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Immediate threat over, Iso slumps down on the nearest convenient seat. The headless Derro.
Panting he reaches around from a waterskin and has a long cold drink.
"Iso must be unfit. To want rest after so short a battle. Iso is wondering if his seat would also have keys for slave pens. Or other items of interest to noble saviors."
From his gaze hovering over the other two bodies, it is obvious once he has caught his breathe, he'll be looking at them too. For the moment he lets his fingers do the walking.
Eventually Borrobol's jest registers. "HAHAHAHA" laughs the barbarian. "Uses his HEAD!"
Iso wipes clean his axe on the derro's shirt. "Uses his torso too."
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The derro carries the key to the slave's dens, but not much more of value. The slave warriors wear a leather armor, have a wooden shield and a club. The derro also wears a leather armor and carries a short sword, a repeating light crossbow with 10 bolts and 300gp.
In the next room with straw pallets are stacks and stacks of cages full of normal rats. On a small table next to those cages is a small, shiny black rat statue.
There is also evidence here — a ledger written in Undercommon.
Near the barrels is a large chest in which the derro keep their slave sale earnings. It contains 3,500 gp.
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Iso looks at it with worry.
"Iso not want to touch rat. Could be Cursed."
He goes and finds a bag to scoop it into. Looking at the cages of rats he shivers and sighs.
"Iso thinks funny mans writing may be helpful. Iso wants to breathe fresh air again and take poor prisoners back to surface world now."
Grabbing the large chest he balances the rat-bag on top.
"And take well earned reward for hard work."
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Borrobol scans the room, it seems to be a simple sleeping room with straw mattresses and blankets. The jet rat is magic, an artifact to enlarge creatures.
By defeating the derros here and taking the jet rat, you have slowed the derros’ plans for the future but not stopped them entirely. Kidnappings slow in the city, but continue to expand in the countryside around Cassomir.
Rumors begin to circulate throughout the city that the derro menace has been stopped, but some whisper darker tidings, such as the recent spotting of a derro inside the walls of Swift Prison, a rumor the Taldan authorities heatedly deny.
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Borrobol grabs the rat with a sleeve around his hand and drops the rat into a sack, just fast enough not to be enlarged by the artifact.
The slaves follow you back to the streets of Cassomir. Some of them, even men hug you and thank you for freeing them.
Once back at the Lodge Venture-Captain Themis eyes the black rat, carefull not to activate it. "Now that we recovered this artifact the rat cult is weakened. At least they stopped to create ridiculous big rats. Thank you very much for your efforts! As I heard you also freed a lot of Taldan's from the derros. Good job, Pathfinders." Themis says.
"I ask you to stay a few days longer in Cassomir until we did some research and are sure the kidnappings are over. With the evidence you brought back I think we have enough clues to arrest at least some of the minor members of the slave ring." Hestia Themis asks you.
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"Better not play around with this artifact, we don't know what exactly happens to the transformed individuals." Themis suggest before she releases you.
You are again summoned to the Pathfinder Lodge in Cassomir. Again, Venture-Captain Hestia Themis talks to you.
"I am perplexed. A new kidnapping spree plagues my beloved city. It seems our citizens make easy prey to those who profit from such exploits. While this disturbs me, I am more troubled by reports that some of those kidnapped return to the city as undead monsters who accompany this Cult of Nature’s Cataclysm plague, a plague that I can’t seem to excise from my beloved city. This ends now! For a third time we battle Groetus-worshiping dogs and there will not be a fourth!"
Taking several deep breaths, Hestia regains her composure. "I am sending you to Swift Prison to interrogate a cultist we captured who was trying to kidnap a local engineer. Meet my man Garver out front — he’ll take you in to see the Nature’s Cataclysm fool. Find out where the other cultists hide, where they’ve taken their recent victims, and how they’re turning them into skeletons. Free as many Cassomir citizens as you can — the good publicity never hurts. Any questions?"
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"As far as I'm informed the engineer is a well known expert for the tunnel systems below Cassomir. The cultist was captured near the engineering guild, the Hall of Wonders." Themis answers.
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"That's true, usually a bribe brings you far in this prison. But in your case just talk to Garver, he knows what to do. He awaits you out front. You won't have a problem to see the prisoner. But don't be rough to the cultist. He's a bit ... unstable, but when he’s lucid he provides good information about the cult and their plans. He could potentially provide us with future information and serves us better as an ally, alive and unharmed. If you display violent or illegal behavior inside Swift Prison, you will find yourslef locked away." the Taldan woman answers.
"Garver is not a Pathfinder — he’s a local guide who works for Hestia whenever I ask. He pays the right people to get local Pathfinders through the Taldan bureaucracy, which is how he’s able to get you into the prison so quickly."
Swift Prison’s formidable gates loom over those who pass beneath them. Out front, a gilded statue stares uncaringly at those who serve time beyond her sentry-like gaze. The wrinkled, dirty faces of Cassomir’s prisoners are briefly illuminated behind the bars of the ground floor begging cells. Their pathetic drone as they beg for coppers fills the courtyard in front of the prison. Hestia’s man, Garver — a tall Taldan man with a slim physique and plain peasant’s clothing—approaches. "You made it. Good. Follow me." Garver turns and enters the prison, marching through myriad hallways that twist and turn and finally end at a plain but thick wooden door. Garver produces a key and says, "Our captured cultist enjoys visitors, and if you like his work, it’s all for sale."
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Before you head to the prison Celentrai buys chocolate cookies. Then you meet Garver who leads you to the cell of the crazed painter.
You are then led through the door and down several stone steps into a dingy, shadowed room with three cells. Garver gives the two guards there some coins and they head back up the stairs, closing the door behind them.
In the center cell, covered in paint, a man dressed in torn beggar’s rags, his feet shackled to the floor by a 3-foot length of chain, throws color onto a dirty canvas. The man stops painting when you arrive, looks through the bars, and exclaims with a toothless grin: "For you, my master, always for you!" He then lays the painting atop a small pile of recent works and sets up another blank canvas, madly attacking it with his brush.
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Hearing Celentrai and Iso talk to him, he suddenly seems to snap out of his clouded mental state, although he's still in a semi-lucid state.
"Friends! Did the Master send you? Yes, he must have. Praised be he who ends the days! Do you seek my secret? Soon enough — but in return I ask something from you. You must give it to me as I need it to complete my collection." He points to two paintings hung in a shadowy corner of his cell. A third canvas hangs next to them but is blank. "If you go outside this very prison you’ll find a statue covered in gold. You may have already seen her! Describe this statue to me in exquisite detail and I will tell you all I know." the Crazed Painter says.
One of the finished paintings depicts a stately, white stone building. Three-foot-tall bas-reliefs circle the building’s outside walls at ground level, though they are warped and twisted in the crazed painter’s art. Derros stand atop the hall’s steps and seem to punish criminals — all of whom are wearing the robes of Taldan government officials. At the southwest corner of the building, the bas-relief glows a bright white. The same lone figure from the other paintings attempts to sooth a group of frightened children by playing a flute — the notes are actually painted above him on the canvas.
The white stone building is Cassomir’s Imperial Hall of Records.
The other painting depicts the northeast retaining wall that shores up parts of a ruined abbey. It shows dozens of angry derros smashing brightly-painted urns against the retaining wall, while the same lone figure from the other paintings frantically attempts to push down an obviously barred door in the middle of the wall, presumably to escape another group of menacing derros that seems to pursue him.
The ruined abbey is the Quickfall Abbey.
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The statue is easy enough for Borrobol to recognize, but the others are mysteries. He's spent far too much time in Cassomir's drinking halls and sewers and not much time seeing the sights. "Any of you recognize those other things? Strange stuff. Never understood the attracting of painting much myself. Making armor. That's art." Borrobol is ready to go out and look at the statue again when everyone else is.
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Iso looks at the pictures.
"Doors. Iso thinks these lead below. Maybe statue also has door. Iso will look"
Iso heads out to look for the golden statue and examines it for secret entrances while he observes it to provide details to the artist.
He will then head back in and tell the crazed artist all the detail he can remember.
"Iso too is art critic. Iso prefers opera though. Iso's reviews are very well received. Iso will branch out and review this art."
Iso scrunches up his brow.
"Iso forgets artists name. What is name, artist?"
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The crazed painter refuses to provide any information until he gains the description requested.
The statue sits just outside of the prison’s gates, its golden form shining brightly in the sun. It stands just over 7 feet tall and rests atop a 3-foot-tall stone base. The statue depicts a curvy Taldan female with short hair and wearing flowing robes open at the neck. She regards you with a blank, uncaring expression. Faint moons decorate her flowing robes, and she crushes a set of scales beneath her left foot. The sculptor left his mark on his work of art — he carved a small letter “I” into her left foot.
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Iso tries tracing the "I" in the foot, and makes a rough sketch to help his memory.
Then he returns to the artest.
"Iso sees statue. Woman with big breasts. Hair cut short like a boys. Face look like a teacher. She wears wizards robes and stands on set of scales."
He looks hard at the artist.
"Sculptor put "I" into her left foot."
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Borrobol adds to Iso's description adding details about its golden color and height (as tall as Iso with a stone platform the size of Tippy). He adds that she looks like she comes from Cassomir and suggests that her robes could be scholar's robes, but that Iso is probably right since they have moons on them.
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Returning to the prison cell, you provide the statue’s description to the painter. The crazed painter appears to ignore you for a short while and furiously paints the blank canvas on his wall, splashing paint wildly about his cell. Upon completing the painting, he shows it to you. It shows a twisted perspective. The once-beautiful statue stares back transformed, her visage twisted into a demonic snarl. Short humanoids with large, black eyes torment cowering prisoners in the painting’s background. Brandishing a radiant holy symbol, a lone figure fails to fight them off.
The creatures are derros.
The lone figure is to be that of Aroden as he is depicted in Taldan lore. The moon iconography belongs to Groetus.
Once the crazed painter completes his third masterpiece, he rapidly explains "My master resides within the Crypt of Fools, hidden deep beneath Old Cassomir. I do not know its exact location, but if anyone has knowledge of the Crypt of Fools and how to get there, it would be the engineers at Cassomir’s engineering guild, the Hall of Wonders."
The engineers, he explains, have complete blueprints of nearly everything built by the Taldor government in Cassomir, and since the Crypt of Fools was built by the government to hide the crypts of shamed families, it’s highly probable they have all of the information you need.