The search for the real Vhalantru
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Event 1 - Reaching Sasserine
The party returns from Occipitus and their plane shift spell sends them into the vicinity of Sasserine. Being the major city in the Cauldron region, it offers a wealth of opportunities to adventurers just returning from planar travels with a big treasure bag to boot.
Near town they meet a farmer from the Cauldron environs, who recognizes the group from earlier deeds and briefs them about the most recent news.
Event 2 - Looking for a tavern
They hear about or experience some of the taverns (I actually used Delvesdeep's write up about Sasserine, available from therpgenius.com, which contains a lot of very neat ideas for memorable taverns) and may chose their inn freely. Steering them to a particular one is also an option. (Deep Sleep would fit very nicely)
Event 3 - Gather information
The PCs recognize that Navalant has been seen in the city. They track down the place where he stayed and learn about his motives for coming. It helps if they have already heard about rumors of Vhalantru running the Cauldron show or about the fact that Navalant has been missing in Cauldron for some days / weeks. It strikes them as strange, that he did seem to travel alone and it has obviously NOT been a business trip.
Event 4 - Investigations and visits
The party learns that Navalant just left a few days ago presumably going back to Cauldron. He had visited the Winking Eye on several occasions and stayed at the Deep Sleep instead of the Golden Giant, where he would spend the nights if he were here on Cauldron business. It beomes clear that he was trying to look into the history of a noble that had moved from Sasserine to Cauldron and is now part of the council.
Event 5 - Retracing Navalant's steps
The party learns that Navalant has been doing research on the Vhalantru family. They are told (or find out in libraries) that an old mansion has been deserted for more than 15 years. According to some people who saw Navalant on the day he left, he seemed to have succeeded in what he was trying to do and left deliberately. (In reality, Mhad, the vampire, who had already been contacted by Lady Rhiavadi about the upcoming meeting, had been visiting the "Deep Sleep" proprietors and realized that Navalant was on to something. She dominated him and sent him back to Cauldron, right into his doom, to Vhalantru's doorstep)
Event 6 - Beholder assassin
The party should be encouraged to search the old Vhalantru mansion (if necessary, by NPC tips) and find a long abandoned 2 story mansion with a roof trapdoor and finger thick dust inside. They are bound to stumble across a living room with signs of a battle and a blood stain (aged 15 years) on a door. When they make it down into the basement, they find the Gouger, trapped in the basement (he got down there after using a polymorph potion) and still waiting to kill Orbius, which he was sent to do. They also find the skeletal remains of a long dead person (the murdered real Vhalantru), dead since 16 years.
The advent of that assassin prompted Orbius to make a quick run for Cauldron in disguise of Vhalantru instead of covering up the murder and preparing properly.
That's so far as we've played already, further events (and details about the events so far) will come during the next week.
Comments and tips about the current sequence are certainly appreciated.
Cheers,
Nib
