Day 09: 21 Tarsakh 1479

The team is weary from fighting off the Flesh Mistress, but as she explodes in scarabs and dies, it all seems worthwhile. They aren’t sure how everyone is faring topside so they decide to go check. Peri and Elharus are outside and appear to be fine. Peri’s siege wagon is intact and she has named it Tank. They all leave Tank behind in search of the rest of their friends.
==Aftermath of the Mistress==
Keeven and Fraver are at the gate and seem weathered but okay. Andolyn and Gendrew are there as well, and from the looks of things it’s rather obvious that Andolyn carried the two through their battle. Fraver informs the team that the city is being taken care of and that the enemy forces are all but rounded up as they speak. Keeven says that the team may as well take the manor that the Flesh Mistress was living in. They are excited to race back and stake their claims!
==The Manor of Kings==
Even though there was a horrible disaster during the night the team is already hiring contractors to reconstruct the basement floor. They also buy beds, tables, armoires and more for the rooms they each claimed. Kaze claims a second-floor room with an eastern view and converts a walk-in closet into a private bath. (Bomfur takes the long, low room next to his master.) Sith buys an ornate bed of exotic woods adorned with griffins and a sitting area for her second-floor room with a southern exposure. Peri takes a somewhat smaller room in the northeast corner of the second floor, all but filling it with the gigantic, fluffy bed of her dreams. Bohe takes a windowless room on the first floor that reminds him of the caves of his home, and offers to put in a bathroom on the first floor off of the kitchen so he doesn't have to trudge upstairs. Madric takes a large but spartan suite on the first floor with southern and eastern views, lightly furnishing it with a simple bed, desk, and chests. Ki-e takes the second-floor room with the fireplace, outfitting it as his alchemist's workshop, and installs a pole that goes all the way down to the cistern for easy access to his basement-level forge. All repairs and improvements will take eleven days.
==The Hunt for Gnolls==
The team needs to go after the Gnoll bothers because they are rumored to have stolen that book with the poem in it. Kaze and Peri are concerned that the trail will go cold soon, so they decide to start at the Elfsong Tavern.
Elsa is very happy to see Peri and thanks her very much for helping him before and for saving his daughter. They ask about the Gnoll Brothers that were there earlier. They are told that it wasn’t the Gnolls, but men talking about the Gnolls and stealing a poem. Elsa also tells the team that those men were getting rowdy so he sent them away and they went to the Low Lantern Inn.
==Low Lantern Shake Down==
The team then goes over to the Low Lantern Inn. It is a ship in the dock yard. Bohe tries to make good with the bard maid, a dwarf by the name of Myra Feldspar. She doesn’t want any bullshit and sends him away. Sith saunters up and tries another approach, and while Myra still doesn’t want any bullshit, she does like Sith’s bra. She decides to give the team a chance. She tells them that she has the information they are wanting, but they have to do her a favor first. She tells them about how a wizard by the name of Nilus Catharsis ran out without paying his 50gp tab. She points the team in the right direction and off they go.
They find the small troop of wizards pushing people around and Sith decides to thrust out her chest and ask for the 50gp with the promise of a good time. Nilus buys it and hands over the gold. Surprised, Sith says thank you and they all cheese it! Myra insists that the gold was not important, that it was the principle of the thing and she wants those boys beat. (Sith keeps the gold, since Myra said it wasn't important.)
The team goes back to open up a can of whoop-ass (but gently, as these are, after all, wizards). This time, Sith’s advances are thwarted, so Bohe goes on up and lifts the leader of the group, and holds him out over the water. After a moment of stand-off with cries of "Be reasonable!" from Kaze and "I'll cut a bitch!" from Ki-e, Bohe gets impatient and simply drops Nilus in the water and swings at another of the other wizards. Everyone else joins in, bashing the wizards with fist, sword hilt and staff, tripping them and pushing them into the water. Soon enough the deadbeat wizard bullies admit defeat and shove off. The team goes back and Myra seems satisfied by the blood evident on Bohe's fists. (Sith still keeps that gold.)
Myra tells the team that the people talking about the Knoll Brothers should be there any minutes, and about that time they walk through the door. It is a crew of three dragonborns and two humans. They each try a hand at getting in good with the crew but all fail. Kaze suggests they lay in wait. So as they are waiting, one of the humans takes out a key and talks about that shitty poetry they were reading. They had be talking about the clues they stole from Delvin Grimm. They decide to go for it and pick the key out of the man’s pocket.
Ki-e goes to distract one of the dragonborn, using the nationalistic antipathy between Tymanther and Akanûl as a wedge. It develops into an argument that does distract the men. Peri makes a small slip-up while picking the man’s pocket, and the key falls to the floor. Since she’s been on a roll, Sith flings herself drunkenly and sexily at the man just as the key falls, propositioning him for a good time. (She can feel how he interested he is, in fact.) She distracts him well enough, but one of the other men sees Peri picking something up. He calls to her, and, out of ideas, Sith exclaims that she is there to party. Peri luckily is able to pick up the skull key and hide back in the crowd, then make her way back towards Kaze and Bohe. Sith is then out of ideas for how to leave this obviously horny man when Madric grabs her, yelling to everyone that she was supposed to give him a lap dance. The man happens to check his pocket and realizes that the key is gone. He sees Kaze trying to hide Peri behind him. He sees the other three freeze around him. Madric yells to cheese it and Sith throws her drink in the man’s face as she runs like hell. Madric drops marbles behind him felling two dragonborn. Ki-e throws down oil tripping up another. Kaze throws a pound of soap and manages to fell one more. The entire team pushes the last off the ship into the water.
==Helm and Cloak==
The team tries to weave in and out of crowds and, concerned about leading these ruffians back to the new lair, ends up going to the Helm and Cloak instead of the manor. After about an hour of sleep, the team must be awakened because there is a ruckus going on downstairs. The ruffians are back and Bohe manages to hold them off while the team gets dressed. In a brutal battle during which Bohe was rendered unconscious for a time, the team kills the other guys off. After looting the bodies, the team finds a piece of parchment with a poem similar to the one heard before from Delvin Grimm:
: “When empty eye-socketsThe pedestal meetsThe tower shall turnAnd base shall retreat.”
Sith has both the parchment and the key in her bra.
==Back Home==
After the lengthy ordeal, the team decides to go back to the manor in case the Helm and Cloak is unsafe for them right now.
Category:Chapter 2