The afternoon was quiet for once. No Watch. No ciphers. No one in the alley who wanted them dead.
Caelith and Lylnyler had measured the ground floor of Trollskull Manor with a length of twine and a stick of charcoal, walking the space room by room until they had something that looked like a plan. Bar counter along the north wall — Caelith had been firm about that, something about faces catching light. Booths along the south wall, now revised to tables, four set against the window glass where the street noise would come in on summer evenings. Two more flanking the double doors, a round one in the center for the kind of conversation that doesn't care about walls. The hearth at the back with a U-shaped couch curving around it. A corner blocked off beside the bar for a piano that didn't exist yet. They had put notes in the margins about sightlines and floor reinforcement, and Lylnyler had labeled each piece in his precise, unhurried hand.
Corrin arrived while they were looking at it.
He leaned over the drawing, tilted his head to one side, and was quiet for a moment in a way that, on Corrin, meant he was working up to something.
"The Whimpy Bar."
He said it completely seriously.
A pause.
"...Fine. Lif's Bar. But I want it on record that I had a better idea."
By the hearth, something shifted — a warm ticking in the walls, the kind Caelith had learned to read as presence rather than sound. Lif had heard his name. He always heard his name.
They rolled the drawing up and carried it two doors down to Trollskull Curiosities.
Tally Fellbranch took the drawing with both hands and spread it flat on her workbench, anchoring a corner with her forearm. The pencil moved from behind her ear to her fingers without her seeming to notice it.
"Bar on the north wall. Good. You want the light from the front windows on the faces of the people at the bar, not behind them — I've seen barkeeps make that mistake and they spend the whole night squinting."
She looked up.
"And the name?"
"Lif's Bar."
Tally wrote it down. She didn't editorialize, but there was something in the way she said it back to herself — not quite a smile, more like recognition. She had known Lif. Having his name on the sign meant something to her even if she wasn't going to say so.
She moved through the furniture plan methodically: the tables, the entrance pieces, the round center table, the U-couch around the hearth, the two tables set behind it against the wall. When she got to the corner beside the bar she stopped.
"Piano."
A pause.
"Do you have a piano?"
"Not yet, but we'll reserve the spot and it can be a stage for now."
Tally wrote "piano/stage — TBD" in the margin without comment. She asked about materials — Caelith told her waxed for the counter, something that could take a spilled beer without splitting. Tally wrote that down too, with a nod that said it was the right answer. She asked about the measurements: whether they were real or decorative.
"Don't worry, we did measure."
"Piano's sinking into soft board? I thought you were using quality materials here."
"I am. That's why I'm asking about the piano."
She tucked the drawing under her arm.
"If the measurements are right I can work from this directly. If they're off by more than two inches on the window wall I'll come find you."
She confirmed the build order: Gwynda's structural work first — end of this week, maybe start of next. Bar counter ready when the dust settled. Furniture in sequence after: tables, seating, couch last because the surround needed to be finished before the frame would fit. Sign painter to receive word today.
At the door, she stopped.
"Don't buy a cheap piano."
She was already back at her workbench before they reached the street.
Tally had said Fala Lefaliir at the apothecary two doors down would know about a piano — or at least know who would. The party walked down Trollskull Alley and pushed open the door to Corellon's Crown.
The shop smelled of dried herbs and something lightly resinous. Fala Lefaliir was a wood elf of middle age with the unhurried posture of someone who had not been surprised in a long time. They took one look at the three of them and leaned back against the counter.
"So. Three new owners, fresh from Tally's, mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. What can I do for you?"
Caelith introduced them. Fala repeated each name quietly — placing them, the way certain people do when a name is something to be kept rather than simply heard.
"Tally sent you to an apothecary for a piano."
They let that sit.
"She's not wrong that I'd know, but I do enjoy that she didn't explain why."
They thought for a moment, then gave a name: Bertrand Hael, a music dealer on Delzorin Street, just off the High Road. Sells instruments, handles repairs, moves estate pieces when estates need moving.
"Tell him Fala sent you. He'll be honest with you — or at least more honest than he'd otherwise be."
Then they asked about the bar. They had heard the name that morning from Tally's direction.
"Lif's Bar. Yes."
Fala went quiet for a moment. Not sad, exactly — something more settled than sad, the way grief sits when it has had long enough to find its shape.
"Good. He'd have had opinions about it, of course. He always does."
A beat.
"He's good company, for someone who can't speak. The alley's been quieter since the Manor went dark."
They glanced toward the wall near the door, where a small carved wooden token hung.
"I'm glad it won't be much longer."
Before they left, Caelith mentioned they would send over anyone in the morning who needed something for their head. Fala smiled with the brisk efficiency of someone who had already anticipated this.
"I'll have something ready for them. Occupational habit."
Delzorin Street ran off the High Road into the middle of the North Ward, where the buildings were close and the signs were modest. Hael's Music occupied a narrow shopfront with instruments visible in the window and the faint sound of tuning work coming through the door.
Bertrand Hael was a man of the working kind — spectacles, ink on his fingers, a manner that moved straight past pleasantry to the matter at hand. He set down what he was holding and folded his arms on the counter.
"A piano. What's the space?"
Lylnyler described the corner they had reserved — approximately twenty by twenty feet.
"Still generous. But better."
He took notes. He knew Trollskull Manor — good ceiling height, if he remembered right. He asked about the floor.
"It's a wooden floor, but Tally knows we're planning to place a piano there, so she will reinforce it properly."
"Good. Tally knows what she's doing."
He had one upright in stock. It had come out of a merchant's estate in the Sea Ward — well-made, regularly tuned, not the kind of instrument that had gone sour in a corner. He looked at them over his spectacles.
"Asking a hundred and eighty gold. Includes delivery and a first tuning once it's in place."
Caelith was direct: they didn't have the funds just now, but they wanted to know what they were saving toward.
"It'll keep. If it goes before you're back, I'll find you another."
Then Corrin, slightly late, mentioned that Fala had sent them.
Hael looked at him over his spectacles. Not annoyed. Just noting a fact.
"Should've led with that."
He made a mark beside the name he had written.
"Hundred and fifty, then. Same deal — delivery and tuning included."
He set the pencil down.
"Come back when you're ready."
He was already back to his work before the door had fully closed.
Corrin went to Frewn's Brews alone that evening.
It was not a long walk — Frewn's was on the same alley, a few minutes at halfling pace. He had thought the conversation would be simple. He had a problem that needed solving. A bar needs to know how to brew its own. He would pay for the knowledge, or offer the man a position if money felt inadequate. He had not thought to ask why Emmek Frewn might have a particular feeling about Trollskull Manor.
The bar was not full. A few regulars nursing evening drinks, a fire doing its job in the corner. Frewn stood behind the bar — stocky, deliberate, watching the door with the eyes of a man who had watched it for eleven years.
"Halfling."
Not unfriendly. Not friendly either.
"Sit or order. Your pick."
Corrin took a stool at the bar.
"Actually, I have a special request."
Frewn set down his cloth. He folded it. He waited.
Corrin explained: he was interested in learning to brew. He thought Frewn might be the man to teach him. For a bar he was thinking of opening someday.
Frewn picked up the cloth again and resumed wiping the counter. Slow and deliberate.
"And you thought to ask me."
He didn't move to pour anything. He looked at Corrin for a long moment.
"What's your name, halfling?"
"Corrin Greenbottle."
"Greenbottle."
He said it like a word he had already known. He reached under the bar, pulled out a cup, filled it from the tap without being asked, and set it in front of Corrin.
"Four copper. You're from the Manor."
Not a question. He leaned on the bar.
"So. You want me to teach you to brew. For your own little bar. Which would be where, exactly?"
"Well, in the manor of course! I want to commemorate Lif and I would be eternally grateful if you would want to help me on this journey. I'd be happy to pay for the services of course."
Frewn straightened up. He picked up the cloth. Set it down again.
"The Manor."
A pause so brief you might miss it.
"You want me — to teach you to brew. So you can open a tavern. Next door."
He let that sit. Corrin — and this is the honest account — had read nothing from Frewn's face that he could use. The man was a wall behind a counter, and the wall had been there for eleven years.
"And you'd pay me for it. How much?"
Corrin offered two options: two hundred gold, or a barkeeper position at the new establishment — good pay, someone else handling the headaches of managing the place.
Frewn laughed. Short. Not quite humor.
"Two hundred gold. Or a job."
He looked at Corrin for a long time.
"You have no idea who I am, do you."
He didn't wait for an answer.
"I've been on this alley eleven years, Greenbottle. Eleven years, one tavern, no competition. I put in a bid on that Manor when it came up. Good price. Fair offer. Volo outbid me."
"And now you're sitting on my stool, in my tavern, asking me to teach you to brew so you can open up next door. Two hundred gold or a job."
"I'll have an answer for you tomorrow. Come back at noon."
Corrin apologized — genuinely, or as genuinely as Corrin's voice goes when it's reaching for genuine. He really had not known. He hoped Frewn would consider it.
"You didn't know."
He said it flatly, as if deciding whether he believed it. Then, after a beat:
"No reason you would."
He picked up his cloth.
"Noon, Greenbottle."
Corrin left. Frewn was still wiping the counter.
By the time Corrin returned from Frewn's, the Manor was settling into evening. Lylnyler had come back from the Trade Ward with a brewer's kit and a stirring paddle he had haggled down from twenty gold to eighteen — "Eighteen. Not a copper less," the merchant had said, and thrown in the paddle — along with the promise of twelve barrels delivered in the morning.
Corrin sat down with a scrap of paper and worked out the math: three barrels per batch, three weeks to ferment, three batches rotating so there was always something ready. Twelve barrels in total — three fermenting, three waiting, three conditioning, three serving. He set the numbers out like a general planning logistics.
They settled on the lineup: a standard ale, a strawberry ale for something lighter and seasonal. The third they had not decided, except that it would be the house special — something nobody else had.
Lylnyler set out two mugs on the bar counter and labeled them in chalk: one dark and smoky, one spiced. Caelith added a third option, something sweeter. They stood back and waited.
The hearth was quiet. The Manor was quiet.
Then one mug slid toward the edge of the bar. And then another.
The night wound down around them. Standard ale, strawberry ale, Lif's Special — dark, smoky, spiced — ready to brew in the morning once the barrels arrived. Twelve barrels, three weeks, and then Trollskull Alley would have something no other bar on the street had.
They cleaned up and went to bed.
The dream came before dawn, the way the worst ones always do.
He was standing in a courtyard he had never visited. Stone walls, well-kept, ivy trimmed back with the care that comes from money rather than inclination. A fountain at the center, dry. A woman at the far end — dressed well, North Ward well, the kind of quality that was not worn for show but simply assumed. She was speaking to someone he could not see, and there was something in her posture that said she believed she had more time than she did.
She was wrong.
The warmth spread through his chest — the same warmth he had felt near Gralhund Villa, the same one he had felt in the sewer when Nihiloor fell. Recognition from something older than himself, the patient certainty of a thing that has been waiting and knows it will not have to wait much longer.
The woman turned slightly. Not enough for him to see her face. Her hand moved, and there was a ring on one finger — a crest pressed into the metal, almost clear enough to place, almost — and then it wasn't. The fountain behind her began to fill. Not with water.
He woke up.
He told them over breakfast.
The courtyard. The stone walls and the trimmed ivy. The woman at the far end, speaking to someone unseen, who did not know how little time she had. The dry fountain beginning to fill with something that was not water. A ring on her finger, a crest almost recognized.
He told them about the word — *Collect* — the one he had carried since the sewers. He told them he had to go as a witness, not a participant. He told them who his patron was.
"His name is Asmodeus."
Caelith's hand moved toward the holy symbol at his chest. It was a small movement and he brought it under control quickly, but it had been there.
"Asmodeus is not a contractor. He is the Lord of the Nine Hells. He doesn't call in debts through witnesses out of courtesy. He does it to make a point."
A pause. The hard, honest kind.
"And yes. That thought crossed my mind. Whether he'll come for one of us someday."
He looked at Lylnyler directly.
"But you said witness. Not participant. And you came to us instead of going alone. That matters. So — tell us about the crest."
Lylnyler said he couldn't make it out clearly. Just a ring, and the impression of a crest he almost knew.
Corrin had been quiet through most of this. Now he set down his cup.
"Lady Yalah Gralhund."
He said it the way you say a name when it has been sitting at the back of your head since the moment someone started describing a woman in a North Ward courtyard. Well-dressed, North Ward wealth, a house large enough to have a fountain in the courtyard — he had stood in that Villa. He had heard her voice giving orders through a door he was pressed against.
Caelith said it clearly, the way he says everything.
"Lady Yalah Gralhund. The woman who had the nimblewright built. Who framed the Zhentarim for the Watch. Who had Dalakhar killed."
A beat.
"And Asmodeus is calling in her debt."
"We're going to Gralhund Villa."