The characters are meeting at the Pigshead Inn, their temporary base of operations. Things are pretty tense at the table. Tyrst, Bobric and Marc are all still suspicious of the new member that Troy put in, and the group exchanges some thinly-vieled barbs back and forth. As they plan next steps, a large armored dragonborn comes in and issues the secret code word that Troy said his agents will give when they arrive: “censure”.
The dragonborn introduces himself as Khalil. He and Arctana know each other, and the warlock is glad to have some friendly backup just as the conversation between the party had become very terse and strained. Troy has sent Khalil for even more “muscle”. What he doesn’t tell the group is that Troy wants to triple check (as he does) the party and what they are up to.
Khalil is our new player Jonathan, who, after several false starts, has finally gotten to the game! Glad to have him aboard, and he gets in the flow of things immediately.
Things get even more heated, as the original trio feels that they are being forced to take along more spies. Marc finally caves however, and things settle back to planning. The party wants to find out what happened to the other hostages they rescued. If Jon Goodstaff and Ketha Mulsa are also gone missing, then matters seem extra fishy, and Troy may be on to something.
Arctana and Tyrst scour around the bar asking if anyone knows about doppelgangers. Despite some spectacularly high rolls from Arctana as she ensorcels and smooth talks the entire tavern, all the duo recieves are odd looks.
Marc searches for traces of the halfing Jon, but all Grake Scunnie (or “Scummy” as he is known to some of the patrons) knows is that Jon tipped well, ate a lot, and went back to the halfling settlement of Haedle to visit his family.
Bobric nurses an ale, and Khalil sits right beside him, distrustful of the surly elf.
The group reconvenes and shares info. The next place on the list? Back to Luna’s Knowledge Emporium. Luna is her usual disorganized self, and begins searching her silo of junk for the information the PCs need. At one point Arctana suggests indexing and organizing her place, and Luna looks at her as if she invented fire. She offers Arctana a job, which she politely refuses, several times, as she exits with the rest of the party.
While they wait on Luna, the group goes looking at other taverns in New Water for information they need. There are only two others, the Kroy, known for its, err, kroy, and Melk’s, a tavern situated at the end of the fisher’s market and a dive that only the fishermen tend to go to.
The group walks in and all activity stops. We have a human in full plate bedecked in holy symbols of Pelor, an even larger dragonborn, a tiefling and two (what the villagers see) elves. Oh boy. The patrons of Melk’s just keep staring and muttering unfriendly phrases. Arktana swaggers to the bar. She buys herself a drink and then spins a tale for the barkeep.
She is here to collect stories of the locals of New Water. She is writing a book to memorialize all these stories, and will put them into a collected tome that will be remembered for centuries. The barkeep gets excited about this — who asks for the fishermen’s stories? –and discusses this with the local patrons. The men seem interested, but they’re still unsure about this group. Finally, one old man creeps over. The players try to pump for information about doppelgangers. “Nope, ain’t heard of that. But what I know is fishing” and is his tale goes on. And on. Soon all the patrons are gathered around the group while the old man (Heilo Whit) rambles about this and that and Arctana pretends to take notes.
And now, it’s getting hard to leave. The group finally manages a way to leave, but only after they promise to stop back later for more stories. There are a lot more!
Next it is time to look for Ketha Mulsa. Ketha works for the local smithy Duardo. Duardo is tight-lipped initially but after getting intimidated effectively from the roaring Khalil and then sweet-talked by Arctana (a little good cop bad cop), he spills it –Ketha came back and saw him , then went to Kreeg’s Reef to find some info about his father.
The players debate going to Kreeg’s Reef for awhile, and are mostly for it.
Kreeg’s Reef is the closest thing New Water has to a tourist location. The reef, about a day’s trip out from the harbor town, has a large cliff face with many cavern mouths visible from it. Many would-be adventurers climb the cliff face, enter a cavern, and search for something of value. Most find nothing; a few never return. Fewer still find something of great value, and return and spread their tales far and wide, prompting another wave of thrillseekers to the reef.
The PCs go back to Luna (Arctana stays home) and have her look for a map of the many caverns of Kreeg’s Reef. It’s going to take her sometime to find that as well.
The PCs attempt to speak with Troy, but the guards at the keep say he is not available. This prompts Arctana to delay the guards with chatter while Tyrst slips inside. She makes it into Troy’s room and finds a paper with a list of names. The list includes the PCs, Huxor, Jon, Arbrand, and Ketha. Everyone’s name is crossed out except Huxor and Arbrand.
Armed with this knowledge, the PCs feel a bit safer. They’ve been crossed off Troy’s list, and been given some information regarding who he does suspect. Huxor is long gone, but Arbrand is still about.
Marc sits down with his old friend to reminisce on old times. Arbrand answers to his satisfaction, so he’s off the list.
The next day, Luna has finally found what the players want. A book entitled “Early explorations of the Northern Lands: A traveller’s diary”, written by Tomas Durke. After haggling on the price –Luna wants 100 gp! — Khalil breaks down and buys the book. It takes him half a day to read it, but he gets the following info:
- discusses the meeting of the faceless people in early trips for Baron Fuerie II
- the “faceless” can transform into any humanoid they wish
- allies of the eladrin and elves, distrusted by the dwarves
- society had no money, or government. Trust was the only currency and law.
- Tomas thought favorably of the faceless
- Tomas suspected the Baron might feel differently of them.
- Baron Fuerie II, like his father before him, was raised to perpetually suspicious of all.
That was all Luna had, but she told the PCs about the Keeper’s Trove in Thom, just south of the Tillwood, that could have more information.
The PCs are little confused on next steps, but decide to first follow Ketha Mulsa to Kreeg’s Reef, then they will travel south to Thom and maybe stop by Haedle to find Jon.
They arrive at the reef, and after a rough climb, they’ve arrived at Dragonsbreath Cave, where their hunt for Ketha begins.
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A Jack of All Trades ,or if you prefer, an extreme example of multi-classing, Gamefiend, a.k.a Quinn Murphy has been discussing, playing and designing games straight out of the womb. He is the owner and Editor-in-Chief of this site in addition to being an aspiring game designer. As you would assume, he is a huge fan of 4e.
By day he is a technologist.
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