Session 07 (2024-11-03) - Brian

Returning to Port Maraisa

This section derived from group chat, with retcons in session.

DM summarizes the situation based on what he sees as your interests:

• Orcs: You know the remains of White Skull (including their Laguna-kin shamans) are at a fort in the Omlarandin Mountains, and though you don’t know where exactly it is you have reason to believe it would be easy to back-track from Bad Doric. The Orcs are known slavers and raiders with some sort of connection to Albrecht, but not an immediate threat to Port Maraisa or Aurelian.
• Riatavin: You also know Albrecht’s target was Etienne Auttencort, who is in Riatavin. Etienne has an interest in chattel slavery which connects him to the White Skull. He doesn’t seem like a shining pillar of Aurelian nobility, though he is a lesser son and firmly outside the Aurelian territories.

Folks available to you in/near Port Maraisa include:

• Falcone: Auttencourt agent, perhaps not loyalist, and with access to “Humboldt’s Ravens” which are a moderately secure means of communication back to Armitage (as stated by Armitage himself).
• Albrecht: At Lazaretto, presently locked in a fever-dream, perhaps an early stage of the rot.

We’re off to visit Magistrato Dominico Falcone. If we can further prove our usefulness to Falcone that may aid our effort to turn him, without the risk of tipping our hand before we receive further direction from Armitage.

Making it across the river remains a chore, but Dander and the Small Brothers have your needs well on their radar and are able to get you across with only moderate delay and bother. Being mid-afternoon, Falcone can be found at the Night Market checking in on the sellers, guards and town workers as they prepare to open for the evening. The weather is lovely and all signs point to it being a busy night there.

Bikke: Let’s brief Falcone, in confidence, on bad Doric. Do not mention anything we know about slavers or Albrecht, as yet, inquire about orcs in mountains. Send Raven to Armitage del Big Bad.

Kira: I think we make a brief stop and talk to Falcone and then head up to orcs. They’re doing weird shit with the fey stuff that isn’t normal for them. I don’t think we need to wait around in town for a reply.

We give Dominico Falcone a sealed message to send back to Armitage via his [[Humboldt’s Raven]]. We make casual about our message. Falcone expresses no overt interest in the content of our message.

The message includes:

• We found Albrecht Moray
• He’s sick
• We tell him about the town: merchant issues, small brothers, light house, failure to ship goods
• We tell him about the power struggles
• What we found in Bad Doric: rage poison, slaves, orcs / goblins
• Etienne Auttencort is involved in the slave trade
• We’re going to kill orcs while we wait on his reply

Gavin writes the note and got a 14 in his performance role.

Gavin: My main points about the orcs are:

• Orcs are ill-contented creatures, and have already posed a threat to travelers in the region.
• Orc strongholds are bad politics, and defeating orc strongholds are good politics.
• They seemed to have a completely perverse, ungodly, and impenetrable ethos, valuable only to destroy the soul and transform vile creatures into even more vile killing machines. Gavin isn’t sure he actually believes this, but he can certainly spin it this way.

We don’t tell Falcone about Etienne Auttencort, Albrecht. We only tell him about orc slaving. Dominico Falcone knew about orc / goblin raiders, who were no real threat. Slaving to the east, other side the Mirefen is news to him.

Dominico Falcone: “When you put it all together, a bounty does seem reasonable. I’ll have to talk to the merchants - they’re benefitting and they should chip in, you understand - but I think I can commit to a bounty of five gold for every scalp you return with, and another two hundred for proof you’ve routed them out of the area.”

Hugh: That’s enough incentive for me

Barrick agrees

Gavin argues that 50 GP per person for this task barely covers the supplies needed for the journey. Let alone the fact that we almost died last time we went.

Gavin: “400gp, and we’ll sing from the rooftops that you talked us down from 500. And 5 per goblin scalp too.”

Falcone: “Incontrovertible proof they’re gone though. If I get one complaint of a short green asshole, it’d better be a seasick halfling.”

When Barrick returns from visiting the merchant’s are, he tells the group, “I met a merchant named Bartolo. Wonderful chap. With a little negotiating, he’s willing to trade on credit, and has some truly wonderous wares - best in the city as far as I could find.” He shows them his new miner’s ward cowl. “He’s willing to buy any items we find to as payment for the extended credit. A very useful chap. He gave me the impression he could find just about anything we might be interested in.”

Gavin: We need health potions.

We learn that that Vintner’s sells many vials of stuff, including health potions.

In Port Maraisa

Barrick wants to get some health potions from Vintner’s or Isabel Verduna or some other merchants like Bartolo.

We expect 4 or 5 days to get a response

We buy 5 health potions, one each, for 75gp. Gavin gets some fishing line for gathering scalps.

We cross back over the river to Lazaretto

Kira asks Mother Verduna if she has some health potions to help us as we go off to kill some orcs. We find her in her garden. Mother Verduna says she can help. She returns with some bottles:

• 2 potions of vitality (removes exhaustion / poison)
• 1 potion of resistance (our choosing of typical resistances for 1 hour)
• 2 more health potions

We navigate through the Mirefen back to Bad Doric. We find it unchanged. The feelings of the Mirefen fade. We go into the Omlarandin Mountains, south into eastern pass of Tethyr. It is drier, sandstone, and reminds us of the Calishite Campaign. Canyons, dry. Somewhat pleasant.

We use tracking techniques to navigate high into the peaks, find a series of switch up into the peaks. To our left is trees - we’re above the canopy. Up slope to the right.

On the way, we saw almost nothing indicating habitation - a couple old camp fires.

We move uphill, we reach first intersection, fallen rubble. We hear some faint sounds coming from the North as the switch backs go east.

Perception checks reveal noise on the wind - we decide to check it out.

We find a wide spot on the cliff face, an old dead tree, and we hear and see a dwarf hiding behind a boulder. He’s being pursued by orcs.

(We roll initiative)

We kill 3 orcs. Find 2 Great Axes which we take with us. We find out the dwarf is Radovan Rytir.

Barrick and Hugh detect orc sounds and smells coming from the cave. We see torchlight deeper in the cave. We don’t hear anyone else rushing out.

Kira is willing to scout back the other direction we passed up.

We take a short rest. Kira casts find familiar to summon a fey black and white striped Meerkat.

We push 2 orcs off the cliff and hang one from the tree.

Bikke sees activity coming back up the way we came after 20 minutes - 3 goblins and 1 orc. We surprise them and kill them.

We scalp and loot the corpses. The female orc seemed like a caster.

We complete our short rest. Kira sends the familiar into the cave. In the cave, Meerkat hears voices in orcish - woman scolding someone for bad table manners. Going north, finds a forge with orcs working the equipment. Hears more ambient noise further up.

We go right, looking for a fight. Kill a sleeping orc. Scalp and loot, shove body under the bed, flip the mattress over to hide it all.

We go through the next door, find a shaman, an orc, and 5 juvenile orcs. We roll initiative. Scalp adults and loot. Hide bodies under the bed. Tie up the unconscious children, gag them, and put them under the bed. We find almost nothing of value.

We head up north toward the forge, where there are 2 more orcs working the forge. They see the Meerkat, and raise a horn to sound an alarm. We attack. It’s a rough battle, but we prevail.

• Briannotes
• Notes
• Session