The whole city has gone crazy. After storming out of Renald and Whisperclaw's suite, I left the Goblin Pot for some fresh air. After strolling around for a few hours, I eventually stumbled upon a brothel with a few local honeys standing out front.
As I'm leaving the brothel, I hear the sounds of marching and horns being blown. All around the street, Sellsword knights stop anyone within sight. Some are kicking open doors to homes. I can tell they're looking for someone.
"Dammit Renald…" I curse under my breath, slipping into the shadows of a nearby alleyway. They must have done something. I told them that it was a bad idea, but nobody listens to me.
I make it a few blocks back, towards the Goblin Pot, but I get cut off by a group of knights who are setting up a barricade. Thankfully, they don't see me, and I'm able to duck around a corner and out of sight.
"Ok. Come on. Think Glimmer." I rack my brain for something I can use as a distraction. "Think. Think. Think. I got it."
As the idea hits me, I whip my flute out and begin to play a haunting tune. The blue smoke of my illusion magic drifts from the end of my flute and transforms into a set of 3 spectral figures. The figures float around the corner towards the barricade. There's a set of horrific screams. The knights burst past without noticing me, fleeing the illusory ghosts.
I use the moment to slip through the barricade and continue for a few more blocks. There are even more knights everywhere now. I'm beginning to run out of spots to hide. I turn another corner and bump into a figure.
"Well, excuse me, sir…" I hear a familiar voice say. "...Glimmer?"
I look up and see Goldenclaw standing over me.
"Goldenclaw!" I say, hugging him tightly, "I'm so happy to see you!"
"And I to see you my friend." He looks both ways before grabbing me by the arm and dragging me away. "Come with me. We need to get you and your friends out of the city."
"Why? What happened?" I rip my arm away. "And stop tugging. I can walk myself, y'know?"
"Sorry." He continues walking away from me and towards the direction of the Goblin Pot, "I'm just on edge, is all. Make sure to keep up."
"You still haven't told me what happened." I protest, but I follow him nonetheless.
"Now is not the time, I'm afraid. It will have to wait for later." Goldenclaw makes a turn that is unfamiliar to me, leading me into a side of town filled with strewn-together and dilapidated buildings. "For now, we need to take advantage of this opportunity."
"What opportunity? You're not making sense." I stop walking.
"The knights are tearing apart the commercial district, trying to find you and your friends." Goldenclaw stops and turns to face me. "That also means that Blackthorn's security will be at its weakest."
"You know Blackthorn?" I'm confused now.
"I've been tracking his movements for weeks, trying to find a way to stop whatever he's been planning…" I see determination in Goldenclaw's eyes, "... but I wasn't able to make any connections until Vesper told me that your team would be coming into town to take back her Ethereal Enchantment scroll."
"The scroll is Vesper's?" I ask, even more confused, "I thought it was just something Blackthorn found."
"I see, she must have kept it hidden from most of you." Goldenclaw begins walking again. "One of you had to know, though. She would never send in a team blind, Vesp's too smart for that."
My mind races. Vesper wants us to stop the auction? Why didn't she say anything? Am I not important enough? She must not trust me. That has to be it.
"Worry not my friend. Vesper is very secretive and has her reasons for what she does." Goldenclaw stops as we approach a busted-up cathedral. "We're here."
"Are you sure just the two of us are enough?" I'm beginning to have doubts about the sanity of this mission.
"This is a stealth mission, Glimmer." Goldenclaw puts his paw on my shoulder and smiles, "If everything goes according to plan, we won't have to do any fighting."
"So we're just here for the scroll?" I ask, still unsure.
"We're just here for the scroll." He turns back towards the building, "We get in and get out."
We slip through the broken double doors of the cathedral and make our way through the building. So far, we haven't run into anyone else, giving the cathedral an even creepier vibe than it already had. We turn a corner, and Goldenclaw stops in front of a door to what looks to be an office. He holds his finger up to his mouth, motioning for me to stay quiet. Then he slowly twists the door handle and pushes the door open. The inside of the office is in shambles, like the rest of the cathedral, but the sheer number of items hoarded inside blows me away.
"Close the door behind you," Goldenclaw whispers. "Quietly."
"This must be where they're keeping stuff for…"
"For the auction. Yes." He interrupts me, beginning to search through the massive pile of equipment. "Blackthorn means to sell all of this equipment, which he's been stealing from adventurers like yourself."
"So what does this scroll look like?" I ask, opening a random drawer on a nearby shelf.
"It'll be a regular-looking piece of rolled-up parchment paper…"
"Like this?" This time, I interrupt Goldenclaw.
I show him a scroll that I pulled from the drawer. The scroll has glowing purple runes written all over it and is tied up with a purple ribbon, shaped into a bow.
"That-that's it!" Goldenclaw smiles widely at me. "You've found it, my boy! Great! Now, let's get out of here."
I nod. Goldenclaw and I sneak back out of the room. Right as we reach the front door, Goldenclaw grabs me and pulls me back around the corner of the hall we came from. He presses his finger against his lips. Then I hear it. The sounds of voices. Two of them.
"...Blackthorn, please! Let's shift the auction location to Ulric." Says one.
"No. We've spent too long preparing for this as is." Blackthorn's voice sounds dull, lifeless. It sends a cold shiver down my spin.
"What about the White Knights?" The other voice continues pleading. "Aren't you worried that they might try to stop us after what they did to Arathor?"
"If the White Knights of Ardent did kill Amathor, they wouldn't have left a letter on his body." The voices are getting closer now, almost reaching our hall. "Whoever killed him wanted us to know, and they wanted us to be afraid."
"When I say 'Now!', make a break for the entrance and run back to The Goblin Pot as fast as you can," Goldenclaw whispers with a serious look on his face. Then, before I can say anything, he steps out of our hiding spot and into the main hall, directly in front of Blackthorn and the other person with him. "Maybe that's because you should be afraid, Blackthorn!"
"My, my. Looks like a rat got inside the nest." I hear Blackthorn retort in his dull voice, "And it's the one who took my eye."
"I think I remember you taking mine first." Goldenclaw is sweating. Nervous.
"You look better without, I think." Blackthorn lets out a stale laugh. "But, enough joking. What are you doing here, Goldenclaw?"
"Oh, nothing much. I'm just here to…" Goldenclaw suddenly sticks both of his hands out. I feel the whole room shake as they glow in a golden light. "...Now!"
I take off in a full-on sprint towards the exit. I can physically see the whole main hall vibrating. A saber with all black fur, alongside another saber with gold fur like Goldenclaw, is stuck to the floor like they are being crushed. The Saber with black fur, who I assume is Blackthorn, looks up at me with rage in his eye as I burst past and out the door, stumbling into the courtyard of the cathedral.
"Enough!" I look back and see Blackthorn manage to stick his hand out, and Goldenclaw is suddenly slammed into the ceiling and then dropped back to the ground.
I see a pleading look in Goldenclaw's eyes, which meet mine as he falls to the ground. I look away and take off running.
The last thing I hear from the cathedral is, "Dammit. That snargle has the enchantment scroll!" before I slip around the corner and towards the direction of the Goblin Pot.