Ninety Percent Magic

Al Ivers did not sell certainty.

He sold a discount version of magic close enough to tempt people who knew better.

His counterfeit spell scrolls had a ninety percent success rate, which meant they were almost reliable in the exact way dangerous things use the word almost. The price was steep, roughly a thousand gold per spell level, but cheaper than whatever legitimate access would cost. If a d10 did not come up one, the scroll worked. If it did, the spell backfired.

That was the business model.

Ash became the negotiation point. Al agreed to discount a third-level scroll if the party could get contact information for Jessica James, a married woman working at the inn. The request immediately dragged the mission sideways into a social errand with ethical grime all over it.

The offer did two useful things.

First, it made Al's counterfeit scroll economy concrete: useful, dangerous, and funny until it blew up in someone's face. Second, it pointed the party toward the Aleklotson Inn, where the dungeon guide was probably drunk and where Jessica James could be found.

The dungeon was still the mission.

But Aleklot's Rest had already made the party buy entry through scams, favors, and bad ideas.