Idrassa called on some of the fences she knew, asking careful non-questions about the Tarkanans and knowing that word of this might well get back to the gangs. But this could not be helped, and in any case, she had been part of the other night's skirmish with them. She was hardly in their good graces either way.
Thraag will talk to some old contacts of his as well to find out where the Tarkanans are holing up.
Declan went to Skylar, the only other person he really knew in the city, to see what she might know about the Tarkannas and/or their hideouts.
Over the course of several hours Thraag and Idrassa were able to locate a Tarkanan outpost- Thraag through tracking down Tarkanan movement in the city and Idrassa through running down the name in the note they'd found in Yellowspire- Avareen. They both also confirmed that the Boromar Clan was bleeding muscle and influence to the newly ascendant House Tarkanan; somehow the aberrants had quickly taken over half or more of Boromar's resources in the city.
The outpost was just north of The Market in Castle Ward. The Tarkanans had taken over the top few floors of the God Catcher, a tenement building constructed into and around one of the famous Walking Statues.
Back at the tavern, Idrassa related her findings to the others.
"I think it's time to pay Master Starsong a visit," she concluded. [b]"Might be best to go in force, make us look like we could do some damage to the Tarkanans if he gives us good intel."
She was less certain of that than she sounded, but she bore the Tarkanans a particular loathing that left her willing to try.
Declan was frowning, not excited about the limited intel Skylar provided. But he nodded to Idrassa. "That does sound like the semblance of a plan."
"I found a place where they are hiding out. The place is in a tenement building. It doesn't sound like the control the whole building. So we need to be careful about who happens to be around." Thraag says.
Listening to the details of the gathered information, Eyve simply nods.
"I follow your lead, and am ready to serve." she says calmly to Idrassa.
Zander would have been happy to go out into the streets to seek information, but the others had indicated that perhaps his approach would not be as... subtle as they were hoping to be at the moment, and it might be best if he stayed at the Manor to see if anyone of note showed up to speak to - or accost - the group.
When those who had gone out to collect information had returned and shared their learnings, he nodded.
"If the Starsong humanoid can confirm our current intelligence, that would be of tactical value. Failing that, we can consider a surgical strike on the stronghold."
It was late afternoon by the time the group was able to make it across town to the Yawning Portal. A carriage had collided with a dray on the High Road, mere steps from the always backed-up North Ward checkpoint at Hassantyr's Street, causing a traffic snarl that extended up, down, east, and west, choking the city to a near standstill at what was already the busiest time of day.
Once they made it there, the rambling, four-story building was busy with folks who had knocked off work early but not nearly as packed as it would get once evening truly fell. Davil Starsong was in the booth he favored on the first floor, where he and his bodyguard had a view of the door and quick access to the stairs in case a tactical retreat back to his room was called for.
Yagra stood as the group approached, nodding at Zander with her impressive arms crossed. "Running with a new crew, goldenrod?"
Davil, remaining seated, smiled at Idrassa and Declan, having met both of them in their individual capacities before. To Declan, he said "Come to take me up on that offer? I heard your partner went in-house."
"Walking, at the moment," Zander responded, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, "or standing, perhaps would be more accurate. Our force composition has been modified since we last encountered one another," he added, actually answering the bodyguard's question, "though some of those who were with me before are still on the roster."
"See?" Zander thought towards his Psicrystal companion, "I believe I am 'getting the hang of' the humanoids' use of vernacular and deliberately improper usage of words to convey meaning."
If a psicrystal had eyes to roll, or a face with which to wince, J'r-V'zz would have done both. Repeatedly. As it was, he simply continued monitoring a forty-foot radius around Zander and his companions for possible threats, silently updating the tactical plot in one corner of Zander's vision.
Davil, remaining seated, smiled at Idrassa and Declan, having met both of them in their individual capacities before. To Declan, he said "Come to take me up on that offer? I heard your partner went in-house."
Declan shook his head, "Unfortunately I am significantly indisposed of late. As is my... partner," He paused a moment at that word being used to describe his relationship with Sky. He supposed it was accurate, in a professional sense, as much as their personal relationship was hard to pin down exactly.
"I am here on other matters today." His eyes turned to Idrassa, the spokesperson of their crew.
Idrassa nodded, accepting the cue from Declan. "We're here because we have some...common interests, with you," she observed. "Perhaps we can help each other."
Thraag follows along behind the others and nods a greeting to Yagra.
Eyve stands in the background, as unobstrusive as is possible, hood pulled up to somewhat offset her striking appearance.
"Walking, at the moment," Zander responded, without a trace of sarcasm in his voice, "or standing, perhaps would be more accurate. Our force composition has been modified since we last encountered one another," he added, actually answering the bodyguard's question, "though some of those who were with me before are still on the roster."
"See?" Zander thought towards his Psicrystal companion, "I believe I am 'getting the hang of' the humanoids' use of vernacular and deliberately improper usage of words to convey meaning."
If a psicrystal had eyes to roll, or a face with which to wince, J'r-V'zz would have done both. Repeatedly. As it was, he simply continued monitoring a forty-foot radius around Zander and his companions for possible threats, silently updating the tactical plot in one corner of Zander's vision.
Yagra snorts but nods just the same. "Yeah, okay. You just tell that big slab of beef he still owes me a drink." She was presumably referring to Goggh, though beef did not typically come from bulls and a minotaur was not properly a bull in any case.
Thraag follows along behind the others and nods a greeting to Yagra.
Yagra nods back at him. "Hey, Sevens." Being a seventh son of a seventh son tended to get around the community, especially with as much drama had come with Thraag's situation.
Davil, remaining seated, smiled at Idrassa and Declan, having met both of them in their individual capacities before. To Declan, he said "Come to take me up on that offer? I heard your partner went in-house."Declan shook his head, "Unfortunately I am significantly indisposed of late. As is my... partner," He paused a moment at that word being used to describe his relationship with Sky. He supposed it was accurate, in a professional sense, as much as their personal relationship was hard to pin down exactly.
"I am here on other matters today." His eyes turned to Idrassa, the spokesperson of their crew.
"Pity. Keep me in mind if you do ever need work. I keep hearing good things about you."
Idrassa nodded, accepting the cue from Declan. "We're here because we have some...common interests, with you," she observed. "Perhaps we can help each other."
"I do love to help my friends. Do you want to be friends, counselor?" He was most likely referring to the days when she used to write contracts and documents for tradesmen who could not afford a proper solicitor. So he knew who she was, on sight and never having met in person before. Boast? Threat? Simple arrogance? Who could tell?
Davil patted the seat beside him. "Sit down and let's talk." He gestured to the others, including Eyve. "Everyone, please. Be my guests. Do you want anything to drink? Eat?"
Idrassa gave a polite smile, indicating she was at ease despite the attempted mind games. "A glass of wine would be lovely, thank you," she said. She let Tweety curl at her feet, but mentally warned the serpent not to become too relaxed.
"Ale would be good." Thraag says as he sits and looks around the room to take in the scenery.
Declan took a seat with his back to the wall, with ample view of the tavern. "A coffee, if you would," he commented, "I would prefer to keep my wits about me."
Zander, being a Warforged, neither ate nor drank, as everyone at the table likely knew. He also didn't need to sit, nor did doing so provide any sense of comfort or relief for his body.
Still, he recognized that others were commonly put more at ease if he sat, so once it was clear that there were enough seats for all, Zander took one, trusting that his psicrystal companion would alert him should any threat materialize from behind him.
"Wine would be fine. Thank you." Eyve says with a nod, not wanting to stand out. Besides, the taste of wine was in fact enjoyable.
"Ale would be good." Thraag says as he sits and looks around the room to take in the scenery.
The Yawning Portal's taproom filled the first floor of the sprawling 4-story building. Dropping down into pure darkness, a 40-foot-diameter well that some said went all the way down to Khyber dominated the space. One of the tavern's main draws was when the brave or stupid would 'take a dunk' and pay a sovereign to be lowered in the bucket at the end of the forearm-thick rope all the way down to the bottom of the dry well. Bets were usually taken as to whether a person would get all the way down without chickening out or how long they might stay down there before calling up to be brought back to the surface. Less frequently, adventurers would pay a full galifar to use the bucket to journey down into the darkness as part of some quest or mission, but this was typically less fun to bet on.
Balconies on the tavern's second and third floors overlooked the well, with those floors accessed by way of wooden stairs that rise up from the taproom. Guests sitting at the tables on the balconies would have an excellent view of the well and the action below. Typically, these balconies were occupied by merchants and nobles more interested in spectating, while adventurers and others stayed on the ground to be closer to the action.
The large taproom itself was decorated with an astonishing selection of trophies and knickknacks recovered from below and left in the inn, whether as gifts to Durnan, in payment for a bar tab, or for having lost a bet to the tavern's owner. Bloodstained banners, unknown sigils, and strange statues were some of the least-odd decorations amongst the dozens of relics on display.
This early in the day, the clientele was mostly focused on eating dinner or having meetings. The rowdy crowd that would fill the tavern later that night had yet to come in. Davil's booth had a ring of empty tables around it, more than enough space to prevent anyone from overhearing without some effort.
Davil nodded at Yagra, who grumbled but went to talk to the bartender since there wasn't a waitress convenient to hand. He gestured at Idrassa. "It's your sovereign. Tell me about these common interests."
Idrassa nodded. "I hear the Tarkanans have been poaching some of your talent," she began. She decided it would be best to be very direct. They were asking for Starsong's trust, they had to show that they weren't afraid to make their own intentions known. "We've got our own...concerns with them. We'd like to take them down a peg or two, and we were hoping you might be able to share some information about them."
Davil snorted, nodding. "They have. Half our people so far, more or less." He shook his head and sighed. "I wish I knew where they got all this cash to throw around. Or why. They aren't even competitors for our business."
"What kind of information do you want? You want to hurt them or are you looking for something? If you want to do them some damage I can give you a direction for free. You'd be doing me a favor. Are you just looking for someplace to hit them?"
"We heard they took something from another gang and that is what riled everyone up. We are looking for whatever they took and where it might be." Thraag says.
Davil shrugs. "Yeah, I've heard the same. Somebody took something from somewhere but nobody I've been able to talk to knows what, or who, or where. Stupid reason for all this bloodshed. Bad for business." He nods at Thraag. "My suggestion would be to raid one of their safehouses and ask one of their mid-level guys some questions. I know a place. I'd even be willing to pay if you can bring me any hard information- journals, letters, ledgers, that kind of thing."
Idrassa hid her surprise at this. "What sort of ledgers?" She asked. It did not sound like Starsong was after the same thing they were, but if he got wind of it he might change his mind.
He grimaced. "I want to see where their money is coming from, where it's going. I want every name they have in my organization and I want to know where they got all this coin to buy off my people. We're not a bloody handed syndicate, by and large, but I mean to bury these people as soon as I get the chance."
Declan nodded, "You want their books. I know what to look for." the latter more for the party's benefit.
"If this can get us closer to stopping this gang war, I am in." Thraag says. "How big a safe house are we talking about?"
Zander simply nodded, for once, he didn't have questions.
Davil shook his head. "It's a tiny bolthole down a back alley. You'd never notice it if you passed by. We know they take people there to question them before getting rid of them." He gave the group directions to a back alley off the infamous Brindul Alley, known by nearly everyone in the city for the strange apparition that appeared late at night, the Hand that Sings. Luckily, it was only early evening at the moment. Barring some sort of trouble, the group could get across town to Trades Ward long before the Hand showed up for the evening.
"If we are going to do this tonight, we need to be on our way." Thraag says before asking, "Is there anything else you can say about this hole in the wall before we go?"
Davil made a face and shrugged. "We know they use it to stash people they're going to torture. We've never had to go in there ourselves."
"Sounds like a good enough place to start," Declan said with a simple nod. "The only question is, how do we approach it."
Idrassa considered. "Anyone good with disguises?" She asked. "If one of our people could impersonate one of theirs long enough to get a foot in the door, we could try to rush the place. Maybe someone delivering a prisoner," she added.
She could not believe she was talking like this. Not so long ago she had made her living with paper. But, she reflected. Things change.
"My skills are not in disguise or stealth." Thraag says with a shrug.
Zander just made a vague gesture at himself. His tall, bulky, golden frame made the point obvious without words.
"Disguise" wasn't a skill set he had.
"It seems that stealth is not our way. Do we just want to go in fast then and hope to all get in before we get noticed?" Thraag asks.
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Getting from the Yawning Portal to Trades Ward took hardly any time at all- the tavern was practically across the street from the commercial ward's bright lights, boisterous hawkers, and crowded streets. There was no restriction on entrance to Trades Ward. The Dragonmarked Houses wanted people to come in, to spend their money and time in their official establishments. It took a while longer to get down Soothsayer's Way, cross the High Road, and find the Court of the White Bull, though.
It was only early evening but Trades Ward was never empty. Trades Ward bustled day and night with activity, and while the streets weren't as crowded as they would get later it still took time to get through the throngs of people and to find your way through the streets all the way to the east wall. Locals swore that just a few years ago the roads in Trades Ward hadn't been as twisty-turny as they were now but between the exclusive Dragonmarked enclave buildings and some deliberate civil engineering it was easy to get in to Trades Ward but twice as difficult to find one's way out. And that was just on ground level.
The buildings here towered over the rest of the city; there had been a construction race since the signing of the Treaty a few years back and the Houses were throwing money into making their enclaves the best, the most beautiful, the tallest, the most attraction-packed. Balconies ringed most buildings to let folks inside watch the energy down on the street and more importantly let everyone outside know exactly what they were missing out on by not being in there.
This was where the Houses put their best foot forward. Glittering stores stood next to elaborately themed restaurants on the first floors of the city's best inns. Assisted by magic and artifice, in a very short time the Houses had been able to create a Ward that looks like it was lifted out of Sharn, except that Sharn didn't let stores have 5 story tall animated illusions for signage and zones of magically-assisted announcements telling passersby what was on sale inside "This week only!"
The first landmark they passed was the Lyrandar enclave. Sitting in between Blackhor Alley and Lathin's Cut, Cloudspire towered over the entire city, a building that couldn't have been built except with magic, scraping the clouds high overhead so the docked airships moored high overhead could safely avoid the buildings steadily growing taller up around it.
Across the High Road- a skyway soared over the traffic flowing by below with room enough for even the tallest dray to make it through with room to spare- the group faced the enormous bulk of the Bank of Throneport, the massive Kundarak enclave that had replaced an entire block of buildings in between Sleeper's Walk and Slipstone Street.
Turning down the Wide Way, the group eventually made their way to the Court of the White Bull, the only undeveloped land in Trades Ward. Everyone knew the hardpack dirt courtyard was prone to wild magic effects, making building here both dangerous and a waste of time. It was a well known landmark, though, and people often arranged to meet in the Court of the White Bull and brave or desperate peddlers sometimes risked putting up temporary tables to sell to the frequent passers by.
Just south of the Court of the White Bull, Brindul Alley was also famous- or infamous- for its weird magical effect, the Hand That Sings. A human-sized animate hand with a chest-sized mouth in its palm, the Hand That Sings was known to appear late at night, singing everything from ballads to popular songs as it drifted from one end of the curving alley to the other. Rumors said that it sometimes amused itself by mugging people walking through the alley and even sometimes choked people to death in the wee hours of the morning.
Luckily, though, the nameless back alley where the group was going was a cut-through from one side of Brindul Alley to the other, making the risk of being accosted by the notorious magical hand very low. The group found their target, also finding that it was right next to a meat-pie shop, Cuttle's Meat Pies.
A crowd had a pulse all its own. If you recognized it, you could make headway fairly readily. If not, well, sometimes you stood still, sometimes you backtracked. Having spent his university days in Sharn, Declan could read a crowd. He moved easily through the throng, right shoulder leading, as he slipped between bodies. Often, he had to look back and wait for his companions to catch up, leaning against a lamppost or the side of a technicolor advertisement.
But soon, Brindul Alley appeared and the crowd thinned to nothing. Declan approached the reported entrance and started looking around the place for potential traps. "Watch yourself," he warned his companions, "This place is likely well defended with traps and pitfalls."
In spite of herself, Idrassa had been basking in the colorfully unbridled abandon of the district, her own enjoyment enhanced by Tweety's similar predilection for the place. But Declan's words brought her back to reality.
"Most of us should probably wait here to avoid arousing suspicion," she observed. [b]"Who wants to make the approach?"/[b]
The aura of this part of the city was substantially different from the rest, somehow making it seem logical to be more open about her appearance here, some unspoken...instinct to be...herself.
Drawing her hood back, Eyve studies her surroundings as she moves through the crowd, noting the natural ease with which Declan moves through it, a predator, albeit a subtle one, slinking among the crowded streets as opposed to her own movement that would likely be best described as a prowl. Unlike many other areas of the city, her distinctive. slightly irridescent tattoos drew more looks of what she assumed was admiration or appreciation (difficult to discern), rather than surprise or unease.
Her silver eyes take in the location, hard to follow without pupils, but somehow, clearly intent in their gaze.
"I will go in with whoever else enters. My skills are best suited to...protection of whoever else will be negotiating." she says calmly, without ego, simply stating a fact.
"We don't know how many of the guild will be present. We should probably all go in." Thraag says.
Declan didn't spot any obvious traps or defenses.