Still the 8th of Growth
It’s still pouring when we emerge from Pythoness House, triumphant, carrying the chests that hold the chaos weapons we’ve so long sought. Two human men are waiting for us outside the house, plus a halfling and three tusked brutes — one with green and purple mottled skin. It’s Durg and his gang, the ones who beat up on Charnoth!
One of the men has some sort of hypnotic birds on leads — they manage to paralyze me. Then Archinemus and Diethan come racing up and lay into our foes with fireballs and arrows. Not long after I come out of my trance, I go down under Durg’s big meaty fists. So do Tharn and Calista! This is looking bad, but in the end, Diethan shoots him with a magic arrow and he explodes! As we bandage ourselves up, we note that Durg is beginning to regenerate, so we burn up all his “pieces.” That was nasty work.
As we leave, we hear the Cobbledman cry, “STAAAAAAYYYY!” (Barbatos’ love potion sure did a number on that creature.) We return to our shop and determine that the chests we got from the house are trapped. That’s something for tomorrow. We’re exhausted.
9th of Growth
Last night Diethan checked out the Swordthrower’s Club, the place in the Nobles’ Quarter where Durg’s boss, Korben the Keeper, likes to hang out. A guard there stopped him and Lunes (his wolf) from getting a really good look at the place, though.
Also of interest: Rill appears magically to Calista today to tell her she scried on Shilukar’s lair and saw thirty-five bugbears and gnolls being rallied by the two demon-gnolls. With Shilukar living the good life in Castle Shard, there’s apparently no one keeping these creatures under control.
10th of Growth
Last night Diethan learned that some weird mutated goblins were showing up around Delver’s Hole (they could climb like spiders and had many eyes). More of Shilukar’s experiments, we presume.
We try to open the Pythoness chests today using magic. Calista uses her magic to suppress the traps and open two of the chests. We find bastard swords and a runic skull and a scroll, and pouches of dust. Everyone goes all ga-ga over the stuff, but it doesn’t seem as great as my trusty axe, if you ask me. I go check in at the Delver’s Guild.
11th of Growth
We try again to open the other three chests. This time we discover a longsword, a spear, and a rod with a golden skull topper. Taevel helps us out by identifying the anti-law magical qualities of our new items.
We also consult with two architects (Tullen Stonestep and Noonien Chad) regarding building a second story onto the shop. Just as we feared, the cost is far too steep for our meager reserves. At least for now.
12th of Growth
A human adventurer with dragon pistols enters the shop today. Apparently, he watched approvingly last week as we mopped up Killraven’s agents, but today he chastises us for angering both the Killraven Crime League and the Balacazars’ vampire pals. This fellow’s name is Mavoy Landsmith. He says that Linele’s demon-possessed pocketwatch allows the vampires to be out in the sun during the day and adds that, as we suspected, Korben “The Keeper” Trollone is Killraven’s man (as is the witch Volius, the one with the big raven). Mavoy urges us to keep our wits about us when we’re out and about. Perhaps if we focus some effort Killraven’s way, we can keep the Balacazars off our backs for a while; they might be willing to overlook our past “indiscretions” and even lend a hand in a small way if we make a strike on their rivals. Volius is a bigger fish than Korben, Mavoy says. If we want to contact the Balacazars, we can always do so at a tavern called the Onyx Spider. Good to know, though I have to admit I’m a little uncomfortable with the complexities of existing within a city where so much is run by these two crime groups.
We decide that we want to deal with Korben, in payback for his man attacking Charnoth, but it will have to wait till we’ve found Doctor Feegus and freed his litorian slaves destined to become Prajdall.
13th of Growth
Today we hire Lon Mantlemor and Ander Kellin to work at the shop part time to give Taevel and Seanus some well-earned time off. Meanwhile, we rest and spend a couple days getting back to feeling normal again.
14th of Growth
Today we are staking out the warehouse we saw Nerlene enter with her Shuul knight — this is the place where Diethan and Calista saw a secret door open up in the roadway to admit them following the attack on them in the street. Diethan sees more Shuul knights enter the area, give a knock, and gain admittance through a door that lowers them down beneath street level.
Meanwhile, I am in the middle of crafting a new adventuring tool: a mirror on a little extension arm to help us see around chimneys and things. The Shuul aren’t the only ones who can invent useful tools!
15th of Growth
Today at the Delver’s Guild Library and Maproom I research the underlevels around this Shuul warehouse. It seems that this area contains extensive Old City ruins. I manage to find an access point a block or two off via the sewers. That should get us there.
While Tharn was casing out the warehouse today, he saw Nerlene and a couple Shuul knights emerge from the secret platform. He also spies a skulking figure knock and enter through other doors.
On his watch, Archinemus spots a figure on a rooftop across the street. It seems to be watching… him! Archinemus sees this figure climb down later on, grow birdlike wings, turn black like a raven, and fly away. Great.
16th of Growth
Today Calista sends Nerlene a note asking to meet with her on the pretense of discussing the sale of Shuul healing pills. She comes back from sending the note with a new purchase: a map to an undercity wizard’s lair. As if we don’t have enough going on! Still, Calista usually has her reasons.
While I’m at work at my Delver’s Guild job, the wizard Jatarran Tayzor agrees to let us sell the wands he makes on commission at the shop. This evening I spend some time trying to piece together the story of my ancestors, the Hu-Charad of Ar-Nampur, a fortress north of the city.
17th of Growth
Nerlene replies to Calista’s message, saying she’ll stop by this afternoon, so we give the staff the afternoon off. The Shuul scientist enters with one Shuul knight to protect her and leaves one outside our front door. She seems suspicious today, wondering why Diethan and Calista just happened to be there on the street when demons attacked her. She ’fesses up that Killraven sent some people to tell her that we meant her people ill. Great.
But my friends have golden tongues. Nerlene believes it when Calista and Diethan protest their innocence and gives them contact information for a guy we can talk to about buying pills and other products for resale. As she leaves, she still seems slightly suspicious, so Tharn suggests we wait a little longer before we move on their warehouse and seek the captive litorians.
So later in the day we decide to check out a Midtown address we found on one of Durg’s slain pals. A guy dressed as an old lady answers the door and immediately seems to know who we are. We deem this suspicious, so we knock him out and make our way inside. Upstairs we find lots of weapons and trunks.
When the “old lady” guy wakes up, he says his name is Kershid, and he works for Killraven. Calista reads his mind and learns that he knows Korben Trollone but does not know where he is. He says Korben’s a fortyish man with brown hair who really likes animals and monsters — that’s why they call him Korben “the Keeper.” Trollone is into thieving rings, prostitution, and so forth in the South Market.
So we’ve stumbled upon a Killraven safe house here. Kershid says he personally works for Celdore Silverwood in Dark Leaf, an elven criminal network. He suggests we visit Celdore at Iridithil’s Home, an elven refuge here in Midtown. Celdore can help us find Korben. We agree to let the frightened Kershid go if he agrees to leave town immediately.
It’s not far to Iridithil’s Home from here, so we head over right away. The guard, Aefin, seems very snooty, but then I never really did understand elves too well. After some coaxing from Calista, Aefin agrees to take us to Celdore. As we pass through the compound, we see ornately polished wooden buildings, beautiful gardens, and graceful statues. This elven quarter certainly doesn’t look much like the rest of Midtown!
Celdore meets us at a tavern on the grounds; he is a Shoal elf with a long scar running down his face. He calls himself a “businessman” but seems to know enough about who we are (WHY do these criminal types all know us?) to say that Korben will not rest till he’s had his revenge on us for killing his pal Durg.
Celdore can’t seem to believe that this whole thing started simply over us refusing to pay Killraven protection money, but that’s all we can figure. He says Dark Leaf is willing to broker peace for us as a “neutral” third party.
Strangely, he recognizes me as one of the Hu-Charad. Maybe I can talk to him more sometime about these ancestral people of mine. I definitely need to remember that.
