Bounty Hunters Strike; Foreign Plot Suspected

Stonehill Inn has long been the sort of place where fear pauses at the door, shakes mud from its boots, and pretends to be ordinary road fatigue. That courtesy ended when bounty hunters brought violence into the sleeping house.

The men did not arrive as drunkards, debt collectors, or the usual knife-brave fools who discover too late that adventurers sleep lightly. They came with purpose. Their quarry was Noctara, and the most troubling part of the matter is not that they sought her. It is that their coin demanded she be taken alive.

Two hunters were left dead in the aftermath. One fled into the dark, proving that cowardice can outrun dignity but not always a determined tracker. The attack left the common room full of questions nobody wanted to ask loudly: who placed the price, why the living body mattered, and how far a foreign hand can reach before Phandalin admits it has been touched.

A note recovered from the dead carried a description of Noctara and the promise of one hundred gold pieces if she were delivered alive to the Forgotten City. Those able to read crooked marks and criminal turns of phrase found more than ordinary ink in it. The message belonged to the sort of network that prefers alleys, oaths, and hired blades to open banners.

By breakfast, the town had already begun dividing the story into versions fit for different ears. The cautious say Noctara is dangerous. The watchful say someone dangerous wants her silenced without killing her. The Orb records the second version in darker ink. When a powerful enemy wants a person alive, it is rarely mercy speaking.

Halia Thornton has grown noticeably attentive to the matter, though she has said little enough for every silence to sound intentional. Harbin Wester, behind whatever door currently protects his nerves, must now reckon with the fact that trouble is no longer waiting politely outside town limits.