"Great! Do you need to go shopping for things, and do you have a supply of potions for emergencies?"

"That depends very much on how much spending money is freely available." He smiles and tilts his head. "I would not be up against your bear god with nothing but my wits, if that's what you mean. And while I do have a trove of useful items that I conveniently managed to stash before submitting myself to this city's hospitality, I would not turn down the offer of potions..."

Ciaveth forks over a spare healing potion. One.

Gann seems surprised. "... No extraction of promises that I won't take your charity and run off to the wilderness? No inventory of my supplies before diminishing your own? My, I'm touched."

"Run off into the wilderness without helping me with my bear god problem, and I will hunt you down, retrieve my potion by force, drag you back to prison by the scruff of your neck for reneging on our deal, and possibly poke you full of holes somewhere in the interim, depending on how much you annoy me during all of that," says Ciaveth, cheerfully. "But aside from that, no, I don't play power games with my party. If I don't trust you, I will let you know, and we will talk about it like adults instead of scheming like children, or we will part ways."

"Hm. Was that meant to deter? Many wouldn't find the prospect of being chased through the wilderness by a beautiful woman unappealing..."

Eyeroll.

"So! We should probably ask the witches about specifics on when the bear god's going to arrive, to see if we have time to go on a trip to the Plane of Shadow or not."

"We do. The bear god and his entourage should arrive tomorrow. I'd say, hmmmmm." He closes his eyes and hums to himself. "Mid-afternoon. Or so. He will not attack the city immediately, or even very quickly, but the longer we delay from there, the bigger his army shall be. Keep old father bear waiting at your own peril."

“...how do you know all that?” Safiya asks. “Especially with such precision.”

"His Fluffy Garish Colorfulness is marching his entourage at a set pace, and making quite the racket. The army of spirits will not tire, but neither are they likely to change their tempo. Attracting as much attention as possible is part of the point of the march. As to why he wouldn't attack immediately," Gann shrugs. "If I were a god of bears, and I had a spirit army, and I were in a country that worships and fears spirits, I expect waiting outside the city would get the witches to throw out my quarry and save me the trouble of laying siege."

"... How familiar are you with spirits, exactly?"

"How familiar is a merchant with his customers? A bard with his adoring crowd? Did you think I meant to fight an army of spirits armed with merely the ability to smudge chalk?"

"I kinda can't afford to be picky, if chalk was all you had I'd put you in the back and tell you to throw some."

Gann snorts. "An amusing visual, but no."

"Well, if you've got rapport with the spirits, that's even better. Perhaps once we've beaten the bear god into submission you can negotiate a truce."

"... Perhaps. But I suspect Old Father Bear will respect those who speak for themselves more than not. I think I'd make a better advisor than intermediary."

"What makes you think so?"

"He is a bear," points out Gann. "I don't know how many bears you've dealt with, but in my experience, they are not fond of treaties, wordplay, nuance, or anything even vaguely resembling subtlety. Speaking through someone else's voice would seem... craven. Or perhaps false."

"Perhaps we should offend a weasel god next time," Safiya muses. "-I know it's better to offend no gods at all, but given our track record I'm just trying to plan ahead."

"I really don't think my miraculous ability to offend people I've never met before can be aimed that well, sorry."

"Oh? How often does this occur?"

"Lots. I can talk about it while we go get your stuff? If everyone does in fact want to hear story time with Ciaveth?"

"I wouldn't want to pry," says Safiya, who looks like she wants to pry very badly indeed.

"Oh, I absolutely do, this sounds fascinating."

He does a graceful and kind of showy turn, and starts leading them off to where he stashed his stuff. He wasn't planning to stash it there a second time, anyway.

Ciaveth rolls her eyes, amused. "Let's see, in order." She starts ticking off her fingers. "Githyanki, for having a shard of a silver sword in my chest. They wanted it back, and didn't care if retrieving it would kill me or not. I think they also wanted to kill me for having the audacity to touch their sacred broken sword, but it's not like I did that by choice or anything, so.

"Luskans, for being an incorrigible meddler. That one I honestly earned fair and square, even if I didn't precisely meet the people who wanted to kill me. They get points for novelty, though, framing and trying to use Neverwinter's insane justice system to get me killed was clever. I think they sent at least one large bladed golem thing, I don't actually remember what that was even about, just that it kept trying to kill me.

"One very anti-social warlock and his army of fiends who did not understand what 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend,' was until after he'd killed my best friend." And possibly condemned said best friend, Shandra, to either Hell or the Abyss in the process, but she hasn't yet been able to get a scry through to confirm. The resurrection sure didn't go through. "We were actually after the same big bad evil guy, he just was dumb and murderous. But I needed him anyway so we gritted our teeth and worked together.

"Hmm. ... You know, for all that I ended up killing him, I don't actually think the King of Shadows went after me first, so I suppose that doesn't count. He was just sort of... omnicidal against everything that wasn't his long-dead empire. Raising undead armies, attacking innocent villages, that sort of thing. He needed killing, I stand by that.

"And now whoever kidnapped me and removed my amazing sword piercing, and the bear god. Hooray."