Cutscene:
Aliandara, Marra and Trinia slink through the shingles, peering down to see a hundred or so citizens marching down the street carrying an effigy of Trinia swinging on a gallow. Drakus comes out of the town home door and shouts "She lives up here, third floor, follow me!"
Dozens swarm up the stairs behind Drakus, frenzied for blood, when they don't find Trinia, they tear the room apart, destroying her flat, paitings, bed, anything they can get their hands on.
As they swarm into the room, Trinia and her rescuers are two streets over, they continue several more streets over before dropping down, nearly running into a Hellknight patrol.
Panish steps in to calm the mob and sends them back out to search. Donagar expounds upon the value of a nice ale, or possibly a stout, or a lovely mead. The mob ignores him though, heading back to the streets, led by Drakus, until he slips away.
The group meets at Zellara's old house, Marra slips out to contact the agents. Marra returns with the agents and Inquisitors of Iomedae, she attends the magical interrogation, after several hours, the mob peters out, and the Inquisitors of Iomedae declare that Trinia is innocent.
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So you're currently in Zellara's house, She manifests her old house once more using the power of the harrow deck. Making it appear as it did when the entire adventure started a month ago.
The warm room lit by candles, Varisian tapestries and rugs line the walls, and floor, a table and chairs laid out around a fortune teller's table overlaid with a finely crafted shawl. All what was once a rather comfortable home of a Harrower.
After the inquisitors leave, Zellara beckons, "Marra, do what you can to have this home transferred to you. I want you to have it."
Trinia: "thank you for getting me out of there, it's unfortunate that my life's work was destroyed, but I suppose I can always make more. Panish, do you think that those who just cleared me will convince the queen of my innocence." Trinia says in a vulnerable tone, her eyes as big as saucers, with just a hint of tears welling up.
Panish looks at Trinia seriously for a moment, then hugs her before saying, "Although it pains me to say this, I do not share Sgt. Drakus optimism in this, I honestly do not think the queen will take this proof seriously - or rather, a scapegoat will have to exist. If she admitted to a blunder of this magnitude this early in her reign, her already shaky position would be undermined even further. For Korvosa it is a precarious balancing act, on the one hand true justice needs to be done - but on the other we also need to calm the madness that has engulfed Korvosa in the last few months." He looks at Trinia again: "Right now we will have to ensure your safety - and this might have to mean that you will have to leave Korvosa. We will need to converse with Commander Cressida, maybe she has some thoughts to add to this."
Panish looks slightly whistful out of a window onto Korvosa, "I have no good lead yet... - but the atrocities over Korvosa will make way to justice in the end!"
"Even if the Queen pardons you there will always be people who will stubbornly hold to this story, that’s the tragedy of false accusations. Do you have family or friends outside of Korvorsa, people you can trust?" says Aliandara , wondering who she would turn to if their positions were reversed as her only family is in Korvorsa.
"If you do stay, I'd appreciate if you first leave - and then return with some ale and what the word on the street is. Knowing the lay of the land and being prepared will help us more than an extra hand here. Just...", here Panish shows some good-natured concern, "...try not to mention Trinia at all; I think right now any attention is bad attention."
"Good call, we'll let the Field Marshall know to get a full-time secret guard on this house, we do however need to get some supplies here so she has some food to eat. And here Trinia, something to read." Marra hands Trinia a copy of Acts of Iomedae.
Trinia looks at the book. "Oh, Iomedae...how...lovely."
Marra looks back at Trinia. "It's by the grace of Iomedae that you're not hanging from a mob's noose right now."
You find Citadel Volshyenek’s guards unusually agitated and nervous.
Recognizing the group one of the guards says,
“Glad you're back, one of those Shoanti kids went and got
himself killed, and now the rest of them are all worked
up — if it’s not one riot about to erupt, it’s another! Field
Marshal Kroft’s in her office now, trying to talk some sense
into the Shoanti ambassador—in fact, she mentioned that
she’s looking for you all to help with the situation.”
Cressida Kroft isn’t alone when you arrive at her office—
with her is a tall, rail-thin Shoanti man of some 60 winters. He
leans heavily on a walking stick, the polished femur of some
giant beast crowned with a firepelt cougar’s skull. He wears a
shirt decorated with countless jangling animal bones, many
painstakingly scrawled with dozens of tiny symbols and
glyphs. A bearskin cloak is draped about his bony shoulders,
and warpaint in the shape of a skull decorates his face. The
Shoanti’s eyes are milky as if he were blind, though he sees
better than most men half his age. He is never without his
familiar, a regal red-feathered razor crow named Eats-Eyes.
He regards you impassively while Cressida introduces
him as Thousand Bones, a Way-Keeper for the Skoan-Quah,
the Clan of the Skull. Cressida bids the PCs sit, tells them
about the situation with the mob violence and the dead
Shoanti, then turns the floor over to Thousand Bones.
The old shaman speaks with a deep voice, his words carefully
chosen but delivered with a barely restrained anger.
“My people have worked hard to understand yours, yet it seems
each day we see new examples of how your people work just
as hard to foster old hatreds. My grandson is dead, beaten to
death by cowards in your city street. I do not blame you, yet still
Gaekhen is dead, and my son and his kin are not so forgiving as I.
They wish to return to the Skoan-Quah in the Cinderlands, to join
with the Sklar-Quah and rally to war against Korvosa."
"This would be disastrous, for both our peoples. Amends must be made.
Our ways are not as yours. If a body does not go whole to
the fires of the gods, the smoke of a warrior’s spirit cannot rise
to the Great Sky. If I could send Gaekhen’s body to the Great Sky with honor and dignity, his father and brothers would listen
to me and stay their wrath—the talks of peace between my
people and yours can continue. "
"But he was not just murdered."
"His body was taken from the scene of his death, sold by a
peddler of corpses to a necromancer named Rolth, a criminal
to both our people. I have spoken with the spirits, and they have
revealed to me that Gaekhen’s body has been taken to a place
below your boneyard, a place the spirits call the Dead Warrens."
“With this knowledge, I could surely lead a group of my finest
warriors into your boneyard to retrieve Gaekhen’s body, but this
would be seen as an act of aggression by your people. No, it
falls to you to make amends for what has been done. You must
bring me Gaekhen’s body, lest we be forced to recover him
ourselves. And although it pains my heart to say it—we
will not be gentle if it comes to this.”
After Thousand bones leaves, you tell the Field Marshall about Trinia, relaying where she is.
"Good work getting her safe and sound, after my agents informed me she was innocent, I have already sent someone I trust around to look after her. She'll see no harm done to her, I guarantee this. I've also got agents inquiring as to why the Queen would accuse an innocent girl."
"In reward to your service to the city, here is 100 platinum pieces for each of your band." she tosses a sack full of coins to Drakus.
"Now I need you to gather your band of adventurers together.
Someone tied to Korvosa needs to find the dead Shoanti’s body
and return it to his people as a gesture of good will, or things
will quickly go from bad to worse. Normally, Kroft would contact
the Church of Pharasma to organize an expedition into one of
the warrens under the city graveyard, but your group has proven
their loyalty to the city, and there's another hundred plat for
you all if you can accomplish this goal. Any Questions?"
Korvosa’s vast graveyard, a place known as the Gray
District, is a mournful place even by day. Alone in the city,
this place is quiet and calm in the face of the civil unrest,
yet this calm is an unnatural stillness in the air, almost as
if the graveyard were preparing itself for a vast influx of
new dead. Certainly, this ominous feeling is nowhere more
noticeable than in Potter’s Ward, the final resting ground
for Korvosa’s poor and homeless. Mounds of unmarked
dirt stretch far and wide, indicating sites of mass graves,
while crumbling mausoleums from years ago, abandoned
by their families as the Gray District expanded to the west, dot
the bleak landscape, forgotten and empty. Mourners
do not visit here, for the dead buried in Potter’s Ward leave
behind few who regret their passing.
A Tall man dressed in black with a black mask steps through the door into the little house.
"So where's this little scapegoat?"
Blackjack holds his hands up with a smirk on his face: "A Mutual acquaintance sent me to watch over our little scapegoat until this can be sorted out, Cressida has other needs to prevent the city from ending up in a war with all of the Shoanti."
"Besides if it weren't a friendly visit..." He infers as he draws his blade lightning fast, and re-sheathes it nearly as fast.
“How can the church of Pharasma have allowed a necromancer to dwell inside the Gray District! I am shocked that Korvorsa hasn’t taken care of Rolth before!” Aliandara is disgusted and visibly disturbed as her mind conjures up pictures of dead loved ones mulling around seeking the flesh of the living, she shudders. Then with a sudden realization and horror, ”I have to check my mother’s grave, Pharasma, please let nothing have happened to her."
"There's not really time for that right now Aliandara, you need to head back to that house and collect your friends. Rolth will be dealt with, there are many places to hide in this city, especially in ancient dark areas."
"You don't have a lot of time, Thousandbones will expect a report in the next day or two."