Ashes to Ashes

23rd March 2023

Dragonash ruins lives, so it's time someone went and inspected those warehouse connections in Glimmergate.

### LEDGERS & DOCUMENTS (Taken from Wretchedness in the Warrens)

Information is gleaned that shipments have been making their way out of the mountains, through the Warrens to Glimmergate and onwards from there on boats to the East Ridings. Marks are made in the ledger for deliveries to CF and HP in Glimmergate to Warehouse B on Dock 7.

## Adventurers Attending

* Aloisius
* Skamos
* Rustling Whisper
* Lucidus
* Scriffy Bleakwood

## Mission Notes

As Skamos and Aloissius were passing through the guild hall, they were accosted by Samuel, a senior clerk at the guild. In the recent upheaval and serial complaints about Beefington’s suspicious lack of detail regarding missions, uppity Samuel had taken it upon himself to broach a new mission based upon the investigative findings from the journals and ledgers retrieved from the Dragonash smugglers in the Warrens. Samuel had sent an old guild member Scriffy the gnome ranger to do some investigating regarding CF &HP in Glimmergate, discovering them to be Harrison Patrick and Carcery Findusburg, two notable merchants in Glimmergate. With Scriffy having arrived back in Otha’s Rest, Samuel suggested that Skamos and Aloissius pick him up and take some trusted friends with them on a mission to discover more about Dragonash shipments being delivered into Glimmergate and CF&HP’s involvement. Meeting Scriffy at a nearby tavern and picking up Lucidus and Rustling Whisper, Scriffy explained that CF+HP had gone missing for a couple of days before emerging again, a pair notable merchants, who run premises in the Headland’s Market.

Using the teleportation circles, the party arrived in Glimmergate and headed for Harrison Patrick’s Fine Good’s store, being the closest of the two merchants properties. With an almost near addiction to sandwiches, Aloissius lucked out and found a seafood sandwich cart, not far from HP’s fine goods, selling an array of seafood stuffed brioche buns seasoned with Old Bay, a delectable seasoning from HP’s Fine Goods. Upon entering HP’s Fine Goods store, they found the shop manned by Derrek, with HP suspiciously unavailable. After purchasing a wheel of cheese and a number of sausages, Rustling Whisper’s detect thoughts went deeper, discovering that behind Derrek’s fear, apprehension and excitement that he was hiding his gang affiliation and a manacled HP in the cellar downstairs. It was also discovered that Derrek had pressed a magical alarm button, upon being panicked.

Heading into the cellar, the party discovered HP manacled by what he described as a bunch of thugs that had a habit of changing their appearance. Raiding the tills and stealing an expensive bottle of brandy from the store, they rescued and escorted HP through the sewers to a neighbouring store room at HP’s friends shop where HP hid in a box, that Scriffy nailed shut, while the party went to check out the Dragonash smugglers activities at the docks.

With Aloissius disguised as Derrek, Lucidus in manacles and Rustling Whisper invisible, the 3 of them travelled to the warehouse in the hope of disguising their entry as having caught a snooping council inspector, with Skamos and Scriffy attempting to stealth their way – successfully – into the warehouse. Entering the warehouse, the party discovered Beefington, Baker(butcher) Bill, Harrison Patrick, Carcery Findusburg and a well armoured Bandit captain stood round a table conversing, seemingly nonchalant about the party’s appearance. Upon attempting the rouse, the warehouse doors were shut and combat ensued. At first it appeared to be that the guild party had been trapped, but their adversaries soon discovered it to be the other way around. Aloissius upon being discovered set about dismembering Harrison Patrick with haste and slashing this way and that, felled HP as his visage slowly morphed into the appearance of a tall, bald blue humanoid. Seemingly unsurprised by this, the rest of notable faces and their bandit cohorts continued the fight, but as the tide turned and Skamos began exploding bandits against walls they decided to retreat to a hatch in one of the rear offices, making their way to an underground tunnel. As the Guild Party despatched the last of the bandits and dogs in the warehouse, Skamos chased the notable faces into the warrens beneath, only to have Baker Bill pull a handle and flood the tunnel, sweeping up all involved before dumping Skamos out a side tunnel in one of Glimmergate’s riverways leaving the adversaries escaped or drowned.

Returning to the Warehouse determined to collect some Dragonash, Skamos enters to find that Lucidus and Rustling Whisper have been looking over ledgers and documents from the adjacent office. Lucidus discovers lots of mentions of changing appearance, of taking over the profiles of Harrison Patrick and Carcery Findusburg in order to import and distribute dragonash throughout the West ridings. It continues to elaborate on plans to use Beefington's influence and the large sums of incoming gold from dragonash sales to promote Harrison Patrick and Carcery Findusburg to Merchant King's in the city. In the ledger it looks like large sums of gold were spent on bribes in the city, with some gold sent to the guild, a notable amount to AB, but the largest amount, over half, headed under the mountain south of the Warrens.

In this time, Scriffy had begun making an inventory of the warehouse to give to the guild and Aloissius discovered a chest of gold in the back office and began inspecting some strange urns that were scattered about the Warehouse. After a short conversation between Scriffy and Skamos, Skamos takes some small supplies of DA and DG before experimenting with the Urn, DA and DG. The urns it seems are metal pipe heaters of some description similar in appearance to steel hookahs that allow the smelting of Dragonglass for use. They are also inscribed at the base with AB.

Leaving the warehouse Scriffy returns to let Harrison Patrick out of his box, while Aloissius reminds him about the lifetime discount he promised at his store. The next day thanks to Harrison Patrick, Carcery Findusburg is freed from the cellar of his alchemist supply shop.

## Loot

* Standard Level Xp & Gold
* A pouch of Old Bay seasoning – serving suggestion = 2 portions -Aloissius
* 2x large sausages - Aloissius
* 2x pouches of Dragonash - Skamos
* 2x Shards of Dragonglass - Skamos
* 1 x AB Steel Urn Pipe (weighs around 25kg) - Skamos
* In possession of 1 x fine bottle of brandy - Skamos
* 1 x Cheesewheel (if retrieved) - Lucidus
* A set of ledgers and documents - Lucidus
* Gold Stolen from Harrison Patricks = 67gp
* Chest of Gold from Warehouse = 183gp
* Lifetime discount from Harrison Patricks Fine Goods = 10%

* (gold split to be agreed by players)

## Rumours

* That wasn’t really Beefington was it (it wasn’t) (was it)?
* Who was the strange blue man and who are these Dragonash smugglers
* What’s beneath the mountain and why is there so much gold going there?