Intersession Investigation Results

1) [Aler's Meeting]
Aler went to his solo meeting with Vanessa the drow alchemist at 6PM. Skenebrax and Red provided him with moral support and some special items to bring with him, and hid in the neighborhood outside to be backup in case of trouble. Depending on what Nick chooses to do, we will probably be roleplaying the interaction with Vanessa at the table at the beginning of the next session.

2) [Jon's Investigation]
At the same time, Jon went to perform a concert at Ruby's Bar and Grill, with the intention of leading revelers to Jen's brothel afterwards and doing intelligence gathering at both locations.

Working the crowd with skillfully leading questions about the cult, the shiver epidemic, and the supernatural disturbances in the city, Jon has the following five stories confided in him by townsfolk. Make of them what you will:
 * A) My brother overdosed on shiver last week. It was horrible, but we all knew he had a problem. Thank heavens for that fairy medium at Beyond The Veil, though. The priest of Fantarin was unable to use a Speak With Dead spell, but the séance reached his spirit and it really put my poor mother’s mind at rest.


 * B) People are saying the Grey Citadel is haunted. My friends moved uptown to get away from it. But I remember when this started it was just happening in the Shingles district and Stonehill Road, and now they even found some dead women all the way down by the sea. It’ll be uptown soon enough too. The mayor needs to get off the pot and solve this.


 * C) One of the barmaids at Mystic Delights was in the Brotherhood of Sholaith, and they found her in the Narrows last week, all corpse-gray like the rest. The guards called it a shiver suicide, but I find it hard to believe someone could just slice her own throat like that, ear to ear.


 * D) My cousin was in that cult and he and several of his friends disappeared without a trace two months ago. No one has any idea where they could have gone. The police won’t even investigate it, because there’s no proof he didn’t leave on his own. He’s not dead either, my aunt paid a diviner to find out. It’s just a mystery.


 * E) The butcher and his family never have nightmares. At least that's what they claim. He says it's his unshakeable faith in Tallian does the trick.

3) [Adriel and Aluon's Mission]
Meanwhile, Adriel and Aluon had succeeded at locating another member of the Order of the Dragon in Hastenport, in the Angel's Run district to the east of the Grey Citadel. His name is Cartaso and he is a retired knight, now working as a carpenter. Cartaso has no magical capabilities and knows little about any extraplanar subject, however he does keep carefully attuned to current events, and these are his relevant responses:
 * "What I'm really wondering," said Adriel, "is whether lucid dreaming might create portals to other dimensions, allowing for extraplanar entities escape-- and if so, whether there might be any way to predict when these portals would open before they do."
 * Cartaso shook his greying head. "I'm the wrong person to ask about extraplanar anything, I'm afraid. I've killed quite a few demons in my day, mind you, but I know nothing about their travels or magics, and I can't say I've ever even heard about 'lucid dreaming' before. There's a dream interpreter in the Grey Citadel... I assume you've already spoken to her?"
 * "We have," said Adriel. "I was hoping for a second opinion. How about the cult of Sholaith, do you know anything about them?"
 * "Yes, the Order of the Dragon became aware of them when they first moved here," answered the knight. "They never caused any noticeable problems, though, so they fell back off our radar. This year, though, the magistrate of the Grey Citadel seems to have become obsessed with them. Even before the nightmare plague started, he was constantly trying to get permission from the Mayor to move against them for some reason or other. They've been around here for five years, but only this year did they come to his attention somehow. The mayor has mostly been ignoring him, from what I hear."
 * "Tell us about the mayor," said Adriel. "What is his reputation? Is there any possible corruption going on here?"
 * "Not that I'm aware of. Underwood has been the mayor of Hastenport for sixteen years, and Tell has been a city magistrate for ten. There have been no particular scandals involving either that I am aware of. They're both from wealthy and well-regarded families. My impression of Underwood is that he is canny and practical, and of Tell that he is competent but perhaps not so quick-witted."
 * "And the nightmare plague you speak of?" interjected Aluon. "Is there anything you can tell us about that?"
 * "Nothing you don't already know," said Cartaso. "Its effects seem to be localized to the Grey Citadel district, and in particular, to long-term residents of that district and/or shiver addicts. The only people from Angel's Run who have succumbed to these problems have been known drug abusers. I have a friend in the town guard who was reassigned to the Grey Citadel this week, and he hasn't suffered any strange nightmares yet." He sighed, and stood up. "Well, I should really be getting home now. Wouldn't want to be late for dinner, after all. Unless there's anything else?"
 * Adriel and Aluon looked at each other. "No, I think that's all we had to ask."

4) [Later that Evening]
Later that evening, with Jon and Aler still otherwise occupied, Skenebrax decamped on his own to do something private, while Adriel and Aluon chose to accompany Red to investigate the supposedly haunted area of Stonehill Road--beginning with the abandoned tailor's shop where Red saw blood in the coffee grinder and had a vision of children's laughter and footprints inside.
 * The coffee merchant was telling the truth--all he had done to secure the yard where his coffee machines and the abandoned tailor's shop stood was closing and padlocking the gate. The iron fence was only six feet high, which was certainly no match for a Megaraptor. Red leapt over it in the darkness with a rope in her mouth, and the other two easily scrambled up it and over into the yard.
 * Aluon did not have the heightened awareness of extraplanar anomalies that Jon the bard did, but he had studied planar magics for many years, and after observing the different locations Jon had declared "thin in the Veil" over the course of the past day, he was able to identify that the same was true of this space.
 * First the three adventurers warily checked the coffee grinder where Red had seen blood earlier in the day. Neither Aluon's low-light vision nor Red's extraordinary sense of smell revealed any trace of blood there now. So they cautiously moved on to the building where Red had heard the eerie giggling of children. Under cover of darkness, the group pried open one of the windows on the side of the building where the coffee steamer stood blocking the view from the neighboring building. Successfully making it inside without any obvious alarm being raised, Red cast a Light spell and the adventurers found themselves in the main parlor of Ariana's Fashions.
 * The place had clearly been abandoned quickly, with many mannequins, dresses, and paraphernalia left behind. This was evidently a sophisticated tailory, with Adriel recognizing some of the remaining clothing and fabric as being expensive, high-class material. The shop had obviously been partially cleared out by the tailor when she left-- all the tools are gone, and the area behind the counter is empty--but just as obviously, she did not tarry to retrieve all her belongings from the shop, even though the things she left behind would have been valuable to her in setting up a new business in a new town.
 * Examining the area where Red had earlier seen the imprints of childlike footprints, there was now nothing to be seen but a thin layer of undisturbed dust. If Aluon had not seen and heard the other unusual haunt-like phenomena elsewhere in the city he might have doubted Red, but as it was, he merely remarked that the haunt visions did not seem to necessarily be replicable. As the three adventurers headed up the stairs towards the second level of the building, each of them felt a cold, shivering chill run up their spines, and they heard the echoes of a wicked, cackling laugh. Upstairs were the tailor's own quarters. Like the room below, anything of great value or specific importance to the tailor had been taken with her (no diary or magic items left behind), but the place had clearly been evacuated in a hurry and without much thoroughness. Nobody found anything of much interest on the second level, but when Adriel passed by the mirror on the wall, for an instant she thought she caught a glimpse of a dark, shadowy woman with glowing red eyes. When she looked at the mirror more closely, all she saw was her own reflection again.
 * Leaving the tailor's shop, Red suggested the group go up Stonehill road a few blocks to the also-abandoned bakery, where Captain Black told them the baker's daughter had stabbed herself to death this week. Again, Aluon was able to identify the same planar instability Jon had remarked upon in several other locations in this district. Circling the house, which had no fence around it, the group felt the same uncanny distortion of reality they had sensed examining the bloody mirror in Gravil's house; all three of them heard a long, thin scream like a girl's and an unearthly wail, and saw the momentary impression of the faint outline of a human outline pressed against the outer back wall of the bakery, which soon faded. There did not appear to be anything of interest within the house.
 * Somewhat unnerved by their unnatural experiences on Stonehill Road, the three adventurers returned to rejoin their companions.

5) [Eventually Around Midnight]
Eventually around midnight, the party reconvened to share their information and move against the cult of Sholaith.

And there (after a brief detour for Aler to meet with Vanessa) our story shall recommence.

Game on!

Laura