Froglegs shrieks in pain as the critical strike leaves her horribly wounded! She drops her weapons and raises her hands in surrender. “Okay, you’ve got me, you can arrest me. But you should know that the chief criminal in this city isn’t me—he’s at Magistrate-Mayor Asanda’s house.”
“So, my people have said the magistrate-mayor isn’t... exactly who he appears to be. Quite different, in fact. It’s been like that for some time, ever since the flood, I think. It’s not just that he’s hiding out, shirking his duties. He’s been making secret trips across the city onto the Magaambya campus. At least, he did, but he hasn’t recently. Some opportunity he was pursuing there just dried up, it seems, and I suppose you lot had something to do with that.
“People who visit Asanda’s manor just disappear. Trust me to know what it looks like when you’re disposing of people who threaten to expose you. I bet he’s a lot more like me than you’d like to think.”
Sadiki shakes her head. She claps the manacles Janatimo gave them onto the grippli's hands. "You're under arrest, Froglegs. You are going to answer for all of your crimes, for all of the people you hurt. You will be treated fairly if you cooperate."
The grippli sighs resignedly and does not protest. "Alright, fine. I'll come quietly."
The stolen goods here are of little monetary value, though their owners will no doubt be glad to get their possessions back. A strongbox beneath the hammock has 400 gp in various gems, a bismuth leopard wondrous figurine (the poltergeist Gerrus longs to see it once again) and a warcaller’s chime of blasting. Froglegs herself has four +1 daggers and Habu's Cudgel.
Upon you showing Gerrus the figurine back in his home, he sighs with relief. He thanks you earnestly, then fades away. You are free to keep the figurine or leave it in Tokku’s house, as you see fit—in any case, the poltergeist is gone for good.
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Issi replaces the figurine on a windowsill where the light catches its smooth lines and murmurs a short benediction before leaving the house with one good deed done.
That done she returns to the Magaambya, confident that Jantamino will get in touch if he deems it 'appropriate' to follow up on Frogleg's claims.
It isn't long before Janatimo calls you to his office once more. "I told you I would follow up with you after I figured out what to do about the magistrate-mayor, and that time has arrived.
“After speaking with the faculty, we are in another position where taking direct action could be politically harmful. Nantambu has its own leadership, separate from the Magaambya, and we respect that independence. Conversants can more easily inquire and take any necessary action without the political risks. I know that you can handle yourself in challenging situations, so I feel confident sending you in our stead. We don’t know what awaits at the magistrate-mayor’s mansion, but something villainous is going on there. The magistrate-mayor has long jeopardized Nantambu with his inaction, but we see now he may be behind the deaths of Nantambu’s citizens. We can’t ignore this any longer. Get as much information as you can, respond to any threats, and return safely.”
Asanda’s large manor seems quiet and lifeless. Both the north and south sides of the building have collapsed walls, with the remaining walls supported by makeshift scaffolding. An air of neglect hangs about the manor like a fog. The orchards around the manor are waterlogged, with fruit rotting on branches. Weeds grow wild and grass grows tall, even on the main path leading to the wide front door.
Two guards stand at the main entrance. They wear heavy cloaks with deep hoods that obscure their features.
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Uninclined to venture into the manor by herself Issi spends nearly three hours scoping the place out before she returns to speak with her sister.
"Well the manor is in terrible shape." She says, "I think the Magistrate is dead. There's no way anyone who cared would let their house get like that. There are some guards at the main entrance though so I think we'll do better to sneak in. At night maybe?"
"That sounds like a good idea," Sadiki says. "I can make us invisible again. Maybe this time you won't make as much noise!"
That night, you return to the manor. Sadiki renders both of you invisible, and you quietly move through the undergrowth towards the west wall of the manor. You step into the floodwaters, which start off ankle-deep but become deeper as you get nearer the manor itself.
"You've always wished you could walk on water, right sis?" Sadiki whispers. She murmurs a couple spells, and soon both sisters are treading on the surface instead of swimming.
You move through the hole in the wall and into a flooded room. Long tables and chairs, the remains of a once glorious dining hall, drift as flotsam in the water. The top of a mostly submerged doorway can be seen on the eastern wall.
A giant snake swims towards the water towards you, catching your scent and seeing the ripples your feet make on the water. A water cobra!
The fiery sword burns the giant cobra, which thrashes about in pain! Terribly wounded, the animal flees, swimming past you and through the gap in the wall!
You head east into the adjoining room. Cooking utensils and waterlogged food drift in the murky water of this flooded kitchen. Jagged scrap metal protrudes above the waterline in the northwest corner.
Three bizarre fishlike fey float here. Two smaller ones are listening to a much larger fey who is in the middle of a fanciful tale about a fisher who made a series of silly wishes. Water constantly leaks from their mouths, pouring out into the already flooded room.
"Um, pardon us," Sadiki says. "We have some questions. Would you mind pausing your tale for a few minutes?"
The larger fish-fey stops its story and blinks its four eyes. "Hmm? Oh, yes, yes... How can we be of assistance?"
"You may call me...the Great Grodair!" the large fish-fey says dramatically. The smaller ones "ooh" and "aah." "We are not certain what brought us here. We were simply swimming in a river when we felt a rush of water and appeared here. We hear people who occasionally move about the building, but that is all. In the meantime, though, there is plenty of delicious food to eat here, and plenty of tales to swap!"
Sadiki pokes around a bit, studying the currents of magic in the room. She is able to determine that there was a small portal to the First World in the sink that brought fresh, clean-tasting water into the kitchen. The portal must have ruptured when the manor flooded.
You return to the dining room and head south into the main hall. A sodden, torn rug lies half-submerged in a two-foot deep pool of water that fills most of this hall. Double doors to the north and south are ajar, and those rooms also look flooded. To the east, semicircular stairs lead out of the water to a double door.
A round teak table with chairs is in the center of this room. Abstract wood carvings of people line the walls. A painting of a hyena, once meant to be the room’s focal point, has a large rip across the canvas. The painting hangs crookedly above a large bronze door on the eastern wall.
A bearded man sits at the table, a black panther lounging near his feet. The man narrows his eyes as you enter. "Who are you? How dare you barge into the home of a member of Nantambu's government uninvited?"
Issi recognizes the man as Magistrate-Mayor Thuba, a glassworker and one of Asanda's peers.
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"Because we are concerned about the Magistrate." Issi counters. "And he has not responded to any form of communication. We simply wish to speak with Magistrate-Mayor Asanda."
Since she's unarmed she hopes that doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility, although she's definitely not convinced that Thuba is who he looks like.
"Asanda is busy. He does not have time to deal with you," Thuba says. "You should just... just..."
The bearded man sighs as he strokes the purring black panther, “Ah, perhaps it’s time to get out of this awful costume he has me in.” His appearance changes into that of a serpentfolk as the panther grows blue spirals in its fur and a second pair of eyes. "I'm too tired to keep pretending to be a warmblood. I'll just kill you now!"
The serpentfolk casts mirror image on himself, while the cat teleports in front of Issi and attacks!
Sadiki targets the cat with a powerful spell. The cat alters the sorcerer's magic, causing some force feedback that wounds Sadiki. Gritting her teeth, she finishes the spell and blasts the cat with an orange beam of light that bubbles its flesh with acid! Issi follows up with a spellstrike that takes the cat down!
"Have at you, then!" the serpentfolk declares as he rushes forward and stabs at Issi! She parries his blows!
Issi and Sadiki pop two of the serpentfolk's mirror images. He retaliates, trying to stab Issi again. He lands one hit.
Issi hits the serpentfolk, while Sadiki's fire burns away his last mirror image. "I will not run," the wounded being snarls. "I will fight and die like a proper zyss, unlike my master Salathiss. He has gone so deep into his role, he's forgotten how disgusting you all are. He thinks he's actually Asanda!" He stabs Issi twice.
Issi impales the serpentfolk with the burning blade. He hisses and coughs up blood. "I hope... you slay... that obsessed traitor!" he gasps, then slumps on the end of the sword. The magus kicks him off onto the floor, where he lies still.
The bronze door toe the east is barred from the other side. The doors are too well-made, and the bar too thick, to open the doors from this side.
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Issi scowls but refrains from kicking the doors and makes a circling motion to her sister.
"Looks like we'll have to go around." She says softly. "So Asanda is actually a serpentfolk called Salathiss, but he's gone native? Weird. Do we just finish him off or take him to the Chime Ringers? Guess it depends if the real Asanda is still alive."
"Yeah, let's see if we can get him to talk first!" Sadiki says.
You circle around the side halls to get to the barred-off room. This room is home to a sedate party of around a dozen people. They stand dressed in fine clothing or sit on the benches lining the walls. Their low conversations make a soft susurrus throughout the room. In the middle of the floor is a cheetah hide rug, matted with a thick green liquid.
Magistrate-Mayor Asanda, or at least the serpentfolk disguised as him, stands amid the crowd, talking softly and laughing. Obviously out of place is a hulking, thick-scaled serpentfolk hanging out in a corner.
Salathiss regards you with a cool look. "I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t have an invitation, I’ll have to ask you to leave my manor right this moment."
The man nods. "Yes, of course. It is my responsibility to help people wiht my authority." He pauses, shakes his head, then stands up taller. "Not. My authority is only good for exerting domination over others! I am busy here, as you can see. Leave this place."
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"You'd like that wouldn't you Salathiss?" Issi counters, not moving an inch. "For anyone who knows your secret to just walk away and not bother you. Have you not noticed how your house is collapsing? The people already think you're mad. How much authority will a Magistrate-Mayor have when no-one listens to you? It will be dispelled, along with all your delusions of grandeur!"
Hopefully her sister picks up on Issi's particular choice of words!
The crowd does not react to the growing confrontation. They continue with their low murmurs of conversation. It would seem that they are illusory.
"Salathiss? Who is Salathiss? I am Asanda," the man insists. His demeanor change suddenly again. "How dare you oppose me in my own home? You will not leave this place alive!"
Salathiss surounds himself wit ha swirling cloak of colors. The granite-scaled serpentfolk moves in to attack with its longspear, missing twice!
As Issi slices into the granitescale serpentfolk, Sadiki calls on some guidance and shouts at Salathiss. "So, who are you? Asanda or Salathiss? Mayor or infiltrator, hero or villain? Can you even tell the difference anymore?"
Issi's foe strikes back with its spear. It hits, then rattles the base of the spear in an attempt to demoralize the sisters!
Salathiss shakes off his confusion and targets Sadiki with a phantasmal killer!
Sadiki grits her teeth as the spell assaults her mind, but she resists the worst of it. Issi lands another hit on the granitescale.
Sadiki lays hands on her sister to heal her, then she preys on Salathiss's confusion more, leaving him unable to do much but stagger behind cover. The granitescale lands a crtiical hit on Issi!
Sadiki's efforts falter a bit this time as Salathiss gets control of himself. The granitescale stabs Issi once as Salathiss batters Sadiki with magic missiles.
Sadiki resumes her appeals to Salathiss's two personalities as Issi cuts down the grantiescale with a critical hit!
With a final push, Sadiki makes Salathiss crack! Unable to separate himself from Asanda, the serpentfolk falls to his knees and becomes unresponsive. He puts up not struggle as you take him into custody.
The other serpentfolk in the manor flee when they see you have taken their commander into custody. In an adjoining office, you find a locked journal that Salathiss has the key for. The journal contains several diagrams and notes about an artifact called the Vesicant Egg that he has beeen studying. Salathiss first assumed it to be some unusual type of snake egg, hoping that it might somehow hold the key to resurrecting the serpentfolk’s dead god Ydersius, but Salathiss soon realized that it’s an insect egg. As the egg is entirely immune to damage, Salathiss assumes it’s an artifact of some kind, and thus might be of use once he learns more about it.
The journal describes Salathiss’s technique of infiltrating the school through the unused storage area, in which he’d placed a few guardians, and using passwall to enter the laboratory where the egg is stored late at night--Koride Ulawa's laboratory!. Salathiss proudly notes that no one on campus, not even Koride, has figured out why he was there; he notes “The fool doesn’t even realize the power she has access to, and she keeps it as a bauble.” Nevertheless, some “meddling students” recently blundered into the storage rooms and dispatched his guardians, putting the Vesicant Egg out of Salathiss’s reach for now.
In the second half of the journal, Salathiss writes on what he understands about Nantambu’s governance from talking to Magistrate-Mayor Asanda and reading his papers. Salathiss’s ambitions are plainly growing. He seems to be studying these to emerge as the ruler of Nantambu instead of hiding in the mansion. Salathiss calls this his “greatest role” and speaks of the power he will wield.
The other adjoining room holds the real Magistrate-Mayor Asanda, who was being held prisoner and interrogated to help Salathiss deepen his deception. Asanda thanks you for the rescue and takes stock of the state of his manor. "It’s not every day that one has to get help to kick themselves out of their house! It has been a harrowing time. Thanks to you, those times are over. Or, they may be just beginning, since I doubt my captor was very effective at actually connecting with and helping the people of Nantambu while impersonating me.”
Asanda sighs. “But that was yesterday. Today, my first order of business is to restore people’s faith in me. My second is to have actual laborers repair this place."
Asanda asks you to keep the details of the serpentfolk infiltration a secret; there’s no telling what sort of paranoia and suspicion the news might unleash. He’s willing to shoulder the burden of people thinking he was unresponsive and lax in his duties but doesn’t want to risk citywide panic by letting them know how close serpentfolk came to infiltrating Nantambu’s government. Asanda encourages you to share the truth with anyone they choose at the Magaambya—the faculty there, in particular, understand discretion.
Asanda leverages his connections to reward you with two items affiliated with the Magaambya and Nantambu: a suit of leopard’s armor and a warcaller’s chime of refuge. He has these items delivered to the Spire Dormitory within a few days after you rescue him, along with several fine chocolates on an elegant silver tray worth 150 gp.