Morpezo wasn’t much. A sleepy village on the border of the Liriath forest with no real remarkable sights. It thrived on being unassuming and the people living there were fine with things being like that. Mirgia had visited it once before, several decades ago, but he didn’t really remember anything in particular about the trip. And in the few decades since he’d been there, it didn’t grow in any way. Before they even reached the village itself, they encountered a small encampment next to the road. Seeing them arrive, the three people in the camp quickly got up and approached the party. Mirgia put his hand on his dagger but Ankh motioned him to stop. The three were wearing Sahilid garb and when they saw Ankh they bowed down to him before getting back up. “Master Ankh, we’re glad you are here.”
“Tell me what the situation is,” Ankh replied.
“We talked to the villagers and explained to them that the treasures found within the dungeon were likely highly dangerous and need to be investigated by the Sahilid and should be taken into custody by the emperor. When we explained this to them, they told us to leave in words I won’t repeat directly. We tried to explain to them that they were making a mistake, but they started threatening us with violence. We considered suppressing them, but with only three of us here that felt like a risky move.”
“So your first offer was theft and your second offer was violence?” Mirgia scoffed.
“Who the hell are you?”
“Who the hell are you?” Mirgia replied. “I’ve known you for exactly one minute and I already don’t like you, that’s very impressive.” Mirgia was a little bit shocked at his own anger, but the audacity of these people was beyond anything he’d ever seen.
Ankh held out his hand. “Calm yourself Mirgia, they’re following orders.”
“Your orders?”
Ankh nodded. “Look, if you’re going to be like this then it’s going to be difficult.”
Mirgia wanted to argue but Teddy stepped forward. “Since the two of you seem to have very different approaches, might I suggest that we start by just talking to the people here.”
Ankh looked at Teddy with a slightly amused look on his face. “Perhaps that’s not a bad idea, you’re very unthreatening after all.”
“That’s kind of racist.”
“Is it racist if it’s right?”
“It is.”
“Well then I apologize. I based it on your personality more so than your stature.”
Teddy nodded approvingly. “I’ll let it slide then.”
“Sir Ankh, you can’t tell us that this smallfolk is going to be better at this than we are.”
“Not everything can be solved with violence and a show of might,” Ankh said.
Mirgia rolled his eyes, knowing how little the sorcerer believed in what he said to his underlings. If Teddy failed to find an amicable solution then Ankh would have no issue burning this entire village to the ground to get what he wanted. At least that was the impression that Mirgia had gotten of the sorcerer. For someone in such a position of power he didn’t seem very good at pretending to be a good person.
“Well then, Ankh, I suggest you and your friends here stay in the camp while Mirgia, Kimi and I try to resolve this issue for you.”
Ankh shrugged. “Very well, best of luck,” and he turned to the camp and went to sit down. The Sahilid immediately prepared him a drink and some food.
Mirgia shook his head before following Teddy and Kimi down the slope towards the village proper.

Doors in the village were locked or at the very least closed and many of the windows were shuttered. “It’s like they’re preparing for a siege,” Kimi remarked.
“I don’t get the sense that these Sahilid folks have a particularly nice reputation,” Mirgia added.
Teddy nodded. “They’re basically a band of highway bandits with the backing of an emperor and his right-hand man. Ankh’s reputation precedes him and I doubt these villagers want to deal with him if they can avoid it.”
“Maybe we can make use of that and convince them to do this exchange peacefully,” Kimi suggested.
“We’ll see, but first we need to convince them to talk to us at all and not shoot us full with bolts,” Mirgia said. He motioned to a nearby rooftop where two people were laying down with crossbows aimed at the travelers.
“We mean no harm, y’all, just here to chat,” Teddy said. “Is there any place where we can find a village elder or an innkeeper?”
“What’s your business in Morpezo?” A feminine sounding voice came from one of the nearby alleyways.
Mirgia was surprised, he hadn’t sensed her at all. “We’re here to talk. We happened into the company of one of the Sahilid leaders for business held elsewhere and this is a stop on the way. Our intent is to settle the situation here peacefully to avoid the thugs doing things their way.”
A pause. Footsteps. Stepping out of the nearby alleyway was a tall figure, broad shoulders and a strong physique with a face covered by a mask. “Follow me, but no funny movement.”
Mirgia nodded and the three of them followed the woman. What the hell did those Sahilid thugs do to make the people here become this wary? Mirgia didn’t think this was a normal reaction to whatever threat they were faced with, but then again what was a normal reaction? They followed the woman into a nearby building from where they went through a connecting passageway into the town tavern where about a dozen people were currently seated, eating and having hushed conversations. All of that died down when their new visitors appeared as they all looked at Mirgia and his company with distrust.
“This way,” the woman said, going up the stairs. At the end of the stairway was a small hallway with a few doors leading to inn rooms and in the back was a door that had two locks on it. She unlocked both locks and knocked three times. After a short wait, someone removed a bar that was keeping the door shut from the inside and carefully opened up the door.
“You know it’s me Lusac, you don’t have to be this careful.”
“You never know what sort of strange magic those folks can do, maybe they’re just the same people but tricking you by changing their appearance.” He looked upon the party with distrust.
“I think you’ve been drinking a bit more than you should, there’s no way they have magic that advanced. They wouldn’t have run off with their tail between their legs at the sound of a single bold flying past if they had skills that useful.”
“You’re probably right Mel, come in.”
The woman named Mel motioned them to follow and they now entered what looked to be the innkeeper’s living room. Seated a table off to the side were two older people, possibly the proprietors of this inn, and sitting crosslegged on a couch in the corner of the room was a young man, probably in his early twenties, with his eyes closed. The man named Lusac resumed what looked to be a guard position at the door which was then closed behind Mirgia and locked three times. “Please, have a seat over there,” the woman referred to as Mel said.
Mirgia, Teddy and Kimi all sat down near the young man on the couch, who didn’t move at all nor did he open his eyes. Perhaps he was asleep. The woman named Mel disappeared into an adjacent room for a while before coming back. She was no longer wearing her mask and now revealed piercing green eyes and short-cropped black hair. By all accounts she looked more like a warrior than like a village girl. 

“I’m Mel, those are my parents that run this inn. Explain to me why we should hear you out.”
“Is the village elder around?”
“He passed away three winters ago, we’ve not had a proper replacement, but with a village on this scale things just sort of move on. We gather in the inn to discuss any problems that arise. So, speak.”
Mirgia wanted to speak up but Teddy nudged him. Mirgia let the smallfolk farmer do the talking instead.
“My name is Theodore, but most people call me Teddy. I was born and raised in Redsan on the outskirts of this empire. These here are my friends Mirgia and Kimi, visitors from far away that helped me out greatly in the past few weeks. You see, just like what happened here – if the information we’ve received is right an’ all – my town was also suddenly overrun by those Sahilid folks trying to clear out a nearby dungeon that suddenly appeared. That stuff was scary, with strange insectoid creatures jumping out of it and apparently a lot more going on inside of that place. Now I didn’t go in, mind y’all, I’m just a farmer, but my friends here did go in, alongside some sorcerer that’s apparently in charge of the whole Sahilid business. Putting aside how unorganized of a mess that organization seems to be, the leader himself is a competent man. He took down several of those creatures, prevented some sort of strange ritual and helped my friends come out of the place unscathed. He’s a real prick though, so don’t expect someone that’s fun to deal with. What I’m tryna say here is that even though these folks suck, their leader is very powerful and it looks like there’s something in your town that he wants, or at the very least wants to have a look at. I would like to mediate between the two groups if that’s okay, and figure out a way for everyone to get as much of what they want as is possible. I don’t know what you found in that dungeon and neither does Ankh. For all we know, the things you found are not important enough for us to make a big deal out of it, but if it is important enough, then perhaps you can argue with the crown for some good payment. You were the ones that went into the dungeon, after all.” He smiled.
“So those thugs barged into our town demanding we hand over our valuables and they have no idea what they’re even looking for?” Mel asked. She let out a deep sigh. “This empire’s gone to shit, I told you so.”
No response came from the man sitting next to her. She turned to face Mirgia. “And you, what do you want?”
“That’s a loaded question and I doubt it interests you much.”
She shrugged. “Tell me anyway.”
“Kimi and I are researching the magic used by a strange group of cultists that have been plaguing Blueyerd and Milinia recently. Through their strange magic we ended up in Redsan where we went into the aforementioned dungeon. The sorcerer Ankh helped us out while we were in there, and now we owe him one. I promised him an audience with the leader of Milinia in return. While on the road, a message came about whatever is happening here and we decided to take a detour. We volunteered to do the talking because – as you saw – those Sahilid folks can be quite.” he paused.
“Pricks,” Mel added.
“Pricks,” Mirgia agreed.
“Pricks,” Teddy agreed. “So our goal here is simply to figure out what it is that you’re guarding so heavily, if it is of any use to Ankh and if that is the case, what we can do for you to part with it. Plain and simple.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen I’m afraid. I appreciate you interceding on our behalf, but we cannot part with that which we found.”
“And why is that?” Teddy asked.
“Can’t tell you.”
A quiet filled the room. Mirgia felt his head spin a bit. Things were going to go poorly if this continued down this road. Then suddenly the man sitting on the couch next to Mel spoke. “Why not just tell them everything, they have a spirit with them, so they’ll understand.”