"Hmmm...yes, yes! Iz 'member dat box! Very very shiny box, black wiv dragon head an' goldy bits, come in...yesterday!" the gate boss tells Elan and Twilly after a moment of thought. "King Splurt take box for royal collecshun." (The other sneevils go ooooh.)

"We'z go tell da king youz need da shiny box. Dis way!" 

"Thanks!"

On the way to see the king, Elan focuses on not forgetting his name. Probably the royal collection will be a super safe place and nobody will turn out to have stolen the box already!

They're led into the throne room, which is—of course—piled high with boxes. Even the throne itself is made of them.

King Splurt has an actually-quite-nice purple cape and a crown that at least looks from a distance like it might be gold. (If Elan's Appraise is good enough, he might be able to tell that it's painted wood, probably originally a theatre prop.)

"Who comes after uz?" the king demands in his very best attempt at grandeur. "We iz King Splurt!" 

Oooh, royal swag. Elan doesn't think it's nice enough for Haley to be tempted to steal it but it definitely looks good.

"Hi, your sneevilishness!" he says politely. "My name is Elan and we're looking for a box. We don't need to keep it, we just want to open it up."

The gate boss explains the deal about mending boxes, presenting one of the mended ones as proof, to which the king pronounces his approval.

Upon hearing the description of the box they're looking for, King Splurt nods eagerly. "Ooooh, da shiny black box wiv da dragon head. Very nice box. Uz traded it to Boxlord Ulp for seven boxes dis morning!" 

At least it wasn't stolen…

"That sounds like a pretty good deal!" is what he decides to say out loud. "Where does Boxlord Ulp live?"

He'll probably have to do all this again. At least now he knows he can do the spell slots trick, so if they wanna talk him up from three to five at the other box fort he can just say okay. Or maybe he can be all cool and go, I can do four, all haggler-style.

"Boxlord Ulp live in da south of Surewould Forest!" 

Twilly's ears twitch in surprise. "Huh? But that's all the way over the river and on the other side of Falconreach! Why would sneevils travel that far just for boxes?"  

There's a collective gasp from the assembled sneevils. 

"JUST boxes? How darez you dis-re-pect boxes!" King Splurt shouts, abandoning the fake-deep voice. "Guards! Punt dat moglin outta herez!"

A pair of armed sneevils move to obey, approaching Twilly with clear hostile intent. 

For once, it's kind of nice to not be the one who accidentally said something that offended someone.

He should probably pick Twilly up and run away, but then he wouldn't be able to keep the rest of the deal and that would be mean.

"Please don't hurt my friend! I'm sure he didn't mean that."

Twilly, ears drooping, does his best to look pitiful and harmless.

"Twillies very very sorry...I's didn't means to be rude about your boxes..." His eyes are very big and shiny. 

Awww, he's just a lil guy. 

"Hmph. Okay, guards—no puntingz! But I wants both of youz out of my sight, right now!" 

Elan nods seriously.

"Okay, bye…"

Is there time to fix boxes four and five on the way out? And give the ring to the gate boss like he offered?

The gate boss manages to catch Elan on his way out and get him to fix a couple more boxes, yep! They'll happily take the ring as well, although they seem much more enthusiastic about the boxes. 

That sure tracks with what Elan has observed about the sneevils! Hopefully the fixed boxes will help… something. Delay them in trying to raid anyone else for a little while, maybe?

"I hope you don't feel too bad about that," he remarks to Twilly as soon as he's sure they're out of sneevil earshot. "I've made people mad on accident before too."

Twilly shrugs. He doesn't seem too upset; his ears have gone back to their normal position.

"I's used to people wanting to kick Twillies. I thinks some of them does it just for fun... It's okay, though! Moglins bounce!" 

Oh good.

"Huh! Is that fun?"

If Elan bounced he would probably think it was fun.

"Not really. Twillies gets dizzy..." 

His ears perk up. "Oooh, a moglinberry bush!" He points out a bush heavy with juicy red berries. "I's didn't knows they grew wild in this part of the forest. They's really delicious, we should picks some!"

"Oh boy!"

Elan's amenable to this activity!

"Are they called moglinberries because they're red or because you guys like them a whole bunch?"

Twilly giggles. "I forgets you hasn't met any other moglins yet! We comes in all sortsa colours, not just red. We like them, but mostly they's called moglinberries because they's fuzzy like moglins. See?" 

He picks one and holds it out for Elan to take. Close up, the berries are covered in fuzzy hair, a little like raspberries. They do feel a little like moglin fur to the touch. 

He rolls it in his fingers.

"Whoa, you're right. That's pretty cool! Does anything else that's good to eat grow in the forest?"

He decides to try the berry. If he's allergic he can use—not Neutralize Poison, he found that out from the bee sting thing earlier—one of his Cure spells, probably.

It's sweet and juicy! It feels a teeny tiny bit rejuvenating, a little bit like eating a Goodberry only even less, and without the part where you're full for the rest of the day and don't want to eat any more. 

Twilly is eating one of his own, with much enjoyment. 

Whoa, he's like the opposite of allergic!

"Wow, that's really good! Do they have healing magic? Or maybe the thing in coffee and tea that wakes you up? Oh, I bet you could put them in a pie or a jam."

Twilly nods enthusiastically while munching on his second berry. "They's an ingredient in health potions! Other than that, they's mostly used to make moglinberry juice. It's really popular! But Twillies likes the berries on their own most of all."

"I can see why!"

Elan eats another.

"Should we be careful about how many we pick? Oh, and do they go bad fast or anything?"

He'd feel bad if they picked a whole bunch and then it turned out that the next day they went all gross.