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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dantardis" data-source="post: 3804073" data-attributes="member: 46174">The messenger travelled the streets of Sasserine, he'd been asked by his mistress to meet various individuals and pass the message on to them.  By noon he was finished.  In various parts of the city the recipients of the message read its brief details:"Greetings, and I hope this missive finds you in good health!  My name is Lavinia Vanderboren, and I humbly request your attendance at dinner at my estate on Festival Street and Blue Skink Lane tomorrow evening.  I think that I can present you with an opportunity uniquely suited to your skills.  Please inform the carrier of this letter of your response to this invitation and I hope to be speaking to you soon.Lavinia Vanderboren."At the appointed time, several individuals met in the atrium of Vanderboren manor, there was a fighter, a female elven knight, some kind of druid, a male wizard, a hooded male figure, an aventi dressed in wizardly robes and a female warrior.They were greeted by the Vanderboren's butler and taken through to the dining hall, where they were greeted by Lavinia Vanderboren herself.  After the sumptous banquet was over, the talk became more serious.  Lavinia spoke first,"As you may have heard, I recently inherited my parents' estate.  Along with this fine house, unfortunately came a fine amount of debt owed the Dawn Council, the harbourmaster, and quite a few guildhalls.  It seems my parents, for all their sucess as adventurers, were not skilled at finance as one might expect.  If I'm to get these taxes paid I'll need to access my family's vault under Castle Teraknian."      "And that's the problem, you see.  The vaults are magically locked-keyed to special signet rings.  Both of my parents had these rings, at least, until recently.  My mother lost hers a few months ago.  She arranged for a replacement, but it won't be done for another month or so, too late for me.  Which leaves my father's ring.  He never wore it-he had a thing about men wearing jewellery.  He kept it hidden somewhere on his ship, the Blue Nixie.  The problem there is that the harbourmaster's seized the ship until someone pays for the last four months of mooring.  I've paid the fines to the man the harbourmaster's put in charge of my ship, a brute named Soller Vark.  Yet when I went to claim my ship, Vark's men wouldn't let me board, claiming that I hadn't yet paid the fines.  I spoke to Vark again and he denied ever receiving my payment.  My complaints to the harbourmaster have fallen on deaf ears-he's a doddering old fool who trusts his man and won't relent."       "Vark and his men are up to something on my ship, I know it.  What I  need is to find out exactly what they're up to.  Unfortunately Vark's not the type to react well to diplomacy or logic.  I need someone who speaks his language...which is where you come in.  If you can find out what he's using my ship for, or even better, recover the money I paid him, I'll pay each of you 200 gold in return once I've access to my vault."At this point the knight, Erin spoke up, "How do you want us to deal with this Vark character when we get near him."Lavinia smiled grimly,  "I would rather you didn't throw the first punch if possible, but if Vark and his men show you force in return to your enquiries then surely they must be up to something."  I can tell you that the Blue Nixie is currently anchored in the middle of the estuary, so you will need to hire a rowing boat to get out to it."</blockquote>

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