“It has been wonderful talking with you, Ielenia and Gaba. I hope you fare well, I will see you at the boat.”

With that, Naris finished his ale, brought the tankard back to the bartender, and left the pub. Closing his eyes, Naris felt the crisp morning air rustle his tendrils and tickle the scales of his golden face. He breathed deeply and expected to detect the not-so-subtle smells of the city, but instead discovered that his sinuses seemed to have clogged up in the night. With a few sniffles, he opened his eyes and rubbed at his nose to no avail.

Giving up on his sense of smell, Naris looked around. He found himself on a cobblestone street that was only slightly wider than the average merchant cart, and when he looked down he realized that centuries of use had worn a pair of ruts right where he would expect the wheels of such carts to roll. Around him, he saw several storefronts with murky windows made of small, cheap pieces of glass tiled between sturdy-looking metal lattices. The window frames and doors were all painted garish, attention-grabbing colours, though the paint was peeling at least a little everywhere and a lot in some places. Every such store seemed to be dark inside, but Naris simply shrugged.

“I suppose it's rather early,” he pointed out to himself as he picked a direction and began to walk. “Perhaps I'll find something open down baker's alley.”

It didn't take long for him to find the open-air market. It was very clearly not planned by some city architect, it was just where two major highways and five smaller roads happened to meet. There was simply no way to make efficient use of the nexus of their convergence, so the awkward space became an informally agreed-upon area for merchants to set up shop and hawk their goods. But not today.

Today, the market was empty but for a torn scrap of brown-stained linen that floated and twirled in the air, held aloft by a gentle breeze that seemed almost sinister now. A thin man in dirty clothing coaxed a single donkey forward, pulling an overladen carriage in the direction of the city gates. Naris slowed his stroll as he moved to the centre of the space and looked around for any other signs of life, but all he could see or hear was the donkey, its owner, and the carriage.

“Hmm,” Naris sounded dubiously to himself. The donkey glanced up at him, but was soon made to refocus on its task by the slender man.

Naris continued his perambulation in the direction of Baker's Alley. The tense air made him loosen the strap of his shield on his back and tighten his grip on the pommel of his mace.

Suddenly, a crashing noise came from the direction of an alley that was too narrow for a cart. Naris was already running, sliding the shield off his back and pulling it onto his arm, and undoing the slipknot that tied his mace to his belt. He raced up the alley, steeling himself for battle, the various pieces of his jet-black adamantine plate armour clanging together loudly against each other. When he rounded the corner, he almost began a war cry until he saw what had caused the sound.

Before him, an elderly woman was wearing a look of abject terror as she clutched an elderly man who was pinned under a load of lumber in front of a storefront whose window had been smashed. The metal lattice that had previously held the glass pieces lay twisted and torn where it looked like something had crashed through the window with some force.

Naris looked down at the couple, then up to the window, then back down at the couple and quickly laid down his shield and mace.

“I'm so sorry, I thought…” Naris wasn't sure exactly what he had thought, but it wasn't this. “Here, let me help you.”

The woman seemed mortified, but he largely ignored her and lifted the lumber off of the man with ease. Then he knelt down by the man and gave him a cursory inspection. As far as he could tell, the man was uninjured, but Naris was not generally very good at such matters.

“Are you alright, sir?” Naris asked. “Can you stand?”

The man seemed dazed and had been simply staring at Naris up to this point, but the question seemed to bring him back to his senses.

“What? Oh.” The man reached down and felt his legs. He winced as he poked his legs in some places, but eventually nodded. “Yes, just some bruises. Help me up.”

Naris almost lifted the small man off the ground, but barely managed to set him down gracefully.

“I am Brasstongue Naris and also very sorry to have startled you.” Naris asked with obvious embarrassment. “I suppose I thought someone was being attacked.”

“That's quite alright,” the man said as he barely found his balance. “I'm Quince, and this is my lovely wife Phalia.”

“I'm pleased to meet you both,” Naris said and then pointed to the lumber. “Can I help? I'm no good with a hammer, but I can hold things in place if that would be useful.”

Quince and Phalia looked at each other for a moment before Phalia finally replied.

“Okay,” Phalia agreed. “Quince, why don't you make some tea while we put up the boards?”

Quince walked tenderly inside the shop and Phalia and Naris started boarding up the windows. Naris held the boards while Phalia hammered the nails into the wooden window frame. Naris helped hammer only whenever the nails were too high for Phalia to reach. They took a break midway through for tea and shortbread, but they spent the break enjoying a companionable silence. Soon they resumed and not long after, they finished up.

“Please, take some coppers for your kindness,” Phalia insisted.

“No, I couldn't possibly.” Naris said as he picked up his shield and mace. “While I am was perpetually short on money, I still feel awful that I scared you.”

When Naris had his shield strapped to his back and his mace tied to his belt, he looked up and saw Phalia and Quince had donned big backpacks and were locking up their shop.

“Are you two going somewhere?” Naris inquired.

“Oh yes.” Phalia adjusted the bag on her back. “It's quite dangerous around here now. We're going to go stay with Quince's sister in the country until things get better here.”

Naris nodded slowly and watched as they walked away. He wanted to help, but had no idea how. Giving the boarded-up storefront a final look, he parted ways with them at last.

When he reached Baker's Alley, it was exactly as he had feared. Gone was the lingering smell of sweetrolls (though he was fairly certain his stuffy sinuses would have prevented him from enjoying it anyway). There were none of the usual crowds of people clamouring for their daily bread. Instead, all of the bakeries were shut tight and the worst of them were smashed and boarded-up like Quince and Phalia's place.

Naris walked slowly up the narrow, twisting street. The road went up at a slight incline at first, but then steeply ascended up a hill after a sharp corner. With a heavy heart, he kept following the alley, though he was losing any hope that he might find anywhere that was still open.

In the distance, he heard the indistinct sound of voices from around a corner up ahead. Though skeptical, he hurried his pace slightly, but when he turned the corner he did not see what he was looking for. Not exactly.

In front of him, there was a bakery that was open, but it was very clearly not selling baked goods. Instead, the door was propped open and a simple wooden table was set up, on top of which there was a collection of mismatched bowls, most of which had been broken and obviously repaired. By the side of the table was a bubbling cauldron from which a man in a white baker's uniform was ladling soup into the bowls and handing them out to a long line of tense and tired-looking people.

As he watched, Naris saw the man ladling soup glancing back into his bakery.

“Hurry up,” the baker yelled. “We're scraping the bottom and there's plenty of hungry people left!”

At these words, the murmur of the crowd intensified, and the tension increased similarly. The movement of the crowd turned into pushing and some pushes turned to shoves.

“Hey!” Naris yelled with authority, stepping towards the crowd. “Knock that off! There's more soup inside, just wait your turn!”

Unfortunately for Naris, as he stepped forward, the toe of his sabbaton caught the edge of a cobblestone and he tripped. He barely managed to catch himself, but it was pitiful and awkward and deeply undercut his attempt at intimidation.

“You heard him, there's plenty more inside, let me get some!” The Baker looked at him with relief and he waved Naris over, handing him the ladle. “You look like you can handle yourself, take this and spoon out what you can, I'll be back in a minute with a fresh cauldron.”

Naris did as instructed, doing his best to serve what remained, though he felt deeply deflated at his misstep. Just as he felt that there was nothing left in this cauldron, the Baker and a young man Naris assumed was his apprentice emerged from the bakery carrying a full cauldron from which steam was rising rapidly. They disappeared inside with the empty one almost as quickly, but Naris was relieved that the tension of the crowd had largely dissipated.

Before long, the Baker returned and took over again. Naris went to stand with his back to the wall, taking a moment to watch everyone and thinking about his day ahead.

“Hey Thorpe,” someone whispered and Naris looked up to see one man trying to get the attention of another man, presumably Thorpe. “Finish up your soup, I gotta show you this.”

Naris tried to nonchalantly inspect the men. The one called Thorpe was short and squat with greasy-looking hair that looked black, but judging by how dirty the rest of him was, it was unclear whether his hair was naturally black.

“Sod off, Smokey,” Thorpe replied. “Lemme eat in peace.”

Smokey was taller even than Naris, but thin as a rail. He was nearly bald, his head covered only by whisps of hair that were so thin and light that they floated, making him look like he was constantly surrounded by a plume of smoke.

“Nah, mate.” Smokey was undettered. “You hafta see this, it's a right laugh and I reckon we can get 'em to fight.”

Naris watched as Thorpe acquiesced and finished up his soup, then they both ducked into a shady alley. He followed at a distance, cognizant of how loud his movement was, but luckily they didn't seem to be paying any attention.

Several twists and turns later, Naris heard them laughing around a corner up ahead, and carefully peeked to see what they were doing. His eyes went wide when he saw that they were poking and prodding at a couple of deathly pale walking corpses with blood coating their mouths.

Naris readied his shield and mace then rushed in with a battle cry.

Initiative

• Ghoul 2: 12
• Naris: 9
• Ghoul 1: 9
• Smokey: 9
• Thorpe: 4

Ghoul 2 (G2) rushes up to Naris and attacks with claws. To hit: 8, miss.

Naris attacks G2 with Mace: 14 to hit. Hit. Add 2nd level divine smite. 1d6+5=6 physical and 4d8=19 radiant, 25 total damage, down.

Naris moves up to G1 and attacks with Mace: 26 to hit. Hit. Add 2nd level divine smite. 1d6+5=9 physical. 4d8=19 radiant. 28 total damage, down.

Smokey yells “hey, those were ours!” Then attacks Naris with Mace: (19,12) to hit with advantage. Miss (Naris with shield has 20 AC).

Smokey attacks again with Mace: 21 to hit. Hit. 1d6+2=6 damage. Naris is at 28 HP.

Thorpe gurgles something unintelligible and attacks with Mace. (6,14) to hit with advantage. Miss.

Thorpe attacks again with Mace. (16,18) to hit with advantage. Miss.

Naris attacks Smokey with Mace. 12 to hit. Hits. Add 1st level divine smite. 1d6+5=10 physical. 2d8=10 radiant. Smokey has 22 HP left.

Naris attacks Smokey with Mace. Nat 20. Crits. Add 1st level divine smite. 2d6+5=15 physical. 2d8=6 radiant. Smokey has 1 HP left.

Smokey disengages and flees.

Thorpe gurgles with rage and continues to attack with Mace: 13 to hit, miss.

Thorpe attacks with Mace: 11 to hit.

Naris attacks Thorpe with Mace: 19. Hit. Add 1st level divine smite. 1d6+5=11 physical. Thorpe is at 21 HP. 2d8=13 radiant. Thorpe has 8 HP.

Naris attacks Thorpe with Mace: 15. Hit. No divine smite. 1d6+5=6 damage. Thorpe has 2 HP.

Smokey attacks with Heavy Crossbow at a distance: Nat 1. Crit fail.

Thorpe disengages and flees.

Naris chases them off, but they get away.

“Don't play with the undead and never mess with a Brasstongue, scoundrels!” Naris shouts as he stops chasing them, letting them disappear down an alleyway. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he fastened his shield to his back and tied his mace to his belt and found his way back to the soup line, where he continued helping until it was time to go and meet Nikolah and the rest at the docks.