As you disperse throughout ‘the Shore’ to various tents and taverns (Ziomarra and Teldon to her tent, Briana and Joanna to the Shield and Sheepdog whilst Nalathi heads to Melanie’s tent in Carent’s Camp), you are all able to reflect on a productive day; you may not yet know where Natalya is but you have, at least, apprehended a criminal, stopped a lynching, discovered that the Nidalese Slavers story is a falsehood and, just possibly, saved Zograthy from himself and his addictions…when sleep comes, it washes over you like a tide.
16th Rova, 4714
The next day you awake to the sound of rain; the roofs and streets are glistening with the rainfall….mud and puddles forming on the dirt tracks of Dockway.
"So, we'll meet up here tomorrow at 9am? Will that leave everyone sufficient time to sleep and prepare spells or whatever else they need to do?" Teldon asked before they all departed the Arvensoar.
In the morning he rises and quickly sets to work preparing extracts and a new cognatogen. When he completes that task he quickly cleans and tends to his gear and prepares to leave. "I hope we haven't made a mistake," he says to Zee out of the blue, "if anyone fails to show up at the rendezvous this morning it will be very difficult to locate them or figure out why."
When Zee has finished with her morning rituals, he follows her through the labyrinthine camps and back to the Guard tower.
* * *
Last night...
Standing in front of the Shield and Sheepdog, Zee says, "All right. We shall all meet here as close to 9 AM tomorrow morning as we can. We shall first go to the Arvensoar to speak with the officer and claim our reward, then we'll take the Second Ascent to Alabaster and report our status to Lady Heidmarch. Good night, all!"
She leads Teldon and Nalathi back to Caret's Camp, and shows Nalathi to Melanie's tent. Thankfully, Melanie is just finishing up her last campfire tale before retirning.
Back at her tent, she pushes her reading table to the side, and unrolls a spare bedroll onto a Varisian rug. "I hope you'll find that comfortable enough, Teldon. Good night." She then opens a curtain to a smaller area in the back and steps through.
* * *
Next morning, she and Teldon both arise at dawn. She sets up her reading table and lays out a complex Harrow spread, which she studies, then gathers the cards, and lays out another complex spread. She repeats this several times.
Finally, she performs a regular reading for herself.
...Lawful
...Good
Once she and Teldon are ready for the day, they gather Nalathi, then head over to the Shield and Sheepdog. From there, the five fledgling Pathfinders walk along the Seacleft to the Arvensoar.
The world outside is cold and grey, the light rain persisting for the duration of your trudge through Carent’s Camp, past the Shield and Sheepdog, all the way to the Arvensoar. The weather hasn’t stopped Magnimar going about it’s business though and you have quite a job avoiding being splashed by the occasional horse or cart that are making their way along the streets. Underneath heavy tarpaulins, market traders offer hot drinks and food to warm you on the cold morning, clothing to protect you from the weather and, at least twice that you hear, esoteric magics and charms to protect you from illness.
By the time that you arrive at the Arvensoar, the top of the towering edifice shrouded in mist, you are quite damp…and are greeted by a bad-tempered queue extending beyond the doors to the building, out into the rain.
”Hey, get to the back of the queue!!!!”
”Yeah, back there…just behind Stinky Jack”
A dishevelled, sodden man, clearly a vagrant, at the back of the line looks up and smiles at you...
Walking through the rain, Nalathi has a particularly difficult time avoiding the puddles. Being close to the ground, a passing cart's splash that might not reach above a big person's boots would hit her up to the knees. By the time they reach the Arvensoar, her feet are soaked through and her normal cheerfulness has soured. Nalathi frowns when she sees the line. She never did like waiting, and being cold and wet only compounds the problem. "What's all this about? What are you all waiting for?"
Joanna doesn't struggle much as she's lead to the Shield and Sheepdog. by the time Brianna and her have gotten a room, Joanna's half asleep. A few minutes later, after the priestess is out of her armor, she falls asleep on top of the covers.
The next morning, Joanna wakes up about about a half-hour after sunrise, unable to ignore habits ingrained into her from almost childhood. She spends an hour meditating and praying before getting ready, noting with some dismay that she didn't have a waterproof cloak with her.
At the Arvensoar, she wishes wistfully she had thought about heading to the manor first. The rain was beginning to soak through the cloak she did have and she knew it was only a matter of time before it started soaking into the padding of her armor and her clothing underneath, and wouldn't that be fun. Still, it was not a reason to be rude, and she gives Jack a polite "Hello."
Facing the queue and the prospect of standing in it in the rain, Zee sighs. "Well, they did tell us to get here by eight..."
With a toothless smile, 'Stinky Jack' smiles at you all as you join the queue behind him, "Hello...another fine day for it!!!"...cough...cough...."What are we all waiting for you ask? Well...that's a very good question...those folk over there say they were robbed on the road to Magnimar...that chap with the blue cloak? Yes, him over there...his son got arrested last night...that lady, the small one...yes, the halfling... disagreement with some merchants over a contract". With one good eye, he then looks out over the rest of the queue, some fifty or so standing outside the building, "Course, they're the exceptions...everyone else...it's about those disappearances...they want to hear news, hear what the watch are doing, want their loved ones back...and every day the queue gets longer..."
'Stinky Jack' scratches himself, "Reckon it'll be an hour or so before you're even indoors...two until someone talks to yer"
"Anyways, what are you after the watch for? Don't tell me it's about the disappearances cos you may as well go and ask the seagulls for all the help it'll do you"
...if anything, the rain is getting heavier as you wait...
"I can hold our spot in line," Teldon says half-heartedly, reminiscing about how warm and dry the archives at the Grand Lodge had been, "if some of you want to go and try to gather some information from those waiting to complain about disappearances?"
She scowls as the rain falls heavier. "An hour? I'm not waiting out here for an hour..." Without another word, she follows the line up toward the building. When she reaches the choke-point that is the front doors, she ducks under people's legs and slips inside the building to see what she can see. Is it this long every morning?
”Me? Why am I here? What a good question… Well, it’s nice to meet new people… and it is warm and dry in there… I suppose I’ll tell them again about the spooky white eyed folk I saw climbing out of the sewers last month… not that they’ll listen of course!!!”, ‘Stinky Jack’ grumbles to himself for a bit and then explodes, ”I told them about the monster in the harbour, the gargoyles that snatch your children when you don’t watch, the watchman who turned into a half-beast…even told them about the voices coming from the ground…they never listen though”. After his outburst, the vagrant mainly mumbles to himself about not being listened to, the injustice of the world and how very hungry he is...
As Nalathi ducks, somehow unseen, into the entrance of the Arvensoar, she is confronted by a grandiose reception area through which the queue is winding. Vaulted ceilings echo with the clamour of people complaining, pleading, arguing…and every now and again, a tired voice shouts ”NEXT!!!!”…and the queue shuffles forward.
It takes a good few hours before you approach the head of the queue; with only a few people in front of you, a depressed looking man in the ceremonial garb of the City Watch approaches and asks the purpose of your visit.
"We are here to see Officer Kasadei. We apprehended a wanted criminal last night and turned him in. We would like to collect our reward, and we were told that Kasadei was the person to see. We also have information about some other suspicious goings-on."
”You’re the folks who brought Plutivarch down to earth? Thanks to you, we should finally be able to squash the rumours of slavers…and, just maybe, we can reunite some victims with items he stole”, for a brief few moments the official smiles and then, pointing at an oaken door to your left, ”Officer Kasadei is through that door over there”. ‘Stinky Jack’ timidly waves as you as you leave the queue…as you walk away you overhear the start of his exchange with the downbeat official, ”Yes Jack…what is it today? Ogres, Trolls, Jabberwocks? Or just too much grog?”
The door to Officer Kasadei’s room is slightly ajar and when you knock at it, a woman’s voice invites you in. Sat behind a desk and a mountain of manuscripts, a city guard in full armour asks your business ”…make it quick would you? I’m out on patrol over in Dockway soon”
"Officer Kasedi? We are the ones who brought in Plutivarch last night. We were told there was a reward. We also have information on an unrelated matter in Dockway."
Teldon – Swampseer poison can have physiological effects; swelling of the tongue, dilated pupils or irises and, in some cases, partial paralysis are all well-known effects for heavy doses of the poison.
”Oh!!! I though you would have been here a little earlier…but I’m certainly glad to meet you and to say, on behalf of the entire watch, thank you. That wretch is an abominable man and has been robbing the families of the disappeared for months…he’ll spend a long time in our jails…long enough to think on his crime.” The officer reaches into her desk and passes to you a bag of coins, ”For a job well done…how did you apprehend him? We’ve been on the lookout for him for quite a while now”
”There is another matter? …something in Dockway?”
"Truth be told, catching Plutivarch was a secondary concern of ours. We have been looking for a missing person: a Varisian woman named Natalya Vancaskerkin. She used to be a member of a gang called the Tower Girls, but they had some kind of falling-out, and she has vanished. While looking for her, we heard rumors of Nidalese slavers. Thinking that she might have been abducted by them, we followed up on that lead-- and that led us to Plutivarch. He tried to use his regular ruse on us-- knock us out with magic and rob us-- but we out-magicked him, captured him, and brought him in. And that's when we stumbled across that other matter." She pauses, gauging the officer's reaction.
Zee continues, "By the way, you wouldn't happen to have Natalya in lock-up at the moment, would you?"
After Kasedi replies to that question, she continues, "Anyway, while we were investigating the lead we'd gotten on the Puffy Pelican, we happened to interrupt an unrelated smuggling operation. Two Sczarni in a boat rowed up to the dock. By their conversation, they were expecting to meet someone called 'Marius' for a delivery of something nefarious. We mistook them for being part of the rumored Nidalese slaver ring and challenged them. But we figured out quickly that they were merely common criminals. After we chased them off, they warned us against crossing the Washside Wringers. I'm guessing it was a pesh delivery. So, now you know of the location of a smuggling ring in Dockway, and a name associated with it."
She adds, "The Sczarni give my people a bad reputation. Of course, we don't actually want trouble with any Sczarni gangs, and would appreciate discretion about where you got this information."
"Ahhhh, Natalya Vancaskerkin? There were times when we would have loved to have had her in our lock-ups...but we haven't heard much of her recently. So, she's vanished? Well she certainly hasn’t been picked up by any of our patrols...look, the Sczarni tend to try to solve their own problems...they certainly don't come to us with their woes and problems. If anyone knows anything about where Miss Vancaskerkin is, it’s probably the Tower Girls."
Officer Kasadei listens intently as you tell her about the smuggling ring at the Puffy Pelican and, after scribbling a few notes, thanks you. "That would be Marius Petrov, I wondered when he would show up in town again....Thankyou and No one will ever know of your involvement in this...a vendetta from Mother Flytongue can be a terrible thing".
The officer looks a little thoughtful and then asks, "Why the interest in Natalya Vancascerkin anyway? She's little more than a petty burglar"
"Nothing that need involve the City Watch." A dry, comfortable Nalathi would not be a fan of the captain's, and a wet and cold Nalathi certainly isn't either. "If we wanted to find these Tower Girls, where would we look?"
"Is there anyone in town you suspect of dealing in poisons?" Teldon asks the captain very matter of factly.
"Why are we looking for Natalya? Let's just say that she has something that does not belong to her, and we intend to retrieve it."
She pauses. "As my friend just mentioned, do you know where the Tower Girls now reside? We heard that they used to work out of Caret's Camp, but they had a dispute with another gang and were chased out."
"The matter is rather complicated, and delicate. A mutual acquaintance is worried that some fell fate has befallen Natalya. I would say more, but we've been asked to keep certain details quiet for fear of complications in others matters." Joanna says, sounding less like the young priestess she'd claimed to be and more like a young noblewoman.
"The Tower Girls were at Carent's Camp for a while, you're right about that...and then there was a typical Sczarni falling out...overnight the lot of them were hounded out of the camp...pretty ugly business I'm afraid to say, a couple of the girls were dead by the time the Watch got there and the entire gang just melted into the night...we think they holed up in the Underbridge for a few weeks...then they moved on again and we lost track of them entirely. Rumours are the Tower Girls disbanded after that business...or were quietly eliminated by one of the other Sczarni gangs." It is impossible to tell whether Officer Kasadei is relieved by the prospect that the Tower Girls have been eliminated or is 'offended' by the fact that a gang murder may have occurred.
"If the gang does still exist, then you should probably talk to the man they shared a warehouse with down Underbridge way...it's a derelict building just behind the Swift Dolphin. Man goes by the name of Fenster, although you may hear more people call him 'the Blight'... The man is the absolute dregs of society...you need to watch yourself if you go see him."
Officer Kasadei's demeanour changes when Teldon asks about poisons, "Why would you need to know about poisons? Happens that we have our eyes on a few individuals but I'm not at liberty to share that information with you"
"Look, I am thankful for you bringing Plutivarch to justice and I wish you the best of luck in retrieving whatever you think Miss Vancaskerkin may have taken...but...", she bristles, "Please stay on the right side of the law...I would hate for us to be having a different kind of discussion if I discover you have been buying poisons or suchlike"
"Oh, I would never buy poison," Teldon says incredulously, "from some of the reports we've gathered it sounds like the abductors may be using a paralytic to aid in their nefarious work. I suppose if you don't have any information to share we could ask the crowds for help.... they seem like they'd be willing to question every alchemist and apothecary in town."
Nalathi is momentarily distracted by a shiny inkpen on the woman's desk, which accidentally falls into her sleeve once she returns her attention to the conversation at hand.
"Fenster... 'the Blight'... warehouse behind the Swift Dolphin..." She turns to Ziomarra, who seems to know this city well. "What's the Swift Dolphin?"
In response to Nalathi's question, Zee says, "Hmmm..."
"...I'm sorry to say that I haven't heard of either of them. I try to avoid Underbridge. It is not a good place."
"You mean to blackmail me? You're bold, I'll give you that... If you truly want to know about poisoners in this city then I suggest you ask Fenster... He knows the comings and goings of most of the Sczarni, I dare say there's a poisoner or two in his list of 'friends'"
The rest of the conversation is carried out with Officer Kasadei pointedly ignoring Teldon, "The Swift Dolphin? It's a warehouse just near the Rat... Fenster's shacks are just beyond it... Honestly, you won't miss it"
Fastening the straps on her armour and checking the draw of her sword from its scabbard, whilst glaring at the Chelish scholar, "Is there anything else I can help you ladies with?"
Teldon remains silent for the remainder of the meeting. After they are shown out and Kasadei departs, he asks timidly, "I did something to upset her, didn't I? I hope that didn't interfere with getting the information the rest of you were looking for..."
"Thank you, Officer Kasadei." Ziomarra stands to leave, and lets her friends file out first. As she starts to leave herself, she stops and turns back to the officer.
In a quiet voice, she says, "Let me apologize on Teldon's behalf. He seems to fixate on things, and can be brusque and abrupt in his tone. He is of the opinion that whoever is abducting people uses a particular poison to incapacitate them, and one way to find the abductors would be to find the poisoner. He called it 'swamp-something' poison. Anyway, his heart is in the right place, even if he has an odd way to show it. Thanks again for your time." She turns to leave for real.
Zee rejoins her friends and they leave the Arvensoar. "So, do we report back now, or should we head straight to Underbridge? I'm inclined to head to Alabaster first and check in with our patron."
She giggles at Teldon when they're outside. "I think you did. It's okay though. Kept trying to involve herself in our business, she did." She waits for Zee to rejoin them. "All right, let's go find this Blighter." She scowls as Zee brings up reporting to Lady Heidmarch. Nalathi had forgotten about her. "Yeah, you're right, we should report back first." But that part was so boring.
The walk back to the Heidmarch Manor is a long one and, when you finally arrive, you are thoroughly drenched from the persistent autumnal rain. As the rain noisily beats down upon the roof of the manor, you announce your arrival with the ornate door knocker; you are not left waiting too long at the door before the entrance is opened and you feel the warmth of the building exuding outwards. You are ushered in by the boy, Jacanne...and through to the room where you first unlocked the Thassilonian Box.
Next to a roaring fire, Sheila is directing two artisans in the redecoration of the room. Seeing you, she stands and waves the two men away, "I am so pleased to see you...I feared that maybe the weather would have kept you indoors today...that rain is truly awful, and I hear tell it is due to get worse". Gesturing for you to take a seat in front of the fire, she asks about your progress so far.
"I believe that is all. I apologize for my companion's behavior, and I promise as long as I am with them, we will remain on the right side of the law. I hope that you have a good day, and I pray that you and all the guard will stay safe as you protect the people of Magnimar."
Joanna stands and gives Kasadei a slight bow and then looks to the others.
"Well, shall we go? We have a few more errands to run before we head to see this Fenster."
The Underbridge? Watch yourselves down there, the dregs of the city wash up beneath the Irespan...in more ways than one, if you take my meaning. What do you know of this Fenster? Could he be involved in Natalya's disappearance do you think?", Sheila Heidmarch pauses whilst Jacanne serves some hot tea, "Will you have some? It's all the way from Vudra...an expensive luxury but...for those of us who have travelled, a reminder of other times"
She smiles, "Sorry, where was I? Ah, yes...this 'Fenster'...Maybe you're right, maybe he might know something... And, if not, maybe he can introduce you to the 'Tower Girls'... If they don't know where Natalya is, then we truly are lost..."
"I've heard the name Plutivarch before, a real low-life...you've done the city a service, that's for sure...and, I dare say, a good taster for what may yet face you"
Sipping her tea, Sheila leans back in her chair, "Tell me, is there anything you need to help in your search?"
"We also followed up on the lead about Natalya's former associate Zograthy. He turned out to be a dead end."
"Do you have any maps of the sewers?" Teldon asks in response to Lady Heidmarch, "one witness saw what might have been abductees in the sewer."
Other than this one question Teldon passes the meeting in uncomfortable silence, possibly for fear of offending someone else...
"Sewers? I guess the sewers would be a good way to move in and out of the city with kidnapees....do you still think maybe that is where Natalya has disappeared to?", Sheila mulls the request over, "I'll see what I can do, there are a few favours I could call in...it'll take a few days but I'm sure I can get you something useful"
"So Zograthy didn't know where Natalya had gone? Nothing? That's a shame... Still, at least this Fenster character is another avenue for you to explore"
"I can't think of anything else we would need at this point. It would seem that our next steps are clear: Meet this Fenster character and see what he has to say. Hopefully, he will lead us to Natalya... and to this Thassilonian artifact sought by the Society. On that note... Is there anything we should know about this artifact when we recover it? Is it dangerous?"
When they are shown to Lady Heidmarch, Nalathi immediately heads to the fire to get warm while the others give their report. Her mood quickly improving, she chuckles when they mention Zograthy. "Zograthy was a fraud. These two," she nods at Zee and Teldon, "can do more magic than that waste of time." "Fenster is our last lead so far."
"Beyond Natalya's claim that the item was Thassilonian in nature, I'm afraid I can't tell you anything further. There are several ancient records that talk of artifacts of great power still hidden here in Magnimar...whether she had found such an item, I couldn't yet say...but her disappearance suggests that she either found something powerful or died in the process of retrieving it"
Turning to Briana, "I'm sorry, I haven't heard the name...but if he resides in Underbridge, you will need to keep your wits about you"
Outside the manor, you can hear the rain coming down in sheets...and the wind picking up...
She grimaces at the sound of the rain picking up. "I don't like the sound of that. Do we have to go now?" she asks the others.
"Unless you have some way of controlling the rain or some rain-cloaks, I think that's all. We'll see what we can find out from Fenster." Joanna says.
"The gods alone can change the weather on this coastline", Sheila smiles, "But raincoats...raincoats, I can do". She whispers into Jacanne's ear and, five minutes later, he reappears with five cloth ponchos. Handing them over he apologises to Nalathi that maybe hers might be slightly oversized...
"If there is nothing else, I shall bid you farewell and good luck...I hope that, come tomorrow, you shall have good news for me"
"Hopefully, we'll have Natalya to deliver the news herself!"