Onsdagsdrager, Sess. 4 - 22.08.2018

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The camera focuses on an eye. Unblinking, still. Impertubable.

We zoom out slowly. It is the eye of a heron, standing on one leg in a reed forest. A saltmarsh. More birds fly overhead. The cries of gulls inform us we are near the coast. Morning sun illuminates a clearing.

Four bodies lie on the ground. An old man, a man dressed in ceremonial hindu warrior garb, and 2 mercenaries, stripped naked. They are all dead.

Ilvalin and Notker are digging a hole in the ground, grumbling about the work. NikNak sits, paring his nails with a knife and nto helping. Cillian keeps a lookout with his owl, Theo.

Bits of conversation follows, but the scene plays out uneventfully. The group heads back to The Stuffed Pig, where they were told to rendezvous with Renart, upon parting.

Coming down the street in the early afternoon, towards the inn, the group spots that it does not appear to have opened for business yet. Still shuttered, and with no one going in or out - much as we left it in session 1.

A man exits the front door. He is wearing an undirtied traveling cloak, and has striking blue eyes. Azure. He walks off briskly towards the Guild City's gates. The party approaches the inn, and as Ilvalin enters, Cillian sends off his familiar, Theo, to follow the man with azure eyes.

Theo flies for a short while, unnoticed. Perhaps a minute or two. Then a bird with striking coloured plumage appears in his peripheral vision. Another, from the other side. They fly close, and Theo rears back, flapping his wings and brandishing his talons as his bird instincts instruct. This is the last Cillian sees, before the vision goes dark.

Inside the Inn, Ilvalin finds a scene of strangely serene carnage. People lie dead or dying across tables, as they sat drinking once. A card game lies unfinished. The victims appear to bleed from noses or mouths, all in a terrible state of hurt. A few can still stutter words, but seem almost vegetables. The barman and a youth of particularly strong health seem perhaps to be hopeful cases.

Many of the lieutenants and captains of the Riverside Gang lie dead in this ignoble manner.

Ilvalin sets to work cynically looting the dead, finding a small sum of gold and various trinkets. Notker does not appear to mind, simply finding grim humor in her reaction. Searching the place, Cillian finds a barmaid who has come through unscathed - Katrin - hiding at the back of the pantry. Questioning and a bracing drink gets her to reveal that some magic appears to have been employed - the man who caused all of this was almost impossible to look away from - he kept mentioning a "package" and where it was. No one rose to challenge him, but simply sat in their seats and died. The barmaid herself survived by running away in a moment of strength, and hiding in a corner of the pantry.

Katrin seems shellshocked and terribly scared, but mostly unharmed. Inspecting the cups in the inn reveals no immediate signs of poisoning, and the air holds a fading aura of terribly powerful magic, reinforcing the idea that this was of a magical nature.

We fade out on the scene.

A month of downtime proceeds; Ilvalin seeks out a down-on-his-luck scribe living disgraced in the Whore's Mouth dock-area. His name is Prabinder, and he is a little desperate. Ilvalin needs papers for a fake arrest-order or pardon for the captain of her pirate vessel. Prabinder can make it; but he needs a special wax for Port Authority stamps, and a sigil of the Port Authority.

Aziz has a chat with Isan and Khaled; He wants to know somewhere to make a good score. The Temple of Lathander seems an opportunity - the old high-priestess Dawngreeter Verini is a real bitch, and pays protection to someone other than the Ratguild. Aziz goes undercover as reformed acolyte named Benga, and begins to charm his way into the good graces of a priestess-in-training named Sister Parisa.

Cillian attempts to study the