Today was finally the day of the masquerade. Most of our guild was in high spirits with the return of our friend Elric and some of the pressures off the guild. I had convinced Franz to give me the last ticket to the masquerade and proceeded to buy some clothes that nobility at least wouldn’t laugh at. For the rest of the day I trained while the rest of the group were out doing their own errands and things.

Franz and Dantoine took the tickets to the play before the masquerade and enjoyed the show containing one of the masks that we had returned from an earlier archeological dig. They were quite impressed by the performance, and then later met me and Kihaul at the party in the Wolfe’s mansion. To mingle and meet some of the noble folk was not our only goal that evening, we also had accepted from one of our contacts, Gusvindta, that we would try and find some dirt on Lars Wolfe. Dantoine had originally accepted the job, but I was going to make sure it got done and not let Franz down. I wanted to finally show him that I could contribute to the guild as I have felt like dead weight throughout our adventures so far.

I saw Franz talking with some of the other guild leaders in town, and had lost our short dwarf friend, Kihaul, among the crowd. She was probably over at the bar with Dantoine. Shortly after wandering through the crowds I saw Lars talking to some girl off in the corner. He was not amused at all, I took this as my chance to get in with Lars, or at least strike up some conversation right off the bat. I started talking with the girl to see if I could get Lars jelous, but immediately realized my mistake. Clara was the girl’s name and she did not take a breathe the entirety of our conversation, meanwhile I saw Lars wondering off into another corner to skulk. I brought Clara with me back over to Lars to try and draw up more conversation, and on the way asked Clara a bit more about Lars, but she new nothing that I didn’t already know. Lars once again escaped after I started chatting with him and I was left to figure out another way to figure out Lars’ secrets.

Looking around the room I took count of what was going on. Franz was still talking with different lords and ladies, that would likely be his entire evening. Dantoine looked to be talking to some random party goers, but the most surprising thing was that Kihaul, one of the burliest no-fun members of our guild was dancing! With a younger nobleman at that! While I was snickering, and being bombarded by words from Clara I noticed that the door to the kitchens were unguarded. I took Clara by the hand and brought her along for my little adventure (as if I had a choice) and to avoid suspicion. We wondered into the kitchens but seemed to be blocked by a locked door a hallway down to a pantry and a head chef that was watching our every move. Even with Clara at my arm it proved to difficult to go by unseen. Once again, I had to rethink my plan.

I remembered, upon entering the party, there was another path leading off to a house out of sight of most of the guards. I had been told this was Lars’ homestead, I think it was time to go directly to the source. Sneaking out of the party, once again with Clara close behind we snuck past the guards, managed to unlock the house and get inside. All the while Clara was having a wonderful time, she even gave me a kiss for how much fun she was having, maybe she isn’t so bad after all… I however made sure to stay focussed on the mission at hand, Clara helped me find Lars’ Journal and I found a huge stash of receipts showing that he owed a lot of money to a lot of people. I sneakily hid this information on me without Clara knowing and kept his diary after Clara had deemed it not worthy of the gossip she needed to produce.

Upon entering the party I spent the rest of the evening with Clara, and met her father, Ludwig Brawner. The rest of the guild members seemed to have a fun time and finally we had a peaceful night.

Credits for the pictures go to @MicaDraws on Twitter.

