Swamped

Well. The note mentioned leaving, and so far you've only seen one way to leave this place - the empty chamber near the war room. It's not far from here.

But before you head over there, you want to take a look at this bear. What's so important about it?

So you slip into an empty alley. You're actually surprised how easy it is to find these; maybe that's just how it is when a city's full of slaves. They're too afraid of punishment to go outside of the lines. Small wonder, if they'll exile a child just for being curious.

You pull the bear out of the pouch and take a closer look. You're immediately struck by the smell, it's even stronger than it was in the bar. Good thing the pouch seems thick enough to keep it contained.

But you can't see anything special about it at all. It just seems to be a stuffed toy bear with a potent, if strangely tantalizing, odor. What use is it to anyone? And why was it worth so much money? Is money even useful in a city like this?

Regardless, you were expecting the bear to have some kind of hidden compartment or something. You take another look in case you missed something, but there's nothing loose...

Huh! You grabbed it already. That was faster than I expected.

The words seem to flow into your mind. You're very confused.

Let me hit the basic points: yes, I'm the one who left you that note. Yes, it was for you. You can't ask me questions directly through this thing, so don't waste time trying. Just in case you're not bright enough to work it out, I mean the bear.

Wonderful. Your mystery contact is insulting you - of course you'd realized it was the bear - and you can't say anything back.

I'm not going to go into the details, because I'm still not sure you won't blab. So for now I'll just say that I need a few things before I can get out of here. But one of those things is in a place I can't go without drawing unwanted attention. That's where you come in.

Wonderful. What do they want you to do now?