Unfortunately for Machaera, she doesn't find a hat inside of the hatbox. Instead, the box contains the severed head of Zellara Esmeranda, the Varisian fortune teller who contacted your group, gave you Gaedren's location, and the links needed to have your revenge. Someone has crudely applied makeup to her face in an attempt to preserve her looks, but the head definitely stinks. How long Zellara's head has been in the box would require a doctor's touch. Machaera also finds a small box below Zellara's ragged stump of a neck.
"She has been dead for .... Yanis touches the head gently, looking at the damage done to it.
"So whom did we speak to?"
The Black Merlin follows the doctor into Lamm's personal quarters and peeks over his shoulder into the hatbox.
'She's seen better days. Twin sister? Some kind of illusion? Given what I saw before I found her note, I wouldn't rule out the latter'
"Well. I was not expecting that. Hmmm... that would explain the illusions. Someone set us up, thinking we would respond well to her. But who? What illusionist would go through this kind of scheme?" Io furrows her brow in concentration.
Machaera keeps quiet as the others gather round, trying not to breathe in too deeply. Goddess, that’s awful, she thinks, trying to figure out what’s going on.
“I know a few wizards I wouldn’t put it past,” she finally manages, weakly, “but I can’t think why they’d take the trouble.”
Machaera’s next words take on a sharper edge, “I don’t like being used as a catspaw. Hold on – there’s something else in here.”
Steeling herself, Machaera manages to lift the head out of the hatbox by the hair while keeping her own face impassive, as if she does this sort of thing all the time. Setting the head aside as carefully as she can, she takes out the small box from underneath and opens it up…
'Catspaw or not, whoever it was got us to Lamm. They got us our collective revenge. While strange, not revealing yourself to the people you send into danger, it's not necessarily malevolent.' The Merlin muses while watching Machaera manipulate the head.
The Albatross coughs a bit before chiming in, blood spraying against the mask, "It's possible Zellara's spirit is the one that contacted us still. If she was a fortune teller in life, then it's possible that her spirit was powerful enough to carry on and move between worlds."
"Nonetheless, we shouldn't just leave her head there. We can reach out to other varisians in the city and see if they can perform the proper funerary rights."
Machaera glances up from the small package in her hands to look curiously at the Black Merlin. “The only reason a verminous creature like Lamm could drag me into something like this is because one of his thugs thought I would serve as a useful scapegoat. I have no qualms about mysterious patrons-”
She considers the birdlike appearance of the Merlin, Albatross, and the doctor, and smiles. “-or masks, but a certain stability to the rules of the game is to be desired, unless anarchy is agreed upon. I only have a few ways to change the rules myself.” Sword and spell. A silver tongue would be nice, but I have no illusions as to my abilities on that front.
The Albatross’ words, though, recall Machaera to herself, and warn her that she’s being both rather selfish and sinister. She laughs to diffuse the tension, honestly, but still strangely. “In any case, cats and goats! We’ll get to the bottom of this, and you’re right – the least we can do is see that right is done by the dead.”
. Inside the small box is a deck of well made harrow cards. They have seen much use, but are also well cared for, with little damage or rubbing on the edges, and the art is clear as the day they were printed.
As the party looks at the cards, they fly up into the air, forming into a cross pattern. One by one, the cards wink out, until two are left: One bearing the image of anthropomorphic cricket holding a set of cards, next to an apple with a rapier stuck in it, and the other bears the image of 2 men in bird masks, supervised by a tengu, looking over a set of treasure. The cricket leaps off the card, grabbing his rapier, and jumps into the card containing the crows, the two men joining the cricket in battling the tengu. The clash goes on for a while, before the tengu is run through, shot, slashed with an axe, and falls to the ground covered by an avalanche conjured by the actions of the three heroes. A healing hand comes out of the new card, and the wounds of the three heroes disappear before your eyes. That card slowly changes into the image of a giant juggling the three heroes, the healing hand, a bipennis (two-head) great axe with two different colored heads, a wand, and what appears to be a crown made out of fangs. It floats for a couple of minutes, before turning into the image of Zellara. She smiles at you, makes a motion towards the now quiescent deck, and then vanishes.
"She mean the deck of the boat?" Yanis will look to where the image of Zellera points.
The Merlin quietly watches the bizarre paranormal card trick. When the card bearing the image of the two bird-masked men appears he instinctively reaches toward it but stops his hand when better judgment takes over. He turns to Albatross when the show ends.
'That one felt a little personal. I'm beginning to agree with your ghost theory, though.'
The sight of Zellara's severed head draws a staggering surge of profanity from Headsman, involving Lamm, Lamm's mother, a goat, acts better left unmentioned in polite society, and punishment of the latter from the business end of multiple weapons wielded by Gorum himself. He carefully picks up the young girls and asks one of the others to give him a hand by carrying the boy.
"Alright. Let's pack all of this up and head back to Zellara's house. Hopefully we can find some answers- Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's all this?"
Cut-off mid-sentence by the illusions, Headsman pauses to watch.
"... Sure seems like a ghost to me."
"Do we have a key for this box?" Yanis indicates the box they haven't tried. He will then gently put the head back in the box.
As the vision fades, Machaera’s instincts take over and she casts a cantrip to check the room – and the deck of cards – for a clue as to the nature of the magic they’ve just seen. Her approach to the arcane tends to be more pragmatic than some of the weirder mysteries she knows exist, but Machaera also knows that even the faintest trace of magic can be instructive.
As she comes back to herself, she considers various possibilities.
1) Zellara is dead, but for whatever reason her ghost is bound to her cards.
2) Zellara had a twin, and for whatever reason Zellara’s toying with us with illusion magic.
3) Whoever she is, this woman is dead, and someone else has created an illusory persona called “Zellara” to manipulate us for even more inscrutable purposes.
“A ghost does seem like a reasonable explanation,” Machaera nods, gathering the cards neatly up again. There doesn’t seem to be any need to trouble the others with her paranoid alternatives yet. At the doctor’s reminder, she adds, “We could take it upstairs, throw in the potions and other odds and ends we’ve collected, and sort it all out later. At Zellara’s? Or just out of this stench at least, if it turns out this chest is more baggage than anything else.”
Opening the strongbox triggers no traps. Inside it, you find the following wrapped in cloth that has been tied with twine:
A narrow teak cigar case inlaid with tiny bits of jade
A 2 lb gold ingot bearing the Cheliax coat of arms
A miniature gold crown
A fist sized scrimshaw (ivory sculpture) of a kraken with garnets for eyes
A silver ring bearing the inscription "For Emmah-the light in my nights"
A highly realistic and scandalous ivory figurine of two entwined succubi
A masterwork shuriken
An adamantine arrowhead
A masterwork dagger with a strange blade shaped almost like a key bearing the inscription: "For an inspiration of a father"
An abalone-shell carved into a symbol of a holy songbird with a long tail of many colored feathers
A glass tube
An obsidian cylinder
A crystalline vial holding some shimmering paste like substance
And lastly a bejeweled brooch with a broken clasp that looks like this
A gold brooch depicting a house drake battling an imp, the house drake coiled at the top, with its head facing the imp to the right, and the imp standing on the circle of the brooch facing the house drake on the left. Definitely worth major bucks.
You find nothing else in the room.
'That's an interesting bunch of knick-knacks. Let's gather everything else we've found and get back to... whoever's house that was.' The Merlin makes for the pile of salvaged goods they had left upstairs.
"We should definitely leave here promptly in case the watch decides to finally investigate the ruckus."
"Not yet." Io slumps against the wall, "I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. The Watch is unlikely to respond until morning. Can we at least wait until then?"
Peering over the lid of the strongbox, Machaera sweeps her eyes over the contents, extending her senses for any sign of magic. It’s an odd collection: the dagger catches her attention (despite its strange shape, it looks well-balanced and like it would hold its edge well), and some of the stuff is presumably mainly valuable for its materials. The faintest hint of a blush touches Machaera’s cheeks when she notices the ivory statuette. And a holy symbol… Where did all these things come from?
Knowing that the night is passing quickly, once she’s checked the strongbox’s contents for magic, Machaera shakes her head as if to clear it, letting her sense for magic fade to its usual background awareness. “I’m afraid the others are probably right. I don’t think anyone’s going to miss Lamm, but finding us lounging in a bloodbath might just be too politically inconvenient. Like Headsman said, I think it would be interesting to at least stop by Zellara’s. If it is a haunted house, it didn’t seem particularly dangerous, and it might be safe enough to collapse there to snatch a few hours of sleep before dawn.”
"I'd rather we get these two to safety as soon as possible. Some of those other kids are probably waiting for us outside, too."
Headsman loads himself up with some of the heavier valuables to help carry the accumulated load back to Zellara's.
Yanis will exhaust himself tending to the other.
"I can bandage everyone up, apparently my brandy got uses for other things so I cannot offer anyone a drink to help with lessening the pain."
Yanis smiles as he takes his mask off, his dark skin showing lots of worry and stress lines.
Nothing seems suspicious about any of the objects in the chest. The kids are stabilized, but will require either magical healing, lots of rest, or both to regain consciousness.
Machaera takes mental note of which items are magical, so she can remember to examine them more closely when the group retires to somewhere safer. Seeing the state of some of the party and Headsman’s protégés, she also begins to make plans for when she can get back to her own apartment and alchemical equipment.
A narrow teak cigar case inlaid with tiny bits of jade
A 2 lb gold ingot bearing the Cheliax coat of arms
A miniature gold crown
A fist sized scrimshaw (ivory sculpture) of a kraken with garnets for eyes
A silver ring bearing the inscription "For Emmah-the light in my nights"
A highly realistic and scandalous ivory figurine of two entwined succubi
A masterwork dagger with a strange blade shaped almost like a key
bearing the inscription: "For an inspiration of a father"
An abalone-shell carved into a symbol of a holy songbird with a long tail of many colored feathers
A crystalline vial holding some shimmering paste like substance
Yanis will take the box with the head, cradling it gently in his hands.
"We can do this from safety of my office if you wish, we also need to check to see who was in Zellera's home, we may find her body there as well."
@Machaera The obsidian cylinder is a wand of magic missiles, with 28 charges remaining. The command word is "darkness" in Common.
The glass tube appears to contain a one use oil of keen edge.
@Io
The teak cigar case appears to be worth 25 gp, and has no real significance other then being an interesting art object.
The gold ingot appears to be worth 80 gp, and appears to be a trade bar used in various large transactions. If it had an owner, you would need magic, psionics, or a lot of records to track it.
The miniature gold crown appears to be worth about 700 gp, and like the cigar case, has no real significance.
The scrimshaw appears to be worth 100 gp, and was made by a group of Kellish hunters from near Irrisen.
The ring appears to be worth 150 gp, and is likely a promise ring from one lover to another.
The entwined succubi appear to be worth 600 gp, and are a part of a set of similar figures created by a Korvosan artist known as Szumrak Szerakian, a halfling bard who often courted the ladies of the lower regions for tales of well recorded passion, some even resulting in badly written plays now acted out in second hand playbooths everywhere, including Excellent Execrables here in Korvosa.
The dagger is a stylized dagger used by a serial killer who was known as the Key-Lock Killer, and appears to be worth about 1500gp. He ended up killing over 300 people between 4690 and 4697 AR (18 to 11 years before the current date of 4708 in this campaign time) before he vanished.
The abalone shell appears to be worth 500 gp, and is representative of a group of icons or holy symbols carved for Shelyn by fishermen admiring the beauty of the sea.
The crystalline vial appears to be worth 60 gp, but you're unable to identify the substance inside.
'Where to? The Doc's office, or Zellara's?'
Io shrugs, "Somewhere safe, apparently. Which is closer?" she asks.
.
