Peeking out from the rear of their wagon, Aritian could see the gates of Garaizan approaching in the distance. It was an overcast day, a couple hours past noon now, but thankfully it wasn’t supposed to rain. Timber turned to face the rest of the party and spoke in hushed tones.

  “Alright- so we’re gonna get to thee main entrance soon. Let me be doing all the talking, we’re under the story that we’re an adventurer party here to fend off dastardly sirens off th’ coast. We also be arriving quite early. Our contact knows to meet us at the ‘Mead and Ichor’ tavern across town at sundown where he’ll give details on where the target is. In the meantime, I suggest ye get yerselves familiarized with the town in case we need escape routes. Any questions?”

  Mbaya raised an axe. “I forget, what did you say about killing civilians and…”

  John Timber frowned. “They’re expendable. But remember, not everyone in the city is a devout Harmonyist. Most of em are innocent, just victims of the revolution. Our enemies might not even-”

  Timber’s swashbuckling tone was cut off as their covered wagon rounded the bend towards the gate. Past it they could see smoke rising in the center square of the city market.

  While Timber spoke to the front guards about their false business in Garaizan, the rest of party looked past him to see what was going on. “Innocent my ass. Look at that…” said Corvus through gritted teeth.

  As they parked the wagon and unpacked by the side of the gate’s interior, Aritian and the others looked onwards toward the spectacle unfolding just 50 feet away. A pyre had been built in the market square, with a wooden beam secured in its center, a bound and gagged kobold held up high. The flames below were inching upwards higher and higher, now reaching the poor lizard’s ankles. In front of them stood another lizardfolk in dark purple robes, arms outstretched chanting in their native language- clearly a Harmonyist priest, but not the crocodile they were looking for. As John Timber dismounted from the front of the wagon, he began translating;

  “‘...you now begin the journey to the utopia in the sky, by the grace of our all-seeing protector, Harmony. May his light shine upon you and your kin as you are cleaned in his arms’”.

  Just then, the kobold upon the flaming pillar began to scream through her gag, which had begun to burn away, freeing her mouth to speak. It kept shouting a single phrase, over and over.

  “What- what's she saying?” asked Momo shakily.

  Timber stared into the conflagration for a moment with a blank expression. His mouth hung agape for several seconds before speaking.

  “Hell. Hell. Over and over…” he muttered.

  Corvus began to reach for his axe, a look of red bloodthirst creeping across his eyes.

  Timber snapped out of his trance staring into the flames. “No,” he ordered, “Not here or now. Look- there's too many of them here anyways. It’d be suicide.” The pirate nodded behind where the priest stood preaching, where nearly a dozen soldiers stood at guard. More lizardfolk, wearing armor and arms bearing the symbol of Harmonyism: a hand reaching upwards from fire while another hand reaches down through clouds. Amongst them were two particularly decorated soldiers- definitely officers with more experience than the grunts.

  Mbaya put a hand on Corvus’ shoulder apprehensively. “There will be time for bloodshed and vengeance. But not yet.”

  As the group of Overlord moved out of the way, the priest stepped forward, produced a staff, and tapped it against the immolating victim on the stake. Instantly, the kobolds body shattered into small purple pieces- thousands of orchid petals now flowed throughout the street. Pan hissed nervously. The onlooking crowd gasped, perhaps in awe, but more likely in fear that it could happen to one of them if they weren’t careful.

  The buildings of Garaizan were uniformly constructed with bright orange stucco roofs, with multicolored orange, black, and green painted stone brick walls beneath. In the square there were a few wooden shacks as well, either storerooms or outhouses. All sorts of lizard-kind were traversing the market square, where fruits, vegetables, trinkets, meats, weapons, armors, tools, and almost anything else you could think of would be sold. Most creatures did not speak Common in their haggling conversations, and the air smelled of horse manure and incense trying to cover the horse manure.

  “So… again, plan is to meet up at the ‘Mead and Ichor’ by sundown. Until then, you can preview the market, check out the port, peruse the shops… just don’t cause a commotion or anything,” explained Timber.

  Aritian had never been to Garaizan before, but there were a few places he could think of to check out-

  “Oh! Let's go here!” shouted Momo, tugging along Aritian by the sleeve.

  Aritian looked up to see a sign in front of a small building that read ‘FORTUNE TELLER MERIZAN- FIND YOUR TOMORROW, TODAY!’

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  The interior lobby was devoid of occupants, but plastered along the walls were many mystical trinkets and whirring clocks that looked fairly valuable. If Aritian didn’t know better, he might have nabbed something. Mbaya certainly didn’t know better, and tried to pocket a glittering jeweled cup only to be shocked painfully backwards by some magical force. In the room now waited Momo, Pan, Aritian, and Mbaya- Corvus and Tai must have headed across the street.

  After about a minute, Momo politely knocked on the sole door opposite the entryway they came in.

  “Maybe he’s using the bathroom?” suggested Aritian.

  Mbaya tried the knob, and then slammed on the door loudly. “HEY! You’ve got customers waiting out here! What kinda fortune teller are you to not know?”

  He took a brief look through the keyhole, studying the other side. “That’s it. I can see him too! He’s meditating or something. HELLO?”

  Mbaya swiftly got up and left out the front door.

  “He’s not very patient,” noted Momo. Pan purred in concurment.

  Five seconds later, they heard glass breaking on the other side of the locked door. Another few moments and the doorway opened to reveal Mbaya, who had clearly broken the window inside the fortune teller’s office and climbed in.

  “Woah! Mbaya, you can’t just break people’s windows like that-” said Momo.

  “You got a lot of nerve, scaleface!” accused Mbaya, pointing his golden axe at the red kobold sitting at the desk ahead, who now just opened his tired eyes.

  “My name is Merizan. And I have been expecting you,” claimed the diviner in Commonspeak, “for this morning I awoke with the premonition that a group of adventurers would smash their way into my office, and that I would give them their fortune.”

  “For real?!” exclaimed Momo excitedly.

  “Yes. Would you like to hear it?”

  Aritian and Momo nodded with enthusiasm. Mbaya looked slightly displeased that he no longer had an excuse to stab someone.

  Merizan’s robed figure slumped to his desk surface for a moment, but when his face then arose, his eyes shined with a silvery light. He seemed to be in a trance now, as he chanted in a dull, monotonal voice:

  “Somewhere, hidden in this town, there is a portal of fire. Enter it, and you will have the opportunity to obtain an item of great power. Be warned, that the master of the portal’s realm requires your participation in a contest of great skill to be rewarded.”

  Merizan shook his head violently at the end of his speech, and opened his eyes to reveal they were back to their normal tangerine hue.

  “Well? Did you hear it? Was it good? No predictions of death, right? I lose a lot of clients because of that sometimes.”

  The three adventurers paused awkwardly to take in what they had just heard.

  “Yeah.. no deaths or anything like that, it's all fine. Now, as for the payment-” started Aritian, who was ready to use his immaculate charm to bring the price down on their divination.

  Momo quickly paid Merizan for his services, and even threw in a gracious tip. As they departed, the kobold said to make sure to recommend his services to any friends of theirs.

  “What the hell did he say? Something about a portal of fire?” groaned Mbaya.

  “Yes, and hidden somewhere in this town…” added Aritain. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.

  “But if it means treasure, we should look for it!” Momo said, “Like a scavenger hunt.”

  The three of them continued to saunter about town, keeping their eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. The only thing that really stood out on their patrol was a piece of anti-Harmonyist graffiti they witnessed depicting a council member being murdered at the hands of a clergyman, likely meant to be Carnan Frig. At least this meant that not all citizens of Garaizan were complicit with the regime change.

  After looping back to where they essentially started in the market, they noticed Tai waving to them from across the street.

  “Fellas, you won’t believe what me and Corvus found. See, we were doing a bit of exploring and we got lost, and we knocked on this guys door to ask directions, and he thought we were there to expel the apparitions in his house, and so in his kitchen-”

  “There was a portal made out of fire?” suggested Aritian.

  “Uh… yeah. How’d you know?”

  “Fortune teller.”

  Following Tai through a couple alleyways, they arrived at the backdoor of a large residential building. Even through the window adjacent, Aritian could see the vibrant glow of something fiery on the other side.

  “Ah, this is the rest of your extermination team?” said a rather fancy looking kobold on the other side of the doorway who wore a blonde hairpiece.

  “Ah, we prefer the term exorcism specialists,” lied Aritain, “And yes, we’ll handle this post-haste, my dear sir. But on the matter of payment, a problem like this might require more than what was advertised.”

  “Whatever it takes!” implored the posh kobold, “I’ve got a dinner party at 7! Now go!”

  Tai put a cautionary arm on the lizard's shoulder and warned, “This might get ugly, you… might want to vacate the room.”

  Now that they were alone, Overlord took their time pondering the portal that sat in the middle of a backroom kitchen.

  “So let me get this right,” questioned Corvus with a skeptical tone, “a fortune teller you just met claimed you would find this exact portal made of fire, and that inside there's some sort of game we have to play in order to be rewarded with a powerful item?”

  “Yup!” Momo grinned.

  “But we have no idea where this goes,” asserted Corvus, “It could be a different plane, it could have monsters- did Momo just go in?”

  The others looked around to see the tengu had disappeared from the room. Pan the panther soon climbed in the fiery circle a moment later without making a sound.

  “Aw, screw it. If there is really treasure on the other side, I’m gonna get me a piece,” declared Mbaya, leaping in after.

  As the rest of the party climbed into the flaming portal, Aritian thought how strange this quest was starting out, but he had a feeling that it definitely still had room to get weirder.