Magical Mystery Tour

“I’ll tell you everything!” Maximos said earnestly. After the party had defeated the ankhegs in the Kendall Amphitheater, the actor had continued hitting on Wren, but at the first mention of a “fortune teller”, he’d suddenly become evasive and defensive. Wren had lost patience with the pompous ass, and cast a Truth Telling spell on him. “What do you know about a fortune teller?” she demanded.

“This morning, when I arrived at the theater, there was a Sczarni fortune teller waiting outside. She’d heard about our talent for makeup and disguises, and wanted to know if I could make her look like a Shoanti.”

“A Shoanti?” Wren asked in surprise. The Shoanti were the native inhabitants of southern Varisia, and the original Chelish colonists had fought for years to drive them out of the Korvosan peninsula. Most of the Shoanti tribes had been driven back to the Cinderlands generations ago, and Queen Domina had brought in the Knights of the Nail to finish the job. But there were still bands of Shoanti living in the wilder places of southern Varisia, and a number resided in Korvosa. However, many modern descendents of the Chelish colonists who’d settled Korvosa looked down on the Shoanti as lazy and worthless at best, or less than human at worst.

“That’s right,” Maximos continued. “She was very insistent that she had to be able to pass as a Shoanti. So …” he paused and cast a guilty look at his boss. “I sold her a packet of our Mask Powder.”

“Ix-nay on the owder-pay!” Bellowskin shrieked. “That’s a trade secret! We can’t let …” The gnome sputtered for a moment, then seemed to deflate. “Oh what the hell. We’ll never work in this town again anyway,” he moaned looking around at the ruined theater. “It’s Dust of Illusion,” he explained to the party. “My brother-in-law makes it for us. It’s how we can make our characters look so believable. I can’t believe you sold some!”

Wren ignored the director’s outburst. “Did this fortune teller give you a name, or tell you why she wanted to look like a Shoanti?” she asked Maximos.

“No, she didn’t say and I didn’t ask. But what harm could come from it? And she didn’t tell me her name. But she had a gold tooth, if that helps.”

Everyone exchanged glances – a gold-toothed Sczarni woman had started this whole affair with her Harrow reading for Zeeva Foxglove. “There’s something going on here,” Wren mused. “I think we should move on to the other locations.”

“I don’t know,” Tomas said. He and Jax were still peering anxiously down the burrows the ankhegs had emerged from. “What if there are more of these things? Do you think we need to go down there?”

“NO!” shouted Bellowskin. “You’ve already caused enough trouble! Everything was just fine until you showed up, and now look what you’ve done!” He waved his arm at the shattered floorboards and shredded seats. “If I give you a packet of Mask Powder, will you just get out of here?” Jax started to argue, but Shadow grabbed him by one arm and Tomas by the other and led them out of the theater. “Not our circus, not our monkeys,” he said. “Well, maybe they were our monkeys, but they’re someone else’s now.”

Zeeva’s three cards had led the party to suspect three different locations in Korvosa. They’d already reconnoitered the Kendall Amphitheater, so now they had to choose between the Frisky Unicorn and Traitor’s Mews. Geography made that choice easy – they’d practically walk right past the Frisky Unicorn on their way to Old Korvosa.

The Frisky Unicorn was an elegant old mansion that had been converted into a bed and breakfast. For wealthy visitors to Korvosa, a stay at the Frisky Unicorn in Citadel Crest was a must, if only to catch a glimpse of the famous House Drakes who roosted in the lodge’s turret. But as the party approached, they heard a cacophony of shrieks and growls coming from within. Periodically, tiny pseudodragons would dart out of windows in the turret before flying into other rooms; they could see that many of the rooms’ windows were broken, with curtains flapping in the breeze.

Fearing the worst, they rushed into the inn. They found themselves in a spacious lobby, furnished with comfortable couches and armchairs. Upset guests milled about, worrying about the damage being done to their rooms and luggage, and speculating on what might have upset the resident House Drakes. “I’ll bet old Cadmion tried to start charging them rent!” one guest tried to joke, but no one else thought it was funny. For all the chaos, no one seemed to have been hurt, but they could hear the sounds of a muffled argument coming from the back of the inn.

Jax made a beeline for the stairs leading up to the second floor and the turret above it, but turned and saw that most of the others were headed towards the sounds of the argument. He tried to get them to follow him – the threat was clearly upstairs – but no one paid any attention. Grumbling, he followed along.

Erin looked in an open door as she passed. Inside, an elegantly dressed man with a neatly trimmed goatee paced impatiently in a private dining room. “Where eez my breakfast?” he demanded in an thick Chelish accent. “Eet should have been here half an hour ago! Eez zis what passes for service in zis backwater inn? Zis would never be tolerated in a proper Chelish colony! You! Girl!” he snapped his fingers at Erin. “Find out what eez happened to my breakfast!” Flabbergasted, Erin just stood there, debating how to respond. But she had been raised to be a polite young woman, so she bit her tongue and moved on.

The others arrived at the inn’s kitchen, the site of the argument they’d heard. The well-appointed kitchen was in disarray; several of the kitchen staff were huddled on one side of the room while a pair of cooks faced off on the other. “How can I prepare a decent meal for my master with zis trash?” one shouted, throwing a copper pot against the wall. He was dressed in a spotless white chef’s tunic and billowy toque. Like the pompous guest, he spoke with a heavy Chelish accent. “And zeez ingredients! Zey are poo-poo! Do you know who my master eez? He eez Lord Darvayne Gios Amprei, personal aide to zee Chelish ambassador!” Opposite him was another cook, likely the inn’s resident chef. He held a heavy rolling pin in a white-knuckled grip, and it looked like it was taking all his willpower not to smash it over the Chelish chef’s head.

Before the party could sort out the argument, another figure arrived on the scene, a short, portly man with a bald head and an elaborately curled beard. “You must be the experts I requested from the Acadamae – thank heavens you’re here!” he cried with relief. “I’m Oliver Cadmion, the owner, and I can’t imagine what’s gotten into my dragons! They’re normally perfectly docile, but this morning they just went wild. They’ve been flying in and out of guests’ rooms, tearing everything to pieces. Please – I can’t afford to have anything happen to them, and I can’t imagine what the authorities would do if they injured a guest. I’ll reward you well if you can calm them down without hurting them or driving them off.”

He led the way towards the stairs leading up to the turret. As Shadow, last in line, started to leave the kitchen, the Chelish chef caught his eye. “Psst! C’mere buddy!” he whispered, taking Shadow aside on the sly. “Oy! Me name’s Craik, an’ I could use a favor, mate.” Shadow noted he’d dropped the Chelish accent; his voice now had the distinctive tenor of a native of Riddleport. “Me boss is a foodie, and he’s got his ‘eart set on an omelet made from pseudodragon eggs.” Shadow shuddered inside; pseudodragons were intelligent creatures, and he’d no more eat one’s eggs than he would eat a baby dwarf, but he said nothing and heard Craik out. “If you can bring me a coupla them eggs, I’d pay ya a right copper. Oh! And word to the wise. One o’ them beasties ain’t no pseudodragon at all – I think it’s a real dragon!” Shadow said nothing, but placed his finger beside his nose, a motion that Craik took as silent consent, then hurried to catch up to the others.

They ascended a set of spiral stairs to a circular landing, with a pair of closed doors leading into the turret. Nat stopped them at the top of the stairs, then knelt to examine something on the floor. It was a broken egg, roughly the size of chicken’s egg, but with a mottled leathery shell. “Oh crap,” Tomas muttered. “I think I know what’s got these guys so upset." He moved to the door on the left while Erin took the one to the right; together they pushed them open.

Designed to emulate Castle Korvosa’s Seawatch Tower, the turret was cramped but had a high ceiling, with wooden rafters crisscrossing overhead. Slim open windows offered breathtaking views of the city and beyond. The room’s furnishings were covered with drop cloths, which were themselves bedaubed with many seasons’ worth of dragon droppings. Nests made of sticks, strips of cloth, and other rubbish dotted the rafters and light sconces along the upper walls.

A young House Drake, still a fledgling, perched on the rafters in the center of the room. As soon as he spotted the intruders he began to screech, although he made no move to attack. Tomas and Erin moved into the room, making reassuring sounds to try to soothe him, while Nat took a position at one of the windows, watching for any of the other pseudodragons to return.

Suddenly, Erin felt a searing pain in her back. She spun. Behind her, in an alcove, was another nest, this one made from furniture with its upholstery shredded. The resident of the nest was no House Drake. It was nearly the size of a man. It had the head, wings, and talons of a fledgling eagle, but the body and legs of a young horse. “It’s a baby hippogriff!” Tomas shouted, and everyone recognized one of the creatures they had helped rescue not long before. “Don’t hurt him!” Tomas continued, “I think he’s just trying to play!” He tried to use his Wild Empathy to convince the juvenile hippogriff to ease off on his roughhousing, but it didn’t seem to notice. Nat took a different approach; he cast Daze, and the hippogriff began shaking his head in confusion, trying to clear it.

Shadow joined the others in the room, trying to calm the screeching fledgling, but to no effect. Jax rushed into the room, anxious to protect the young House Drake from the hippogriff, but he quickly realized the fledgling was not frightened of the hippogriff – it was frightened of them. It breathed a cloud of silver mist down onto Jax and Shadow, and for a moment they weren’t sure where they were, but they shook off the drake’s magical attack. Nat, remembering that House Drakes liked to eat silver, tossed a silver coin up by the fledgling, but it dropped back to the floor without the creature taking notice.

Wren rummaged in her pack and pulled out a strip of dried meat. She stood in front of the dazed hippogriff, holding the meat out gingerly. When it regained its sense, it saw her standing in front of it, holding out two pieces of meat – one with fingers. She dropped the strip of meat to the floor. The hippogriff hesitated for a moment, then darted its beak down lightning fast, to snatch the meat off the floor.

Jax decided to try to climb up to look into the nests, to see if there were any more eggs. He climbed onto the back of a chair, but it collapsed under him as he reached for the rafters, sending him tumbling back onto his butt. It was fortunate he fell, because at that moment, three adult House Drakes came flying into the turret through the windows. “Get out, friends of egg thief!” They heard the command telepathically, in their minds. Jax realized that if he’d succeed in climbing into the rafters, they’d have assumed he was trying to steal their eggs, and would likely fight to the death.

The three adult drakes screeched out loud, and filled their minds with commands to leave, but they made no move to attack, although one glared at Wren, standing by the hippogriff with another strip of meat. The juvenile hippogriff made another move to “play” with Wren, but one the House Drakes barked a telepathic command in a language they didn’t understand, and the hippogriff ducked its head guiltily, then backed into its nest.

Nat dropped to his knees before the House Drakes. “If someone has stolen your eggs, we’ll help you get them back!” he pleaded. Shadow sweetened the offer: “I think I know who took your eggs.” The others looked at him in surprise; he hadn’t told them about his conversation with Craik.

“Do you know who took our children?” one of the drakes asked (it was difficult to tell who was talking when the words were all telepathic). Shadow nodded. “You must return them to us! Someone stole three of our children – you must return them, or we will start killing humans until we get them back!”

“I’m afraid we found one of your eggs broken on the stairs outside,” Wren said softly. “I’m so very sorry.” Their minds were filled with wails of grief from the House Drakes. “Return with our other children,” they demanded, “or we will find them ourselves!”

The party backed out of the turret, then hurried down the stairs. Tomas went to find Cadmion, to fill him in on what was happening, while the others went straight to the kitchen.

“Didja find what …” Craik started as Shadow entered the kitchen, then changed his tune as the others filed in behind him. “I cannot have zo many people in my kitchen – you must leave at once!”

“We know about the eggs,” Erin said grimly. “You need to come with us to talk to Mr. Cadmion, and your boss.”

“I weel go nowhere!” Craik retorted imperiously. “You have no power over me – we have diplomatic immunity! Begone!”

Erin began to debate who had power over whom, but Shadow hushed her. “I’ll handle this,” he said quietly, then took Craik aside. “We know you stole the eggs,” he whispered in the chef’s ear. “You need to tell me what you did with them, or I’m afraid I might get … angry.” Sharp yellow claws slid out of his fingertips and caressed the chef’s face.

Craik’s spotless white uniform developed an unsightly yellow stain. “They’re up there!” he cried, pointing a shaking finger at one of the cabinets. “Behind the thingy with the holes in it!” Erin opened the cupboard, and found a pair of intact pseudodragon eggs hidden behind a silver colander. She wrapped them carefully in a dish towel, then gripped Craik’s arm. He offered little resistance as she and Shadow led him to Cadmion’s office.

“I think we need to take him upstairs and let him answer to the House Drakes,” Jax said grimly once they were inside. The others nodded in agreement.

“No!” Cadmion gasped, turning pale. “I can’t imagine what the authorities would do if my dragons killed a human! They might order them destroyed. And the servant of a foreign diplomat to boot – it could cause an international incident! Please – leave him to me. I swear I’ll see to it that he’s expelled from the city and never comes back here again.”

The party reluctantly agreed, and Cadmion gave them a golden statuette of a unicorn as his promised payment. Then they climbed back upstairs and returned the two remaining eggs to the overjoyed House Drakes. “I’m afraid we have no way to reward you,” they said, “but you have our eternal gratitude.”

“I think you have another problem you need some help with,” Wren said, pointing to the hippogriff who was now snoozing in its nest. Two of the Drakes, who’d they’d concluded were the parents, turned to glare at the third, who might have been a teenager.

“Junior brought an egg home a few months ago. He said he’d ‘found’ it, and it was an orphan. We took it in to raise it as our own, but when it hatched, it was clear it was no pseudodragon. We had no idea how fast it would grow – we can hardly find enough food to feed it, and it’s still growing!”

“I know some people who have lots of experience with hippogriffs,” Tomas offered. “Will you let me tell them about your … child? They could take it to raise with others of its kind.” The Drakes quickly agreed.

Their business here concluded, they filed down the stairs and towards the front door. On a table beside the door, Nat spotted a stack of flyers. They bore the logo of the Green Market, and the message ‘Special on Varisian Blondberries – Free samples to foreign visitors!’ He started to move on, but something about the flyers bothered him. He picked one up, and examined it closely, then compared it to the calling card he’d gotten from Zeeva Foxglove.

“Hey! This is a forgery!” he exclaimed. “See – this lettering on the logo is nothing like the real thing.” He showed one of the flyers to Oliver Cadmion. “Where did these come from?” he asked.

Cadmion shook his head. “I have no idea. I’m sure they weren’t there when I unlocked the front door this morning.” Just to be safe, Nat took all the bogus flyers with him as they left.

“Why do you think someone would make up those phony flyers?” he wondered as they made their way across town. “Maybe someone wants to bankrupt Zeeva by making her give away free blondberries!”

“Do you know how many free blondberries you’d have to give away to bankrupt a place like the Green Market?” Erin snorted. Nat shook his head. “Lots!” she replied, not wanting to do the math.

Their path to Old Korvosa took them right past the Great Tower, the headquarters of the Sable Company Marines. Tomas seemed to know just the right people to talk to, and in no time they’d explained the situation with the orphaned hippogriff to an officer on duty. “We’ll get some of our hippogriff handlers over there right away, and get that young’un back here to be raised right,” he promised.

That taken care of, they crossed one of the dozens of ramshackle bridges into Old Korvosa. Endrin Isle had been the first place Chelish settlers had landed, and in the early days of the colony it had comprised the entire city of Korvosa. As the city expanded south, the old city had mostly fallen out of fashion, and become the refuge for the poor and desperate. The party had spent a lot of time recently in the hard neighborhoods of West Dock, but those were nothing to the slums of Old Korvosa. Tall tenement buildings cast their shadows over clusters of shanties, and every alley sported a dozen makeshift lean-tos, some crowded with whole families. Some of the people they passed were clean, and moved with purpose, but most wore rags and empty faces. ‘The Empty’ they were called in Korvosa, people whose existence didn’t matter, and whose life and death occur without mention.

Wedged among the many-tiered tenements that clogged Korvosa’s poorest district, was a rambling black-brick manor house. It had once been one of Korvosa’s finest, but its owner, Lord Amrys Viamio, and chosen the wrong side in the Cousins War, and was beheaded by the city for his treachery. His home had been left to decay as a cautionary lesson to others, and acquired the name Traitor’s Mews. Over the years it had been claimed by dozens of displaced families. The wary eyes of countless waifs, beggars, and other people in tattered clothes peered through shattered windows, their spirits as weathered as the building itself.

The front doors to the manor had long ago been used for firewood, and the party entered the building without challenge. They found themselves in what had once been an opulent entry hall. Now the room was littered with piles of straw and rags that served as chairs and beds. Several small cookfires burned, some in makeshift braziers, others directly on the marble floor. The air was heavy with the odor of woodsmoke and unwashed bodies.

A broad staircase led upwards to the left. Still not sure what they were supposed to be looking for, Shadow decided to poke around upstairs. But he hadn’t gotten up two steps before he found his way blocked by a trio of unfriendly looking residents. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I stayed here a few times,” Shadow said with a friendly smile. It was true, although it pained him to remember those days. “I just thought I’d have a look around.”

But Shadow’s trademark charm didn’t work here. “I remember you – junkie,” one man growled. “You’re not going anywhere, and neither are your friends.”

“Look, we’ve been deputized by the Guard, and we’re here on an official investigation. You need to let us pass.” Shadow said. He wished again they’d been given badges. But if he thought that approach would work here, he had badly misread the situation. The crowd’s attitude shifted from simply unfriendly to downright hostile. Tomas, standing near the doorway, saw at least a dozen more men ease into the room, and noticed women shooing children out. Many of the newcomers carried clubs of one sort or another, and he saw the glint of blades being drawn. ‘This is going to get ugly,’ he thought to himself.

Nat was also watching this unfold with a mounting sense of dread. But then he heard whispers. ‘Natan … see …’ they seemed to say. He felt a tingling, and was reminded of the feeling he’d had when Madame Zellara conducted the Harrow reading. He looked around, trying to locate the source of the voices. Instead, he saw people shooting looks at a woman standing in the center of the room, as if asking for direction. She gave her head the slightest of shakes – ‘Not yet’ she seemed to be saying. Acting quickly, before Shadow could dig himself in any deeper, he approached the woman. “Are you in charge here?” he asked.

She looked him up and down. She had sunken eyes, the face of someone who had lived a lifetime with too little to eat, but her gaze was confident. A young boy clung to her skirt, his eyes worried. “No one is ‘in charge’ here,” she replied cooly, “but I can speak for our people. My name is Tsura. We don’t need the Guard coming in here harassing our people, especially after all we’ve suffered the last few weeks. We are poor, but we deserve a place to live, even it’s just a rotting rat hole like this. There are families here, children. We’ll not have you pawing through their belongings, tearing up their homes, or hauling their loved ones off to jail. If the city won’t care for us, the least they can do is leave us alone.”

“We don’t mean you or any of your people any harm,” Nat tried to reassure her. “We just want to look around.”

“Well your friend over there is about to start a fight,” she retorted, pointing at Shadow. “If that happens, a lot of people are going to get hurt, most of them mine. I don’t want that, but we’re not going to just roll over and let you push us around. What are you looking for?”

Once again, Nat was at a loss to describe what it was they were hoping to find, or accomplish. “Well, um, see … well, this lady had a Harrow reading and, um, the cards said we should look here. For, um … anything unusual?”

“You’re here because of a Harrow reading?” she asked, incredulous.

“Zeeva Foxglove had the Harrow reading,” Jax tried, “then she had a dream that pointed us here.”

“You mean the rich woman who gives out food?” Tsura asked. “She’s a good woman, and has helped a lot of people, but you want to turn our home upside down because she had a bad dream?” She was shaking her head in disbelief.

“There could be danger here,” Wren tried. “Danger to this place, or to you. We went to the Kendall Amphitheater, and ankhegs attacked there. Then we went to the Frisky Unicorn, and the House Drakes were tearing things up. The cards pointed us there, and now they’ve pointed us here.”

Tsura couldn’t believe her ears. “What do fancy theaters and fancier inns have to do with any of us?” she asked sweeping her arm around the decrepit building. “I think you need to tell your rich friend to do another Harrow reading and go back to sleep.” The other residents chuckled.

“No, no,” Erin tried to clarify. “Zeeva didn’t do the Harrow reading. A Sczarni woman did. Have you seen any Sczarni around here? Tsura cocked one eyebrow and did a slow look around the room. At least a third of the residents looked like they could be Sczarni. “Oh,” Erin said meekly. “Oh. Well, this one had a gold tooth.”

Tsura froze. “You mean Jaelle Goldtooth?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

Everyone perked up. “We didn’t know her name,” Erin said eagerly. “What can you tell us about her?”

Now Tsura seemed willing to talk. “She hasn’t been here long. She showed up about three weeks ago. She had three goons with her, and she demanded we give her a place to stay. I didn’t want any trouble, so we cleared out the attic and let them move in there. They’re still there, as far as I know.”

Her son spoke up. “No mama. I saw them leave early this morning. I don’t think anybody’s there.”

“Do you mind if we look in the attic?” Nat asked, trying to be as polite and respectful as possible.

She hesitated. “Only if you give me your word you’ll go straight there and back, and not bother anyone or anything else here or on the second floor.” They agreed and the crowd blocking the stairs parted grudgingly to let them pass.

They climbed two flights of stairs to a ramshackle attic filled with knickknacks of all sorts. Most had been thoroughly scavenged for anything of value over the years, leaving rat-chewed paintings, shards of porcelain, and cobwebs. On the far end of the attic, a crate served as a makeshift desk, holding a stack of papers and an inkwell. A piece of paper was nailed to the wall above the desk. The window beside the crate was shattered, like most of the others in the building, letting in the cold air from outside.

Nat cast a quick Detect Magic and caught a glow from the direction of the desk. “Magic over there,” he told the others, but didn’t want to be the first to cross the room. Wren was not so patient; not waiting for anyone else, she headed straight for the desk.

She only made it about a third of the way before she triggered a tripwire that had been strung across the attic floor. The trap brought half a dozen bricks tumbling down onto her head. But then, weakened by the loss of key support elements, a large section of the roof and its heavy tiles collapsed. It crashed through the attic floor, then through the floor below them, carrying Wren with it.

Screams of panic and pain began rising up from the ground floor, and they realized people were likely injured, and could be trapped under the rubble. At the same time, the opening in the roof created a strong cross-breeze through the attic and out the broken window, swirling the papers on the desk into the air and threatening to carry them out the window.

They had only a moment to decide what to do. Erin and Jax dashed down the stairs, racing to try to help anyone trapped below. Shadow and Tomas dashed across the attic, praying the remaining floor would support their weight. Nat followed, but stopped halfway and cast Mage Hand, using it to begin grabbing flying papers out of the air.

Wren didn’t need to choose; she was already on the ground floor, bloodied and injured, but alive. Around her, she saw many of the residents had been hurt by falling debris, but no dead bodies. Then she saw Tsura’s son pawing at the pile of bricks and tiles. “Mama!” he cried. “Mama!” Calling on the power of Pharasma, she Channeled Positive Energy. The injured people around her found their wounds healed, and she could only pray the healing had reached Tsura through the pile of rubble.

Erin and Jax arrived moments later. Jax immediately dove into the pile of debris, pulling off bricks and beams as fast as he could. Erin tried organizing the residents’ rescue efforts. “You! Grab that end. You all! Start passing bricks back.” But in the chaos, no one paid her any attention. Wren tried lifting a fallen beam. She pushed with all her might, but it wouldn’t budge. Realizing he could offer little to help clear the rubble, she cast another Channel, hoping to keep Tsura alive long enough for others to pull her out.

Upstairs, Nat, Shadow, and Tomas were madly dancing around the attic, grabbing flying papers as fast as they could. They were doing a good job of catching the ones they reached for, but it seemed that for every one they caught, two more took flight. Nat did a quick survey of the attic, then grabbed a moldy painting and wedged it into the broken window. It didn’t fully seal it, but it blocked enough that the wind died down, and papers stopped flying.

It took several minutes to free Tsura from the fallen roof; if not for Wren’s healing, she would surely have perished. As it was, she was bloodied and had some broken bones, but was alive.

Upstairs, Nat, Shadow, and Tomas were pouring through the papers they’d saved. They were hopelessly out of order – it would take hours to sort them out. They appeared to be pages that had once been a book, but then removed from the binding. At first they seemed to be an odd collection of herbalist and alchemist notes. Then Nat practically dropped the pages in surprise. “Holy crap! I think I know what this is!” The others looked at him expectantly. “I think it’s a poisoner’s handbook. I’ve heard of something called The Deleterious Grimoire – I think that’s what this is!” As they kept looking, they found two pages that had been circled. One was for an alchemical substance called Blackfingers Paste, designed to protect unskilled poisoners from poisoning themselves; as the name implied, it would leave the user’s fingers black for days after use. The other was for a potent, swift-acting ingested poison called Crocodile’s Tears.

Nat remembered the magic he’d sensed earlier, and recast his Detect Magic. One of the papers on the desk was a Scroll of Neutralize Poison. Behind a loose brick was a Potion of Delay Poison and a jar containing a thick black paste.

Tacked to the wall above the desk was a playbill advertising The Gambler’s Tragedy, to be performed by the Andoren Chameleons at the Kendall Amphitheater. One phrase in particular was circled: “Marvel at their breathtaking disguises!”

Tomas was trying to put all the pieces together. “Obviously this Jaelle Goldtooth is the person we’re looking for,” he said, tapping the playbill. “She’s the one who went to the Theater to talk to Maximos, and got the Mask Powder. Although I still don’t understand why she wants to look like a Shoanti.”

“Do you think she was the one who left the flyers at the Frisky Unicorn?” Nat asked. “I don’t see how that …” His eyes suddenly went wide. “Oh my god!” he exclaimed. “She wants to poison people at the Green Market! We need to get there right now!”

They rushed downstairs, and gathered the rest of the group, then set out across the city as fast as they could go. “We played right into her hands!” Jax growled as they trotted down the street. “She planted those cards so that we’d end up on the wrong side of town while she was doing the deed.”

“I don’t think so,” Tomas disagreed. “I don’t think it has anything to do with us. She couldn’t have known Zeeva would find us – what if Zellara was still alive? And she couldn’t have known what order we’d visit the locations in – or even that we’d connect these locations with those cards at all. That all came from Zeeva’s dream. No, I think this really is fate, using us to intervene to stop whatever her plan is.”

As they finally passed through the Pillar Wall and into South Shore, they came upon an old friend. Or rather, an old acquaintance: the crazy Groetus worshipper. He’d moved his streetside pulpit to a new location, but was prophesying the same screed of blood and destruction in Groetus’ name. Nat tried to pull his hood down over his face, but the doomsayer spotted him anyway.

“Chosen one!” he cried with delight, leaping off his soapbox. “Let me offer you a smear of what the future wreaks!” He pulled his holy symbol, a metal disk that looked like a full moon with the face of a skull, off his neck, and used it to slash his own arm. He smeared one hand with his own blood, then held it up to Nat. “I have seen the future! I can tell you of disasters past, but more yet to come. Ask me three questions, and I will give you three prophecies! All shall be as foretold, if Finders tarry!”

Nat was going at a dead run by this time, and the others hurried to keep up with him, easily outdistancing the mad preacher. Erin hesitated for a moment; something about his last phrase nagged at her. ‘All shall be as foretold, if Finders tarry.’ Weren’t they trying to find things today? Were they the ‘Finders’? Should they tarry, to hear his prophesies? But what destiny would a worshipper of Groetus wish to have fulfilled? Her head spinning, she decided she had less metaphysical things to worry about, and ran to catch up with her friends.

Panting, they finally stumbled into the Green Market. It was a high-roofed, barnlike building that boasted several impressive features, including a central fountain, an indoor green park at its northern end, and numerous glass skylights that could be accessed and opened with ladders and extending poles. Customers from every district of Korvosa and beyond crowded the kiosks and surrounded the stalls that comprised the Green Market, shopping among its vast selection of imported and domestic produce, clothing, jewelry, and wine.

Still trying to catch their breath, the group fanned out. Tomas and Jax made their way up the left side of the central corridor. Tomas was showing the flyers from the Frisky Unicorn to shoppers as he passed: “Excuse me, have you seen these?” But no one seemed to have seen them before. Erin, Wren, and Shadow took the right side of the building, scanning for any sign of Lord Amprei, the Chelish diplomat.

But Nat, still on an adrenaline rush after his brush with the mad preacher, decided to throw subtlety to the winds. He continued running full speed through the market, screaming “DON’T EAT THE BLONDBERRIES!” at the top of his lungs. He suddenly did a double take. He had just run past Zeeva Foxglove, who was staring at him in open-mouthed horror as he ordered her customers not to eat her produce. Standing next to her was Lord Amprei, just reaching his hand towards a bin of fat, juicy blondberries. And standing beside Lord Amprei was a large Shoanti man.

The PCs earned 434 XP, putting  them at 3,427. They will be at Level 3 at the end of the Green Market encounter, and need 6,000 XP to reach Level 4. Scott will be singing next week, but the rest of us will meet.