SUMMARY

Session of May 9, 2004

Covering morning of Titheday, 26 Workmoon, through early morn, 10 Feastmoon, CY 937

"Three Eyes of the Cyclops"

King Curdan put you up at the mostly vacant Road "War" Weary Tavern, inside the
walled city Dunlevao. The king ordered Aziz raised in his own body (to fugitive Aziz's
disadvantage), and Thoor resumed living Thoorness. Graymalkin the Druid, relaxing
in a room down the hall, produced (on the 3rd try) a White Chromatic Kobold body,
so although Footstool has not remained intact, his nickname has. Tak, in honor of
Mothers Day, learned that Dewbud is (tragically) the mother of Needle. This rendered
the half-orc speechless for a while, as all he wanted to worry about was the enormous
disturbing axe his deity showed him in a dream -- he did not want family responsibilities.
Aziz and Thoor teamed up on wand-crafting, and the newly minted kobold enjoyed high
tea with the Queen of Delran, Natalia, a remarkably unattractive but endlessly charming,
graceful woman, who gave you a good price on the gold statue you've lugged around
since the Minotaur killed Tak's impersonator.

Curdan called you to a meeting in the Citadel. There, you stopped short of crying
out "It was us! US! We freed the orc ghosts!" but you did reveal you "once" worked
for Malvolio of Innport. On some minor, poorly thought-out point, you were caught
trying to bluff your way around the King and his chief wizard (Fontine) and priest
(Emile), and when you saw by their faces that you were so busted, you covered by
forking over the stone Dwarven book that explains where the orcs have been--if not
exactly how they got from there to here. The king asked to hang on to it for a few
days, and whattya gonna do, he's the king.

Incidentally, if you consult your calendars, which really you should do, you'll see
this meeting took place on the 1st of Feastmoon, which means the day after you left
the city was the Autumnal Equinox, though celebrations were rather subdued due to
the war, so they hardly seemed worth mentioning till just now, when I remembered I
meant to make a big deal of them.

Anyway, Seven burst into the meeting, and threw a royal tantrum with (as royal tantrums
often have) an aggressive military dimension. Curdan aimed to propose a ceasefire
with Savannah until the orcs problem is assessed, and to reopen too-quiet Dunlevao
for trade, but Seven demanded immediate attack on the iron-mining town of Wroughtman,
Savannah. With a caustic aside, Curdan directed his chief soldier (Aelo) to draw
up a proposal for such an attack, with Seven to lead it. The shiny white kobold
started to say something about Seven's plan being counterproductive to Curdan's,
but trailed off under a royal glare, and Tak, perceiving it was not the Party's
place to speak against the prince of the world's most respected Vree kingdom,
immediately farted. Yes, he editorialized via colon, on a DC 12 Con check causing
royal eyes to water.

A brief apology was issued.

Curdan then cleared the room and assigned the Party to return to Innport to track
down a man named Hastings while he waits to see whether guards at the Catreedral
report anyone comes looking for Ishana. Seems 7 weeks ago, a magic bomb went off
in the marketplace of Dunlevao (the town gates sealed ever since), and coincidentally
Hastings has not been seen since then. Curdan asked you to find out whether Hastings
was connected to the blast, and who he works for. It is known that previously Hastings
spent significant time in Innport and has claimed to work for the King--the King said
not to believe this, and noted Hastings might not be his real name. But he would be
easy to recognize: human, thirties, 6 ft tall, brown hair--and One Eye.

Eight days in Dunlevao, five days of travel, and you were back getting a room at
the Welcome House of Innport. You found a one-eyed man right away--the Inn's bartender,
Caitlo. Fiendishly, you offered to sell him the bejeweled eyepatch you got in the
graverobbing expedition--er, I mean world-endangering grave-robbing exped--wait,
scratch that, this eyepatch you just happen to have-said you'd sell it to Caitlo
if he'd come by your room after closing. And what one-eyed man could resist this
offer? There also was the curious spectacle of a half-assed seduction attempt from
a kobold -- oh, yeah, that's important: Footstool is a girl now.

Before closing, however, Aziz had to leave in a hurry, as snivellly Saleh the Diviner
enteried the bar with a lot of Suhndi muscle (fighter, cleric, and a Barbarian they're
trying to convert). Outside, as Aziz pretended to loiter among the merc garrison's
pike-mounted orc heads, a Suhndi boy (abruptly named Abu) approached with a sealed
letter for Fahrook Farid, resident of the Inn. It ain't me, scram kid, said Aziz--
then suddenly reconsidering: I can give it to him, though. You wait here. Aziz darted
inside to a Saleh-free area to read the letter--from his nemesis Zyiph Malik Wahatbi.
It's wordy, but you can read the Zyiph's letter here.

Hour later, Aziz remembered he'd promised to help the boy Abu find a room in town. Oops.

Oops doesn't cut it however for LG priests of Cuthbert, so when Thoor found Abu
sleeping on the ground he offered to put him up at the Welcome House. Abu, bright
lad, quickly realized Thoor is priest of a blasphemous and sinister religion, and
he fled. Sigh. So Thoor continued with Caitlo to the Welcome House, where the
one-eyed bartender's exhausted state and some film-noire-style planning on the
Party's part got him fast surrounded and Charmed. Result: he never heard of Hastings,
he wasn't your man. At that point you didn't want to sell him the eyepatch anymore,
as apparently you believe it is your ace in the hole, in this hunt for the one-eyed
man, a sort of irresistible lure with which you are sure to ensnare your quarry.
Yes, truly, what One-Eyed Man could resist this. You ought just to tie it on a
string and trawl down Heart of Gold Blvd and watch them creep, wide-eyed, out of
the dark crevices. No, obviously you can't lose it and succeed on your mission,
so you kept raising the price until finally Caitlo left in dismay.

Minutes later, a knock on your door. Kyrim the half-elf. "Malvolio got your message.
He would like to see you now." It was 4:30 AM. For Kurtulmak's sake.

Malvolio received you in the hunting-lodge room of the Inn, Kyrim and Lutini present.
He paid you 2400 gold as soon as you prompted him, and he asked about Curdan and Seven.
Per Quothe (who's spent the past weeks dizzy in a revolving door of familiarhood)
Malvolio knew the basics, but in this conversation, you very skillfully and with
great foresight blabbed that on behalf of Curdan, you killed a witch in Overwood--
yeah, the one whose bugbear armada seemed to know Malvolio's name. You also started
to say these ghost orcs couldn't talk, which it seemed ol' Mal knew was a lie. And
after you revealed you killed Ishana (without mentioning her by name, or asking
about her possible recognition of his name), he gave you a strangely unrelated
assignment: Go kill this batch of dire rats making the west side of town uninhabitable.

You suspected many things, all variations on "It's a trap."

As it was almost dawn and rat-hunting is most rewarding at night, you hit the hay.
In the afternoon, you sold your gold chalice to the Inn, and I believe it was there
that someone mentioned Innport was getting a lot more trade and money lately, as a
result of Dunlevao's closing, which was the result of that bomb, the possible planter
of which you're now in Innport to investigate. Hmm, now, you wondered, hmm, who
stands to benefit in this scenario...?

Footstool swung by Oldimmarra's temple, to ask the priest, Merry, for Silversheen.
This was Thoor's idea, but the dwarf himself waited outside mulling over various
anti-depravity sermons, while inside, though Merry indeed coughed up a little 'sheen,
at Footstool's "Malvolio wants us to kill rats," the priest got strangely dodgy.
Footstool tried to find out who exactly works for Malvolio; Merry said "We all try
to help him, and answer his requests," and Footstool finally stumbled tipsy (the
only way to exit this temple) into the bright sun and was greeted by the Eyeroll
of St. Cuthbert, which he could barely see as his own kobold eyes were still adjusting
for the next five minutes.

After dark, you all crossed the canal into the burnt-out, ratty side of town. And
ratty is the word, as many of them roamed the streets. Tak immediately grabbed and
ate one, presumably the opening Ozzy salvo in your war on them, and Footstool used
his Gnomic power to converse with one. Next, you conversed briefly with a Merc
Guardhouse. This conversation started out real well, as you said Malvolio sent you
to clean out the rats, and the mercs right away gave you directions to the Rat Club,
a red building where maybe some were-rats hung out. Then, however, you referred to
the Dark Wharf, but not by its accepted name, and you asked whether there were any
rats there, and the Mercs suddenly got dodgy on you. Huh.

Okay, well, moving right along, to the Rat Club, a ratty shack indeed... Showing
great finesse, you listened at the door, and overheard "Yeah, we'll show em, we'll
run this town soon, the whole town!" Then someone else said "Yeah, all ours! Pass
the cheese," which you decided was Probable Cause to boot the door in and kill everyone.
A short battle later, two were-rats were dead, one or two fled, and you'd captured
a tough one. Thoor devised a clever means of keeping him unconscious for hours (um,
hitting him on the head) and he was tied up. You posted Quothe as sentry over the
Rat Club, hid your prisoner under a bridge, and quietly crept to the mysterious Dark
Wharf...

And kicked in its door. On the second try. Without even the flimsiest cheese-based
Probable Cause. Soon, Tak had a few arrows sticking from him and was surrounded by
sword-wielding dockworkers. Aziz cleared out a warehouse with a well-placed fireball,
but it was still an even fight and one of the enemies yelled out for you to surrender.
Just then, Aziz again brought the heat, incinerating three enemies at close quarters
with Burning Hands. The guy who had been hoping for a surrender -- did. Thoor blinked
over the smoky enemy corpses and said "I've never seen that spell used properly."

So now you had another prisoner. He charged Thoor with protecting his life, as
priest of mercy, but Thoor reminded him Cuthbert is god of justice. This piped
him down right quick. He shared some facts: he didn't know where boats came from,
but this was the wharf that received Malvolio's smuggled goods. Also, they used
to like the rats because the rats kept the State Garrison away, but the rats lately
had gotten too big for their britches and were interfering with the smugglers.
You then opened the crates of smuggled goods: silk, Trevalian wine, platinum--
and most interesting: 8 orc heads. You realized: the Merc garrison hasn't killed
all those orcs -- a scam! Additionally, and hugely, you found a letter, written
by "M" and addressed to "P," readable here. You're not sure who "P" is --
your prisoner said the dock foreman was named Sgarrista Pucci, so he's a candidate.
And last but not least, your prisoner (you didn't even have to Charm him) admitted
to knowing a One-Eyed Man named Arnik who hangs out by the fish-fry by the docks.

You devised a Scheme: you put your captive in the boat Gazelle with his 12 dead friends,
and told him to sail away, sink the bodies in the lake, and never return to town.
He agreed. Then you wrote a note: "Saleh, everything went as planned... P," a bit of
underhanded genius matched only by how cleverly you made it look like Saleh had tried
to burn the note, but failed. Then you torched the Dark Wharf, and went back to
the Welcome House, where you could be... sure... Malvolio... would... never... find you?

Oh yeah-and your were-rat prisoner? Gone. Got away. I'm sure that won't be a problem.

Before turning in, Thoor wrote a message for Quothe to deliver, warning Saleh to get
out of town; Footstool instructed Quothe to waylay the message. Poor Saleh.

Somehow you survived the night. (And it did occur to you; if Malvolio wanted you
dead, was a ragtag band of were-rats really the way to get it? Especially if he
actually wanted the were-rats dead? Confusing, to say the least.) But in a hurry,
you left the Welcome House at dawn and flagged down Payter, feeling nervous as smoke
still rose over the west side of town, and you offered him 80 gold to take you out
right away. You said you'd be back in an hour, after you shanghaied Arnik.

You found the Gold Fish, a fry place -- across the street from a Merc guardhouse.
Mercs circled endlessly, seemingly oblivious -- but... At last Thoor approached Arnik.

Arnik did indeed have one eye, but wasn't your guy. Kind of a coot, a former priest,
lost his eye battling the evil wizards of Nakatarok, lost three fing-- Look, Thoor
said, is there anyone else in town with just one eye? Arnik nodded, Oh sure, there's
uh, hm, lessee, Rawlsey. Rawlsey, drinks down at the Ale n Wich, right across from
the Statehouse, can't miss it...

And we ended the session there, early morning at the fish-fry, as you agreed: bolt
to the Ale n Wich, grab Rawsley, and get the heck out of Innport, possibly forever.

XP for this day, hmm… There was little combat, you mostly gathered info and, uh,
gave it away. Your notion of Probable Cause should probably be reviewed, too, but
luckily I'm no lawyer... On the other hand, you were working for a smuggler, and
you were fighting smugglers, which right there means legally you had some flexibility,
and you had reason to suspect a trap, so perhaps the jury has to acquit. I mean,
not to mention were-rats, right? If the party got bit, you must acquit. Overall,
although there were plenty of chinks in your behavior (and please no angry letters;
that's not meant racially. There were no chinks at all, racially speaking) -- and
you're surely in a pickle if Malvolio figures out you burned down his wharf -- well,
you also had moments of scintillating invention and deduction. You played admirably
in character and are all still alive. So here's your haul:

308 Platinum, 2600 Gold, 920 Silver
(if you took 80 GP, 120 SP from the dockers' pockets, yes?)
24 tiny gems worth 4 GP each
Silver cup worth 50 GP, mismatched silverware worth 15 GP (did you keep it?)
12 bottles Trevalian wine, 3 bolts of silk
2 Potions (magic)
1 very nice Silver & Turquoise Ring worth 250 GP
1 Thunderstone


And, huzzah, here's your new XP total (although, if any casters lost XP in crafting
wands, let me know so I can adjust this):
Aziz: 15,713
Footstool: 11,320
Tak: 13,879
Thoor: 13,963

(Congrats, Footstool, you have joined the Fifth Level Club -- almost as nice as the
Rat Club -- but alas, per our Official Rule, can't accrue any benefits until you find
a Full Day of Rest.)