As the students exited the Guild Hall, Faith noticed the halfling called Mr. Stoutfield standing outside the door. As they exited, he approached Malut.

"You were in the warehouse with the Crystal last night, weren't you?" he asked exitedly.

Malut grunted and barely slowed down. He headed across the square towards the hut he and Thysmac shared. Thysmac stepped in front of the halfling.

"Why, yes we were. Did you hear about it?"

"Oh, everyone's talking about it!" exclaimed the halfling. "It's all over the village. No one has seen that many cultists and sahuagin in the village in a while and it's got everyone nervous. I'm Ardan, by the way. Ardan Stoutfield of the Cerulean Hills, Xen'drik. At your service!"

With that he made a low bow.

"Oh, please, this will go straight to his head," groaned Twila. "Look, we were there too. Thysmac here, Faith, and me. I'm Twila. And there was a dwarf cleric named Kalvenor. There were five of us on guard duty. We all fought off the attack."

"Pleased to meet you," Ardan said cheerfully. "I hear the cleric was knocked out early on, was he? Multi-reincarnation guy, the angry one?

So anyway, here's the thing. I was helping clear out the bodies this morning and I think I know who one of them is. The big sahuagin you killed, I think it was an important one, a chap named Dren Ral.

I'm a ranger and I've been scouting the wilderness on the island, doing some research of my own and keeping an eye on the sahuagin and trying to find their keep. From what I've seen, Dren Ral was pretty high up on the food chain. I suspect we are in for some revenge from the rest of the tribe.

I'm not sure if they know exactly who was guarding the crystal last night but I imagine they do, since word is that someone here in the village is helping them and feeding them info. I'm pretty familiar with their habits and who is who in the sahuagin tribe, so let me know if you need any help, ok?"

Twila and Faith nodded but Thysmac looked smug.

"I think we can handle it. You saw how many bodies there were."

"Aye, that I did Mr. Thysmac. Helped move four of them myself. Quite impressive, I must say. But it's one thing to be waiting for an attack and quite another to say, be attacked in your sleep. What I'm saying is I'm willing to guard your group when you need to rest."

"That's extremely kind of you, Mr. Stoutfield," said Faith. "I would certainly feel better knowing someone was keeping an eye on things."

"Call me Ardan, ma'am and I am at your service day or night," and with another low bow, Ardan turned and headed off toward the gate to the wilderness.