"Zhents!  Oh boy...."  A nervous Max does his best to hide the full extent of his fear and looks down at the coins in his hand.  Now that he has shown them to Xoblob, and in light of the situation, he decides not to disappoint the gnome.  Against all his instincts as a poor boy from the other side of town, the fabulous looking Max puts a single gold dragon down softly on the shopkeep's counter and says "for your help, and your silence on this."  He looks around the shop one more time and adds, in a happier tone, "and for having such a wonderful shop."  "Surely I will do all of my gift shopping here from now on.  Bye now."

Quickly following Callan outside Max says to his friends "by the unholy nine hells you guys, the ZHENTS?"  "I knew we'd be getting in over our heads if it was anything more than a simple mugging or Floon still passed out in an alleyway...  What do we do?" 

"And it's not just Floon now, whoever the other guy was with him was taken. Okay so, we don't want to be messing with those guys ourselves right? But here's the thing, they don't have much of a presence here in this city. If we can find where they took the pair, we can sic the city watch on them. Let them handle the heavy lifting."

"I think what you mean is it's not just Floon now, we're going to be next!"  Max stands and looks at Callan for a minute.  "You're serious!"  He yields a long, dramatic sigh.  "Fine, fine, I know you two are going to pursue with with or without me, and Maximillian Mercutio Eovaldi is no coward and a better character if he has real stories to tell!  I like reading and even writing my own stories to some day perform, but this will be a whole new level of realism.  Perhaps it will help... contingent upon still breathing and all of that."

"Ok, what next?  We investigate the scene?  Look for clues?  Classic tropes, but such tropes are effective because they seem to work time and time again, so let's get to it."  Max starts looking around closely at the area where Xoblob indicated the attack occurred.

  Zyllee listens to the back and forth banter. " This is very dangerous as has been mentioned.    The zhents...." Her frown reveals her concern.   " They cannot  know that we are involved.  The Zhents will make us disappear. " She paces back and forth slowly while thinking on the matter.  

  " We should investigate the scene.   Talking to lots of others about this might draw negative attention on us. " She begins scouring the immediate area for clues as well. Zyllee will look at the surrounding area for any place that might have had a good vantage point for the kidnapping. 

When Zyllee mentions negative attention Max takes a moment to stand up straight and look around the streets, buildings, and rooftops around them to ensure no one is watching them.

Callan digs into his belt pouch and flings a handful of powder at the area, he lights a torch and mutters a few words. The powder flies in all directions, somehow making minor details and variations in color stand out. "There, maybe that will help."

The purple gnome's mouth goes agape and his eyes go wide as he sees the gold dragon placed on his counter. He hastily scurries to grab the coin, places both hands to his sides, and bows to young Max, "Thank you kindly, young man! This is very generous. You lot are always welcome at my humble, curious shop!"

---

The party goes out to investigate the crime scene. With the aide of Callan's torchlight and strangely effective magic powder, Zyllee is able to pick out enough information with her elven eyes to determine both where the two victims came from (presumably the Skewered Dragon if Volo is correct) and where the two victims were taken by the alleged Zhentarim. 

Which way do you go?

"Ooooh, impressive, Callan."  As Zyllee investigates more closely, Max's anxiety about having handed over a whole dragon for less than concrete value in return overwhelms him.  "Ugh, our new friend had better have the coin he promised.  Otherwise don't tell Hugo that Max just gave that weird gnome a whole dragon, ok?"  He continues to bemoan the expense of a single gold in private for another moment.

The three of you follow the tracks to where you believe the two victims were taken. Eventually you end up on Candle Lane. 

Gloom envelops the narrow alley as dark as a dungeon — and as odorous as one, too. Nearly all the streetlamps here have been smashed. The tracks lead you to a dark warehouse. A light flickers across from the building as a streetlamp struggles to stay lit. As the light briefly illuminates the door to the warehouse, Zyllee notices that a small black winged snake is painted just above the door handle.

  Zyllee looks up in some satisfaction as they follow the tracks to the warehouse.  Seeing the flickering light reveal the serpent above the door she shakes her head. She speaks quietly now with her friends.  " Well, I have no doubt that our quarry was brought to this building.   I feel that we have to go in.  We don't have enough to draw the city watch in yet. Are both of you okay with that?"

  She thinks about how her stance has changed on this.   Before she wanted to avoid attention from the Zhents and now she wanted to risk going in one of their buildings. " If you both are fine with that.... how do we wish to proceed? I should be able to get us in unnoticed unless someone would rather talk our way in.   " She looks at Max when she says this.    

Callan looks at the building with more than a little trepidation. This is definitely not how he wanted to spend his evening. Still though, they were here, and two lives were apparently in jeopardy.

"Yeah, a quiet entrance sounds great to me. Even if you can talk your way in, I would rather they not have any idea as to our faces. Circe? What do you think? Any entrance other than the obvious?"

The artificer will have his familiar fly up and over the area, checking for anything of Interest to the infiltration attempt.

Circe doesn't see too terribly much unfortunately. However from her aerial vantage point, she sees three potential points of entry, a front door, a large warehouse loading door, and a painted-over window on the side.

Callan turns to the others, "Circe says that there are two other possible entry points, a big set of bay doors, and a painted over window. The window might be our best bet if we can get it open quietly. What do you think?"

  Zylee nods in satisfaction.   " The window sounds like our best bet. If Max is in agreement then I will get us inside.   " 

As he follows along while Zyllee is tracking, Max mouths "oh no" as he can no longer maintain his illusory disguise.  Trying to keep up while fussing with his bag and clothing, the bard plucks his prized feathers from his once again damaged, black top hat and slides them into his cylindrical map case.  Stuffing the hat away he pulls out a scarf and wraps it around his neck and face as a bit as a disguise, although it does not completely mask his drow eyes.  When his friends notice that Max is now the drab looking Hugo once again he just shrugs and whispers "sorry, it takes time for an artist to perfect his craft."

Zyllee asks if they are ok with going in Max whispers facetiously "nope!"  He winks at her and nods a less than excited approval about pursuing this further.  The half drow shakes his head "no" at any mention of talking his way into a Zhent hideout and "yes" when Callan says he'd rather them never see the group's faces.  He follows along closely as Zyllee approaches the window.

Still getting his gear in order after his change, Hugo drops his map case as they head for the window.  He quick stows it and catches up. (6 Stealth)

Callan follows around as quietly as he can, and helps as he can with Zylee's attempt to open the window

 The moon elf focuses on Mask and feels just a hint of his power breathe through her.  Zylee then  grins and begins easing around the side of the warehouse toward the window. She will use every available shadow to move through.  Listening at the window to make sure no-one is close by ,  she pulls out her thieves tools.   Zyllee will examine the window carefully and work to open it quietly. 

Hugo stands by as Callan and Zyllee handle unlocking the window as silently as they can. Zyllee has some trouble at first and fails at unlocking the window on her first attempt. Callan helps keep the window still as she works the lock. On her second attempt, she calls out to Mask. She feels a calm force envelop her shadowed hands as the air around her goes completely silent. 

The window unlocks.

Meanwhile, Hugo does his best to stealth. He nearly kicks a pebble on accident, but feels a slight tug on his pant leg. He looks down to see Circe glaring at him, then notices the pebble by his foot and avoids it.

The three of you peer inside the room through the window. Tables and chairs have been carelessly tossed across the floor. The corpses of a dozen men lie along the walls, their rapiers and daggers lying nearby. On the north side of the area, stairs rise to an open level above. 

Four short, avian creatures with long beaks and black feathers look over in surprise from where they stand in the middle of the warehouse. Each wears a hooded cloak and wields a shortsword.

  Zyllee looks on in alarm as they startle the Kenku.   " Well... We are in this now.   "  She tries to stay back at a safe distance.   Raising her amulet high she invokes her diety. She targets the nearest enemy to her that has taken damage.   The Kenku  hears this horrifying bell tolling which works on their sanity.  She quickly twirls and targets another nearby.  

"Oh... Bugger" Callan hesitates for a moment, but then his gaze alights on the dead men piled up by the wall like so much kindling. That'd be them if they didn't deal with this now. Propping his crossbow onto the sill of the window, he starts firing.