As Fondo and Charlie further ingratiate themselves with the little girl they notice something unnerving. This appears to be the same little girl who delivered your Harrow cards a few hours ago.
She's much dirtier now, but just as quiet and the face and hair are a definite match. She had a smart little dress and not the rags she now wears, but it certainly seems like her.
She giggles a little as Charlie touches her foot and heals her injuries and smiles more broadly at Fondo. When Fondo describes Esmira though, her eyes cloud up with fear and she looks toward the Gaedren and the alligator still swimming lazily below you. "She was punished."
Fondo looks at the alligator, a stunned look on his face. "Punished? Tell me, little one, did... Did Lamm feed her to the alligator?" His face takes on a deadly cast as he looks over to Lamm's limp body.
"Kids who are punished come down here and don't come back." She blinks and hides behind Fondo away from the alligator.
Fondo gives the little girl's face a gentle caress as he feigns a soft look. "Charlie, please take the little one here out of the room." He stands, walks over to Lamm, and picks him up by the collar. "Wake up, you wretch."
Nikolay begins to process everything he's heard.
"We need to see what is in that creature's stomach."
Barael watches the little girl, with a confused look on his face, and waits to speak until she's just outside a calculated earshot.
"How does Zellara's runner end up here, chained, the night we all gather together? Did Zellara know how to find Lamm because of the girl? If the girl found the need to return to Lamm after turning traitor, she's a stronger soul than I."
Barael looks down at the beast. "You don't think... if we slit its belly, that we'd find something more damning against Lamm?" Father, what have you led me into this night? I have a pocket full of questions, not a handful of answers.
"OK sweetie, we gotta go. It's about to get messy and gross in here."Hey, make sure you are able to retrieve the 'gator before you drop it. It's heavy and the water's deep I bet." With that Charlie leaves through the other exit out of here, whatever that is.
The alligator is not caged, it is swimming around under the fishery just 4 or 5 feet down to the waterline. It seems clear that if you attack it, it will be able to come up into this area and fight back based on its lunges toward the girl when she was hanging. The water is not too deep, you're right up against the shoreline.
The only entrance/exit is the way you came in. Charlie, as you exit, you hear a lot more noise in the city than is typical at this time of night (~1:30ish AM). As you're right at the waterline and under the fishery, you're getting a lot of echo so you can't really pinpoint anything in particular, but something is clearly going on.
an updated map just for the halibut.
Overhearing the conversation, Briar stops his incomplete search of the bedroom and returns. Briar re-readies his bow, anxious to make use if it if it would lead to answers.
"There might be more clues in the bedroom. Lots of stuff still to check out in there."
"We're going to kill that thing, eh?"
Briar aims at the alligator, waiting for the all clear.
Sure. Kill the alligator to check its insides for clues when there is a room unsearched over there. Makes perfect sense.
Fondo shakes Lamm as he positions the man in such a manner as if to feed him to the alligator. Rage has fractured his normally suave demeanor.
Gaedren remains passed out, the damage he has suffered at the parties hands keeps him safe from further questioning. Smelling salts or healing is required for further conversation.
Although if you shake him hard enough, he will start bleeding again. Poor old man.
My good friend, would you be so kind as to wake up this devil, so that he can feel justice sink its teeth into him?" Fondo has evidently forgotten that others may have their own reasons to question Lamm.
"Wait, are we killing him now? I thought we were waiting. Someone make my mind up, will you?" Dandi is perfectly fine with feeding Gaedren to the alligator. Or blowing him up, or whatever.
"Why don't we wait for Lamm to come to, with the alli still alive, and Lamm dangling above? Once we have more flavorful answers, we can finish of the beast for whatever lies in its belly." Barael walks back to the room he hasn't seen, encouraged by Briar to take a further look.
Barael will try Lamm's keys on the rusted lock on the strong box, and look over the hat box as well.
Briar will climb to M23 and watch the chaos and keep his bow at the ready.
These people lack teamwork. It is still a strange menagerie.
Barael will try Lamm's keys on the rusted lock on the strong box, and look over the hat box as well.
One of Gaedrens keys easily fits the lock and opens the strongbox revealing its contents. You fid a wide variety of objects carefully wrapped and packed. Gaedren's personal stash. You take a moment to sift through the contents while a drama plays out in the room outside. You are alone in the room.
The treasures include a narrow teak cigar case with bits of jade (35gp), a three pound gold ingot bearing the Cheliax coat of arms (150gp), a miniature gold crown (350gp), a fist sized scrimshaw carving of a kraken with garnets (300gp), a silver ring bearing an inscription For Emmah - the light in my nights (225gp), a highly realistic and scandalous ivory figurine of two entwined succubi (450gp), a masterwork dagger, an abolone-shell holy symbol of Shelyn (500gp), and finally a spectacularly bejeweled broach with a broken clasp (2,400gp).
Also, a flask of some kind of oil and an obsidian wand.
"Why don't we wait for Lamm to come to, with the alli still alive, and Lamm dangling above? Once we have more flavorful answers, we can finish of the beast for whatever lies in its belly."
"Okay. Let's make use of the alligator before we gut it."
"So, now that we have a moment of quiet, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Charlie. Gaedren in there has a price on my head for asking the wrong woman on a date and wrecking a very profitable deal that he was working on. I've been on the run ever since. What's your name and I'd like to hear your story, too if you would honor me with your telling of it."
AC 12 (10 +2 leather)
CMD 10
HP = 9
The spells/day listed will include the casting (if any) that I made this round
Orisons DC:14 (Create Water, Mending, Purify Food and Drink, Stabilize, Mage Hand, Ghost Sound)
First Level: DC:15 (1/4 per day) (Bless, Shield of Faith, Cure Light)
Oracle Revelation: Eldritch Bolt this casting will make it 6/7 times per day.
Sociable Trait 2/4 rounds per day
Weapon equipped = Biting wit
Shield equipped =OMG please don't hurt me
"Hi Charlie. I'm Laura." Clearly a bit quiet, and still overwhelmed by all that's happened in the last half hour - it takes some prodding on your part to get more. I presume you prod gently, and she spurts out the following, all in a rush.
"I used to live in the orphanage on Waydon Street in Old Korvosa until I started working for Mr. Lamm." she says the name with some reverence likely born of fear. "I've been working here for most of a year now, and I'd almost earned my freedom when I dropped a barrel of fish and it broke open and got punishment."
She begins to tear up with the memory. "I've been hanging on that chain for a day." Her big eyes look up at you as a tear steams down her face, "Thank you for saving me."
She grows very quiet and introspective. She fidgets a little under your gaze and looks into the water.
"Questions, Barael? Aye, you have the right. What would you ask? Have any of you smelling salts?"
"It's nice to meet you Laura. First of all neither you nor I are strong enough to be handling a whole barrel of fish. You did nothing wrong. You were given a task that you were not suited for. And to let you in on a secret, Gaedren Lamm would not have let you earn your freedom. His style is to keep you this far <makes the international 'this close' symbol with his fingers> from freedom until you break. You were very brave trying to stand up to him like that!"
"Now, I have a question for you. You look very much like a little girl who brought me a card yesterday. Was that you? Or do you have a twin sister?"
AC 12 (10 +2 leather)
CMD 10
HP = 9
The spells/day listed will include the casting (if any) that I made this round
Orisons DC:14 (Create Water, Mending, Purify Food and Drink, Stabilize, Mage Hand, Ghost Sound)
First Level: DC:15 (1/4 per day) (Bless, Shield of Faith, Cure Light)
Oracle Revelation: Eldritch Bolt this casting will make it 6/7 times per day.
Sociable Trait2[/b]/4 rounds per day
Weapon equipped = Biting wit
Shield equipped =OMG please don't hurt me
"No, I have no sister. I told you, I've been here all day." She looks at Charlie like he's being silly.
"Can someone check outside? I think something major is going on. I have one curative spell left and I am really not excited on Mr.-Beats-Children-for-a-Living"
Is Laura lying?
Barael takes the contents of the locked box, and tries as best he can to stuff his backpack gently with the stash. Surveying the room a second time, he leaves it.
He keeps the backpack open, and begins to show the contents to those immediately outside the room. "There's wealth here. Wealth I gather has never been personally introduced to the orphans living in this filth." Barael holds up the ring, and reads the inscription out loud. "Says here, 'For Emmah, the light of my nights'. Anyone know who Emmah might be? Maybe someone Lamm cares for, and would be more forthcoming in our talks should he want her to come to no trouble."
He tosses the ring to Fondo. "I have no salts."
"As for questions, I have two. Why did he have to kill poor ole Cantinas to cover Lamm's act of murder? And, will he speak truth to the matter so that I might be absolved of the unjust accusation?" It is only right that I ask Gaedren. It is only right that he answer me.
Oh, wait... there was something else Briar mentioned. A hatbox...
Barael returns to the room, and opens the hatbox.
Charlie - she seems to be truthful (nice roll!) and her injuries do support her story as far as you can tell.
Barael - it seems unlikely that Gaedren will tell the truth. From all you've collectively experienced, he lies as easily as breathing and he trains his servants to lie almost as well.
Briar continues to watch and wait to see what happens.
Barael returns to the room, and opens the hatbox.
While the party discusses Gaedren's future and presses small girls for information, you quietly return to the darkened room. You wave off the flies, and carefully lift the lid of the box.
The hatbox contains the severed head of Zellara - poorly preserved and deteriorated caked in unsightly makeup in a crude attempt to give her sagging flesh the semblance of life. It is clear she has been dead for days, maybe weeks. Her harrow deck lies scattered around in the muck at the bottom of the box.
The makeup and the fact that it's so close to the bed leaves you with a worrying impression of Gaedren Lamm.
"Barael, a man can trust a scorpion to do one thing—sting. This vermin fed my sister to his dragon. I mean to do the same."
Fondo positions himself in a squat, to lift the man's limp form. He begins to heave... Then he relaxes and lets the old man slump to the ground. He slides down next to Lamm, letting out a sob, murmuring, "Esmira, forgive me. I cannot kill... Cold blood..."
Barael reemerges from the room, pale, even for him. Close inspection reveals that his hands are trembling slightly, while bracing the sides of a hatbox. Barael is doing his best to stare at each member of the gang, to not return his gaze to the box.
"Friends, I must call you friends before the end of this night's blackness, we have a... development." Barael looks torn. He was eager to show the contents of his backpack, but this. He looks so... guilty, for offering the hatbox to anyone who dares to look.
(to avoid throwing up)
"Zellara's head... dead for days, when we seen her hours ago."
Take 20=20, to locate the Locksmith amongst the Harrow cards.
Barael puts the box down, and starts to put his armor back on. The activity, the steps it takes to rearmor, calms him a bit.
"I'm afraid you may be right, Fondo. Lamm is no human. Our chance for answers is shadow, nothing more."
Barael finds the Locksmith card. Though dripping with ichor, it certainly looks like the same card, with the same art and design, as the one you held so recently.
Nikolay examines the head of Zellara and also looks for his card, the peacock.
"I am at a loss to describe tonight's events."
Let's see. How about, "Yes, captain. The harrower's ghost and the spirit of this little girl, who is still alive, but missing a bit of her foot directed us to this place where we attempted to ascertain the truth of the matter. Knowing this place to be abandoned, we entered to check on who was operating illegally out of the building. A fight ensued during which we knocked out a little boy and and a half-orc. Proof? We have the head of the harrower in this box and the maimed little girl. As soon as we gut the alligator, I'm sure we will have more proof of Lamm's crimes."
Doesn't sound too bad...
"As much as I'd like to feed Lamm to the alligator, we should bring him to the guard. There is enough evidence here that he should hang from the gallows before the week is over."
Yes, it would be a Knowledge, religion sorry. And yes, you do find the peacock card among the deck. It looks very much as you remember it. Well, this one is covered in blood and other gore, but yeah, it's the same card.
Briar nearly falls off his perch as Barael reveals the head. He knows some about magic, but nothing that could explain this.
"What?! Are you sure it's her?!" Briar asks as he moves to go look for himself.
Briar examines the head with cold dis-passion, but eventually believes the authenticity of it.
"Maybe after we visit here, we should go back and see Zellara again. She might be a twin, indeed."
Curiouser and stranger.
Religion
Fondo stands up, shaken, and walks over to the hat box. Shaking, his expression turns to black pudding. In a thin voice, he says, "She was a ghost. We saw a ghost..." He fumbles through the hat box and finds the Rabbit. Then he gathers the other cards. He gently tries to take the remaining cards from the others, and (assuming they agree) begins laying them out in the traditional sequence, as best he can remember.
"The cards shall determine his fate. Zellara would... Let Desna judge him."
Dandi peers around Briar to look in the box. It only takes a moment, and that is a moment too long. She swallows hard and steps back.
"It sure looks like her."I knew he was evil, I TOLD them he was evil, but do they listen? Maybe they'll believe me now.
She pulls deeper into her coat and step away from the others. Such nice people, those. With their faith in guards and doing what's right.
"I hope for our sake the cards tell you something, Fondo, and quickly." Barael obsesses over his armor, cinching here, adjusting there, for it keeps his eyes there.
"All of a sudden, I don't want to be here anymore. Like Nik, I'm unable to assemble the pieces. We have three witnesses to our little visit tonight tied up upstairs. If they are at all loyal, the Guard will hear 4 voices against our 6. Well, 7, if the little girl will speak with us." Unlikely she'll be able to. I don't think I can bring myself to speak about what I've seen tonight.
Barael starts to write with his finger in the air, erases some incomplete thought with the heel of his palm, finally resting his hand against his forehead. "I have a headache." Barael moves to the dock door, to put an eye on Charlie, and looks back to Briar. "Do you think we'll be lucky enough to find the fortune teller's shop occupied? If we leave her... head, here, someone will likely find it, and pay a visit to the shop in our wake." Did I really eat bread from a ghost?? Did I hold a phantom card, or was it as real as this one? "Fondo, when you're done with the cards, I'd... like mine, I mean the one with the Lock... I'd like it back."
Fondo mutters, "The set cannot be broken. It is not done." He places the cards nervously. After each one he absently rubs his left thumb and index finger together, coating them in the viscous gore that coated them.
Fondo shuffles the deck a few times, wiping the worst of the gore off the cards as he does so. Even with that, it's a gruesome reading.
You know that harrow readings are usually done in three rows of three cards. Some of the cards are the past and some the future. However you're not really sure how it all works. You also know that a properly tuned deck can answer a question with just one card. Hoping you can make sense of a single card you try that and draw one from the top (after a thorough shuffling of course).
Hand painted images decorate this harrow deck, the frames gilt in silver so that under the lighting they sparkle and flash. Despite the worn condition of the card backs, the images on the faces are so vibrant they seem to move when viewed out of the corner of the eye. The deck iteslf handles with surprising ease, almost shuffling itself.
You draw The Empty Throne. It is a charisma card which, in a harrowing, more broadly symbolizes love, family, and politics. This specific card represents those who are gone, or a ghost of the past that has taught important lessons.
You almost feel as if the cards yearn to say more, but cannot without a skilled harrower.
Fondo looks up at each of his new companions, gazing into each of their eyes. "Empty... The cards tell me this: there is no throne, no crown, no law—to stand judge over this man. It is for us to judge. To make him pay. To stop him. Together."
Looking back down, he quietly gathers the cards back into a sticky pile. Taking off a scarf, he ties the deck together. "We must kill him, and ensure that his lackeys are scattered to the winds."
"there is no throne, no crown, no law—to stand judge over this man."
Nikolay listens and hears nothing but truth in the words. He has known it for some time, but to hear another speak it is all revealing.
I thought I could work within the system. I thought I could rise above it with my arcane and martial knowledge combined. And, I will, but not within.
Nikolay collects his peacock card and moves to Lamm.
"I have no more questions for him. He has nothing to offer me anymore. If any of you have questions, let us revive him and be done with this. If not, we can be done even more quickly."
Briar shrugs back at Barael.
"Barrel, not sure what to believe. Right now, I think she had a twin and she lied to us about her son, thinking it would be more poignant and emotional to get us to do this. I don't mind the ruse...I would have done this either way. I've been looking for Lamm for a while. I have some answers. Like Nik, I wish to wake him up and give him one chance to come fully clean. From there, I don't care what happens to him."
Briar goes back to leaning on his short is and trying not to think about the contents of the hatbox and where it was found.
"She said she had lost her family Harrow Deck a year ago. She never said directly that she reclaimed it, only that she consulted the Harrow." Barael continues to scribble the air. "She also said that she couldn't hope to face Gaedren. She couldn't, could she, if she were already dead..." Barael's speech is peppered with smacking, his mouth run dry, understanding all too well that this is the first murder to which he will truly be party. Aroden, grant me a sweatless brow.
"Nikolay has no questions. Fondo has no questions. I, Barael, have no questions." Barael doesn't seem to gather that his voice is mimicking the tone of a bailiff. "Briar, I hope you are not frustrated further by anything Lamm chooses to say once woken. What say you, Charlie? I think you're the only one here to help us speak to Lamm one last time."
Cressida, this isn't your code. It's my code, newly born from need, and I intend to keep it and foster it. To those who would wrong me and mine, teeth and venom. To those who would protect and defend me and mine, my life and my loyalty.
"I have nothing to ask this old coot. Although I think killing him is what he wants, it's what I want, too. I am a little worried about all the commotion going on topside. It's very noisy for the wee hours of the morning."
"Briar, I don't have the ability to revive him and I believe Charlie doesn't want to waste his remaining magic on him. Do you really need to hear more of his lies? If not, Charlie, please escort Laura outside; she has seen enough already in her short life. It will also give you the chance to check on the commotion."
Nikolay moves to Lamm, draws his dagger, and waits for Laura to be led from the room.
Briar shrugs his shoulders.
"I will find my answers another way then."
Having already said her piece, Dandi finds a corner where she can keep an eye on Lamm and the alligator.
"Well then... We should all have a hand, as we all have grievance. Our judgment, our hand."
Fondo stands, draws a dagger, and goes to Lamm's slumped form. Once Laura has left the room, he plunges the dagger into the monster's abdomen. He then walks over to Nikolay, holding out the dagger. "The throne is empty. Let its subjects have their say."