A strange-sounding bell rings when Maugra opens the door on Dalenguard Road, and breathes in the musty air of the Delver's Guild Library and Maproom.
Looking up, she sees the bell is actually an ancient pitted and rusted helmet, ruined by an axe blow to the face of whoever once wore it.
"Can I, ah, help you?" a whistling, nasal voice asks.
Vanden points when she has trouble locating its source: a deathly pale and wizened old gnome who seems to be all bushy white eyebrows and long wispy hair. His watery blue eyes peep up at the pair from behind a dark wood counter that blocks access to the rows of bookshelves that seemingly fill the converted wizard's tower.
* * *
A series of sandy steps -- which smell like someone has urinated on them recently -- lead down the side of Pier Six, and beneath it turns out to be a large hut, sheltered from the ever present rain by the planks above and the dwarf-carved stone pilings it leans against. It looks like it could be yet another seedy Dockside drinking establishment, if one did not know that the sign depicting a pelican with an overstuffed bill hanging above the door was the name of a broadsheet. The building even has a stool sitting beside the front door that might have held a bouncer, although it is currrently unoccupied.
