We are under house arrest for killing Hondal, while Captain Darren searches for evidence. We decide it is definitely time to get going. Towards the end of the day, we are told we are free.
The painting today is Vorest, as she was for Captain Darren's party.
We go to the address we found yesterday. There are cultists here, which we take out quickly, though Vorest gets pretty badly hurt. We search upstairs and find a letter addressed to us. We bring it to Captain Darren's to open it up. Maybe it'll have evidence - it's for sure from Hondal.
Vandederp opens it and it says:
Then the letter explodes.
Captain Darren is annoyed. We are annoyed. Barnaby runs in and announces that his troops are being attacked by zombies, where they are burying Crymson Starr.
Vorest summons war horses so we can keep up to Barnaby. We get to the grave yard and see 14 zombies overtaking the guards that stayed. We beat the zombies and the guards say that some zombies took Crymson's corpse off with them.
We follow the zombies and catch up to them, as well as some cultists. We beat them and then burnt Crymson and the zombies. After this we start tracking the cultist that ran off during the fight. We follow the trail back to the city, where we lose it.
We go to Captain Darren, where everything has gone crazy. Apparently Lord Thadeus was attacked by zombies at the temple of Ilmater, where he was saved by Hondal.
While talking about how weird the zombies behaved, we walked to the temple. We wonder around and then walk through the market and find Gwyneth. She mentions that she has gotten on with "Master Kensingley," and that he has shown her the "way" and insists on bringing us to meet him.
She brings us to a nice house. She acts like this is her house. She runs off to another room and shuts the door behind her. She comes back and beckons us on. The room is big, and there are balconies and doors.
And we see Gwyneth casting a spell and Hondal shouting down.
Well. Damn.
We manage to beat them, but Hondal has escaped. Again. Vondal is going mad trying to find secret passages. Vorest says that he could have possibly gone in the stone floor with a spell.
We wait, and Hondal eventually comes out of the ground. We beat him up, and Vondal mentions that Vorest should try Moonbeam on him. She does, her last spell, and he bubbles and burns to a crisp. We worriedly told Captain Darren. He searched Hondal's house and found dead people and an altar to Loviatar, and, eventually, thanked us.
We go ad check out Hondal's soup kitchen (instead of his orphanage). We see that a dozen or so beggars, all varieties of people. There appears to be a halfling in charge. Vandederp speaks up and Miriah, the halfling, suggests going to the back to be put to work. Vandederp also introduces us. I stay out front and help serve - the others go to the back. They tell me after that they are put to work by Guy, and that he says Hondal spends quite a lot of money on food to help them. Miriah and I serve all the people. I ask about Hondal, and she says that he is really good at getting donations. I ask if she knows anything about the orphanage and she mentions it is just "over there." He seems to care about the poor. He has even gotten some of the meaner lords to donate. After everyone leaves, I realize that Miriah looks worried. She mentions there are normally more people and that she was hoping to see Gwyneth, a girl who was having troubles at home. I offer to ask after her - a human with raven hair, white skin, and a birth mark on her temple. She likes to hang out around the market.
We decide to head to the market. We don't find her, but we do find someone wearing a Loviatar symbol. Vondal tracked him to a house. He comes back to us, and tells us about the house. We go back to get armour and such, and then return to the house. Vondal listens at the door and then opens it up. We follow him in. We are attacked by some cultists. One of them has another address on them.
We update Captain Darren on our adventures, and head back to the inn.
We go to the salon to get fancied up. It is very weird. Vandederp gets polished up. Vondal gets braids done. Vorest gets her hair done to look wild, like her hair is branches. I get my horns buffed and a simple elegant updo.
A carriage comes for us and we head to the nice part of town. The houses are HUGE. Captain Darren meets us outside. He brings us inside and he is announced. Captain Darren whispers to the page, and then we are announced, as the heroes of Kelethoen.
We are greeted by a lanky fellow who seems happy, and surprised, to see Captain Darren. His name is Thadeus Stormshield. His eyes catch my attention, they are lilac coloured. Captain seems quite at ease with him. We go around and meet many other people - Lady Gwendoline and her son Renwick Starsong, Pikesworn, Jebeto Often, who is a gnome, Barion Elfdonus, who is a high elf, Judge Donald Olearson, Lady Millicent Greytower, Magus Aleria, another high elf, Abbot Warren Traderson, who worships Waukeen. There are many, many more - and I don't remember them. I am not one to remember so many people in such a short amount of time!
We eat and chit chat with those who will. Captain Darren leaves and asks us to behave - I believe we are doing well! Thadeus comes back with Hondal - who acts like he does not know us. He mentions that he's opened a soup kitchen and we, innocently, of course!, ask if we could help. It is located on Summerslee Way. After a while Hondal re-approaches without witness, and points out that we haven't done anything to hurt his operations in Kelethoen, and saunters away again.
Captain Darren comes back and asks how our evening is going and is surprised to hear that Hondal is *the* Hondal. He asks that we have evidence before we make a move, as he is favoured by many in the upper classes of Kelethoen.
The night gets later, and eventually we head back to the inn.
We take Crymson's corpse to Captain Darren's. He thanks us and takes Crymson. As we go to make our leave, he speaks up, awkwardly - he is clearly having a very hard time saying whatever it is he wishes to say. Eventually, he asks us to come to a soirée, a birthday party as it were, where he could also present us as heroes of Kelethoen to the other lords.
We accept, and after getting some recommendations, we head out to go shopping. We make appointments at a salon to get cleaned up. We also manage to find some fancier clothes and we sell some things to Cedric (he really does appear everywhere!). We also manage to find some fancy looking swords, because the guys didn't want to be completely weaponless.
We wake. We go to the building in the center, it's a large warehouse. Everything is boarded up. We walk around and see the other archer from before, but he also sees us, and ducks into an alley. We follow him. We see him drink a potion and jump in the sewer. I chase him, and he is stupid fast. I follow until he goes up and then I return to tell the others where he ended up going.
Vondal heads up and into a dark warehouse. That gets bright quick. The archer had run up a rope ladder in the center, onto a floating floor. Crymson is also there, and stood with a bottle of thick red potion.
We are in trouble. We fight and manage to kill everyone, except one scout, when Crymson screamed bloody murder and vanished through her magic doorway.
They had been well prepared for us. There were scouts and thugs everywhere and they were ready to kill us from a distance. There was eve a point when a demon was conjured (though Vondederp did really quick work of him). I think he was a fiery gorilla - all I saw was he was red.
We took the scout prisoner. We need to talk to Captain Darren about this. While we were looking around we also found a scroll, to create an abysmal tear, I think, and it sounds like we did a lot of the dirty work - basically there need to be 10 people killed on 10 nights in specific places, "annointed" - like we did today. Below us a strange red, cold "fire ball" appears.
We go see Captain Darren and talk about the scrolls and what we saw. He mentions that there were circles at the other sites in the map star. We choose a site on the star and head there. We heal up and set up for a fight.
Crymson comes this night - and we manage to interrupt her spell. She brings up a three armed mouth nightmare, but we still manage to beat them. We rest for the remainder of the night.
We let Captain Darren know his problem has been dealt with. He says we'll join Barnaby's team in their raid on a warehouse, coordinating at 2 in the afternoon.
We arrive at the warehouse. Barnaby sends the other 4 to the back, and we enter the front.
The people inside try to destroy something by fire, which I stop. We beat everyone up and save the papers, which look like they are detailing their slave trade operations.
We go back to Captain Darren's and he marks up the map a bit more. There are locations they were told to look for Crymson. The dots look like a star, as Vondal pointed out. Captain Darren asks if we can check out the middle buildings tomorrow.
We head back to the inn, when we are attacked by 6 thugs. While fighting them, Crymson brings an air elemental to the party. I go to chase her, and she jumps to different roofs. The others destroy her elemental and she runs through a magical door.
AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!
We return to the inn to rest.
We go to the guardhouse and we are greeted by ALL the guards. We are warned by them about the Captain. He was attacked by the lady in red at his home during the night. Her name is Crymson Starr. She's been here for months. She's been in the Warehouse District. We probably ran into her a few times. She has a couple jobs going - but freed her men, including Paldo Daggerfell. Captain asks us to take him out, discretely if possible, at the Lucky Badger - a frequent haunt.
We set up an ambush location and I got on the roof to look out, and watch the inn. When he comes out, with guards, I manage to lure them into our trap. We manage to beat them, but I was quite hurt. That's quite frustrating!
Then we hid the bodies in the sewer and tidied up a bit. Vorest let the rats know there was some fresh food.
And then we went home for the night.
After lunch (because of all the excitement early this morning!), we head to Captain Darren's office. We see Boris in the main office. He shoves us into the captain's office.
He hasn't had a chance to really interrogate the prisoners, but they were close-mouthed on the way to jail. He asks us to join him in an attempt to get some information.
We head down to the cells. Everyone looks angry. Captain Darren says that they were just like this last night. He asks a bunch of questions and it's like talking to a wall.
We suggest talking to the oil covered guy. He mentions that he can't say her name, though he would like our protection. We hear a huge *CRACK* while talking about how he needs out. It's in the other room. I stay with the prisoner, while everyone runs off.
The wall in the cell I'm in vanishes. I rush in between the oily fellow and the missing wall. Through it I can see Captain Darren and Vondal. There's a stone elemental being controlled by a lady in a red cloak. The elemental goes to attack Vandederp. We beat the elemental and the lady runs off and jumps in the sewer. Vandederp jumps down but he can't tell where she went. He comes back up. We head back to Captain Darren and he mentions that there have been reports of a person with a red cloak - in the market, in the warehouse district, just all over.
We say we're going to try the sewers. Captain Darren wishes us well, and beware.
We go into the sewers and Vorest leads, but we get lost and then are attacked by gross looking people.
We exit the sewers and head back to the inn, defeated.
We fine tune our plan. Vorest plans to hide inside the warehouse. I will take out the roof guard and Vondal and Vanderderp go through the doors.
We nap and get ready to go.
We head in a bit after midnight, and there is no guard. There is a guy tied up, in oil, in the center of the room. Once the guys break down the doors, guys come out from different buildings, archers and thugs. The archers have flame arrows, which I snuff before we go to start fighting. We manage to beat them, and they are dragged into the building, as I run off to get the captain.
We return and all the people are tied up. We explain what happened and Vorest pipes up that 3 guys carried in the pre-tied up guy. He fought and they smacked him, and poured oil on him. The tied up guy had screamed for forgiveness.
Captain Darren comments on a new thieves guild. He takes them and invites us to talk tomorrow.
We return to the inn for what's left of the night.
Go and talk to Captain Darren about the orcs and if there are any plans in regards to the 5th of Mirtul. Barnaby is manning the front desk and trying to deal with an upset farm hand. Barnaby shoos us into the back to the Captain. We let him know that the orcs were dead. He is concerned with the amount of orcs around.
Then he pulls out the letter and says that he has no ideas. And asks if we can help him. We say sure.
We go back to the inn and argue the best way to scout it out. We decide that Vorest should change into a mouse and check it out. Vorest heads out and we sit and wait.
After a while, she heads back and tells us: There's and apothecary on one side and an animal feed store on the other. Across Weasel there are two story tenements. There is a guard on the roof, he is a high elf. Behind the warehouse there is a crate hiding the symbol from the note. There are doors on the front and back and a hatch on the roof. The warehouse is VERY empty.
We spend the rest of the day planning.
We go to Captain Darren's office. Gilbert hasn't shown up for work. Captain Darren asks us to join him on a walk to Gilbert's house. We arrive at his house, and asks us to guard the back. I go up to watch from the roof. Vondederp and Vondal are asked to open the door. Captain Darren goes in and upstairs, and finds Gilbert stabbed in the chest, with a curved dagger. Gilbert has no tattoo.
We head back to Captain Darren's office. He asks us for help on the 5th of Mirtul, as well as help with the orcs, right away.
We get Lilac, and head out.
In the evening, we are greeted by a bunch of orcs. We destroy them, but they did hurt us. We stop for the night.
We are heading through town and Guntor runs up to us. He says that there will be slavers coming at midnight. We decide to inform Captain Darren, with Vondal and Guntor grumbling. Vondal told Gilbert that we would stop the slavers after they got in the city.
We set up near the gate. Some thugs have appeared. Slavers come and we attack. The thugs and guards join the fight with the slavers, so we also fight them - but make sure to just knock them out.
After the fight, more guards join and get the captain. The captain claims to not have known, even though we had told Gilbert.
Captain Darren was disturbed. There are a lot of curved dagger tattoos on the slavers, and some of the guards. He asks us to come by at 9am to help him speak with Gilbert.
Good guards, Jeremiah and Roderick show us a note:
Guntor goes to the Sleeping Goblin for the night. We go to our normal inn.
See Captain Darren. Talk to Gilbert. Let him know about the banshee. Still wants us to go south. Vandederp finds out there are trolls and he walks off - and seems extra eager for a fight. He mumbles something about dead parents and tries to hurry us up.
We get to the farm that Gilbert mentioned, and there had been a fight. And big feet prints. Vandederp immediately starts tracking. We find them, trolls, and Vandederp charges. Damn! We manage to beat them with fire eventually - they regenerate. Farmer thanks us with lunch. We return to town. We let the guards know that we got the trolls and that fire was an excellent way to fight them. We head to the inn to rest and bathe (trolls are stinky!).
We go and see Captain Darren to see if we can help with any problems. His secretary, Gilbert, mentions a couple problem areas outside of town. One sounds like it could possibly be Hondal, so we tell him that we'll look into that one.
We head north, outside of town.
We go to see Stefan. He took the book he requested and bought one of the other ones that we had retrieved. We speak for a while on what he was able to find in a quick search:
Basically, monks and their monasteries aren't always as old as we think they are. And that my monastery being about 700 years old coincides with a large order of stone, bricks and timber for Im Monastery 720 years ago. It would make sense if the migrated a few years previous, and "opened" after they finished building. There is no mention (that he found) to indicate why they immigrated, though there were mentions that they were fearful - sounding like they were refugees of some sort.
He wondered if I had any idea why they may have come here, and I feel this is a question I will need to ask my masters, as I had been under the impression they had admired the eastern religions and had copied them.
He also mentioned that our monastery is the only one that concerns itself with elemental disciplines. He was also very surprised that there were not more tieflings in Im. I did not think that we were unusual in our ways - they way we learn feels just as common as the other ways, which we are introduced to as we learn.
What else have my elders hidden from me? Does my being a tiefling help with my abilities with the elements? I do know I can manipulate fire decently well...
He continued on, speaking of Asmodeus.
Asmodeus is the overlord of the Nine Hells. He is the most powerful of the Arch-Devils, ruling over the others, with an iron fist. As commonly known, someone made a pact with Asmodeus, and created tieflings. Some say that he can see through tieflings eyes - which sounds crazy.
He asked if I know anything about my family, but really, all I know is that they dropped me off at Im.
Asmodeus is tricky and evil, and his pacts tend to be bent to his benefit. But there are other ways to deal with Arch-Devils - each devil has a talisman, with which you can command them to preform a task. With an Arch-Devil, you also need their true name. Stefan has found 7 times when Asmodeus has been summoned - 4 of those, the summoners were slaughtered.
2 of them manged to hold him for minutes while he performed the task, and successfully banished him.
The last might be more myth than fact, but it is said that someone held him for 10 years. They were in the far east, in the islands of Wa. It is said that he used Asmodeus's oath against him, somehow. And there is no mention of Asmodeus's task.
This is said to happen 750 years ago or so.
And it doesn't mention the pact that creates tieflings. Or does it? Did it only take minutes to create a tiefling line? Or does this have to do with the 10 years spent with Asmodeus? Or are we older than the histories he could find?
I came here based on information that seemed too coincidental, at the suggestion of my elders. But what did they think I would find here? Did they hope that I would not find anything, or did they want me to find this information? Do they have more information that they were not willing to share with me? Or have they lost the information, and are hoping that I will be able to find it? I have so many questions, it is hard to put them in words.
And Stefan is also pretty confident that it is a link between Asmodeus and the elemental discipline, instead of ki. I have much to think on.
After we find some stable to have Lilac stored for a bit. We go and talk to Captain Darren to see what they might be able to tell us about problems relating to Loviatar. He is unhappy to hear that we are the reason that Hondal is free in the world (as are we). He does let us know where the last suspect attack was though.
We head to the house listed, and find a scourge tip, so it seems likely, but there is nothing else.
We decide to walk around and see if we can "find trouble" to maybe lure out Hondal.
We find Cedric. Does that count as trouble? He has an uncanny ability to find us.
We continue, and someone groans in an alley. We check him out and are attacked. It was a set-up, by were-rats. We dealt with them, and kept walking.
We started getting followed by thieves. We let them corner us, and manage to catch two of them, and Vondal questioned them.
They suggested going down to Southden, Badger and around the Pale Unicorn. We turned them in, and headed back to the house for the night.
We go to the Captain's office and are told the bugs are called Ankhegs. Apparently, they burrow and will multiply to numbers enough to destroy towns. And Captain Darren mentioned that if we needed work, he could probably help us out. The wizard that figured out what the heads were, is named Zhartan.
We asked if there was a library in town, and Gilbert said that we should try Stefan Lightseeker, the sage might be good to see.
So we head over to Stefan's, and he says that my research subject is intriguing, and he'll help me find information, if I can get him a book from an Olencamp Ruins in the mountains.
Of course, we say "Sounds good" and head out, with a new helper, Lilac, the donkey.
The book we seek is Treaty on Planetars by Teatron.
We walk back and make it a long day, because we know it's "just over there." We meet Barnaby at the gate again, and he brings us to the Captain's house. He sees the heads and asks that they get brought to his office so that his wizard can maybe tell us all what we've been fighting. He then recommends an inn, "The Jumping Giant." After giving Barnaby the vials, we head to the inn for some food and sleep. This is a nice inn - I feel it is above my station to be staying here, but you stay with your group.
We continued walking and run into that salesman we saved before. Vanderderp bought a bedroll and Vondal nearly blew his top - but instead bopped Vandederp on the head. I will never understand them. We also bought a bag of holding. I suspect that will be rather handy if we continue on our trips!
We got to the gates and the guards don't believe our stories or that the other guards said we should go in and speak of the bug monsters, but they do bring us to the guard captain. It feels typical to be marched through town like guards - I wish people weren't scared of me, I don't want to hurt them.
This place is so BIG! There are so many people and alleys and even garbage! And then we get to a square and there are more roads and they are huge, and crowded. And I am already lost - if there wasn't so much new stuff I would believe that we had walked in circles. We arrive at a stone building with a statue of Tyr in front. We enter, and go to the back and enter an office with the Captain and a clerk (Gilbert). The guards leave, and we speak to Captain Darren about the giant ground bugs, as Orrig, Sylvia and Jereth have asked us to. The captain says that Jereth is actually distant family, so he hears us out - and asks if we would be willing to hunt them down. Of course Vondal and Vandederp jumped at the opportunity. So after we stock up our rations, we head back out of town. Barnaby, the guard we met when we entered, mentioned that if these bugs were real, his cousin would like to study the stomach juices, and handed us some vials. We head out to night and set up camp.
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