The Wrong Lawful at the Glow Pools

The Glow Pools did not welcome them quietly. Ash staggered through Gravenhurst with the glow of victory and too much alcohol still working through him. The party had chosen Blastbelle's safer-looking sewer route, but the entrance was already blocked. A Lawful officer stood in front of it and announced that the Glow Pools were off limits. That answer did not hold up for long. Ash tried to bluff his way through as if he were arriving for a party, producing what turned out to be a donut receipt instead of identification. Maine and the others tried to steer the conversation toward going home, then toward the sudden need for a sewer pass. The officer insisted that getting into the sewers required paperwork, proof of residence, and five hundred gold. It sounded official only if no one listened too closely. Jonah did listen. While the others kept the guard talking, Jonah noticed the details that did not fit. The man wore Lawful garb, but it sat wrong on him. The clothing was too short in the wrong places, too awkward to belong to someone properly issued and trained. He also kept looking over his shoulder as if waiting for something or checking whether someone else was ready. The party stepped back and compared options. Maine considered charm. Jonah considered Sleep. The Black Ward route remained possible but risky. The ill-fitting uniform pointed toward the simpler and uglier answer: this was not Lawful authority doing its job. This was someone using Lawful authority as a costume. Probably Graven Scourge. Blastbelle made the decision before the debate could stretch too long. She pushed forward and threw a bursting bomb into the fake guard's arms. Fire cracked across the entrance. The man stumbled back, and the disguise of order fell apart with him. Two more fighters came running from nearby cover, and a gnoll emerged with them. The Glow Pools entrance had been watched. Maybe controlled. Either way, the sewer mission was no longer a quiet recovery job. The Graven Scourge had placed bodies at the route, hidden behind stolen or fake authority, and the party had just exposed the trap by setting it on fire. The stash was still somewhere below. But first, the party had to survive the door.