"I don't know about you, but underground or not, I think I'd prefer a roof over my head. That said, I'm not exactly tired just yet; are you interested in taking a bit of a look around first, or should I let you get some shuteye?"

"I'd love to see more of the place. I've never been anywhere like it."

"Great! Lann, Wenduag, what would you say are the best places to see here?"

Lann looks much less antsy now that he has something useful to do rather than feeling like he's wasting his time while kids are in danger.

"Sure! Over there we have the docks - being able to fish on the lake was the main reason we built Neatholm here, but you won't catch anything all that big outside the shallows, and it's also useful when you need to get across the lake in a hurry instead of climbing around the edge. And that over there is the storage hut, where we keep supplies of the kinds of food that doesn't go bad. And that's-

Whatever Lann would have said next is interrupted by someone coming around the corner and into sight of the Neatholm entrance. His appearance makes it clear that he's from the surface as well, and his clothing that he'swell to do; their exhaustion and stopping to pant makes it clear they aren't especially fit. When he spots Kybele's group among the neathers, however, he seems to pick up a second wind and start making his way over to them.

"- who's that?"

"That's-"

"Horgus Gwerm, gentleman and noble of Kenabres." The man seems to have an incredible ear, at least when it comes to people talking about him. "You lot - you're adventurers, right? From the surface? Horgus Gwerm will pay you handsomely for a route back to Kenabres, and you guaranteeing his safety while he travels. I'm prepared to offer a thousand gold."

"That's a handsome offer, Mr. Gwerm! We were just discussing that and have decided to stay the night here, but I don't see why you shouldn't travel with us; we're going to be gathering more neathers and there's safety in numbers. I'm Kybele the Curator."

"Of course it is - Horgus Gwerm is always generous when it involves ensuring his safety, my life is far too precious to waste it cutting costs."

Despite his words, he seems quite pleased at her easy acceptance. Then the second part of what she says seems to hit him, and he nods rapidly.

"Naturally, naturally; it only makes sense that you would wait and get a good night's sleep first before setting out, quite sensible of you to stay safe." If Kybele is looking closely, his eyes might seem to linger a bit on Camellia while he says this, but it's gone to quickly to interpret closely. "I'm charmed to meet you, Kybele the Curator. When you have a finalized plan, please let me know, but I won't keep you any longer than necessary."

She sketches a little bow.

"Are we going to get dinner at some point? Fish or something?"

"Normally, we do rely a lot on fish, but with uplanders and an angel's sword in town I expect the cooks are going to want to try and impress. Nothing but the best rats for you!"

"Somehow, I feel like I could have happily gone my entire life without eating a rat."

"Well, there's no accounting for taste. Over there's where Dyra has set up shop; she's really big on trading things, but there's less call for that kind of thing than I think she'd appreciate."

"I actually love fish. It's my favorite. Also Ky's favorite. We are fish fiends. Oh, and do you have mushrooms? We love those too. You don't need to waste rats on us."

Ky will drift over to see what's in the shop.

"Huh, I'll go let them know. They'd never forgive me if I let them miss out on a chance to make your favorites! If you have any questions while I'm gone, I'm sure Wendu can answer them."

Dyra appears to be selling a number of useful goods and services. In terms of items, there's arrows, fishhooks, a few kinds of weaponry, firestarters, and so forth, but also a handful of bottles that are apparently healing potions and pain removal. The sign, which they can also somehow read, lists prices for "channeling," "cures," "truthtelling," and "carrying capacity," as well as mentioning to ask her for a quote for other castings. Around her neck is a necklace with a stylized symbol of scales that a native might recognize as one of Abadar's holy symbols but is almost certainly meaningless to Kybele and Iskander.

"Uplanders! Feel free to let me know if anything catches your interest or you have questions, I love to trade with new people! I'll take trade in barter, not just gold, but prices are higher if I'll have to liquidate it myself to get value out of it."

"Ooh, healing potions. The sign - hm, we're from very far away, not just above the ground but also many miles off, and I'm not sure I recognize the services, can you tell me about them?"

"Certainly! I'm a cleric of Abadar, the god of trade, which means I give him my worship and do my best to foster trades and he gives me tools to help me out at doing that! When I want a specific spell from him, I have to ask for it that morning, and normally I pick things like ant haul, which makes you better at carrying things, delay pain, which means that things that would otherwise be painful aren't for a while, and truthtelling, which prevents you from lying and is great for proving you're being honest. Sometimes I also cast that one on myself, when I say I haven't been cheating people in trades or stealing things, so people know they can trust me. I can also turn any of these spells into cures, where I heal one person, and I have a couple of channels a day where I heal everyone around me. I usually sell one of those every day after dinner to the villagers here, but you could buy one too if you wanted. If you want a spell I didn't ask Abadar for today, you'd need to make a deal with me ahead of time so I can ask him for it tomorrow and then sell it to you."

"Oh, how neat. Do you sell paper, by any chance?"

"I do! I'm mostly the only one here who uses it, so I've got some supply, but it's pretty hard to come by down here so it'll probably cost you more than you're used to. If you just want something that you can do some figuring on I can also sell you slate and some chalk, it's not as good for keeping things long term but it's much cheaper especially since you can rent the slate rather than buy it."

"Nope, it's paper I want." She taps her hat. "I could improve the quality of whatever I don't buy, if that would suit you."

"Oh, I see." Dyra is a little disappointed that she didn't find someone else as enthusiastic as she is about written records and instead wants paper for a practical purpose, but she recognizes that in retrospect it was silly to expect it of everyone on the surface and there's no reason that the first person she meets would be like that. Plus, this does open some opportunities.

"Certainly. Does this mean you're fine with purchasing paper that has writing on it already at a discount? And what does improving the quality mean in practice, can you make them longer lasting? Less likely to tear?"