Since Flint was not leveling-up, he killed time in Markheim at the Diamond Spider Tavern, drinking ale and ‘assisting’ the dancers (i.e. attractive thieves wearing translucent silks) there with robbery of certain customers (“marks”), most of whom were out-of-towners passing through on caravans, merchants or farmers selling their goods in Markheim.

The Diamond Spider was, as you know, the local Thieves’ Guild in Markheim, headed by the owner/proprietor, Spider Braz, and the retinue of dancers, bouncers and barmaids, all of whom were guildmembers, or at least non-thieves in the know and on the payroll. There was a complex system regarding who called be “rolled” and who should be left alone, and Flint neither fully understood nor got involved in that.

Flint was known and liked in the Diamond Spider, as he had paid for training, didn’t start trouble, and was friendly but not lecherous with most of the human female dancers (exception: Vishina, the most beauteous of the dancers, who seemed friendly with no one but Spider, who she manipulated endlessly). Of course, Flint enjoyed working with the dancer-thieves, had little carnal interest in them as a dwarf (he preferred bearded women who weren’t so tall), and liked the extra gold it brought.

So Flint was involved in ‘jobs’ and split the take with the dancers with whom he worked, mostly by pickpocketing selected customers while a dancer ‘distracted’. Of course, he also spent a lot of the time drinking, eating and gambling, and at the end of the ‘rest’ in Markheim, ended up with just as much money as he started with, having spent all of his ’take’ from the jobs on drink, dice and meals.

During this time Flint became friendly with a new dancer, Yara O’Keefe, who of late had come into Markheim on a caravan. Yara was (according to her) the daughter of a Hibernian thief of legend, Brian O’Keefe, and a Stygian mother, Nefertari, and made plentiful gold at the Diamond Spider based on her exotic good looks, and her skill in both charming and thieving customers, sometimes with Flint’s help.

They spent much time drinking and talking (Yara mostly talking, Flint mostly listening, and drinking), and Yara talked about not only her beloved - a fellow she traveled from the South with, Valentio Rossi (then working on the Castellan’s patrol as a hired man-at-arms), who she described in terms of his charm, skills as a fighter and horseman, and handsomeness, none of which Flint particularly cared about - but also her home town in the South, the town Ruatha, where the party was headed next. Flint let slip that he may be headed there soon (for “work”, of course), and after she’d had a few drinks, she shared with him a few things:

1. Ruatha was a strange, segregated town - the Lower Town was where all the people of Stygian descent (like her, and her mother) lived, along with a mix of other northerners, and a few elves, dwarves, etc. They were not allowed in the Upper Town, a walled keep-town, where only native Achean (i.e. lighter-skinned) humans were permitted to enter, although paradoxically they had no problem with elves, gnomes, dwarves (“so YOU’LL have no problem”) and even other humanoids going up there - just no Stygians.

Essentially, the Lower Town was fine for everyone, the Upper Town was segregated. She thought the reason for this was that many, many years ago, when Stygios was cursed by the gods and large parts of it became an inhospitable desert, the people needed to go elsewhere, there was an invasion from Stygios, and Ruatha was the town which halted the invasion.

For many years, Stygians were the enemy. Over the centuries, the restrictions became more lax, and Stygian immigrants became more tolerated, although many of the native Ruathans treated any Stygian immigrants as second-class sub-humans (“although from what I hear Lower Ruatha - MY home town, was a much nicer place than it is up there - which was why they always came down from there when they wanted good food, good people and a good time - some of them were ok, just not the ones in charge”).

The Upper Town was said to be fortified, heavily patrolled, walled, with many towers and another walled keep within. Up there, at a separate market, they used giants and humanoids for added security (“although they say WE are sub-human”, she scoffed), and those who were not members of the militia worked in breeding cattle and herding on the plains north of the city, and battling the Comanch folk, tribesmen also descended from Stygios, who had adopted new gods and who constantly raided for cattle and glory. The Earl of the Warrens, Kostas Warren, was obsessed with defeating the Comanch, and saw Ruatha as a noble bulwark against southern barbarians. He was a fool, she spat.

2. She worked as a thief-adventurer for a time around Ruatha, and adventuring parties around there often spoke of the burial vaults southeast of the city, not far, but in a dangerous part of the hills where the patrols didn’t go. Her mother told her that hundreds of years ago the people of Ruatha buried their dead in vaults, tombs, and mausoleums in this area. This soon became both impractical and out of fashion, and the dead were removed from their vaults and re-interred in graves in traditional graveyards just outside of town, the materials used in the vaults and tombs re-used.

However, not every resting place was touched. Some burial grounds were used to house the truly evil, despicable criminals that deserved no veneration by the living, or people that were best left forgotten, at least in the eyes of the living. These were left untouched and eventually forgotten. At least by the law abiding. She knew that some thieves from Lower Ruatha’s thieves guild (“The Association of the Honeyed Snake”) found a sealed vault - the Vaults of Zar-Thogar - that led to a series of tunnels years ago. Some of the graves were opened and looted, but some of the robbers perished - horribly, it was said, it was rumored that the inhabitants of the tombs themselves did this (but others said it was just humanoids or wyverns or other wild beasts). No one would return there after that, although sometimes adventurers had tried, and not returned.

She’d heard other tales about that place, who knew which if any were true - that a necromancer created an undead dragon there, that an army of ghouls lurked there, and that one of the Tombs was of the jilted wife of the legendary Lord Hillgauntlet. He was said to have bedded and married numerous beautiful women, and many years ago wed Ruatha’s most beautiful woman, Dina Zainab, trained her in the dark arts, and then ran off with another woman - not before he slew and buried her there when she became too ambitious.

It was also said that Valeria Tahira was laid to rest there - she was a legendary Paladin of Osirus, who broke her vows in a fit of fury, and it was said that she lived in undeath there, and that the Clerics of Osirus in Ruatha still mourned her, and that they still spoke of restoring her to glory.

Yara paused - great treasures were said to be buried in the vaults there, and she had always dreamed of going there and finding them - but she had traveled north, and was seeking her father, and would not return to Ruatha until she found him. She had a message for him from her mother, sworn to her before she died (her eyes teared up as she said this, and she became silent).

3. Before Flint departed, she pressed into his hands a metal symbol, made of lead, a snake wrapped around a honeycomb - she told him it was the sign of the Association, the thieving guild of Lower Ruatha. Look for a tavern called the Wailing Wyvern, near the docks. She used to dance there, and thieve there. There’s a bartender there called Heru, the Hawk. Tell him Yara O’Keefe asked for him, and that she said she would return to Ruatha someday. Until then, tell him to keep holding her Ankh, and that she thinks of him often, that she still keeps his dagger close, and its blade had fed on more than one scoundrel. He could tell Flint more about the Vaults, and their town.