Our good old friend, Abraxis, came a knocking one day, and Crickets was all too obliged to help him out, what with his soul being on the line and such. The devil told us to go to the bank, early in the morning, with gear.

We were greeted at a side door by a quiet servant, who ushered us past several layers of defences, to the center of the bank: its teleportation circle chamber, with links back to Central Office way over in Capital City. We were a little baffled, expecting a heist of some sort, but the servant told us his instructions were merely to shuffle us over, along with a calling card. While Serendipity wanted no part of this silly plot, she nonetheless appeared beside Jeff on the far side.

Enter the Concrete Jungle

Emerging into the bright safety of the Capital, we were assaulted by its dazzling lights and street meats. Immediately a Sedan chair was chartered by the great Hector Gavins, to elevate him past the petty squabbles of average city folk, while the rest of us took public transit to Abraxis’s contact.

Finally we were filled in to our actual endeavour: politically humiliate a Bergermeister Mr. Mueller, in order to cause him to lose a significant military contract to produce ships, so that they may be handled by an alternative bidder from outside the city. We were joined by Ken Leaves, to assist us with her “down to earth” connections. Given a generous down payment for sundries and travel expenses, we split up to look for clues.

Flint and Jeff sought knowledge from the University, utilizing Flint’s rather dated library card to gain access. Flint learned he had family in the city. Mueller’s name came up in a few tabloids, which included scandalous rumours about his daughter and a certain Prince of Nuln, along with the location of his private estate.

Leaving the university, Flint ran into Trent Stone, who introduced himself as Flint’s Dentist brother, sent by their parents to look after the estranged Flint. Flint, having no memories since the dip in the Peacockcrab Island pool, had to take this at face value, but challenged his “brother” to a magic showoff. Giant illusions abounded, each more preposterous than the last, until the city guard intervened - demanding to see magic licenses. Flint managed to fish something out of his many pockets that seemed to qualify, and got off with a warning (along with some smirks about “invention magic”).

Malick struggled to make inroads amongst his bretheren, the dwarven crafting guilds of the city. He aimed to get hired by Mueller’s designers, to gain inside information.

There’s actually a lot of city dwarves, who are you, and why do you have so many horns?? And where did you get that belt??

Crickets chatted up the local underground, leading to the purchase of The Mueller Report, detailing his personal, corporate, and shadow lives.

The Mansion

Regrouping to break into Mueller’s mansion, Ken and Jeff posed as gardeners for a distraction, proceeding to demonstrate phenomenal topiaryship, to produce the legendary Treecock “wedding gift” (as would then be depicted in several highly circulated Gardening Monthly’s).

Misora, disguised as a houseservant, snuck through the mansion and found Mueller’s office, discovering both the official books and the books, revealing his upcoming schedule and the existence of The Auction. Unfortunately, the safe proved too much for our thief, leading many to wonder what further secrets Mueller was hiding.

Approaching a pre-auction meeting site, Jeff’s little bird eavesdropped discussion of some goods being sold for the auction, including a trick sword cane, a case of Love Philters, and a peculiar Rubber Chicken Mueller was very pleased about.

Seeing a potential way in, the party reviews their extensive list of cursed and/or magical possessions, opting to pose as a scheduled supplier arriving “early”. We managed to offer away the cursed doll of returning, and auditioned the trident of friendship draining; demonstrating by Hector stabbing Malick, narrowly avoiding triggering his cursed axe revenge rage. This earned us a position on the entry list.

The Auction

Its not like you can just go to a Magic Item Store and buy rings of power off the shelf. The taxes would be too high.

Approaching the auction, dressed in black hooded cloaks as was recommended, the guards give us a thorough lookover, but conclude we’re probably just some lucky adventurer shoppers who’ve earned the favour of Mueller.

… to be continued…

– From the Memoirs of Flint Stone
Archwizard of the definitely-real Invention School/Jungle Dojo

Next Chapter: Capital City News

Dramatis Personae

• B - Flint Stone, the amnesiac wizard
• N - Hector Gavins, the Great
• G - Jeff, ex-soldier of the Imperial Army
• G - Serendipity, curiously tied to Jeff
• D - The half-elf formerly known as Crickets (aka “the Kenku”)
• T - Malic Rumblepunch, the deathwish Dwarf
• M - Ken Leaves, the down-to-earth Furbolg Cleric Druid
• M - Misora, the Asimir Archfey Warlock
• T - Trent Stone, Cleric & Dentist brother of Flint

Ponder our rich and undocumented past:

• S1 Snake Hole
• S2 Chapel on the Cliffs
• S3 Seaside Skeleton Scramble
• S4 In Search of The Elephant God
• S5 Skeleton Ball
• S6 Malick’s Legal Problems
• S7 Journey to the Wizard Tower
• S8 Romp through the Steam Plane
• S9 In the City of Doors
• S10 The many layers of Heck (& the Leather Bedsheets)
• S11 Closing the Doorways
• S12 Setting Sail for Adventure
• S13 Jeff’s Bounty
• S14 The Vault of Supreme Evil (“The Gang proves they’re sufficiently evil to ride”)
• S15 On the Island of Peacockcrabs
• S16 Hunting the Stiggy Tong