Meet 12, Adv 9, 3/5/22

Asher stretched and looked around, rubbing his eyes and frowning. “I have a feeling I missed something,” he said, eyes haunted. “What the hell happened? Are we in danger? I have the feeling that we’re in danger.”

“Stop being such a pussy,” Connal grumbled, scooping up a bit of spilled ham from his plate and popping it in his mouth. “Everything’s fucking fine.” He chuckled, “I’d even say excellent.”

Dizzy laughed as well. “Sure, in a way.”

Odilienne was idly playing on her recorder, fingers dancing up and down the instrument. Grygmiir lifted his tankard up, took a drink, and lowered it again. “We have ourselves sort of on the outskirts of things, and the right thing is to see it to its end.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the elven Tyrian smoothed his hand through his hair and sighed. “Just feel that something horrible is coming.”

Thon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s just sum up the last two days,” he muttered, breath coming breezily between his tusks. “Sort of lay it all out there.”

The bald dwarf nodded. “Regale us, Brother,” he said with a smile.

“And make it fucking interesting, do you mind? I haven’t punched something in the face in a day or two,” Connal groused, making a fist and kissing the back of it, “And it’s making me grouchy.”

“Grouchy? You? Does a goblin smell?” Gryg chuckled.

“Rather mouthy for the new guy,” the monastic replied.

“I’ve been here for 2 years, you know.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

Thon held his hand up. “Asher,” he began.

“Captain Asher,” Dizzy corrected softy.

“Sorry. Captain Asher. If you remember, we left the McGovern Warehouse and moved Dogsbody to our house.”

“Got it,” he replied slowly, looking around. “Shhh.”

“Sorry.” Thon tried to pitch his voice lower and continued, “Anyway, he bathed in the basement after explaining the concept of soap to Odi.” The Halfling smiled, giving a thumbs up and sniffing her armpit. The half-orc continued, “At that point, Dizzy sent a message coded to Phaiyr Carom that we have Dogsbody and asked if we should bring him to the Adventurer's Guild.”

“Is that when we went on the great parsley quest?” Dizzy asked.

“Not yet, we slept and in the morning we IMMEDIATELY SPLIT THE PARTY.”

“Always a good plan,” Gryg agreed.

“Not a Plan B set it on fire sort of plan,” Connal shrugged, “But as far as plans go, it was pretty fucking good.” He pointed to the Half-orc and the bald dwarf, “Thon and Dizzy went to meet Phayir Carom after not getting a response. And Dogsbody stayed at the home and started cleaning.”

“Had to make him earn his keep,” Dizzy noted.

“He didn’t have to,” Asher suggested.

“Yeah, but this way it got done and we didn’t have to do it.” He tapped the table with his forefinger. “I swear, the murderous ranger and his crapping wolf left a stink in the woodwork of the floorboards that I can still scent now and again.”

“Didn’t Sybil offer to clean it up?” Thon asked.

“Didn’t Sybil disappear as soon as it was feasible that she’d have to clean up partially tamed liquefied wolf droppings off the floor?”

The party laughed and then Thon continued. “Gryg, Asher, Odi, and Connell went to the docks to set up a meeting with Moon. And Connell bought 20 lbs of Rainbow Trout.”

“Needed a cover, you know?” The Monastic gave a lopsided grin. “And fish sounded good. Plus I’m pretty sure I had an odd amount of coin and this was an opportunity to straighten out my fucking money pouch.”

 “We reconnected at the house,” Thon resumed his narrative, “and gave Dogsbody the fish to prepare for some sort of stew or soup.”

“Parsley,” Dizzy muttered.

“Yah, getting to it. And he requested some ingredients as we went to the main Sif Temple in the second ring. We spoke to the Abbess…”

“Cala,” both Connal and Dizzy supplied, “Abbess Cala.”

“Yah. That one. Abbess Cala who asked us to talk to and maybe halt Hraltrek's operation.”

“That’s the guy in the note who had the hit against my brother and his group,” Odie supplied.

“Yah. And funny thing, the Abbess was using terms similar to the Thieves Guild in that we were acting as her hands in this manner.”

Connal nodded, eyes staring far away. “So we went to the fucking Sifian Outreach Temple and met with Hreatrek.”

Asher gave a slight cough. “Not a very imposing fellow.”

“Nope, opportunistic prick in my mind.”

Thon pointed to Dizzy, “He Zone of Truth'd him and had him spill all the beans. Moon and Granmund ARE the same person. He is collecting magic artifacts in an act against Grimyria.”

Asher sighed. “We’ve had to deal with him before. Outside and upriver a bit, old fort. Giant Ice frogs.”

Gryg looked up, “Really? Sorry I missed that.”

“Not sure you ever came to anything before,” Dizzy noted. “You need to put yourself out there. Be more like Shimlagesh. That gnome shows up everywhere.”

Thon was rubbing his chin in thought. “Hraetrek is running his own startup Thieves Guild, working with funding from Grimyria against Moon. We had a chance for some private talk and Dizzy made a deal with this guy. He will move Dogsbody, without any of us telling him or letting him know who he is, out of the City, put a cancellation on the contract, and tell Virdrid the gnome that the kill order is off. In exchange we give him the locker key.”

“Can we trust all this to happen?” Asher asked.

“Guilds are based on deals and reputations. He’ll honor it. Wrinkle is that Virdrid has a safehouse in the city no one knows about. The hiccup is that Virdrid may still want to fulfill the contract - as a Sifian, an unfinished job is completely unacceptable.”

“I mean, my god, everyone knows that!” Connal thumped the table and coughed. “You take a job, you finish it and do it with the striving goal to do it with excellence.”

“So even if we pay him the 250 crowns for the Bounty, he may not drop it. In which case, we may have to go to his safehouse and kick his ass.”

Dizzy shook his head. “It was nobles, Thon, not crowns. If it was 250 crowns I would stab Olo to death myself.”

“Hey!” Odie exclaimed.

“Just saying.”

“No, I get it. But seriously, not in front of me, ok?”

“I thought,” Asher asked a few moments later, “That his safehouse was not known?”

“It’s presumably the "X" on our map,” the half-orc shrugged. “Gryg feels like he could find it if need be.” He took a drink of his ale and then added , “The Abbess of the Temple of Sif is definitely running a Thieves Guild of sort of Sif.”

“Oh. Um, weird?”

Dizzy smiled and gave a small wave. “I’m hoping to sign up under her. And Thon has his sights on learning under Hibuela Asalin, the Guild's Lawyer.”

“Assassin,” Connal offered.

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“So what are we doing?” the half-elf asked.

Gryg replied ,”We've decided to align with Hraetrek as it works towards our needs.” He pointed to the Halfling, “Saving Olo. And is the lesser of two evils.”

Thon nodded once. “Yah. Moon's goal is to end ALL divine connection - fuck that.” The party grunted in assent. “There is yet another party involved here. Someone tipped off the guards about the Silver Box that got the crèche pinched. Moon doesn’t make sense, as he needs those items. Hraetrek didn’t know how Moon was getting them. My guess is that it may be Hatring - the guy running the McGovern warehouse. If a unit isn’t cleaned out by the end of the rental period, he gets the items inside and has the right to pawn it all.” He shrugged, hands held wide, “It's a stretch but possible. May be worth looking into.”

Dizzy shook his head, “No, I feel like Hatring’s whole thing falls apart if he gets caught doing that. His reputation is everything. I would lean more towards that lady Hraetrek name dropped.”

“Who?”

”I don't remember the name,” Dizzy shrugged, “He said if he canceled the contract a necromancer lady would kill him. Cancelled without the goods at least.”

Thon shuddered, “That's the lady from Grimyria. Working against Moon.”

Dizzy nodded, “She put the contract out on Olo and his friends. She found out who was doing the stealing and stopped them as a short term solution to the Moon problem. Then she needs to get the key and stuff to finish the job. Thus the contract. Hraetrek is just the facilitator she hired to get that done, since she doesn't have the resources to do it herself."

“Grymeria,” Asher frowned. “That is not…good.”

“No it fucking isn’t, that’s for sure.” Connal observed.

“Look, I do not love the idea of being kind of on the same side as Grymeria, but in this case. It’s the lesser of the two evils.”

“So…Virdrid is the next issue we have?” Asher asked.

“Yep.”

“Can you find that place on the map, Gryg?”

“Pretty sure I could,” the dwarf replied. “Be happy to take down some more shitty kobolds, assuming he has them with him again.”

“Shitty, yeah. They were,” Connal looked down at his laundered shirt and frowned. “I hope I don’t get any more of that shit on me.”

“Finish up,” Dizzy said, motioning for everyone to drink the last of their ale. “Daylight’s wasting and I’d like to taste some fish stew very soon and then figure out the next step in this mess.”

Meet 11, Adv 9, 2/19/22

Torkis Ravenhart, the jail guard, wanted to race in there immediately and attend to whoever had knocked out the other guards and was accosting the person in cell 12. We had to convince him that we were better placed to take care of whoever it was and eventually relented. He unlocked the door to the hall leading to the cells, and then he and Gryg went to the smaller cell area where the two guards were knocked out, and tried to pull one of them closer to get the keys off of them to unlock that area.

Connal led the party down the hall, everyone walking slow and carefully. Thon, Dizzy, Odie, and Asher. Whoever it was was beating up someone diligently, methodically striking them again and again. Connal suspected it was facial and upper body shots and Dizzy wondered how the hell the monastic could tell what body part was being pummeled just by sound. Luck was with us as we crept closer and closer, no one heard our approach. We took the odd spear or dagger off the fallen guards to help us out (Gryg took the crossbow from the one at the head of the hall). The smell of burnt cinnamon and sand had the party frowning and it was a quick look in cell 12 by Connal that revealed a half dozen kobolds, and a cold face gnome, holding a human woman prisoner up by her shirt, and striking her repeatedly without comment. The kobolds seemed to have come up through the waste grate in the middle of the room, and two of them were still standing there, watching the action.

He backed away and let the group know what was going on, getting a nod from the party. Odie and Asher, a bit further back, noted that there seemed to be a lot of loose gravel and rocks on the ground here but that was about it. Thon motioned to Connal that the two of them would go in first, the half-orc thief taking his short handled fighting pick out and raising it up.

Before it scraped against the wall with a rasping ringing sound. “Ah…fuck,” he whispered as the gnome within commanded them to “take care of that.” And the kobolds ran out of the room.

The party fired off a bless spell and then a moment later the bard whipped her recorder out and singing about dwarven balls and other inspiring things, filled the party with courage, dancing a brief jig as her recorder flute blasted out its shrill notes. The kobolds raced out, hitting Thon and Connal, a number of them piling on the half-orc. One of them used an ornate glove and sent a magic blast down the hall, ricocheting the loose stones everywhere and pummeling Asher, Odie, and Dizzy. And still more kobolds came out of the waste pipe. The gnome punched the girl one last time, told the kobolds to kill them all, and then went into the pipe himself.

Gryg and Turkis had come close to hooking one of the guards closer but the grapple slipped off. “Here!” The dwarf said, handing the guard the rope. He loaded up the borrowed crossbow and added, “I’m going to help. Get that door open.” He ran down the hall as more kobolds hit the group. Crossbow bolts fired, slapping into scaled flesh. Thon remained standing, even as one of them ran up and hit the half-orc hard in the head. The battle closed and the kobolds made to run as their number were picked free. A few made it to the waste pipe and Connal dove in to grab at the last one but only got a handful of foul muck for his efforts. He did manage to get a holy symbol to Sif that had been snagged on the side of the waste pipe, ripped from the gnome’s neck as he made his escape. They also found a key. One side had a number “6” on it, and the other had the stamp of a swan on a stick. Dizzy suspected it was an inn or tavern room key.

By this time Torkis had gotten the door open and Olo was begging the party to let him out. He pled with each of them, going so far as to just ask Odie to flat out give him a dagger and then he’d get himself out. The girl prisoner, Brigga, was pretty hurt and we gave her a small heal to stabilize her. As Torkis was checking everything out, we had gotten the name of Olo’s crèche from Odie’s brother, and it was Dogger, he had been killed, and was in cell 16. So with the locker room door open, we looked in there and just rummaged around bin “16” until we discovered the locker key to the McGovern Warehouse that had the items the crèche had been stealing for Moon.

Eventually Warden Freddrir came down; we talked at length of what happened. They were going to move the prisoners up to the 2nd level and double them up for now. A maintenance and hunter team was going to examine every foot of the waste system and see where these kobolds came in from and then brick it closed. We left feeling good (after Connal got a prison bath with hoses and some replacement prison clothes) and went back home to get changed and discuss what the next step was.

The key was most likely from a local place called the Swan and Scythe in a poor section of town. If this gnome, Virdrid, was staying there (room 6), we wanted to scope it out and look around. Cleaned again, it was a bit after 6 PM when we went off and looked around the south end of town until we did find the Swan and Scythe – and the standard outside matched pretty well with the key.

We entered the small place and the overworked bartender and heavy set yet buxom wench invited us in to sit. She cajoled a few people to move around and we claimed a table. To ingratiate us, we ordered a round of ale for the place and also partook in some ham sandwiches as well as the lesser quality, but still tasty, roasted pig sandwiches. Dizzy had maneuvered himself to the back end of the place and looking unobtrusive, went down the hall to the 1st floor rooms and made his way to “6” once he was sure the hall was clear. There was a sliver of wood in the frame that he plucked free to replace later and opened the door with the key and entered.

The room was set up for a smaller person (gnome, Halfling, dwarf) and he gave the place solid once over. Normal stuff to be found in the drawers and what not, but under the bed wedged up in the slats was a wooden box with a set of Sifian fighting robes within, as well a scrap of a map with an “X” on one building and a bounty which read:

To Whomever is holding this has been approved for the open bounty in the amount of 250 nobles for the acquisition of McGovern Warehouse Key, Locker Key 4. Bring said key to Adeptus Hraetrek, Southeastern Sifian Outreach Temple, Outer ring Erylond for payment.

Additional payment of 60 nobles for any retribution against the Wharf Gate Thieves, Specifically Dogger’s Blades and Tips.

Ripping a page from his own book, he placed the papers in the robes and folded it back up and hid it again under the bed, leaving the room with the bounty and map again, placing the sliver back in the door after he locked it up. He returned to the room with the party, had them figure out to finish eating quick, and we left the Swan and Scythe.

Once outside, he shared what he had learned (and Odie reported that she made a few coins singing!) and we discussed at length what all this meant. The church of Sif involved? Why? And Moon, was he actually after the crèche or not? Seemed to be, and the guild might be as well. The Adeptus was not known to Gryg, Connal, or Dizzy and the party was thinking at some point of going to visit it and maybe talk with the Adeptus.

This Moon might be Granmund, his MO was about the same. Three of the party members had run into him and some other thieves a month or so earlier as the facilitator/wizard was looking for any magic items that he wanted to use against the forced of Grymeria. Right now though, we wanted to get into the locker and learn how to contact this Moon, and to do that we needed to head to McGovern Warehouses and the Drip now.

It was 7:30 when we arrived and eventually Hatring let us in. He then led the party further in to the warehouse to the back end where it would eventually let out behind dock 2. There were 25 lockers beyond here and if we left the locker open and empty, just the key within – then he knew we were done with it. If not, then make sure it was locked – was still paid up till the end of the month. He then locked the door behind us and turned back to the main room – not wanting to see or be a part of whatever went on in here.

We checked out the room – no one was here. The way out was also clear. With a deep breath, we approached the bank of lockers and looked it over. The lockers were each about 6’ tall, 4 feet wide, and maybe 5’ deep. We stuck the key in and turned the lock, opening it up and looked within.

There was an ornate end table, on which sat an open face gear clock, a grey rock with weird striations running across its surface, maybe a foot or so oval, a porcelain looking fancy doll, and a single quill feather. And there was a dwarf in here. He was in poor shape, beaten up, scarred, burns, and missing his left hand. He looked around, asking for Dogger. We were wondering who he was and what the hell he was doing in the locker? Part of the crèche? No, he said his name was Dogsbody Mcguin and Dogger and his crèche were going to help sneak him out of Erylond since he was being sought after by a lynch mob.

Dogsbody? The same one involved in the bar fight? The trial? Streams of Mithril? Paxian and Canaslan? The Scrivener family?

“Ah…fuck.”

Asher looked him over while the 5 items were indeed magical – the table and the doll according to Dizzy, the greater two of the 5 items. In addition, there was a note folded up which we assumed was instructions on how to contact Moon. But Dogsbody? Asher spoke to him for a bit and we were discussing what our next step was – where to go, what to take or leave – and how to get the dwarf with us and safely away without him being seen anywhere in the city – if we were going to take him at all.

Meet 10, Adv 9, 2/12/22

The party was now going to have an adventure with the other half of the group, affectionately referred to as their "B" team characters. Titled "A Star for Excellence", it was going to be less heroic, less adventurer guild, less "A" team feel which was going to make it gritty and fun. I hope!

Follows: 

Half the adventuring group had been asked by the Ecclesiastic Council to participate in the rebuild, rehire, and rededication of the Sunrise Rabbits Orphanage. IN addition, 2 of the members were also doing double duty at their guilds, working on training up for the next level.

This left the rest of the group: the uneasy Tyrian half elven Fighter/Cleric Asher, the overlooked Sifian dwarven ranger Grygmiir, the standoffish dwarven Thief/Cleric Dizzy, the spring wound human Sifian monastic Connal, and the wanting Tyrian half-orcish Fighter/Thief Thon. They continued to look for some sort of work, often getting crude labor intensive jobs at best. Numerous visits to the Greater Rand Sellsword Adventuring Guild resulted in the same thing: we’re already using your group and they’ve performed wonderfully. We don’t have anything else right now for you.

They truly felt left out.

It was some luck and providence though that three of them were followers of Sif. There were three prisons in Erylond, and each of them were supported by hefty donations. And the Sifian temple was a large ticket donor. So the temple had a need, it seems that months of stolen and recovered goods had been allowed to languish in the prison’s storerooms. And because it was poorly maintained, it was discovered that various members of the prison guard were availing themselves of the stolen goods at will. This means it wasn’t being sold, thereby costing the prison…and the temple…money.

They wanted trusted members to clean up and catalogue the warehouse, archiving the goods and eventually allowing the items to be sold or repurposed as need be. So they had reassigned low level members who were not engaged in other duties to go to the warehouse and act as inventory specialists and trustees and help to catalogue the goods. This included Dizzy, Connal, and Gryg, along with 9 other various individuals.

Connal was unhappy and would have been content to go back to the temple to sweep if need be, but was informed (they all were), that their personal wants were not the focus at this time, but this important task was. So they worked, all of them, for 4 weeks or so, cleaning up the warehouse, eventually palleting the goods, and then inventorying them. Within a few weeks Dizzy had grown bored and followed the letter of the job, picking one large pallet by the door, claiming it as his own, and counting it again, and again, and again. Gryg thought it was funny to bounce an item from 1 pallet to another, which had Connal ask him repeatedly, “Just who the hell are you?”

Dizzy managed to befriend a visiting bard named Odilienne, a halfling who had worked as a postal and delivery agent for the Nadaros College, and had recently been coming to the prison to help in relations as well as delivery and messenger services. To Dizzy though, he had also seen her tertiarily associated with the local thieves guild. Not a full member but apparently related enough to be treated as such. She knew way too many dirty songs and the two of them would often spend some time each day shooting the breeze and sharing a joke or two. Which amazed Connal and Gryg who had until now, only seen Dizzy keep most everyone at arm’s length, eschewing personal contact.

As for Asher and Thon, they had gotten hooked up with the prison as well, but they were working on the outside, patching holes, filling cracks, and leveling the ground as need be. And for weeks it was cold, unrelenting, and often times, miserable work. Thon had gotten used to Asher’s poor work ethic, sighing heavily and just reminding the half-elf to just get the job done. With the colder weather, concrete patching was a rough job, with a poor attempt resulting in little actually sticking to the prison walls.

Like Dizzy, Thon also knew Odi from the guild, as well as her many visits to the prison. They too had sparked a friendship and he was always happy to see the diminutive woman show up and maybe play a song or two. On this particular day, Icemonth the 27th, Odi had come with a sad face and a need to see the Half-orc. Asher was worried at her approach, thinking she was a supervisor, so faked that he had just done all of Thon’s work, getting a withering look and rebuke in response.

Odi’s brother and the crèche that he belongs too, had been gathering stolen goods for a contact named “Moon”, storing it at a secure locker at the McGovern Warehouse. This Moon is not a patient person but something went bad on the last job and the entire group was captured. They’ve been here at the Wharf Gate Prison now for 4 days and Olo, Odilienne’s brother, asked that she come to visit him. He also asked that she bring someone(s) with her as he didn’t want anything to happen to her. So Odi had come to Thon to ask him to come with her, and Thon agreed. Asher signed up as well. The foreman then showed up and after wondering why no one was working, Thon and Asher left for the day, accepting that they were giving up the 2 commons for their work.

They went with Odi into the prison where she then led them to the warehouse section and called to Dizzy. The dwarf was pretty pissed because there was a spike missing from the count (should have been 37, was 36), and Connal pointed to it on the floor. Dizzy said that it was by the OTHER pallet and should be counted on that one. There was some back and forth and Gryg was willing to bounce more spikes when Odi had finally made herself known.  She gave her spiel and Dizzy was unsure what to do.

But the Sifian manager came by and said that Dizzy was only doing 64% of an effort, and Connal was barely 73%. If you’re not going to bother giving 100%, then maybe don’t bother at all. So put down your clipboards, and think hard about how you've disappointed him…and Sif, by not giving it your all. The monastic was so angry, he wanted to work extra hard and make the manager eat his words, but was told to leave, which him…Ooooh….Urgggg….Damn it!. That’s….Ahhhh.

We talked for a bit and after hearing Odi’s needs, Dizzy commented, “One of the things I’ve learnt is that when a friend needs your help, you help them.” Which had Gryg shaking his head in disbelief, the dwarf commenting, “Really? That’s what you believe?” Which had Thon shrug and look the ranger over,  commenting, “Sure. Why not. Just who the hell are you though?”

We went to the prison guards, Odi presented her not, we were told he was on the third level. Told to not hand him anything, and any attempt to help him escape would result in her or them being incarcerated next. She gave her mark (a very fancy calligraphic signature with accents and flourishes (which is now canon for Odi thanks to a great Writing check)), and we headed down with the guards to the 3rd level down. He was in the 11th cell on the right hand side. There was a barred off area where two guards with weapons and crossbows were situated; cubbies behind them with prisoners personal belongings all laid out by cell number. The gate to the cells were then opened and we were told to go in, the cell locked behind us.

Every 5 cells was another guards, armed and armored. We heard some coughing and noises behind each door. Eventually at 11 (seems to be 15 left and right cells on this floor), the ground moist and the air foul smelling, we stopped and Odi called to her brother. The Halfling came to the door and we had a chance to talk to him. He was pretty worn out looking, dirty, threadbare clothes. He gave Odi the rundown of what they had been doing. It seems that the last job they were on a boat off the docks, getting a silver bound chest, where a host of guards appeared out of nowhere. They were suspecting they had been set up.

The entire cheche was picked up…but two of the crèche had been killed here. In the jail. Under guard. And it’s got the prisoners and the guards a bit freaked out. Should not be happening. Feels that Moon might be looking to take them out, or whoever set them up is doing it. Wants her to go to McGovern Warehouse and meet with Hatring. He’ll let them know which locker is theirs and supposedly, contact information for Moon is in the locker. Dizzy and Thon knew of the warehouse and Hatring – he’s a trusted guardian for goods being fenced and traded, and his section of the warehouse is off limits.

As for the two killed, they looked like they were partially eaten and had a look of horror on their face. Lovely. He gave us his guild coin and let Odi know that would get them in to see Hatring. We left, headed off to the Wooly Rhino, and listened to some musicians play and ate and drank (Hot cider featured in heavily). We talked about it, Connal still lamenting the most likely poor review that was going to go in his employee jacket with the Temple, and a few of us brought up an experience with a mage named Granmund. He was looking for magical items to use against Grymeria and was functioning in and around Erylond, using local thugs and thieves to steal items that may or may not be magical in nature. This seemed to be the same sort of thing.

We detoured to the house and got more equipment and some armor for a few of us. Too much armor would attract attention and we didn’t want to do that. Yet.

After equipping we headed off to McGovern Warehouse, on 2nd dock. The warehouse was large (about a block wide) and we headed off to the back area, usually referred to as “The Drip”. It was chained up with slatted wood. Hatring was a middle aged human, going a bit to pot. He recognized Odi and she presented the coin. He let them in, locking up behind them, and led them through the cramped area and down the stairs. There was a small room here where a brute of a half ogre and a flamboyant looking gnome were situated. The place was damp and the smell was pretty horrid.

We talked some time with the three of them. Olo’s big sister, ghetto girl done good. The crèche had the goods in a locker number “4” but the key was with the leader of the crèche. We suspected it might be one of the ones that was killed. Without the key, we could not get in the locker. Ok, go back to the prison and get the key, or at least find out which member had it, and then get the jail guards to give it to us? We’d figure it out as we got through it.

We got back to the Wharf Gate Prison and the guards did not want to let us back in, we had already been here today – 1 visit per day. We had some discussion back and forth but Odi pulled out her recorder and played some music, enthralling the guards enough to allow us to have another visit. Also, the main jail guard was so moved by her performance, we were not asked to leave our weapons for now. As she made her mark, we noted that a single entry indicated that a Virdrid, Gnome, was here. And was visiting that level. Suspicious.

So we were led down the stairs by the one guard who chatted a bit about his fiancée, and on reaching the 3rd level stopped and looked around. The two guards behind the barred area were unconscious on the floor, the hall leading to the cells was still locked and the guards down there were also unconscious on the floor. And we could hear yelling and pleading coming from down the hall. In cell 12, the one next to Olo’s.