The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger

General Summary

A Case of Identity

It had been a quiet week since the aliopter mission. Princess Morganna, ever mindful of being both fashionably and practically styled, had met with several tailors across Ivannia to design a new wardrobe to fit her lifestyle. Both Tidran and Farren had done much research at the library. Farren now considered herself an amateur of Ivannian history while Tidran had a week’s worth of compiled notes about the Yellow Serpent written in his journal. Dariyana kept to herself for the most part.
Elsewhere in Ivannia, the building plans for the city’s upward expansion had begun. Builders from each of the houses were now inspecting the foundations of the building they planned to build on. The council seemed in agreement. All was well.
The mail arrived at the group’s elaborate chambers promptly that morning. Morganna received invitations from House Champlain to visit their new exotic creature exhibit that week. House Cousteau, not to be outdone, sent an invitation to visit their new museum exhibit about old maps. Meanwhile, Dariyana received a letter that made her more pensive than usual. She didn’t show the note to anyone.
But the morning was just about to be interrupted by grave news. Uncle Francois visited Morganna and her friends soon after the mail arrived. Morganna’s uncle seemed agitated. He quickly took a seat and told Morganna about a concerning matter.
“There have been murders in the buildings we are inspecting,” the councilman said, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief. “Builders, on three different occasions, were found dead in an old basement after they had unsealed it to inspect the foundations. One died near old pipes, one died near the stairs, and one died near a rotting bookcase. But the mysterious thing is, not a mark was found on their bodies. It’s baffling.”
Morganna listened closely. “Should we not invite the other houses to help us find the murderer?”
Francois shook his head. “I’d rather solve this as an internal matter. Could you and your friends investigate on the sly? I’ve heard you have experience with this sort of thing.”
“And what would be the payment? Surely my friends wouldn’t do this only out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“300 shins.”
“Let me consult with my friends.”
Morganna asked her friends what they would like to do. In short order (and rather inclined by the promise of a lot of money) they agreed to take on the investigation.
Francois left the apartments greatly relieved.
The next visitor was equally as surprising, if not more. Morganna once again heard a knock on her door. It was Jason, a diplomatic aide from House Bonaparte. But everyone saw through the ruse at once.
“Come in,” Morganna said simply.
“Sih’Teel!” Chimed the rest of the group, not all happily.
Sih’Teel looked embarrassed.
“I’ve been working as an aide to House Bonaparte for a month now under an entirely different face and name. Please don’t reveal my disguise outside this room.”
The group agreed. They started to work out the details of the investigation and brainstormed together. While they deliberated, Uncle Francois returned to pass on a vital piece of information. There had been a dissenter in the ranks of the builders who was against upward expansion. The name of the dissenter was “Rys Mongiver.”
The game is afoot.

The Adventure of the Empty House

The group decided to visit the basement of the apartment buildings first. They arrived in front of a stately, brown-bricked apartment building with ten stories! The entrance was roped off and two guards stood in front. Morganna and her friends easily retrieved information from the Ivannian soldiers.
“Aye, three dead now!” One soldier said. “Happens each time one of them go down there alone.”
With those not-so-comforting words, the group entered the lobby and crept down ancient, dusty stairs only to enter a dark, sparely-furnished basement. There was dust, dirt, and cobwebs everywhere. Everyone began to investigate.
They found shifting shadows, dust, and an abandoned bookshelf. The spots where the men had died were marked with yellow tape. Farren threw a rock at the shadows. But other than shifting a little, the shadows did nothing. Meanwhile, Dante discovered an old mosaic pattern on the dusty floor. He replaced two of the missing pieces but found that he was missing the last piece. He took a rubbing of the design in case he could ask about it later.
Sih’Teel impatiently tried to get the group to get moving. After they had found all they could in the basement, they moved on to investigate the dissenterRys Mongiver.

The Adventure of the Crooked Man

The first stop of investigation was to inquire at the last place the suspect had been seen. Based on Francois’ help, the group arrived at a clock and antiques shop to ask questions. At the counter of the shop, there was a dark-skinned lady reading a book and experimenting with an electrical current with her other hand. She put her book down and snapped off the energy current when Morganna and company entered the shop.
Lysa, the young woman, was none other than Moniver’s betrothed. Whe Morganna asked about him, Lysa burst into tears. Morganna comforted her and patted her back. When Lysa calmed down, she brought out a picture of her betrothed. While everyone looked on at the proffered portrait, the man inside the portrait began to move!
“He’s been stuck in here,” Lysa wailed again. “I don’t know how to get him out!”
Farren had better plans than to simply release the man from the portrait. She looked at the portrait and began to shake it a little. The man looked ill. He took a piece of paper from his bag and wrote something on it. Then plastering it across the glass, it read “help me.”
“Well,” Sih’Teel said, “we’ve got the man in question. Time to take him to the inspector at the House.”
Lysa refused to give up the picture unless she were to accompany the group. But Farren wanted to do a little more investigating first. They all headed to the local pub to question the man’s alibi for the murders. His alibi was clean, according to the grungy men sitting at the and the pub owner running the establishment. But the pub owner said something that caught the group’s attention.
“I saw him sitting there, looking over some official looking papers. Course I never bothered to ask about them, but they had an Ivannian seal.”
The group took the portrait and took turns shaking it until the man finally took the official papers from his bag and held them against the glass. Farren investigated the portrait, fiddled with it, consulted her historical knowledge, and managed to pop the back open. The dissenter now stood in their midst, fully human. The portrait was now just an empty frame.
The dissenter had intercepted a scrivener bot carrying the council meeting notes from the expansion project and kept the notes, leaving the ruined bot in the back alley behind the pub. He confessed to the stealing of the papers. But he was innocent of murder.
The group scratched their heads. If this man wasn’t the murderer, what or who else could it be? They marched the dissenter to the Ivannian investigator and received the promise payment of solving the murders. But they warned the investigator about the threat of the shadows. The investigator promised to take measures to protect the citizenry.
It was now early afternoon. Morganna, Sih’Teel, and Dariyana decided to visit the exotic animal exhibit in House Champlain while Dante, Farren, and Tidran decided to investigate the creepy basement a little farther.

The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

Dante, Farren, and Tidran arrived back to the apartment building only to find that one of the guards they had just met that morning had been found dead near the stairs! The guard had gone down alone, to the dismay of his friend. It was a sobering sight. When the group inspected the body of the soldier, they found an expression of pure terror frozen on his features.
Farren strode down the stairs, angry at the soldier’s foolishness and desperate to stop these murders. She looked around her on the stairs and did a double take.
She had TWO shadows.
Immediately she felt an icy chill run up her back. Farren gave a cry and turned to attack the shadow. Tidran and Dante helped her as soon as they heard her yell. The shadow was easily defeated, leaving behind a dry skin and a dusty smudge. As Farren examined the remains, she found that the dry skin could help her stay invisible during stealthy tasks. She tucked it away in her bag for later use. She made an instant machine to vacuum up the dusty remains and tucked the makeshift vacum in her bag. But then, Farren, Dante, and Tidran watched in dismay as four shadows zoomed out from the basement and slipped into the dark edges of the streets.
Meanwhile, Morganna, Sih’Teel, and Dariyana arrived at the House Champlain Menagerie. They passed through the halls to visit the newest creature resident. As they joined a crowd in front of the sturdy, iron bars, they saw their first glimpse of a Jiraskar. The giant beast had strong back legs and giant teeth! It resembled a large, bloodred reptile.
The jiraskar started chewing on the metal bars as soon as it saw the people staring at it from the other side of the enclosure. But the bars didn’t look so sturdy anymore. The Jiraskar threatened to get out!
Dariyana ushered everyone out of the menagerie. Mo dumped a giant boulder on the Jiraskar’s head. Sih’Teel vanished momentarily but then reappeared holding a syringe. He quickly jabbed the tranquilizer syringe into the stunned jiraskar’s body, causing it to lose consciousness entirely. A harried zoo worker rushed into the area but saw the situation was under control.
“How did this happen?” Morganna asked the worker.
“Something was tampered from the inside… and we didn’t have our force field up.”
“Will you perform better if I offer you funding to get proper safety measures in place?”
The worker agreed and named a large sum. Morganna arranged to get the money sent later and walked out of the menagerie with her friends afterward.
“I’ll head to the museum next,” she said. Dariyana and Sih’Teel accompanied her.
Back at the basement, Farren, Dante, and Tidran agreed they should go to the museum to investigate the mosaic puzzle on the basement floor.

The Final Problem

The group met up at the stately museum in House Cousteau and compared information they had gathered. Then they met with the museum curator. The man was more than happy to retrieve the missing piece of the mosaic puzzle and also show the adventurers the old map exhibit.
To their surprise, one of the maps on display detailed the apartment buildings the murders happened under. There seemed to be a tunnel below…
Now that they had the missing piece, they rushed back to the old basement in Estelle. Back in the dusty room, Dante fitted the final, circular piece to the mosaic. The ground trembled and then the floor changed to reveal a dark hole! Morganna found it to be approximately a hundred feet deep. The group lit the glowglobes and descended the hole!
Through another tunnel, they could see flashes of fire in a large room. Mo quickly prepared a large shield to cover the entire group from fire damage. Then the adventurers rushed to attack!
It was an ember scion, a fiery creature with a flaming body and head and sharp claws and teeth! Because of Mo’s quick thinking and Dariyana’s accurate shooting, the group easily took down the fire beast. Next to the lava pit that the beast had previously inhabited, there was an intricately carved door. Farren easily opened it and the group stepped inside.
The room they entered was in stark contrast to the natural cavern and tunnel they had been in previously. Instead of hard rock walls, the rectangular room had glowing, blue sides that gave off good light. Instead of a bare room, there was old technology and shins piled everywhere! And instead of a fire beast, there was a small, shriveled, and purple humanoid with a large brain swelling its head laying in the corner of the room, fast asleep.
The group had woken the creature, called a “quotien,” from its sleep of many years. Its telepathic mind probed the adventurer’s memories and thoughts.
Who are you…

Have you anything of value…
Sih’Teel offered the portrait to the quotien. The quotien took one look and almost slipped into the portrait frame. But then it caught itself. It spread rage through its thoughts and blasted them at the PCs.
The fight had begun!

Rewards Granted

300 Shins Each Various Loot

Missions/Quests Completed

Found the murderer

Character(s) interacted with

Uncle Francois
Rys Mongiver
Lysa

Report Date

18 Jul 2020

Primary Location

Ivannia