Uncovering the Court

## Tracking Paper Trails

* Eli talks to the Free Peoples of Rayon and tips them off about what happened to the Orc tribe at the border. Then she goes to talk to Richard Splet in the records office. There's a notice of removal in place of where the files should be. It says "Removed with national security authorization.” Dewey Fields, a campaign manager, removed the files.
	+ The Versatile Vials files are in the sealed records office. Eli manages to convince Splet to let her see the files, but in doing so, her actions are reported to his higher ups.
	+ The files reveal that Versatile Vials was closed. No assets of the company were redistributed. There is a Versatile Vials warehouse at the edge of the city that was appraised but deemed worthless.
* Yazmin returns to the church where she used to meet with her superior. He appeared as a 5'8" human male with graying hair, priest robe, a fatherly air, and a pock scar. She doesn't see anyone matching that description.

## Hazards of the Job

### Ivan's Exorcism

* Ivan goes to the church to request an exorcism. Eli goes to the church in the morning to meet up with Soleste, Grog, and Ivan regarding the exorcism. Soleste and Ivan go inside for the exorcism, while Grog and Eli remain outside.
* Semasi puts Ivan into a magic trance. Ivan interacts with people from his past, and refuses to decapitate someone, who turns out to have been Soleste in real life.
* Ivan told Grogg to tell everyone that he was framed and then leaves.
* Grog said Lianne went to turn on the radio in the forest, before the Metal Panther attacks
* Ivan is missing. The party + the Church of Dol Arrah attempt to find him, but are unsuccessful.
* Ivan finds his son Alexei and Alexei convinces him to join the Court of Owls

### Sarovar and the Panther Club

* Sarovar convinces Chestington to uphold his cover as Chestington's nephew by playing into Chestington's anti-Sigil biases. Sarovar promises to undermine Sigil's power within Sirex.
* Chestington introduces Sarovar to Jaque Kane, the best detective this side of the Inner Sea whom Chestington hired to help Sarovar investigate Sigil. Jaque's other task is to keep an eye on Sarovar and report any suspicious activities.
* Yazmin stays with Sarovar as his lady friend named Yennefer.
* Sarovar, Jaque, and Chestington go to the Panther Club and talk to Dewey Fields. Dewey Fields is assassinated before he can spill all the secrets. Sarovar is also almost killed.

### Eli is Almost Assassinated

* Someone breaks into Eli's house and leaves a grandfather clock. The face of the clock has the words "Be careful Eli, continue on this path and your time will come" written in blood.
* Eli gathers information:
	+ Aranor tells her that Wildsper was part of the sextuple murder at the docks. Commissioner Bradley Dodson is pissed. He's under pressure from the Syndicate and from politicians to find Ivan. He has authorized regular sweeps of docks and raids of Orc town. The department's official narrative is no comment.
	+ Detective Gil tells her to that the hospital case was taken over by Secure Contain Eradicate (SCE). The organization is not under commissioner or the Sirex guard. It may not even be under the military.
* Eli receives a letter from Ina telling her to go to a bank in Sirex. There's an account under Eli's name with an item that Eli needs to retrieve asap. Inside the security box is a cipher that decodes Ina's notes.
* On her way from the bank to the black market, Eli is followed and almost assassinated. She turns herself into a gaseous form and makes it back to the church.

### Soleste's Test of Faith

* Semasi tests Soleste's loyalty to Dol Arrah by abducting her in the middle of the night, surrounding her with paladins, and telling her she must stab herself due to her being corrupted by the devil.
* Soleste takes the knife and stabs herself. It is then revealed that the knife was an illusion, and Soleste's life is spared.

## It All Comes Together

* Eli translates the partially burned page she managed to salvage from the fire using Ina's cipher. It says: *A group of former BMD individuals escaped prosecution in 1707. Went underground 2 years. call themselves Court of Owls. Re-appropriating BMD resources. Have contacts high in Sirex! Potential weak link Aneka Rock--*
* Mother visits Eli at the church
	+ Gives her a sending stone that, if activated, will tell Mother Eli's location. It is to be used in case Eli is in trouble.
	+ Tells her that Anika Rockstriker is a member of the Mendez family and fights in their fight club.
* Sarovar hears rumors that someone is opening artificer shipments and looking into them. He and Jaque break into a shipping area, fight Head Trauma Joe, and uncover shipments of artificer bullets that the Shadow's Hand was stealing from the official Sigil traders. Jaque interrogates Sarovar about his true aims and intentions. Sarovar gives just enough information to satisfy him.

## The God, the Clock, and the Owl

### Initiation

* Franz von Falkenhyn arrives and introduces himself as an attache (third party between police and paladin) that was assigned to them by the aristocrats.
* The party decides to investigate the abandoned Versatile Vials warehouse at the edge of the city. They find a door with the words "Door of Shadows" written in elvish. They shine a light at the door and walk through the shadow that the door casts into a room of traps. Outside that room is a moving hallway with a hole in the middle that traps and drowns anyone unlucky enough to fall in. To stop the floor, the party must push down two levers.
* The next area is a dungeon in the shape of a clock. Every minute, a cage opens and the party has to fight a different kind of enemy. First, the party fights a gelatinous cube, then an invisible elemental spirit, then a horde of undead. The party figures out that in order to defeat the dungeon, they have to destroy the mechanism that moves the hands of the clock. When they succeed, and hatch opens and they are able to leave the dungeon.
* The party walks through a room with a stuffed owl and learns the Parable of the God, the Clock, and the Owl Clock dungeon. After that the party has to fight through a room of knights, magic carpets, and a staff of frost. Grog and Franz are downed.
	+ Each member of the party takes a painting from the wall as a trophy.
* The final room is a lab with a clock in it. Half of the party (Jaque, Eli, Franz, Yazmin) investigate the papers in the lab while the other half (Soleste, Sarovar, Grog) investigate the clock.
	+ The papers provide information on the various abyssal creatures, including the werewolf and the tentacle monster, which are the Nihilanth and Elder Oblex respectively. They are each from different planes.
	+ The papers reveal that the Court of Owls has been experimenting with different planes. They also reference the Void Project.
	+ There strange-looking maps
	+ Finally there's a short note: "VV compromised, VP relocated to secondary facility: Tempest"

### A Mysterious Ticking Sound

* A force field appears separating the two groups. The clock is revealed to be a bomb, with instructions on how to defuse it in the lab. The party members in the lab try to communicate to the other group how to defuse, but they fail and run out of time.
	+ The party members in the lab leave through a portal.
	+ Grog sacrifices himself to buy Soleste and Sarovar time to escape. Soleste and Sarovar manage to leave through the Door of Shadows before bomb goes off.
* The explosion causes the Versatile Vials warehouse to collapse and destabilizes the surrounding area. Soleste falls and is left dangling above the crumbling warehouse dungeon with little hope of survival. She prays that someone, anyone, will save her. Asmodeus's hand appears and she accepts it. Everyone else in the party believes that she's dead.
* The metal panther appears and attacks the party.
	+ Franz contacts people in the intelligence agency and gets police griffins to arrive.
	+ The metal panther is about to kill a weakened Yazmin. Eli presses the sending stone to let Mother that she is in trouble, then goes over to stand over Yazmin and uses Yazmin's Scroll of Protection to buy them enough time for help to arrive in the form of police griffins. The metal panther leaves and Franz, Yazmin, and Eli are brought into custody.