Hurrying behind Umraecyl, you exit the walled compound into the square. Across the way, the denizens of the bazaar have gathered into a small crowd near the entrance to a large tent. Over the entrance is a wooden sign on a pole, showing an anvil beneath a crossed sword and axe; a common symbol for a dealer in weapons and armor. From the center of the crowd comes the voice of a very angry dwarf in full cry.
"Give it back, ye cursed abomination! Yer a thief and a cheat and I'll crush ye where ye stand!"
"I stole nothing. All that you see is my own legal property, dwarf." the response comes. The voice is... disturbing. Despite its even, reasonable tone and cultured accent, it has a hollow ring, alien and harsh.
"What is this! Who dares disturb the peace of my bazaar?" Umraecyl thunders. He gathers a pair of burly guards with his eyes and shoulders his way effortlessly through the crowd. Following in his wake, you can see the principals.
The dwarf is typical enough of his kind, grizzled and crag-faced, brows clenched furiously together. He wears mirror-polished scale armor with a faint red nimbus, and large, ash-blackened fists clutch a huge two-handed hammer, the head of which glows white and shimmers like an intensely hot fire.
Across from him in the circle formed by the crowd is a skeleton, dressed in rich red robes, comically belted above the hips with a silver chain. From the chain hangs a beautiful ornamented eating dagger, obviously of dwarven make. On the skeleton's bleached forehead, above the empty eye sockets, is a familiar brand: a circle with inward-curved spikes inside and out. A faint trickle of smoke wafts lazily up from the brand. The skeleton is flanked by two hulking zombies staring mindlessly ahead, their rotting flesh too decrepit to determine what creature they were in life.
The dwarf turns. "Umraecyl. Ye know I've banned this unholy thing from buyin' my wares. I swore he'd never lay a finger bone on the work of these two hands. And now here he comes, paradin' around the square, my own handiwork on his belt! It's an unholy outrage, and an affront to the forge god, and I mean to crush him where he stands, if he don't give it back!"
Umraecyl responds heatedly. "You'll crush no one in my bazaar, Gribble. I don't care what he did, these are my lands and my rules apply. Now put that hammer down or you'll never sell another rusty nail here again."
Gribble argues back, "Yer rules also say no stealin', but there he stands, my knife hangin' from his belt! What about that?"
Umraecyl does not look aside, but locks eyes with the dwarf. "I'll get to that, right after you put that hammer down. Or after I take it from you and throw you out of these caves. Whichever."
There is a tense moment as the hushed crowd waits, expecting action, but Gribble looks away and hurls the hammer down, where it sinks a foot deep into the packed dirt, head smoking. He takes a step back and folds his arms, chin thrust out defiantly.
Umraecyl, without relaxing, turns to the skeleton. "Well? What have you to say?"
"I purchased this dagger legitimately. I stole nothing. I have no need of theft, as you well know." The skeleton's face is fixed in the permanent mocking grin of death, but his voice sounds unworried and even a bit smug.
Umraecyl raises a skeptical brow. "Do you deny that this is Gribble's work? He says he did not sell it to you."
"Naturally not. I purchased it from the half-elf Peliax, who calls himself Moonsong. Where he acquired it, I neither know nor care."
"That's a damn lie," Gribble interjects. "I never sold it to Peliax! What's more..."
A cough behind him interrupts Gribble, and a younger dwarf speaks in embarrassed tones. "Uh, boss... I, uh... Well, when you were away from the shop yesterday..." He looks aside from Gribble's fierce glare.
Umraecyl sighs. "Gribble, it sounds like a legitimate purchase. If Peliax bought this knife from you, it's his to do with as he pleases. You know that."
Gribble, face like a thundercloud, turns the skeleton. "May Zephos consign what's left of yer soul to his deepest hells fer a hundred lifetimes."
"When my master's inevitable triumph arrives, I shall ask him to give you to me as a gift," the skull counters coolly.
"I'll die first!"
"That will not be an obstacle."
Gribble turns and storms back into his tent, looking as if he wished there were a door to slam. The crowd begins to drift away, and the younger dwarf busies himself trying to pry the smoking hammer out of the ground.
Umraecyl turns to the skeleton and continues, in tones that still betray stress and discomfort, though without the edge of immediate threat of a moment before. "Lyrial, I don't care how much money you have to throw around, I cannot have you disrupting my bazaar. Gribble has been a partner for many years; his store is a fixture here, and I nearly had to throw him out today because of your petty prank."
"I merely..."
"Don't patronize me. You clearly put Peliax up to it, probably funded the purchase yourself. That bard can't hold on to ten silvers for longer than it takes to find the nearest cask of ale, let alone the price of one of Gribble's masterpieces. And what do the undead need with eating daggers, hmm? If you want to stay here long enough to bid on the Urn, stop causing trouble. And don't tell me what will happen when your master comes to power; I don't care," he adds quickly as the grinning mouth opens again.
"As you say. I shall return to my quarters for now. Fare well, while yet you can." The skeleton sweeps away toward the dimly lit caverns with his entourage.
