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“Really,” Adonara drawls, concealing her surprise with a show of disinterest. She supposes it’s possible, though she would have thought the Order of the Torrent, perhaps. Such a beast would be a useful weapon in attempting to outflank the aquatic entrance to the Gray Spiders’ lair. Or, then again, to defend it. Is everyone in bed – if you’ll pardon the expression – with a devil, in this place? Oh. Right. Cheliax.
In any case, she recognizes Ragnar’s prayer, knows crucial moments are flying by, and that she can’t be the only one keeping her weapons very close indeed.
“You must know the Gray Spiders are long gone, a sorry, forgotten footnote in Kintargo’s history,” she taunts, even as she slowly starts to circle around the devil so that she and Tilorean can position themselves most effectively.
“And the Order of the Torrent is too, now,” she adds, stretching the point in a way that she’s sure the Lictor wouldn’t appreciate if he were to hear it, and letting whether she and the others are responsible dangle ambiguously. She ends with an open threat to answer Shursogot’s own, “We have outfaced Hellknights, agents of the Inquisition, kytons and barbazu. You can either crawl back into the Styx of your own free will, or be scattered as bait for piscodaemons.”
"Very well, I will leave, until next time."
With that the drowning devil disappears in a puff of smoke and brimstone.
Loot: 25 pearls worth 2500gp in total
pearl of power (2nd level)
There is also a piece of paper written in a strange language.
Strange language? Til takes a few moments to examine the page to see if he can work out what it might be trying to communicate.
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Adonara’s posture relaxes just slightly as the devil vanishes, and she huffs out a tentative, relieved breath.
“I honestly wasn’t expecting that that would work quite so well,” she says lightly, sheathing her sword, though the way her hand drops to the coil of her whip instead, as if seeking the comfort of her favoured weapon, betrays her lingering uneasiness.
We know someone’s trying to watch us, and who knows about the Gray Spiders. What a mess! We’ll have to be careful before we get too comfortable down here, that much is clear. Still, nobody said it would be easy, and the goddess knows but she loves a challenge to work her trickery, she muses, watching as Til takes a look at the paper left behind by the devil.
“Any joy? If it’s not a language any of us can read on our own, I could ask for a suitable spell from the goddess in my prayers tonight. As it is, I think we just might have the luxury of catching our breaths, drying off, sorting out various treasures and seeing to our new friends from Acisazi. How positively decadent,” she adds, quite honestly delighted despite her drollery.
Her eyes still flicker back to the space once occupied by the vanished devil, and her hands extend, subconsciously, a short length of her whip. “Though I won’t pretend I’m not worried that there are machinations at play that we’re not seeing. We may not have seen the last of that boastful, infernal anemone, and some others as well.”
As much as she’s loath to give Thrune so much credit, she wouldn’t put it past him to try to orchestrate some torturously inventive scheme somehow wrangling all sorts of fiends for a grandiose gesture. Nonetheless, she tries to end on a hopeful note, and indulges in a bit more banter as she addresses the group. “Incidentally, if you ever run into a woman with a taste for leather, wire, rather runny blood-red mascara, and extremely uncomfortable-looking knives, you certainly don’t know any winsome blonde, green-eyed elven courtesans.”
Well, that was unexpected.
Ragnar relaxes a bit, while the others do a bit more scholarly things.
Right now, I doubt that I could read the language that it is written in, but if we wish to wait until morning, I also could ask the Inheritor if she could grace me with the ability to read it
He looks perplexed.
Which anemone ?
And with a chuckle:
Well, I doubt that we will run into someone of that description, but if we do, I will keep it in mind.
After standing there thinking for a minute, Fulk shakes his head. "Well. That was unexpected." After a moment he says "Let me see that note."
Adonara, Fulk and Tilorean you can all read the document which is written in Infernal.
The note refers to promising to draw upon the "resources of Master Menotheguro of the Drowning Eye" in order to achieve the devil's freedom once the Master's mission to observe the air-breathers of Kintargo has concluded."
"So, anybody know anything about this Master Menotheguro of the Drowning Eye?"
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Which anemone ?
“That devil?” Adonara explains idly, as she gets a closer look at the note he left behind. “Did you see those fingers? Normally I would be inclined to compliment an elegantly formed hand, but that was a bit too piscine.”
She gives a theatrical shudder. Even with what must be remarkable inks, though, the note is blurred and runny with water in ways that make the otherwise familiar letters stream before her eyes. After a while, the Infernal falls into place, followed shortly by a soft Elven curse.
“What a surprise – that spritz-head was lying,” she adds in jovially vulgar Common, “unless a surviving Spider somehow formed an alliance with Menotheguro.”
"So, anybody know anything about this Master Menotheguro of the Drowning Eye?"
“Our new friends from Acisazi mentioned him: an aboleth wizard pulling the skums’ strings, and plaguing their village. They might know more about this ‘Drowning Eye.’ A place? Some sort of coven?” her tone sharpens at the thought of the oceanic abominations. It’s been a couple of generations since one side of her family resettled from the Mordant Spire to Kyonin, so she only has vague stories to draw on, but the ancestral enmity is clear in her voice. She wonders how desperate the plight of Acisazi may be, if Kintargo can spare her long enough to look into it, and if she’s anywhere near experienced enough to think about confronting such a beast.
Tilorean you recognise the name Menotheguro as an aboleth wizard in te Vyre region
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With the devil gone – at least to all appearances – Adonara turns to find the aquatic elves and let them know that the coast is clear, for now. She also thinks it would be a good time to ask them about this “Drowning Eye,” and as she goes she tries to think of anything that would narrow things down from a surfacer perspective. Mind, she came to Ravounel from the other direction, from inland, and she only had so much time to brush up on Chelaxian lore, geographical or otherwise, so her watery 'cousins' will have to do the heavy lifting.
Adonara, you recognise the name Drowning Eye as an alterative name for the undersea pit off the west coast of Ravounel
Fulk goes and checks the body.
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On the way back to collect her aquatic cousins and pick over the vault, it occurs to Adonara that the “Drowning Eye” does sound vaguely familiar after all. She doesn’t normally spend much time at the harbour: not out of snobbishness as such, really, though it is true that the docks don’t normally host her sorts of parties, and while she doesn’t like taking a likely sailor lass for her last copper, there are limits as to what she’s willing to do for charity.
Regardless, when it’s late and the lights are down and things get quiet for a bit, well-lined officers can get maudlin and morbid too, and look to hold tight to keep ghosts at bay.
“It’s that whirlpool, or cave, or both,” the courtesan says softly, pausing abruptly. “I forget the details, but we should be able to charter a boat easily enough, though getting close might be the trick.”
And then a delighted grin curves up her lips that bodes mischief. “I wonder if Captain Sargaeta’s crew could be getting restless and needing to be put through some … manoeuvres.”
Who might be Captain Sargaeta? He sounds like a man who owes you something?
Ragnar looks at Adonara as the question rumbles up, even though he wasn't intending to ask it.
On the body you find the following:
+2 mithral shirt
handy haversack
+1 lawful outsider bane mithral dagger
ring of protection+2
Inside the handy haversack are:
180pp
800gp
3000gp in jewellery
Ragnar lets everyone know about everything in the pack.
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“Cassius Sargaeta, captain of the Scourge of Belial, man-o’-war of Her Infernal Majestrix’s damned whoreson Navy,” Adonara explains. Somehow, her precise salute makes her cheeky scorn for the institution all that much worse, at least if any of her audience to witness it were true believers.
“Don’t worry: he’s alright. He took the queen’s penny because – honestly, I’m not entirely sure why, probably runs in the family – but is no devotee of Thrune. We’ve done some work with one another before, smuggling out fugitives, including his dear companion, who we stole out from under his loyalist father’s nose.”
“I think we’re square, at the moment, but depending on where exactly the Drowning Eye is, we might need help reaching it. I’m no sailor, and unlike our new friends from Acisazi, there’s a limit to just how far out we can swim safely.”
Can you tell me what your plans are now?
Bachu looks at the pile of gear and says "The only thing that would be of use would be the dagger for fighting devils. I would have no problem against one of them a day but more than that and I might not be able to do as much harm to them with my fists alone. So what is the plan now?"
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“As much as part of me would like to rush off to Acisazi immediately, to see how they fare against this Menotheguro, if they can spare us for some time yet, it wouldn’t be fair to your fair city, if you’ll forgive the homonym,” Adonara muses, her irrepressible facetiousness getting the best of her efforts to be serious before too long.
“It will take a few days, I’m sure, for this place to dry off, but we should tell Laria, and the Milanites, and see what we can do to secure it before getting too comfortable. See what else might be brewing in the city too, while we’re at it, and probably put some of this treasure to good use.”
Agreed, lets take a day or two to dry off, and clean out this place, and get or make what we need.
Over the following few days the fame of the Silver Ravens grows, boosted by all that you have achieved. There is a public clamour that recognises your group as the saviours of the city and you are all invited to a public ceremony at the Opera House by Mayor Thrune to reward you for your efforts.
"Seriously? An invitation by HIM? How is this not suicidal?"
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It’s nice to spend a few days not dealing with sinister cultists, or followers of mysterious puppeteers outside of the city. Adonara starts crossing some things off her agenda, including clearing up a room for herself in the upper levels of the former lair of the Gray Spiders, for when she’s not at home. Now that it’s in the hands of the Silver Ravens, we should think about renaming it. The ‘Lucky Bones’ no longer. Hmm. Perhaps ‘Kindness House.’ We’re friendly ravens, after all.
She still has to see what some of her contacts around the city have been up to, including at Lady Docur’s, and it’s a sign of just how harrowing the life of a heretical conspirator is that finding a suitable buyer for the highly lethal poisons recovered from the Spiders’ vault is positively relaxing after the past few days.
Still, when Adonara meets with the others with an extremely unexpected invitation delivered to her official (public-facing, as it were) residence in hand, only to discover that the others have received similar, she can’t help feeling a bit of excitement as well as Tilorean’s reservations.
"Seriously? An invitation by HIM? How is this not suicidal?"
“It might be a very interesting party,” she says lightly. “I’ll have to hang out my nicest dress.”
The courtesan’s smile fades, but does not disappear entirely, as she considers the matter (more) seriously. “It’s very definitely a show of force. We’ve been underground for the past week or so (almost literally, for most of it, I’m bound to mention), so the fact that he’s been able to find enough to … associate us with the cause, even if it’s not enough for him to act directly, must be meant to show off that he has actually got competent agents somewhere.”
“But either he doesn’t think he’s got enough to convict us to send Hellknights after us in our beds (And a good thing too! There are several parties that would be most put out. Speaking for myself only, of course.), or he’s plotting something trickier. I hate to give him anything he wants, but I have to admit, it’s well-played and intriguing. Do you think we could brazen it out, if we prepared suitably beforehand? Perhaps we could take a trip to visit our maritime friends immediately after this ceremony? (Possibly invisibly and at speed, for preference.)”
“The Unquenchable Fire will light a way. I’ll have to meditate and pray on this,” she says piously. “Pray a lot.”
The quip shows just how rattled Adonara really is. Fortunately, they do say that Calistria stands on conviction rather than ceremony, even with her priestesses.
"Well, that's omnious."
Ragnar finds himself a room in the former lair of the spiders and cleans it out.
Now I need to get some furniture that is not waterlogged
He looks at the others.
As for this invite, I would be awful wary of this invite, but the chance to see whom we are arguing against cannot hurt.
Now to figure out a way to get my armour to me without me needing to put it on.
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As the day of Thrune’s ceremony approaches, Adonara does indeed spend a good deal of time in prayer, as well as browsing the shops and markets for likely tricks and gossip that might help the Silver Ravens dare to attend what must surely be some sort of trap.
She sends a flurry of notes to the others around town as ideas occur to her. Unsurprisingly, she confers most extensively with Ragnar since, as a fellow priest, he has a similar baseline for what sorts of things might be possible. Of course, Iomedae and Calistria have rather difficult approaches to strategy, but still.
“There’s a limit to just how drastically I can cheat onlookers’ eyes,” she sighs, at one point. “In her wisdom, the Savoured Sting has seen fit not to gift me with spells of outright invisibility, yet. A shining mist to cloak a hasty retreat should be possible, if necessary, and I should be able to channel some of her grace to turn aside the blades of the less willful, though the stronger-minded might be able to push through.”
Til will drop some coin on more current clothes for the gala, and a new piece or two of jewelry to go with the new outfit beyond his existing collection.
Let's say 100 GP on the outfit (vs the list 75) and 50 GP for additional jewelry to match? Will take me to 2 noble's Outfits and 150GP of jewelry to wear with them . . ..
"Friends, I was thinking. Would it be worth the effort to deposit mint in the punch bowl? It shouldn't be THAT hard to slip it in, especially not if there's a distraction elsewhere in the room . . .."
The invitation asks you to be present outside the opera house at noon. By the time you get there a large crowd has gathered, reminiscent of the size of the crowd at the protests several weeks earlier. At precisely noon the bells above the Cathedral of Asmodeus ring out and the ground floor doors open.
Lord Mayor Barzillai Thrune steps out accompanied by a dozen Hellknights, a pair of hulking cerberi and the high pries of Asmoedeus. He motions for you all to come up onto the slightly raised balcony and as you approach you notice he appears a bit haggard and pale, as if he has aged a bit since his last public appearance.
He addresses you all "Well done, well done! Would that more of the citizenry were as keenly observant and helpful as you intrepid citizens! I'll have my eye on you, trust in that, for I have no doubt you will have great works still ahead of you. Perhaps you may again be of service to your government. Please take these gifts from the city of Kintargo as Thrune's thanks to your services rendered, and please continue to work to ensure, as I do, this grand city's safety and proud legacy."
With that he applauds and then leaves.
Til calls to his retreating back. He turns and waves to the crowd.
As a quick aside to his companions, Til notes "Well, that was quicker and simpler than we expected."
Unless someone stops him, he'll move out into the crowd and start shaking hands and meeting people.
"Thank you for coming!"
"Every one of us can help make Kintargo safer for Kintargans!"
etc.
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"Friends, I was thinking. Would it be worth the effort to deposit mint in the punch bowl? It shouldn't be THAT hard to slip it in, especially not if there's a distraction elsewhere in the room . . .."
“Oh, how delightful!” Adonara enthuses, clapping her hands. “Absolutely!”
She does get a bit nervous as Tilorean suggests that they should put in the effort, sartorially speaking. Her finery, at any rate, is – not to put too fine a point on it – not exactly designed with the expectation that there will be much under it other than herself. But ‘Woman proposes, goddess disposes,’ as they say, and Adonara’s beyond sure that Calistria will favour a certain boldness.
In the event, though, it ends up being a more subdued affair than she expected, given his-plaguey-lord-mayorship’s penchant for the dramatic, as she understands it.
It is also, for lack of any better word that she can think of, especially in Common, a decided mindf&*#. There are people in the assembled crowd that can read between the lines, but there are also very many that have bought the party line, as it rapidly becomes apparent that the event has been preceded by a propaganda push and collecting the ‘right sort’ of audience, for which the Silver Ravens’ activities have been cast as conceivably acceptable or even supportive of the regime.
So, there’s a lot of talk in the crowd about stopping a serial killer (and somehow it only makes it weirder that Thrune seems to have been kind enough not to mention – for now – that when Adonara was all but pretty much possessed by said murderer’s weapon disaster was only narrowly avoided), cleaning up a thieves’ guild and an unsavoury cult, but not about prison breaks or supporting subversive pamphleteers and things like that. The fact that they’re not up to the tips of Adonara’s (and Valekar’s) ears in extremely angry Hellknights and Asmodean inquisitors suggests that Thrune and his agents don’t actually have enough evidence or, for that matter, even a very clear idea of where the Gray Spiders’ old lair is.
And while it’s definitely a relief that bloody Thrune seems to be a bit worse for wear, Adonara worries about all the reasons that might be, especially if he’s looking for the Book of the Damned. She shudders to think what even scraps of that blasphemous thing might unleash, at whatever cost to its reader, or whatever else Thrune’s been up to.
Somewhat awkwardly, she smiles and waves and tries to be gracious with both the crowd and various Thrice-damned movers and shakers. Or maybe he’s not a eunuch? the courtesan speculates idly, considering what might be wrong with the new mayor. Are erinyes rather like vengeance demons in that regard too, after all? Sadly, even wicked thoughts and doing her best to convince the prettiest Hellknight in attendance to put the belt she chooses around her narrow waist in a way that is absolutely meant to encourage the crowd to imagine what it might be like to be the lucky girl who gets to remove the belt again don’t restore Adonara to her usual effervescence.
Being the everpractical dwarf, Ragnar goes out and finds himself some clothing suitable for meeting high muckety mucks.
He then brings the only thing that he thinks is needed and that is a dagger.
Completely shocked with the actions of the lord mayor, Ragnar almost wobbles with disbelief that they were not immediately set upon by the hellknights.
By the gods, what has gotten into him
After a moment he shakes it off, and pastes on a fake grin and waves to the crowd.
Time to keep an eye out and hope the other shoe don't drop on us tonight.
As the Mayor leaves the crowd grows larger, all cheering the Silver Ravens as the saviuors of the city. It takes you several moments for you to extricate yourselves.
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A few days later you are relaxing in the coffee shop when Laria Longroads suggests that you should hold a meeting with your allies and some other of her acquaintances to discuss the next steps, she proposes calling this a Silver Council.
Despite being despised as a dark haired elf with more elegant features, Valekar was anxious throughout the event. He clutched his scroll of mage armor tightly, ready to use it at the first sign of trouble.
Thrune's declaration did nothing to soothe his worries. He continues to clutch the scroll tightly until he exchanges the belt of dexterity and is safe at home again.
---
A few days later, his mind still churning with concern over what Thrune might be up to, he eagerly agrees with Laria's proposal. **"Yes, the last few days of inaction have been too much for me."**
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Adonara wastes no time leaving the surreal scene once Thrune disappears back to whatever he’s up to, though she is careful not to be impolite in so doing, even if it means sticking her neck out a bit longer.
In the next couple of days, she tries not to jump at too many shadows, and though she feels a bit silly, she puts the word out here and there in such a way as to exchange the infernal mayor’s gift with a similar belt – one that his servitors would not be familiar with for the purposes of tracking magically. It may err on the side of paranoia, but then she is a priestess of a banned cult, and with a profile that is highly suspicious to begin with.
Laria’s suggestion gives her something else to occupy her thoughts with productively, as she dashes off several notes to send out with elegantly coded invitations.
And then there are the less adventurous but no less important Ravens, though some of them are almost still children – some of the urchins from Devil’s Nursery, and maybe a couple of the young misses from Lady Docur’s. She’ll have to make sure there’s plenty of something non-alcoholic at hand. And see if Laria would be willing to be unofficial chaperone. Not that there will be any need, but the last thing the Ravens need is an apoplectic headmistress on their hands.
Now there’s a thought to put the fear of the goddess even in Thrune’s withered heart, Adonara thinks with a smile. She loved the cathedral school she attended back in Kyonin, though she didn’t have to leave home for it, and the teachers were kind, but that doesn’t mean that she wasn’t in awe of the cleric in charge. She imagines that Kintargo’s youngsters have just as much to be impressed by and considerably more to fear.
She wonders who Laria might be planning to invite.
Til will take some time, possibly overlapping with his recruitment efforts, to find a potential exchange for the headband. While he can find an exchange, the one he can get isn't quite what he wants artistically. It is a silvery metallic circlet, with sharp dips at the temples which elevate to a flat band standing higher across the forehead, roughly a half-inch in height.
Til is careful not to note where the headband he is trading came from, nor does he ask where the one he finds originated. The sorts of people he can find to trade with while recruiting the sneaks team aren't the sort who discuss such details.
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"Silver Council? Better than The Murder. Couldn't we just call it a planning discussion and not create an aura of mystery that might lead to it becoming known amongst the gossips?"
"If there's a chance of it becoming known among the gossips, we have bigger problems than what to call it," Valekar comments
"Is there anyone else you would like me to invite?"
"The rule is that once at least two people know a secret, others will find out. The juicer and more entertaining the secret can be presented, the faster it will spread. That's why I want a boring name, to slow the spread, not prevent it. We're already too late to prevent it."
Boring is good, Simple is good. Less chance of people thinking that a simple name would mean harm. So my vote is for the planning group.
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"Is there anyone else you would like me to invite?"
Boring is good, Simple is good. Less chance of people thinking that a simple name would mean harm. So my vote is for the planning group.
Adonara offers an easy grin and a noncommittal shrug. “It probably doesn’t need to be named yet, but it might have to be once we’re closer to being ready to act more directly. It does sound rather like a shadow parliament to me, only here…”
Her glance flickers north, in the vague direction of Nidal. “Regardless, it also sounds like Laria’s found some people whom she trusts, but who don’t want to attach themselves to the Silver Ravens outright. When it’s time to deliver an open challenge to Thrune, the ‘Silver Council’ is as good a name as any.”
The Ravens can use all the allies they can get, so whatever the new players Laria wants to introduce want to call themselves, Adonara’s willing to work with it, and she waits curiously to see who shows up.