Zoom 2021-09-02 21:00

**1840 xp awarded.** (A muffled cry of 'yippee' is heard between the moans and grumbles of the spell wiped, sleep deprived, beaten up party members)

At our inn: The Elven Watch finished their questioning of us, and wait for a suitably reinforced escort to take the prisoners away. The landlord (once he was revived) agreed with our assessment that the attackers primarily went for him - probably to try to get to the prisoners in the cellars. Whether that was for rescue, or to silence them is a matter of speculation.

Other than that, the party "spend an hour or so bimbling around the inn" (to quote Matt).

At the dockside inn: The 'away team' send a message to the 'home team' saying where they are, a suggestion that people keep an eye out over the rooftops for watchers/assailants, and an invitation that they come and join in on the fun. They also send messages to Greyal and Kahu. It is noted that the crossbow recovered from the roof-top Ariel only had a single bolt - with no additional bolts being carried.

By about 2:30am, the druids say that they have found Dougal in a sub-cellar in a house opposite the Black Crow pub. Dougal is probably in a bad way (ie there is a lot of blood around) and there are three people with him. There are stairs down from the ground floor to a cellar, and then a trap door and ladder down to the sub-cellar, which seems to be connected to the sewer system. There are two people sleeping in the ground floor of the house - appear to be 'innocent' people dossing out there.

The 'away team' decide to wait for support to arrive, but rather than the home team turning up, a group from Kahu arrive - 2 Maratasen berserkers, 1 druid Human, and 2 grisly bears. When Caradoc expresses his surprise in that he was 'expecting someone different' (ie help from Greyel) he is told that 'Greyel is busy - something else is coming up'. The Druid casts 3 CLW's on F, and keeps one in reserve for Dougal.

While we are discussing a plan of attack, the city bells ring for 3 o'clock, but they ring 4 times. Clearly this is some kind of signal being sent out by the city authorities. (Back at home base, the Watch guards are seen to react to this.)

The plan for rescuing Dougal is quite straightforward. The Maratasen will barge in, with our party members protecting their backs. The bears will be left to wander around wondering where they should shit. So with C, H and J on the rooftops and F and Br on the ground, the Maratasen pile in. On the rooftops, two crossbowmen are spotted and attacked by us (but not before they manage to loose their crossbows vaguely in F's direction, but no hits). The crossbowmen then try to run away, but a sleep spell from H sends one falling heavily to the ground. In the building, the two 'innocents' surrender on F's demand, and do indeed appear to be unrelated bystanders.

When we get down to the sub-cellar, we find 2 dead bodies (a giant and a human), one of the Maratasen, and Dougal. The other Maratasen has apparently gone off into the sewers chasing the third person. Dougal is unconscious and in a bad way - he has had his arm tied to a wooden board, and his left hand has been hit repeatedly with a mallet - breaking every bone in his hand. Brokev 'lays on hands' to cure 6hp which brings him back to consciousness, and the Druid applies a CLW to Dougal, but he is concerned that the spell is not healing Dougal's hand properly.

Dougal says that they had threatened to apply  'non-healable' damage to his hand, and though he had resisted and tried to hold out against the torture, he wasn't able to and had blabbed out anything and everything. He did pick up two things from his capturers though: (a) the boss his torturers were working for is female, (b) that 'something' is happening 'tomorrow'.

He can also talk about the questions he was asked - expected ones such as who we are, and why we are here, what had we brought from White Beach and who did we give it to etc. They also asked about Bez Drock, and if he was still the manifest of Shanah, and about Onwen. They also asked who Vinmira was and **why we had killed him**. Other questions were about the towers in Far Haven, and if we were there when Ghoullagabba attacked it. Finally, they were also interested in which clans had taken Star Storm, and who is our contact at the Rogues Hall. So they do seem to already know quite a lot about us.