Stepping into the bustling inn, the witness’ of the parade incident, took a brief moment to collect their bearings with some strong drink. The group of five asked around the inn with patrons, and workers alike as to the whereabouts of this small humanoid and the events of the harvest parade. Raul, the Dragonborn had learned that a small fellow had been seen running down the alleyway just outside the Inn from an elderly Gnomish couple. Meanwhile Argento felt something strange was going on in this inn as he notice two hooded individuals dip into the back store room of the inn as Baelon and Muk inquired about the events of the day with the Barkeep. The five regrouped outside the inn near the ally to come up with a plan. Argento would head into the inn to use his leverage as a guard to investigate the store room while Muk and Bertold the Great would sneak down the ally and pick the lock. Baelon and Raul would keep watch to make sure they remained as discrete as possible.
While Bertold was successful in his attempt to pick the lock of the side door, Muk and Bert failed to notice anything out of the ordinary while peaking into the room itself. Equally unsuccessful, Argento was unable to convince the Inn keep and bouncer to allow him to examine the back room, since the private domicile was out of town guard jurisdiction. Argento left the inn and proceeded into the Ally to find the party had managed to open the store room but had found nothing outside of some barrels of wine and ale. Taking a look himself the vigilant guard also saw nothing out of the ordinary and was noticed by the Bouncer of the Inn who proceeded to throw the Guard onto the street bruising his pride a little. None the less, Baelon convinced the bouncer that Argento’s name was Jive as to stay under the radar as Lord Mendes asked.
Though unsuccessful, the five did uncover a bit of important information, the owner of the inn Grey Gor a Goliath, was down at the warehouses preparing their own float for the next days parade. The party agreed they should approach Grey Gor with an offer of a wine supply as to take a closer peak around the Inn. As the five made their way across town, Bertold the Great took it upon himself to go visit the Marvelous Many at the Driftwood Inn in the northern district of Boulder to inquire about this strange residue material found in the explosion. Baelon mentioned that they would meet him in the lobby of the Driftwood Inn the next morning to exchange findings and continue the investigation. Baelon continued to invite the remaining party to his home just outside of town, at the Wisehollow Winery for some dinner and rest following the evenings investigation. The four agreed to this arrangement and they proceeded to the warehouse district to speak with Grey Gor.
The four managed to gain entry into the warehouse with relative ease since Baelon’s own float was stored there. After getting a barrel of Wisehollow Summer Honey Cabernet, they met with the proprietor of the Belly Up Inn. As Baelon introduced himself to the inn owner, he proceeded to ask about his business and learned they already had a wine supplier. Baelon cast Charm Person just as he was walking away and managed to charm Grey Gor into an agreement to a deal. The deal was that Wisehollow Winery would provide a sample barrell of wine, if it outsold his current supply he would take over the contract with the inn and if it failed to outsell the competition, Baelon would provide three free barrels of Wine, but only if he could personally examine the establishment with his own two eyes. Charmed Grey Gor accepted.
While in the warehouse, Raul and Muk slipped away to investigate the Wu Ton float. While poking around it Muk managed to discover a small secret compartment, inside, a piece of mysteriously blank parchment.
Back at the Belly Up Inn, Baelon headed in to examine the establishment with Grey Gor. Again finding nothing out of the ordinary outside a few glares from the Bar Keep and a label on the existing wine barrels. The label of Pinnacle Madress a tiefling winemaker and rival to Wisehollow Winery. The Vineyard of Up to Noir Good who was supplying the inn with wine at below market prices. As Baelon took his leave and joined the party in the ally way to prepare for their trek to the Winery, they took one last examination of the ally to make sure they didn’t miss anything. Sure enough, Argento noticed small humanoid footprints leading into the side door, confirming their suspicious that the fugitive was hiding somewhere out of site in the inn.
Baelon and Muk discussed sneaking a barrel of carefully colored water into the inn to gain more information before blindly storming in to find the fugitive. Muk would hide inside the barrel of water until he gained some modicum of information in regards to the parade, the fugitive, or the explosion, while the rest of the party watched out for trouble during the 2nd day of activities in the parade.
The four retired back to the winery outside of town after a trying day and had a few drinks with Loom and Adara. As the party rested for the night they awoke and prepared the barrels for their quest and strapped the three barrels to the oxen and headed off to meet up with Bertold.