The trio arrives at the town of Olemnar, but the guards halt them at the gate. They demand why the group has come into town, and Slenderbard convinces them he’s a merchant, gesturing back to his mule caravan. Juno lies that she’s visiting her sick family member, Deadward. Being terrible at improv, Jadeth jumps onto her lie as well, saying Deadward had been super sick with goblin flu. Juno elbows her in the ribs. The guard strokes his chin, trying to think if he’s heard of Deadward or goblin flu. Slender sees that Jadeth is about to ruin their chances of finding a safe place to rest, so he mentions knowing of someone named Deadward, remarking he’s a friend of the mayor of Olemnar.
The guards shrug and let them pass, and Slender begs Jadeth to never talk again. She makes her mask of shadows’s goggles gleam red, and he holds his hands up in surrender. Juno tries to stave off the headache that the two of them are creating, so she leads the way over to the merchants guild to trade her loot from the bandit encounter.
At the guild, Slender and Juno shop around while Jadeth waits by the entrance. Slender asks the merchants if there is anyone in town that can make a good suit of armor, and they admit that the mayor’s got the blacksmith working tirelessly to fit the local soldiers. Juno notices that most of the townsfolk seem to be on edge, but she keeps quiet about it. She gets some meat from the butcher and tosses a sausage to Spike.
When the two conclude their shopping, they rejoin Jadeth at the entrance. She looks up from where she’s cleaning her gun and nods. Slender asks if she plans to buy anything, but she simply replies that she’s got everything she needs and slings the gun back around onto her back. As they step outside, Jadeth looks up to the beacon and admits she can see it. Juno pretends to be shocked, and Slender says, “ha, I knew it!” She asks the two what the beacon is promising them.
Slenderbard admits it’s been telling him he will become rich enough to become a king. Jadeth stifles a laugh, having a hard time picturing the scrawny bard as a man of power. Juno mentions that she’s trying to regain her honor and clear her name– reluctant to mention any more details than that. Slender asks Jadeth what it’s promising her, and she curtly responds, “something like what you two are after.”
Slenderbard optimistically leads the group to the mayor’s house in hopes of finding a way to convince him to allow their use of the blacksmith. Feeling more vulnerable after his caravan was repeatedly ambushed, he plans to get some better gear for their journey towards the beacon. Juno tricks the guards into thinking she has a summons from the mayor, and one of the guards heads into the manor to get confirmation. The group exchanges looks, knowing their cover is about to be blown. However, to the group’s surprise, the mayor himself lets them in.
He offers them armor from his personal blacksmith – if they can solve his bullywug problem. Slenderbard tries to bribe him instead, setting a coin purse down on the table. The mayor laughs it off and takes one of the keys off his belt. He opens a big metal door and showcases his room full of gold. This, of course, catches Juno’s attention. She eyes the lock on the door carefully as the mayor closes it behind him, and plots how she can get it opened.
The mayor says that he will only trade armor if the trio can kill the bullywugs that are raiding the village. Jadeth asks if they’re hurting people, and the mayor nods. She accepts the deal and leads the way out of the manor to lead the group back to the inn. She says she could use a drink, and they can go plan their attack strategy for the morning.
Right as they reach the inn, Juno lets the rest of the group know that she plans to take an evening walk. Jadeth shrugs and lets her know she’ll be missing out on some drinks, but Juno admits she’s not a very heavy drinker anyway. Juno watches Jadeth, Slender, and Spike head inside. Then, once she’s alone, she sets her sights for the mayor’s house.
Juno scales the side of the inn, glancing in through a window to see where Jadeth and Slender spread a map out on a table as Spike fetches them some food and ale. She shakes her head as she considers what Spike and Jadeth would say if they found out what she was up to. While Spike may be forgiving due to his nature as a holy man, Jadeth certainly would spare her no mercy. She pulls herself onto the roof and begins darting from rooftop to rooftop as the darkness of dusk settles on the town.
Juno leaps over an alley just as a lamplighter is beginning to illuminate the cobblestone streets below her. She skids across loose shingles in a way that seems almost deliberate and comes to a halt at the gutter opposite to the mayor’s house. His windows all seem dark, and for a moment Juno wonders if he had already headed off to bed. She gets a running start and soars through the air, sinking her metal pitons into the brick of his home.
She swings herself around carefully to work on the lock of an upstairs window, popping it open with the ease that comes with years of practice. She silently vaults through it and ducks behind a curtain, listening carefully for any signs of life. The only voices she can make out are those of the guards outside the front door. She figures she’s alone, and the thought of an easy score brings a faint smile to her lips.
She makes her way downstairs and into the study that they had met the mayor in. She opens the drawer of the big desk next to the crackling fireplace in desperate hope that he would have left the key behind, but no such luck. She grabs a few gold plated pens that she knows she can pawn, but isn’t able to find much more of value. She crosses in front of the fireplace, casting a long shadow across the wooden floor.
Juno grabs the lock on the door and jams her picks into it, finding it much more complicated than the one on the window.
She laments the difficulty of the lock, knowing that her old friend Alexio would have had a few ideas on how to crack it. She twists her pick wrong and nearly breaks it in the lock. It makes a distinct click that gets the attention of the guards outside the front door. Juno curses and abandons the treasure to escape undetected.
She’s relieved to find that none of the others have many questions when she returns to the inn. Jadeth lets her know that Slender and her made a plan, and they should be all set for the morning. Juno gives them a weak grin, still flustered after failing a heist for the first time in years. She lets them know she’s off to bed, and Slender gives her a thumbs up.
In the morning, they set out for the marshes. There, Jadeth takes the lead in hopes that this issue can be solved with a simple conversation. However, she encounters a blaring issue: she can’t communicate with the bullywugs. Juno tries a number of languages, only getting a slight reaction to her Elvish. Jadeth tries to speak to them in abyssal tongue, but only terrifies them further. Slenderbard watches them fail for a few minutes before offering to translate with his magic.
Slenderbard is able to convince the guards to bring him to their leader, who speaks an ancient dialect of Elvish. Juno and him are able to communicate enough to get by. She relays that since the mist to the north pushed them further towards the village, the villagers have been taking water that the bullywags consider their sacred spawning grounds.
Slenderbard seems indifferent to taking out the settlement to get the promised armor, but Jadeth and Juno both seem reluctant to harm the bullywugs. They both know the pain of being chased out of their homes. Slender argues back that it isn’t like the frogs are innocent since they have also been attacking the village. After several minutes of arguing, Spike intervenes.
He recommends they bring this new information back to the mayor, and finally Slender confesses it may work out easier for them anyway if they can avoid violence while undergeared. The group heads back to the inn to try to come up with a plan that can benefit both the village and the bullywug settlement.