Gark is also at the Pick and Tap.  He is originally from a town on the other side of the forest bordering Kohmstead, but he mostly lives in the forest now because his village was wiped out years ago.  Although he mostly lives off the land and generally keeps to himself, he does occasionally come into town to buy gear and drink some ale.

Kohmstead was simply the first stop in Valentia Forestsong's journey. She had to stop there to gather supplies, after just leaving her hermitage. She had already gone to Blackarm's forge to buy the Scale Mail armor she was now wearing, along with the mace she held in one of her hands and the shield that was kept tied to her back. She had an amulet around her neck, symbol of her devotion to Kelemvor, which she never kept hidden. The woman's hair was blonde and hid her rounded human ears, her stance was always straight and serious.

At the moment, Valentia's in the Pick and Tap, talking to the one in charge, trying to see if she could stay the night.

A small mining town that doesn't bring in much except for iron? A perfect place for someone trying not to be found, thinking about this as she entered the tavern she kept her shifted appearance of a Half-elf female with Auburn hair and brown eyes. She sat down quickly after getting a glass of wine and sipped on it as she shifted her glance around the room.

Answering Valentia's question, Raicho says, "Aye, just about all of our rooms are available. Not a lot of travelers lately. Our regular rooms are-"

Two dozen miners suddenly start streaming in from the entrance. Very quickly, the room starts to smell of sweat and iron dust.They sit down in various locations with a sorrowful glum expression on their faces, almost not seeing some of the other guests.

Evonnia starts taking orders from those at the tables.

The last to come in is a dwarf with red hair and thick beard of a similar color, although it is unclear if it is his color or if it is just stains from the mine. He walks straight to the bar.

"The usual, Rai... Feck, make it triple!" He says with undisguised exasperation.

"Another bad day?" Raicho responds with some concern, starting to fill up some mugs.

"Worse... Some beams broke and chunks of ceiling fell."

"Anybody hurt?" He slides a mug to the dwarf.

"Got eyes, don'cha? Take a gander! Ten fine fellas laid up. Dunno if they'll even walk again... A three or four of 'em I ain't too sure will wake up." His voice slowly losing energy as he takes a drink in one hand.

"Just from one branch...?"

"One? Try four! They ALL went just hours apart from each other!"

"Stolen ore, broken tools. Now broken men." The dwarf downs one of his drinks in one go and hands the mug back. "I'm convinced haven't been alone in the Lesser Crest ever since we started that new branch." He starts another, more slowly.

Lia gets up from her table and walks over to the red-haired dwarf at the bar.  "There has been trouble in the mines?" She asks as she takes a seat, pushing her white hair back behind an ear as she glances to the dwarf.  She glances away a moment, biting her lower lip, then turns back to the dwarf.  "Would it be something you would want looked into?  I am a bit short on funds of late and..." She gives a sigh.  "If there is some coin in it, I could try to help figure out what is going on."

Gark scans the group quickly for any sign of orcs, then watches the group out of the corner of his eye.  He sees Lia start to walk over to them and braces himself for trouble, then relaxes a bit when he sees them start talking.

Valentia remains attentive to the dwarf's conversation with Raicho and then with Lia, but once he switched attention away from the tavern's owner, she decides to continue the conversation she was having before the miners' appearance. "So, you were about to talk about the regular rooms. What was it?"

Gark does not see any orcs or half-orcs in this crowd. Miners seem to consist of humans, dwarves, even a couple of halflings and dragonborn.

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Raicho returns to Valentia while Lia talks with the dwarf, "Yes. Sorry about that. Old dwarf has a unique ability to take control of a room."

"Where was I... Ah! Our standard rooms are five silver a night. They're not much, small rooms a bed and a washtub. If you want something more, for seven silver we have larger rooms that have bigger beds and more furniture."

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The dwarf turns to Lia almost doing a double-take, surprised by her hair color, "Trouble's sayin' it lightly, lass. I tried ta get a couple'a guards ta have a look, but its seems the lot talk big, but are just bluster. As for my men... Don't need a mind reader to figure what they're thinkin'."

"Don' know iffin' ya gutsy or just suicidal, but if ya think you can do it, 10 gold from my personal stash's yours.“

'“ell, lemme try somethin'... Maybe you'll get lucky an' have some help."

He turns to the crowd, "Anyone here wantn'ta figure out what's feckin' with our mine? Got ten gold for anyone and everyone for the risk! "

The entire falls silent.

"I'll do it." says Gark, then finishes his drink and puts the mug down then stands up to his full 6' 5".  "but half up front so we both have some skin in it."

Valentia grabs her coin purse and notices the 5 gold pieces remaining after all the expenses she made in town, which made those 5 silver pieces, one-tenth of the total she had left. With a sigh, she decides to leave one gold piece to get her room while explaining. "The standard room, please."

She was still in on what the dwarf was saying with her extreme perception, and the moment he turns to the crowd offering coins to who would help, and she hears someone else willing to go, she decides to stand up as well. "So, that makes us three. I'm also interested in investigating that problem."

"Thank you for helping me with this." Lia says with a sincere smile.  Turning back to the dwarf.  "Should we head there now, or wait for something?"  She tucks her white hair behind her ear again as she looks between the two who stood up to help her,and the dwarf.

"Wow... Actually didnae expect anyone to actually answer, let alone accept." He replies with undisguised surprise. "But, a promise is a promise. I guess you should know the name of the dwarf who lettin' ya do this. Th' name's Ragkohm Orebreaker."

"What are you doing...?" Evonnia asks with concern.

"Fixin' our mine. If ya have a better idea lemme know." He retorts.

"Jes' give me a moment and I'll take ya ta my office. No sense going somewhere an' getting lost from th' get-go."

"Half now and half later, eh...?" Ragkohm goes into thought.

(@happyandbob: Roll Persuasion please)

"Lia..."  Lia says offering her hand for a shake.  "Yes, going to your office would probably be the best start."  She nods to the others, then turns back to the dwarf, biting her lip a bit as she says...  "Just to start on this, do you know of anyone who has bad intent towards the mine itself, or who would profit by causing issues for you?"

6

ooc: gark has no pluses for persuasion but +2 for intimidation (which he was hoping to do when he stood up). I rolled persuasion.

Ragkohm shrugs and answers Gark, "Keepin' an old dwarf honest, eh? Know what...? Ya caught me drunk an' desperate enough. When we meet in my office, I'll give ya all half."

After Lia asks her question, a moment and a heavy sigh passes as Ragkohm crosses his arms in contemplation, "Nah, if someone does have it out fer me, I can think any number of other ways that wouldn't kill the town. An' so far, none have complained about the mine. Though, I think this latest incident may change that."

"There is one thing... Some of the men have been talking about a strange goings on while working ever since we opened the new branch. Ask Forbren, Scran and Deenke; they've been working that part o' the mine the longest."

"I think I see 'em over in the far corner there." He gestures to a small group seated near a half-elf female (Nephina).

"I'll check with them then."  Lia says with a nod. She pushes up from her chair and moves over to the designated group.  "Hello, Ragkohm sent me over here to ask you about some strange happenings in your section of the mines..." Lia says, pushing her white hair back behind her ear as she looks between the group, her teeth once more biting into her lower lip.  She gives them a tentative smile as they all look up at her.  "I'm Lia and am going to go and check out what is going on in the mine with those others who stood up a moment ago." She explains.

 "The old coot is actually gonna do something about the mine? About time!" Says a gravelly voice in the group, coming from a dragonborn with metallic grey scales.

"Call me Scran. This here's Deenke."

'Aye..." A scruffy human with greying brown hair and stubble.

"And this piece of work is Forbren."

"Hello." Another human, younger with a short beard and black hair.

"Want to know what's happenin' in the mine, eh? The Old Rag sent you to the right bunch." Deenke says raising his mug, "The new branch looks like a good vein, but trade off seems to be weird shite. At first it was small stuff taking place within the branch itself, such as hearing footsteps and hearing voices outta nowhere."

"C'mon! You've been around me enough to know those voices are Simple Draconic."

"The only Draconic we ever hear from you is when you accidentally hurt your own scaly ass! Just the other day when the head of his sledge broke off and dropped on his foot, I could've sworn the number of words he used would make a sailor blush." Forbren says between gulps.

"Was lucky that I didn't break my foot... I had just replaced the shaft of it that day, there was no reason for it to break."

"But my point still stands, those voices are speaking Draconic. I hear bits and pieces of it. Talkin' something about 'heretics' or 'thieves.' Hard to tell. Both use the same word in some diale-" A look of realization and confusion hits Scran. "What in the...?"

"What about the light I keep telling you about?"

"'The light... the light...'" Deenke says in a mocking tone. "You mean the red light that only you seem to see?"

"Yes... That light." Forbren replies with a weary tone. "It's a blink and you miss it sort of thing."

"Well, excuse me for blinkin'!"

Lia listens to the back and forth with a smile, having heard much the same sort of back and forth while helping her mom out sometimes at the tavern back home.  She has a momentary pang of missing her mom then, but pushes it down.  As she listens carefully to this group.

"So how big is this light when you see it?" Lia asks when they appear done for the moment.  "Is it like a pinprick of light or a flash of light, or a room-filling light?"

"Dracconic huh?"  Lia asks with a frown at the mention of the voices.  "Well, that is a bit disturbing, hopefully we won't be finding a dragon down there..."

When she thinks she has as much as she can get there, she will move back to the dwarf hiring her.  "I'm ready to head to your office I think..." She says as she bites on her lower lip again.  "You guys want to come along?" She asks a bit nervously to the others who stood up.  "I can tell you about dracconic voices and red lights on the way..."

Gark takes a stance off to the side but within hearing distance as Lia talks to a miners.  As is his habit, the first thing he does is look intently at the folks talking to see if anyone seems to be lying

insight 21

Valentia hadn't left the table and was waiting close to Ragkohm for her future teammate's return. Yet, once  Lia's back and says she'll tell the story, Valentia responds. "Oh, I already know what you were talking about. I heard it-... I mean, I saw it from here. I think it'd be a good idea if we all went to his office together."