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Message: <blockquote data-quote="arwink" data-source="post: 1855727" data-attributes="member: 2292">Gerbo adjusted his glasses, staring down at the print on the paper. A stubby finger stabbed at a line on the fourth scroll, underlined faintly with a slash of red ink.“Here it is,” he said.  “My, completely forgot about this clause.”“What clause little person?”Tovartich was starting to get belligerent.“The tavern, and all profits it makes, are indeed yours,” Gerbo explains.  “But beneath the tavern is an area labeled the legacy, which is to be passed on only when you have proven yourself worthy of the Company and their Deeds.”“Who decides that then?” Hop asks.  “Seems a bit vague, doesn’t it?”“Well, yes,” Gerbo says.  “It says here that there must be an agreement between two men.  The first is the current Baron Kislev, the second is Master Paryn down in the bar.”Gerbo looks up from the papers, placing his glasses back in the pocket of his vest.  None of the young people standing around him look particularly pleased.“I’m afraid you’ll have to impress both men if you want what’s underneath the tavern.  Otherwise those rooms, and all its contents, are to administered for the good of the community as Master Paryn sees fit.”***It’s six in the morning, and Evanna is not in bed.  She’s not entirely sure she follows the logic of it, but rather than sleeping off her first few glasses of ale, she’s instead walking along a dirt road looking at the furry back of the gnoll. Somewhere up the trail, Hop and Tavoritch are checking for potential ambush by goblin forces.  Hop has his bow out, a fist-full of arrows clenched in his hand.  Tavoritch just keeps the big axe handy, his long hair tied back to keep it from falling into his face while fighting.This, apparently, is the best way to impress Master Paryn.  Getting out of bed, and making a foray into a den of monsters the locals call the Caves of Chaos.  It wasn’t exactly enough to get the one-eyed barman to smile, or even be nice, but he did hand over a few potions of healing and mumble something about making sure they didn’t die.On the whole Evanna can’t help feeling it would be better to sell the tavern and be done with whatever is underneath it, but the gleam in her companions eyes says that’s never going to happen.  Hop is suddenly next to her, a hand on her arm.  She snaps out of her haze, noticing for the first time that everyone is readying weapons.“Just up there,” Hop says, pointing to a fork in the path.  “It leads into a valley with caves across its walls.  Floor full o’ bones and markings on the wall in goblin.  Probably the place.”“How many caves?” Evanna asks.  She flashes back to Paryn’s warnings that there are goblins and kobolds in the lower caves, but much worse creatures as well.  Goblins she can handle, a lifetime in Fort Doom does that, but she knows enough to be scared of the word bugbears even if the others do not.“Thirteen or so,” Hop explains in a whisper.  “It’ll be daylight in a few minutes, so most o’ them should be asleep.  We’re going to sneak into the first cave we come across.”“Then what?”“Then, little babushka, we kill the monsters inside,” Tovaritch says.  He’s tightening his arm greaves.  Grroulth just flashes her a canine smile, taking experimental swings with his axe.</blockquote>

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