Listen to his story.

The man sighs with discomfort. His grime encrusted features were afflicted by some inward eating horror. “It rasps – a dusty voiced thing… In the deep, deep down - in jewelled darkness – it lies – it lies…“ he shivered.

“Jewels?” you prompt, your avarice defeating any fear. This ancient fellow seems strangely familiar. You recognise the miserable wretch as Azbhec the sewer rat, a creature encountered on a previous adventure.

“There are more?”

“Leave me smelly man!”

Azbhec smiles wan lipped at no joke at all, his left hand opening to let the jewel slip free. With the swiftness of a master thief you upturn an empty mug over the gem to hide it from the prying eyes of other patrons

Yet you are not fast enough. A small throng has already gathered about the man to hear his tale. Heedless of the audience Azbhec clenches and unclenches his left hand, as though it were asleep. Then he speaks. “A cavern, its walls – like the night sky glittering with stars, each star like this one – Such beauty!” A tiny tear glistens in his eye as he babbles.

This could be either the most artistic con or the most outlandish tavern tale you have heard in quite some time. Azbhec reeks of the sewers. Perhaps the mad spelunker became trapped in some pocket of malign miasma sending him into a landscape of hallucinations and unutterable fears. Yet there was something frightfully immediate about the man’s voice that commanded your attention. Your interest is piqued.

“That which was before evil – it cannot die… gods!” He begins to froth at the mouth. He goes on with many a meaningless ramble, broken by disquieting breaks and pauses wherein he gasps like a drowning fish or stares abstractedly into the dead of space. His face became grey his lips and tongue moving in silent terror. And then he dies.

You overturn your mug and stare at the gem. It glows with a magic of its own and you are leery of it.