A knock at the door broke everyone out of their annoyed chit-chat. Naya rushed to open it, revealing one of their lawyers, Krog, stood on the other side. He seemed so much smaller here than he was in his own office. The cramped hallways and drawing rooms of the lawyers office made this already tall and gruff man seem to be an absolute giant. Here, where the rooms were designed for human comfort, he seemed much less imposing.
“We drew straws on which one of us got to visit you at the tower. I drew the short straw, and I couldn’t be more delighted. I love my coworkers, but the house is built for halflings, and a halfling I am not.”
“Oh, uh, welcome on in then?” Naya said, glancing at everyone else. “We know him, right?” She mouthed over to Mavec, who sat closest to the door.
“He’s one of our lawyers,” Mavec responded out loud.
“My apologies, I’m Krog. Of Abal, Feng, and Krog. Figured everyone here knew us by reputation, if nothing else,” he said as he walked in. Krog was only average height and weight for a middle-aged orc; Illaria stood slightly taller than him. He had the look of a lawyer, wearing a brown and almost frumpy suit. “Anyway, I have some good news for you today! We’ve settled the issue of your tax bill with the city government. In total, you owe them about thirty gold. As for us, we are owed five more gold. I’d call that a pretty sound investment, seeing as they had you down for thirty thousand.” He smiled very wide.
“Whoo,” Mavec said, devoid of any emotion. Alvec walked forward and extended his hand to shake.
“Forgive my companion, this is most excellent news, and we’re very excited,” Alvec said.
“Well, Mavec sure isn’t,” Krog said.
“You’ll have to forgive him; we’ve encountered some difficulty. He’s dead set on getting us registered for the Festival of Blades, but we don’t exactly have the money for the registration fee,” Alvec informed him.
“We have a few thousand gold between the lot of us, certainly not enough to pay entrance, and all of our efforts have been for naught,” Illaria stated.
Naya sank onto the ground and used Echo as a pillow. “It sucks. I wanted to fight! I think Pacta will be here with the Red Banner army,” Naya stated. “I know I beat her at Cellocht's party, but I don’t know if I could do that outside of one-on-one combat.”
“So what I’m hearing is that you guys need a way to make some money fast,” Krog said as he sat at the table, stroking his chin.
“Have you thought about going onto Throne Land and reclaiming salvage?” he asked.
“Thought that was illegal; our run-in with the Gold Banner Army had them threatening legal action because of that very thing,” Mavec replied.
“I’ll have you know he was wrong in your case. The items you recovered were not part of the original survey; they were items abandoned on the Throne Land after the survey. Making them abandoned property and not the property of the throne. You’d be perfectly fine to take such things if you could find a suitable site.”
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“Bait already know where we go. VALLEY OF STEAM, Ben says so! Make special cheese!”
“Huh,” Krog said as he paused for a moment. “I think your goblin friend might be onto something.”
“What do you mean?” Alvec asked.
“If memory serves,” Krog began as he tapped a finger to his chin. “The academy sent a fairly large expedition into the valley of steam. I don’t know what they were there to study or the results of their expedition. Still, I know that it was abandoned, and due to the difficulties of accessing the site, a large amount of equipment was left behind. Considering the thermal activity there, you may easily find some enchanted items. Those alone would fetch a good amount of money. Perhaps enough if sold back to the academy to make it worth your trip out there.”
“How far away is the Valley of Steam? We’ve only got about two weeks to get there and back,” Naya said.
“About four or so days travel from here. If you leave tonight, you should be able to make it so long as you only stay a few days there. If we swing by the office, I might have a map noting the approximate location of the abandoned worksite. They filed a rather hefty loss on their taxes to the city that year with us. It won’t be precise, but it should be helpful,” Krog said.
“What do we think, guys? Want to race against the clock to recover some abandoned gear and sell it back to the same dopes that lost it in the first place?” Alvec asked.
“Not really seeing much else of a choice. How else will we get that kind of money in any reasonable time frame?” Mavec asked.
“Alrighty then, everyone suit up; we leave as soon as we get this map from Krog,” Illaria said.
“Copy of the map; I’d be in hot water if the original disappeared. Record keeping and all that,” Krog said.
“Understood, a copy is more than fine by us,” Alvec said as he rushed to gather his pack and restock his bandolier with alchemical items.
“Shouldn’t we go speak to people at the academy, find out what they were investigating over there?” Mavec asked.
“Do you really think we have time for that?” Naya responded.
“No, let's just get over there and recover their left behind equipment,” Mavec said.
“If you don’t mind, I’ll excuse myself and go find that map,” Krog said before he made a beeline to his place just down the street. The rest of the party finished tidying things up. Serali was informed that they would be out of town for a few days and gifted all the extra coin she might need to feed the colony of cats who lived in and around the tower.
With that done, the group headed off to the lawyer's office. Illaria opted to wait outside; like Krog, she could appreciate wanting to stay out of the house. The rest of the group squeezed into the dwelling and the drawing room with Krog. He already had it laid out on the table and was copying some of his notes from it onto a brand-new map. “You can pay me for the map later. We keep extras on hand for just such occasions.” Only a few moments later, he passed the maps off to Alvec. “I hope they serve you well and that this is more than a fool's errand. I don’t think many people know about the academy's expedition there, so I doubt it's been pilfered through already.”
“Thank you very much, Krog. You might have just done so right by me; I can’t put it into words. If we find what we need, I’ll have to buy you a drink,” Mavec said as he squeezed back out towards the door. Being around Bait was tolerable so long as you were upwind of him in this cramped space; well, he didn’t want to stand next to the walking garbage heap.
The group slowly filed out, saying their goodbyes to Krog and beginning to make their way back outside the walls of Sha-Laial. It was already somewhat late in the evening, but some light was still left to burn, and they didn’t have time to waste. They could travel a bit by torchlight or basic spells if needed. Whatever got them closer to reaching the valley of steam as quickly as they could.