Session 11: "The Fabulous Carl Strikes Again."
(September 30)
During the party's departure from Gronk'rk and the lair of their new ally Snargle, the newly minted diplomat Bargin receives a gift of a old, out-of-tune lute from her mentor's hands. Over the ensuing two nights of their flight toward Rajgan, Bargin practices the lute and sings off-key from her perch in the crow's nest. She also practices the light crossbow, while the rest of the adventurers practice with their stash of muskets and pistols.
At a distance of about two hours' flight from the capital city, the party is approached by two wyverns and their humanoid companions, flying the white banners that Sunrise (an experienced airship captain) recognizes as signal flags expressing peaceful intent. The two wyverns land and their companions dismount, dressed in the sky blue and gold uniforms of the Winged College, Rajgan's aerial defense force. They are Sergeant Daar Vangdorresh, a bluff and hearty green dragonborn woman who rides the powerful black wyvern Char, and Corporal Tahu Lengal, a cocky human man with a tough guy swagger, who rides the mean-tempered red wyvern Streak.
Daar is delighted to meet the party, slapping backs and proudly letting them pet her sweet-natured wyvern. She tells them that Empress Sulana has deployed a number of wyvern pairs to patrol the approaches to the city for two purposes, both to welcome the party and to keep an eye out against unexpected attacks in these unsettled times. Daar tells the party that a welcoming parade is being arranged in their honor. They are to fly to the airship docks in the center of town, on the floating island by the mighty waterfall, where the Empress herself will welcome them, along with their old friend and recruiter Captain Kaldek and a number of high-ranking officials of the Empire. The party is expected to save any questions (or any demands for compensation) until after the ceremony, when they will have a private audience with the Empress.
Ward asks Daar what she knows of Gargax (the blue dragonborn in the Winged College that the party knows was a conspirator and intended recipient of an oblex bomb). Daar seems uncomfortable, saying that she went through the College's training shortly after Gargax did, so she never interacted with him personally, but he does have a reputation nowadays as a tough, demanding, but fair member of the training cadre. Tahu jumps in: "He's one of the greatest flyers there's ever been. There's no trick he and Wimble can't pull off, no race they can't win."
Ward doesn't mention Gargax by name again, but asks Daar to take a message back to the College that someone in the College might be conspiring against the Empire. Daar and Tahu both get quiet, putting two and two together from the order of Ward's inquiry, and Daar declares that they will leave at once. The two companions mount their wyverns and fly gracefully away from the airship, speeding in the direction of the capital city and vanishing in the distance.
The city of Rajgan is decked out in ribbons, banners, flags, and fireworks when the airship arrives, with crowds on rooftops and in open squares cheering and sorcerers displaying colorful illusions in the air. The crowds grow thicker as the ship approaches the city center, culminating in the riverside promenade and the official welcoming party on the floating island of the airship docks. The party lands their airship and descend to the docks, where Empress Sulana welcomes them in her human form, a flawless dark-skinned woman with shining golden hair and golden robes. She is flanked by Captain Kaldek and several officials of the Empire.
In a hurried whisper, Ward rushes to inform the Empress that an oblex bomb is in the capital, in the hands of a bandit named Sashi, and asks if two wyvern companions arrived to report on a possible traitor in the Winged College. Sulana makes a sign to two officials: Admiral Pethai Katho-Agol, a goliath woman who heads the Winged College, and Lord Gimgem Oakstave, a dwarf man who heads the Swords (which is Rajgan's city guard and soldiery). The two of them bow out to make quick inquiries, and Sulana sardonically accepts Ward's suggestion that the rest of the reception proceed.
Ward notices a cloaked but familiar figure in the crowd, one of the close cronies of Gonzalo Salazar, the nefarious head of the circus she ran away from. The hooded man recognizes her and melts away into the crowd.
Each member of the party receives a gold seven-pointed star badge, an emblem of their induction as Chevaliers of the Empire, a major honor. Sulana makes a speech about their heroism and reaffirms the importance of the new peace with Malimpel. Coins are thrown to the crowd, and then the Empress conducts the party (along with an elite armed guard) toward the palace, a massive colonnaded edifice called the Golden Table. Other guards lurk on rooftops and patrol alleyways. Clearly the city is on high alert.
At a vast banquet hall set with a magnificent feast, the Empress offers the party a more personal welcome, and they all receive updates from Admiral Pethai and Lord Gimgem: Tahu returned to the College without Daar, and shortly thereafter Gargax and a party of a dozen of his most loyal wyvern companions fled the city toward the north, claiming only that they had urgent orders taking them to the Lathini Forests. Daar has yet to return, and foul play is presumed. Lord Gimgem has had his Swords redouble their efforts to locate the known bandit captain Sashi, and to investigate the city for any strange smells of sulfur (the only way to spot an oblex impersonating one of its victims). For their part, Ward and Bargin bring up the plight of the kobolds and goblins and other smaller races, who often get exploited in remoter areas of the Empire.
Then the serious business begins. Ward brings out the illithid breastplate and the strange prisms they found in the vaults of Darjheim. The prisms are a form of illithid writing read through touch, which they have discovered through Snadwick's efforts. Sulana touches the prisms and emerges shaken and convinced of the mind-flayer threat. She solemnly tells them the story of how the dracolich, her uncle Ulringall, slew her mother to add her soul to his phylactery, and how she had always assumed that the mind-flayer threat was a fiction Ulringall made up to justify his cruel despotism and his evil.
Ward tells her that the drow wish to ally with Rajgan against the mind-flayer threat. Sulana welcomes the news but says that, to be of any help to the surface, the drow will need help in defeating the Gray King. Expanding on the topic of the Gray King, Sulana tells Sunrise that the amulet Gralkhar had stolen from Sunrise's monastery was an Amulet of the Planes, a powerful artifact that could enable the Gray King to travel anywhere in the multiverse at any time, assuming he knew the destination. "The Gray King may find you before you are ready to face him again," she warns.
The Empress tells Vaelin to investigate the activities of the demon lord Graz'zt. Graz'zt appears to be playing both sides in the conflict on Quol'. During the liches' rise to power, they slew Graz'zt's second in command, a molydeus demon named Xarkan, to create Gwydieth's phylactery, and since then Graz'zt has held a powerful enmity against the liches. However, the halfling cultists in Asherhet, led by the warlock Poinsettia Willbareen, were worshipers of Graz'zt, yet clearly involved in the oblex conspiracy. Something doesn't add up.
Sulana also tells Vaelin that the Lich Queen made a death knight out of her staunchest ally, a fire giant named Ragnihild, and armed her with the molydeus' great demon sword.
For their services, Sulana rewards each member of the party with 3000 gold pieces and two magic items. (As a golden dragon, Sulana hoards magical items, doling them out to worthy recipients, and keeping those too dangerous to remain loose in the world secure in her well-guarded stash.) She also requests their further help with several quests:
* Tracking down Sashi and eliminating the threat of his oblex bomb.
* Tracking down Gargax in their fast airship, with the aid of some of Admiral Pethai's wyvern companions, and either returning him to justice or eliminating whatever threat he represents.
* Investigating the oblex conspirators in the seaport city of Doko. Doko is an independent city-state and nominal ally of Rajgan, though lately Rajgan has been pressuring Doko's Regency Council to do something about the city's tacit encouragement of piracy, which has alienated about half the Council against Rajgan. Doko's politcal situation is delicate, and Sulana would like to know more about the intentions of the twin half-elf women Snadwick had seen who were members of the conspiracy.
* Venture to the black-market trading city of Zanjamand to find and confront the construct known as the Starling, who operates on behalf of the rakshasa Trinilane.
* Investigate and potentially vanquish the abishai devils who had been in contact with Snargle the kobold. Sulana warns Vaelin, however, that a red abishai might be too much for the party to handle right now; they might fare better looking for and destroying lower-level fiend influence in the Cadervale region.
The party decides to start with what's closest: Sashi and his oblex bomb. On the suggestion of Lord Gimgem, they begin their investigation in a rundown area of the river docks at a tavern called the Roving Eye. The proprietor is a human woman named Dréda, who wears an eyepatch and clearly has a maritime background. The interior walls of the tavern are pocked with scorch marks. Passed out drunk at the bar is a spectator, a medium-sized beholderkin, surrounded by empty ale steins and bottles. Dréda calls him Large Lenny; he's the tavern's mascot, she says, and warns the party not to bother him.
Vaelin takes charge and tells Dréda that they're looking for some long-term muscle work in the area. After several drinks (Dara win's Dréda's approval by putting down five gold pieces for their bar tab), Dréda suggests they go to the warehouse next door, where a dwarf named Berk the Moody is always hiring muscle. Through some half-stairs and crooked hallways in the tavern, the party is directed to a door that opens into the warehouse, where a halfling and a human on guard take charge of them and conduct them across a largely empty floor to Berk the Moody's office.
Berk is doing paperwork as they enter. He is a particularly unappealing dwarf, beefy and muscular with limp black hair hanging over his eyes. He wants proof of the party's tough guy credentials; Vaelin challenges him to arm wrestle, but Berk ups the and suggests they wrestle. Vaelin claims that his name is a dwarvish term that translates to "El Diablo Guapo." Ward uses prestidigitation to give Vaelin's helm the appearance of a devilish wrestling mask.
They go down into the warehouse floor, and Berk's twelve goons and the rest of the adventurers form a ring around Berk and Vaelin while the two fight. Berk attempts to grapple but Vaelin turns the tables and grapples him instead, suplexing him and leaving the dwarf in a daze. The halfling guard intervenes and separates the two. Berk agrees to hire them on. He has a job for them, working with his boss: a bandit captain named Sashi.
While the fight went on, Lan remained in Berk's office, quickly pocketing the paperwork from his desk, opening up a safe, and finding a codex to the names on the accounts, which he also steals, along with some gold.
On Berk's orders, the halfling and human guards from earlier conduct the party outside, to where a "ship" appears to be docked in front of the warehouse. The "ship" is really a ruse, a wooden construction built down under the water to allow access to an ancient sewer pipe, constructed in some prior era of the city. The sewer pipes lead under the city for some distance, emerging at last into the open air of a sinkhole, overgrown with tree-ferns and vines, where Sashi has his bandit headquarters. Tents and ramshackle wooden dwellings dot the bottom of the sinkhole.
Sashi, a human man with long lustrous hair and a spade beard, welcomes them in his shack, where he lies draped over expensive furs on his divan. Ward, hanging back with her hood up, recognizes him as a former circus performer, a fire-eater and juggler who went by the name the Fabulous Carl. He and Salazar parted ways with some acrimony, but Salazar seemed hesitant to exact revenge against him, as if he knew the risks outweighed the rewards. Sashi doesn't recognize Ward, but the possibility that he might at some point recognize her troubles her.
Sashi gives them a job: go out with three of his "handlers" and free his second-in-command from prison before she can be hanged in the morning. She is a blue-skinned, violet-haired tiefling named Ignominy, and is in jail for "everything." The jailbreak will be a test of their abilities and willingness to risk their necks for Sashi's gold.
The party quickly agrees to go along with the jailbreak as a ruse to win Sashi's trust. They emerge from the old sewer pipes near the Swords' jail, accompanied by Sashi's three handlers. A city Sword sees them and starts to approach, but Ward uses the message spell and informs him that they're on a mission for Lord Gimgem, that they've infiltrated Sashi's bandits, and are on a mission to break Ignominy out of jail to prove their bona fides. The guard runs off into the night, sending back that he understands and he's going to inform the Swords' commander to make sure all goes smoothly.
They reach the jail. Dara goes invisible and slips into the building, informing the guards she meets that they're here and hearing word from them that everything has been arranged. She gets handed some keys, the guards in the stables pretend to be knocked cold by her eldritch blast, and she opens up the rear door for the rest of the party and their handlers. Some more guards pretend to rush them, and Sunrise, Ward, and Lan pretend to take them out with some well-placed blows.
In the main cell block, the other inmates have awakened and are clamoring to be set free, but the party heads directly to Ignominy and lets her out of her cell. The tiefling goes to the handlers and whispers with them, but Ward takes charge and briskly moves the whole bunch downstairs and outside.
Along the way back to the sewers, a stray elven knight from out of town happens upon them, sees them skulking suspiciously through the nighttime alleyways, and blocks the way with his horse and demands that they state their business. Using his new Cape of the Mountebank, Lan teleports behind the knight and drags him off his horse, proceeding to rough him up and tie him up and leave him on the sidewalk for the Swords to find. Just to make sure it looks legit and help keep their cover intact, Lan pilfers the elf's gold purse and makes off with it.
Sashi seems impressed when they return to his sinkhole hideout, and duly awards them all gold. He says he'll have more work for them in the morning, and in the meantime they're free to come and go. The entry password for the day will be copper hook, whenever they wish to return.
Back at the Roving Eye, Ward heads directly for their rooms to get some sleep. The rest of the party stays downstairs in the bar, where the spectator Large Lenny has awakened and is floating around, muttering and helping himself to more alcohol. The spectator, with his one eye, takes a liking to Sunrise, who also has one eye. He gathers up beer for everyone to share, and seems to want to share some juicy gossip with the party.
During the party's departure from Gronk'rk and the lair of their new ally Snargle, the newly minted diplomat Bargin receives a gift of a old, out-of-tune lute from her mentor's hands. Over the ensuing two nights of their flight toward Rajgan, Bargin practices the lute and sings off-key from her perch in the crow's nest. She also practices the light crossbow, while the rest of the adventurers practice with their stash of muskets and pistols.
At a distance of about two hours' flight from the capital city, the party is approached by two wyverns and their humanoid companions, flying the white banners that Sunrise (an experienced airship captain) recognizes as signal flags expressing peaceful intent. The two wyverns land and their companions dismount, dressed in the sky blue and gold uniforms of the Winged College, Rajgan's aerial defense force. They are Sergeant Daar Vangdorresh, a bluff and hearty green dragonborn woman who rides the powerful black wyvern Char, and Corporal Tahu Lengal, a cocky human man with a tough guy swagger, who rides the mean-tempered red wyvern Streak.
Daar is delighted to meet the party, slapping backs and proudly letting them pet her sweet-natured wyvern. She tells them that Empress Sulana has deployed a number of wyvern pairs to patrol the approaches to the city for two purposes, both to welcome the party and to keep an eye out against unexpected attacks in these unsettled times. Daar tells the party that a welcoming parade is being arranged in their honor. They are to fly to the airship docks in the center of town, on the floating island by the mighty waterfall, where the Empress herself will welcome them, along with their old friend and recruiter Captain Kaldek and a number of high-ranking officials of the Empire. The party is expected to save any questions (or any demands for compensation) until after the ceremony, when they will have a private audience with the Empress.
Ward asks Daar what she knows of Gargax (the blue dragonborn in the Winged College that the party knows was a conspirator and intended recipient of an oblex bomb). Daar seems uncomfortable, saying that she went through the College's training shortly after Gargax did, so she never interacted with him personally, but he does have a reputation nowadays as a tough, demanding, but fair member of the training cadre. Tahu jumps in: "He's one of the greatest flyers there's ever been. There's no trick he and Wimble can't pull off, no race they can't win."
Ward doesn't mention Gargax by name again, but asks Daar to take a message back to the College that someone in the College might be conspiring against the Empire. Daar and Tahu both get quiet, putting two and two together from the order of Ward's inquiry, and Daar declares that they will leave at once. The two companions mount their wyverns and fly gracefully away from the airship, speeding in the direction of the capital city and vanishing in the distance.
The city of Rajgan is decked out in ribbons, banners, flags, and fireworks when the airship arrives, with crowds on rooftops and in open squares cheering and sorcerers displaying colorful illusions in the air. The crowds grow thicker as the ship approaches the city center, culminating in the riverside promenade and the official welcoming party on the floating island of the airship docks. The party lands their airship and descend to the docks, where Empress Sulana welcomes them in her human form, a flawless dark-skinned woman with shining golden hair and golden robes. She is flanked by Captain Kaldek and several officials of the Empire.
In a hurried whisper, Ward rushes to inform the Empress that an oblex bomb is in the capital, in the hands of a bandit named Sashi, and asks if two wyvern companions arrived to report on a possible traitor in the Winged College. Sulana makes a sign to two officials: Admiral Pethai Katho-Agol, a goliath woman who heads the Winged College, and Lord Gimgem Oakstave, a dwarf man who heads the Swords (which is Rajgan's city guard and soldiery). The two of them bow out to make quick inquiries, and Sulana sardonically accepts Ward's suggestion that the rest of the reception proceed.
Ward notices a cloaked but familiar figure in the crowd, one of the close cronies of Gonzalo Salazar, the nefarious head of the circus she ran away from. The hooded man recognizes her and melts away into the crowd.
Each member of the party receives a gold seven-pointed star badge, an emblem of their induction as Chevaliers of the Empire, a major honor. Sulana makes a speech about their heroism and reaffirms the importance of the new peace with Malimpel. Coins are thrown to the crowd, and then the Empress conducts the party (along with an elite armed guard) toward the palace, a massive colonnaded edifice called the Golden Table. Other guards lurk on rooftops and patrol alleyways. Clearly the city is on high alert.
At a vast banquet hall set with a magnificent feast, the Empress offers the party a more personal welcome, and they all receive updates from Admiral Pethai and Lord Gimgem: Tahu returned to the College without Daar, and shortly thereafter Gargax and a party of a dozen of his most loyal wyvern companions fled the city toward the north, claiming only that they had urgent orders taking them to the Lathini Forests. Daar has yet to return, and foul play is presumed. Lord Gimgem has had his Swords redouble their efforts to locate the known bandit captain Sashi, and to investigate the city for any strange smells of sulfur (the only way to spot an oblex impersonating one of its victims). For their part, Ward and Bargin bring up the plight of the kobolds and goblins and other smaller races, who often get exploited in remoter areas of the Empire.
Then the serious business begins. Ward brings out the illithid breastplate and the strange prisms they found in the vaults of Darjheim. The prisms are a form of illithid writing read through touch, which they have discovered through Snadwick's efforts. Sulana touches the prisms and emerges shaken and convinced of the mind-flayer threat. She solemnly tells them the story of how the dracolich, her uncle Ulringall, slew her mother to add her soul to his phylactery, and how she had always assumed that the mind-flayer threat was a fiction Ulringall made up to justify his cruel despotism and his evil.
Ward tells her that the drow wish to ally with Rajgan against the mind-flayer threat. Sulana welcomes the news but says that, to be of any help to the surface, the drow will need help in defeating the Gray King. Expanding on the topic of the Gray King, Sulana tells Sunrise that the amulet Gralkhar had stolen from Sunrise's monastery was an Amulet of the Planes, a powerful artifact that could enable the Gray King to travel anywhere in the multiverse at any time, assuming he knew the destination. "The Gray King may find you before you are ready to face him again," she warns.
The Empress tells Vaelin to investigate the activities of the demon lord Graz'zt. Graz'zt appears to be playing both sides in the conflict on Quol'. During the liches' rise to power, they slew Graz'zt's second in command, a molydeus demon named Xarkan, to create Gwydieth's phylactery, and since then Graz'zt has held a powerful enmity against the liches. However, the halfling cultists in Asherhet, led by the warlock Poinsettia Willbareen, were worshipers of Graz'zt, yet clearly involved in the oblex conspiracy. Something doesn't add up.
Sulana also tells Vaelin that the Lich Queen made a death knight out of her staunchest ally, a fire giant named Ragnihild, and armed her with the molydeus' great demon sword.
For their services, Sulana rewards each member of the party with 3000 gold pieces and two magic items. (As a golden dragon, Sulana hoards magical items, doling them out to worthy recipients, and keeping those too dangerous to remain loose in the world secure in her well-guarded stash.) She also requests their further help with several quests:
* Tracking down Sashi and eliminating the threat of his oblex bomb.
* Tracking down Gargax in their fast airship, with the aid of some of Admiral Pethai's wyvern companions, and either returning him to justice or eliminating whatever threat he represents.
* Investigating the oblex conspirators in the seaport city of Doko. Doko is an independent city-state and nominal ally of Rajgan, though lately Rajgan has been pressuring Doko's Regency Council to do something about the city's tacit encouragement of piracy, which has alienated about half the Council against Rajgan. Doko's politcal situation is delicate, and Sulana would like to know more about the intentions of the twin half-elf women Snadwick had seen who were members of the conspiracy.
* Venture to the black-market trading city of Zanjamand to find and confront the construct known as the Starling, who operates on behalf of the rakshasa Trinilane.
* Investigate and potentially vanquish the abishai devils who had been in contact with Snargle the kobold. Sulana warns Vaelin, however, that a red abishai might be too much for the party to handle right now; they might fare better looking for and destroying lower-level fiend influence in the Cadervale region.
The party decides to start with what's closest: Sashi and his oblex bomb. On the suggestion of Lord Gimgem, they begin their investigation in a rundown area of the river docks at a tavern called the Roving Eye. The proprietor is a human woman named Dréda, who wears an eyepatch and clearly has a maritime background. The interior walls of the tavern are pocked with scorch marks. Passed out drunk at the bar is a spectator, a medium-sized beholderkin, surrounded by empty ale steins and bottles. Dréda calls him Large Lenny; he's the tavern's mascot, she says, and warns the party not to bother him.
Vaelin takes charge and tells Dréda that they're looking for some long-term muscle work in the area. After several drinks (Dara win's Dréda's approval by putting down five gold pieces for their bar tab), Dréda suggests they go to the warehouse next door, where a dwarf named Berk the Moody is always hiring muscle. Through some half-stairs and crooked hallways in the tavern, the party is directed to a door that opens into the warehouse, where a halfling and a human on guard take charge of them and conduct them across a largely empty floor to Berk the Moody's office.
Berk is doing paperwork as they enter. He is a particularly unappealing dwarf, beefy and muscular with limp black hair hanging over his eyes. He wants proof of the party's tough guy credentials; Vaelin challenges him to arm wrestle, but Berk ups the and suggests they wrestle. Vaelin claims that his name is a dwarvish term that translates to "El Diablo Guapo." Ward uses prestidigitation to give Vaelin's helm the appearance of a devilish wrestling mask.
They go down into the warehouse floor, and Berk's twelve goons and the rest of the adventurers form a ring around Berk and Vaelin while the two fight. Berk attempts to grapple but Vaelin turns the tables and grapples him instead, suplexing him and leaving the dwarf in a daze. The halfling guard intervenes and separates the two. Berk agrees to hire them on. He has a job for them, working with his boss: a bandit captain named Sashi.
While the fight went on, Lan remained in Berk's office, quickly pocketing the paperwork from his desk, opening up a safe, and finding a codex to the names on the accounts, which he also steals, along with some gold.
On Berk's orders, the halfling and human guards from earlier conduct the party outside, to where a "ship" appears to be docked in front of the warehouse. The "ship" is really a ruse, a wooden construction built down under the water to allow access to an ancient sewer pipe, constructed in some prior era of the city. The sewer pipes lead under the city for some distance, emerging at last into the open air of a sinkhole, overgrown with tree-ferns and vines, where Sashi has his bandit headquarters. Tents and ramshackle wooden dwellings dot the bottom of the sinkhole.
Sashi, a human man with long lustrous hair and a spade beard, welcomes them in his shack, where he lies draped over expensive furs on his divan. Ward, hanging back with her hood up, recognizes him as a former circus performer, a fire-eater and juggler who went by the name the Fabulous Carl. He and Salazar parted ways with some acrimony, but Salazar seemed hesitant to exact revenge against him, as if he knew the risks outweighed the rewards. Sashi doesn't recognize Ward, but the possibility that he might at some point recognize her troubles her.
Sashi gives them a job: go out with three of his "handlers" and free his second-in-command from prison before she can be hanged in the morning. She is a blue-skinned, violet-haired tiefling named Ignominy, and is in jail for "everything." The jailbreak will be a test of their abilities and willingness to risk their necks for Sashi's gold.
The party quickly agrees to go along with the jailbreak as a ruse to win Sashi's trust. They emerge from the old sewer pipes near the Swords' jail, accompanied by Sashi's three handlers. A city Sword sees them and starts to approach, but Ward uses the message spell and informs him that they're on a mission for Lord Gimgem, that they've infiltrated Sashi's bandits, and are on a mission to break Ignominy out of jail to prove their bona fides. The guard runs off into the night, sending back that he understands and he's going to inform the Swords' commander to make sure all goes smoothly.
They reach the jail. Dara goes invisible and slips into the building, informing the guards she meets that they're here and hearing word from them that everything has been arranged. She gets handed some keys, the guards in the stables pretend to be knocked cold by her eldritch blast, and she opens up the rear door for the rest of the party and their handlers. Some more guards pretend to rush them, and Sunrise, Ward, and Lan pretend to take them out with some well-placed blows.
In the main cell block, the other inmates have awakened and are clamoring to be set free, but the party heads directly to Ignominy and lets her out of her cell. The tiefling goes to the handlers and whispers with them, but Ward takes charge and briskly moves the whole bunch downstairs and outside.
Along the way back to the sewers, a stray elven knight from out of town happens upon them, sees them skulking suspiciously through the nighttime alleyways, and blocks the way with his horse and demands that they state their business. Using his new Cape of the Mountebank, Lan teleports behind the knight and drags him off his horse, proceeding to rough him up and tie him up and leave him on the sidewalk for the Swords to find. Just to make sure it looks legit and help keep their cover intact, Lan pilfers the elf's gold purse and makes off with it.
Sashi seems impressed when they return to his sinkhole hideout, and duly awards them all gold. He says he'll have more work for them in the morning, and in the meantime they're free to come and go. The entry password for the day will be copper hook, whenever they wish to return.
Back at the Roving Eye, Ward heads directly for their rooms to get some sleep. The rest of the party stays downstairs in the bar, where the spectator Large Lenny has awakened and is floating around, muttering and helping himself to more alcohol. The spectator, with his one eye, takes a liking to Sunrise, who also has one eye. He gathers up beer for everyone to share, and seems to want to share some juicy gossip with the party.
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