Aleria Campaign / The Seekers / The Fortunes of Grandmaster Flame / Kith the 30th, 3593 CE / 05-10-20

General Summary

A month after the founding of the new Seeker headquarters in Rakeeth, three newly inducted Seekers are receiving their first assignment. Lt. Carsola Montewar briefs Minttu the sorcerer, Elitheros the oracle, and Twitch the rogue on the theft of four valuable statues from Nosirios. The fence, a smuggler named Matzal Chaim, has brought the statues to Rakeeth and has already sold them. The team of Seekers is tasked with tracking down Chaim and discovering who the buyers are before the statues become impossible to retrieve. They head to the Topaz Pavillion Bathhouse, one of Chaim's favorite hangouts, but the thief spots the Seekers and rushes inside. The Seekers give pursuit but are too late; Chaim has died on the end a half-orc bodyguard's sword. The bodyguard's boss, Grandmaster Flame, dresses down his lackey before turning his attention to the Seekers. Twitch recognizes the scarred man as a powerful information broker, and so the team bargains with him for the information they lost with Chaim's demise. After they cannot meet the Grandmaster's steep prices, they agree instead to a trade of favors, the nature of which will be determined at a later date. The Grandmaster gives them the name of each of the four buyers as well as locations where they might be found. He also gives them a warning: if any arcane magic is used by a holder of one of the Nosirion statues, there could be dire consequences. The party heads to the Overmarket Square where they hope to located the current owner of the Silver Centipede statue, a Maljerayan elf named Viraj Arpani. The Seekers concoct a plan to distract Viraj and make off with the statue, but the elf, alarmed by the fruit Minntu is throwing at him, attempts to escape using a gaseous form spell. Unfortunately, as he is holding the statue, this results in the artifact's unique properties going off, as it transforms into three large centipedes which the Seekers must deal with, even as Viraj escapes through the use of an invisibility spell. After all three centipedes are destroyed, the statue reappears, and the Seeker team have claimed their first prize. On their way to confront the next buyer, an agent of the Sand Rat named Nazir, the Seekers deduce they are being followed, but a plan to draw the mysterious trackers out fails and their tails escape into the crowded Overmarket. At Nazir's warehouse, they find the shady merchant being shaken down by an agent of the local thieves guild, Belial Sarif. A confrontation with the gangster quickly escalates into a fight with him and his thugs, including the two men who have been trailing them. After Belial is killed and most of his men are down, Nazir agrees to give the party his statue, the golden giraffe. The party heads over towards the Spice Refinery, where Grandmaster Flame told them they could find the third buyer, the Rabarrian man Buraba at his favorite sidewalk cafe. When they reach the square outside the refinery, Buraba spots the seekers and downs a potion of invisibility. Because of the dense piles and clouds of dust outside of the Spice Refinery, they are able to track Buraba's movements as he runs into the refinery, but when the Seekers enter, they are choked by the thick dust and confronted by angry workers who warn them they must leave. Buraba is able to escape with the statue, and the Seekers are able to find no further clues to his whereabouts. They proceed to confront the final buyer, a Nosirion merchant named Hokama Saldin who has a stall in the Secure Market, where no weapons or magic are allowed. In speaking with Saldin, they discover he is acting as an agent for Sand King Tekhmet of Nosirios in securing the return of the antiquity. Saldin tells them that the iron eagle statue is already on its way back to Nosirios. With no leg to stand on, the Seekers are forced to admit defeat. Nonetheless, Lt. Montewar congratulates them on successfully recovering two of the statues, and that evening they are invited to dinner by Grandmaster Flame himself, who verifies that his name was left out of their inquiries and none too subtly reminds the Seekers that they owe him a favor.

Character(s) interacted with

Minttu, Father Elitheros Perthanic, Twitch Whiskar, Lt. Carsola Montewar, Dario Swiftfist, Matzal Chaim, Grandmaster Flame, Viraj Arpani, Nazir, Belial Sarif, Buraba, Hokama Saldin, half-orc guards, giant centipedes, Belial's thugs, refinery workers, Secure Market guards

Report Date

11 May 2020