The rest of the banquet turned into a proper operation, and honestly? We did pretty well considering none of us are exactly master spies.
Tittlin went off to work his magic with the servants. Through our telepathic bond, I could follow along with his progress. He managed to successfully convince a few people to meet with Wyrmwood’s contact in Trondkan - including that miserable potato peeler I’d spotted in the kitchen during my tour, and Lorson, the guard who’d been getting beaten up by his racist colleagues. He pulled out all the stops, particularly with Lorson - convincing him that he was the chosen one or something. Incredibly outlandish but somehow did the trick with this poor guy.
He had less luck talking to the cook with the purple anchor tattoo - the one who’d stolen that painting from the art gallery - and came on WAY too strong. Walked up to the guy, complimented his tattoo, slammed a platinum piece in his hand, and tried to direct him to meet someone who’d “appreciate the art on his body.” The cook just looked confused. Not our smoothest moment, but you can’t win them all.
Meanwhile, I ended up having an interesting conversation with the estate’s tailor. Nice enough fellow, and he brought up that he was into gambling. Perfect opening. I framed meeting with Wyrmwood’s contact as an interesting gambling opportunity, and he seemed genuinely intrigued. He also told me about the Raksuu Derby - apparently they do monster races up here that you can bet on. Might be worth checking out while we’re in the area, though right now we’ve got more pressing concerns.
At some point during the evening, things took an unexpected turn. Count Snorri Fossen’s son - the baron we’d been warned about, the one eyeing his father’s position greedily - approached us. And I mean approached us bluntly. The man actually propositioned us to murder his father. Just straight up asked if we’d be interested in expediting his inheritance and “removing the roadblock” to Katya.
Right there in the middle of the banquet. With nobles all around us.
We held an emergency telepathic conference while I kept drinking my beer and looking casual. Momen was absolutely against it - didn’t want the Cedar Combe Monster Bashers associated with regicide and regime change. Tittlin pointed out we don’t even live here, and getting involved in the local politics seemed like a nightmare. I had to agree. Plus, do we really want to align ourselves with someone who’d casually ask adventurers to kill his noble father? That’s not exactly the kind of behaviour we typically support.
The whole situation was absurd. Here we were, already running an infiltration operation to rescue Katya Wyrmwood from this very family, and now the heir apparent wants us to kill his dad? We’d already accomplished what we came to do - get several disgruntled servants pointed toward Wyrmwood’s contact. Getting involved in succession disputes would only complicate things and potentially blow our cover.
So we declined to make any commitments and just kept enjoying the party. No sense getting tangled up in noble family drama when we’ve got our own mission to complete.
Tittlin tried to do some invisible scouting around the estate at one point, but got spotted by a guard on the upper floor. He played it off with a sneeze, gaslighting the skeptical guard into thinking that he wasn’t invisible, and claimed he’d had too much to drink. The guard bought it well enough to send another to escort him back to the washroom. After that near-miss, we all agreed to cool it on the risky moves and just finish out the evening normally.
By the end of the night, we’d successfully directed several potential informants to the contact: Rebecca the maid, the potato peeler, Lorson the guard, and the tailor. Four solid leads, assuming they all follow through. Not bad for a night’s work, even if we did weird out the cook with the anchor tattoo. I’m not too crazy about these bougie events, but it was quite nice to focus on interacting with the folks actually working it rather than those attending - more my kind of people. The unique and delicious food and drink wasn’t a bad perk either.
We departed the banquet and headed back to Trondkan to wait for intelligence. The contact is supposed to meet with these people and see what information they can provide about Katya’s whereabouts. Hopefully at least a few of them actually show up and have useful intel to share - and the contact can keep up with the strange cover stories that Tittlin and I came up with.