Down they trot; Ky takes point. "Hello?"

"Wh-who's there! I'm warning you, theives, I have magic and I'm not afraid to use it!"

In the far corner of the basement is a particularly portly gnome, his hair starting to show the first wisps of white.

"Sir, we're not thieves! I'm Kybele the Curator, or Gazette, and this is my brother Iskander, and our companion is Camellia. We came in to talk to you and incidentally rescued, ah," she gestures with the exposed hilt of the talking dagger, "from under a shelf."

"Well, I suppose you do seem remarkably better dressed than most of those lowlives."

The gnome sounds marginally less suspicious, although still not calm about the situation. He starts when he sees the dagger.

"Finnean! Why did you tell them how to get in here?"

He looks like he had never once imagined this might be a security concern and is now deeply regretting some life choices.

"Calm down Fyllemen, they seem like stand up people. Rescued me out from under a shelf and everything, and helped me figure out I've been turned invisible! I'm sure they don't mean you any harm."

Guilt flashes in the gnome's eyes.

"Er, yes, well..."

Abandoning that tack, he then pivots to Kybele.

"So, what have you come seeking Fyllemen Frulliatros for?"

"Well, uh, I have this I got off a succubus and hoped you'd take a look at it, for one." She unwraps the parcel.

He flinches at the mention of a succubus, but examining magic items seems much less stressful a use of his time than most things he's been doing lately. His eyes glow, and his gaze flickers back and forth over it.

"It's a cloak of disguise. Take your basic cloak of resistance, and then also make the wearer better at disguising themselves as someone else. It'll change color to help sell the deception, but not shape and won't form any complicated patterns or disguise its own magic."

As he speaks, he grows more animated; thoughts of them being thieves are totally forgotten.

"Interesting. I can't say I often want to disguise myself as someone else, but the one I have now is borrowed, so it'll come in handy for its more standard use when I return it."

He nods at that.

"I'd say it's worth half again as much as a normal cloak, though less in most markets here unless you're willing to sell to unsavory types; with the right buyer you could get more, but I can't say I have a particular hankering for it. Is there anything else you want assessed?"

"What can you tell me about this?" she asks, holding up the angel sword.

His eyes go wide.

"That's an angel's sword... and a genuine one too, not something mass produced for their footsoldiers. That's a priceless historical artefact; wherever did you find it?"

"Underground. It's very useful but I worry I'm not using it to its full capacity."

"That's almost certainly accurate, but it's unlikely anyone else would get much better out of it; it's a minor artifact that can only be wielded at its full potential by an angel, but its more bonded to you than I would have expected from an aasimar much less a normal human. In your hands... I'd say it's approximately a +2 cold iron good aligned sword, and should be able to use a bit of energy to bolster you or any allies as needed; there's a pool that would let it do something fancy, but it's run dry by now. Aside from that, as an artefact it's almost indestructible even by the standards of magic items, and it should function even in an antimagic field if need be."

"A pool?"

"Something that stores energy for when it's needed, but can be discharged to do something particularly impressive. A lot of stronger magic items have something like that, for effects powerful enough you want them but too expensive to have trigger at will."

"Huh. With luck I didn't use it up on that lilitu."

"As far as I can tell it doesn't currently have a charge, but I haven't the foggiest when or how angel swords recharge. It could be that it refills every day, or when you do enough good deeds, or every time it goes back to heaven, or whenever an angel refills it... I'm pretty sure it's not just pumping in magic though like it would be for a staff."

"Okay. Thank you, I'll keep an eye on it. Do you do much in the way of accumulating good deeds yourself?"

"I tried it for a century or so when I was younger, but the spark went out of it for me and I started bleaching so I moved on to other matters; the most I do now are occasional interesting jobs for the pathfinder society. These days I mostly collect and display interesting items, though unless I keep getting visitors like you that's probably only going to last me a decade or so before I need to pick up something else."

"Started... bleaching?"

"I'm a gnome! We live forever, but only if we keep doing interesting things. If we get too bored or set in our ways, our hair starts turning white and our bodies start breaking down like other mortals do until we fix it."

"Oh, how curious. But a one-off adventure would suit you fine? I mean to fix the wardstone tomorrow at dawn."

"Oh gosh. That does sound interesting, I've wanted to know how wardstones are put together for a while now, but it sounds dangerous. What would it involve?"

"We're gathering outside the temple of Desna first thing and then we go in and everybody covers me while I try something the Storyteller recommended. If it works at all, it should be pretty quick. Even if you don't want to join us I'd appreciate you meeting up with the group to check if the sword will be able to do the thing it does again then."