Notes

A fireball whizzed past Caelum’s bald red skull as he tumbled into a narrow residential alleyway, thankfully devoid of bystanders at the moment. Not a moment too soon, his disguise faded away to reveal his natural genasi form, leaving him with a few precious seconds to compose himself before ten city guards, four retired bankers, two apprentice wizards, and a supremely irate chicken farmer thundered down the same alleyway in pursuit. Thinking quickly, Caelum collapsed against a doorway as if he had been bowled over, affixing an expression of mingled shock, irritation, and fear upon his face. “Big red hobgoblin?” he asked knowingly, looking up at the motley crew. “Ran towards the market square. The bastard nearly trampled me!” he swore, feigning a wince when he attempted to sit up. Oblivious to their quarry’s true identity, Caelum’s pursuers nodded and charged past him without a word.
Before he could even breathe in relief, heavy footsteps thudded towards the doorway behind him. An enormous figure, his face obscured in shadow under the dim evening light, flung open the door. A large piece of metal glinted from his side—was that a butcher knife?! Caelum had barely scrambled to his feet before the terrifying figure caught him by the waist and dragged him indoors.
Within the ensuing seconds of confusion, the figure unceremoniously deposited Caelum on a wooden chair and slammed a tankard of strangely colored ale onto the table before him. “I saw everything from the second-story window. Must’ve been some real trouble you caused. I’ve never seen Boddynock, that weaselly old chicken gnome, look so offended!” Caelum’s drink shook from the sheer force of the giant Turami man’s booming laugh and voice. His chin and neck were crisscrossed in faded scars, clearly visible through his patchy beard. “In front of you is some of Stinkeye Sty’s finest pigs-blood ale. Drink up, lad!” he said with a friendly grin, revealing two rows of crooked, chipped teeth.
Caelum’s blue complexion took on a decidedly greenish hue as he offered the figure a mildly queasy, extremely nervous smile. Upon closer inspection, flecks of fresh blood still coated the Turami man’s knife and hands. Keeping his voice as steady as possible, which was no easy feat given how frightened he felt, Caelum responded, “I’ll, ah, pass on the ale, but thank you for the offer? I’d love to stay and tell you what I did, but it might be the tiniest bit illegal, and I really need to be somewhere else right now, so I’ll get going if you don’t mind—“
A large, bloody hand abruptly pinned Caelum’s shoulder to the back of his chair, keeping him in place. He froze as the figure crouched beside him, bringing them to eye level. “Don’t lie to me, lad,” his abductor growled, far more quietly yet far more scarily than before. “The Tunnel rats don’t call me Agosto the Perceptive without reason. I’ll sniff out what you’re hiding if I have to tear your guts apart to do it. Understood?” From this angle Agosto’s piercing eyes, unusually pale and blue among Turami, stood out in sharp contrast to his dark and weathered face. The flickering candlelight cast ominous shadows over the table as Agosto waited for a response. Unable to break eye contact, Caelum nodded stiffly, afraid to disturb the silence that had fallen upon them.
“Good! Glad we cleared that up!” Agosto boomed, back to amicable loudness again...