News Clipping from "Korth Sentry" - 8th of Olarune Issue

Affluent Businessman Reported Missing

On the morning of the 2nd of Olarune, town guardsmen were approached by members of a caravan hired by well-known trader Marcus Fienn, age 43 of Karrlkaton. Apparently, Fienn had disappeared without a trace the previous night in the company of some foreigners that he befriended on his last trip to Thrane. Royal Swords officials in the region have declined to comment, except to say that they are 'investigating the matter thoroughly'. A Deneith Sentinel Marshal not involved in the investigation had this to say: "It's been nearly a week now, no one has seen a sign of this man...how is this still a 'missing persons' case? I would have declared it a kidnapping by now."

We'll have more to report as this story evolves over the next week.

Episode I: Origins - Act II "Rekkenmark"

Scene I - 6th of Olarune (afternoon)

Gerard, Esan and Morgan reached the outskirts of Rekkenmark at about midday - the city's domain is marked about an hour's walk away from Rekkenmark itself by a pair of of border stones flanking a footbridge over a small stream. In winter, this stream is typically frozen solid, and so it was when the heroes approached. There is also a toll station at this footbridge. When the party crossed the bridge, they got a clear view of the toll station, and discovered the door broken down. Esan indicated that he wished to investigate on his own. He crept up to the station and surveyed a grisly scene. Someone - or something - had torn the place apart, leaving only smears of blood on the floor and wall, and scattered papers most likely belonging to the missing guard. As he stepped out to look for signs of the perpetrator, a fountain of snow burst up to his right and a large insect-like creature came forward. Morgan and Gerard rushed to Esan's aid as the creature (Morgan identified it as a Frostfell ankheg) tried to drag him away.

While Morgan placed an enchantment on Gerard's blade, Esan revitalized himself through sheer force of will. He then pried the creature's mandibles open and somersaulted away, drawing his longspear as he did so. Gerard rushed into the gap, sword in hand. Morgan then stepped into the creature's view and conjured up a terrifying visage to its eye. It screeched and fled across the frozen stream, losing its balance as it did so and skidding to a halt on its belly on the other side. Gerard pursued once again, sliding across the ice with ease even with his bulky armor hindering him. As he landed a useless blow against the ankheg's tough chitinous armor, Morgan fired another of his force missiles at it. Esan used another psionic power against it, encasing it in ectoplasmic goo. The ankheg snapped at Gerard and stepped back out of the reach of Esan's longspear, forcing the monk to cross the ice as well. As Esan contemplated his crossing, Gerard cried out to the Silver Flame for strength right before delivering a fell blow on the giant insect, hacking away one of its limbs and sundering its carapace. Esan ran across the stream, ready to exploit the creature’s new weakness. He stumbled and fell, but as he slid across the ice he put all of his momentum into a horizontal kick that landed on the ankheg’s head, snapping its neck.

While Gerard prayed over Esan’s wounds, Morgan returned to the toll booth and searched it. He found a sack full of gold, silver and copper, presumably toll money. Morgan immediately claimed it as spoils of victory, but Gerard and Esan balked at this, saying that the money rightfully belonged to the throne of Karrnath. After considerable debate, Morgan took his share of the coin and gave the rest to Gerard and Esan to do with as they pleased. They found the body of the toll guard in the hole the ankheg had sprung out of to attack Esan. His sword was bloodied, indicating that he had managed to get a lucky blow on the creature before being slaughtered. The travelers continued to Rekkenmark.

Scene II – 6th of Olarune (evening)

They reached the city an hour or so before dusk, and immediately made their way to the Draco Hill district. Morgan and Gerard both had a mutual contact (though from different sources) in a tavern called Wynarn’s Retreat. An information broker named Fergus apparently owned the establishment. The tavern was not very crowded yet, as it wasn’t quite evening. There was a circular bar in the center of the room, and tables scattered around it. A smoky haze concealed the edges of the room from view, making it a good place for private conversations. They could hear a musician playing a dulcimer somewhere.

When they sat down, Morgan immediately asked one of the barkeeps where Fergus was. Esan and Gerard looked around for any possible watchers while Morgan and the barkeep talked. Gerard noticed a shabby man deep in his drink sitting at the bar almost right next to him. Esan saw three Karrnathi soldiers at a corner table, talking quietly. Morgan learned that Fergus was not available at the moment. The barkeep said that the man had several other establishments in town, and only came to Wynarn’s Retreat to check up on things every now and then. He seemed to be trying to tell Morgan something, but whatever it was got lost in translation. Morgan wrote down his name on a piece of parchment and handed it to the barkeep along with a spare piece and a quill. The barkeep offered to jot down the names of the other places Fergus owned and frequented if they wanted to try to track him down. But when the barkeep handed him the parchment and quill, all it said was ‘When you leave, go instead through the door on the left’.

Esan pointed out the Karrnathi soldiers to Morgan, who recognized their heraldry (a snake coiled around a longsword) immediately – they were soldiers of Talovar ir’Mandar. Esan decided to test his social skills against them. He got up and went over to their table while Morgan watched. When he arrived, the soldiers did not appear interested in talking, but the situation escalated rapidly as Esan spoke. He did not seem to think he was being rude or bold, but the soldiers became increasingly angry as he made his unsolicited inquiries (questions such as ‘Where are the ambassadors who are going to the meeting staying?’), and at one point threatened to arrest him if he wouldn’t go away. They discovered much more about Esan than he did about them – they demanded his identification papers, and then asked him several questions about his status in Breland. Frustrated, Esan returned to the bar without any answers.

Morgan explained to Esan the basics of diplomacy with soldiers, which seemed to involve buying lots of alchohol. He noticed that the soldiers were watching Esan and writing something down on parchment, and decided to demonstrate the proper method to the aescetic. Morgan returned to the soldiers’ table with three tankards full of Nightwood ale, and smoothed things over in a matter of seconds. He even managed to leave without showing his own identification.

During all of this, Gerard noticed the drunkard become suddenly alert for a moment when Esan was provoking the soldiers. He bought the man a drink to try and elicit some sort of response, but the man did not seem talkative. The travelers left, and Gerard and Esan were surprised when Morgan led them through the left door on their way out. They entered what appeared to be a small conference room with a table, some chairs and some lit candles. When Morgan closed the door behind him, the ambient sound of the tavern was completely shut out. He began examining the door for strange markings, but before he could discern its nature it opened again and the ‘drunkard’ came through, no longer looking drunk at all. He named himself Fergus, and asked them to be seated.

Fergus and the party talked at length. Morgan mentioned that Fixer had sent him, which seemed to perk Fergus’ interest a bit. They got to the point of the meeting quickly – they needed information about the Order of the Emerald Claw and Talovar ir’Mandar, and why they might be related. Fergus told them that he had a very good contact for their purposes, but that a meeting would be expensive to set up. The exact figure came up to a thousand gold...each. When the three explained to Fergus that they didn’t have that sort of money, he pondered for a moment, and decided that he would set up the meeting for a hundred each, and a favor that they would owe him later. They agreed to this, but he wanted some sort of collateral to make sure they would be honest with him. When he asked for a bit of fingernail or a hair from each of them, Gerard got up to leave. He did not seem interested in giving up flesh of any sort to a complete stranger. Fergus left the room to allow them to confer among themselves.

After considerable debate, Gerard relented. Fergus got his money and his collateral, promising to give the fingernails and hair back when the favor was returned. He seemed to note that Gerard was seething, so he gave up some free information to placate him. Udengar Prathos, a dwarf who had served the Mandars for several hundred years, had recently been fired, and was quite angry about it. Fergus implied that Udengar might just be mad enough to tell complete strangers anything that he knew about Talovar ir’Mandar. The group thanked him for the information and got up to leave. Fergus asked them where they would be staying so that he could send a runner to find them when the meeting with Sigo Karlach was arranged. They said they didn’t know, but that they would relay this information to the barkeep. They ended up deciding on the Proud Tower, a four story inn in the same district, not too far away from Wynarn’s Retreat.

Scene III – 7th of Olarune (morning)

The party woke up early in the morning and set out to their various tasks for the day. They went to the Tax Collector’s Office on the outskirts of town first, to turn in the (Morgan’s share-free) toll money they had found the previous afternoon. The clerk at the office was stunned at their honesty, and his supervisor told him that the coin had already been filed as ‘lost’. The clerk explained just how annoying it would be to redo the paperwork already filed on the lost toll money. He gave them the bag back, which Esan and Gerard split between them. After a short amount of deliberation, they decided to go to Udengar Prathos’ residence next, in the Lamar Crossing residential district.

Udengar Prathos’ house would have been considered middle class in any industrial city, but in the prestigious town of Rekkenmark it was solidly working class. The dwarf opened the door when they knocked, and invited them in when they mentioned Fergus’ name. When they explained their purpose, he immediately began indulging them with everything he knew about Talovar ir’Mandar. Some of the topics he covered:

*The timing of Ermana Kessler’s arrival coincided with a purge of the Mandar guards that seemed to include all of the ‘royalists’, that is, people more loyal to Kaius III than Talovar.

*Kessler arrived six months ago. Though Udengar did not survive her coming long, he did learn that she was not staying at the Mandar Keep or Mandar Rath (the surrounding town), but she still seemed to be around a bit too often for someone traveling from the next nearest town.

*Dashokoya Nurabo, a Reidran woman, arrived about nine months ago in Talovar's court with a trade agreement between Karrnath and Reidra that supplied grain and other goods to Karrnath. She is one of many Reidrans assigned to diplomatic duties in Khorvaire. She has also helped oversee the distribution of the emergency grain shipments that arrived last month in response to the destructive blizzard. She is well-liked in this region.

*Some of the royalists who were fired during the purging refused to leave. Those ones disappeared. Udengar is the only royalist fired from the Mandar estates who hasn't left the Rekkenmark region of Karrnath altogether (as far as he knows).

*The stairs leading down to the dungeon of Mandar Keep are hidden behind a tapestry in a store room on the first floor.

*Talovar was scheduled to deliver a short public speech at the Rekkenmark Academy in the North Wing Auditorium that evening.

Udengar also promised to draw up a map of the Mandar Keep and surrounding region. He told them to return in the morning and he'd have something for them. They thanked him, and tried to pay him for his help, but he refused, saying that any trouble they caused Talovar ir'Mandar was payment enough for him. They left for Rekkenmark Academy.

Scene IV - 7th of Olarune (evening)

After Esan and Morgan visited a tailor for some less conspicuous clothing, the three companions set off for the Rekkenmark Academy. They arrived well before dusk, when Talovar was supposed to make his speech. Esan surveyed the auditorium and found some seating in a balcony where they could see clearly without being seen in return. They all visited the military museum, and noticed that the Galifar Era wing was closed off entirely, leaving only several rooms full of Karrnathi relics and depictions of great victories available to see. Morgan and Gerard both thought this odd.

They returned in the evening to the Auditorium and found the seats that Esan had recommended still empty. Morgan noticed a gnome woman with a Korranberg Chronicle insignia on her cloak, getting a note pad ready. Esan retrieved a note pad as well. Talovar arrived with his entourage to cheers from the lower seats, which were largely filled with Karrns (the foreigners, a much smaller crowd, seemed to be congregating in the balconies for protection). Thirty Mandar guards surrounded the stage, polearms, swords and bows at the ready as Talovar got up to the podium. Esan and Gerard both noticed a woman in a gray cloak with the hood up to hide her face slipping into the crowd from Talovar's entourage. Gerard thought it might be Ermana Kessler.

Talovar's speech was short and to the point - he was angry with Karrns who complained about martial law. His speech was full of jingoistic rhetoric about the Treaty of Thronehold being a farce, and Karrnath being surrounded on all sides by implaccable enemies (whatever Kaius III thought). He urged his countrymen to turn in any potential dissidents to the Royal Swords, because 'spies are everywhere'. He also outright told the crowd that the trade agreements of the Barrakas Summit were excluding Karrnath, a tell-tale sign of things to come. The Karrnath crowd ate it up, though the folks in the balcony were strangely silent. All in all, the speech lasted barely ten minutes. The three gathered up their things and left for the Proud Tower, a bit more knowledgable about the man they had heard so much about.

Scene V - 8th of Olarune (early morning)

The companions rested peacefully through much of the night, intent on getting up early once again to go see Udengar. But they all woke with a start when a man clutching a leather parchment case in one hand crashed through Gerard's glass window. Before Gerard could do anything, the man (who looked pannicked, and had gashes on his face as if he had just escaped a knife fight) opened Gerard's door and stepped out into the hallway. He did not get far; two shuriken flew through the window after him, and Gerard heard him stumble. Gerard rolled out of bed, unsheating his sword as he did so, and landed on the floor in a defensive stance. Another man, this one dressed all in black cloth from head to toe and masked besides, jumped through Gerard's window. He seemed to step quite lightly, and he had a short sword in one hand and another strapped to his back. He ordered Gerard to stand aside, warning him that it 'wasn't his affair', but Gerard refused to look on while the other murdered a defenseless man. Without another word, the black-clothed man drew his other sword and disappeared entirely.

Meanwhile, Esan stepped out of his window onto a narrow ledge and began making his way across to Gerard's room. He spotted a man dressed in black clothing from head to toe getting ready to jump across the street from another roof to the Proud Tower floor that they were all on. Morgan grabbed his cloak and stepped out of his room to see what all the commotion was and saw a dead man in the hallway next to Gerard's open door, two shuriken sticking out of his back...


....TO BE CONTINUED

Episode I: Origins - Act I "Omens and Rumors"

Scene I - Sul, 23rd of Zarantyr, 998 YK

In Flamekeep, most citizens were taking part in the evening's religious ceremonies while Gerard waited for the ferry to arrive. As he stood at the dock gazing out at the icy waters, wondering how a boat could traverse such dangerous waters, and wondering why he was foolish enough to get on board one that was willing to try, he was accosted by a pair of Thranish soldiers who were obviously quite inebriated. One of them tried to pick a fight with Gerard, but he merely showed his identification and they ran away without a word. He then spoke with the other passenger waiting for the ferry, a Karrn merchant named Marcus Fienn who seemed quite amiable. Marcus asked Gerard to guard his cargo, a shipment of much needed wool for a Karrnath buried in snow, across the Scion's Sound.

Meanwhile, the Five Nations Express sped across an unusually quiet Thranish countryside to Flamekeep. In one of the packed steerage carts at the end of the rail, Esan and Morgan sat or stood with over two hundred other passengers who couldn't afford coach. Esan noticed something tugging at his money pouch and snatched a small hand from behind him. A street urchin, probably not past his twelfth year in miserable Khorvaire, had been trying to pick his pocket. He hastily explained to Esan that he had no money for food in Flamekeep, and Esan explained in return the consequences of theft. The urchin troubled him no more.

Morgan spoke briefly with a rather banged up, dirty warforged who was sitting nearby, looking dejected. The warforged gave no name, but explained when asked that he had nearly been dismantled by an angry mob in Nowhere, and was looking for work in Thrane, where the subservient role of his kind was at least clearly defined and racial violence thus less likely to occur. Morgan and Esan then talked for a while.

The Five Nations Express stopped abruptly, and everyone in the cart slowly filed out. Tickets were required to depart the Express, and Esan and Morgan both noticed the street urchin being hauled away by House Orien security when he could not present his ticket. Morgan turned around and managed to convince the Orien guards that the urchin was his son. The child picked up on it fairly quickly, and the Orien guards either believed the act or didn't want to deal with the hassle, so they let him go. Morgan then told the child to stay away from crime, and warned him that he was a wizard, and would know if the child was up to any trouble. He seemed to get the message.

Morgan noticed as he turned to walk across the bridge into Flamekeep that his ferry was departing in five minutes. He told Esan this, and was surprised to learn that Esan was also boarding the ferry. They made their way quickly down to the docks on the city's west side and saw the squat, unwieldy Lyrandar-owned ferry slowly drifting away from its port. Both of them barely managed to jump across, landing on the deck of the ship and meeting Barthanas, a very irate, elderly half-elf 'captain' (though the title of captain was a bit of a conceit, seeing as how he was also the only crew member). He took their travel fare and told them that the icebergs littering the Sound combined with the fact that he needed to idle the boat for a few hours each day to get some sleep meant that the trip would take about six days, with one short stop for supplies in Throneport halfway across. They met Gerard and Marcus at this point, and their journey began.

24th-26th of Zarantyr

These days passed rather uneventfully; the passengers conversed some to pass the time, but mostly everyone kept to their own business. On Zor, the ferry stopped in Throneport for supplies, but after an hour continued on its trip. Barthanas informed the passengers that they would have to move a little bit closer to the Mournland shore than he liked due to an unexpected ice flow in the ferry's path, but he didn't expect it to delay the ferry's arrival in Karrnath by more than a few hours.

Scene II - Far, 27th of Zarantyr

Despite what Barthanas said, the ferry did not come within fifty miles of the Mournland, yet the passengers could still make out the eerily still Dead Gray Mist, stretching from surface to sky, horizon to horizon in the south. Gerard and Esan were both outside, enjoying some fresh air when strange creatures began climbing aboard the ship. They were bipedal sea creatures covered in scales and fins, with webbed feet and hands, and they wielded tridents and shields made out of coral and shells. They immediately attacked the passengers as if in a mad frenzy. Morgan came out of the cabin and assisted Esan and Gerard in the defense of the ferry. Gerard made short work of most of them, and Esan killed the last one as it tried to escape. Morgan then told everyone that the creatures were locathahs, and that it was unusual to find hostile tribes in the Scion’s Sound. One of them still breathed, and Morgan decided that it might be best to question it to discern the motives behind the attack. Gerard bent over the gaping wound in the creature’s chest caused by his own sword during the fight, and when he stood up there was only a scar.

Morgan questioned the creature, but it did not appear to share a language with any of them. Morgan went into the cabin and found Marcus hiding under a bed. He knocked on Barthanas’ door (which was locked) and convinced him that it was safe to come out. Barthanas came out, and recognized the creature for a locathah as well. He spoke Aquan fluently, and conversed with the creature for a few minutes. While he did this, Marcus rewarded the other passengers with gold for ‘defending his cargo’; he didn’t seem to understand the motives of the locathah at all, for when Barthanas was done speaking to the captive, he made it clear the the creature was quite mad. The only marginally intelligible things it said were that his family was all dead, the fish tasted bad, and that there was ‘something in the water’. Barthanas suggested that they give it a clean death, to put it out of its misery, before going back to the pilot room.

Esan and Morgan initially agreed with this idea, but Gerard insisted that the waters were the jurisdiction of the Throne Wardens of House Deneith, and that the creature needed to be turned over to them for judgement. He placed manacles on the locathah and the other two agreed to help him watch over the captive until they arrived in Karrnath. Morgan told his familiar to catch a fish and see if the locathah was telling the truth; when the crow returned with a fish in its mouth, it said that the fish didn't taste right at all.

Scene III – Sul, 1st of Olarune

The ferry arrived in Southbridge in the evening, just a few hours behind schedule. Southbridge is a small village built around a bridge crossing the Karrn River. Southbridge is also a crossroad on an Orien trade route that branches off to Rekkenmark, Korth and Karrlakton. The passengers disembarked and headed to the Port Authority, where they turned the locathah over to some guards who Barthanas was hiring for his next trip. Morgan wrote out a short description of the locathah's behavior and what it had said during the interrogation and handed it to the guards, who said they would escort it to Throneport and make sure House Deneith got the note. They stayed the evening in the King's Bounty, the only inn Southbridge had to offer. The accomodations in the rooms they rented were barely adequate, but the dinner and ale more than made up for this shortcoming. While they lingered in the common room, Morgan asked around to see if any caravans were leaving Southbridge for Rekkenmark in the morning, but could not find any interested in hiring on guards or accepting passengers.

Meanwhile, Gerard and Esan noticed Marcus Fienn having some sort of altercation with a gray cloaked woman sporting an eye patch. They left the King's Bounty, and by the time Gerard got outside to see where they had gone both had disappeared. He went back inside and inquired about the woman with the eye patch at the bar. The barkeep (and owner of the inn), a fat Karrn veteran named Maigon, denied knowing anything about the woman. Gerard sensed that Maigon might not be telling the truth, but when he pressed the man for a true answer, Maigon merely warned him that inquisitive foreigners didn’t last long in Karrnath and told him to sit down. Gerard decided that starting a fight was not the wisest course of action and let it go, though grudgingly. Gerard, Morgan and Esan then talked for a while, and realized that they were all still going in the same direction. They decided to travel together before settling down for the night.

2nd-4th of Olarune

After gathering supplies and cold weather gear, the party set out on foot for Rekkenmark. The first three days were unremarkable; the road was not as well traveled as it might have been in better weather, but it was patrolled by the Royal Swords of Karrnath. They were stopped once on the first day by Royal Swords and asked for their identification papers, but when they produced these they were not further hindered. On Wir, they passed Tanar Rath, a fortress town governed by one of the Karrn warlords. It was midday, so they decided not to stop and look around.

Scene IV – Zor, 5th of Olarune

Just before dusk, the party spotted two figures just down the road; having seen no other travelers for the past few hours they were immediately out of place, and moreso when it was apparent that they were not moving, simply standing in the middle of the road. When they got closer, Gerard and Esan recognized Marcus and the woman with the eye patch, though now she was dressed in the uniform of a Royal Swords officer. She had a bare-bladed bastard sword swung over one shoulder, and a cocked hand crossbow in her other hand. She ordered the group to halt, and declared that she was Captain Adalgisa Jaranus of the Royal Swords. She told the party that Marcus had reported one of them as a Thranish spy. Marcus immediately protested, saying that he had merely said ‘yes’ when she asked him if there were any Thranes in from the ferry. Adalgisa insisted that one of them was a spy, and asked for identification papers. Gerard and Esan both spotted soldiers hiding in nearby trees while she was speaking. Gerard volunteered that he was a Thrane, though he said he was no spy. She didn’t believe him. Marcus told Gerard not to worry; the Royal Swords would merely take him into custody and ask him some questions, and then release him when it was clear that he was an honest traveler. Adalgisa interrupted Marcus by putting a crossbow bolt through his throat, and then ordered her soldiers to execute the party for ‘murdering a Karrn merchant on the King’s road’.

A short fight ensued; Morgan immediately put the Captain and one of her men to sleep with a powerful enchantment scroll while Gerard and Esan made short work of the others. The party realized that killing Royal Swords in Karrnath was no small complication – they briefly talked about the consequences, and realized that turning them in for murder would do no good. In a place where martial law reigns, a Royal Swords officer is going to be believed over a bunch of foreigners. They checked the murder weapon, and it was conspicuously generic and unidentifiable in origin. They decided that the only way to see justice done was to mete it out themselves. They executed the two soldiers who hadn’t been put to sleep, and hauled the captain and the other away for questioning off the road.

Morgan used another scroll before the interrogation that prevented the two captives from speaking lies. to It did not prevent them from being evasive, so Gerard used more…traditional means of questioning – brute intimidation. And before Esan moved back to the road to cover up evidence of the battle, he used some sort of mental power that seemed to frighten Adalgisa even more. They learned in just a few minutes that Adalgisa and her men were all agents of the Order of the Emerald Claw, a Karrnathi terrorist organization that used to be an order of knights in service to King Kaius I.

Adalgisa and her men were ordered by Ermana Kessler, another agent of the Order in a different cell, to patrol the road to Rekkenmark for ‘Flamers’ and others who might prove meddlesome to her, and to eliminate them if possible. They do not know what Kessler is up to, though they do know that she is meeting with Talovar ir’Mandar, a young Karrn warlord currently giving lectures at the Rekkenmark Academy. Morgan asked Adalgisa if the Order is somehow still connected to the Royal Throne, and Adalgisa said no. She did imply some sort of connection between the Order of the Emerald Claw and the Blood of Vol religion, but she didn’t seem to know terribly much about that, either. She repeatedly tried to buy her life with promises of amnesty and even wealth. She betrayed the only other person directly in her chain of command, some sort of official in the Royal Swords office in Korth named Alarich Dorn. Apparently, Dorn is some sort of communications hub for her cell. He gets her orders and passes them along to her with her regular directives from the Royal Swords. She said that she has never met Ermana Kessler; she merely got her orders through Dorn.

The interrogators offered them a chance to live – if they would write out a confession and come quietly to the nearest Royal Swords office to turn themselves in. Even Adalgisa was too terrified of the consequences of living to betray the Order. The nameless soldier died with dignity, but Adalgisa went to Dolurrh screaming. The party then buried the dead as deep as they could, making sure to smash the mouths of the Emerald Claw agents so that they could not communicate with investigating priests. They buried Marcus separately with a small ceremony led by Gerard, and did not smash his mouth in. Gerard admitted that he was an agent of the Silver Flame at this point, but Esan and Morgan were still willing to travel with him. They found the horses used by Marcus and the Emerald Claw agents. Marcus’ they kept, but the others were branded as property of the Karrnathi military so they were unsaddled and let go. The group continued to Rekkenmark.