Dinner Party!!! (The Lost Jewels of Alcanse #10)

We continue our delve! Svela proceeded down the other diagonal corridor and saw a room with ornate carpet, but no apparent monster to fight. She called the rest of the party to come in and spread out to opposite corners to search for an invisible enemy (or the key). As soon as Rolfe stepped inside, he got hit by a dart. Turns out a halfling was hiding in the corner, and he apologies for hitting Rolfe. But Rolfe LOSES IT, and storms at the halfling with his axe, completely slaughtering it before anyone can do anything (actually Bardalph also froze the halfling, and that made Rolfe’s job easier). So we’ve got a dead halfing and a bonkers, blood-lusty Rolfe. Great. Svela searched the halfling’s body for clues, and found the orange key. Interesting.

Since there’s nothing else of interest here, we head back to the owl room. We briefly popped out through the portal to resupply and rest before what we think is the last ordeal. After a reset, we went back through, opened the final door with the two keys….and found a little cubby with a box holding the jewel. Oh, well that was easier than expected. We dash back through the still-open portal and give the jewel to Ryland. He’s delighted! (Our payment for this bit is that we can keep the several "owl’s eye" jewels, which include some very expensive gems.)

He tells us that he’s got a very thin lead for the next jewel — a man named Elston Harslo (of the BusinessWorks Harslos) might know of it’s location. We go to the man’s fancy house, and we’re told by the snooty butler to come back at dinner time…oh, and we have to be appropriately dressed. Thus we spend the day getting ready for a party. Quigley and Svela have outfits, but Bardalph and Rolfe need to get fitted, and that shit costs money. But by seven pm, we manage to get dressed and show up at Fancy Dude’s house looking pretty close to appropriate. (We’ve hidden our weapons well). There are four other guests (who knows what their deal is?), and we all sit down at the dinner table, when a gong sounds and Harslo appears.

Let the dinner party commence!