Knowledge (local)
Morrolan
Rayne
As it turns out, nobody has heard of this Amalia Wraxton.
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Night falls, and with the deeps of starlight, the crew of the Grinning Pixie change course and hoise a beacon to the topsails, that blinks a greenish blue once every several seconds.
After several hours, a ship can be seen against the black ocean in the distance, and the two ships close.
The new moon and clouds keep the pre-dawn sky dark as the Pixie sidles up to the Patience. The ragged whalers silently pull person after person from their hold of scant fish—at first glance, you see emaciated elderly people, several haggard-looking young men and women, and even a trio of children—each of them looking like they’ve gone years without rest as they listlessly cross the plank joining the ships.
Venture Captain Benarry welcomes the refugees in a booming voice, and her crew sets to work bringing provisions to the newcomers. The Patience’s crew lacks their ship’s namesake as they hurriedly wave you over.
Once you're all aboard, the Patience crew show you to the same hold which kept the townsfolk, a large water-tight room, featureless and unlit, with about 6 inches of standing water. There are still large pieces of something -- optimistically, fish -- floating in the water, covered with swarms of flies. The hold smells overwhelmingly of decaying fish and blood.
One of the seamen crosses the deck near you, huffing as he pulls a line of rigging that looks dangerously thin in places. "In ye go, darlin's, and ye'll be welcome in Pezzack. Or stay on deck, and see if the Chel's navy brigs suit ye better." he rasps.
As Morrolan's comments about his armor sink in, you realize that the people of Pezzack looked poor, hungry and fearful. And those were the ones that had the wherewithal and gumption to get out.
Any sort of armor will stand out. Heck, just looking well-fed will set you apart from the people you just saw.
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Pavanna allows Alden to assist her across. She squeezes his hand tightly and allows the briefest of smile to Alden.
Clearly unhappy with the hold, Pavanna takes a perfumed bar of soap and a waterproof bag from her pack, then places the soap in the bag and holds it up to her face covering her nose and mouth.
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As this sinks in, and with the water rising a full third of the way up her little legs, Frissa looks down at her mithral plate with dismay.
This won't do. Not yet.
She shrugs and, after calling on the Flame to create a small ball of light on her palm, she begins working the buckles, removing pieces of the brilliantly shiny metal until she is down to her underclothes. She dresses again in a shirt and trousers from her pack and rolls her plates tight in her cloak and ties it to her pack, hoping no one will search her too closely. Her buckler, she keeps handy - right on top of the main compartment of the pack and she keeps her dagger and sling handy.
She shrugs, now looking more the part after having had all sorts of foulness sloshed on her in the dimly lit hold. Lucky for her, her defenses don't end at her carried weapons and gear...
Once the hatch closes, you have what light and heat sources you can generate for yourself. the room is 20 by 30, with a ceiling 20 feet above the floor. With a little bit of work, you can spot four -- or maybe five -- rats swimming about in the chum. They're not interested in starting anything with you.
About a half-hour into the trip, a team of two crew open the hatch and drop in several barrels of dead fish. The shorter of them looks at the light, and then at the party. He makes a snuffing gesture with his hand, and his expression is tense. You can hear raised voices in the distance, and then the hold is shut again.
You hear a couple of people walking over the hatch once, and then ...
Perception
.. silence. After a bit, you can feel the boat moving again, and it's only another half hour before the sounds of the ship's docking surround you.
The hatch opens, and the silhouettes of two crewman appear against the backdrop of a dimly-lit port. They drop down a rope ladder and extend their hands in an offer of assistance. One announces, in a gravelly voice that hurts to listen to, "Pezzack. Your carriage to the academy awaits."
On the deck of the ship, you can see the skyline of Pezzack, a collection of dilapidated and disrepaired buildings. You can hear the distant rhythm of machinery working, and deep gray smoke slowly blooms from behind the dockside buildings, but there are no moe than three or four lights anywhere in the city.
On the other side, you see dozens and dozens of sailing vessels, from ships as large as the Patience to much smaller boats, all roped together to form a floating island in the middle of the bay. A few tenements and garrisons grow atop the knot of boats.
The crew roughly show you to a wagon, high on the side and supported by three axles, one in the front and two in back. The wheels are quite large and sturdy, and two of them show signs of being recently replaced. The two mules harnessed to the wagon have rheumy eyes and joints that show signs of malnutrition.
Perception
After the five of you enter the wagon, the crew of the Patience throw enough dead fish around you to provide total cover. "Be quiet now," comes the same raspy voice, this time with a casual tone, "and we'll be able to dodge both the Chels and the Docktown heavies, and get you to the academy in one piece."
As the wagon sets off, what do you have in your hands?
Perfectly understandable.
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While approaching the wagon, Morrolan will use detect alignment on the drovers.
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Morrolan mutters to the others while entering, The wagon has a trap door right there. {points} I don't know if it would be better to be chance being dumped with the fish or be seen standing in the wagon after they are dumped. I will chance it.
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Assuming the wagon does not have high sides that could conceivably still hide him, Morrolan is crouched centered on the trapdoor letting the fish cover him.
The wagon clatters across the town’s poorly maintained cobblestones. Within a half-hour, the trap door in the wagon spills the PCs and fish out of its underside, down a metal chute, and into a larder. Almost immediately, a gnome throws open a door to the left of the party.
Balding, olive-skinned, dressed in elegant but stiff gray-and-yellow robes, the gnome squints into the darkness and then summons magical light. His eyes sparkle below bushy blue eyebrows. Notably, he sports an enormous beard, waxed into six handlebars and lit a brilliant blue. "Looks like I got here just in time. Let's get a move-on, you five. The cooks will be down here 'fore the sun's up, and they'll likely as not throw you lot out for being particularly disinviting lunch fare."
With a wink, the gnome gestures and mutters sixteen syllables. With that, the smell -- and moistness -- of the fish falls away, replaced by a much more pleasant odor. After a few seconds you recognize it: you all smell of puppies.
This way, please, boys and girls.
The blue-bearded gnome smiles warmly at Pavanna. "Ah! I had not realized we had a Dark Priest among us. My apologies for the cheeriness of the fresh scent. Perhaps the smell of burnt paper would have been more fitting?"
To Frissa, your guide makes a gloomy face. "Not fun?? What, did you get tired naming all the fish? Next time, try naming them in the Dwarf language. It makes all of them sound so much fiercer and prone to alcoholism.
"And indeed I am Poppo, first of that name, by the gods' good graces assistant professor and right honorable footstool of applied magics."
He pulls out an elaborate keyring and touches one of the keys to a door on the right side of the hallway. The door opens immediately to show a dank room, smelling strongly of mildew. The light from the hallway reveals one mattress on the floor, with a rusted iron bend next to it, half-engulfed in shadows.
"How might I assist friends of good ol' Drangle Dreng?"
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Frissarose laughs at Poppo's joke, happy to be among her own kind again. "I'll have to consider that for the trip back. Maybe I'll name them in the language of flame and ash and they'll all sound like sizzles and pops like when they are fried!"
When they arrive at the dark room, she answers, "We've been asked to track down Dreng's friend Ollandil and help get him out of the city, and I've been asked to get in touch with one Phelerosa Ciucci as well...oh, and Rayne here is looking for Amalia Wraxton, or at least some of her work...Do you know anything about the whereabouts of these people or even if this will be possible?"
The gnome nods at first, then makes a thoughtful face while looking at the gnome more carefully, and then grows wide-eyed in astonishment. "Well, you've certainly come to the right place. I think I might be able to get you a spot on any street-corner here, where sweet Amalia's poetry is recited and read. Did you know, her play is finished? Her followers vow that it's likely to take down House Thrune like a deck of playing cards!
The gnome looks at Pavanna, and then to Alden. "Of course, that's seditious nonsense. She's probably not even living in town any longer.
"As to the Ollandil fellows, well, I can give you some pointers to find them, but I can't say which one you'll find first."
"“Right! You’re here for Olandil. It’s… it’s complicated.
"He’s, well, he’s not himself lately. Since your little Pathfinder Society left him behind, he’s had to make do— improvise—take on new names and jobs waiting for rescue.
“When I first met him, he went by the name Jax Telandril and needed me to enhance some goggles of disguise for some work in Docktown. He kept asking questions about Fat Harbor and the town’s magic item economy. A year later he came in needing me to add some disguise charms to an eye patch; I asked him why, and he spilled it all—so tired of keeping secrets—he was also Jacks Falger! The one-eyed Galtan spy!"
Poppo makes his way over to the bed and sits down. "“He kept coming back over the years. He came in one day as someone named Jaks Arunai, a hot-shot White Thistles poet. And then, just last week, he came in looking awful, and said he was a Passfinder named Olandil, and I just… I couldn’t process it! Four people! One person! I swear, just thinking about it will keep me blue for years.”"
Poppo gesticulates madly, alternating between raising four fingers and one finger to emphasize his point. “I told him my own secret—I had been teaching a Passfinder vantage-captain as a correspondence student—and he told me to send her a message saying he wanted out of Pezzack. As though that’s even possible! But I sent it, and he thanked me, he left, and I haven’t seen him since.
“Night before last, I had Loyalists—” Poppo smothers the word with disdain, before he realizes his company. He bows a little to Pavanna and begins again. “—Loyalists in my office, telling me to stop doing business with Olandil, following me everywhere except the Guts because I bet they don’t like to get their boots dirty. They knew who Olandil really is, too! And they’ve been outside the Academy since, watching, waiting. I'm willing to lay bedsheets to breechcloths that they don’t know about my ladder to the Guts, but they’ll find out eventually.”
"This is the Academy, my friend. The Academy of Applied Magic. If you need any scrolls or potions, this is your place. Well, there's Archgarden for potions, too, but Mistress Zoot is crazy, even for a gnome."
Before he can finish answering Rayne's question, a young woman, not more than 17 or so, but with deep circles under her eyes, knocks at the door. She has her hair pulled up in an unkempt bun, and she wears dark purple robes, frayed and stained around the edges, defining no more details of the student wearing them than would a potato sack. Professor Poppo looks up and smiles. "Ah! Either the maps have arrived, or else some of the students have decided on a sunrise study session!"
"Maps, master," the girl replies, and hands over a rolled up sheet of oiled paper. With that, he backs away three steps, bows, and turns to leave.
"Ah, well, I was never much on early study sessions, as a rule." He unrolls the paper on the floor, to reveal a small city map. "This is Pezzack.
“The thieves’ guild operates out of Gold Street, here. Lots of information if you can buy it. You didn’t bring money with you, did you? Nobody takes money here. Maybe the Loyalists, but still, nobody worth spending it on.
"This, over here, is the Inkwell. Literati hangout. Lots of rebels, lots of fights. Someone who knows Jaks the poet, the one in the White Thistles, will be there, I’m sure of it. And, he notes to Rayne, "this is where Amalia Wraxton used to present her poetry. Nowadays, if she'd surface like that, the Loyalists would raise arms against her before she could get to the third stanza.
" Not too far away from the Inkwell is the Throne Defiant, a Loyalist inn. If you want to get to the bottom of Olandil’s connection with the Loyalists, you can try there.
"The biggest tavern in Docktown, that's a floating island made up of all the ships that got be-stuck here in Pezzack when the blockade came up, is Auntie's. It's a good place for gossip. You can try asking about Jax Telandil around there—he’s the Docktown Jax—but mind who you talk to if you don’t want to spread rumors.”
Poppo's finger points definitively in the middle of a block near the ports. "Madge’s Noodle Cart. Madge doesn’t know anything except noodles, but she knows noodles! You have to try them.”
"There are some places you should avoid. They're hot spots, and you don't understand Pezzack well enough to navigate through them. Steer clear of the Governor’s Manse; it's a Loyalist fortress—no entry; the Tenements (total chaos); the Glass on the Hill theater, which is haunted, and abandoned anyways. Also, please avoid Whaler’s Point: don’t draw attention to our arrangement, thank you.. Oh, um, and don't waste your time at Shorewall over here, he says, pointing towards an escarpment overlooking the harbors. " The Galtans won’t let you near it.”
He rolls up the map and offers it to you. "Oh! One other thing. If you see winged humanoids, run like the devils themselves are after you. Those are the strix, and for the last five years they're why nobody who's tried to leave Pezzack by the land road has ever made it out. They'll grab you," he says, pointing at Frissa, " fly up, and drop your body parts down for the rest of you to clean up. And they know how high to fly to stay out of spell and arrow range. Remember how I said that Zoot's a little off her bean? That's on account of the strix got her husband."
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Alden waits as he tries to process the sudden flow of information sent to him by their contact.
"So this Olandil was 'abandoned' by the pathfinders? I find that hard to believe. There may have being some form of miscommunication here. Also by your description, he's setup quite a few covers for himself?"
Ignoring the fact he smells like puppies, Alden continues.
"So we need to gather information and it seems the best place could be the thieve's guild but they don't accept money. So would they accept things like fine bottles of wine? What is the guts and why would this loyalists be watching you so carefully?"
"You say covers, sir knight, but I think they are more like complete different guises. He certainly behaves like each of the identities is a different person.
"By the look of your bundles there, you should be good. You'll be paying for information in the kind of 'coin' that works best in Pezzack."
The gnome looks around a little theatrically, but it's plain he's checking for listeners and magical scrying. "The Guts are what we call the network of sewers and passages underneath Pezzack's streets. Some of them are hidden behind concealed doors or illusion magic. But if you know the layout, you can pretty much navigate your way under some of the most difficult parts of the city. You might not come up smelling of puppies, though. Or even something as pleasant as dead fish."
"The Loyalists know things about Olandil, and are looking for him. I can't imagine things going well for either a Passfinder or a Thistles word-slinger. Or a spy for Galt.
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Pavanna waves a dismissive hand at the gnome's suggestion of alternate scents. She listens intently as the gnome talks and talks and talks.
"You certainly seem to have your little ear to the ground, as it were. Quite a font of information, very unexpectedly useful. Even though Olandil wants to leave this wonderfully dreadful town, who can say weather Jax, Jacks and Jaks are willing to do the same?" Pavanna asks rhetorically. "For someone who is so well informed, I am surprised you have nothing more to tell us about the bastard Ciucci. Tiefling? Nothing so scandalous? Any thing additional you can share there would be most appreciated"
"I feel as though unloading some of these goods in trade for the information the thieve's guild can provide us may be our best start. What do you think Alden?"
"To be honest," admits the gnome, "I'm a little surprised, too. Whoever this Phelerosa Ciucci is, she's either keeping herself very well hidden, or else she moves in circles where a simple professor does not travel.
"Speaking of which ..."
He looks you over, from Morrolan to Pavanna, considering something. Then his eyes flash orange and he shows his teeth in a smile. In a serious tone, he pronounces: "Welcome, all of you to your first day as apprentices in the Academy of Applied Magic. You may see Donegal on second floor for your apprentice robes. Mind you, our rules require you to wear them at all times while outside the academic grounds." With that, his voice returns to its conversational tone. "There. That may not keep you from being seen, but it might keep you from being noticed."
The map does not include the underground passages, Morrolan.
Donegal is unamused to see you, but resigned to filling another one of Poppo's bizarre orders. "Will you ... apprentices ... be taking breakfast as well?"
Anybody who wants to grab an appropriately-sized apprentice robe can do so.
[even more out of character][/even more out of character]
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"I'll defer to your judgement Lady Pavanna." Alden begins.
"Getting information seems the best way to start and the sooner we find out more about our elusive quarry the better."
"That is an impressive piece of armor Lady Frissarose" as she shows her mithral breastplate.
"It would seem best to cover up then." he considers before turning to the rest.
"Robes first? Disguises would be much appreciated and if the professor is speaking truth, stealth would be our be best option though I confess not being the best at it. The guts seemed like a good travel option."
Seeing Donegal handing out the robes, Alden bows and thanks her as he takes his.
"My thanks, Lady Donegal. I'm afrad time is pressing and thus maybe we would not be taking breakfast unless my party objects. I'm sure noodles would be good."