Viviora and Axonia stop and turn to him. "Hello, Martin," says Viviora with a mischievous smile. "I hope you are enjoying your walk as much as we are."

Suddenly, Friend, Gash's owl, makes a dramatic swoop down to the ground, dropping a note in front of Martin, requesting he return to the tavern Bounty.

It appears that the amulet is magically bound to Neventi and cannot be removed.

Neventi Death save: 6

Gash returns to Bounty to find Dog and Tock deep in conversation about the Accords. Dog's magic has worn off, but Tock is reading through the document and notes without the aid of magic. Tock finds on the first page the adjudicator is indeed named: Passalwyck, who is only referenced as a fey.

"But before the accords went into effect, right? Before Genny saw Nev again?"

Martin puts his hands in his pockets. “Oh fancy meeting you here! I think I am enjoying my walk. Nothing quite like a walk to clear the mind and ease the soul. If you’re walking back this way *gesturing back the way they all came* would you like some company?”

"Hey guys," Gash waves at his friends in the tavern as he goes to join them. "How are we looking Tock? Anything important? Dog, did you see anything? All of this running around has got my head spinning. I kind of miss fighting dragons and fiends. I think the others, and the sisters at the temple would like us to bring justice to that assassin. If we can confront them tonight and make them meet their end then I will feel a lot better about leaving Masa."

Viviora looks at her companion, whose eyes twinkle with a slight smile. Her companion nods. Viviora turns back to Martin. "We would be delighted," she says.

Althus shouts, "Miss Neventi!" before reaching out and giving her 5 points of healing from Lay on Hands. 

Neventi wakes up with a groan. She manages to sit up, as she rubs her head. "I feel awful," she says. She looks around at the early evening darkness. "Did I fall asleep outside?"

Martin offers an arm to both women and begins a very slow walk back. “I believe that we’ve not met before, Miss. My name is Martin. I’d love to talk with you about some recent events in my life if you don’t mind me bending your ear.”

Viviora takes Martin's arm but the other woman maintains her distance. "You know who I am," the woman says with a kind smile.

"Tell us about your recent events," Viviora says with a small laugh.

Martin shrugs with a rueful expression. “Recently, I was talking to a friend. My friend wanted to play a game, but refused to explain the rules. Then I started to make a roundabout way of talking with him about how to find out the rules, but it was pretty transparent and we both had enough self effacement to laugh. So I guess what I’m saying is, tell me about yourselves, if we can’t talk about anything else.” Martin is trying to drag out the walk. My thought is that the longer the walk goes, the greater chance I can learn something about the Accords, or maybe just about Axonia and Viviora. It’s hard to know who to trust, still. Martin still is t sure of the stakes or why any of this matters, except that a woman and little girl are involved and a man was killed.

"Well," says Viviora with a little laugh, "That does sound frustrating. I have to think things will improve for you, though. My life used to be very mundane, but I've found a little unexpected chaos can make the world a little...brighter."

“And what was your life like before this?”

Althus sits down across from Neventi, "We were just talking when some energy knocked you unconscious. Do you know what this is? Do you think it has something to do with the amulet you wear?"

Althus will use his Aura of the Guardian if a similar effect occurs.

Did Dog see any provisioners or stables on the way?

He fills in Gash on the important parts [YoFizz you can read the this spoiler post of Dog's summarizing, and these answers]. "Seems that caper, however terrible a fiasco it was, was worth it. We know more now. I hope Tymora's happy. If we think we can learn more tonight from that assassin, and potentially create some justice, I will be there. But we need to leave in the morning, or Nev will leave without us. I should probably check on her, maybe after we go to visit the assassin. Where are Bulwark, Martin, and Althus? Should we go to them or are they coming to us?"

"Oh, it was a fine life. The library and the temple, mostly. It seems so long ago," says Viviora.

Neventi tucks the amulet back into her blouse. "Let's not talk about it."

She scoops up her crying daughter and begins to calm her. Althus can see through his divine sense and his detect good and evil spell the child begins to glow lightly as she is calmed by her mother. She is definitely touched by celestial energy.

Nobody found stables along the way back to Bounty.

Dog will use the time waiting for the others to return for a short rest and to try to recover some of the arcane energy he expended. He helps Tock go through the papers on the accords, specifically looking at the notes. And when Tock is occupied in his fluent celestial, Dog takes a close close look at the letters from Ritter about the Hells and the amulet, looking for any detail or intention or planning or nuance he missed during his first reading.

Gash and Dog's readings of Ritter's letters to Axonia demonstrate the kind of Dragon Chess that the Heavens and Hells were playing with each other. The Hells were leaning heavily on the 'anything goes until Gentoa is reunited with her mother' loophole, a loophole they clearly engineered. The Hells were not happy when the Heavens completely shut down any influence that either side could apply after that point, though. So the Hells sought to eliminate the need for any protectors, which was also foiled during the negotiations. They tried to have a team of protectors dictated by the Accords, but this was deemed to become too easily of a means of influencing the outcome. The Hells were furious over this decision and sought instead to delay the reuniting of Gentoa with Neventi for as long as possible in order to continuing exerting influence on Neventi and the protectors for as long as they could. The attack by the bugbears on the Long Road was one such effort.

The Hells apparently tried to bring Neventi into the negotiations to end them entirely at one point, but the Heavens argued that without the child present, no conclusion could actually be reached. This was an odd tactic, considering that Ritter and the Heavens knew that Neventi was under magical influence. It seems that early in the negotiations, the Hells successfully argued that Neventi placed the magical amulet on herself and willingly attuned to it. This took a lot of teeth out of the argument that she was not able to make a final choice freely.

One of the last things that Ritter reported was the Hells efforts to have King Haddian removed from the Accords as a pre-approved steward. Passalwyck ended a 5-day argument over  this point by sending a fey representative to Alciondria to ask him directly. At this point, the Hells clearly knew they were beaten and began to shift tactics to try and make the penalty for influencing the outcome steeper for the Heavens or to try and broaden the definition of "influence the outcome" so as to maybe catch the Heavens on a technicality later. Still, the representative reportedly returned with a signed affidavit bearing the seal of the King with his enthusiastic agreement to serve as a steward to Gentoa and her mother.

After this, the letters stop, with no sign that Ritter knew he was discovered by the Hells nor any indication of how the Hells or Heavens fared in their final moves to shape the Accords.

after reading the letter Gash lets out a big sigh. "This is a lot. But we know now we cannot give Genny to that warlock. We must keep her out of his hands. I thought it strange when the heaves didn't know about the amulet... turns out they did. There is a lot to take in, I didn't know how much Ritter was involved in the Accords... we should avenge his death tonight. He was looking after our girls. If we can get that stupid amulet off of Nev then our journey will be so much more straight forward. Dog, I miss blowing stuff up. This sneaking around and and subterfuge, not a goblin's strong points."

“A temple and a library both? Would I know which ones? I’m not here in Masa often, but I sorta know the town.”