>>5328762>>5328781>>5328842>>5328916>>5329079>>5329204>>5329275Good advice is a blessing which often goes unappreciated. You, however, recognized its true value. As you will be setting out to hunt creatures of the night, it is only fitting that you defer to the wisdom of one who has made a career of dispatching such beasts. Dulnur Darkshadow, Speaker of the Town and proprietor of the Stag at Bay, is a seasoned adventurer that has achieved the status of a local celebrity according to Ilanis.
The difference between the Stag at Bay and the Dreaming Dragon is so pronounced that the two are hardly comparable. Raucous laughter, wild gambling sprees, and drinking competitions among diverse, hotheaded youths who think themselves intrepid fills the Stag from end-to-end, even at this hour of the morning. A rakish-looking swordsman breaks into song as an ongoing argument devolves into a fistfight, drawing bets from cheering spectators. The clientele here is mostly young - and by your metric, inexperienced - adventurers drunk on their latest victories.
You must shout to converse with the patrons, asking around for Dulnur. Battling your way through an unruly tide of persons at variable degrees of inebriation, you find the man seated in a booth situated in the corner of the tavern, holding a smoking pipe in his right hand as he occasionally sips from a glass of stout with the other. He sneers as you step in a shallow pool of vomit, tracking it across the floor.
This hargluk - dwarf in the surface-dweller language - is the mortal manifestation of aged bitterness. His hard features and joyless expression lend credit to the possibility that he is made of rock, exacerbated by the wrinkles in his skin that resemble fissures in stone. Bushy white hairs erupt from his skull, neatly maintained and arranged into an elaborate beard. Thinking on it, this is the first time that you've encountered someone older than yourself while in Everlund, a truth that is not easy to reconcile with.
