Joshua agrees with a nod,

"no, but I would like to stop by the Friendly Fiend and see if Akin has returned safe, the shop looked abandoned yesterday."

Emfrid shows some concern over A'kin's seeming disappearance.

"Never known the old 'loth to leave his shop before," she says.

The discussion is derailed by a knock at the door, which Emfrid rises to answer. It's Kylie the tout, with Dunn's amazing balloon on a wagon behind her in the street.

Nilis recognizes Kylie as a fellow Indep. They've spoken in passing on occasion.

"Hey-o, priestess," the tiefling says to Emfrid. "Your gnome owes me a bundle o' jink."

Emfrid gives a piercing whistle to rouse the hung-over Dunn, then steps out to examine the strange balloon. It's still deflated, of course.

"Yes, you may be right, but sadly it is impossible. We parted ways upon the Infinite Staircase, and by now he could quite literally be anywhere."

Joshua decides not to get involved...

"Kylie, do you know anything about Akin going missing?" he asks

Kylie shrugs, watching Dunn scramble up from his sofa to fetch her coin.

"Hung a note on his door a week or so back," she says. "I always figured he was trapped there by some kind of banishment spell gone wrong or some odd. Mayhap he's out on some Prime getting all the pent-up evil out of his system."

She smirks at the thought of it, and adds, "Some of us are taking bets on how long it'll take a berk to try and break into the shop. I got fifty gold riding on some kind of humiliating polymorph for the thief."

"I considered it myself, but I like him too much to break his window" Joshua admits.

"a week" ... "that's a while..."

"I have to admit to a passing flight of fancy myself, when I discovered the shop seemingly abandoned. I suspect it would prove to be a fool's errand though, else A'kin would surely have lost his stock long ago."

"I wonder if this might even be A'kin's way to whittle down the numbers of thieves and takers in town. I'll bet most of my faction is tearing its hair out over this dilemma."

Joshua considers it unlikely that it is a ruse, but cannot think of a way to investigate further without breaking in...

"Do you have a pool on when?" he asks Kylie, "I might as well make you some jink when I do something stupid."

"What do you hope to find if you did manage to break in without being turned into a toad? You think he'll have left a note saying where he's gone?"

"People always leave a trace, if Akin left under duress there will be signs." Joshua assures Morlan.