Session 5

**Real World Date: 11/1/2020**

**In Game Dates(x): 11th of Lencten, 5151 M.E. - 13th of Lencten, 5151 M.E.**

**Party Level: 2**

## NPCs Met This Adventure

* Fenton - Rylee's assistant/punching bag, scrawny little man
* Norris Redraven - smithy, one of few that can make Azulian steel, in wheelchair

## Summary

### Restless Nights

After their encounter with Rylee Sunbrook, the party head to bed after a hearty meal. Baka has the same dream he has had multiple times: him flying up into darkness, his mace raised up glowing with light. Though he has never had reoccurring dreams, he is comforted that he is on the right path. Cue has a dream where he is in a house of mirrors, seeing alternate versions of himself, Rylee, and the various possible lives they may have led. He tries to escape the mirrors, but ends up running into one and waking up. Poem has a dream where he is an actor on stage and he can't remember his lines. He sees Diego Lionheart off stage shake his head and walk away. He chases after him, but the other actors on stage surround him. They are all wearing the same mask. "A Man has many parts to play." they chant, then Poem wakes up.

Quintus has a dream about being on the **Triton's Blade** and it's under attack. Suddenly the **Jade Pirate**, or how Quintus imagines him, jumps on the deck an attacks Quintus. Bashan has a dream of walking the sewers underneath Azul, finding the dead Edwin Yshtar, who warns him again not to trust the **Brotherhood**. He sees one of the members of the **Brotherhood** turn into a monster and kill him. The dream repeats over and over, a different member of the **Brotherhood** turning into a monster. Eventually he wakes up with a start. Bashan then finds Rylee sitting in his room with two bouncers from the theater flanking him.

"Finally awake?"

### Making Deals

Rylee reveals he recognized the quality of the sheets in the room where he was interrogated and knew it was somewhere in the **Hightop District**. He only had to ask around a few places to find out what inn had a giant turtle staying at it. He came to offer the party a way out of any legal entanglements they might be in with Rylee. He wants them to be his bodyguards but also investigate attacks that have happened to him at night. No one believes him but he is convinced someone is attacking him then healing him.

Rylee gives the party 24 hours to decide, then leaves. The party meet downstairs for breakfast, most of them not having a good night's sleep. Bashan briefs them all on what Rylee offered. They all decide to take the job, but will head over to the theater later that night and let him know. In the mean time, the party relaxes and some of them run their own errands.

### Azulian Sun

Baka heads to the **Farthing District** to pick up the holy symbol he had commissioned. Not trusting Baka to wander the city alone, Bashan accompanies him. They head to the smithy where he had comissioned the item. A receptionist of sort is up on a step ladder, hanging up new metal numbers and letters for their address: 427 Smithy Way. He has just finished hanging the numbers when he notices them approach and steps down. Baka reminds him what he is picking up and he heads to get the blacksmith finishing the item. While he is away, Bashan makes to help continue putting up the address, but actually swaps the 2 and 7, then starts hanging up the letters.

The receptionist returns, thanks Bashan for his help. He settles the remaining payment from Baka and the smith comes out. He is Norris Redraven, one of the few men who can work with Azulian Steel. He is in a wheelchair, with massive arms, with a package wrapped in his lap. He hands the finished holy symbol to Baka, who has a flashback of Brother Walerin. An afternoon when they were both heading to the monastery's first taste of their new brew, Walerin had a fancy Azulian Steel flask he received as a gift from a traveling merchant. He was excited to use it, but admitted normally he couldn't serve Aubade and have fancy items like this. Baka then comes back to present and realizes with this holy symbol, Brother Walerin might do both finally. As the pair leave the smithy, they can hear the receptionist curse and say aloud, "Damn, it was supposed to be 427!!"

### Walking Alone, but Drinking Together

Quintus decides to head off to wander the docks in the **Docks District** to find some information. Poem decides to sneakily follow Quintus, though he is less than stealthy. Quintus sees him following him, but doesn't really care and keeps going. He wanders the district for a while and doesn't really get any information of use. He does ask around and find a harbormaster office that keeps tracks of the shipments coming and going in the docks.

Upon asking the clerk at the harbormaster's office, he finds that he can't get information about shipments. He asks if any strange weapons, or "boom sticks", have come in lately, but the clerk either can't say or doesn't know of such things. He also asks about the **Jade Pirate**. He says their was a supposed sighting towards the eastern edge of the docks, but that was two days ago and hasn't been seen since. However, no one can get out because of the lockdown, so if they are here, they might still be here.

Dejected about not finding any solid leads, Quintus finds the nearest pub, the **Wicked Horse**. Poem slides up next to him as they both order some cheap drinks. Poem comforts Quintus by saying that if this **Jade Pirate** has a reward and they have a promise of payment, the party might help him track down this lead. He may find this person still, it's only a matter of time.

### Night at the Theater

The party regroups and heads to the **Lionheart Theater** to meet up with Rylee. They are let in this time and they arrive as Diego Lionheart finishes giving a speech about the upcoming week's performances. He leaves to his office and Ryle notices the party, heading towards them. They let him know they agree to his job. A scrawny man named Fenton comes up, Rylee's assistant, and he tells him to make arrangements for their payment of 10  per day per person. Baka also insist that a similar amount goes towards the church of Aubade as well, which Fenton hesitantly notes down. The party is told that Rylee is staying in a bedroom upstairs while the play is running, so most of the party head upstairs to inspect the area.

Cue asks around for the head of the theater and heads up to meet Diego Lionheart. Diego is confused, thinking he is Rylee, then quickly realizes that he is an identical twin. He offers him an acting gig if he would like, as he is probably easier to deal with than Rylee, but Cue doesn't act. Cue asks about who is here at the theater overnight. Deigo says he sometimes stays late, but only Rylee is sleeping overnight. He also asks about keys. Diego says he has a key to every room, but Rylee and Fenton have a key to the room as well. Cue thanks him, and Diego makes one more offer to act in Rylee's place as Cue leaves.

### Not So Secret Healing

The party inspect the bedroom while Rylee is downstairs for rehearsels. Fenton unlocks the room and Cue shows up, insisting that he turn over his key. Fenton is reluctant, but Cue insists they want to control who has access while they protect him. After Fenton hands over the key and leaves, the party search the room for signs of anything suspicious. They find a secret compartment with a small magical quarterstaff. Poem attempts to attune to it to get some idea of what it is, but it doesn't seem to work. When Baka does it, however, he realizes that it is a staff of healing. This item being hidden in Rylee's room does indicate it was handy so someone can regularly heal Rylee, backing up his story.

Upon explaining what they found, they convince Cue to sleep in Rylee's room, with his sword hidden under the covers while the rest of the sleep in the room across the hall and wait for someone to try and sneak in. They set up a watch so someone across the hall will be awake and hear if Cue calls out. As the night progresses, during Poem's watch, Cue has a spell cast on him. He resists the affect, but is almost held in place in the bed. A figure sneaks into the room and heads for the secret compartment to grab the quarterstaff. When he does, Cue jumps out of bed and calls the others. They all swarm into the room to discover it is none other than Fenton standing there, looking stunned he was caught.

### Interrogating an Ex-Employee

Fenton resists confessing for a while, throwing out various lies and alternative stories to why he was in the room, doing what he was doing. The party break him down, forcing him to finally confess. He says he was approached by a couple of guys asking if they could have blood samples of Rylee in exchange for a little coin. They kept asking for more and more and they even provided the Staff of Healing so he could cut Rylee and not leave a wound on him. Rylee slaps Fenton, tells him he is fired, and storms out of the room angrily. The party get him to draw all the drop off locations that he would drop off the samples and pick up communications, six of them in total. They are all several blocks from the theater, and are a public garbage can on the corner.

The party decides to stay up through the night and, using a sample of Fenton's blood, they decide to have Fenton go ahead with the drop off and the party will set up and watch the garbage can, seeing who shows up to pick up the sample. Poem and Baka hang back while Bashan, Cue, and Quintus set up at different angles to view the garbage can. Fenton walks down the blocks and drops off the sample into the garbage can then continues walking. They aren't sure where he went but they let him go to observe who picks up the drop off. After a couple hours, though, nothing happens, but Fenton comes back around and heads to the garbage can. He reaches in and a letter was delivered to him. No one was seen either taking Fenton's sample to delivering the letter response.

### Suspicious Behavior

After Bashan interacts with the garbage can, realizing it's much heavier than it should be, the party retreat back to a nearby alleyway and examine the letter. It says they appreciate the sample and will contact him later if further samples are needed. They ask Fenton how they picked up and dropped off things without being seen, but Fenton claims ignorance. They knock him out, bandaging him so he is just unconscious, but leave him in the alley. They decide to finally get some sleep, as they have been up very late at night. They head back to the **Golden Forge** and they all get a full night's rest, waking up later in morning as they went to be d so late.

They noticed based on the schedule of six drop offs that today the drop off spot will have moved to another garbage can a couple blocks over. They head to the original, though, and check out the garbage can there. It is now the normal weight, being back to a normal garbage can. They head to the new garbage can location and they move that. It is way heavier than a normal garbage can. They move it around and realize that there is a hole underneath the can. The lower a light down into hole and see it's a basement that seems to come from the nearby bakery. The decide to check with the bakery and see if their basement is connected.

### Just a Baker's Assistant

The party head into the bakery. A pensive bakery assistant offers to help them. A stern female baker's assistant orders his to frost more cupcakes. They ask about a basement to this place. She says she doesn't know much about it, but she can get the manager. She brings back a large man who is the owner. Baka is plain spoken with him and says someone has dug a hole under the garbage can outside and it may be connected to his basement and they were wondering if his basement might have connected to this drop off location. Upon asking this, the baker gets really suspicious and yells for them to leave.

The party realizes that letting Baka do the talking may not have been the subtlest way to talk their way in, but as they discuss their next moves outside, the female assistant comes out, throwing her apron on the ground. She says she quit and she would like to show them what they are asking about. She leads them into the bakery to a back door which is padlocked. She says some people built a basement but this door leading to it is always locked. The baker comes out yelling for them to leave. Cue punches him and knocks him out. The female worker leaves, leaving the pensive assistant up front to continue working, even though his coworker quit and his boss is unconscious on the floor behind the counter. The party pulls the keys from the baker, unlocks the basement, and carries the baker down there with them.

### An Elaborate Series of Tunnels

The party go down to find a mostly unfinished basement. There are beams to hold up the bakery, but the floor is just dirt. The basement does extend beyond the bakery to just under where the trash can is. They can see the hole is designed for a specific garbage can to be put in place above it. There are also pegs for a small platform to be propped up on, where their letter responses can be place on. This garbage can can be moved away at any time. To figure out exactly who is doing this, they decide to wake up the Baker and ask him some questions.

The baker is resistant at first, but eventually he opens up. Two men in green robes approached him and paid him for the rights to build this basement and rights to access the basement only certain days of the week. He agreed to it and oversaw the construction, making sure they were shoring up his bakery properly. He swore once he saw one of them with a different face, almost like he was a goat-person. After further interrogation the baker takes them to his office and gives them a business card he was given. It reads:

**Leyten Strong**
**P.O.R.T.A.L.**
***P**lanar **O**rganization for **R**esearch, **T**elemetry, and **A**stral **L**earning*
To set a trap, the party will need Fenton again to make contact, but the party then realizes they have no idea where Fenton is...