Your eyes are inevitably drawn to the massive dragon skull that hangs from the ceiling. You can’t help but wonder how the blazes Auberon managed to drag that thing all the way here. If the size alone wasn’t enough to intimidate the average observer, you’d swear it was somehow snarling. Something tucked behind one of the teeth catches your eye. The half-elf wizard, Ianstaer, is standing directly beneath the skull, clutching his staff with both hands and eyeing you with suspicion.
You crane your neck to try to get a glimpse of the object tucked behind the tooth of the dragon skull, but you can’t quite manage to get a good enough view. You don’t have any of your more specialized equipment with you, or scaling up to the ceiling would be a breeze. Perhaps there’s another way…
As you approach the young wizard, he takes a rapid step back, thrusting forward the staff in his left hand, pointing it towards you as it begins to glow red with magic.
“Whoa there, ‘friend’, were you sneaking up on me? Just try and stick me in the back with a dagger like what happened to Auberon, and I’ll light you up with a fireball so bright the under-dark will see it!”
As you assure Ianstaer that you mean no harm, he relaxes a little, lowering his staff and stepping in closer.
“Sorry about that, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but… well, I wouldn’t exactly paint you as the most upstanding citizen of the realm. On top of that, I’m already a bit on edge. If someone could take out Auberon like that… well, they would probably make easy work out of any one of us, even I can admit that. We need to figure this out quickly before whoever it is strikes again!
We can all agree that I’m the smartest one here, which is why I think I’ve got it narrowed down. Federic the Fool? No, he’s neither clever nor skilled enough to pull something like this off. I’m thinking it’s either that Infernal sorceress, Chastity or whatever her name is, or that too-polite halfling thief, Finnian. The sorceress came from pretty far away to be here, suspiciously far, Esmer I think is where she’s from. Would she really come all this way just to celebrate the birthday of an old flame? As for Finnian, I’ll let you in on a little secret – the halfling knows magic. A high-level wizard like me can tell, can’t you? I’d wager the killer is definitely someone who can wield a spell or two, how else might they have cast that darkness? Of course, I’m a magic user myself, but if I did it then why would I be telling you all this?
Let me be clear though, and this goes for you and anyone else who might be listening in, if someone comes after me they better come with everything they’ve got, or the last thing they’ll see will be the deadly green of my glowing staff as I blast them to the nether-realms with one of my famous fireballs!”
