Zoom 2021-03-25 21:00

## First evening in White Beach:

Bazin, Umar and Quercuis toddle off to the Sands of War with the Wild avatar Holy Symbol and a centaur head. Quercuis is ignored, but the glow from Umar and Bazins' blessing gets them an audience with Cheron Axehead – who is extremely busy and harassed, with loads of messengers coming and going etc. Nevertheless, he takes time to get the full story from us and answer some questions.

* He is extremely interested in the Holy Symbol. He will look into it and let us know what he finds.
* Dark Hoof Centaurs are known about - some of them thought they could could attack White Beach. (It was bad idea.)
* Cheron Axehead appears to have just become Clearsighted, but is smart enough to start putting things together.
* He didn't know that Bez Drock was in town. Faced with the question 'how could you not have known' it was pointed out the GSOV was particularly strong around Onwen – for example, Vinmira and his gang had been searching the city for the last two weeks looking for their house.
* He knows that Bez Drock is now First Sword, and that Beldame is therefore dead.
* He has been in communication with Saratak, and had some instructions to follow – many of which seemed ludicrous/arbitrary at the time, some of which still do. (That's Saratak for you!). He had been told to inform Saratak when the house was attacked – which he has done – though Saratak had expected the house to have been defended by 10-13 people (presumably us!).
* He can't send a message to Alvera, but suggested we speak to 'the female Universal Priest' – it is an open secret that she has Alveran connections.

## At the house:

* There are 2 dead Ogres, 2 dead doppelgängers, 8 dead humans and a dead Elf. (After examination/looting, we store them in the cellar)
* Most of the bodies died from sword or axe wounds. (Bez Drock's main weapon was a hammer, but he was quite competent in sword and axe.)
* All bodies were wearing leather armour – nothing special, but they looked kitted out for a fight rather than being servants – ie no indication of anyone other the Drock, Onwen and their attackers.
* A thorough examination of Vinmira's body does not show any emergent ligature marks or similar. Kirsten (when manifested the next day) confirms that the scent from Vinmira's body is the same as both 'Brandy' Vinmira and 'Beer' Vinmirs.
* We found 2 more keys for the house. As well as the main door, they will open the other external doors from the inside.
* Quercuis is convinced that once the doors are closed, the house will be extremely secure. (Uil (?) had a War Drake – and he couldn't get in!). The house is a grand (somewhat vulgar) edifice built for someone who was obviously very rich and very, very paranoid.
* The house has a large larder (for 40 people) with just enough food for 2 people. (Not sure what Onwen did when he got the munchies.)
* We searched the house, and other than obvious rooms, stairways and doors etc, there is a another set of stairs going down from the bedroom we assume belonged to Onwen (from the clothes in the room). It leads to a locked door.
* We found some pots of tobacco, and 4 pots of a yellowish powder than Brokev identified as cinderoak. (He explained that cinderoak is a potato like plant and the tuber is the 'useful' part. There is none in the garden.)

## Next day:

Detailed search of the house with Det Traps and looking for secrets doors etc

* Trap door in main wine celler – mechanically trapped.
	+ Caradoc manages to disarm the (poison) trap, but cannot pick the lock.
	+ Hamish, Dougal and Joshua line up to give it a go, and all fail.
	+ Umar attempts an 'enhanced pick locks' and it works.
	+ Down below, we find a sub cellar with 8 dusty bottles of presumably very, very fine wine.
	+ The sub-cellar is very fine Dwarven construction.
* Mechanical trap on wall panel of Onwen's bedroom (presumed compartment behind).
	+ Caradoc manages to disarm the (poison) trap, but cannot pick the lock.
	+ Hamish, Dougal and Joshua line up to give it a go, and all fail.
	+ Umar attempts an 'enhanced pick locks' and fails, leaving a large dent in the wall.
* Stairway down from Onwen's bedroom:
	+ This hasn't been used for about a week – past footprints were human.
	+ The door is magically and mechanically trapped.
	+ Caradoc attempted to disarm the traps, and after successfully disarming the first 'layer' of traps, determines that the traps on the door are focused inwards – ie a self destruct trap rather than a kill-the-thief trap. So he immediately stops fiddling about with it.

## Loot identification:

* Vinmira's ring: +1 prot
* Vinmira's magical scroll: 18th Level Illusionist scroll – 2 \* non-det, Chaos and TrueSight.
* Vinmira's incomprehensible scroll: Comp Lang doesn't work – its written in magic. So we need a read magic spell, which none of the party know.
* Cleric's ring: Ring of Insight - +2 Wis/+2 Int. (Note: DM has stated that any stat enhancing item, other than runic items such as bracelet/necklace, must be worn for 24 hours to be effective.)
* Cleric's potion: Speed
* Cleric's potion: Invisibility (7/8 portions remaining)
* Spear: +3/+3. Double damage on a natural 20.
* Hand Axe: +1/+1.
* Dagger +2/+2 Dagger of venon. (Note: There is no poison left inside, but the crusty remains of what had been in there appears to have contained cinderoak. We surmise it is effective for disabling people as well as for its shamanic/recreational uses.)
* 50gp 11 silver 12cp recovered from bodies in the house. Plenty of leather armour and basic spears, short swords etc but nothing else of note.

## Miscellaneous

* Wun goes off to the Universal Temple for his Avatar vigil.
* The oak tree in the grounds appears to be a Druid's folly – an oak tree where there shouldn't be one.
* Onwen's mithril holy symbol would have been a powerful holy relic. The remaining mithril scrap is therefore probably more potent than standard mithril and should be used wisely.
* F. determined that there is a consular presence for Alvara in the city.
* Q. mentions that Uil stated that the Wyldwood shrines were in the West, because the Wild was in the East.

## Party 'to do' list

* Learn Read Magic to read the scroll.
* Quercuis to analyse all the herbs and plants – and see what is useful/valuable
* Engage a broker/negotiator to:
	+ Hire assistance to open the locked panel and magically trapped door.
	+ Identify (and probably sell) the fine wine (before any party member drinks it)
	+ Sell surplus/unusable magic items to pay for the above, and buy usable weapons for the party (or maybe have some made using the mithril?)
	+ Possibly engage a cleric to perform Speak With Dead on Vinmira or Elf bodies.
* Find out more about Salahan
* Continue our investigations.
* Send detailed reports back to multiple Alveran agencies.