2023/01/11

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms, the party left town to go to a family reunion.

After the party had helped Hurley and Lord Longfellow, things had returned to the standard of normal that exists for Five Fingers. The naval war was still going on in the background, though shipments were still getting through and the party weren't sailors and thus hadn't been called up to participate in that theater of the conflict. This would change, a slightly different way than expected though, when Atrixia approached Abe at Undertow with a conversation that she felt needed to be had. Atrixia told Abe that Five Fingers was in the process of recruiting an official standing army to lessen its dependence on mercenaries. At the heart of this endeavor was and effort to obtain the services of unaffiliated warcasters so that Charlotte wasn't the only warcaster officially under Five Finger's employ. During that a familiar name came up during the search, One Abigail Mudokon. Abigail had served with distinction in the Cygnarian army up until a little after the claiming when she asked to be transferred to the Order of Illumination. From there she was placed on a long term assignment hunting down entrenched cults. According to the sources listed Abigail occasionally took up mercenary work to help pay the bills outside of the standard supply lines.

Abe was rather shaken up at this revelation, though was glad that his sister was still alive at the very least. Atrixia did go on to say that it was the official opinion of the High Captains that Abigail's tangled loyalties posed too much of a risk of angering either Cygnar or the Order of Illumination to warrant attempting to recruit her. Atrixia agreed with this sentiment though thought that regardless of that Abe deserved to know about his sister and she would support him in the event that he wanted to meet her. Abigail was last seen in the Cygnarian city of Corvis up the Dragon's Tongue River and if Abe wanted an unofficial mission could be placed on the books to allow for a meeting. Abe thanked Atrixia and then went to talk with the rest of the party to see where they stood on such an adventure. The party was supportive, though there were some reservations from Xavier and Charlotte about going to a large Cygnarian city as wanted fugitives. Charlotte and Xavier eventually agreed to come along, when it became clear that Abe and Hector were not the most equipped to navigating into the unknown. Abe said that he needed to get a few things ready before they set off, and went and purchased a violin before returning to the party for their departure.

Atrixia arranged for passage to Corvis for the party on a river barge that was going that way, and told the party to look for a trollkin by the name of Terlak Goodhammer at the Drunken Vibes Beer Garden in Corvis. Terlak was an informant of High Captain Riordan and was the person who passed along Abigail's location in Corvis. The journey to Corvis was rather relaxed, as there wasn't all that much to do on the ship. As the party watched the shoreline pass by they amused themselves by singing marching songs and playing cards with the crew. During this time Hector asked his hand some questions about their future, and was told that the largest danger to the party was “Poisoned Opinions”, Abe's sister was “Remorseful” about their coming reunion, and someone to watch out for was “Gerten”. While most of those answers were unclear, hopefully they would present themselves before they became a problem for the party to deal with.

The ship eventually came into Corvis, the city of ghosts, and the party set off to find the Drunken Vibes Beer Garden, and Terlak with it. Finding the beer garden wasn't that difficult as it wasn't too far from the waterfront. The sound of drunken sailors could be heard from inside and there seemed to be an atmosphere of merriment. The party went inside to look for their contact, and saw a double handful of trollkin drinking throughout the bar. Deciding that talking to the bartender was easier than approaching each of the trollkin, Charlotte went up to the bar and asked the bartender about Terlak. The response given was one of condolences as apparently Terlak was grabbed off the streets about a day and a half ago. Nobody entirely knew who or why, though most weren't looking too deep into the matter as they didn't want to end up next to Terlak wherever he was. The party said that their need for Terlak was rather important and that if necessary they were willing to have problems with whoever grabbed Terlak. Really the only information that was widely known was that Terlak was grabbed on the north side of town and that he seemed to have some sort of shipment passing through town in the coming days. Nobody knew exactly what though Terlak had been paid to make sure it passed through the city without incident.

The party left Drunken Vibes and went about trying to see if there was any more information on Terlak or his mystery shipment. They also considered checking with the local Church of Morrow to see if Abigail had any contact with them, though decided to save that in the event that looking for Terlak came up with nothing. The party figured that the best place to ask around for information about this mystery shipment was the docks. In doing so the party got a number of conflicting stories, from the cargo was gold, to magical artifacts, to a dragon anthac. Though the stories did seem to say that the shipment was passing through Corvis and heading further north, which implied the final destination was in Llael. The rumors gathered also seemed to imply that the shipment had attracted attention from some of the local criminal elements as it seemed rather valuable. Further information gathering by the party was hampered when on the second day in town, a number of Cygnarian soldiers were searching the docks for something, or someone.

Charlotte and Xavier were rather concerned at this, as Charlotte especially had wanted posters with her face on them at some point and wasn't particularly keen to see if anyone would recognize her. At this point the party was concerned that Cygnar wanted whatever Terlak was moving and that they were the ones behind his disappearance, which was not good as they had promised Atrixia that they wouldn't cause any diplomatic incidents while in Cygnar. With no further leads, Hector once again asked his hand for guidance and was told that the same Gerten that they were told to watch out for had Terlak. Abe, in a surprising show of worldly knowledge, identified that name with the Gerten Crime Family that held control over much of Corvis's criminal underworld. The party still didn't have much of a location to go off of and thus went to the Church of Morrow. Helping Terlak was nice and all, though finding Abigail was the party's primary objective. Father O'Malley was as helpful as possible though didn't know of any members of the Order of Illumination that had sought refuge at the church. That wasn't to say that there wasn't any passing through the town just that for whatever reason they didn't want to stay at the church. Father O'Malley was able to tell the party about the Gerten Crime Family, saying that they operated out of the north end of town and had a number of fronts by the north graveyard in town.

The party thanked Father O'Malley and went to the graveyard to look for any fronts to see if they could find some goons to grab and ask about Terlak. Xavier was able to notice a sandwich shop that the same two people had entered and exited 4 times in the span of a couple of hours. Given that the shop was as good a lead as any, the party went to see what the story was with the building. Entering Gino's Sandwiches, the party was greeted by Steve, the young clerk behind the counter who tiredly asked the party how he could help them. The party then asked if Steve knew anything about Terlak which caused Steve to become visibly afraid and say that he needed to go get his boss. As Steve went to go to the back, the party chased him down and asked him what was going on. Steve quickly told the party that Terlak was downstairs and asked the party not to hurt him. The party thanked Steve for his assistance though told him that if things went wrong for them the would track him down. As the party descended into the basement of this shop they heard the sounds of interrogation coming from further on. Eventually they came across a dungeon door, with locks on the outside. The party debated just locking everyone inside the room and sorting it out later, though decided to just knock on the door. A gruff cry of “I'm in here, get me out already” which was punctuated with a smack came from inside and the party figured that they had the right place. Going through the door the party came face to face with a rather beaten up trollkin tied to a chair, and two interrogators which flanked the trollkin on either side. The party demanded Terlak's release and threatened the two interrogators with their superior numbers. Unfortunately this just meant that the interrogators decided to even the odds and threw poison gas bombs at the party. Shake's unique physiology was ill suited to this and he spent much of the ensuing fight coughing up blood, before Xavier was able to neutralize the poison.

The party defeated the two interrogators, and got Terlak free from his bindings. The party then helped Terlak out of the basement and back on to the streets, only stopping for Shakes to grab another sandwich on the way out. Terlak was grateful to the party for their rescue and when asked about Abigail, said that she was in town for a little bit, dealing with something in the undercity, the sunken buildings underneath Corvis, where all sorts of unsavory things take place. Abigail seemed to have found something while down there, as she ended up leaving town in a hurry going northeast. Terlak inquired though was told that he didn't want to get involved in this, something that he took to heart. Terlak did say however that the only major thing to the northeast is the town of Ternion Crag, a lawless mining town run by mercenaries. The journey would be a rough one as it involved cutting through the Bloodstone Marches and Terlak recommended that the party stock up before going after Abigail. The party took this advice to heart and began making preparations to go after Abigail.