2023/03/08

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: Peace talks, problems shout.

It had been a few weeks since the capture of the Gannet, during this time many preparations were made for the official peace agreement. After some back and forth, the capital of Llael, Merywyn was chosen to play host to the various delegations. Five Fingers had elected to send three of its high captains: Matea, D'Lamsyn, and Riordan. The party was to also be sent with as the security detail for the delegation. So when everything was ready, the party and the high captains set off for the opulent city that is Merywyn. At the negotiations, the party found themselves with little to do, as they were mostly there as a ceremonial function. The odds that Ord or anyone else for that matter was going to pull a stunt against Five Fingers here was rather unlikely. As such the party was relegated to standing in the corner with the rest of the guard details and listening to the enthralling negotiations concerning the tax rate for Ordic ships passing into Five Fingers. The discussion was so boring in fact that Hector spent much the negotiations sleeping in the corner.

Eventually something seemed to come up, though it didn't seem to involve Five Fingers itself. It became clear that something else was going on in the Llaelese court, something that was fully occupying both Ord and Llael. And while Five Fingers was coming out better in the negotiations as a result, the peace talks had slowed to an almost glacial pace. This was a problem for Five Fingers, as while peace was coming at some point or another, Five Fingers would much rather a sooner peace than not. As peace would allow them to relax on their numbers of employed mercenaries as well as fully returning trade to its original levels. Thus Matea asked the party to look into what the hold up was and see if they could grease the wheels. Matea didn't have all that much to give the party to start with, just that the prince consort of Llael which was King Baird's grandson had interrupted the talks with some sort of private matter. Seeking a starting point, Hector promptly went back to sleep and was given that the best way for the party to resume the peace talks was for them to “Return the Ordic hetaera”. The party decided that they were more likely to get information from Llael rather than Ord and went to meet with the Llaelese palace guards to see what they were willing to share. While it was clear that the guards were under orders to keep the matter under wraps, the party was able to learn that Prince Consort Alvor had brought his Ordic mistress, a woman by the name of Stiata Cravor to the peace talks and she had gone missing. With that knowledge in hand, the party asked Matea to see if she could arrange an official meeting with the Llaelese captain of the guard so that they could formally offer their assistance.

The next day, the party had a meeting with the commander of the Llaelese armed forces and overseer of the palace guard Ashlynn D'Elyse. The woman was a little older than Charlotte and wore a tired expression, though it was unclear as to whether it was from her job in general or just this current disaster. The party introduced themselves and asked for further insight to the matter at hand, citing that they had no skin in the game and rather just wanted to see the peace talks finished as soon as possible. Ashlynn told the party that there was no love in the the marrage between Queen Kaetlyn and Prince Consort Alvor, and it was a marriage of political convenience as is often the case. The issue here was that Queen Kaetlyn is not the queen that Llael needs but rather the one that Llael has been dealt. As a result of the Khadoran occupation and the war of succession before that, the Llaelese claim to the throne was severely depleted and thus despite Kaetlyn being a weak queen, she was one of the few things holding the wounded country together. The worry of the crown was that a political sect within the Llaelese nobility which promoted nationalism and increasing the power of Llael to prevent another attack had learned of Stiata's presence and had abducted her to force concessions out of Ord. Worst case scenario they were planning to try Stiata and possibly Alvor for infidelity. Which while a correct accusation would strain their relationship with Ord. Ashlynn asked the party to look into the Nationalists and see if they knew anything specific. The queen's forces had noticed increased activity from them, though it was unclear as to if they were behind the abduction or if they were also reacting to the situation. To help the party with this the party was given a letter of mark for their investigation, as well as the information the queen had on the nationalist politicians.

The party looked over the files and determined that the person from the nationalists most likely to be involved was a minor noble by the name of Nolan Gylbert. Gylbert had a number of connections and was one of the more outspoken nobles under the banner of the nationalists. Though despite his reasonable means and their letter of mark from Ashlynn, the party wasn't confident in their ability to get him to tell them anything of value. So instead they looked through his connections to see if there was any easier opportunities among them. The party decided to go speak with Colonel Sebastyan Faryll, a friend of Gylbert's from their time in the resistance against Khador. The Colonel was still in the military and would likely have been the person providing any significant military manpower to a potential kidnapping. Faryll didn't know of any plans to kidnap Stiata, and seemed doubtful that Gylbert had anything to do with it. Faryll didn't know who could have done it, though his best bet was someone connected to Ord, as Llael wasn't involved in the security of Stiata and as such was unlikely to attacked it. That angle was interesting to the party, who until now had assumed that Ord, though mostly King Baird was uninvolved until the recovery efforts as there was little motive.

Seeking insight into what Ord and their delegation knew, the party commiserated with the Ordic guards, who seemed to be rather busy with dealing with the situation. The guard that the party spoke with, told them that Ord didn't know that Alvor had brought his side bitch to Merywyn, and that they weren't in charge of her security. From what they had been told by Alvor and the King after the fact, Alvor hadn't really told anyone, and instead went with his usual M.O.: Throwing a lot of money and zero common sense at the problem. Alvor had fully booked out a semi prestigious hotel in Merywyn for his mistress and was going with security through obscurity, something that was probably immediately jeopardized by him frequently visiting the hotel. From there a team of soldiers had broken into the hotel and had kicked in Stiata's door before abducting her into the night. There were few witnesses, leading the party to wonder if either Stiata or one of the hotel staff was involved. When asked if there were those in Ord that would want to hurt King Baird, the party was given the name of House Mateu, a prominent noble family that frequently clashes with the king in politics and would definitely see value in weakening the king. The party thus had two major suspects in House Mateu and the Nationalists and was now looking for any sort of connections between the two. Their next stop was going to be the hotel to see if there was any evidence missed by any of the other investigators.