1 Rova 4715
Wealday
Session 7
The morning begins bright and early with Vazra, Ayse, Ham, and Larc meeting up just after curfew lifts to head to Songbird Hall as per Lucius’ invitation. The gathered crew offers guesses and jabs as to the nature of the meeting as they travel. They arrive at Songbird Hall, greeted by Zachrin Vhast who usurers them swiftly inside. The hall is set up for some event, though very few attendees are present. The party meets up with Laria and Rexus, who are similarly in the dark, as well as another mysterious, aloof, and flamboyant woman waiting for the proceedings.
Once gathered, Lucius begins the event stating his inner turmoil, his plans to shed his former life to fully embrace the path of rebellion he has started down, and recites the Oath of the People’s Council. The rest of the party is left confused, with Ham and Vazra seeming particularly displeased with the overt display. Lucius thanks the party for witnessing his Paladin oaths, and introduces them to his mother, the Arch-Baroness. She invites the group to the Aulamaxa Estate for light refreshments following the ceremony.
After extending the invitation, the Arch-Baroness departs. The party waits around for a few minutes while Lucius changes out of the ceremonial plate armor. They discuss going to the party or not, but eventually decide to all go after some coaxing from Lucius. As they leave the front doors of Songbird Hall, they are halted by an ominous procession of black plated knights and CCG members passing by. The procession comprises of two columns of the knights, identified as Hellknights of the Rack, flanking a massive wooden rack being towed along by members of the CCG. With about 40 knights total, the parade seems to take delight in holding up in front of Songbird Hall with their gruesome display.
As the party waits on the front steps, one of the knights leaves formation and approaches them. He seems rather well informed as to the party’s activities during the protest, and makes pointed comments to rile up Ham and Vazra. The group as a whole refrained from taking the bait and getting violent, but after exiting the conversation, he can be seen talking to Truny Vorvoal, pointing back to the group as Truny nods. Then he slowly stabs a knife into the man strapped into the rack while looking back at the party. The procession continues and the party heads towards the Aulamaxa Estate.
As the party walks up outside of The Greens, Rexus pulls Lucius aside. He claims he’s not going to attend the party, but wishes the group well. He asks Lucius to begin investigating the buildings in town that had burned down in the Night of Ashes. Lucius agrees to do so with the group. Furthermore, Rexus invites anyone who wishes to assist with the coded message to meet him at Longroads to do so, then he wishes the party well and departs.
Upon arrival, the party, including Lucius, is shocked to find that the “light refreshments” offered by the Arch-Baroness was actually a full on breakfast party including Kintargo’s foremost Noble Families. The Chief Butler Tessig announced the arrival by proclaiming Lucius to be a newly sworn paladin, much to Lucius‘ chagrin. Lucius introduces Tessig to the group, has him retrieve more formal wear for Ham, saying this may be a good chance for the party to gather some information, and then sets out to find his mother. At this point the group splits:
Ayse peruses the foodstuffs available, and generally tries to stay out of the way.
Larc seems intrigued by the butler, so tracks down Tessig in the kitchen. Larc asks him some very blunt and pointed questions about how much he enjoys being a butler, what he wants for Kintargo, and what his feelings on the nobles are. As Tessig tries to walk the metaphorical bull through the philosophical china shop, Larc comes out with asking him about his thoughts on the Silver Ravens. Tessig moves the conversation to a more private locale, and Larc is able to convince Tessig to begin spying on the noble families and reporting back to the group!
Ham feels as though the place is far too stuffy, and steps outside for some fresh air. On the back patio, he finds some of the Aulamaxa house guards, and hits them up. He asks a bit about their work and small talks for a few minutes, eventually steering the conversation towards the night of Ashes and the Victocora Estate. The guards say they were some of the first on the scene, having been so close, but that even then the place was essentially gone already and they were just looking for survivors. Not much else seen or heard by them. Ham returns to the party inside.
Lucius tracks down his mother, concerned that she just announced to most of the nobility that Lucius had taken a Paladin Oath. She seemed to think it a necessary part of the party while Lucius is concerned it will draw undue attention to him, having taken a demonstrably “Good” oath at a time of increasingly “Evil” city control. He then asks about which families have been topics of conversation recently, and she notes the Sarinis as having been up to no good. Lucius is then pulled away by a doorman saying someone had just entered looking for him.
Lucius makes his way to the front with purpose, which Ham notices and follows, to find Polpot and a crew of strange men. After a brief and awkward exchange of introductions, the band of merry men expresses a wish to join an organization to improve their skills and make a living. Seeing the opportunity, Lucius and Ham conduct an impromptu interview of the new team, and discuss who should manage them. Neither of them wanted to take on the peddlers, and as they were going back and forth Ayse comes out of nowhere and starts whipping them into shape and taking on their management.
Lucius introduces Vazra to the director of the TSA at the academy, who talks about suspicious murders taking place in the Red Roof District
Session 8
The group leaves as the breakfast social winds down. Getting back together, they decide to do some digging through the burned down buildings that Rexus had mentioned earlier. They start with the closest arson site, Victocora Estate. After a thorough search, this location leaves absolutely nothing to be found but ash and rubble, so the group moves to the next site, the Thrashing badger. Due to its location on the docks, the second location was little more than a burnt out hole in the pier. Ham makes it known he’s going to return with a snorkel, but that its time to move on. After some discussion, the party comes to the conclusion that it’s still best if everyone checks out the final site despite the lack of anything found at the first two. They cross the bridge, paying the increasingly annoying toll, and make way towards the Silver Star. Here, the fire created a sort of crater where it had burned down to a potential basement level. Vazra, Larc, and Ayse begin combing the wreckage while Ham and Lucius create a distraction on the busy streets. Lucius finds a soapbox and hands Ham a hand drum, and together they engage in one of Ham’s most lauded performance arts, slam poetry! The crowd is quite intrigued.
Meanwhile, as the other half of the group picks through debris, Larc comes across a small box that survived the fire. Dusting it off, he hands it to Ayse who detected magic inside. Ayse opens up the slender case to reveal an assortment of scrolls and potion, a few of which bore the mark of the Dawnstar. This seemed to bring out Larc’s other half momentarily without needing the rage-state, and Ayse notes that down for the future. Having completed Rexus‘ checklist of locations, the party decides to head back to the Wasp’s Nest to reconvene and handle some business. Lucius and Vazra split off, saying they’ll meet up later.
Lucius and Vazra take the long way back to Longroads via the Devil’s Nursery. Vazra recommends Lucius dress down a bit so he grabs a cloak, makes a swift disguise, and thusly Karrot was born. Chasing down rumors of the potential serial killer, the pair take a few hours combing through the Nursery and tracking down potential leads. Eventually, they track down a Tiefling woman by the name of Zea who came across the most recent body. Karrot and Vazra spend a bit of time questioning here on the conditions and circumstances she encountered, but little knowledge was gained. They go to the location to search for clues, though the body is already cleared out and disposed of via an agonizingly long cremation. Karrot spends some time getting familiar with Zea while Vazra looks through the murder scene. The only bit of evidence found is a humanoid tooth for later appraisal by the full party. Lucius and Vazra soon depart, letting Vea know to contact them with any new information at the Blackthorn.
Larc, Ayse, and Ham return directly to the Wasp’s Nest to unexpected misfortune. Upon arrival to the hidden cave, they hear a commotion of crying and mourning. They find that a section of the cave had collapsed, and that one of the Fushi sisters had been crushed in the debris overnight. Rexus is also present, but quiet. Ham begins leading the search for answers. They immediately begin scouring the area and notice that the collapse had been caused by chiseling away at the wall. This comes as a surprise as none of the remaining sisters ever heard the sound of chiseling, day or night. Furthermore, tensions build as they realize no one else besides the sisters, Rexus, and the Party had been down to the Wasp Nest as far as they knew, so Ham and Ayse’s questions get more pointed and implicative. The Fushi sisters do not take kindly to the suspicion cast upon them for their own sisters deaths, but the tension is somewhat resolved by some empathetic words from the party. Ham then has Rexus begin taking a log of every person’s entry and exit from the Wasp Nest.
Session 9
Happened.
The party got word from Laria that some potential friendlies were being detained in the Sallix Saltworks by some hired goons. The party decides to gather information during the day, then assault the Saltworks after night fall once more information was available. The group splits to do various reconnaissance activities.
Lucius departs for the Castle District to find a tavern frequented by the Dottari. He finds such an establishment and quickly goes to work ingratiating himself with the off duty beat cops there. Though this was by no means his finest work, he does gather some lucrative info despite some close calls with his cover being blown. Lucius buddies up with the guards there, playing to their honor and “hard work” and is able to find out that it’s actually the CCG holding the prisoners in the saltworks, not some random mercenary group. He isnt able to learn much more, but does get that the Dottari don’t seem bothered by not getting that posting, and the man he was primarily speaking to mentioned that if it were him running the post, he would have taken more guards.
-Ham and Lark ask around town
-Ayse scouts the outside of the Saltworks.
The group reconvenes around 8:30 and tries to breach the Saltworks. Once Ayse reports his findings, the group decides it would be best to try to get into the small, fenced-off courtyard between the two buildings that make up the Saltworks grounds. Ham is able to climb the fence, but not without making extraneous noise. He quickly checks the door to the outbuilding to see if he was noticed, and confirms his suspicions as he hears concerned discussion on the other side. The rest of the group works their way around to the fence gate at the rear of the complex.
Ham, now concerned with opening the gate to reunite the party quickly, realizes the gate is locked and they’re running out of time to prepare. He breaks the gate lock with his Morningstar as the outbuilding door opened to reveal confused CCG mercs. Combat ensues as the party navigates opening the gate and putting down the CCG without too much disruption. Two of the three from the outbuilding go down, one knocked unconscious by Lucius’ new whip to be questioned later, however the third is able to escape into the main Saltworks building to raise the alarm. The party is forced to follow and charge blindly behind.
They follow down the fleeing man into the heart of the Saltworks where they come face to face with the main force led by an imposing iron wall of a Dwarf named ******. ****** was a failed Asmodean cleric prospect, but still dedicated to the church and put in charge of this operation. The well armored and brutally strong dwarf lays out blow after ringing blow on the party as the group struggles to put down the remaining CCG mercs. Just as the tide of battle turns and the remaining CCG members are killed or put to sleep, the Dwarf channels all of his ancestral hatred into a strike on Ham and knocks him uncomfortably close to death. The party swarms him, trying to take pressure off of Ham as Lucius wrests the wand of cure light from hams belt to heal him.
Lucius is able to bring Ham back to consciousness, but as he does so, the dwarf looks down to them and goes for the finishing blow.
Session 10
Lucius, seeing his friends impending doom, dredges up all his remaining strength to throw himself over Ham quickly enough to take the blow for Ham. The bone-shattering strike nearly puts Lucius unconscious as he reels, but remains standing. This action bought Ayse, Larc, and Vazra enough time to finish their tag-team assault, and finally finish off the ferocious infernal dwarf.
- Found prisoners including a tengu
- Interrogated captured CCG. Lots of discussion of what to do with them, giving them a chance to change, giving them a job, smuggling them out of the city. They eventually decided they wanted nothing to do with CCG or Party and agreed to part ways knowing it was insta death if they were seen with the CCG by us again.
- Heal and tend to the former prisoners.
- Sleep at the Saltworks waiting for curfew, need to get out by 7/7:15.