"Dammit!" hissed Crea. She tossed the coins she was holding onto the top of the small pile of copper and silver pieces on their small, uneven circular table. She looked at the occupant of the stool opposite her and sighed.
The young woman across from her was beautiful, for sure, in an odd, other-worldly, statuesque fashion. At just over five and a half feet and a hundred and thirty five pounds, she had a strong face, with a sharp nose, framed by straight, deep brown hair, almost black, that hung just past her clavicles. She wore a white strip of lacy cloth over her honey brown eyes, and sat up straight as a board. "Not enough, then?" she said with her oddly lilting voice. Even her speech was off, just so.
"No." sighed Crea. "We're just under twenty-eight silver short of the booth entry cost for the Swallowtail festival." She chewed her bottom lip, her eyes dancing over the pile of coins. "Dammit!" Crea's fist bounced off of the wood table, causing a few of the coins to dance. "Charris, this isn't fair!" she pouted.
Crea was about the same size as Charris, but shorter, just over five feet tall, average for a half-elf. She had long, dirty brown hair with a red shade to it, that seemed to move up and down the color spectrum as your eyes traveled over its length. She sported entirely more cleavage than was particularly necessary, and had long, painted nails on her hands. She sported cloth strips, leather thongs, bone necklaces, and many other fetishes, tied and wrapped about her person all over her body. Her eyes were a deep, deep blue, almost violet, and stormy in nature.
Charris's pale hand swept out across the coins, nudged a few aside, and picked up a particular one. "Just OVER twenty-eight silver short. This is not accepted currency." She tossed the coin to Crea, who snatched it out of the air.
"Aroden lives, Charris," Crea griped, looking at the coin in her palm. It was uneven, and poorly painted to look silver. On one side it bore a stylized star of some sort, while on the other, a poor attempt at stamping a new symbol on the ancient coin appeared to be a laughing face, although one of the eyes was gouged away. A small fox poked its head up from Crea's lap, sniffing at the coin. Crea scowled. "It'd be nice if you really were blind, you know?"
"I am blind," Charris stated, sweeping the rest of the coins into a small burlap sack and standing up. "I'm just perceptive."
"Perceptive my ass," Crea muttered half under her breath as Charris walked towards the front door of their small upstairs apartment. She threw on her boots as Charris turned, her eyebrow raised inquisitively. "Come on," she plowed on, joining her friend. "Let's go see if the boys will give us 'just OVER twenty-eight silver'", she intoned mockingly.
An Eyewitness Account of the Investigation of the Abductions of Sandpoint
As told by Dorina "The Dolt"
Investigation, Day 1
An Eventful Day
I had never imagined that I would become involved in such a mess as this.
Charys had another dream last night, and what she told us bring back memories that I wish I thought I had left behind me years ago. Someone selling Gretchen’s severed fingers to half a dwarf holding a malachite box, and the dwarf-thing unlocks the box with a lock before disappearing through a door ringed with teeth. That someone may have sold the kidnapped children into slavery does not surprise me, though I swear whoever did this will have their blood on my hands before this is through. No, what disturbed me more was the dwarf and the malachite box. All dwarves know the legends of the Malachite Hold, though I doubt many are as intimately familiar with it as I. The thought of that place brings back so many bittersweet memories…
Note to self: This account was to be for the documenting of our current predicament and investigation into the kidnappings of several persons, not the rambling reminiscences of a lonely dwarf.
We went out for the day and did some work, and I tried to glean some information about this organization of jester thieves called the Last Laugh. The only lead I found was a coin given to me by an old man, griping about the lack of value of it. The coin was minted with a jester, and is apparently worthless.
Next was the orphanage, doubling back to look for any clues. Other than one child saying he saw people leaping over the rooftops at night (he excitedly claimed it was the Stormblades, though I feel that unlikely), the only new evidence was that Patch the halforc has apparently had some kind of run-in with the Last Laugh, though he seemed so unnerved when they were brought up that I didn’t feel the need to press the issue. Patch has enough on his plate without reminding him of a no doubt embarrassing mugging.
We went to the Coldwater house, the scene of one of the disappearances, and found that any evidence was likely gone. The house had been cleaned and aired, with fresh sheets on the bed, likely the work of Old Man Coldwater. We did note, however, that the locks on the doors at this abode were of similar workmanship to the locks at the orphanage. As Locksmith Ghelve is the only man—well, gnome—to buy locks from, we decided a visit to his shop was in order.
Point of interest: Charys’ dream stated that the dwarf’s box was unlocked with a lock. Could Ghelve be connected to this somehow?
Upon arriving at Ghelve’s Locks, we found a pair of ruffians digging through the shelves and countertops of the shop. When we inquired as to Ghelve’s whereabouts, we were informed that he had left, and almost immediately we heard the sounds of muffled shouting from a back room. Clearly, these were not the brightest brigands in the book.
After Zed handily countered their attempt to flee from us and we freed Ghelve from the ropes and gags holding him prisoner, Joth made excellent use of the pairings of the thieves’ heads and a nearby countertop to encourage them to inform us as to their purpose there. We discovered that they were part of an organization called the Green Daggers (another gang, just what this town needs!) and that they were working today on the behalf of one Irontusk, a halforc who brought them along to make it seem as though the store was ransacked randomly. When Ghelve heard this, he made a quick investigation of his shop and discovered that a family heirloom, a key, was missing, and entreated us with the finding and returning of said heirloom.
After some further interrogation, the vagabonds told us where to find their Green Dagger guildhouse, whereupon we gagged them with Zed’s socks and turned them over to the city watch. We decided amongst the six of us that the best way to go about finding Irontusk and Ghelve’s missing heirloom would be to head to the Green Dagger guildhouse and seek answers there. We set out for Ash Avenue and the address that we had been given, but no sooner did we approach the building than it erupted in a burst of fire and force! We hurried into the burning wreckage, not sure what we were going to find inside but knowing we needed to move quickly.
Upon a casual perusal, we discovered one survivor, a man knocked unconscious by the blast, and we pulled him outside. We also discovered a store of armaments, which Thearku and Yasmine were only to kind to transport back to a secure location for perusal at a later time. When the rest of us went back inside though, we found something terrible. A creature that I would not believe could exist outside of campfire tales and nightmares, had I not seen it with my own eyes.
A crenshar, a hideous parody of a dog, with skin peeling back from its muzzle to bare the raw flesh beneath, assaulted us inside the guildhouse. Zed, unable to cope with the wretch, turned and ran, leaving us to face the beast, and I must admit that I myself wished to run and hide. I hope never to see something so vile as this abomination again in my lifetime. I was outside, tending to the survivor we had found, and by the time I came inside the monster had already been dispatched by a well placed blow of Joth’s warhammer. Crea was enacting her rites of departure on the thing, caressing the innards of the creature as she pulled apart its wounds and sending it speedily to death.
Beyond the room that had enclosed the crenshar, we discovered a sick room of sorts, with half a dozen invalids that all appeared to be under the effects of a magical malady, though neither Charis nor those of us predisposed towards the arcane could draw to mind a knowledge of what exactly was ailing them. We pulled them out of the burning building as well, leaving them in the care of the Town Watch, who had arrived by this time, and went back into the building. Fiery explosions, mystical illnesses, and mythical horrors aside, we still needed to find Irontusk, find Ghelve’s key, and explore the connections that the Green Dagger may have to the disappearances in Sandpoint.
Dorina
"Dorina's Dream"
The dream was the same, always the same. She heard her name called out of a swirling mist, the echoes of the dead, the shadows of voices long since gone from her life.
“Dorina?” A chorus of three voices, two men and a woman. She knew the voices without seeing the faces they belonged to, knew beyond any doubt what she would see if she allowed herself to look on them. “Dorina,” they called, soft and pleading, and eerie unity of purpose in their tones. “Dorina, why have you turned away? Why do you dishonor us so?”
She willed herself not to look, not to see them. It would only bring her pain, misery, humiliation. She fought to wake herself, to be free of the nightmare, but as every other time this dream had come, she did not have the strength. Her resolve failed her, and she found herself facing the three people in the world that she wished more than anything would not see her as she was now. She looked each in the eye, and called them as she had called them in the past.
“Mother. Father. Beloved.” The people who had meant the most in the world to her, who had been her foundation for all her life, now all gone from her. Their faces were proud, strong, bold, as dwarves should be. Her father wore his merchant silks, and her mother was wrapped in a beautiful dress. Zenith, her betrothed, was clad in armor, his hammer at his side and his shield on his arm. But the visages were marred, corrupted by the fates she knew had befallen them. They all bore the marks of terrible wounds, cloth and mail and flesh alike all torn, all battered, all dead. Taken from the world by violence, all three.
“Daughter, why have you forsaken our memory so?” Her mother’s words cut deep, the disapproval in her tone all the more painful because of the underlying hurt that she did not voice. Dorina turned her eyes to her mother, protesting, “But Mama, what could I do? They took everything, the mine, the money, they left me destitute. What way have I to honor you but to live in what ways I can?”
“You have forgotten yourself, forgotten what it means to be a part of this family.” Her father spoke next, as always, and Dorina felt the tears burning at her eyes. “Papa, why couldn’t you prove yourself innocent? They accused you of such awful things, and you died without clearing your name. Our family is gone, and our name means nothing now!”
“Why could you not honor my decision, my love?” Zenith’s voice struck her more harshly than her parents, the stirrings in her heart strangled with pain never truly buried. “How could I honor a decision that left me alone, Zenith? You ran away to fight your war, and all I have to show is a maiden’s virtue and a widow’s pain.”
She faced them all, her ghosts, her memories. “I do what I must to survive. Why can you not leave me in peace? Why will you not let me be who I wish to be? Why must the burdens of the dead fall at my feet?”
She knew they wouldn’t answer. They never did. They only repeated their questions, again and again, until she would wake. The cycle would break when she awakened, and not before. The voices of her past would haunt her through the night, as they always had, and always would.
The rain is coming down hard. You see a body ahead of you on a bridge. A warforged moves away from it, coming at you.
Korihor's fingertips glow purple. She balls her fist, and the light gathers in her palm. She hurls it at the warforged.
The warforged closes.
Moving away from him, she balls her fist again, and hurls it at the warforged.
The warforged continues to come at her.
Moving away from him, she balls her fist again, and hurls it at the warforged.
Cutter finally reaches her.
Taking a step back, she blasts the warforged in the chest again.
Cutter steps up and slashes Korihor brutally with his battleaxe.
Korihor steps back again, concentrates, and blasts the warforged one last time.
The warforged drops to the ground.
Korihor searches the body.
As you near the body, it's chest piece opens. A tiny golden object darts away, disappearing into the night.
Korihor returns home and heals up.
After regaining your health, you are eating in the common room of the inn you're staying at, when a cloaked figure sits down opposite you.
A female's voice speaks in clear tones. "We have important business to discuss relating to the unfortunate death of Bonal Geldem."
Korihor eyes the woman. "Who? And who are you?
"My name is Eladryn d'Cannith." Her cloak is dark blue, and she wears a signet ring of House Cannith on her right ring finger. "The man you found murdered last week was Bonal Geldem. You carry his belongings." She nods to a waitress, who brings over two mugs.
"I have been working for several months with Provost Geldem to recover a family heirloom."
"How does this involve me?"
"It didn't. Bonal and I were to meet that night, but he never made it, as you know. I learned from the Watch what had transpired, and sent someone to track down any potential witnesses."
"With Bonal's belongings gone and the assailant dead, you knew someone out there had what you seek."
The woman nods. "The assailant was a servant of the Lord of Blades. Now, this heirloom, according to family legend, was locked away in a foundry that dates to Pre-Galifar Sharn. Bonal felt he had discovered the location of the foundry in a Cannith journal."
Korihor nods, understanding. "And someone else discovered this and felt the information was worth killing over."
"Yes." The woman sips at her beverage. "I was funding an expedition to the sight, but...without Bonal..." She shakes her head. "Perhaps you would be willing to recover the heirloom for me."
Korihor considers a moment. "Yes." She pulls out the journal Bonal was carrying.
Eladryn takes the journal. She touches her signet ring to it, and the mithral wiring on the cover and the ring both glow. She opens it, and the once blank pages fill with writings and sketches.
Turning to a specific page, she studies it a moment, then pulls a folded map from inside her cloak.
"The location of the foundry appears to be deep within the Dorasharn tower, fifty-seven levels beneath the tower's present-day sewer system. I can give you a thousand gold to recover this heirloom for me. A hundred gold up front."
She hands you the map. "The relic I seek is an adamantine plate in the shape of a seven-pointed star about the size of your hand. Recover this for House Cannith, and we will be extremely grateful."
"I hope so."
Eladryn pays you, and takes her leave.
Korihor goes shopping, then heads to Dorasharn tower.
One of the shifters drops as you blast it. The other shifter moves forward.
The warforged fires a bolt from his crossbow at you.
The other shifter drops into the water. A valve bursts forth with steam. The warforged reloads and fires at you again.
A little gold ball flies out of the warforged's chest as it dies.