It was quite a nice spring evening in the city of Asteran, the sun was still up though clearly headed for sunset. The sky was cloudless and the temperature was quite comfortable even if it was a little breezy.
A young stout human man in some extremely fancy looking blue dyed clothing stood before the odd group outside the inn, trying his not to lose his cool in front of the group. he cleared his throat. “Ahem. Welcome all of you, I am Alan your main representative for the Enchanters Guild. This gathering today is mostly an icebreaker for the group. Everyone here will be travelling together tomorrow and I’m sure many of you would prefer not to be complete strangers with the companion who may be watching your back. The enchanters guild has a lot invested into this endeavor, and as you all know we are paying quite well for the safety and research of the cargo and are quite confident that all of your are quite skilled at your specialties.” he explained, waiting just a moment as he fixed a wrinkle in his garment.
“Anyways, a bit of business first, due to recent increased activity of undead in the area, our group has decided to give an at cost discount on all equipment provided by our guild in the town if you wish to purchase further preparations. Just inform the merchant, they’ll have a list of names. We hope you’ll take advantage of this to make even better preparations for this trip.” he explained.
“Lastly, a review of what you all agreed to. Your cargo is a variety of experimental weaponry deemed too dangerous to test inside or near the town. Please keep your hands off of them until you’ve reached the destination and the researchers have properly tested them. Then once they have been deemed ready you are free to give them a combat trial if any undead do happen to wander your way. Also please protect Karu here...” he added, pointing to a black scaled dragon about the size of a bear who gave a bit of a huff at that line, causing the man to hesitate a moment as he chose his next words carefully. “...er, given of course he is unable to protect himself for some reason, he is one of the top members of our development team and we’d be put back significantly if we lost him.” he said, the dragon looking quite sated with that. That was good, he’d rather not get chewed out later after all.
The man shook his head as he snapped out of his thoughts. “Anyways, as we wish to encourage some socializing and a happy group your drinks, rooms, and food tonight will be on the guild’s tab, though the bartender has been instructed not to let you get too drunk. I will be in the enchanters guild hall which is just down the street if you need me to answer any further questions. He added before leaving the group to their devices.
The inn was one of the most popular in town, quite large with very nice rooms and recently revamped to accommodate creatures of different sizes and even body type for the dragons. All the doors were quite wide and large, and inside was seating for both four legged and two legged patrons, cushioned chairs and large soft floor pillows mostly. The bartender was actually a pair, a human husband and wife with friendly smiles and much more average clothing. There was quite a mix of races already in the bar, dwarves, elves, humans, orcs, a couple kobolds and a naga even! It was quite odd to see everyone actually getting along, but it was likely because most kept to their own race, plus a pair of rather large half ogre bouncers were prepared if anyone decided to stir up trouble.