Session 14

General Summary

Radislav White Falcon sent Sara, a halfling from Quedra, to assist the party in clearing their name. She, Mrek, Kairon, and Slint set out for the Green Tower in an iffy neighborhood near Volscia Mera's north gate. Mrek entered first and found a blonde woman, Lizbeth, minding the store. He tried to ply her for information about the bandaged man and midnight tears but failed miserably. Sara, at the door, noticed a thug watching her. Kairon and Slint circled the shop--a run-down old wizard's tower--and found a disused secret door at the back, leading to the little alley between the tower and the city wall.
Next, Sara entered the store. She asked for poison; at first Lizbeth denied stocking such things, but eventually she agreed to supply Sara at closing time that night. The party headed to the Lifted Gate Tavern nearby, where a dwarven bartender with two wooden arms told them he'd seen a tall, thin bandaged man smelling of seawater come from the Green Tower the previous Monday night. The group watched the shop for the rest of the day and saw two men, one of them quite powerfully built, enter the shop just before closing time and not come out. Meanwhile, Slint befriended the thug who had spent the day watching the party with a gift of food from the tavern.
At closing time, Sara returned and purchased her poison uneventfully. Next, Mrek entered and accused Lizbeth directly. The big man they'd seen before came down the stairs and tried to cast some sort of spell on Mrek, but failed. When he cast the spell, his eyes briefly flashed red and blue, like those of Aquila. A confrontation seemed inevitable, but Mrek got the man talking. His name was Cutler Hawthorne, and he'd been a POW in an Aniaran science camp during the war, where Aquila had experimented on him and changed him. He had a deep, abiding hatred for elves, and seemed to dislike the various non-human party members as well. Mrek shared his hatred of Aniara, which seemed to defuse Cutler's mistrust of the half-orc, and after some assurances that he and his group wouldn't get in any trouble, he told Mrek where to find the bandaged man: an abandoned warehouse on Waterside Street by the docks.
The party followed the clue and found the bandaged man's hideout, a warehouse built along the cliffisde, with a secret back entrance to the water. Slint followed this entrance and found a rowboat, which he tried to cut loose, but was stopped by someone attacking with a longsword--the bandaged man. The party rushed to his aid and a fight broke out. The bandaged man proved to be a fierce warrior, dealing heavy damage with his sword and able to teleport seemingly at will. He also called out a few monstrous friends, nasty little creatures with teeth that latched on to the party. Things were looking grim, and Sara nearly died, but she rallied and dealt a massive blow to the bandaged man with her chakrams. Blocked in, he cut down Kairon, then moved to kill Sara before teleporting away. Luckily, that meant turning his back on Mrek, who was in bear form and took a huge bite out of the foe, killing him.
Kairon, however, did not survive...

Report Date

15 Jul 2019