Nashkel

Aldous shifts on his good leg at Dieter's question to the guards. "I'm no child to be spoken over as though I'm not here. I could very well be older than you, friend." He fishes out a larger handful of coins and drops them onto the counter (7 more gold). "I'm aware I've already paid more than the average farmer makes in months."

The red-haired noble absently drags a finger through his bowl's iced cream remnants and then licks it. His stomach gurgles again.

Montaron stalks forward with a grimace. "An' give ye me hard-won gold? Nah. I don' even wanna share it with this lout. An' I won't, see?"

The grumpy halfling's hands move quickly and there's a flash of steel as he hurls something at Xzar. "Take that, ye durned necromancer!"

Xzar flinches, gasps, and falls against a stone wall. "You... you've killed me, Monty! How..." A bloodstained dagger clatters to the floor at the wizard's feet. "Terminus vitali... limp biscuit!"

The crazed man falls to the prison's floor, quite dead.

Aiwë stops on her way out the door, eyes wide. "Well. I suppose that makes it easy..."

"Guards!" she hollers. "He's armed and deadly!"

Aiwë takes her share of the treat from Stella. "Ada always says that eating sweets on an empty stomach will make you ill, but Chaide says that when your stomach is empty you fill it with whatever can be consumed. But food can be scarce in the Dale, and she's an orc."

She passes her bowl to Aldous. "I hope you have an orc-steel stomach, but this isn't the Dale. Why are you so hungry?" She nudges Stella.

"If you're ill, Stella is a healer. She's trained by the Archmage of Kuldahar, Aasimars and High Priestesses of Ilmater, and the stars themselves! Maybe she can help."

"You’ve already paid us enough, I’m not trying to take advantage of you I’m trying to help you." Dieter says sliding the seven gold back to Aldous

Stella looks awkwardly between Aldous and Dieter, then Aiwë, confused at the sudden bit of tension. She blushes at Aiwë's barrage of titles of people that she trained under. She didn't like her abilities to be tied to the merits of others, but she supposed that kind of clout might be persuasive if the young man was sick, as opposed to just a picky eater.

Montaron puts his back against the far wall of the cell, weaponless hands held high. "Bah! Ye should be thankin' me. I jus' killed a terrible necromancer!" He nods his head at Aiwe and Sheemish. "These ones kill an evil priest an' ye worship the ground they walk on. I kill an evil wizard, and ye get all in a tizzy!"

Aldous Silvershield helps himself to a few spoonfuls of Aiwe's bowl before he seems to come to himself. He looks down at the bowl of iced cream as though seeing it for the first time. The blush rising in his cheeks clashes impressively with his hair as he takes the money back from Dieter.

He perks up as Aiwe describes Stella's training, however. "Um... Well, I'm not exactly sick. Not anymore!" He glances meaningfully down at where his missing leg should be. "I did have something quite serious. It's one of the reasons my father sent me to Amn, actually, since none of the healers in the Gate seemed to know what to do. It says something, doesn't it, that he would send his own son to Athkatla when we're so close to war with Amn."

The young nobleman takes another bite of the iced cream. "You know, we've been waiting on the arrival of more guards to escort me home. If your capable group would do the honor of joining my escort, perhaps Lady Stella would be kind enough to practice her healing arts on me during the journey north?" Aldous looks back and forth between the the three companions. "You would be paid well, of course!"

"At war?" Stella remarks, surprised. She glances at Aiwë and Dieter. She had been so focused on her studies—and avoiding assassins—she hadn't learned much about local political relations. "Is it related to the Iron Crisis? If that stays averted, will that help any?"

At the mention of 'Lady Stella', her normally pale face blushes again to match Aldous'. She tries to keep a sheepish smile from creeping onto her lips. Lady Stella? She did like the sound of that.

Her smile fades as her eyes flick to his other guards for a moment. Having other guards could either be a help to discourage assassins, or they were assassins. Nothing they could do about that, other than keep their guard up. Either way, they could always use more funds to purchase more equipment with, and...well...it wasn't every day she got invited to care for a noble young man like this. Her slight smile returns.

She looks to Aiwë for her thoughts on the job.

Aiwë reads Stella's face and smiles at Aldous. "We'd love to. We're headed that way next already, actually. I'll ask the rest of my group what they think and let you know for sure."

Aiwë looks to Stella. "War is part of what we're here to stop. Hopefully what we've been able to do here will de-escalate tensions some. We'd better moving and report on our work soon."

Dieter nods his head in agreement

"Ah! I see. That explains a lot," Stella says, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "I guess I've been a bit distracted," she laughs sheepishly.

She puts on a smile and starts scooping out another couple bowls for when Sheemish and Runeson arrive. It was a mostly genuine smiles, though Aiwë's words did make her worry. They had already gotten into a lot, but war between peoples? She remembered people talking about the possibility, but she hadn't really considered it.

Aldous shrugs between scoops of iced cream. "I can't blame you for not being familiar with the region's politics." He carefully slides onto a bar stool with a sigh. His good foot absently taps out a rhythm on the wooden floor. "Amn and the Gate don't have much good history together. Having the better part of a mountain range between your countries can do that to you. But what they both share are suspicions. There are more rumors than truth floating back and forth. The Iron Crisis has just exacerbated the issues that were already present."

As Aldous speaks, an air of discomfort seems to grow in the room. The barkeep and the cook, both nearby, clear their throats uneasily and try to go about their work without looking at the group. Several patrons in the room murmur quietly to each other and glances looks over their shoulders at the young Silvershield. Perhaps having a Baldur's Gate noble here on Amn's border is a strain of its own.

"I mean, I'd say well enough that people are people, wherever they're from. But this iron shortage seems to be bringing out the worst on both sides. People are scared. Take the troubles here in Nashkel, for example. An evil priest and some kobolds must just be the lackeys of whatever nefarious purpose was going on here. Who sent them? Some might suppose Amn sabotaged its own iron mine to deprive Baldur's Gate's region of a much-needed resource."

Having finished Aiwe's bowl of iced cream, Aldous sighs contentedly. "Well! Speaking of political matters, it's probably time that I make my way home. I know you all have just returned from a perilous quest; when do you think you'll be ready to set off once more?"

Aiwë draws her club out of caution, but stands out of the way of the guards, leaving them to their work.

"Mayhaps we should discuss more neutral topics, We wouldn’t want to offend our good hosts and honoured friends" Dieter says to Aldous and anyone listening

war Dieter could already imagine it in his minds eye. Banners billowing in the wind the ground shaking at the passing of legions. Most of all he saw death, fat and gluttonous sitting on a throne of skulls stained in blood. He breaks his focus back to the conversation in front of him realizing he had been staring off and that his leg muscles had been tightly flexed that whole time.

Stella listens to Aldous explanation, appreciating his understanding and elaboration.

When Dieter speaks up, Stella purses her lips and nods, looking around. "Oh, of course. Good idea, Dieter." The young warrior was stiff and distant, she noticed. Was he now uncomfortable with the idea of a war like she was?

"We were planning on leaving in the morning," she tells Aldous. "The eight hour, perhaps?", she suggests.