Caelynn is a short, elven woman with fair skin, freckles, and green eyes. Her long brown hair is partially pulled back and a cluster of tiny braids rests behind one ear. She wears simple clothes and leather armor, which she has partially removed and is etching something into with a dagger. Several weapons are strapped to her person - an intricately carved longbow, a dark metal crossbow, and a few more daggers.

Her back is turned to the entrance and she doesn't look up until the items are suddenly slammed onto the table in front of her. She jumps and whips her head around, taking in the scene, face quickly morphing into confusion. She grabs the note, hoping it will give her some picture of what's going on.

The party member holding the metal disc is a Minotaur. He is jet black, with leather straps criss-crossing his broad chest. He wears just a sturdy belt around his waist with a few tattered pieces of cloth hanging to mid-thigh. On his back is a large axe and a short bow in a professional looking quiver. Pinned to the leather straps over his heart are two medals and a military insignia (a Captain’s badge).

Portrait:

Oak the minotaur stares from the metal disc in his hands to the collar around the newcomers neck and back. Terrified to move, he looks pleadingly up at Trill and Caelynn shaking his head as if to say no, no, no..... ((the last time he had experience with one of these slave collars did not go well)). 

Noticing Oak's obvious distress, Caelynn sets down the letter and very carefully takes the disc from his hands, holding it by the very edges and trying not to do anything that would activate it. Setting it down on the table, she reaches over and gives Oak's hand a gentle squeeze.

Trying her hardest to keep her voice down, she turns to address the newcomer. "Hi there. I'm Caelynn. I can't hear anything right now, so if you have something to say, you're better off talking to one of the others. I'm going to take a look at this," she gestures to the disc with a tilt of her head, "And see about getting that collar off of you."

Oak relaxes as Caelynn takes the disc, but then his eyes go wide as she sets it down! “mmMmuuughhh-h!!....”, he bellows, incoherently, in his deafened state. Then he manages “Uh! No!..”, and picks the disc back up quickly in his hands, and freezes again. He shakes his head more rapidly, barely just a shiver. And looks over to the newcomer with wide, scared eyes, to make sure.. everything.. is.. okay....

He gestures with his horns to the note, or the instructions, or whatever it is......

Caelynn instinctively raises her palms in a gesture of surrender, not entirely sure what she did wrong, but not wanting to see her friend like this either. After a moment, she slowly and deliberately moves to pick up the paper, making eye contact with Oak the whole time and judging his reaction to make sure that it's okay. If he doesn't freak out, she'll start reading again, more intent this time.

Trill would have tapped Oak and Caelynn when the guards entered, so they aren't caught by surprise, and jot down the fellow's speech for them.

Trill is a small kenku, a glossy feathered raven-folk, wearing a somewhat gaudy coat of red and purple, with assorted trinkets and baubles affixed to it. Echoing Caelynn in what sounds to be the same voice, she says ""Hi there. I'm Trill." 

Taking the note, you read:

Frila's master recently died, and we didn't know what to do with her, so I decided to give her to you as part of your payment for helping the city yesterday.

~Blackskull

Inside the note is a small slip of paper. It contains all the instructions on how to use the Keystone you were given. On it, you can find instructions for killing the slave, burning the slave, silencing the slave, moving the slave, and freeing slave. All you have to do is punch in a certain sequence of runes on the Keystone.

"You’re  not my slave! ", Trill says in a deep rumble.

As a precaution, she'll blot out all of the instructions except that for freeing the slave. "I think... should split two... the rooms.", she says in what the party would recognize as Jimjar's voice, as she looks meaningfully towards the stairs.

Now that she's read the instructions, Caelynn will once again try to gently take the disc from Oak, moving slowly so he knows what she's doing and can stop her at any time. If he lets her, she punches in the sequence of runes that will remove the collar.

Aimon, a slim, 6'0", half elf with bronze skin and coppery hair, who appeared to have fallen asleep at the table opens his green eyes at all of the commotion. He blinks a couple of times and then sighs. He stands and comes around to join the others with new arrival and the instruction sheet. He sighs and tries smoothing down his clothes as he moves. The clothes were valuable at one point but they've seen too much hard travel and fighting to be much more than serviceable now.

"I don't remember agreeing to slaves as payment," Aimon says. 

He cocks his head as he looks at Frila. "So Frila, is it? You might be safer hanging out with a different crowd than us. If we free you, do you have any where to go?"

Trill, realizing that Caelynn can't hear her, jots out a note.

Would it be better to do this in privacy rather than in the common room where it might be noticed, remembered or questioned?

She also inspects the instructions, trying to check their authenticity, and make sure that nothing has been changed recently. If the codes had been switched, things could get messy.

Investigation: 11 (she's also practiced at forgeries, if that applies.)

Oak releases the control-tablet to Caelynn, making sure she’s got a good hold before he lets go! ((OOC: the last one of these he knocked out of the owners hand started ‘cooking’ the slave it was attached to!!)).

He will watch, as she inputs the code, slowly squinting more and more, hoping it goes to plan...

Oak puts a gentle hand on Caelynn’s shoulder before she keys in any codes, and points at Trills note, then gestures around the room shaking his head. He makes a ‘come come’ gesture and makes to stand up, nodding over at Trill and Aimon and the others.

Deciding that it is best of they take shelter from curious eyes, the party seeks out their rooms on the level below them. After walking down the flight of stairs in the corner of the tavern, you walk in the short tunnel before coming to the door of your suite. You push open the door after unlocking it, and you appear to be in a common room of sorts that has 4 doors that you assume lead to bedrooms. The 30 by 30 room appears to be made of a fine dark wood. The trimmings have very small but detailed adamantine inlays that spiral and twist. A stone fireplace on the far wall has a fire blazing brightly inside that illuminates and warms the room against the chill of the night. On the red painted walls on both sides of the fireplace are fine porcelain plates  resting on racks set into the walls for decoration. A maroon rug covers most of the waxed wooden floor. Two cozy, white couches are set in front of the fireplace at an angle. To your left in the corner is a small wooden table several chairs surrounding it. To your right is a large China hutch filled with a variety of gemstones set on display. Everything has been put back into its proper place while you were gone.

Closing the door behind them, Caelynn carefully begins to punch in a series of runes set into the Keystone after Trill verifies that they haven't been altered in any way. As she does, corresponding runes on the collar begin to blink until with a hiss and popping sound, the collar around Frila's neck detaches and falls to the ground with a loud clunk as it gouges the wooden floor. The feeling of cool air against Frila's neck feels wonderful, but not as wonderful as the feeling of freedom rushing through her. Freed at last!

Jimjar plops down into the couch as this all happens, but the others stay near the party.

((OOC: @DM - would it have been an hour of deafness for Oak yet, or not quite? Just checking so he makes the appropriate RP reactions etc. Thanks))

Aimon watches the collar fall to the floor. Curious, he goes and picks it up and looks at the workings.

"Trill," he calls over, "is there anything in the instructions about changing codes or anything like that? Or how to arm it?"

He turns it over in his hands a couple of times.

"Might come in handy if we really need to persuade someone to cooperate," he says then pauses. "It won't explode on it's own will it?"

While he turns it over in his hands some more, he's really keeping an eye on the new comer. Finally he looks directly over at her.

"So what's your story?" Aimon asks. "You're not a spy for Blackskull are you?" 

Now that the pressing issue of the collar has been dealt with, Caelynn unwraps the bundle to see what's inside it.

Frila finally was able to speak

"aaahhhh freedom!!" she said as she streched her arms
She was of average height with almost yellow eyes that almost gave the impression they glowed, and white, almost snow-color like hair.
Frila´s armor was a bit worn out,it didn´t gave much protection, more of symbolic meaning, while all that was protecting her was a chain mail, but it could still be seen it was once a white armor with 2 golden emblems, as worn out if not more as the rest of her armor, one on her front another on her back
In her armor there was also a place to put both her shield and her rapier but she only used it to place the rapier since her shield was always on her hand
She jumped several times to strech her legs.
"Thank you all! spy for the blackskull? I was once caught because i went after a bandit camp while screaming you think i am suited for spy work?" she smiled
"And where is my swo... where is my...?" She puts her hands on her hair and moves it alot, finally a small gold coin drops "mine! aahh welcome back"
She hold the coin like it was everything she had
She stood up, put her hands in her belly and slowly bended her torso as a sign of thanks

Aimon smiles and gives a little nod and a shrug.

"Well if you hang out with us for very long, you may decide freedom isn't all it's cracked out to be," Aimon says. "We've managed to become entangled with a revolutionary plot, a demon prince, possibly a fey queen, and there may or may not be a drow sorcerer looking for us."

Aimon moves over and sits down next to Jimjar. And then he looks down at the wounds and bruises he got from the undead screamers.

"And we end up with a lot of things wanting to stab us or suck the life out of us."

He nudges Jimjar and asks, "Everything okay with you?"

Opening the parcel reveals that it is a bundle of old personal belongings. You assume that these were Frila's.

As you plop down next to Jimjar and ask him your question, he flips his coin high in the air before saying with a witty grin, "It may sound surprising, but I've just been thinking lately. Ya know, about all this demon nonsense. I heard a while ago that Menzobarrenzen was all but destroyed by a demon, but no other cities have been damaged badly. Just wondering why that one was so badly damaged."