The next morning, everyone woke up feeling well rested. While they had been fine with camping in the large yard of Shoehaven Manor, Mr. Galenar had insisted they sleep inside at least. They had taken him up on it and enjoyed a peaceful night of sleep without having to worry about the elements for once.

While they were eating breakfast with Mr. Galenar, they began to work out what they were going to do today.

“We need to go talk to the watch about what happened last night.” Kurt brought up.

“We do, and we should bring the treasure we recovered as well. After sorting it all first. Neil, make sure you have a spell of Detect Magic ready today.” Sylvester nodded.

“Are you sure we want to bring it to the watch? They are going to try and claim it.” Karrank spoke up.

“I expect it. Everything we recovered was a druunic artifact and the church here is adamant about preventing anything of theirs getting out. We have a bit less ground to stand on than we might have, but they should still be willing to compensate us.” Sylvester explained.

“Artifacts of the druun… You know they were known for making some very handy magic items.” Val put in with a smirk.

“Why do you think I asked Neil to prepare Detect Magic?” Sylvester countered, going back to enjoying his food.

“If the church finds out you withheld items from them, they will not be happy…” Mr. Galenar advised the group, though he was in a similar situation for having tried to sell the druunic crown that nearly killed him.

“I could prepare Mundane Aura as well?” Neil offered, also wanting to keep the magic items.

“If you would, we should need to cover up four items. Will you be able to cast Mundane Aura enough times?” Sylvester asked.

“Hmm. If you still need me to use Detect Magic, I can barely pull it off, but it would take everything I would be able to do today.”

“Then let’s do it. We shouldn’t need to fight at all today so it will be fine.”

“Still, we would be able to get better prices from collectors.” Karrank suggested. “I don’t think turning over all the treasure to the church will get us as much as we could get.”

“It’s fine. I already know the exact values of everything in the chest and it will be more convenient if the church is willing to convert all of the junk into plates for us.”

“I must say, I have never met a prophet quite like you. Certainly, I have never met someone who is willing to treat the church like a money changer!” Mr. Galenar laughed.

“Have you met a prophet other than Sylvester before?” Neil asked curiously.

“Indeed, I have!” Mr. Galenar nodded. “The Oracle, as she is known, stays in the swamps near the city. I had the pleasure of meeting with her and even hearing some of her insights, back when I was still an apprentice cobbler.”

“I don’t suppose meeting her is the reason you wanted us to come here, is it?” Kurt asked Sylvester.

“It is, though it would be better to say I wanted to meet her husband.”

“Oh? Who is the lucky man who got to marry someone like an oracle?” Val asked ever so innocently. Even Mr. Galenar seemed curious to hear the news that the Oracle was married.

“An ancient and forgotten deity who resides deep in the swamp.”

“That is certainly a unique husband…” Karrank offered while going back to his breakfast.

“Well, it isn’t to strange for the Oracle.” Mr. Galenar nodded, satisfied with what he had heard.

“Is she a particularly strange woman?” Neil was still very confused by all of this.

“Less of a woman and more of a sentient alabaster statue.” Sylvester explained.

When everyone else looked at Mr. Galenar, he nodded in agreement with Sylvester’s description.

Once breakfast was over and Neil had his spells ready, he and Sylvester went to go sort through their treasure. Sylvester quickly set aside the mummified hand, eyes, scroll, and spear since he already knew what they were. For Neil, he laid out the six robes and three sickles, which all appeared identical, as well as all of the jewelry.

Neil took a few moments to cast Detect Magic, but once he did, he was able to quickly point out one robe, one sickle, and one necklace that were radiating magic. Sylvester smiled while handing them, along with the spear, over to him so that he could obscure their magical auras with Mundane Aura.

In the meant time, Sylvester placed the extra robes, sickles, jewelry, and several of the eyes back into the chest. Once Neil was done with his work, Sylvester discretely packaged the items and placed them in the cart.

Soon the rest of the group, minus Neil and Bask, and the chest were loaded into the cart and they were making their way to their morning meeting. When they arrived, a stern looking woman dressed in armor with religious insignias was waiting for them.

“Sister Aliss Brimball, I presume?” Sylvester asked as they brought the cart to a halt.

“And you must be the ones I have been waiting for. I hope you brought all of the things you recovered from the ruins with you?” She spoke with the annoyance that only someone who was angry with who the law was shielding could manage.

“We brought it all with us.” Sylvester nodded.

“And this is everyone in your group?” She asked, her eyes carefully examining each member in turn.

“No, we had to leave behind our companion Neil to watch our pet. Same as last night.” Sylvester truthfully answered.

“Then grab your ‘treasure’ and get inside. The other watchmen will take care of your cart while you are here.” Sister Brimbal huffed, crossing her arms, and carefully watching the group.

While the group pulled the chest off the cart, she silently watched. As they grabbed the chest to go inside, she spoke once more.

“You all certainly seem to have a lot of magical weaponry on you.” She stated, the accusation clear in her voice.

“We didn’t get any of it from the ruins, if that is what you are thinking of accusing us of.” Karrank snapped at her, never having had a good opinion of the law to begin with.

Sister Brimbal and he glared at each other for a few moments before she broke the contest and led them inside. They were quickly led into a room with one large table and enough chairs for everyone. The guards in the room made it clear that this was not just going to be a friendly chat.

“Now, I want you to tell me, in detail, how exactly it is that you ended up in druunic ruins just in time to stop a murder from happening.” Sister Brimbal took a seat at the head of the table and began the interrogation.

“We discovered a hidden door in the church’s fireplace and followed it down to find the ruins with everyone inside. We were too late to prevent the murder, but I managed to revive Red Kirsten once the women had activated the pool’s magic.” Sylvester explained.

“And how exactly did you ‘discover’ this hidden door? From Father Nial’s account, you came to him already knowing that it was there and that it was causing him to hear voices from the fireplace. Especially since you only arrived in the city earlier yesterday.” Sister Brimbal glared at Sylvester, daring him to admit to something.

“As I am sure you have heard, I am something of a prophet. A gift of my enlightenment.” Sylvester breezily responded.

Sister Brimbal continued her questioning some more but couldn’t get any actionable answers out of Sylvester and the rest of the group fell back on the truth that they just followed Sylvester’s lead the whole time. Eventually, she was forced to admit their innocence.

“With that, we can conclude your questioning. But, as a fellow brother of the cloth, I hope that you could turn over those heretical artifacts you recovered.” Sister Brimbal spoke with obviously forced politeness.

“I would certainly be willing to turn it over, but I do hope I could receive some compensation for it. After all, we did do good work preventing the druun ruins from becoming active and killing many of the residents of whiteoak square.” Sylvester responded with a smile.

“Of course! The church is willing to pay a fair price for everything you have recovered.” Sister Brimbal spoke through gritted teeth before calling in an appraiser.

“Well, first we have these sickles,” The appraiser began pulling items out of the chest. “They appear to be worked from some fine bronze.”

“They should be worth 45 silver pieces each.” Sylvester piped up, causing Sister Brimbal’s expression to freeze.

“Ahem, yes. That does seem to be a fair valuation for these.” The appraiser nervously coughed before agreeing with the price.

“Next are these… eyes.” He spoke with disgust, pulling out the bowl with several eyes in it.

“Those can be crushed to grant the benefit of the Find Traps miracle.” Sylvester explained.

“I see you are very familiar with druunic relics.” Sister Brimbal accused again.

“I had some time this morning to go over everything we recovered.” Sylvester rebuffed.

“I shall put those to the side for now, then. Next, we have five robes. Exceptionally fine fabric, clearly ceremonial. Should be worth about 100 silver each.”

Sylvester nodded at the evaluation.

“A bronze circlet. Excellent craftsmanship to work in the design of oak leaves into it. It should be worth 150 silver pieces.”

This continued, with Sylvester occasionally piping up his own valuations for the treasure which the appraiser was forced to agree were fair.

“Well, that should be the rest of the jewelry and serving platters. Now, this chest itself…” The appraiser trailed off, looking hopefully at Sylvester.

“It contains 578 gold pieces, 771 silver pieces, and 230 copper pieces.” He answered helpfully.

“We will need to take some time to confirm that, but at this point I would be more surprised if you were wrong.” Sister Brimbal sighed with resignation.

“That does leave the matter of the eyes and the cask of astral projection potions.” The appraiser brought back up.

“We can provide potions of healing or even holy water for each dosage of astral projection there is.” Sister Brimbal offered. It was massively undercutting the price, but it was also much more useful to Sylvester and the rest.

“We will take the healing potions.” Sylvester answered after a few moments of internal debate.

“As for the eyes, we can offer you 50 silver pieces for each of them.” Sister Brimbal offered. This in contrast, was more generous. Paying a priest to cast a miracle of the second level would normally cost 40 silver.

“That seems acceptable.” Sylvester smiled, happy to finally be done with all these negotiations.

“In that case, this brings our total up to…” The appraiser quickly began totaling everything up on his abacus. “11,764 silver pieces.”

Sister Brimbal, Kurt, and Karrank all gasped at hearing the total. Obviously, they had heard the prices for each of the individual portions, but hearing it summed together still fully impressed upon them the size of it all.

“I pray you do not want all of that in coins.” Sister Brimbal turned to Sylvester.

“No, plates are acceptable. We just need to be able to divide it into four evenly.” He waved off her concerns. Everyone turned back to the appraiser who was quickly calculating the best way to divide the money.

“Looks like 20 gold plates, 32 silver plates, and 164 silver pieces will cover the cost.” He finally announced.

Soon the money was produced, along with four coffers to hold it in. Sylvester graciously accepted and soon the group was on their way back to Shoehaven Manor.

“Are you sure it was wise to keep some of the things we did?” Kurt asked as their cart made its way through the bustling city.

“I know what they all do, and none of them are cursed if that is what you are worried about.” Sylvester provided.

“That is good to hear, but they aren’t going to be too happy if they find out we kept stuff from them.” Karrank followed up, though with much less worry in his voice.

“A church like that would probably just frown and say they are disappointed in us.” Val laughed, though everyone had to admit that it didn’t appear a very militant or powerful organization.

Back at the manor, Sylvester handed Neil his coffer of coins and the group split up to explore the city for the day. Kurt went to check out the arena, while Neil went to see if there were any wizards in town. Karrank went off to the slums while Val stuck with Sylvester like usual. He, however, spent the day relaxing in the shade of the trees in Whiteoak Square.

The residents gave him strange looks, the story of his group’s adventures had already spread, but they didn’t give him any trouble. They weren’t sure how to feel about him for the most part. He had saved someone from being murdered, though it was a Harlot and it had ended in the arrest of several members of the square. Still, the stories of a hidden cache of treasure deep below the square was intriguing enough on its own.

Of course, Sylvester wasn’t sitting idle this whole time. He was working on refining his internal energy, something he was very close to succeeding at. Someone without his knowledge might have believed that it was something about the location, and they may have even been right, but Sylvester knew it had more to do with the treasure they had recovered and its resulting experience points.

By his own calculations, which were obviously fuzzy and imprecise, he would either be just short of reaching a new level or barely make it. He was looking forward very much to being able to cast miracles of the 4th level and bless his own holy water.

As he continued to refine his energies, he knew that he would be breaking through to the next level, leaving him only one short of the next stage he desired. He eventually got up with a smile on his face and prepared to leave.

Before he could go far, however, he was approached by a lizardman in tattered robes.

“The Oracle wishes to meet with you.” It said in a perfectly clear, if slightly breathy, voice.