to purchase at the moment," Roxana says. "But I don't speak for everyone."  She takes a step back from the gnome and rug, looking around at the ruins. "If Mival did end up here, I wonder where he would have gone?" she muses. 

"Well said, Rash!" Anita exclaims, heartily approving - is she perhaps thinking about how she would feel if her and the Wrestling Wizard's son were missing? "Let's not lose heart! We've seen so many incredible things together... let's take a look around!"

With Anita ready to resume her search and Roxana wondering what path Mival might have taken, Gaer sends Rubybreeze flying, smiling and explaining: "Nothing like a good reconnaissance from above, to get an idea of ​​the options available!"

And when the Blood Hawk returns, after a brief communication between the two, the tiefling ranger explains: "The ruins are a complete desolation, but there are at least three possible... access points to the underground. A sort of hole, almost in the center, but surrounded by an uninviting forest of large cobwebs. Or two spiral staircases that go down. They are on the west side, opposite to us - one in the southernmost part, the other in the northernmost part".

"Oh, I see.," Spira replies with another smile.  Then, without changing a single muscle in her facial expression or abating one single jot of the saccharine sweetness of her smile or voice, she abruptly switches tack. 

"Ah ... you DO know that the crime of fraud is punishable in Waterdeep by exile for ten summers from all towns ... like this one ... that are protectorates of the city and under it's legal code?  That's in addition to the flogging, of course.  Or was it branding?" 

She pauses to muse for a while before scooping up the potions and scroll she has spotted as being NONmagical.  "And I do believe selling mundane items such as these and claiming them to be magical potions and scrolls falls nicely under the legal definition of fraud."  Her smile grows, if anything, a little sweeter.  "Now why don't we stop playing these little games, and why don't you tell us just exactly who the hell you are and what the hell is going on around here, before I have my husband here call his friends in the Rassalantar watch?"

=========

Intimidation (with advantage from Darvin's Help; as he naturally would back up Spira with his most menacing glower as soon as he realizes what she's doing, and is quite used by now to her abrupt shifts of tactics ;-) 13

"Hey! But... how..." Fonkin (Fo) looks surprised and scared... but instead of simply giving in, he shouts, "Security! To me!" and quickly begins trying to grab the edges of the carpet - presumably to lift it and wrap the goods in it.

Meanwhile, at his shout, two devil-like creatures with stone skin, fangs, claws, and wings, one with a cracked horn (Ch) and the other with a marble-like streak on one shoulder (Ss), emerge from holes cleverly camouflaged by a thin layer of rubble.

Time to roll for Initiative!

(In the map, the light-gray squares are rubble - difficult terrain, the dark-gray squares are 5' high wall stumps)

Enemies' Initiatives:
Fonkin: 5
Cracked Horn: 1
Streak Shoulder: 7

NPCs' Initiatives:
Gaer: 17
Darvin: 10
Anita: 15
Dawnborn: 20

(Given the initiative rules we use, any Character who rolls 7 or more in Initiative may also take his turn for Round 1...)

Rashugri Initiative: 8 (in game log)... guess that means he can go now.

The half-orc chuckles and uses his action to cast Armor of Agathys with a 2nd-level spell slot (by means of the Rune Carver background). As this is a spell from the school of Abjuration, it also activates his Arcane Ward ability as well. Rash now has 10 temporary hit points from the spell and 10 points of Arcane Ward that have to be burned through before anything can even hurt him...

"Looks like things are about to get interesting..." he says, brandishing his staff as he moves into the space next to Fonkin, in order to prevent a retreat and shield his allies.

(Roxana Initiative: 18) 

Roxana is a bit surprised at Spira's intense reaction to Fonkin. But the appearance of the devil-like creatures seems to confirm those suspicions. "This doesn't seem like a very good way to encourage business sir," she says as she starts to move back a bit to get some distance from Fonkin and these creatures. She readies her shortbow,  knocking an arrow. Keeping it at the ready, she says to Fonkin. "Call off those devils and we can just talk about this." She is ready to fire though if he or his 'security' take any hostile action. 

(Readied Action - Shortbow Attack: 14, Damage: 11 piercing)