Session 7
We return to our party the morning after getting out of the sewers. Galron, along with Walteris, the gnome fighter we rescued, are both still bedridden by thier injuries. Ir’alle takes the time to meditate, and uses a healing spell to bring Galron back to up to strength. Still weak and a little groggy, Galron nevertheless takes the time to examine the gems we acquired. Whilst he does not recognise the large gemstone, he is able to name and evaluate the others, a carnelion, a tiger eye, a sapphire and a black hematite.
Leaving Walteris to sleep off his injuries, the party decides to run some errands. Almost as soon as we step out of the house, we see Efam waiting for us. The boy says he is here to collect Sthorm, to take him to someone who wants to see him. Agreeing, Sthorm leaves with the boy. The rest of the party head into the Cock and Bull for breakfast, and ask Elspeth for recommendations on jewelsellers in the area. We also ask her to keep an eye out for Jocassa and Em, should they come looking for us whilst we are out.
First stop is Orsabet’s, where Axel picks up his new set of banded mail, selling off his old armour. Then we visit Tylic’s in order to get his axe repaired.
We then head straight to Roland’s Gems, a little ways up West Copper Street. Roland quite happily buys the four smaller gems from us, netting us 71 gold, not too much under the estimate. The larger gem has him impressed though, and he quite honestly admits he could not afford to purchase such a thing from us. The gem is a Fire Opal, easily worth several thousand gold pieces. He points us towards Almear Trueletter, the jewellers guildmaster, who owns a shop over in the High Market, on Goldsmith Street. The idea of thousands of gold pieces has us excited, so we head back to our house to collect our lockboxes and hail a wagon to ferry us across the city.
Almear’s shop is suitably fancy, with plenty of large and expensive looking jewellry on display. We are shown in by a pair of apprentices, who upon seeing what we have to sell scurry off to fetch thier master in as dignified manner as possible. Almear, rotund and richly dressed, comes out to survey the Fire Opal, describing it as finely worked. He eventually asked if we could wait whilst we gathered some friends to give a second opinion. The apprentices run off to fetch two people, and Almear takes the time to ask us a few questions, pointing out Ir’Alle’s religion and enquiring after our adventure. The apprentices return with Methias Islot, the guild secretary, and Alvus Runnelbrook, an ancient and famous elven sage. The two take the time to survey the stone and after some time Alvus turns to us and begins to tell a tale. When he first met Baldric Evenkeel, when the now God first arrived on the island, Baldric possessed a dwarven crown, that upon the brow was mounted a large fire opal. It had been thought to been lost at sea, when Baldric’s fleet was decimated and he went missing. Alvus has no doubt that this is in fact the exact same stone. We take the time to explain how we found it, then the sage leaves, passing us a note to meet him for tea after. We begin to haggle over a price, being at first offered 9000g, but Galron is apparently too shocked by the artifact of his God in front of him that the final price is 9250g. We accept half of it in gemstones, and load up the wagon, and take finder’s credit for when Almear sells the stone to the Ark.
We leave, and join Alvus for tea across the street. Here, we tell him about our adventure in the bathhouse, discussing Baldric and devilfish, and learn about the history of the old dwarven empire and slavery. We hear that merpeople live in the bay, that had been responsible for keeping devilfish and bullywugs away from the city, but after thier king died have been at civil war. We discuss dwarven keys and automatons. After a short while, Alvus thanks us for filling gaps in his knowledge, and asks we pass on any more knowledge we may discover.
The party heads back to Cock and Bull, whereupon we see a bit of a commotion outside. A crowd has gathered around Jocassa and Em, who are stood with thier families and widowed spouse of David and Kaitlyn. They offer us a small sack of silver as a reward for rescuing the two girls, which we politely decline. Bran, Kaitlyn’s husband, is frustrated however, angry at the fact that we thoughtlessly rescued the girls, when they city guard did nothing but call his wife a prostitute. In this time, Ir’Alle spies a shadowy Greycloak within the crowd and tries to calm him. Whilst we unload and hide our new riches, Ir’Alle takes the group into the inn and buys them a meal. He asks Elspeth if she knows much about the greycloak, and asks that she informs him if the guard is seen around again. Sitting down, the group seems nervous but thankful, used to a little more squalor up in Newtown. We take the time to question Jocassa and Em about how they got captured, learning that they were all abducted whilst they fished in the canal before work. David seems to have been a similar case, as he occasionally worked along the canal. They don’t remember how they got below ground, probably due to being knocked out, but there is a number of sewer entrances along the canal. We learn that people go missing in the area for a large number of reasons, since Newtown is a rough place. We try to reassure them that things will look up for them soon.
We then discuss the Empire, as just the previous year, privateers had been attacking on it’s behalf.
Offered the money again, we turn it down, and Thorfus even adds two gold to the bag, which is then given to Moratel, David’s widow. After this, we escort them back to Newgate.
We drop in on Desric to enquire about trainers in the area. For Axel and Thorfus, he reccommends four different warriors, and we take the address of Jabir, a dwarf. He points Ir’Alle towards the House of the Brotherhood and Galron to the city’s large cathedral. As there is still daylight, all but Galron head off to thier respective trainers.
Ir’Alle takes another wagon down to the House, arriving during the End of Day ceremony. He joins in, and at the end, approaches the leading cleric, Father Aleya. The Father already trains several initiates, but asks Father Qais to take on the task, and they agree to begin in the next day after morning prayers. He decides to stay with for dinner, honoured in getting to sit at the top table, and discusses is faith with the priests there.
Meanwhile, the two dwarves find Jabir’s home with a little difficulty, as Quill Street is unmarked and somewhere off of the main road, near the paper bazaar. Jabir, an older dwarf with a finely braided beard, answers, and takes us through into his yard. Watching us display our skills against a practice dummy, he agrees to begin training us the next day.
We then return to the Inn, and head into our townhouse, where we find Walteris awake. After explaining where we are, and the fate of Ermengarda, he decides to remain for one more night to finish resting.
Later that night, we are all awoken by loud knocking on our door. Looking out of the window, Axel sees a large group of cloaked men waiting for us. With caution, we talk through the door, unwilling to trust the men, even though they announce themselves as city guard and are merely here to escort us to someone for a chat. Eventually, we gear up and cautiously exit the house, still refusing to go with them as they lack sanction or a letter to say why they are here in the middle of the night. The leader, Captain Oslin orders Elspeth brought out to vouch for them, scaring her. Apologising, we reluctantly allow them to take us by cart to Thornton Manor.
We reach the large manor, and after handing over our weapons, we head into the kitchen, were we meet Lord Thornton. He seems to be rather well informed, possesing files on all of us, and asks us a number of questions about our involvement with Jocassa and Em and our adventure. We point out the deficiences in the guards of the city, and whilst we admits he lacks the manpower to ensure the sewers are swept clean, he agrees to talk the guards in Newtown after thier treatment of Bran. He tell us that the Devilfish have been causing a lot of problems. Of note was a recent attack on a small fishing boat, after killing the fisherman’s family, they left him with a message.
“Thank the Storm that blew in at the Cock and Bull for your good fortune. Lysander does not forget those who serve him.”
Lord Thornton wonders if this in connected to our friend Sthorm. He then says that if we are looking to help, he has several things that need looking into. First of course, is to talk to the fisherman. He also suggestst that we look into Magistrate Arden Grell’s ghost troubles. Whatever we do, he urges us to act carefully, as tomorrow we will be known as heroes.
With that, we return home, and spend the next week training.
