Fellowship of the Dice

Soon, the butler opens the front door again. "Milady will kindly talk to you now. Please follow me to the green salon." The bulter leads you to a room with sofas, a small table, a fireplace and paintings of nobles hanging on the walls. A surprisingly young woman in an expensive dress enters and says. "It is nice to meet you. I am Keleri Deverin. I need someone to retrieve my lost star."

Carver walks inside looking about, he's impressed, the place is nice, better than the last place he was working at. "Lost star? Meaning what? Some sort of gem, or is that a nickname for a child?" He points at the ceiling, meaning the sky, "I don't fly so if you mean a real star better call on someone else." He elbows Cliel in the side, smiling, "Know what I mean?" He gives a toothy grin.

Cliel returns Carver's smile, then turns to the lady Deverin.

"We are, of course, eager to help, milady, but we'll need some more context if we're to be of any use to you."

"Well, it's a piece of jewellery. Let me explain: I am invited to a ball next week and I need to wear this family heirloom, the Star of Desna. When I wanted to recover it yesterday, I found my storage chamber in disarray, chests lay smashed about the room, shelves wwere knocked over. The steel lockbox that contained the Star was missing. There was a hole in the floor where the burglars had entered. There were goblin footprints and I saw the hole leads to the sewers below the house. But I also discovered a lone, injured goblin in the room. She was frightened and scared and begged for mercy.
I talked to her and found out some things. Her name is Talga, and explained her tribe, the Mudchewer Tribe had been enslaved by a brutish Hobgoblin named Drakus, who was forcing members of her tribe to dig into Basements all around town to rob longshanks of loot and treaure. She is sleeping here at the moment, but I can go and get her."

Grunting the large half orc takes a seat, "Really? Goblin hunting in the sewers?" He glances at Cecil, or Cedrick, or whatever the other man's name is, he's already forgotten. "I hate sewers, I hate tight spaces of any kind, but I really hate sewers infested with foolish goblins. We will get all bit up by the ankle biters, dull our blades, and come out stinking like shite, literal shite." He shakes his head, "If, and I mean If, I agree to this, I require something extra atop all the rewards you are about to offer us. A magical bath, and new clothing. I may not be all prefumed and fluffy like some nobles, but I can't stand smelling like shite."

"I never enter the sewers myself, but I recognize their necessity." Keleri Deverin says. "That is why I hire muscle and brains to do that for me." She smiles. "I will give you 20 gold each if you retrieve the Star on time. And with Talga's information, it might not even be too difficult for two such, ahem, fit men."

Cliel nods. Showers are cheap, and twenty gold is twenty gold.

"Let's talk to Talga. This could go pretty easy for us, Carver."

"Famous last words Cliel." He grunts, "25 Gold, this Star must be worth more than 40 gold to you? And we keep anything we find along the way for yourselves." He waits for the negotiations to start.

The lady asks the butler to fetch the goblin, and soon he returns with a wretched looking goblin woman, who tells her story.
"We was stealing stuff and then some goblins revolted and were killed. Drakus often sucks their blood. Vampire he is, surely. He make us steal stuff. Me hiding, left behind to survive. Me can show you entrance to Ossuary, lair of the vampire. But me never ever enter that. Me draw sketch of map. Okay?"

"Wait a vampire? I'm not so sure I want to take on a vampire! Those things are brutal, at least according to the myths and legends. Maybe you show us where the gem is, and where the vampire might be so we can avoid him." He looks again at Cleil, "I don't know about you, but I'm staying clear of any damn vampires."