<div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/a/a6/Neeral.jpg)<br/>Neeral (https://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=1428855)</div>Neeral turned her head bashfully aside, and might have blushed if her scales weren't already entirely red. "Yeah, I remember that," she admitted. "That lady sure helped me out when I needed it. So did Tamari there," she continued, pointing at the gnome. "I've fallen on my feet now, though! Just got finished setting up Lord Palmdale's castle with new locks and traps. Feels good making an honest living again!"<br/><br/>She gave Vannalys a grin and a shrug. "It's okay, no problem." She drew herself up a little taller and looked around at the gathered adventurers. "I'm Neeral, by the way. Nice to meet you all!"<br/><br/>Neeral dug a sheet of paper and a stick of charcoal out of her pack and started to make notes while Zillah was speaking. She nodded along at learning the tower's age and the nature of its magic. The description of the trap on the front door elicited a contemptuous roll of her eyes for anyone who would fall for a trap on a building's front door, and a minor mark for her notes.<br/><br/>Upon being told the pay, she paused and set her paper and charcoal down. She tilted her head to one side and started counting on her claws. "Hey, Tamari, it's 'ones, tens, hundreds, thousands', right? You taught me how to do numbers in Common." She stood up on her barstool and looked directly at Zillah. "Your poster says that the job is gonna take months. There's a mining cartel in Nashkel that will pay me a hundred gold to oversee sinking their new shaft for three months. I don't know about this lot," she continued, waving a claw to encompass the other adventurers, "but I'll bet they could earn the same kind of money doing something that's not going to get them killed.<br/><br/>"So what you're basically saying is that you can't pay us." She shrugged. "I should walk out right now, but this tower sounds kinda interesting. Strange magic, lots of traps, nice position in the middle of the forest. Probably got a nice basement, or I could dig my own. So... I can't speak for these guys, but I'll do this job for the handful of rocks you're offering, on two conditions. One, we can quit at any time and you don't go telling folks that we broke a contract. Ten gold up front doesn't buy you loyalty to the death. And two, if we shut it down and give you all the information we find, that's all you get from the tower. If we want to move in and take over, that's our business, not yours. Give us those two things and this venture just might be worth the risks."<br/><br/>She sat down again, satisfied with the offer she had made. She snatched up her notes and looked over them again. "Oh, and are you sure you don't know who built this thing? I wanna do some research before we leave."