MAL Ep. 13

In session 13, the party may finally have encountered the elusive Harasket, and has certainly learned more information about the conspiracy they face, though large questions remain.

1) First, the party tied up loose ends in Mendham Wood. Aler, after discussions with the young ranger Brand, sent a letter to Iscariot suggesting an alliance with the Elemental Druids against Chavalk and the League of Snakes. Zadkiel agreed to talk to the Temple of Altaris about the same matter. Adriel had a brief encounter with a unicorn, and the party unanimously voted to let Bay stay with the party.

2) Next the party had an uneventful trip back to Hastenport. Seven informed them by crystal ball that she had learned why Lady Overton was so desperate to get a public confession from Dayant Arakin: she and the draconic guildmaster Aldrayeth had had a big argument about the wisdom and ethics of sending the paladins to attack Arakin, and Overton wanted to prove she had been right to do so. Vanessa passed the party during the night and stopped to say hello to Aler, warning him that the Illithids had joined the League of Snakes. The party knows little about Illithids; they are barely known at all in the gameworld, but Vanessa explained to Aler that they have fearsome mental powers which are difficult to protect oneself against.

3) Returning to Hastenport, the party talked to Kit (who mentioned that she had started signing her graffiti with Khirg's name instead of her own to stay out of trouble with the police!) and Barris Wainwright (who said no progress had been made on his or Morgana's curses, but that he was headed uptown because he had heard there was a public confession going on at the City Hall.)

4) The party found a large crowd gathered around a pale, dark-haired woman with crows' wings who was definitely not the same vampire you fought in Arakin tower. She confessed under a truth spell to killing two Ducal guards who she claimed had abused her in jail, and then vanished without a trace--something that bewildered the magic-users in attendance since a field suppressing necromantic magic was active. It would have been possible for a necromancer to vanish like that by just passing through the Veil (you saw Barken disappear with similar immediacy earlier,) but not with an anti-necromantic shield active. A planar gate would have taken time to cast and presumably been noticed by the many high-level spellcasters in attendance. Aler immediately activated True Seeing, and did not see anything invisible in the area. The question of where the winged woman went remains a mystery for now.

As does the question of her identity. The paladins aver this is indeed the same woman they fought in Arakin Tower, but your party is sure it was NOT the same woman YOU fought in Arakin tower. She did not look the same and did not have the same scent (Red has the nagging feeling she has smelled the winged woman's scent somewhere once before, but only in passing, and was not able to remember where.) Theories were discussed, including one woman being the vampiric spawn of the other, one being a vampire and the other a mortal necromancer, and the two being the same woman who has been shapeshifting or using deceptive spells.

5) Captain Black and Detective Noyar discussed the vampire's escape with you. Black clearly blames the whole thing on Lady Overton. She confirmed that the two Ducal guards she confessed to killing, Tavarius and Hansur, were in fact found dead in their beds, apparently from heart attacks. The party was allowed access to the dead men's apartments, where they did not smell the scent of either woman. Detective Noyar pointed out that the woman at the confession scene introduced herself by saying "They *call* me Dayant Arakin," not "I *am* Dayant Arakin."

6) Jon visited Jen's brothel and Ruby's bar, setting up appointments for that evening. He also learned from Ruby the name of a bar in the Docks district whose proprietor might be able to tell Jon more about the dockworker's strike.

7) Zadkiel conferred with Sister Astilla about how the Temple of Altaris might join forces with the Elemental Druids and Iscariot to fight the threat from Chavalk.

8) Adriel visited a retired knight from the Order of the Dragon who she met during the IYDIYD events. His name is Cartaso (yes, I had to look it up. Good way to remember a super minor NPC from a year ago, Scott!) He was very cooperative but didn't know too much about recent events in the Order, which he retired from ten years ago. He had not heard of the attack on Mendham Wood; the only attack by Threndix he had heard about in the past decade was an attack on a dwarven village that was collaborating with extraplanars, and didn't know many details about that, either. He has a clearly friendly attitude towards Adriel at this point, though.

9) The party went to the Paladin's Guild, learning that the head paladin, Coranis, had been killed in action during the mission to capture Dayant Arakin (or whoever the winged woman is.) Note that Coranis was the paladin you spoke to earlier, who expressed strong misgivings against moving against Arakin or both practical and ethical grounds, but after cogent arguments from Jon and Red, agreed to speak with Lady Overton about it. The next thing you heard, it was a fait accompli. The new head paladin, Sir Jeddas, is very angry about Coranis' death and Arakin's escape; he is an avid Tallianite who considers necromancy a blight on the realm.

10) When the party returned to Seven's house, the aspiring photojournalist shared with them a picture she had taken of the winged woman on the dais and the research she had just done showing that vampires don't show up in any scrying spell or device; thus, the woman on the dais could not be a vampire. Aler confirmed that the woman you guys fought in the tower was definitely a vampire; Red also corroborated this with having been bitten and life-drained by her, and the party additionally noted that they had seen her turn into mist and escape. Also, the paladins described the winged woman as fighting them aggressively with a fiery bow, while the woman you fought hung back, let bone demons fight the party, bit a couple of people and then left, despite being nearly uninjured. The group concluded they must be two different women, although which of them is actually Dayant Arakin remains unknown. Seven additionally pointed out in the photograph that Arakin appeared significantly physically beaten up, although Black had said she appeared well the previous day.

12) The party went to see the Mayor, who had sent a page to fetch Jon. They told him about the events in Mendham Wood and their concerns about the two Dayant Arakins, then showed him the handwriting match between Petros and Harasket and asked if they could see Petros in jail. The Mayor commissioned Bay as a "handwriting analysis expert" and sent you to accompany her to prison to get a writing sample from Petros and coincidentally ask him questions while you were there.

13) The party finally spoke to Petros for the first time since his arrest. A Ducal guard was present for the entire visit and took notes of the exchange (Jon decided against using magic to wipe his notes afterwards, as this might be traced back to him.) Petros shared a lot of information with the party, some of which (like Dayant Arakin's identity) they had already learned from other sources.

Salient points:
 * He denied ever being in Tell's house or being involved in his murder.
 * Jon's sense motive suggests he is truthful, though it's not 100% accurate obviously.
 * He identified Aldrayeth as a silver dragon.
 * He described Threndix as "known for occasional acts of ruthlessness, but more often minds his own business"; known among dragonkind as a prophet.
 * He also mentioned the destroyed dwarven village and suggested the party could ask Ruby about it.
 * He said there was an Eyeman named Holden in the Third Eye in Asture, though it isn't necessarily the same one from Dayant's letter.
 * The party realized there was nothing in the letter to suggest the intended recipient was in Hastenport, which may be why Seven, Jen, and the Mayor had all never heard of him.

14) The party went to the Docks district. They visited the Temple of Sesharet and spoke to a priestess named Tala; Jon made an appointment for 1:30 the following afternoon to meet with the High Priest, Ander. Then Jon and Aler went to a sailor bar to talk to Terence, who Ruby had recommended as a good source. Terence and a drinking sailor explained tensions among the sailors, the striking dockworkers, and the orc scab labor. Terence also told Jon that there was a strange green glow coming from one of the warehouses at night, and the sailors were saying it was haunted.
 * He denied writing the Harasket letters, and pointed out that he had sent no correspondences from prison except those vetted and delivered by the guards.
 * The ducal guard confirmed this. He found it peculiar that anyone would forge a document from him and then sign another name to it.
 * "If they were trying to frame me with a forgery, wouldn't they have signed MY name to it?"
 * He said Dayant Arakin had had dealing with the Mages' Guild.

15) The party received a charmingly misspelled note from Kit, warning them of "DANJER" and an "EMBUSH IN THE WARHOUSE." The group warily staked out the warehouse and began carefully vetting all the neighboring buildings and vantage points.

16) Zadkiel was summoned to the Mage's Guild to meet with Lady Aldrayeth. Adriel, who tried to accompany him, was blown off and told she was not invited. Aldrayeth was actually relatively cordial to Zadkiel, wanting to know what he knew of Dayant Arakin and especially Petros' case. She identified herself as a friend of Petros who she felt was being railroaded. Zadkiel was honest with her, but confronted her about the report that she had dealings with Arakin. She confirmed this, and affirmed that she considered necromancy a valid school of magic and the attack on Arakin's tower a political overreach, but also stated that she did not know Arakin personally and did not know which of the two women is really Dayant, nor does she have any information about whether either or both of them were supporting Chavalk. She confirmed that the negative material sphere was being held at the Mages' Guild, and suggested that if the party went to investigate the tower, she would be most interested in hearing anything pertinant they found. Zadkiel also asked her about Threndix, which she dismissed as unrelated to the Chavalk situation, finding all the connections Zadkiel tried to draw as meaninglessly circumstantial. She seemed unconcerned with the possibility of Threndix burning down a forest, saying that firedrakes are "well-known for violent rampage" and that Threndix, if anything, was far more reasoned and restrained than most of his kind, only burning something down "every few years or so." She confirmed that he was the only ancient red dragon in the immediate vicinity, and added that "everything Threndix does is done with an eye to the prophecies. He doesn't care much for individual lives. If murdering a few innocent civilians would make a disastrous prophecy less likely to come about in the future, he'd lose no sleep over it. His interventions have saved this realm more than once, but lately his prophetic strikes have been more... personal. Threndix has foreseen his death, and seeks to avert it. More than that is not my place to tell you, but I see NO possibility he is working with Chavalk. At most, he has prioritized other matters over actively opposing Chavalk, but never working with him."

17) Jon went to his meeting with Jen at the brothel. After some chit-chat about the escaped vampire and the dockworker's strike, Jen told him that 1) the discontented complaints the party heard during the demon scare in the market square are all real concerns held by some of the townfolk (losing faith in the Mayor, distrusting the Duke, feeling Petros has been set up, feeling that the authorities are blindly protecting a killer priest.) But also 2) that a shipwright from the Docks district told one of the girls that the guy who started in yelling those things in the market square was one of the acolytes of Sesharet.

18) The rest of party kept cautiously observing the warehouse. Half-orc workers were continuing to enter and exit the building. The party observed a priest of Sesharet enter the building and never saw him come back out. Red turned into a bird and managed to get through the shutter unseen, observing the rather ordinary-looking inside of the warehouse. There was no sign of the priest, only some half-orcs. As darkness fell, the faint green glow the bartender had mentioned began to suffuse the warehouse. Red was unable to use Spellcraft to learn more about it, and the party did not have a good way of sneaking Seela into the building to check.

19) Then Kit arrived in the Docks, having been sent by Karna to inquire whether the party would be sleeping at the house tonight. She asked where Jon was and became very upset when told he went to see Jen. "Didn't you get my note? THERE'S AN AMBUSH IN THE WHOREHOUSE!"

20) Jon was incapacitated by a succubus, who wrapped her tail around his neck and began pulling information out of his mind ("Geez, this guy's brain is made of Swiss cheese!") After some poking and prodding, she got the information about the events in Mendham Wood, Jendarion, and Shyra out of him. Jen said to "dispose of him" as she had matters to attend to at the Docks, and started to leave.

21) Red, in the form of a homing pigeon, got to the brothel first and tried to attack the succubus, but was slammed back ten feet by an unexpectedly powerful punch from the madam. The succubus pulled a knife on Jon's throat and told Red to "back off or the bard gets it," then told Jen to open a planar gate.

22) Bay, hasted, arrived on the scene while Jen was spellcasting and used her chaos powers to weaken the succubus' knife, causing it to come apart when she applied pressure on it, and yelled to Red to grab Jon before the succubus could take him through the portal with her. Red succeeded at wresting the paralyzed bard away from the demoness and her broken knife. Aler, arriving next, dived through the window and attempted to grapple Jen, but she threw him off easily and the two women departed through the planar gate, leaving Jon behind.

23) With Jon revived, the party investigated the brothel and found Jen tied up in her office alongside the body of her bouncer Bruno, whose skull had been crushed. Jen had no explanation for why Bruno was killed and she was left alive. She described her assailant as a "tall, red-haired man, elven or part-elven, dressed in black leather with buckles all over it," and that he tied her up and cut off a piece of her hair but didn't otherwise harm her. Isolating scent trails didn't prove effective in the busy brothel, but Aler noticed a peculiar discrepancy in the footprints of the Jen who had fought the party upstairs and the Jen who had been walking around in the office-- the two pairs of footprints seem to be aligned backwards from each other. Jon also noticed that although Jen claimed the attacker never spoke to her, the upstairs Jen knew details about previous conversations Jen had had with Jon.

24) While Adriel went for the police, Kit arrived at the brothel, awkwardly expressing concern for Jon and explaining that she had overheard some of the orcs talking by pretending she didn't speak Orcish, and one of them asked where some guy named "Hasker or something" went, and the other one said he went to a whorehouse to ambush a bard, so she thought she'd better warn Jon just in case. Zadkiel asked if the guy could have been named "Harasket," and Kit said "Yeah, I think that was it."

25) The guards arrived and took over the investigation, while the party went back to the warehouse, having asked Captain Black to meet them there. They warned her about their concerns about shapeshifters and/or Jen's trustworthiness, and Zadkiel remembered that Black had been asking the guards to search Fletcher's wagon for human hair after Hector's murder. Black explained that a clump of hair seemed to have been ripped out of Hector's head, perhaps as in a fight, and she had been looking for evidence. The party wondered this could be related to the fact that the man cut off a piece of Jen's hair. Captain Black informed the party that Tad Hector has been resurrected and is recuperating at a sanatorium uptown.

And there we left our heroes, plotting to discover what danger lies within the WAREHOUSE next time. ;-)

Game on!