Not long after, Seyrilypsis comes to pick up the group at the gates to accompany them to Findire’s family mansion. Instead of going up the steps to the main entrance, she leads them to a door on the side. ‘For reasons that will soon become apparent, Lord Talthanryl has requested that your arrival be discreet.’ She seems annoyed, but not at the group. They enter into a dimly lit parlor, where Findire is waiting on a fancy chair. He welcomes the group, and asks how the city has been treating them. Annori: ‘The bath house is nice, though the sign at the front is very confusing.’ Findire shakes Raidens hand, whom he had only seen in passing until now, and then explains that he has a job to offer them. He’d like for them to attend the gala, and bring some sort of public humiliation on his sister and her new partner. Ara immediately asks: ‘Is that the partner who cheated on you?’. Fin confirms. He’d like for them to face the kind of discomfort they put him through, without it being traced back to him, and for the city to find something else to latch on to in order to forget about The Incident™. Kevin is hesitant — humiliating someone doesn’t sound very nice, and he doesn’t feel like it’s something he wants to be a part of. Annori asks how much the pay is. Fin assures Kevin that he wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t warranted, and that no one should get hurt. He offers a payment of 5.000 gold pieces. Raiden has a spontaneous nosebleed. Kevin mumbles that maybe he could write an embarrassing limerick… ‘How long do you need people to be talking about this?’ asks Annori. ‘Just until the next big thing comes along,’ says Fin. Ara wants more details, and Fin remarks that he seemed to already have a firm grasp of the situation. Ara confirms that there’s two targets for this job, and notes that the pay should be doubled, then. Fin holds Ara’s gaze for several seconds, grins a wolf-like grin and says: ‘I could go up to 6.000’. Raiden makes an involuntary noise and quickly turns around to “take a closer look at some of the decorations on the walls”.
Annori asks if there’s anything more they should know about their targets. She wonders which of the group would be most likely to pass as his sister’s ex. Fin tells Annori that she would be most her type, though Ara would likely also get good results. He promises to arrange to have them all dressed appropriately for the gala. ‘So, are you interested?’ Annori, excited to finally wear a fancy dress and always up for causing some chaos, confirms she’s in. Raiden mentions that he’s on Friend Parole, so he doesn’t think he gets a vote. ‘He’s in,’ says Annori. Kevin seems torn between his morals and the allure of this truly ridiculous amount of money. Ara is offended that money was brought up at all, and that they had to be smuggled in through the back door. He resents being treated as an employee rather than a friend. Annori leans in to Fin and whispers ‘He just wants you to ask him as his date.’ Fin: ‘I know, I just want to hear him say it.’ Instead there is a highly awkward back-and-forth where both Ara and Fin dance around the subject, until Nori screams ‘JUST ASK HIM OUT ALREADY!’ and frustratedly walks off to the other side of the room. Findire says that it’s up to Ara to decide if he wants to come as his employee or his date. He then asks Kevin if he’s in. Kevin has made up his mind: humiliating people is not his style, and while he doesn’t object to the others taking the job, he’d rather not be a part of it. Findire respects his decision and offers to get him his own proper invitation to the gala, as the famous bard he is. Ara notes that Kevin is truly the only noble person in this room. Fin: ‘Haha! Yes! Though not by blood.’
Nothing will be put in writing, since it’s important that this plan can’t be traced back to Fin, but he will give them an advance of 2.000 GP. He also hands them a sending stone to keep in touch, that he extends towards Ara but gets scooped up by Annori. Turning to Raiden, Fin asks what he did to be on ‘Friend Parole’. Raiden is quite thrown off by the question, especially since the whole thing has yet to be discussed at all since his return, so he just mumbles something about having said some stuff that wasn’t entirely true, and done some things that weren’t entirely nice. A: ‘The understatement of the century.’
Speaking of noble blood, Annori recalls that her mother used to say she was a princess. Findire is very interested in this, but Annori doesn’t know which noble house she could have belonged to. She was very young when she lost them, after all.
With mountains of gold on the horizon, Annori notes that they won’t need that performance at the tavern anymore. Kevin realizes he never even asked permission to perform there, and wonders if the people they invited earlier today would be mad that it’s canceled. Raiden wonders why they don’t just perform anyway, since they spent all that time practicing. So Kevin and Annori perform their lovely duet right there in the parlor!
Findire then recommends an up-and-coming tailor in the Eastern Garden, whom he suspects may not be there for much longer. He hands them a piece of paper that should take care of the bill. As the group leaves the way they came, Fin halts Ara at the door for a moment. ‘To be clear, it is absolutely my intention to take you on a proper date soon, if that is something you want.’ Ara: ‘I’ve been told I do want that.’ Walking back through the Radiant Gardens, Raiden drily says to Ara: ‘So… if you’re not dating this man, can I?’ A: ‘You can try, but you’d be dead.’
Suddenly, Annori gasps and exclaims: ‘XADRYNK! We completely forgot about him!’ She feels awful about leaving him behind while they had promised to drop him off at the academy. Raiden remarks that he should be more than capable of getting there himself, now that he’s not a toad anymore, but if she wants to go check on him he knows where to go. So they head towards the Academy district, which is almost like its own little city inside the city. At the front desk, Raiden inquires about where they might find a student named Xadrynk. The person at the desk remarks that his return yesterday caused quite a stir here, and asks if they were the ones who found him. Annori confirms that Xadrynk was indeed a toad when they happened upon him. A random passerby says: ‘Serves him right.’ The group acquires two addresses: one for Xadrynk’s new residence (his original one was forfeited to another student when he was away), and one for the lab he uses for his potion making, where they might also find his thesis director, Myer Rick. They decide to try the lab first.
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