Meet 14, Adv 9, 3/26/22

It was about midnight on Icemonth the 29th and the group was trying to infiltrate the supposed safehouse of Virdrid, the gnome monastic who had taken the contract from Hraetrek’s Guild to stop and kill off Dogger’s crèche. As it was now, Connal and Dizzy were inside, Asher was going to use the chimney, and Odie and Gryg were going back down the rope ladder to join Thon who was at the ground floor.

Connal was walking around, getting a feel for the various doors and possible ways to the front, Asher had joined Dizzy just past the living room, and Thon (after the other 2 had made it down the ladder) had the last two wait at the back of the building while he went to the front to check out the door there. It was possible to pick your way through the missing boards, but the lock seemed off as if the tumblers had been changed out at some point – and the two boards bracketing the largest area to climb through each had a long hard piece of iron on the inside of them along the edge’s where they would face one another. “Gotta be a trap,” he muttered, deciding to rejoin the other two and maybe find another way in. Back?

The group inside decided to head towards the back of the building, Dizzy feeling a faint chill and slight breeze. Was there an open window? There did find a mud room, 15’ square, and there was a door back there that opened up to the back alley. Connal approached and as he went to lift the door to enter, the floor broke away beneath him and he fell 20’, just missing the wooden sharpened spars set up at the bottom. And seeing at least 4 others in the pit who had fallen in in the past and died here. “You ok?”: Dizzy asked, before using his poor silk rope and sending it down to Connal – he and Asher then working on hoisting  the Monk back up.

From outside, the group faintly heard all of this from the alley, and Gryg used his body like a plow, shoving garbage and wet snow aside. We all rejoined each other, shared what’s gone on, and then looked around. Some of the doors were thinner and cheaper looking, leading us to better identify which were closets. And the closet in the mud room had a dozen 1”x3”x6’ lengths of wood and a half dozen flagstones that looked similar to those in the mudroom. Obviously to recover the pit. We took two and left the area, looking around. We found a set of stairs and decided to climb them up. We checked them over with the spars of wood and then checked the top landing a few times.

Three doors up here, all look like they had been yanked a few times off their top hinge. We climbed up there and listened about, Odie spotting a 4th door to the south and west. Once it was cleared (the ground had many long scratches in them as if someone had gone into the room at a run at some point), she checked it out – seeing it was narrow, and had a single lever in it. Weird. She asked, was given the ok to pull it, and yanked it down.

Opening a number of small holes in the ceiling over the stairs and dropping 30 or 40 spears straight down – of which a number of them hit Asher who was still on the stairs! He cursed and moaned, yanking them out of his now battered armor – and we noted that it had made some noise. And the north door in this landing had noises behind it – along with the faint telltale scent of burnt cinnamon and hot sand.

Kobolds.

We suspected at least 15…more? One of the other doors had opened to a closet – but it was 10’ tall and shelves going all the way up. Connal went to go up and check it out and the rest of the group high tailed it to the room with the lever for now. There was a lever at the top of the closet, than when pulled slid one of the shelves out and closed off the closet at 7’ high, leaving Connal in a 3’ tall area – and a secret door opened up to the next room – mirroring this one only larger (5’ x 10’ instead of 5 x 5). He crawled into it and pulled a similar lever, shutting the secret door and opening the floor/ceiling below him. He climbed down and at the door there, he noted that it was designed to see through various long cracks set up.

And he counted well over 30 kobolds now. Over 50 even. They were preparing themselves, wrapping towels around a few of them, weapons prepped. A half dozen candles lighting the area. But the sight of a scabrous rat – 6’ tall had the monk shaking his head and climbing back up the closet. He worked his way through again to the other side, lever once more, and then down. He then went to the room with the party and told them it’s time. Time to go. We go now. Now, Now, now.

We moved it. High tailing it down the steps, Thon stopping long enough to douse a step or landing with a flask of oil to slow any pursuers down if we were lucky. Connal briefed us on the sheer number of kobolds we had to face and we moved down to the main floor, heard OTHER kobolds somewhere below us (caught between them) before we went out to the alley and then ran off, heading back for home and considering ourselves lucky.

"Well,” Asher said once we were home at 1 in the morning, “You all know what that was.”

“Horrible, we know,” the group agreed.

We talked about maybe letting the watch know of the kobolds, and we still had to meet with Virdrid at some point. But we needed to rest and the party crashed.

The next day we finished what food was left in the house and decided to split up – half of us were going to go to the Trade gate and meet the woodcutters and provisioners up there, arranging to get enough food stuff and wood for us for the next few weeks. A few others were going to go to the Ecclesiastic Grounds and see if we could use a meeting room there to arrange a meeting with Virdrid. We set up a time (12 to 4 on the 30th) and Dizzy wrote a note concerning talk and holy symbol  and meet – giving the place and time (room 5) – and then brought it to the safe house, and left it there.

We did gather 40 days of wood, many pounds of foods and spices and it was about 11 AM when we were done for now and discussing what our next steps and actions were.

Meet 13, Adv 9, 3/19/22

After leaving the tavern, the group made their way to the east side gate to the second circle, assuming they were being watched by Adeptus Hraetrek’s guild in some way. The guards here gave the party a short once over and let them through. From there they made their way across the second circle to the Ecclesiastic Guild and passed through the outer gates and courtyard, eventually making their way to the Church of Sif.

They arranged an audience with the Abbess, eventually getting the opportunity. They let her know about their conversation with Hreatrek and listened to her opinion on the matter. We kept Dogsbody out of it and Dizzy had expressed his interest in joining her operation. He also learned that an audience was arranged with an Odinian Prioress named Hrotti, regarding a match of the earring he had and was hoping to use to eventually get his original holy symbol back. Suspecting that we had been followed here, Cala did make sure that we would be let out far enough away from the main gate that any of Hreatrek’s people would not be able to follow us.

We then went to the Odinian Compound where the Prioress eventually came to meet us. She was between the ages of 35 and 55, had a bandage around her left eye, ragged nails, crudely shorn hair, weaved a bit as if she had been drinking, and was very fit and tight looking. Dizzy noted the numerous scrapes and scars on her knuckles as well. There was a 16 year old acolyte here, the young man doing his best to keep her upright and tending to her needs. The thought was that he also had to attend to any carnal needs she might have as well.

She was gruff (from the scar tissue around her neck, it was obvious that she had been hung in the past) but was willing to help Dizzy in his desire to find the matching earring to the one he had. As she was musing over it, she headed off a raised voice discussion Thon and Connal had – by having them throw axes. Closest to the mark wins the argument. And then drinking from the holy “beer” barrel was in demand (Thon lost the throw, but did much better with his own axe).

Her vision let her know that the matching earring was on the corpse of Matron Autti, a Thorian Priestess buried outside of Stivil in the graveyard there. We thanked her and she took her ward with her back to the back room, weaving a bit, hand firmly planted on his ass cheek and squeezing it.

We were let out the side compound and made our way without issue to the west gate, and then to our home where Dogsbody was waiting for us. He had cleaned up a bit around the place, and the smell of the fish stew was really good. We ate and talked, Dogsbody then used some blankets in the house to help disguise his profile. Cloak wrapped around him, he thanked the group and said that he really appreciated what they were doing. We then made our way through the cold and wind back across town to the Southeastern Sifian Outreach Temple. There was a meeting going on, about 50 odd people were watching us real pissed off.

Hreatrek met with us and was dismayed we brought the guy to smuggle out so soon. Tough. We also told him about the Abbess and some thought to maybe mend fences in some way with her. Also, stop commingling Sifian funds with other guildic activity funds – that was what was getting him in trouble. We left and once again outside, walked back to the home slowly.

We decided to check out the lower class section of the town, hoping to get a lay of the land on the “X” building/safehouse, that Virdrid was using. In this area, businesses were on the lower floor, and living spaces were above. The streets were not wide once off the main thoroughfare, in some places barely 6’ across. Also, the area against the outer wall was where all the trash and snow had mounded up, making passage back there difficult if not impossible. We found the house but poking around the trash attracted some attention from others and we had to spread a few coins to smooth feathers before moving on.

There was one main door and it had a haphazard network of boards blocking it, wide enough the spaces were for someone to sneak through – but we did not want to go up and check or even see the door. Two chimneys, wide, for furnace and heating. Small windows solid leaded glass. Most everyone used champerpots out the windows around here, but this building most likely had something indoor and over the sewer – which made sense given that Virdrid and the kobolds had used the sewers already.

We hit a local bar and then went back to the main road. We made some purchases, one of them being a 30’ rope ladder, which we hoped to use during our foray in tonight.

We had a plan where we would come up, climb the back of the 3 storey building, then affix the rope ladder to it and everyone would ferry up and into the chimney – entering that way. The party decided what they would leave behind, most everyone stripping gear off to lighten their weight. Dizzy cast Sacred Guardian on Connal since it was decided that the monk would have the most difficult job.

We cat napped and then around 11ish, left under the cover of darkness. It was cold, barely 10 degrees not counting the wind (which dropped it easily to 0 or below). Also, the Enderlyn River ran south of town and the breeze kicked up a constant spray that froze on most surfaces. We stole our way to the lower class section of town and made it to the building in question without issue. The almost full moon was helping out, and the nearest wall guard was about 5 blocks away – and given the miserable affairs of the evening, most likely would not be coming out to investigate.

The party watched with care as Connal climbed the building, inching his way to the top. The roof was hip and ridge style, and the chimney was only a few feet from the corner. It was cold up here and the monk lowered the rope down where the group tied the rope ladder to it. He then hoisted it up and pulled it to place. He grappled it to the roof and Dizzy climbed up. It was a cold climb and once up, Connal reset the grapple as it was poorly set in the first place.

The chimney had a metal grate over it, held in place by 4 metal bolts, set up to keep animals from going down and making a nest within. The group cycled people up one at a time, the slippery roof and lack of room making it harder and hard for everyone to get up there. Gryg had gotten on top of the chimney and was using a set of pliers to pry the bolts out, the heads of one of them flaking away to rust. The pliers had fallen out of his hands at one point, rang off the side of the roof, scraped off the wall, and made a racket before landing in the snow – frightening Asher to death.

Gryg and Dizzy swapped places, the dwarven cleric/thief using his tools to try and extract the last bolt. Asher almost fell off the roof but was saved by Connal, with Gryg holding onto the monk’s sleeve as if that was going to help. The templar then hugged the chimney and sighed deeply, knowing that he was a poor foot placement away from falling to his death.

The noise did attract a lone guard that Connal was tracking as he walked from the guard house on the wall and slowly went in our direction. Meanwhile Thon had found the pliers in the snow and proceeded to climb to the rooftop – where there was currently no room for him – so he was forced to hold on to the ladder and wait. As for the guard, he went maybe 3 blocks and then turned back, never coming close enough to see us. Dizzy had opened the grate and Connal used the other rope, dropping it down into the darkness.

Thon went to climb all the way up at this point but the slippery surface had him sliding back to the edge where the group made to grab for him, missed, and the half orc fell half way down before he was tangled up in the rope ladder, getting badly hurt in the process. “You ok?” Dizzy called down softly, getting a series of curses from Thon who eventually got himself righted and made his way slowly down the ladder – hurting – back to the ground. “I’ll wait for the front door,” he muttered back up.

Connal climbed down the chimney, coming to the main floor where a large heating heart was in a room, 3 doors out, maybe 20’ x 25’. He gave the rope a small shake, letting them know to send the next person down. Dizzy smiled, held the rope, and lowered himself down. Slipped immediately and plummeted halfway down the chimney with a shit load of noise, getting hurt in the process. Head and legs wedged in place; he tried to right himself to get the rest of the way down and slipped again, falling all the way to the hearth where he landed with a clanging thud and the echoing rattle of falling rocks, stones, and other crap falling around him.

Just faintly…so faintly…Connal thought he heard a half dozen rapid footfalls far in the distance, but they faded and didn’t repeat. “Not alone,” he muttered, opening one of the doors that would lead up eventually to the front door. It was a sitting room, couch, table, a few other doors. Bigger than his light source for now. At this moment we had Dizzy and Connal inside, Thon outside at ground floor, and Asher, Odilienne, and Gryg on the roof. It’s brutally cold; all outside stuff is at a -4 because of it.