Present:
- Cody Dieback. Human Male Wizard from Highport – Andrew
- Jack "Blocker" Jones. Human Male Temple Fighter of Aquamarina from Porn City – Jamie
- Tom Eade. Human Male Fighter from Porn City – Jeff
- Grim Hand. Human Male Rogue from Porn City – Jason
- Esmeralda "Ezme" Abernathy. Human Female Temple Fighter of Soixante Neuf from Scabport – Shane
- Ardern. Human Female Priestess of Mr Quail from Porn City – Kevin
- Rock Hammer. Human Male Barbarian from Central Plains – Steven
- MARMALADING Willow Woods. Half-elf Male Caribou Gorn Priest from Porn City - Chris
- Kippy Hunt. Human Male Barbarian of the Central Plains – Ian
- Munch Ease. Human Male Thief from Porn City – Darryl
by Andrew
Recap
Porn City sybarite and sodomite, Viscount Vincent de Throak, had recently met a horrible death when he had taken possession of a powerful magical cursed spear-head.
In Letchtown (satellite town of Porn City), the group had tracked down an Otto (now deceased), who was the one who had paid a Magnus (deceased) to fetch and deliver the cursed spear-head to Throak. And the group had determined Otto's employer was a Da'Vid Moorn of Sancho.
So, the whole group had gone to Sancho. They were staying in the posh inn The Sable Lilly.
The Castrated Virgin
Esme visited the famous Sancho Whisperers' Guild. This was an off-shoot of the Sancho Thieves' Guild who were willing to sell information, for a price. She found out that Da'Vid Moorn owned the Castrated Virgin tavern in a suburb of the city called the Veins.
"Now we just need to capture, torture, and question him," some wag volunteered.
Sancho streets were busy at night, so the group made its way through the Sancho smog to the Veins. The Veins was a shady seedy place full of warrens, brothels, pubs, dubious shops and places you could buy any thing (or any one) for gold.
The Castrated Virgin tavern was pretty much of a dive. It had a few burly guards, and a fighting pit. The group sat down at a grimy table and ordered a five course degustation meal each - five delicious courses accompanied by specially-chosen wine to compliment the delectations.
- Watery tepid gruel accompanied by a fragrant pond-lilly wine (kissed by the musty roots of a pond lilly).
- To cleanse the palate, this was followed by a sorbet, of semi-frozen slushy ram semen.
- Belette enflammée sur un bâton (weasel on a stick) in a delicious curdled-blood jus.
- Then Croque Mademoiselle Putain (crunchy whore). Melted cheese from nanny-goats who had run with a billy.
- Dog testicles dipped in chocolate.
During the feast, an ugly dwarf approached and introduced himself as Thorick Hodenbrecher. He was attracted to Esme and offered to pay for some whore-action.
"I am not a whore !" said Esme indignantly. "The Soixante Neuf temple does it for donations. We are not whores."
"Oh, it's free then?" said Thorick. "That's fine by me."
They got talking and
Thoric pointed out another lady, the current manageress of the establishment. So Esme spoke to her.
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| Maud Fassbender |
She was Maud Fassbender. She was running the tavern in Da'Vid's stead. She had not seen him for a while; twelve weeks, in fact. Needless to say, twelve weeks coincided exactly with the death of Vincent Throak way back in Porn City. Was that significant? The group didn't know.
The rest of the eve was quiet, and the group withdrew to their inn. On the walk back to the Sable Lilly, some hapless thugs try to rob them.
Tom ended up whacking a thug (with a critical) and almost killed him. But this certainly served to scare the other thugs away.
They were more careful for the rest of the journey. Munch, Kippy, Grim and Cody (the good sneakers) would take turns hiding and watching for followers.
Munch went first and spotted two malcontents following the group. He diverted the group to another tavern and then confronted the followers. This turned out to be a false alarm, and an indignant bard was angry at being accused to be a stalker.
The rest of the trip to the Sable Lilly was quiet.
The next day, Esme returned to the Whisperers, after handing over 300 gp and half the names of the group (Esme, Cody, Rock, Willow, Tom) she got some valuable info.
The Sancho Wizards' Guild likes to collect the names of everyone. This allows them to magically mark them and track them at great distant. Hence valid name collections is a useful form of payment. Is Sancho a fascist police-state? Safer not to dare ask that question.
The Whisperers gave a description of Da'Vid: a fake eye, teeth missing, ugly, 6'4, wirey. Middle-ranked assassin. More importantly, Esme got an address of his second property: a lock-up in the Ashway row area: 82 Furnell St.
Furnell St
It was dark when the group approached the lock-up in the deserted unlit streets. It was a warehouse, with other lock-ups on each sides and at the back. Single storey, no windows, and one solid door.
Munch picked the lock, and that went to a small entrance way with a second door, which was covered in scratches and old blood.
Cody listened and heard panting. There was a hungry dog there but Tom managed to beguile it with food and water. This calmed the poor thing.
The inside of the building was mostly one room, but there was a second door next to the entrance door.
Zombie Dog
When undead are turned, they will not approach the turning priest for several hours. (In this state, if the creature is damaged, the Turning power is lost - and the priest must roll again, thus it is better not to attack turned undead.) So, using her power, Ardern kept the zombie dog safely away from the group, allowing them to search the office that it was guarding.
Inside the office were three chests. The locks of all the chests were trapped with poison needles. Munch was the groups trap finder, but he wasn't very good today and managed to get several of the needles embedded into his skin, and even one under a fingernail, but with a bunch of Slow Poisons from Jack, Esme and Ardern and even one chancy Neutralize Poison (Ardern), plus some Find Traps spells, some reluctant Knock spells, all was well (apart from the agony Munch had to suffer), and the chests were all opened.
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| Munch's bane |
When the search was complete, Ardern returned the zombie dog to its guard room, and Cody shut the door, safely locking the creature up again - someone else's problem.
Pay-dirt
There was a trapdoor in floor of the main room. This went down to a small room via a ladder, and everyone descended.
Down here were some long trestle tables, a bunch of shelving on the walls with lots of vials, and many ingredients: barks herbs, 21 special herbs and spices. Some lanterns too. A Detect Magic revealed nothing glowing.
There was a desk here, strewn with papers. It was financial reports and bills of lading. Nothing very significant.
The desk had four drawers: Detect Traps - top two drawers had traps
Rather than risk Munch's finger-nails again, Cody just blew the drawers open with a Knock spell. The only downside of this is that it will set off alarms and area-effect traps, and will destroy delicate potions. But it gets the job done.
Sure enough, in this case, the drawer contents were soaked in liquid, and the broken glass from two smashed vials.
"I bet they were Neutralize Poison potions," muttered Munch.
Unbroken inside, there was a silver letter-opener and a scroll too, sealed with a wax seal - now broken.
Cody grabbed the scroll and opened it. The broken seal turned out to be a contact poison, but Cody shrugged it off. His own rashes and scabs more than compensated any stinging necrotic effects.
It was a letter from an Amelia Wilson to Da'Vid Moorn. Paraphrased:
Kill Vincent de Throak in this manner:
Locate the Spear of the Barbarian Circle, and steal this spear, then see that it is delivered to Vincent de Throak.
You may want to use gloves.
The family will be very appreciative of this.
Detect Magic revealed that the silver letter-opener was magic, and the broken seal too.
Also here were the ownership papers of the Castrated Virgin.
The group had what they had sought. So after a quick search of the walls (loose bricks revealed a tunnel to the sewers), they left the place - with the dog - and returned to the Sable Lilly.
Return to Whisperers
Esme returned to Whisperer's Guild. Amelia Wilson was a valuable clue, so Esme wanted as much information as they could get on Wilson. So, she paid the Whisperer contact 1000gp and gave him the rest of the party's names. The information was duly delivered:
"Amelia Wilson is a retired member of the Sancho Wizards' Guild. She lives alone, in a small hamlet called Surrey - a day's journey out of Sancho. She is elderly. She is frail. She is not able to cause you issues, but she has friends - many many friends - in the Guild. She was popular. She had to retire. She was of unstable mind."
Cody immediately wrote to his WG patron Thespian back in Porn City, to update him with all this new information, but even with Gnome Post, this message would take a week to arrive and a second week to get an answer.
"I can tell you now what Thespian will say," said Cody, sullenly. "He will abuse me for being ugly, demand why we are taking so long, and demand we confront Miss Wilson to get a 'why'."
To tidy things up, Cody cast Identify on the three magical items:
- The silver letter-opener can open any letter, and show its contents without disturbing it.
- Boots of Stealth. +2 to stealth rolls
- Cloak of Hiding - as per the Hide spell
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