Something Rotten in Korvosa

“Well this is just great,” Erin muttered, looking back and forth between the dead body slung between her and Tomas and the note tacked to their door. The body was one of the Queen’s Physicians, one of several they had just slaughtered, along with a number of the Queen’s personal guard, the Gray Maidens. And the note said that Field Marshall Kroft wanted to see them – now. As a paladin of Iomedae, she felt like she’d been skirting the line of ‘lawful’ behavior lately, but she was pretty sure that murdering healers was somewhere on the other side of it. She scowled at Grizz, who had gotten them into this mess; he saw her looking at him and gave her a big wink and a toothy smile that made her skin crawl.

“What do we do with this guy?” Tomas asked, hefting the dead Physician as the body started to slip.

“Let’s dump him inside and go see what Kroft wants,” Jax said. They carried the body into Zellara’s kitchen, made sure the front door was locked, and set off for Citadel Volshyenek.

“What should we tell the Field Marshal about our visit to the Hospice?” Shadow asked as they walked.

“Nothing!” came a chorus of replies. Everyone knew that despite their strong suspicions, killing the Queen’s Physicians and bodyguards would earn them a quick execution (at best), and although they felt they had a good relationship with the commander of the Korvosan Guard, they didn’t want to test it – at least not at the moment.

When they arrived at the Citadel, they could see that the usual Guard presence was at a minimum, and several of those standing guard had hacking coughs and early signs of Blood Veil. Kroft herself was thin and wan, and her face showed scars from where Blood Veil pox had recently healed.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, not rising from her chair. “As you probably noticed when you came in, we’re dreadfully short of manpower. I don’t even have an accurate count any more of how many Guards I’ve lost to Blood Veil, and too many of those still on duty already have the disease. I know I said I wouldn’t be using you anymore, but I’ve so few men left, I don’t know who else to turn to. I can’t pay you, but this may be critical for the city – will you help?”

“Sure,” said Jax, answering for the group, and Kroft gavea sigh of relief. “This may be nothing,” she began. “In fact, I hope it’s nothing. Several weeks ago, my top investigator, Captain Destrange, disappeared. This was about the same time as King Eodred’s death, and I just assumed he’d ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time in the riots that followed. But yesterday, his brother-in-law came to see me. It turns out Destrange’s widow had died of Blood Veil, and her brother and his wife had moved in to care for their children. As he was cleaning out their bedroom, he found a strongbox hidden under the bed. It contained notes from several of Destrange’s investigations, so the brother-in-law brought it to me.

“One of the papers was an anonymous letter, dated just days before Destrange disappeared. It claimed that the former Arkona Imports West Dock warehouse contained secret lower levels, used to hide smuggled goods and that the new owners were up to no good. Now the idea that the Arkonas might be involved in something less than legal is certainly no news, and this is something that in normal times we’d probably have just turned over to Endrin and the Sable Company. But something about that address rang a bell, and I did a more little digging. It turns out that several months ago, the Arkonas sold that building to a trading consortium whose ownership is more than a little murky. From Destrange’s notes, he was trying to trace the ownership before he disappeared. But that’s not what made me recall the address.

“I’m sure you remember meeting Dr. Davaulus and the Queen’s Physicians here a couple of weeks ago? In addition to circulating throughout the city trying to heal the sick (and, if you ask me, doing a damn poor job of it), they’ve established a hospice in West Dock to care for many of the worst cases. It’s called the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden, and guess where it’s at? That’s right – the former Arkona Imports warehouse.”

Grizz let out a barely-suppressed snort of laughter, and Erin gave him a sharp elbow to the ribs. “Not a word!” she hissed, and he covered his grin with a hand.

The Field Marshall didn’t appear to notice. “Now this is probably all coincidence, but it’s a string of coincidences, and that makes me suspicious. I’d like someone to go check out this Hospice, and see if it’s really on the up-and-up, but as I said, I don’t have anyone else to ask. Will you help me?”

“Of course we will,” Tomas said quickly, as Erin stepped on Grizz’s foot to try to stop his giggling. “Do you know the layout of the building, have any blueprints, that sort of thing?”

Kroft shook her head. “The city doesn’t keep that sort of thing. Even if we did, any secret areas wouldn’t show up on them, or could have been added long after the original warehouse was built.”

“We should interview the Arkonas,” Nat suggested eagerly. “If they used to own the building, I’m sure they’d know all its ins and outs.” The others exchanged worried looks – they all knew of the Arkona family. They were one of the oldest families in Korvosa, and one of the richest. They controlled most of the trade between this part of the world and distant Vudra, but they were also rumored to have their fingers in any number of underworld activities.

Kroft gave Nat a condescending smile. “If the Arkonas were using the warehouse for illegal smuggling – which I don’t doubt for a moment – they’d never admit it to us. If I was to bet, I’d bet that they’re the ones who sent Lestrange the anonymous letter, to try to double-cross their new partners for some reason. That’s pure guesswork on my part, but if it’s true, it suggests they don’t want to be associated with bringing down the new owners – whoever they might be. Besides – the Arkona Estate is on Endrin Isle, in Old Korvosa, and that entire area is under strict quarantine.”

Nat wasn’t easily dissuaded, and was still talking about strategies for getting into and out of Old Korvosa as the party led him out of the Citadel. As they walked back to Zellara’s, they discussed next steps. “Should we just barge in and wipe everyone out?” Jax asked. “After all, we’ve thinned their ranks quite a bit already.” Grizz smiled proudly.

“We don’t know that,” Tomas argued. “The Gray Maidens might have already summoned reinforcements from the Castle. Plus there are all those sick people in there – if we start a fight inside the Hospice, a lot of them are likely get killed.”

“They all have Blood Veil - they’re going to die anyway,” Erin muttered. Her mood had gotten very dark.

Wren ignored her comment for the moment. “I’m not convinced the Gray Maidens really know what’s going on,” she suggested. “They could be just guards, protecting the Queen’s Physicians as they try to ‘heal’ people. They might not be in on the overall plot – whatever that is.”

When they reached Zellara’s, Nat immediately turned his attention to analyzing the mask they had taken from their dead Physician. They masks were the only magical item the Physicians seemed to have on them, and he was anxious to understand its properties. He cast Identify and began to intently study the mask.

“No surprise here,” he said as he worked, keeping the others apprised of his findings. “It helps protect you from nasty smells.” He kept working. “Yeah, as I figured – it also protects you from disease. Although it seems to only work against Blood Veil. There’s something else though …” He bent lower over the odd mask, using his arcane insights to reveal its secrets. He suddenly sat bolt upright. “What the …? Why would it do that?”

“What?” everyone asked at once.

He looked at them with a frown. “It hides the wearer’s alignment,” he explained. “Anyone wearing it appears to be of Neutral alignment, regardless of what they truly are.”

They looked at the dead Physician slowly decomposing on Zellara’s kitchen floor. “Can you tell the alignment of a dead body?” Jax asked. Wren shook her head. “It’s just an object now – it has no morality.”

“Well I guess it’s time to chat him up then,” Shadow said merrily. “I mean, that is why we drug him back here.” All eyes turned to Wren, and she nodded. I did prepare to cast Speak with Dead today – what should we ask him?”

That provoked a lengthy discussion. Their experience with questioning the dead elf had taught them how difficult it can be to extract satisfying answers from a corpse, and they didn’t want to repeat that frustration. But no one could agree on the best set of questions.

“I think we should ask what their underlying purpose is for being here,” Wren suggested, but Erin strongly disagreed. “He’ll just say ‘To heal people’ and we won’t know anything.

“We should ask if there’s anything below the Hospice,” Jax suggested, but others shot that down. “That’s just a yes or no, and we already know from Kroft that the answer is yes,” Tomas argued. “We should ask how we get there.”

The discussion went on, and on, and on, and Wren wasn’t hearing anything that sounded helpful. Finally she got fed up, and cast her spell. “I’m going to ask the question I wanted to in the first place,” she said firmly, then addressed the Physician’s corpse. “What is your purpose for being in Korvosa?”

A disembodied sigh came from the body’s slack jaws. “To spread the plague of Blood Veil” it answered in a hollow voice. Erin’s jaw dropped.

“I’m going to ask what their purpose is for spreading Blood Veil,” Wren began, but the others shouted her down. “No! We need to know about the secret area – how do we get there?”

Against her better judgement, Wren asked the corpse that question: “How do I reach the hidden space in the Hospice?”

“Through the elevator,” came the undead reply, and Wren gave everyone an I-told-you-so look.

“But is it up, or down?” Jax asked. “When Shadow was in there, the elevator was up, and he didn’t see a shaft leading down.”

Wren sighed. The letter Kroft had shown them clearly said the secret area was below the warehouse, but once again she felt like she’d lost control of the dialog with the dead. “Is the secret area upstairs, or below the Hospice?” she asked the corpse in a weary voice.

“Below,” came the hollow reply, followed by a long sigh that indicated the spell had ended.

“Happy?” Wren asked. She felt like they had missed an opportunity to understand what was really going on here. She cared about who and why, not where.

“Should we go back there now?” Tomas asked. It was already growing dark.

Nat shook his head. “I’m already getting low on spells, and I didn’t really prep for an all-out assault today. I’d like time to prepare.”

“What are we going to do with him?” Shadow asked, pointing at the dead Physician. No one much felt like digging a grave in their back yard, and the body showed too many signs of foul play to just leave him out in the street for the plague collectors to pick up.

“I think he should go for a swim,” Jax said at last. “I’m sure the jigsaw sharks will be happy for a snack.”

“I don’t want to leave the Hospice unwatched,” Erin said. “If they decide to pull out and move somewhere else, they’ll do it under cover of darkness, and we need to see where they go.”

“Sounds good to me!” Girrgiz agreed. “Let’s go.”

“No!” Erin said emphatically, and everyone else agreed. “You and Nat are the only ones who actually killed anyone there,” she continued more diplomatically, “and you’re the ones someone might recognize.”

In the end, she and Tomas went to stake out the Hospice (after taking a detour to the riverfront with their by now stiff companion). It was full dark by the time they arrived, but even by starlight they could see something white on the front door of the Hospice. Leaving Tomas to provide cover from across the street, Erin nonchalantly strolled past the Hospice. There was a piece of paper affixed to the front door, and she leaned in to read it:

Due to attacks by terrorists determined to murder our most vulnerable citizens, the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden and its patients have been relocated to a secure location.

As she read the notice, she surreptitiously tried the door knob; she was not surprised to find it locked. She recrossed the street to join Tomas. “It hasn’t been all that long since we left,” she pointed out. “There were at least 60 sick people inside – I don’t see how they could have moved them all somewhere else this quickly.”

They waited and watched through the night, but saw no activity in or out of the Hospice. In the pre-dawn twilight they returned to Zellara’s and gave their report. Everyone double-checked their gear and spell components, then set out for the Hospice. Before forcing their way through the only obvious entrance, they made another circuit of the building, looking for any alternate ways in. Nat was convinced there might be an entrance on the roof, but no one had any viable means of reaching it to see.

They cautiously gathered by the front door and waited breathlessly, casting protective spells as Jax worked his lockpicks. Nat cast Message, so they’d be able to stay in touch with one another. Jax nodded and put away his picks, drawing his sword. Once he was certain the others were ready, he eased the door open a few inches. All was silent inside – a stark contrast to earlier in the day, when the sounds of moans and coughing from the sick ward were impossible to miss. Grizz pressed his muzzle to the opening in the doorway and sniffed. “Don’t smell anyone,” he whispered. Jax pushed the door the rest of the way open and crept into the empty lobby. The others cautiously followed as he approached the leather curtain separating the lobby from the sickward, and slowly pushed it aside.

The vast sickroom was empty. The cots still littered the floor, their filthy sheets still in place, but no plague victims – alive or dead – were to be seen. The group slowly fanned out across room, but there was no sign of anyone – no victims, no Physicians, no Gray Maidens. Tomas knelt and examined the floor in several places. “Here – do you see this?” he asked pointing at the floor. “There’s a trail – looks like drippings of bodily fluids. It gets thicker as it heads back here.” He pointed through the break room and towards the door leading to the elevator.

“And there’s more blood on some of these sheets than I’d expect from just Blood Veil blisters,” Wren observed as she examined the sick beds.

Most of the group headed into the room containing the freight elevator, while Tomas went to the stairwell and began climbing. As the others stood well back, Jax carefully examined the elevator door for traps, but found none. Unlike earlier, when Shadow had been here, the elevator car was now on the ground floor, its opening blocked by a wooden grate. Jax pushed the grate up and it rose with a rattle. He entered the elevator and examined the controls. There were two unmarked buttons, one above the other, and a short lever mounted beside them. “There’s magic around the car,” Nat reported. “Might be what powers it.”

As the others watched Jax and Nat investigate the elevator, Tomas had continued climbing the stairs. Twenty feet up was a landing that led out onto the catwalks above the sick room floor, but the stairs continued upwards and so did he. One flight farther up the stairs ended on a landing with a single door. He cautious tried the door; finding it unlocked, he pushed it open.

The rough functionality of the warehouse below gave way to beige tile and a whitewashed hall. Across from him were a set of double doors engraved with images of rampant gazelles, their once fine teak bearing obvious scores and chips from rough use. Around the corner to his left he could see an enclosure for a freight elevator, a wooden grate like the one below blocking its entrance. He crossed to the double doors and quietly tried them – locked.

“I’m upstairs, and there’s a locked door up here,” he whispered to Nat via the Message spell. The others weren’t willing to try the elevator just yet, so they headed up the stairs, leaving Erin and Shadow on guard in case anyone tried to sneak up from below somewhere. When they joined Tomas, Jax pulled out his lockpicks and began working on the doors, and the lock quickly succumbed to his efforts. Ensuring everyone was ready, he swung the doors open.

The room inside looked like a combination of laboratory and hospital ward. Rows of white-sheeted beds lined the walls. Their sheets were rumpled and tossed, but not nearly as stained as those on the cots below. Also unlike the downstairs cots, each of these beds was equipped with leather restraints affixed to their metal frames. In the center of the room was a long wooden worktable, covered in fluid-filled beakers, intricate glass tubes, small burners, and other alchemical instruments. The smell of smoke hung in the air. On the far side of the room was another door.

The group cautiously made their way through the room; Nat detected for magic, but found none. On the floor along the far wall they saw a pile of ashes, where someone had burned stacks of papers. “Shit! I looks like they destroyed their notes after we spooked them,” Tomas said as he passed. Jax was already checking the far door. It didn’t appear to be trapped or locked, so he pushed it open.

Blood, bile, and other humors bubbled away within oddly formed beakers and twisted tubes in this sizable laboratory/office. Any wall space left in view between cabinets or over-laden bookshelves was covered by worn parchments depicting magnified aspects of human anatomy in grisly detail — many pierced with pins and flags like the war maps of a veteran campaigner. In the corner, a desk of elegantly carved white ash bore the image of a herd of antelope, but stains from dark chemicals and gore disfigured the once-beautiful piece.

“This must have been Dr. Davaulus’ office,” Jax said as they began to search the room. Nat found no magic, and no one else found anything else that seemed to bear on their mission. The drawers of the desk were already open; they still held mundane office supplies but anything incriminating or useful had been removed. They books were ordinary medical and anatomy texts.

As the others searched for any secret compartments in the doctor’s office, Nat returned to the ashes of burned papers and began carefully sifting through them. Most were unreadable ash, but several scraps had escaped the flames unburned:

… latent Varisian resistance to Blo …

… further experiments requi…

… sent to Lady A below…

… mystical elements of Vorel’s Phage appear to confer an unexpected…

… total blood samples to the Queen to date…

… gathoa…

He showed his findings to Wren when she came out. “Vorel’s Phage – isn’t that what was in those bombs that elf was throwing at us in Carowyn Manor?” Wren nodded.

“We don’t have time to analyze these now,” Tomas declared. “We need to keep moving.” Nat slipped the scraps carefully into his Handy Haversack.

The group rejoined Erin and Shadow on the ground floor and they all crammed into the elevator. Jax pressed the lower button, then eased the lever forward. The elevator gave a lurch and a bump, but did not move. He pressed the upper button, then the lever, and the elevator began to rise with a rumbling sound. It continued moving as long as he held the lever; if he released it, the elevator stopped. It stopped with a lurch once they’d reached the top floor, and returned to the ground floor when he held the lower button down, but would descend no farther. He pressed both buttons and then the lever; the elevator began lurching as if uncertain where to go. Everyone was thoroughly puzzled. Jax tried every button combination they suggested, but nothing worked.

“I think should look for secrets here in the elevator,” Erin suggested.

“Let’s go look for secret doors in the stairwell,” Tomas suggested, ignoring Erin. “Maybe there’s a way down in there.” He left to go back to the stairs.

“What about looking here inside the car?” Erin repeated.

“Shadow – when you were here yesterday, the elevator was up, right?” Jax asked. “And you just saw a floor here?” Shadow nodded. “I think we should take the elevator back upstairs and then search the floor underneath here.”

Erin sighed and began elbowing people out of the way as she began her own search of the elevator car, but saw nothing unusual. Nat realized what Erin was doing, and joined her. “Hey! Look at this!” he said after a moment. He was pointing at the control lever. Along the front of it was a thin slot, as if something could be inserted. “Did anyone find a key or anything upstairs that might fit in here?”

No one had, and Jax knelt to examine the opening. He pulled out his lockpicks and slid them into the slot, working them carefully. He could feel some mechanism inside, but it was extremely tricky. He focused all his attention and skill into his picks, shutting out all of his comrade’s suggestions. In the end, it was a combination of skill and sheer luck, but he felt something slide into place inside the handle. “Everyone inside!” he commanded, holding the mechanism with his pick. He slid the lever forward, and the elevator car gave another lurch – and began to descend.

As the car passed below floor level, something snapped into place above them – a false floor of some sort they assumed. It threw them into complete darkness, and Nat quickly cast Dancing Lights. The car continued rumbling downwards – 10, 20, 30, 40 feet. It finally came to a stop, and they could see another wooden grate before them, and a dark room beyond that. Nat sent his Dancing Lights out to illuminate it.

The light revealed a stone chamber whose walls had been plastered over and then decorated with lurid murals of skeletons cavorting among the dead of a Korvosa that had completely succumbed to Blood Veil. Directly across from them was a sizable double door; the mural had been painted to make them appear as a massive set of double doors opening into the pyramid foundation of Castle Korvosa. A pair of scythe-wielding skeletons decorated these large doors. Tomas looked at his friends, then at Erin standing by his side. They exchanged a nod, and he raised the wooden grate blocking the elevator door, and he and Erin stepped out into the room.

They were instantly attacked from both sides. A pair of Queen’s Physicians had concealed themselves on either side of the elevator door and attacked the first people to emerge. Tomas gasped as a rapier pierced his side, but the blow against Erin glanced off her armor.

Hearing Erin’s warning scream, the others began to push out of the elevator car. Grizz shoved past Tomas, getting slashed by the Physician as he did so, then stabbed him back with his own rapier. Jax followed him, and was surprised by the Physician’s quick combat reflexes as he managed to slash at him as well. He positioned himself in front of a door to the north, but his attack missed. Shadow hit the nearly-surrounded Physician with a round of Magic Missiles as Wren cast Bless on the group.

Tomas hated being pressed in by his foes; he needed room to wield his bow. He stepped away from the Physician who’d attacked him, taking more damage from his partner in the process, then fired two arrows at once. Both shots slammed into the Physician, pinning him to the plaster of the wall behind him. But at that moment, two more Physicians stepped out from hiding in an alcove to the right of the elevator. Both threw flasks at the cluster of intruders in front of the elevator. Neither hit anyone, but they exploded as they struck the floor, splashing everyone in the vicinity with acid or flame. Nat cast Haste, hoping to give his friends an edge.

And they needed it. The door behind Jax suddenly opened, and a robed and armored figure appeared, wielding a wicked-looking scythe; Jax barely managed to avoid its swipe. Two more similar figures emerged from a door in the alcove to the left. One cast a spell on himself and the other cast a spell that left everyone feeling a bit hopeless. Most managed to shake off the feeling, but Erin felt the power of Wren’s Bless fade away.

The Physician facing Erin gave an evil grin as his allies appeared, then stabbed viciously with his rapier. She deftly sidestepped the attack, then drove her longsword into his guts. Inhumanly fast, she ripped the blade out, and slashed it across his chest. He reeled, barely alive, but still fighting. He made a feeble strike at Erin, his strength ebbing fast from blood loss, before Erin finished him off with a two-handed downward strike.

Griz snarled and spun to attack the scythe-wielding enemy who’d appeared behind Jax. He and Jax hit at almost the same instant, and his scythe clattered to the floor from his lifeless hands. Shadow sent a Scorching Ray at one of the cultists, twisting its energy into electricity. Wren stepped out of the elevator and attempted to Hold the other cultist, but he resisted her spell.

Tomas spun and took a step back, nocking a pair of arrows as he did so. He took aim, and the air was suddenly filled with arrows. Both cultists fell, and one of the Physicians was sprouting an arrow. He drank some liquid, and his appearance changed; he mutated into a more brutish, stronger-looking version of himself. His partner also downed a flask, and ugly fungal growths sprouted all over his body – but he also had the good sense to duck around the corner, out of line of sight of Tomas and his deadly bow.

Nat pulled out his Wand of Magic Missiles, and launched one into the newly-buff Physician. Griz and Jax both charged him, and their swords left him spurting blood as Shadow conjured a Flaming Sphere beneath his feet. Barely able to see, he couldn’t avoid its flames, and fell screaming as they consumed him.

That left only one Physician. Wren tried to hit him with a Spiritual Weapon, but he dodged it. Tomas moved into position and fired an arrow; he could see something explode from one of his fungal blisters as it hit. Knowing he was done for, the Physician gave a fanatical scream and charged at Tomas. Nat hit him with a set of Magic Missiles. Another blister exploded in a cloud of spores as he fell; the spores engulfed Tomas and Erin, but they both avoided breathing them in.

As everyone caught their breath, Jax hurried into the room from which his attacker had come, to make sure no one else was there. Its walls were lined with cabinets and low benches, and a pair of birdlike Physician’s masks hung from pegs on one wall. Most of the cabinets were filled with clothing, garb for the Queen’s Physicians. One cabinet had a glass door; behind it, Jax could see some bundles, a couple of dozen gems, and four identical flasks. The cabinet door was locked, and Jax’s picks couldn’t open it.

Tomas and Wren had gone to the room at the end of the alcove from which the other two cultists had emerged. It held a number of wooden crates, apparently empty. One large one had been dragged to the center of the room and was surrounded by four mismatched chairs and stools.

Erin was kneeling over the bodies of the robed figures. Each of them wore a silver chain around their neck. Hanging from the chain was a silver pendant, enameled with the image of a fly with a death’s head on its back. She held one up for all to see. They’d seen its like before, on the body they’d found aboard the sunken Direption. It was the unholy symbol of Urgathoa.

The PCs earned 1,133 XP, putting them at 20,210 with 23,000 required for level 7.