Over the course of the next month, I went carousing with Moradon the paladin, and researched the possibility of sedating a 4 ton rhino. I also spent some time training with Veit.
After approximately a month, Brother Egil moved shiftily into the bar where my colleagues and I were eating. He looked very distracted. �Someone is trying to undo the good works you have done for Freeport�.
He sensed a change in the atmosphere. And his friend�s house had been broken into. When he had taken Lucius home after he (Lucius) had had a fainting fit.
Brother Egil saw a shadowy serpentine figure which smelled clean & dense, and broke into Lucius� home.
It explored his rooms, found a roll of parchment and left. He was afraid for himself, Lucius and indeed the city. Who knows how many other serpent-men were within the city? He wished to engage our services, at 110gp each. He had a single lead � Milos had rented rooms in an inn in the Old City, under the name of �Devlin�, a struggling merchant.
Thuron (the High Priest) is still cloistered in the preparations for the lighthouse opening.
We agreed to use �Who died from Tuna?� (�Lord Haime�) as a password to ensure that we are not impersonated ourselves.
Huey the bard admitted that he had spent much of the last month preparing scrolls to make his foes fall asleep.
Having accepted the holy mission to investigate, we headed off to the Old City the next morning.
Friar Porpington and I headed to the watch house. Different fellow on the front desk. Sergeant Jasper Jones, with whom I was well acquainted. He explained that they had not yet appointed us as watchmen, and had not yet debated the amending of our warrants to extend throughout the city.
The others in the group went out to buy a silver arrow. Or several. They also established that there were 20 to 25 inns in the Old City, most of which would be acceptable to a merchant. Starting at the Merchant�s district, we worked our way across town.
Veit and Porpington found some misleading routes. Rhia and I found that Devlin rented rooms in �The Marquis Moon�, a seedy den of ill repute near the slums of Drak�s End. He had not been seen in quite a while.
So we went there.
It was a 2 storey building, slightly subdued inside, with a couple of drunk dwarves, and a nose-picking teenaged man behind a bar. Friar Porpington bought drinks.
Devlin was no longer in the room, but it was still rented. We took the key from the barman.
Devlin had a number of guests, all up in his room, and no names were remembered. He didn�t want room service or people going into it.
Devlin�s visitors always came in long robes and hooded.
The room upstairs was relatively small, and very neat. Piles of books and scrolls and ritual paraphernalia. There was a stove, little furniture, and a pile of pillows for a desk. Clothes were folded neatly against one wall. We then went on to search the place.
The canes were carved with serpent-head handles. The bed had large snake-scales in amongst it. One leaden figure was the idol of the Unspeakable One. Several polished rocks turned out to be jars containing still-living albino cave rats in syrup. One jar had a false cave-rat in it, in fact it was completely sealed containing a small cloth bag.
Books on the book-case were scholarly tomes; many on construction and building. One book was on alchemy, with a back-page sketch of a lighthouse and arcane formulae all over it. Several books had apparently been replaced relatively recently.
Downstairs, Huey was approached by a dwarf, who said he saw a hooded figure which smelled of the rocks �of his homeland�. This figure claimed to be there on Council business. Huey reckoned that the drawings on the picture meant �Velossa�.
Leaving the Marquis Moon, we heard a cry for help; a messenger being attacked by axe-wielding orcs. Naturally, we leapt to his aid, offering them the chance to flee. The kid fled past us, and the orcs leapt to the attack.
They lasted slightly over 6 seconds. 2 die, and a third orc was asleep on the floor. We turned to speak to their victim, and hear him running away�Hodash was healed, and we interrogated the survivor. The kid paid him to attack us, and then fled. Possibly as a distraction to rob us. Upon searching our belongings, we discovered that one item was missing � the book we�d taken from Milos� apartment with the picture of the lighthouse on it.
Rhia tried to track the kid. With musical accompaniment� We followed him off down the alleys. Through to the Warehouse district, to Klux Lane, number 13 again. 3 soldiers stood on guard at the front entrance. They wore a �V� symbol over their city seal on an armband.
They worked for First Councillor Velaine�s personal guard. They had not seen the boy, although Huey claimed that they are lying. City crew were in the temple cleaning things up, taking things out for examination for the authorities. A nearby pub I went into failed to recognise my description of him.
We saw a crate being brought out of 13 Klux Lane. It�was loaded onto a horse-drawn wagon, and a couple of guards took it away.
Most of us went to the docks, to open the bag in the container very carefully. It turned out to contain 20 platinum pieces. Huey and Rhia headed off to follow the wagon to 100 Wave Avenue in the Merchant District.
Apparently the house in Wave Avenue belonged to the First Councillor,
I leapt up and headed out to the Marquis Moon looking for the idol, which we had left behind in our haste to investigate.
The serpent canes, the lead idol and other Velossa items had been taken �by a couple of hooded figures� about an hour before we managed to get back.
We headed back to Klux Lane, and staked out the warehouse. We watched the guardsmen change shift. Nobody went in or out all night. We slept in an alleyway all night. Which wasn�t very nice. The guards changed shift again, and nobody went in to start the cleansing of the building.
It turned out they�d been emptying the warehouse for about a month. This was obviously suspicious, as there wasn�t enough stuff in there to require more than about 3 shifts.
Councellor Vallaine (the employer of the guards) is a �hatchetman� for Milton Drakh, the Sealord. He came out of nowhere after the previous Sealord was killed with a yellow fletched arrow. Drakh�s obsessed with the lighthouse, but it was Vallaine who forced it through the Captain�s Council. We learned that Vallaine employed all the builders in the city and was extremely rich.
We arranged for the Watch to give us a sealed parchment confirming our identity, as the chaps who did over the warehouse originally.
Friar Porpington and I again went to look at the lighthouse. It�s on an island of its own 2 miles out from the docks. Workmen from the lighthouse told us it�s a lovely structure, but had nothing more interesting to say. They were brought in from the continent to help keep costs down.
We went to the Scholar�s Quill for a bath and a light supper, and the others came a couple of hours later. They had come up with a plan to take on the wagon, but nothing came of it, as the wagon never came.
We then settled down for a night�s sleep.