"Aye, some say the stars can tell a man his fortune," Zandeyr offers, glancing at Gintarou and signing his name without reading.  "Others believe they can lure us into an early grave.  Like siren's song.  I've known sailors who refused to set a foot on ship if the sky's wrong, for fear they'd be lost at sea.  More's the pity."

He smirks, glancing at Gitarou's bowl.  "But if you ask me, the truest tragedy is eating oatmeal with chopsticks."

Seated by a window staring out in the direction of the coast is a blue skinned elven woman restlessly tugging at her long braid of seaweed green hair. It takes her a moment to notice the half-orc had motioned to her having been lost in thoughts of the sea, but she finally stands and follows the others into the office, as she walks the short sword on her hip lightly taps against her leather armor. Druquilla adjusts the quiver of arrows and longbow on her shoulder as she listens to the half-orc describe the job.

“If it gets me off dry land and back on a boat I am in,” Druquilla states stepping up to sign the contract.

Aubric recoils a bit from the halflings touch. He then speaks with the deep voice of a dwarf but the accent and vocabulary is strictly elvish. "Please don't touch my face, that's very rude." 

"I, for one, am excited to meet this stargazer. Who knows what secrets he's seen looking into the heavens" 

"Don't mean to be rude or nothing. Just not everyday you happen upon a beardless dwarf! Is it a family thing or were you cursed by an evil wizard or some such?"

Quickly either losing interest or forgetting what he was doing, the halfling turns and stumbles toward the office door. He stops in the doorway, leaning a hand against it to steady himself, and looks back with an expectant expression.

"Right, then. You all coming or are we to spend the rest of the day baking cookies and getting to know each other?"

As he exits, he sees Zenix standing and waiting. He scowls, blows a raspberry, and makes a rude gesture as he walks by.

"Fari!" he yells to the barkeep. "How's about one more for the road? We've got a job to do and one must needs grease the gears for peak efficiency, you know?"

Fair gets you your last drink.

(Game pace, trying to keep the game moving, in the morning if there is nothing else that needs to be addressed I will post the next part, going to see Cindrail)

Jumping down off his perch Kraven heads towards the door, "Cookies do sound nice, just make sure to sprinkle a few mouse bits onto mine. I will join you right outside, have to go back to my room and grab my pack and supplies. See you all shortly, this adventure should prove interesting." With that, Kraven will hop/fly over Mis'tuv's head and then head to his room.

"While I am not one for sweets I do think getting to know the crew you are going to be working with is always a good idea," Druquilla states looking down at the halfling she then turns back to Zarod. "Any idea what it is we are going to be looking for or will we just find out form Cendrail?"

"Just something to do with helping find the star.  He is always vague pay of why people hate working for him." Zarod answers.

Goodbye Zarod, says the dwarf in orcish as he is leaving the office.

Did someone say cookies? My auntie  used to bake a wonderful cookies. Anyway, lets wait for our falcon companion and lets meet this old man.

>>Zandeyr

"Prophecy doesn't kill people. Fate does. And only idiots kill the messenger"  The young warrior nods. He looks down at his empty bowl with a sad look. "I imagined eating white rice. I'm Gintarou. I came from Touwa. The island at the far east side of the World. In my homeland, I can eat rice whenever I want. But here, if I want to have a bowl of white rice, I have to go to an expensive restaurant wearing fancy clothes and shining shoes. Which I don't have. And even if I can afford the money, I will never get proper Miso here!" Gintarou turns around and walks to the office door. "Speaking about local foods makes me hungry again. Let's go to the tower. I wish the prophet is generous enough to serve us tea and cakes"

>>Zarod, Kraven

"Be assured Zarod-dono. I don't betray clients as long as they don't betray me first"

The warrior darts his eyes to the short Aarakocra. But he doesn't say anything and goes to collect his equipment.

Zenix was reading a questionable book before he noticed some of the others from the office heading outside, "Finally, some of you know how to move quickly. When will the other cuckoo's be out?"

In the light, it was easier to see his apparel of choice. Like a Thief, he wore black pants, black boots, and a white shirt with many leather straps around it. However, his most notable item was his black cloak 'n robes, inscribed with abyssal psalms. He kept his hood down and he wore the sleeves. 

"I believe you're mispronouncing 'cookies,' Mr. Tall, Dark, and Spooky. We aren't actually having dessert..." The halfling drains the second half of his ale and reaches up to put the empty glass on the bar and shakes his head.

"Sheesh, where do they find these people and why are they all obsessed with sweets??" he asks under his breath and then walks back to Zenix.

Putting his free hand in the air expectantly for a handshake he says, "Looks like we'll be tolerating each other for a bit. Suppose I can manage if the payout's worthwhile. Didn't catch your name a minute ago while you were shoving me aside like a common brute. Name's Mis'tuv but folks've taken to calling me 'Mist,' if it's easier on the tongue. You can call me 'when we're ready to leave,' if you catch my drift." Mist chuckles, winks, and waits for a handshake, acknowledgement, or a reaction of any kind.

Looking up from his book for just a second, he scans the halfling ever so briefly before shaking his hand, "Zenikusu Xezo..." For a moment, he let his guard down, "Been a while since someone cared to ask... Well, I guess you assumed that from my nonexistent social skills..." He sighed briefly.

You all walk together to the tower, the trip is short, once you arrive you see a small wall around the tower, not tall enough to really keep anyone out or in, but there are signs that caution people from entering due to danger.  The tower itself stands about 10 floors high, with a doomed top.  The stones that make it up are covered with plant life that climb upward.  You find the small gate, which is even open and enter the tower’s yard.  Knocking on the large wooden doors calls to the young woman who had met with Zarod.  

“Welcome to Cendril’s tower, he is up in his testing chambers, please follow me.”  You walk through a hallway, into a center chamber, in this chamber there is one more door in front of you, and then a set of stairs that start next to the entryway.  The stairs circle their way up, and she starts to lead after one full rotation around there is another door and then a door every quarter of a turn.  Most doors are plain wooden doors, some have artwork on them, or magical runes, others are made of stone, some knobs look to have a lock on them.  The door you stop at is made of stone and has magical runes on it, there is more than 1 knob, and each looks to have it’s own lock on it.  Beni reaches for one of the knobs that has a rune on it, as she reaches it starts to turn a deep dark green color that starts to pulse, she then mutters a word that none of you understand, and the rune turns blue in color, she then grabs the knob turns it and pushes the door open.

In the room stands an old man, his hair is wispy and white as is his beard, he wears a green robe.  In his hand is a potion vial with what looks like 3 different liquids in it, in the other hand is another vial with a singular liquid in it, as he prepares to pour the new liquid in he sticks out his tongue, curls his lower lip in, then pulls his tounge back in and bits his lip as a drop falls in.

Think of Young Frankenstein when reading his voice.  “Yes” the old man says

Then a second second drop,”YES!” again,a third drop and too quickly a fourth drop. “Ohhhh no, ohhh no!!!” and he runs to the window in the side of the room and hurls the potion vial out, as he turns to run away from the window he eyes every and yells “DOWN!”, as he dives to the floor himself.  

As he drops to the floor there comes a loud explosion from out the window, dropping or not everyone is fine, and Cendril gets to his feet wiping his robe off, he then grabs a walking stick and comes to shake each of your hands while introducing himself to everyone together. “Hello, hello, hello I am Cendril the Stargazer.” each of you getting a single word with his handshake.  “Now that that disaster is over.”  He turns to Beni and asks “Will you write out for me 4 drops too much, put three drops alone, then add mix to drops.”  Turning back to the group he thinks before thinking, “trying to find a quicker way to mine for a… friend.  Now back this way.”  and he pushes his way through the group and back out the door, and starts to walk up the stairs, you reach the last door, this one made of metal, with locks and mechanisms on it.  Cindril pulls a few things, pushes a few, and twists a few knobs, in what seems to be a random before pushing the door open.  And before you is yet another flight of stairs that lead up.  When you get to the top of the stairs you are in an open doomed room.  There is a section of the doom that is able to open and close, that is currently open, a wooden railing goes around the opening from the staircase.  This railing has little desk nooks that jet out with papers permanently attached to them.  In the center there is an Orrery made of copper, while hard to tell if you watch it for a long enough time you can see that it is moving at a slow pace.  There are 8 cut nooks each with a table and bench each table has a few papers and odds and ends scattered over them.  One table specifically is extremely messy with papers, and a few smaller Orrerys on it.. This booth is next to a 9th nook which does not have a table, rather it has a telescope.  The floors have beautiful tile work that includes stars on in.

Cendril walks to the mess of the table and pushes papers around, then pulls one up.  It has a date range that falls into when the star fell, and a date that is a little over a year old, he then hands it off to Gintarou without even really looking, then picks up one of the Orrerys and starts talking.  “I predicted it would come.”  He then starts to turn a knob on the Orrery, then stops.  “Right here, this is the combination that I think allows a star to fall and hit.  I knew it would come, and I was right.”  He smiles what might have been a toothy grin, had he had all his teeth.  He continues before anyone can speak.  “So I have been looking for something.  You see…”  and he trails off as he grabs a book from his table and opens it to a page, shows you a picture of a fractured star, then flips a hand full of pages before showing you another page that looks almost the same, then again and again, a total of 12 pages he shows you all looking to be the same thing, each having different shaped pieces of a broken star.  “You see when it gets close it breaks, and shatters.”  He sets down the Orrery and picks up a small plaster ball and squeezes it and throws it as it breaks.  “Now just like that, the pieces go all over the place. And I think I know how to find them.  I sent an old colleague of mine to find something that might help in finding the star fragments, but he has not been back, and it's been over a month.  About a day's walk north from the farms there should be an old temple, and inside there should be what's called the Astral Compass.  That is what I am looking for.  Anything else you find in the old temple is yours to keep.”  He stops talking hands you and map showing a marked area to the north east, he then starts waves his hands as he gives the instructions “Go, go, go.  You can go now, or is there something you're waiting for?"

"Well, Mr. Zeezoh, as we say back home: 'Social skills, shmoshal shmills!'" Mist smiles broadly. "It all boils down to not pissing off the wrong person. The trick is knowing who the wrong person might be! But that takes some skill in...uh...social...settings..." He trails off. "You know, I just realized why they call it that. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it!"

Mist sits on his pack at Zenix's feet to wait for the others, lost in thought.

EDIT: Sorry for the late hit. Got sidetracked with real work mid-post. :)

Aubric tries to take in as many details as he can from his surroundings. "What was that potion you were mixing up, I didn't recognize it?"

"Yeah! What No-Touchy-Face said!" Mist interjects. "And does it only work with human blood? Seems like that could provide for some entertaining circumstances," he laughs.

Eyes narrowing as he looks at the old kook, it occurs to him to ask, "Say now, this old temple of yours? It wouldn't happen to be currently occupied by friendly clergy what would hand this doodad over when asked, would it? I don't supposed you'd be needing help from the likes of us if it all boiled down to a simple jaunt out of town and back. What's waiting for us what would warrant paying a group of rough-and-tumbles to do the job instead of sending your Beni out? We'd best be well-informed and prepared lest you have to wait for another band of merry adventurers to come along after assuming our fate meets that of your 'old colleague.'"

Mist crosses his arms and waits for a response.

"You really expected this to not be a dangerous job?" Zenix turned to Mist, "Why else would they ask the guys who look like professionals?"

"It's a new one, of my own creation, but its not working right... Yet."  Cendril Answers, I would assume the question is asked while walking up the stairs.

@shadow1784 I do it too some times, its why I try and get my longer posts typed out in a word doc and then transfer it over, that and to make sure I don't have spelling mistakes.  One time I didn't check in my other game and had to go take out everything I pasted. 

So as I pointed out I like to make sure I don't misspell things, and I did the whole time, the name is Cendrail, sorry about that, and here is a visual reference.

https://imgur.com/a/zCsXb52