Jarlyn’s place

We tie the leaders hands behind his back and start heading for Bob and Chad’s house.  As we walk, we talk. He says the offer to get us (dead or alive) was 50 gp. He doesn’t know who is offering the money because it’s in escrow with his boss. His boss is the “Upright Man” which is basically like a mafia leader for the town. Perrol and I notice that the more he talks about his boss, the less sure he sounds. We ask him if he took the job directly from his boss, he says “of course”, but we think he’s lieing. When we get to Bob and Chad’s we are unable to get in. Perrol does mage-sight and he sees the lock and the walls are magically protected. He also notices some items that are magical on the leader: earring let’s him keep his wits about him, ring helps him keep alive, and the knife is good in a fight. We also find four throwing knives, another dagger, a garrote, lockpick set, tools for escaping, etc. and 3.4 SP. We ask if he knows who took Julliene and this causes him concern. We ask him what he knows about the Lord Marshall and he says he’s an asshole and shaking things up. Says he has secret police. We decide to let him go but make him promise not to pursue the contract on us; his men must do the same.

As we are leaving the park, Kross, Perrol, and Glaive notice that there were 4 bowmen (the ones that attacked us) watching the park, but they leave when we release their boss. We decide to continue on to the “Home Depot” to see if we can find the father/son combo. We find them but don’t learn anything new about the bounty on our head. We ask if they know anything about people missing and get a surprise answer. Apparently, whole families in poor neighborhoods have gone missing once every two to four weeks for the past 3 months. Seems to happen in the middle of the night, houses ransacked. He suggests that we could talk the “Upright Man’s” org to find out more. We thank them for the information and I give them 1 SP. We head to the docks, eat lunch, and head towards “the front” where we can talk to someone associated to the “Upright Man”. We walk in to a dock “shop” that has a guard in the corner and a three people at desks. One notices us come in and says, “Oh shit”, the others look up and one goes “Eeeek” and dives under his desk, the guard gets nervous after seeing their reaction. Perrol and Glaive notice that there are slits in the wall behind the desks; looks like it might be for arrows/crossbolts. The oldest gentlemen gets up and walks over to the counter and asks if he can help us. We ask him about the families that have gone missing, but he doesn’t know. He can ask around. We ask about who knows about people in the castle and he says they prefer to stay out of politics, they like “The Lady”. Perrol lets him know that we are worried and concerned about Julliene. This is news to them. He lets us know that there may be someone willing to trade that information. We say that we will be at our inn in two hours to trade the information. We bid farewell and leave, keeping a watchful eye. We go to the temple and ask about the poor people missing. We meet with the Matthias, the balding, middle-aged priest, and he says he has not heard of the but maybe the priests at the Temple of Hospin have. We head over and ask to speak to a priest. We are taken to a waiting room and the High Priestess comes out. I tell her what we are asking for and she has us follow her to a side room. She pulls a priest out and asks him what he knows about disappearing families. He says he’s heard it in passing two other times, but it was from one poor district and one middle-lower class neighborhood. These two neighborhoods are different than the one we no about. The mother says this may explain why they are seeing an increase in orphans being dropped off. We ask them to ask around for the people that come in and let us know if they hear anything. She asks if we know what is happening at the castle, but we don’t know anymore than her. We head back to the inn.

As we are heading in to the inn, we notice that it is very quiet and there is a nervous energy. There is a man in the corner that is looking kind of angry in the corner but he doesn’t see us yet. We ask the barmaid what is going on and she says that this is Mr. Miggins, a lieutenant for the Upright Guy. We go to sit down at a table away from him; he jumps up and says “you’re here!”. We go over to join him and he orders to pitchers of ale. He asks if he have news of Julliene, which we don’t. We tell him when we last saw her and some of the circumstances, not all. We ask about the contract on us and Perrol. He says we don’t need to worry about the contract on us anymore. We ask why and he says he was the one that did it to see if anyone from his organization would take it; which they did. We let him know if was Vinny. He apologizes for using us as bait and gives each of us a healing potion and 5 gp. Perrol asks about the contract on him and it turns out it’s the Lord Marshall, but he doesn’t know why. He asks if we know how the Reagant Mother is doing and we give what little info we can. I ask if he knows anything about the family’s missing and he does not, but this piques his interest. He asks us to please check in with the captain of the lady’s guard every once in a while. He lets us know that he can be reached at the shop on the docks usually. He also lets us know the Lord Marshall hasn’t let the castle grounds for at least two months.

Glaive decides to ask around the neighborhood to see if anyone might have seen Julliene leave. An old man appears to have seen her, she left hurredly for the castle. He didn’t see anyone following her. We go back up to our room and discuss what to do about the Lord Marshall. Then Perroll thinks to do mage sight and realizes there is small magical instrument attached to the outside of our window - uhoh. We go out of the room and decide we should ask the wizards to look at this. We go and meet the Director of Special Projects. We describe what we saw on our window and he lets us know that they sold 8 of them about 4 months ago. This would coincide with 3-4 days after we got our original order. He lets us know that they are short range audios devices, only good for about a block. They can’t find the paperwork. We get back to the inn and about 7 pm while we are sitting at a table; then 4 guards come in and say our presence is requested at the castle. We ask by whom and they say the lieutenant, which would report to the Lord Marshall. We decide to go to castle. As we are walking, four more guards fall in behind us. Then, as we get closer again, we see 7 more guards coming. I stop and ask why all the guards. The eight guards around us look confused. We realize it’s the Captain. He tells the guards around us that we will be coming with them. They start to object, but the captain tells them they don’t want to do this. The captain takes us to the Reagant Mother’s waiting room and then the Reagant Mother and Julliene walk out.

We earn 3 xp…..

We leave the castle and decide to go to the “day labor” site to see if anyone has news of Julliene. As we are walking, Glaive and Perrol notices something is not right. Then they realize that there are no city guards on the streets; Perrol activates his armour. We continue on, but on high alert. Perrol and I also notice the street seem to be thinning out. We decide to split to opposite sides of the street; Perrol, Glaive and I on one side and Kross and Ghoral on the other. As we are walking, Perrol stops and calls everyone over. He tells us he hears a whisper, “Here they come.”, and then the slow unsheathing of swords. He thinks they are about a block away. We split back up with Perrol and Ghoral on one side, Glaive and I on the other, and then Kross goes on top of the buildings. We continue on and then out loud we hear, “Oh come now, you aren’t going to make it easy for us.” Then from around the corner, three guys step out with swords. I say, “Why don’t the rest of your friends step out.” Then three more guys step out from the opposite side of the street; five in front and the talker in the back.

Segment 12 starts. Glaive moves forward 3 hexes and goes defensive, Perrol delays, Kross fires his bow but misses, I delay, Ghoral moves 4 hexes. The guys in front move forward four hexes and then the one in back says 1 and 2. Perrol warns us that there are five more behind us; dressed the same, i.e. heavy leather with small shields and swords. I check the boxes in the alley by us and it appears they are heavy and won’t move easily. The leader says up archers and six archers pop out of the boxes on the four opposite roof corners. Glaive moves forward three hexes and dodges, Ghoral moves 3 and dodges, the leader yells attack Delta, Perrol moves four hexes and dodges (he’s behind Ghoral now), Kross moves across to the next building 7 hexes, I move 5 hexes (behind Glaive now), leader says “Archers first, secondary target front”. One archer fires at Ghoral but misses wildly. The other five archers take aim at Kross; he’s hit for 4 body and 25 stun - he’s dazed. Kross uses 2 hero points, which alters the shots to 1 body and 5 stun. The rear five moved forward 6 hexes. The front five move toward Ghoral and Perrol; attacking Ghoral. He’s hit for 1 body and 0 stun; used hero point to change location from head shot. Glaive moves by the group and attacks the leader but misses. Ghoral hits the guy in front of him and knocks him down, unconscious. Perrol moves around and attacks the leader but misses. Kross moves across to the other side of the building and jumps down. I move to back of front five, by Glaive . Leader yells, “Back up, up back, archers last”. The guys we got behind, move behind us. They attack Glaive, Perrol and I, but miss. Two archers attack Glaive and hit for 3 body and 7 stun. Two archers attack Glaive but miss. The other five guys move forward 10 hexes. Glaive tries to do a move by on all five that are coming up behind us; she hits the first four but botches the last (uses 2 hero points to prevent something bad); disembowels the first guy, 8 body on the second, 9 body in the chest (drops), and last one is hit with 6 body. Glaive holds on next round and Perrol attempts presence attack, but fails. Glaive moves forward and attacks two from the back lines (again); the first one falls, blood splurting from his chest, the second one is hit for 5 body. Perrol moves around to attack the leader; misses. Kross does non-combat run of 14 hex. I attack the two guys in front of me and drop one with a stomach blow that kills him. Two guys move by Perrol and attack; he’s hit for 1 body and 18 stun; Perrol is dazed. The one guy in front of me runs. Two guys do a coordinated attack against Glaive, but her armor absorbs everything. Three archers attack me; one hits me for 5 stun and the other hits me for 4 body and 12 stun. Other archers attack Ghoral and hit for 1 body and 5 stun. Ghoral goes behind the leader and attacks but botches, spends 2 hero points to prevent anything bad from happening. Glaive attacks two guys near her; hits first for 3 body and 12 stun, hits second for 5 body and 20 stun, he drops. Glaive attacks the leader from behind and hits for 8 body and 24 stun; the leader is dazed. Perrol recovers from being dazed and he aborts to dodge and turns on power. Kross gets on roof and attacks leader; hits in the left hand for 6 body and 12 stun. I move behind one of the guys and drop him with a blow to the back. I yell, “Drop your weapons”, but the presence attack fails. The guy that Ghoral knocked unconscious at the beginning, gets up and runs around one of the buildings. The one guy that ran originally runs off the map. Three archers attack Ghoral and miss. Other three archers attack Glaive and hit her twice in the hand for 4 body and 18 stun; she is stunned. Glaive recovers from being dazed. The leader says suddenly, “I’ll give up, if it will save my mean”.  We tell him to have his men drop their weapons and we accept. He tells his men to drop their weapons and leave. Everyone runs and the leader drops his weapon. I heal Glaive for 6 body and myself for 6 body (I’m fully healed). I also heal three of the thugs.

It takes only four days to get our weapons. After this we decide to go to the castle to tell the Reagent Mother about the “spying” device being cleansed and buried outside the city. As we approached we notice the guards seem to be on high alert and nervous. When it becomes our turn the guard says the Reagant Mother isn’t seeing anyone. We ask a few questions and then ask to see the Major Domo as he will be able to tell us when she will be seeing people, but our goal is to convince him that we should see her now. We are taken to a room off of her office. After about 10 minutes, the Major Domo will appear. He says the Reagent Mother is ill and not taking any visitors. We don’t think he’s lying but he is extremely nervous. He calls someone to let us out and we recognize that it’s Julienne who gave us the information on the red daggers. We notice that she isn’t taking us out, but instead taking us through back corridors. Once we get a ways away, she tells us that the Reagent Mother started going in to some type of lethargic state (coma) about two days ago. She only wakes up about one hour a day but even then she is incoherent. The priest from Hospin tried to heal her but it only worsened the condition. The mages tried some things and this also only worsened the condition. I ask where the son is and she says he is currently ruling under the leadership of the Lord Marhall. She asks us to leave all magical items outside the room where the Reagent Mother is because magical items seem to cause this to worsen. Ghoral and I stay outside with all the magical items and Perrol, Glaive, and Kross go in. Perrol comes out and tells me that there is a Priest of Hospin inside and that this is something they have seen in Mages and Priests before. I go in and ask some questions of the Priest but don’t learn anything real useful. Julliene does agree to meet us for lunch as we have some private questions to ask.

We head back to the Inn and wait. After about 30 minutes Julliene arrives. We ask to go to the private dining room. Perrol does detect magic doesn’t see anything anything in the room but does notice there appears to be something in the cellar that’s magical. Perrol asks the Innkeeper if he can see how the operation works and the fine ales are kept. The Innkeeper agrees and takes him down. Perrol notices there appears to be safe which is where the magic item is being kept. Kross and Perrol  investigate the private dining room and don’t find anything that looks abnormal. I do detect evil and don’t see anything. We ask how we can help; she seems to be aware of our charge to help the Regeant Mother and her son. She says the best thing is that if a young page named Xavier comes to us, grab him and run. We decide to try one of the boons to see if will help the Regeant Monther. Ghoral uses his boon and asks the Skyfather to heal the Regeant Mother. Then there is a knock on the door. We open and it’s Aldus Manus. He looks befuddled and says he was coming back from destroying the plates and then all of the sudden he was in front of this door and felt compelled to knock. We tell him the story of the Regeant Mother, which he did not know about her being sick. He doesn’t know how he is supposed to help, then all of the sudden his eyes go white and he starts to glow a little. A voice says, “We are not allowed to intervene.” We ask if there is a way she can be healed.  He says, “We need to find those that are outside this realm to help.” I ask have we already met those from the other realm and he says yes. We ask if the Lord Marshall is working with those of the evil religion and he just smiles. Then he goes away and Aldus collapses but just appears to be exhausted. We decide to eat while we wait for Aldus to wake up. Half we through our meal he wakes up and asks for food; we get him some. Ghoral and I help Aldus back to the temple. Some guards come running out as we get close to the temple and we turn Aldus over to them. We get back to the Inn safely. We head to Bob and Chad’s place. Glaive will notice Julliene is following us (wisps of her). I yell for her to come here but she doesn’t come. We believe she is gone now. We arrive at Bob and Chad’s house and Bob finally comes out of the wooded area in the back. Bob quizes us on why we think he knows. We give him the story but leave out the fact that the Skyfather was the one that directed us to him. He agrees to go see the Regeant Mother. We go back to the Inn and Julliene is waiting for us. Perrol plays and makes 3 sp from tips. We retire for the night. We are doing double shift watches due to the contracts on us. During Kross and Perrol’s watch they hear something outside the door. They wake us up and we can tell they are trying to pick our lock. I open the door and Ghoral prepares to smash the lock picker but realizes in time that it’s Julliene. We asks what she is doing and she wants to know who we sent. There were sounds of a battle and then four clunks and no one can get in to the room and all windows are black. Then the Hospin priest came out of the room and we still couldn’t get in and then the four guard bodies came out unconscious. The castle grounds are in lock-down. We tell her to relax, our “friend” is doing his thing. She goes back to the castle and we go back to sleep. We wake up, have breakfast, and then head to the palace to see if it’s still in lock-down. Doesn’t appear to be locked-down but there are people getting in. We get about 20 yards from the gate and the Lieutenant comes out and says you five come with me. We ask where and he says the Captain wants to see us. We are lead to a part of the castle we haven’t been to before. We are lead in to a room and a man of about 40, grizzled war-horse look. He appears to be looking through papers. He asks why should I not have the boy put in lockdown and you guys put up for treason. We ask why he would do that. He says he assumes we have something to do with the state the Regeant Mother is currently in. He said Julliene hasn’t been seen. We explain about her coming last night to see and we are concerned now is she isn’t back. We convince him that we aren’t a threat. We decide we will go look for Julliene. Bob appears to still be in the room with the Regent Mother.

We end for the night. We earn one XP.