Speaking of, a little child elf with a violin heads over to the ministage and begins playing a beautiful, slow tune. Slow though it may be, it isn't sad so much as soothing in nature. But one of the merchants there says, "Don't let that one get to close. That there's a kender! He'll steal all your stuff before you can finish a conversation."

Chessnut smiles and shrugs before continuing to play, slowly picking up the pace.

Meanwhile, the bartender nods to Grabthar and gets him some wine. "Not like we're known for our wine, but I hope this is acceptable."
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:42, Fri 09 Sept 2016.

Grabthar nods to the merchant.  "Much thanks for the information, sir."

He takes the wine, swirls it around under his nose a moment before daintily sipping.  "Ah.  That it is.  A warm meal would go well with this."

He slides another coin over and watches the performance with a satisfied smile.

  "Wouldn't you notice if he stole clothes twice his size?" Unless he's high enough level to steal equipped items, then that could be problematic.

  Joe is glad Diet-Orc has such low standards for wine.  Usually a monocle means duels to the death over a bad vintage, right?

The merchant looks over at Joe. "You would think, but no. You'll probably notice if the kender decides to wear said clothes, but you won't notice them taking it."

The boy begins tapping his foot and plays a nice, upbeat tune for the people present.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZxAVUsuE4Y

One of the locals says, "Well ya can't complain about the music this kender's puttin' out."

The bar maid heads over to Grabthar and says, "Any specific warm meal you had in mind?"

https://s6.postimg.io/6rqxae0n...1892fb959802a05c.jpg

Grabthar chuckles at the conversation about hypothetical theft and nods to the local.  "True true."

To the bar maid he smiles and raises his glass.  "A pleasure, miss.  I'm always one to sample the local favorites.  In my experience, they're favorites for good reason."

  "I guess you're speaking from experience, then." Joe is imagining that, probably, the Merchant really didn't go several hours before realizing he wasn't wearing pants anymore.

  Probably.

The merchant says, "Yes."

When the kender is done playing, the bar maid brings grabthar the house special; their prize winning chili.

The people present clap for the kender as he finds himself a seat, right in between Grabthar and Joe, it seems. He seems even smaller up close. "Water, please?" he asks. The bartender nods and gets some water for him.

Ha!  Got him there!...  Or not.  Apparently he did spend some time pantsless, robbed by a kender.  Grabthar tries his hardest not to laugh, and disguises it with the big smile and applause for the performance.

He thanks the waitress and smiles at the little one.  "Beautiful music, good sir.  Bravo!"

  "It was nice, yeah." My, what a descriptive review.

  On the bright side, his demeanor means he can keep a straight face at the concept of pantless and confused merchant.

The kender says, "Thanks! The name's Chessnut. What's yours?" He even sounds like a little boy. He crosses his arms to indicate an offered handshake to both Grabthar and Joe at the same time.

"Don't! ...touch him." the merchant reminds. Chessnut doesn't seem bothered at all, maintaining his genuine smile.

With a bemused smile, Grabthar takes a clean kerchief from his vest pocket and covers his hand with it before accepting the handshake.  Technically not touching the kender!

"Grabthar.  A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

  "It's okay. My profession is used to small fast moving things."  Does already wearing gloves count, if a kerchief counts?

  "I'm Joe." Most boring name in the room is go.

"You two look like adventurers. Am I right in assuming so?" He begins drinking his water.

Once adventurer status is confirmed, Chessnut says, "Well I'm an adventurer too. And boy do I have a crazy story for you, if you have the ear to listen."

Grabthar chuckled from Joe's comment.  He also affirmed his adventurer status to Chestnut.

"Oh do tell.  I'm all ears."

He takes a taste of the chili and sips some more wine.

   "There do seem to be just as many crazy stories as there are boring ones, so go for it."

Chessnut says, "So there I was, at the base of Lookout Mountain. We were a full team; a fighter, a cleric, a wizard, a rogue, and myself. Our stuff started going missing, so naturally, people started looking through my stuff to see if I had taken their stuff. But, of course, they found nothing more than my own stuff. But we soon found footprints, followed 'em, and found the culprits. A whole encampment of undead goblins. You with me so far?"

Chessnut sips from his water. Once it is confirmed Joe and Grabthar are following the story, Chessnut continues, "Well the thing is, these undead were intelligent. They could hold conversations and seemed to be celebrating the gathering of random nick-naks. When we confronted them, they begged us forgiveness, saying that they only steal nick-naks in order to appease their god so that they are granted the ability to not crave the flesh of the living."

Flustered, Grabthar clears his throat and adjusts his monocle.  "That is a crazy story.  What came of it?"

  "That's the most practical criminal usage of undead I've ever heard of." So clearly that means the story is made up then... Or maybe Joe's views on common sense are too skewed as usual

Chessnut continues, "Well since it had just been nick-naks, we figured we would let it be. But the wizard, cleric and I were all very curious what kind of god grants undead the ability to act normal and not crave bodyparts. So we asked and they gave us directions to their god, who lived at the top of Lookout Mountain. When we arrived, we saw an impressive looking temple, but it had clearly been abandoned a long time ago... if re-inhabited recently."

He sips his water. "But when we found the god, it was a hobgoblin wizard. He attacked us, and was surprisingly tough, but we beat him and managed to keep him alive so we could ask what gives. His answer? He said that when the goblins drank from the nearby spring, he cast a spell on the goblins that made them appear to be undead, then lied to them and convinced them they had been turned undead by the spring water. After that, he reassured them that he was a god and could keep them from becoming mindless zombies who exist only to eat the flesh of the living, but he would need them to steal things from passers-by."

Grabthar laughs and applauds.  "Bravo!  Quite the story!  Did you clear things up with the duped goblins?"

  Joe's expectations of the durability of NPC wizards would rate tougher than expected as the wizard being irritated swords did not deflect off of their skin.

  "Did he ever even spend it, or did it just end up in a pile like these kinds of scams tend towards?"

Chessnut giggles and says, "We told the goblins, yeah... and got our stuff back."

He then looks up at Joe. "He never spent it. He just horded. And he admitted it was less for riches and more for pulling a prank on the goblins. After all, he didn't expect much of a result from the goblins beyond trinkets."

Grabthar has a satisfied smile.  "Splendid!  I do love a happy ending."

  "Well, happy for anyone that matters, at least." Hobgoblins.  Even when in a campaign focused around their lore, you still remember the goblin barbarian's name instead of their leader's.

Chessnut says, "Surely, you two have stories aplenty to share?"

It would be about now Joe and Grabthar both notice their coin purses are lighter by about half.