Chapter 3

Seraphina left the Golden Eagle and headed across town toward the most luxurious Inn she could think of. She opened up her coin pouch and glanced inside. She still couldn't believe the amount of gold the bugbear had on him. She now had her pouch full of gold. With all the noise in the tavern it had been easy to cut out the bottom of his belt pouch and just watch all the coins drop into her pouch.

She entered the inn and approached the desk. As she approached she noticed the door to the right of the desk that read "Weapons Closet". The door had a large ornate lock on it, and she figured that patrons were required to check in any weapons before aquiring a room. She quickly moved one of her daggers into the secret slot in the back of her armor.

"Hello! And welcome to the luxurious Windworn Inn! What kind of room can I get for you?" The elven woman behind the desk asked.

"What is the most luxurious room that you have?" Seraphina tried not to sound like she was talking down to the elven woman, but wasn't sure if she was succeeding or not.

The hostess was taken aback by her words and Seraphina realized that she had failed in her task. "Well," she started to say a little less cordially, "We have the King's Suite, which is a two bedroom suite, but there's a catch."

"And the catch is.." Seraphina prompted impatiently. Why did Elves always think they were better than everyone else?

"There's been a problem with that room, recently. A problem with someone breaking in and stealing the belongings of the patrons in that room." The elf was making it a point to keep her voice low. "And no matter what we do, we can never catch the person."

"I'll tell ya what. You let me have the room for free for one night and I'll give you my personal guarantee that I will catch the person whose breaking into that room. If I am unsuccessful, then I will pay you double for the room."

The elven woman pondered the proposal for a minute. "You would have to put the double cost of four gold pieces with me for the night if I am to trust you, no offense."

"That's fair, and when I bring this 'rogue' to justice, I'll come down and collect my money back." Seraphina handed the woman four gold pieces.

Still hesitant, the elven woman handed the room key to Seraphina. "Have a nice night." She said.

Seraphina went up the stairs to the left of the desk after depositing her shield, short sword, and daggers (all except the one in her armor) at the desk. She opened the door to her room and stepped in. She was immediately in shock as to how enormous and beautiful the room was. She may hate elves in general, but she had to admit, they knew how to decorate. There was an elegant tub in the center of the room. A bedroom branched off to the left and right of the main quarters, and a makeshift kitchen was along the left wall. There was a water closet set in the right wall. She plopped down on the seat in the corner and threw her pack up on the table. She dumped out her coin purse and started counting how much money she had.

"57 Gold pieces, 13 Silver, and ten Copper." She said to noone in particular. She scooped up the coins and put them back in her coin purse. She then went to each of the windows and rigged up a very simple yet effective fire trap to each of the windows. The trap included pieces of rope, and empty flasks of what used to be Alchemist's Fire. When the window is opened, it pulls the rope and the flasks drop and shatter, thus catching the intruder off guard and alerting her to the whereabouts of the intruder. She hoped that this plan would work.

Feeling satisfied with the rigging of the windows, she got undressed and sank into the spa in the center of the room. No sooner was she completely relaxed, when there was a knock at the door.

"This is a really bad time for room service!" She yelled to the person at the front door. There was silence after that, and she continued to relax. About ten minutes later, there was another knock at the door. Reluctantly, she got out of the spa, wrapped a towel around her and went to the door. She reached for the door handle, just as the knocking started again and she flung the door open in mid-knock.

"WHAT?!" She said as the door came open. She was completely caught off guard when she realized that there was nobody on the other side of her door. She peeked out into the hallway. There was nobody in both directions. Puzzled, she shut the door and waited to see if the knocking happened again. When it didn't, she went to the master bedroom and crawled into bed.

She was surprised when she woke up the next morning. She had purposely slept lightly so that any kind of disturbance would have woke her up. Cursing herself for being so cocky as to wager paying double for the room if she didn't catch the burglar, she got up and went to check the windows. All of the traps that she had set were still intact in the main room. She crossed the main room to the secondary bedroom, and was nearly scared out of her wits when she came across a male gnome tied up in front of the window of this bedroom. Her pouch of gold was lying at his feet. She looked at the window, the trap had been disarmed, which was impossible to do from the outside. Seraphina knew there was no way the burglar got in through the window. She searched the Gnome, who was trying to speak through his gag, but Seraphina ignored it. She found spell reagents on him, and a scroll pouch with three scrolls of invisibility inside it. Then she remembered the knocking the night before and nobody being at the door when she answered it, and it all started to make sense. All except for one thing.

She picked up her coin pouch and opened it up. It looked as if all her gold was there, she dumped it all out on the table and counted it. She found a note inside the pouch also, but ignored it until she finished counting her gold. There was now 53 Gold pieces instead of 57. Exactly the amount it would have cost her to pay the double cost on the room. She turned her attention to the note. She unfolded it and read it:

Your Welcome

?

That was all the letter said. She recognized the symbol to be that of the Katithine Thieves Guild and immediately knew who had captured the gnome. Now she had to think of where in town she could find Mr. Whistler on a day like this. A smile crept across her face, and she headed downstairs to get the authorities to come arrest the gnome and to collect her four gold from the lady behind the counter.

To be Continued...