A man sits in the Storm State Capital library just outside the spellbook section. He watches as a tiefling wizard walks out of the section, having already paid the weekly fee just today. The wizard has looked at the sort of books in the section and taken some he liked, but the man who watches him heads outside the moment after seeing the Tiefling.
The man takes out his spellbook and a small journal full of pieces of hair. He picks one out, clutches it, and uses Alter Self to assume the guise of a small boy. As the tiefling leaves the boy speaks to him.
"Shine your shoes mista? Only 3 copper."
"Only 3?! sure, go ahead kiddo."
The boy gets to work shining the shoes, but as he does, he sneakily snips off some of the teifling's leg hair while shining the shoes. As the tiefling leaves the boy hides away and assumes his original form, a fairly built human man in moderate armor with a twin tipped silver rhoka sword at his hip and black messy hair on his head.
"Sucker, you just saved me a good 1000 gold. Alter Self."
The man grasps the snips of leg hair then assumes the same exact form as the tiefling he just shined the shoes of. He then walks right back into the library and to the spellbook section, holding up his own spellbook.
"Sorry, there are so many good spells I needed to go get my spare book."
"Go right ahead, master Maldrek."
As the man walks into the section he makes note of the tiefling's name, as he may need this form again to shift blame for his next run in with the town guard. Until then, the man makes use of his time to copy the library's newest illusions and transformations into his spell book before recasting the spell and bidding the building a fond farewell.
As he leaves the building a woman clad in a black cloak and scarf walks up to the man in Maldrek's form.
"Maldrek, good thing I caught you, Zilo says he thought of a plan and I wanted you to make sure that you made the plan instead... otherwise... you know."
The woman glances sidelong at the man giving him a knowing look. The man smiles, then thinks to himself, that she isn't half bad to look at.
"Let Zilo make the plan, I have full confidence in him, besides, that would leave me free for the rest of the day. Tell me, do you have any plans?"
The woman looks flabbergasted at the man's wish to have Zilo make a plan, but then rejoins the conversation as Maldrek places his hand on her arm when he asked of her plans.
"Um I was going to go pray and see if the gods would bless us in the coming days."
"Ahh hoey, you know what would be a real blessing, spending a fine evening together. I saw a fantastic place to get some of the best mutton in town, what do you say?"
The man wraps his hand around the woman as he speaks.and her face becomes flush red in response.
"Maldrek I... You... Is something wrong?"
"Nothing my dear, nothing is wrong."
"Okay... well I'd like to join you, but I'd better go tell Zilo ha has the go ahead, you... just... get some rest or something, you seem different."
The woman pushes the man away and walks into the crowd, giving the man a few more glances as she waltzes away.
As she leaves, the spell that kept him in the tiefling's form dissipates and the man rubs his chin. After thinking it over, he places Maldrek's hairs into the book of hairs, and writes 'Male Tiefling Wizard: Maldrek's above the hairs.
"So they have a plan to do something do they. I've never seen them around before, so they clearly are foreigners. Could be fun to screw with their plans, should be a nice way to spend the evening. Guess I should find this Zilo."
The man begins spending the next few hours shaking the usual trees to gather info on a man named Zilo. Or at least it is normally hours, but he gets what he needs from his first resource, his contact in the guards.
"Zilo? yeah I heard of him, calls himself the master of strings, been performin all day in the main square. People are sayin he's got a ghost under his control or somefin."
"Interesting, been a long while since a bard visited the capital."
"A bard? Init that-"
The man flicks a silver to the guard and cuts him off with, "I don't pay you to think, Clarence. I pay you to watch, now enjoy the rest of your day.
The man makes his way to the plaza to see a Fetchling of all things performing a dance with a floating violin. Under his voice the man whispers.
"What's your game bard? Detect Magic.
Upon studying the bard's magic he spies that the bard is using mage hand to suspend the violin and play it, but that is not what the man finds odd. The sheer power of the magic emanating from the bo of the violin is enough to nearly blind the man after he examines it further.
After he shakes off the flash of magic he looks back to see the performance end and the bard called Zilo is talking to two rather built looking men, one looks to be a paladin and the other wears a helm and drinks from his flask quite often.
After the three talk for a bit the two warriors take off to the other side of the square where another group of performers seem to be performing. The warriors chat up the performers for a few minutes then walk with them over into an ally way.
The man listens as the sound of a scuffle from the alley way then peeks around to see the two warriors tying up the performers before they both retreat to both sides of the ally, likely to check and see the the coast is clear.
"Vanish."
The man sneaks down the alleyway toward the scared and gagged performers, sneaking right past the two warriors.
"I'm here to help, don't worry. Why are they after you, friend?" Says the invisible specter. Then the man pulls the gag away from the one he's addressing. The captured man responds.
"Thank Morta, I think they mean to do something in the palace, we are performing there tomorrow."
Unseeable to them the man rubs his chin before re-gagging the man and saying, "The palace huh? This just keeps getting more and more interesting."
The man sneaks away again, letting the two warriors continue their business.
The man's invisibility fades away and he thumbs his chin as he speaks under his breath.
"A group of foreigners with a high level of magic, plenty of muscle, trying to sneak into the castle."
He begins walking along while he speaks to himself.
"Not sure what their plan is, but if they're kidnapping people behind closed doors they clearly are up to no good."
The man looks up at the towering palace that has kept people like this man in the gutter, forcing him to hide himself just because his style of fun isn't what the king would approve of. He may not have known what to do with himself for the longest time, but he knew that whatever he sought would never be found under the view of that palace.
The man smiles like Dema herself and snickers, "Not like this land has ever been good to me before."
He walks away into the fading day, resolved to his choice.
Zilo, May, Maldrek, Alaroc, and Cruxis sit on the far side of the tavern. Maldrek's face twists in response to Zilo's saying that his plan is good to go.
"Your... Plan? Who said you could make the plan?"
May looks to Maldrek curiously, "You did, after you went to the library."
Zilo smiles big and says, "Yup, and just like I said before, Alaroc and Cruxis have disposed of the entertainment for tomorrow, and the royal planner, in desperation, has hired me and my 'traveling band' to entertain for the event."
Maldrek stares at him curious," So you have gotten us into the Palace?"
Zilo nods and Maldrek leans back surprised, "Alright, lets see if you can manage to pull this off."
Suddenly the 5 people sitting are interrupted as a man drops his fist onto the table. They all look to this man who smirks and says,
"My name is Leo, and I want in."
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