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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Krago o'the Mountain" data-source="post: 2584649" data-attributes="member: 34882">Keygan Ghelve's shoulders slump as he sighs in resignation.  "You're right.  What's done is done, and I may as well tell you the whole story.  Who knows, maybe you'll be able to help me out of this predicament I'm in."The locksmith continues, "It all starts with Jzadirune.  Any of you familiar with Jzadirune?"  Looking at the blank stares of the adventurers, the gnome nods and continues, "I thought not.  Well, it is...or more correctly, I should say was...a small enclave of gnomish spellcasters.  I visited it several times in my youth, but stopped going there, oh, about 75 years ago, I'd say.  That was when the Vanishing came.  Never heard of the Vanishing either, I suppose?  Well, it was this strange magical sickness...a plague, really...it swept through Jzadirune...caused those that caught it to slowly fade away into nothing, you see."Ghelve continues, "Anyway, Jzadirune was abandoned then, and I never gave it too much more thought, and that was that...until about 3 months ago when I got ambushed by those things from below.  They burst on in here, and my life's been a wreck since.  Some of them...the tall ones...are just like that one," he points to the dying creature on the floor, "no clothes, no hair, and all of them with that color changing skin.  They usually come up in pairs or threes and slink out of the shop wearing cloaks.  Those blue eyes of theirs give me the creeps."  Ghelve shudders before continuing, "There's also some shorter ones.  They've got pale skin, big noses, and these soft black hooves for feet.  They wear black cloaks and cowls that seem to help them hide in the shadows.  Sneaky buggers, the whole lot.""Anyway, they took me and Starbrow by surprise that night, and there wasn't much we could do, because there were a lot of them.  They grabbed Starbrow and took him hostage and forced me to tell them all about Cauldron, which didn't seem too bad.  But, then, pf course, that wasn't all they wanted...once they figured out my trade, they forced me to make them some keys which would open all of my locks.  And believe me, in this town, I've made a lot of the locks.  There aren't too many places in this city they couldn't get into with those keys.  And, they wanted a list of everyone I've sold locks too...and that's a mighty long list.  I didn't want to do it, but I was afraid they'd kill us.  As it is, they've taken Starbrow back down into Jzadirune, and I'm not sure where he is.  I can sense him, though, and he's hungry and frightened in the dark.  And they always left somebody here to keep an eye on me, so I couldn't go for help, or warn anybody.  You all looked like you could take care of yourselves though, so today, at last, I took the chance.  I've probably signed Starbrow's death warrant," the gnome finishes sadly.Ghelve looks genuinely remorseful.  "I don't know why they've been taking the people down into Jzadirune.  But, please, you've go to understand.  I had no choice but to help them."Responses/Questions?</blockquote>

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