You fondly bid your companions who remain at the forward base farewell, and travel along the mountain range back to Caywick.

A portly man wearing a festive and thick cloak for the season, greets you with a wide smile at the gate, flanked by two guards. He wears a medallion that shows he is here acting in capacity as the Town Exchequer.

"Welcome back, Adventurers! I trust your first foray was...profitable?"

Alieta fades to the rear of the party. The man smells like a tax collector to her, and that is irksome to her. But she will do nothing to cause a problem.

Hmmmm, tax collector, he would claim none of the silver he carried for him to take, the money belonged to the gods, not man!

As he clenches his sack of silver tightly he hears the memory of his mentor's voice from one of his long-winded sermons.

"The Emperor benefits from the Faith, and the Faith benefits from the Emperor. Both must be supported. To be a good cleric of the Faith, one must also be a good citizen. Laws...except those crafted from malice...must be followed. Even that of the taxman!"

He eases up, "Better than usual considering we lost a few."
This message was last edited by the player at 16:13, Mon 04 Jan 2021.

Einhard had seen the greedy palms of such men before. Unless of course they were collecting money for family, he cared not one bit for them. "Profitable? Hardly!" the knight laughed. "No sign of the escaped bounty. And worse, we failed to retrieve the Lady's scarf. Those are far more valuable than anything a few feeble goblins might possess. Now, if you please, we have business to attend to." Before the man could react, Einhard moved his steed past the townsman in such a manner that would require the men to step aside.

"Surely your Lordship does not take me for a common thief?" he shouts.

"Once there was a line all the way from the pier of pilgrims to tour the Colossus, but no more! Do you know how many orphans and widows we have here in Caywick, from desperate citizens trying to salvage more coin from the greedy goblinkin and the dragon they serve?"