Session 12 (2025-03-14) - Greg
Last time
In Port Maraisa, the party wrapped up their affairs. The journey to Riatavin was quiet under winter skies, but the city brought chaos. While searching for Armitage, Barrick, Gavin, and Kira encountered a burning tavern, a corpse riddled with crossbow bolts, and an ambush by White Tiger mercenaries. The skirmish led them to Amelia, who guided them to Armitage in a hidden sewer refuge, the Grotto.
Wounded but alert, Armitage warned of a power struggle tied to a vampiric alliance through Princess Ottillie’s pending marriage. He urged the group to sabotage the restoration of the Sandstone Palace, the wedding venue, and to seek allies among Tethyr’s younger nobles. A deeper betrayal was also uncovered—a traitor within our circle or close to us betrayed The Pewter Shield—and clues pointed to the Sharpstone Mines. Amelia’s insights and the team’s investigation revealed layers of political intrigue, leading us to seek out Farnar and send a message to Rowan for more information about Farnar.
Riatavin
Hugh walked with Radovan to Riatavin’s Hospitaler’s temple. On the way back to the group, he found a pair of unusual symbols that the party examined. The paper was folded and the glyphs overlapped each other, but not obviously to any particular meaning.
Near The Pewter Shield, we spotted a single human, Kincaid near the tavern, failing to hide very well.
Kincaid came to The Pewter Shield looking for Francesca Girasole (who is in retailrare goods).
The rest of us shared that we were also waiting to meet someone here, so we decided to wait together.
Hugh entered the tavern to examine the ruins. The door’s burned and on the ground and Hugh wanted to see more of the interior, such as the tunnel where folks escaped.
Barrick went up to the rooftops of the neighboring buildings to learn more about where the ambushers attacked them. He found some crossbow bolts and detritus because the ambushers didn’t clean up after themselves. The rooftops are otherwise abandoned.
We enter the pewter shield to investigate more and search for our friends. We find the hatch into the basement and find a typical tavern basement, but with a passageway into the sewers in the southwest corner.
Hugh spends some time investigating the basement and discovers a double wall sconce near the passageway pulled from the wall. Bikke notices a sconce in the western wall as well, so he gave it a tub and discovered a secret door to a hidden room containing what is, presumably, Farnar’s special store room.
On a table in the center of the room there are maps, one of the sewers and another of the wall substructure. There are two locked chests on the northern wall and a ring of keys on the table. Using the keys, Bikke opens the larger chest and found what looks like a soldier’s foot locker. Clothes, equipment, small weapons. Essentials a person might need while on the move. Sitting on top of the contents of the chest, Bikke found a scroll that appears to be related as a cipher to the parchment Hugh found knifed to a poster outside.Perhaps the note was a message from Farnar?
Note: “Sewer” is more accurately desribed as “undercity” - the network of tunnels and basements under the city.
Bikke examined the maps for notes and clues. He finds some landmarks like the western guardhouse and a passage outside the city calls.
Gavin: “I think the first number is 1347, the year the Tethyrian civil war started. second one is 1501 (the current year in the game)”
There are ledgers for the tavern, the fake ones and the real ones. The real ledger, going back 10-15 years, suggest Farnar was moving his own money into the bar and layering it into the bar’s finances. He was laundering some funds. About 10 years ago, he started identifying merchant houses that he’s smuggling goods for. The smuggled material isn’t clear, but it looks like Farnar had a booming business bringing goods in and out of the city. More recently, in the last two years, money from Del Veign and the Auttencourt and Calimshan. The Del Veign payments are soon followed by larger payments from Auttencort. The payments from Calimshan are less regular in comparison to Del Veign and the Auttencort.
Kincaid notices that many of the ledger entries going back years are related to the Girasole Merchant House. Kincaid shares that Francesca runs the Girasole organization.
In the chest of coins, Bikke investigates a yellow bag of coin and finds a collection of Amnian Roldens, the state platinum currency.
We spend some time chatting with our new friend Kincaid. Bikke asks what he does, and Kincaid says that he’s good at finding people. Kincaid suggests he find a place where people gather, so a tavern through a part of town. Our search failed miserably, and we all ended up spending 12GP and failing miserably.
We find ourselves walking behind two city guards talking about what a shitshow the northwest tower has been. First, the library was burned down. Now, they found someone hanging from the statue of Zaranda Rhinduan.
The Northwest Tower
We approach the Northwest Tower in the evening where we see a few buildings around the road and some trash-strewn park spaces. There is a large archway with a single guard patrol behind it and, to the east of the arch in the small park space, we see a fountain with a statue of Zaranda Rhinduan. There are chains looped around her neck and there are dry bloodstains on the porous stone from whomever was hung there.
Barrick approached the guard in the gate, “Wow, looks like you had a busy day.”
Guard: “Bit of a shit show, today”
Barrick: “What happened? Seems crazy.”
Guard: “Started before my shift, but when I got here they were cutting some dwarf down from the statue. Never see them around here.”
Hugh offers the guard a swig from his flask and the guard accepts.
Bikke: “Did he have some bite marks?”
Guard: “You kinky or something?”
Gavin: “Can we see him?”
Guard: “What? No. I just said that.”
Kincaid silently cast invisibility and tries to quietly sneak past the guards while we’re talking.
Gavin sucks at asking the sergeant about the dead dwarf and gets us escorted to meet [[Helene]]. Helene looks like a 19 year old goth girl.Kira recognizes that Helene is alive, but under some kind of influence. She is intense, does not blink. The sergeant despises answering to her.
Helene: “Who are these men, Thatcher (the sergeant)?”
Thatcher: “They seem to know things about the dwarf.”
(Incoherent crosstalk)
Helene: I heard reports that 5 people strung him up. They’re suspicious. Take them into custody.
We see Thatcher’s eyes glaze over as influence is exercised over him. He draws his weapon and we pull out ours.
Combat Begins
We defeat Helene, kill Whitford, and restrain the remaining guards. We interrogated Thatcher.
Hugh: “What can you tell us about the captain?”
Thatcher: “Captain Arsene (phonetic) transferred in. When Ottilie came to Riatavin, they brought guards in her retinue. Her consort brought guards too. That’s when the bald Captain showed up.”
Hugh tells the seargant that he’s restrained so we don’t have to hurt him.
We traveled downstairs.
The basement is cold, nicer than expected, and we can hear murmered voices from the cells to the east and throughout the structure.
Bellamy, in the drunk tank, told us that we want Anders, not him. Bellamy claims he playes the lute. Anders said all those things.
Barrick, continuin through the cells, sees Roger in the drunk tank, vomit on his shirt.
Seeing Anders in the next cell, Anders says “I was too talented for this provincial audience. Let me ask you a question!” Anders puts his hands ont he cell bars, “What’s the difference between a chickpea and a lentil? Corsi never paid to have a lentil on their face! I’m in here for that joke. Another one, what’s the difference between Eldred corsi and my larder? My larder doesn’t fart when I pull the meat out!”
Barrick continues further south through the cells.
There is one man in a cell who’s badly beaten and barely breathing here, and 2 women with glassy looks, similar to the guards upstairs. Kira determines that both women are deeply anemic, likely vampire snacks.
At the end of the hall, Barrick opens the door and reveals Jatel, the presumed vampire Captain Arsene and Jatel.
Combat begins.
Arsene escaped or hid even after we dealt some heavy blows. We investigated the remaining carnage.
We found Francesca, Kincaid’s contact, killed and exanguinated in a room next to Arsene’s. We learned that fighting Vampires is challengingwe need to be prepared to close off escape routes and be prepared to counter their invisibility
Kincaid discovered some notes in the desk:
- The Widow (Francesca?) “1”
- The Dwarf (Fanran) “2”
- The Old Man (?) “8”
We found Farnar near death in a cell in the southern area and Orazio, an extremely old Eladrin. Orazio has suffered burns in their past and is wearing academic robes. Around his neck and mouth is an ornate golden cage a la Hannibal Lector.
Kira: “Why are you here?”
Orazio: “Protection.”
Kira: “Who’s being protected?”
Orazio: “I’m being protected by others. I received a threat and my employers felt it was important that I not fall victim to the threat”
Kira: “How long have you been down here?”
Orazio: “A few days. The dwarf arrived earlier today. I don’t think he’s going to make it. The woman came here to be protected. She was rude to Arsene, Arsene killed her. The threat she received came to fruition.”
Kira: “I assume you’re the old man?”
Orazio: “Probably, yes. I remember being a boy when the humans broke the rule of the giants. Before Calimshan. I haven’t been awake the whole time since then, but I’ve lived a long life.”
Kira: “Awake?”
Orazio: “When you’re old enough, you realize that life can be exhausting. I’ve found peace in meditation.”
Kira: “Why are they trying to protect you?”
Orazio: “I’m the property of the duchess Auttencort and the Widow sold flowers.”
Hugh: “The wedding.”
Farnar’s clothes are tattered rags. Hugh notices from the lay on hands that Farnar’s stomach is distended with apparently heavy internal bleeding.