"The Black Pegasus would seem to be the most secure spot for us to gather right now and have the privacy to study the items we have found. ... Where is Quint? I don't see him with us, or is he up on a rooftop again? Well, if he is not with us that is another reason to go to The Black Pegasus as it is where he would most likely find us."
Aye, Luna, that seems best, but let's take the long way so as not to run into the guard.
"And make sure we're not followed by someone from here," Nikeisha added, not wanting to get stabbed as she slept.
Psalm as a squirrel makes a squeak and then points at Nikeisha with his paws with the index fingers aimed at her. "*SQUEAK*"
He lags behind the group running along the edge of rooves and stopping to 'check out garbage' as he makes his way keeping an eye out for those who might be following.
Nikeisha looked at the squirrel curiously. "Did that squirrel just..." She shook her head, allowing her words to trail off as she followed the others.
Rydwyrna, Early Night, Outside The Black Pegasus, Ilsa 21, R.R. 146.
Skirting around through District 5 back to District 4, and meandering south to The Pegasus was uneventful, even though Hack was, quite obviously, carrying a heavy chest under one arm. Taking their slow time, so as not to draw too much attention, meant the passing of the better part of an hour. Psalm's squirrely guard made sure the group wasn't followed, and though they kept their eyes peeled for Quint, he never appeared. As Akassa's volunteers approached the main drag of Republic Way, nearing the front entrance of their Black Pegasus, something became clear rather quickly, something happened at Castle Redwood.
There are entirely too many guards on the ramparts, and the entirety of the structure has been surrounded by Daylight spells. So much so that, though it should be dark outside, it isn't. The street is lit up like it's the middle of the day. Nikeisha grabs a passerby, a man in fine clothes with a feathered bowler hat, and asks him what is going on?
"Haven't heard yet, eh?" He remarks. "Seems there was some kind of coordinated attack. Several buildings throughout the city were burned, and as the Guard were diverted to help with things, leaving a skeleton crew at the castle, a force of infiltrators moved in and broke the renegade ex-senator, Enwelros, out of prison. They got away free as birds, in fact, if rumors are true, they actually flew away. With the Senate's Six in Elatanis cleaning things up, and the Hippogriff Rangers helping with the forest fires in the Mourning Forest, there wasn't anybody could follow them. Whoever that half-elf was working for, they wanted him out of prison, and out of prison he is. Seems like our illustrious Republic isn't quite as flawless as they would have us all believe. Ill omens, all of it. Ill omens..." The man mutters almost to himself as he walks away leaving the entire group staring at the lit up Castle Redwood in shock and disbelief. Is it possible the attack the group interrupted was just a small part of a larger effort to spread thin the ranks of the Order Guard? The ramifications of that possibility bring more questions that need answering. Perhaps looking through the papers that Jun was able to retrieve or the contents of the chest he stole will reveal more?
--Meanwhile down by the docks, outside The Floating Kraken.--
Though he searches most diligently, Quint is unable to pinpoint any of the pedestrians outside of The Kraken as clearly being the man he was chasing. Truly, it could be anyone, the man was of average height, and Quint never got a look at his eyes or hair color. It's also possible the man is wiling away time somewhere inside The Kraken. Which does Quint zero good, because he'd have to make himself conspicuous in order to do a thorough search of the busy premises. It might be worth the search, but dare he do it alone, in so rough a neck of the proverbial woods?
Quint enters the busy taproom and takes a seat where he can survey the crowd. He looks for anyone who seems to be sweating or out of breath from the run here, or who shows signs of injury from having recently fallen off a roof (I assume he didn't see anyone like that walking away). He also makes note of the layout of the main room, combining it with what he saw from the rooftops above and through the window in the back, sketching out a map of the building in his head (as he had often done in preparation for a burglary) to get an idea of where else the man could be hiding.
As he covertly surveys the crowd and maps the building, Quint listens for any conversations that might tell him anything useful.
"More and more questions with very few answers!" Luna says in frustration. "Let us go inside and to one of our rooms to 'go over our information' in relative privacy." She is trying to be careful of mentioning either the chest or the documents while out on the street where someone else might overhear her. No sense in drawing more attention to themselves than Hack already carrying the chest, even though he did have it under his cloak which is now bulging out.
"Oh there was a big answer. This is an organized and large cult. Multiple across the city. One of the spellcasters had a holy symbol of the Dragon Queen. I left it behind, didn't want it on me if we were stopped. But this is disturbing news. The Dragon Queen is alive and she has clerics."
Entering the meeting room, Jun will close the door, then ask "Has anyone been in contact with Quint, or know how to reach him?"
"The Dragon Queen is alive?!?!" Luna's face pales upon hearing this news. "This cannot be. Surely it must be some sort of ruse by the same people making it seem like the drow are doing this."
"Psalm, you are of course correct in that we got an very large answer in the indications of how large this cult must be to have organized such a large coordinated attack. But we still do not know exactly who is behind all this, or what their goals are or how to go about stopping them. Let us go inside where we have some more privacy to discuss this matter."
"They have some high ranking members of the Arcane Order in there ranks. One of them, anyway. Are there two groups? I'm confused." Nikeisha rubbed her eyes.
"They have some high ranking members of the Arcane Order in there ranks. One of them, anyway. Are there two groups? I'm confused." Nikeisha rubbed her eyes.
"We faced one. But there were other attacks and other fires. The senator that was a part of the cult was broken out of prison in the chaos."
Psalm broods and taps at his chin with his finger beneath his lip. "Hack, Jun. You have been around many of the guards who were protecting the wagon and the building that was attacked." He pauses a moment mulling an idea. "Does it strike you strange that they fled so easily? Or were they worth that little in a tussle? Could it all have been a stunt? Burn their own evidence cause a commotion. Perhaps throw suspicion off?"
Hack places th ed chest on the table and scratches his head.
No, can't say I noticed the other guards hidin' anything.
Quint creates a quick but thorough mental image of the layout of The Floating Kraken. Inerestingly, the layout is very much akin to the body of a large squid. The main part of the inn is three stories with guest rooms no doubt above the common room and a few private parlor rooms. Attached to the building and trailing out down the block, though, are three separate halls of dormitory type rooms. Judging by how closely the doorways are one to the next there can't be more room in them than enough for a small bed, and perhaps a desk with a wash basin. The three hallways, though they are short, do have the appearance of being the tentacles of the Kraken. Conversation in the tavern is mostly the ordinary bawdy and raucous garbage one would expect from sailors, pirates, thugs, and thieves. It's a bit intriguing to Quint that, now, sitting here as he is, doing what he's doing, he actually feels out of place, whereas just a couple months ago, he would have felt right at home with this crowd. Is he growing a conscience?
Unfortunately he hears nothing that helps his investigation, and with so many guest rooms attached to this place, his quarry could be in any one of them. Even if he went door to door and slipped into every room, the man he's looking for could easily have changed clothes by now, and dressed his wounds. He could look the man in the face, and still not know it was him. Perhaps the best thing for him to do is send his little street rats to watch this place? Since the Shepherd's compound is, no doubt, nothing but cinders, they'll need a new target anyway. Regardless, it might be time to check in with his comrades, if they were smart they avoided the guard and went back to one of their private rooms at Thjorvar's Black Pegasus.
---The Black Pegasus, Jun's Quarters---
As soon as Hack plops the small but heavy chest upon the desk in Jun's room, Jun's eyes fall a little. The chest is, without a doubt, locked. The small keyhole in the front makes that clear. The fleeing half-orc no doubt had the key on him, which does no one any good now.
Instead Jun spills his satchel of papers onto the desk, and asks everyone to start looking through them.
Hack leads through the documents.
Jun, can ya pick the lock?
Luna also searches through the documents spilled out onto the table and she starts trying to organize them by category as well. Then glancing at the chest as Hack asks about picking the lock she says, "If we are unable to get the lock open I am sure our strong man Hack here could break it open, but we must be careful to make sure first of all that it has no types of traps set to do anything when opened AND we must be careful so as to do our best not to damage any of the contents in case there should be anything fragile in there. Any suggestions?" As she looks around the table at the group.
Quint's spirits fall when he sees that there are multiple hallways leading off to guest rooms. Far too much to search without drawing notice, and he's not sure he would recognize the man if he found him. Instead, he heads back across rooftops, getting a covert look at what the guards are up to at the Shepherds' compound. Then, spotting a small group of his hired orphans, he tells them to tell the others to watch the Floating Kraken (and maybe a second place, on a hunch?) instead. Finally, he heads back to the Black Pegasus to search out the rest of the group.
Hack places th ed chest on the table and scratches his head.
No, can't say I noticed the other guards hidin' anything.
"Did they seem like hired thugs who would run for it as soon as trouble arose or were they professionals? From what I saw a number of guards and sentries abandonded their posts. Where they folks used to a scrap who normally would adapt and respond or were they untrained and unorganized.?"
Thinking for a few moments on whether she should say this, Nikeisha replied to Psalm, "We saw some mages, true. Not entirely sure it was the top of the pile though. If we'd face the High Transmuter we'd most likely be a greasy smear on the cobles."
She added, "The archers, at least, seemed disciplined. They kept firing the whole time."
"Right the archers were with the aggressors. But the defenders. Hack and Jun's co-workers melted away and ran. The casters you are right were certainly not legendary wizards."
the guys I worked with were hired muscle, right out of the pits.
He sees Quint.
Hey, Quint. Good to see ya. What say ya get to work on this lock?
Quint looks to Hack, then to the box. Without a word, he climbs up onto the table to sit cross-legged in front of it. He slips something out from a concealed place near the small of his back. It's a sheet of leather, rolled tightly to keep various and sundry tools secured inside from rattling. Unrolling the bundle next to him, he examines the lock. He first looks for any hidden mechanisms, then feels around inside with a narrow strip of hammered steel with the end bent into a precise curve, making sure the the lock isn't more than it seems .
Assuming he finds only a lock, he then begins to work at it with the tool, trying to trip the release mechanism.
When Quint passed the Shepherd's compound to check on the state of things, he saw both the casters' corpses piled on a wain, and the Guard preventing the spread of the fire, but doing nothing to stop the buildings or walls of the mansion from burning. It seems they are content to prevent further damage to property but have given up on trying to salvage the compound from the blazing inferno the archers started with their oil and arrows.
Once back at The Pegasus, Quint goes to work carefully determining if the small chest is trapped. As he does, Hack, Luna, and Jun skim through the mass of messy papers looking for anything that might help further their investigation into the source and goals of the secret society that has made itself as clear as crystal. Sadly, none of the papers these puppets of the cult collected revealed much at all. Among the parchments were reports about the movement of the Order Guard shifts in various locales; sketches of some houses and mansions, along with notes about possible wealth that might rest inside; some papers that look like personnel reports, listing backgrounds, and skill sets for a number of people, one of those reports is about a familiar gnome named Quint Rue... On his report it lists things like, "accurate with a bow, rooftop regular, above average sneak thief," but it also says, "loner, doesn't like taking orders," and "possible Republic connections."
One document that catches Hack's eyes is a ledger of some kind. It lists a number of different businesses, some prominent, others small and out of the way, but next to each there is a set of columns with the months of Eafphqu's calendar listed across the top. For each business, for each month leading up to the current month, Ilsa, there is a check mark in the columns. That is for all except a few. For a few of the businesses instead of a check mark, there is a plus sign, or, no, wait, not a plus sign, the vertical line of all the marks is too long, they are crosses. Crosses? It hits him suddenly, the marks could very easily be the quick-reference mark for a four pointed star with a long tail. The three businesses with the crosses are: Arviel's Armaments, Heavenly Herbs, and Skiara's Sketchbook, the last is purveyor of goods for the discerning bibliophile. Perhaps surveilling those three locations will turn a profit of information?
Just as Hack relating his discover to the rest, Quint shushes the room, "Hush!" He exclaims. Then, after a moment of silence the group hears a small "click" of some mechanical mechanism inside the chest. Seconds later Quint breathes a heavy sigh of relief and opens the lid of the chest. "Locked, and trapped, and by somebody that knows their business. Thankfully they don't know it quite as well as I do." The gnome smiles at the group, proud of his ability to get the better of whomever set the trap and lock on the chest. After opening the lid, the group sees a noble's ransom of gemstones, silver, gold, and platinum coins, and a few pieces of jewelry. As Nikeisha pulls out a particularly beautiful necklace she recognizes right away that it is magical. Psalm also notices something, but not because it's beautiful, rather, because it isn't. Among the treasure there is one small smooth stone, not a precious gemstone, but a rock. On the rock is inscribed a rune from the Elvish language, though with strange flourish. It is the rune for the number five. Grabbing the incredibly out of place item, Psalm, also, immediately recognizes that it is magical in nature...
Doing a quick mental calculation Jun appraises the wealth in the chest and says, "that's roughly 720 gold pieces worth of coins and gems. It is not a sum that someone would abandon lightly. Not especially with magic items as part. It's not only possible, but likely, that there will be people coming to look for this. Any one of these gems or jewelry pieces would be easily locate-able with a simple spell, as would the chest itself. As much as I'd like to keep this wealth, it might be better for us to turn it over to someone else, just to protect our investigations and our identity."
Quint peels his eyes away from the glittering riches to inspect the disabled trap, trying to figure out what it might have done if he had failed to disable it, and looking for clues as to who set it.
As he does this, he absentmindedly mumbles Or we could use it to bait a trap of our own...
Carefully looking down into the mechanisms of the chest's lock assembly, Quint sees a coiled spring and a small dart with some some black oily substance rubbed on the tip. Looks like a poison dart trap. Maybe the type of poison could be traced to a particular maker or shop, if one could successfully extract it without setting it off?
Psalm chuckles, "We could hock the items at the stores listed."
That might do too good a job of bringing them to us. If they can track it like Jun says, we might only need to leave the box somewhere and track whoever comes for it. You guys know any of that tracking magic?
We could also spread a couple of the more recognizable pieces around, selling them to some fences who are not as discreet as they like people to think they are. Quint emphasizes this idea, since they at least get some untraceable money out of the deal that way.
I need a small container... Quint surveys the room, checking with his companions for something appropriate.
Quint pulls out a few of his tools, testing each one's fit into the mechanism in turn. Settling on a small prybar, he slips the tool hande-first into the mechanism in front of the spring. It fills the space the space intended for the spring to expand into almost perfectly. He then makes sure that neither he nor any of his companions are standing anywhere near the dart's intended path, nor any other direction it could go flying, and holds the vial in front of it. He then lets out a slow breath, steadying his hand, and triggers the trap's release. The spring snaps against his tool, accelerating the dart only slightly before it is brought to an early halt. The dart, now released, slides forward with minimal momentum, and plinks against the inside of the vial. Quint carefully turns the vial right-side-up, with the dart tip-side-down inside, and re-corks it. This might be a clue. Anyone know anyone who could analyze it?
"There's probably a few alchemist who could work out what it is and keep stum for a little extra," Nikeisha mused, thinking through the list of shopkeeps and such she knew.
"Nikeisha, Psalm, perhaps, before we bunk down for the night, you two should take some time to study those magic items you've found. Maybe their abilities and nature will provide some other clues?" Jun says, while sifting through the coins and gems. Upon pulling up a nice sized ruby, the half-elf merchant remarks, "You know... I know there are number of spells that require ruby dust as one of their consumed material components. Perhaps there is some way we can use that to get audience or entrance into the Arcane Order? It seems to me, if Nikeisha's contact is correct, and the High Transmuter himself is part of this mess, that is an avenue we can no longer ignore."
Psalm smiles, "I will be happy to take a look at things." He looks down again at the rune stone. "5 . . . as in the 5 types of evil dragons?" He looks puzzled and continues to ponder the stone rubbing it and tracing the rune with his finger.
Nodding, Nikeisha focused on the items looted.
After sitting with the magic items for just about an hour, turning them around and around, listening to the hum of magic as it courses through their bodies, Nikeisha and Psalm are able to correctly identify both of the magic items. The stone is a sending stone, an item that is always part of a matched pair. Somewhere else is it's twin, and the person who holds it can send and receive brief messages one time each day. Psalm realizes, as he plays with the stone, that it has already been used today! The necklace, Nikeisha discovers, and is amazed to make the discovery is an amulet of proof against detection and location!
"Bloody 'ell," Nikeisha breathed. "It's an amulet that stops you being picked up by magic. Someone has a lot of cash to be buying one of those." And is probably going to want it back, if they could find it. "The other is a sending stone. Not much useless without the other one, unless you wanna send rude messages to whoever is behind all this."
That could be extremely useful if whoever's on the other end doesn't know we have it...
Whoever does the sending may want to wear the amulet, no?
Quint looks through the gems, surprised at how little he is tempted to pocket some of them for himself, then looks around to the spread out papers. What else did you guys find?
"If I were guessing, I'd say they were recruitment assessments." Jun says to Quint and pulls together a stack and hands them over. He places Quint's assessment right on top, and looking down at him, says, "There's at least one there, I think you'll be very interested in..."
"I do have some small skill in cartography and the necessary tools. I could replenish my supplies and use that as a reason to check out this Skiara's Sketchbook business. Would anyone want to come with me? You know, two heads are better than one."
Jun shakes his head to clear his thoughts, then says "Well, since we're here, let's not skip what we learned this week in the excitement of this evening's events. Set aside anything that happened last night, and let's share news before deciding on what to do from here."
As has become customary now, Jun begins pacing as he speaks
"For my part, I learned that Diamond Imports was indeed shipping rice to your monastery, Luna, and parcels to other places as well. I did my best to tract them, but what is of import is that the manifest was marked with the symbol of our cult. I never had a chance to actually inspect the goods, but I remember where a few of the shipments were going, which are leads that we can add to our growing list."
Jun the stops pacing and turns to the group, saying
"Once everyone has shared what they discovered this week, I believe I have enough information to start putting together a timeline of events."
Hack shrugs.
I was guarding this shipment like I did others, based on orders from the cult guy with the tattoo. I could head back and let him know it got attacked?
Psalm listens and takes notes on all that was discussed.
He leans back and explains, "I found out something of the Star symbol. It is known by some as the Star of Aranon Ethalion. An elf of great legend. A mix of divine champion, mad wizard and tyrant from a variety of stories. The star symbol is carved on the walls of a fortress. Rumored to be an impenetrable dungeon. Apparently near the fortress there are some who wear the symbol."
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