Wanted!

“I think we need to look for a new place to live,” Jax said. It had been two days since Queen Ileosa disbanded the Sable Company so violently, and the group was still reeling from what they’d seen. “We haven’t made any secret of where we’re staying, and you have to believe the Queen knows we were involved in taking down Dr. Davaulus. That means she knows that we know she was involved. I don’t think we’re safe.”

“Maybe we could stay in the Korvosan Guard barracks,” Nat suggested. “They should have lots of space open.”

“No way,” Tomas countered. “The Queen’s already not happy with Field Marshall Kroft, and we don’t want to put her in any more danger.”

“We should be thinking something more upscale,” Shadow offered. “I mean, rich people must have died in the plague, too. I’m sure there are some very nice mansions just sitting vacant right now.”

As the party debated real estate options, Erin suddenly heard a voice speaking to her. She instantly recognized it as Field Marshal Kroft, and she looked around in panic, wondering how the Field Marshall had crept into their room. But no one was there, and the others seemed oblivious to the voice.

“You are in danger!” Kroft’s voice said urgently. “You must flee now! Go to Lamm’s old hideout and wait for me there. Do not delay!”

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Erin cried, interrupting the discussion. “I’ll explain on the way, but you need to grab your things and go!” The rest of the team only hesitated a moment before they obeyed without question. Erin might be many things, but she was not one for idle warnings. Shadow quickly cast Vanish on himself, then slipped out the door to check the street for any signs of danger. “All clear!” he called back to the others, and within minutes, they were on their way to the Old Fishery.

Hours later, after nightfall, they saw a an old woman hobbling down the street, bent low over her walking stick. She turned to the door of the Fishery as if she lived there, and bent, as if slipping a key into the lock. Pushing it open, she slipped inside, stood erect and threw off her shawl, then pushed the door quietly closed behind her. It was Cressida Kroft. Motioning for silence, she crouched at one of the cracks between the boards over the windows, watching the street outside in silence for several minutes. At last she gave a sigh of relief. “Good – I wasn’t followed.”

She led the group deeper into the Fishery before saying more. “Korvosa is dying. No, strike that. Korvosa is being murdered. Killed by our queen. The evidence you uncovered that links her to the plague is damning enough, but after what we saw in Domina Square?” She shuddered. “Whatever foul magic the queen has wrapped herself in is obviously of the highest order. Endrin’s aim was true, and his shot should have been instantly fatal.”

She looked at the party for a long moment, as if unsure what to say next. “I’m afraid you have all been declared enemies of the state. The official reason is that the Crown has uncovered evidence that you conspired with Dr. Davaulus to introduce Blood Veil to Korvosa, and enlisted wererats to help spread the plague. The story is that you only turned on him when he refused to pay you more than the price originally agreed for your assistance.

“It’s a load of bullshit. I know that and everyone who knows you knows that. But the city is exhausted, and terrified. Now that she’s disbanded the Sable Company and reallocated our own funding to the Gray Maidens, Ileosa is more in control of the city than ever. I dare not move against her, as my guards would be executed to the last fighter by her Gray Maidens before sundown. But she must be stopped.

“The safest thing for you would be to flee the city at once – get as far away as you can and never return. But we need you. I need you. Trusting you may have been the best decision I’ve made over the last several months. I can’t give up hope for saving Korvosa, and to do that, I need your help.

“Vencarlo Orsini has been continuing to feed me intelligence out of Old Korvosa throughout the plague. Even after the quarantine, he somehow still managed to smuggle out daily updates. Four days ago, he sent word of something astounding. He  said he’d found a lead on Seneschal Kalepopolis, and implied the man might still be alive and in hiding in Old Korvosa! If he is, he offers our best hope. As the rightful Seneschal, he’s the only person with legal standing to dethrone the Queen. And he was closer to the King and Queen than anyone still alive – he may be able to provide some insight on what power she holds.

“Unfortunately, that was the last I heard from Vencarlo. It’s been several days, and I’m worried for his safety. I’m begging you – will you go to Old Korvosa, seek out Vencarlo, and learn what you can of what he’s discovered? Ironically, you should actually be safer there than here. Since the Queen’s quarantine has cut off the island entirely, the rumor is that she plans to leave it to rot. She won’t think to look for you there if you maintain a low profile and avoid confrontations with the Grey Maidens in getting there.”

She slipped a gold bracelet off her wrist and handed it to Erin. “If you find something, use this to contact me. I may not be able to get back to you right away, but I’ll work with Bishop d’Bear to reach you.” Wren nodded; Bishop d'Bear was the head of the Temple of Pharasma, and she was glad to hear that she was on Kroft's side.

“We need to warn Girrigz!” Nat said urgently. “If the Queen’s also blaming the wererats, he and his people won’t be safe!”

Kroft’s eyes filled with tears. “The Queen is sending hunting parties into the sewers with a bounty of 10 sails for every wererat head they come back with. And she’s rounding up all suspected wererats living in the city and having them executed on the spot. There’s a woman who works for me at the Citadel, a janitor named Eries Yelloweyes. I’ve known for years that she’s a wererat, but she’s a harmless thing. On my way here, I saw her head on a pike in Eodred Square.”

The group exchanged grim looks. They knew Eries Yelloweyes as well – she’d been the one who’d sent them to break up Grizz’s wererat rebellion. Now she was dead, and this had all become more personal.

“How long have you known we were wanted?” Erin asked Kroft.

“No more than five minutes before I warned you,” the Field Marshal replied. “Togomor – the new Seneschal – showed up at the Citadel with a platoon of Gray Maidens, and demanded that I lead a raid on your home, to arrest you for treason. I think it was as much a test of my loyalty as anything.”

“What do you know about this Togomor?” Nat asked.

“Damn little. He’s a bloatmage, and I hear he’s from Magnimar, but I have no idea what his connection to Ileosa is. No one had ever heard of him until a couple of days before … before the whole incident with Marcus.”

“What can you tell us about Old Korvosa these days?” Jax asked. “Does the Queen have troops there?”

Kroft shook her head. “No. You know she’s cut off all access to Endrin Isle, and has Gray Maidens stationed along the north city wall, with orders to shoot on sight anyone trying to escape across the Narrows. They’re also patrolling the Jeggare River in boats, to stop people trying to escape that way. But she doesn’t have anyone on the island itself. From what Vencarlo told me in his reports, it’s pure chaos. The Arkonas are still keeping things relatively contained in the Fort Korvosa area and most of Garrison Hill, but Old Dock and parts of Bridgefront have fallen under the control of someone calling himself the Emperor of Old Korvosa. Vencarlo hadn’t discovered who this so-called emperor really is, but he’s organized the mob into his own private army.”

“Any suggestions for the safest way for us to get there?” Tomas asked.

“I might have a suggestion,” Nat offered, and all eyes turned to him.

“Well, I’ve been flying over the city a lot lately,” he began. Since their battle in the hidden Temple of Urgathoa, Nat had become obsessed with finding Rolth Lamm. Every night, he would slip out late at night, cast Fly and Invisibility on himself, and conduct a methodical grid search of the city, using Locate Object to try to find one of Rolth’s key-shaped daggers. Unfortunately, he’d flown over all of Korvosa, and the only hit he’d found were the daggers he’d turned over to Kroft himself, now being held as evidence in Citadel Volshyenek. But his flights had given him lots of opportunity to observe the city below him – and its defenses. “I’ve flown over Old Korvosa, and the Narrows, and the city wall. The guards on the wall are focused on watching the water – they don’t look up. I think if we flew over at night, there’s a good chance they’d never notice us.”

The group quickly agreed that this was probably their best plan. Kroft wished them luck, then slipped back out to return to the Citadel. Nat and Shadow needed to memorize different spells if they were to be able to cast enough Fly spells to cover the whole party, so the group settled in to spend the night in the Old Fishery.

The next night was clear, but the moon wouldn’t rise until well after midnight. Shadow and Nat cast Fly on everyone, and they set off without delay. Erin’s armor rattled like a tinker’s pushcart as they flew over the city wall, but the guards below didn’t seem to notice. No arrows flew towards them, no alarms went up, and just like that, the party was over Old Korvosa.

They flew first to the Orsini Academy, where they’d met Vencarlo before. But the building was nothing but a burned out hulk. Throughout the plague, columns of smoke rising over Old Korvosa were a common sight – perhaps Vencarlo’s fencing school had simply fallen victim to the riots. Kroft had given them Vencarlo’s home address, no more than two blocks east of his school, so they continued straight there.

They landed quietly in the deserted street. They’d seen no movement below them as they’d flown in, and everything here was deathly quiet. Vencarlo’s home was a simple wooden building, with a small second story above the western half of the building. The windows were shuttered and dark and the door was closed. While Tomas listened at the door, Nat cast Detect Magic – there was definitely magic inside the building. Erin idly cast Detect Evil, then froze as she felt the faint oily presence of evil from inside. She quietly warned the others, and everyone’s level of alert went up a notch. Jax checked the door for traps, quietly rapped on the door, then opened it just enough to call quietly inside: “Vencarlo! Are you in there?” There was no response.

Jax pushed the door open and the group filed in, Erin in the lead. The building was dark, save for the ruddy glow of a fire from the far end of the hall, so Nat cast Dancing Lights to provide some illumination. They were in an entry hall with an elegant and colorful Vudrani rug covering most of the floor. They could see several closed doors on either side of a hallway that led to what looked to be a living room with a pair of sofas backlit by the glow of a fire in a fireplace. Erin took the lead, heading for the living room; it was empty, with a staircase leading up to the second floor. While Erin covered the foot of the stairs, Jax and Tomas started checking doors. They found a workshop where Vencarlo apparently decorated and repaired bladed weapons, a pantry, a bath, and a study with a desk and bookshelves. As he reached the living room, Tomas wrinkled his nose. “What’s that smell?” he whispered. It was a smoky aroma, and familiar – he’d definitely smelled it before. With a start, he recognized what it was – Alchemist’s Fire! He looked more closely, and realized the walls and floor of the room were smeared with the stuff. “This room’s a fire trap!” he whispered to Erin.

The group was migrating down the hallway as they checked one room after another. Wren went into the study to examine the papers on the desk, and Tomas went back to join her. Nat was following at the tail of the party detecting magic in each room in turn. There was nothing in the side rooms, but he could definitely detect magic from upstairs. With most of his magic-covered friends all clustered ahead of him in the narrow hallway and around the foot of the stairs, it was impossible to tell if there was any additional magic in that room.

“Give me some room,” he whispered, and Erin stepped up onto the bottom of the staircase. Nat took her place, standing in the corner where the staircase turned to go up to the second floor, and began to swivel in a circuit of the room, scanning for magic. He completed his scan facing the low nook under the rising stairs. It was empty – save for the bright glow of magic! Before he could speak, Nat felt a blade slash across his chest, almost eviscerating him.

As the blade hit, a figure appeared in the nook. It was dressed in red leather armor, and wore a red mask that looked like the head of some huge insect. It held a sabre in each hand, the blades notched in a wicked sawtooth edge. Nat screamed in pain, blood gushing from the wound, and scrambled back down the hallway as fast as he could.

Erin, standing partway up the staircase, debated whether to come down to attack. Instead, she decided to try to keep him away from her friends. She grabbed a Tanglefoot Bag off her belt and threw it at the swordsman in red. It hit, but he nimbly avoided being glued to the floor. However, the sticky residue slowed his movements, and he barely managed to step out of the nook, before he took a single swing at Erin that gashed her arm. Erin heard a sound on the stairs above her as another of the red-clad assassins rushed down from above, and she managed to duck under his blow. She called upon Iomedae to Smite Evil and stabbed up at the assassin on the stairs, ramming her longsword into his thigh.

Jax and Shadow both became Invisible, and Shadow rushed to the foot of the stairs, right behind Erin. Wren cast a Spiritual Weapon to harry the attacker in the living room. Tomas, caught in the hallway, didn’t have a clear shot at any of the enemies. Cursing under his breath, he dashed past his friends into the living room, taking a nasty slice from the sticky assassin as he ran past. He took up position in the corner of the living room, beside the fireplace, and started to draw arrows out of his quiver.

The assassin who was attacking Erin tried to step behind her, so that he and his partner would be flanking her. Unfortunately, he collided with the invisible Shadow. Cursing, he stayed where he was, pulled a flask of Achemist’s Fire off his belt, and flung it at the fireplace. Erin slashed him with her sword as he threw, but the flask exploded in the fire. Instantly, the floor in front of and on either side of the fireplace burst into flames, the floor already primed with accelerant. Tomas found himself standing in the midst of a conflagration.

As his partner ignited the living room with flames, the assassin on the stairs suddenly became shrouded by a veil of red mist, and slashed down at Erin, gashing her again. Shadow stepped back into the pantry to give himself a little space, then cast Shadow Hands. A freezing blast of shadow leaped from his hands, engulfing the assassin who had just thrown the fire, but he somehow managed to evade any of its damage. Jax, still invisible, dashed into the room and got behind the assassin in the living room. He stabbed his sword forward, catching his target unawares. Erin kept her focus on the assailant above her, swinging her sword in a series of blurring arcs that sent blood flying and left her enemy swaying, barely alive.

Nat was badly wounded, but he heard the whoosh of the explosion and saw flames erupt in the living room. Knowing the Alchemist Fire infused wooden building would go up like a tinderbox, he limped back to the entry to the living room. Blood dripped from his fingers as he made some arcane motions, then Tomas found himself Drenched by a sudden freezing downpour of water. The downpour extinguished most (but not all) of the flames, and Tomas was able to shoot without fear of catching fire. Two of his arrows missed, but the third sank deep into one of the assassins.

The assassin on the stairs was badly hurt, but showed no signs of surrender. And the red mist that shrouded him actually seemed to be healing his wounds. He and his partner both attacked Erin with a furious combination of blows; she parried as fast as she could, but couldn’t block all of their attacks. Shadow fired off a pair of Scorching Rays at the assassin on the ground floor, but they seemed to do little damage. “Dammit!” he thought to himself “If they set the place on fire on purpose, I should have known they'd be protected from fire!”

Erin was the one who was wobbling now, and she wouldn’t survive many more of the assassins’ onslaughts. Jax took advantage of his foe’s focus on Erin, and stabbed him in the back again. Blood sprayed from the wound, and he collapsed in a heap. Wren stepped over his body to where she could swing up at the assassin on the stairs. He had the advantage of high ground, but her mace shattered his leg. As the assassin died, his body dissolved into the red mist that shrouded him, leaving his armor to collapse empty on the stairs.

Nat cast another Drench spell to put out the rest of the fire while Wren cast healing spell after healing spell on Erin and Nat. When they finally felt strong enough, the group ventured up the staircase. The open room at the top of the stairs looked like a training room, with a pair of practice dummies, one in each corner. There was a cozy fire burning in the fireplace here, and like the living room, the walls and floor had been smeared with Alchemist’s Fire. A door led into a bedroom; it looked well lived in, but the bed was made and didn’t appear to have been slept in in some time. A small clothes closet held clothes that appeared to belong to Vencarlo.

Jax and Tomas searched the room, but found nothing. But Nat was still doing Detect Magic, and he wasn’t satisfied. “I’m telling you – there’s something in the closet!” With Nat directing them, they were able to find a very well concealed compartment in the closet wall. Inside was an iron lockbox. Jax and Tomas both plied their lockpicks, but neither were able to crack the elaborate lock that secured the lid.

“What the hell were those guys?” Nat asked as they descended the stairs again. Wren had stripped the armor off the lone surviving body; under his insectoid mask, he was merely human.

“Red Mantis Assassins,” Jax and Tomas said in unison. “We had reason to believe that Dr. Davaulus and his ‘physicians’ were allied with the Red Mantis, but this,” Jax pointed to the red-clad body, “is the classic look of a Red Mantis Assassin.”

“Well I think we should chat him up, get to know him a little better,” Shadow said cheerily. All eyes turned to Wren, who nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got a Speak With Dead spell ready to go,” she said. She looked at the pile of gear on the stairs where the other assassin’s body had vanished when he died. Maybe this was why he’d chosen not to leave a body behind.

Wren cast her spell, then prepared her three questions:

“Did the Red Mantis kill Vencarlo Orsini?”  - ‘No’

“Who hired you to be here tonight?” – ‘Cinnabar’  They all looked at each other and shrugged – this was a name they’d never heard before.

“Why were you here?” – ‘To kill Orsini if he returned’

Wren got excited. “That’s the surest sign we have that Vencarlo’s still alive! Now if we just knew where he was.”

Just then, there was a timid knock on the door. Everyone tensed, and drew their weapons. “I guess we’d better see who it is,” Wren said, and went to the front room. “Who’s there?” she asked through the closed door.

“Um … it’s me.”

That wasn’t particularly helpful. “Who’s ‘me’?” Wren asked.

There was a pause. “Amin. Are those things dead?”

Tired of playing twenty questions through the door, Wren pulled it open, ready for trouble. A young man stood on the other side, looking about nervously. His clothes, once fine, looked like he’d been wearing them for weeks, and he had a patchy growth of beard on his face. There was something very familiar about him, and Wren wracked her brain for where she knew him from. Then it came to her. “You’re that boy from the riots – the one who was with Grau Soldado!”

The young man nodded, then stepped quickly inside, closing the door behind him. “Yes! I’m Amin Jalento. You helped rescue me during the riots, and I recognized you when I saw you come into Mr. Orsini’s house.” Jax and Tomas exchanged worried looks – if this kid had seen them come in, had others? The man continued. “But I knew those bug men were in here, and I heard fighting – I wasn’t sure if you’d beaten them or …”

“Maybe you’d better start from the beginning,” Wren said. “What are you doing here?”

“After what happened in the riots, I was embarrassed, and decided I needed to be able to defend myself, so I signed up for lessons with Mr. Orsini. But I was here when they imposed the quarantine, and I got trapped. I tried to tell the guards at the bridge that I didn’t live here, that I lived in Citadel Crest, but they just shot arrows at me! So Mr. Orsini let me live at his academy. But then, a few days ago, those bug men burst in and attacked Mr. Orsini! He killed a couple of them, but there were too many. I managed to get out, but by then the whole place was on fire. I’m pretty sure I saw Mr. Orsini go out a window. I came here, to his house, but I saw more of the bug men go in before I got here. I’ve been staying in an abandoned building across the street, watching in case Mr. Orsini comes home, so I can warn him.”

“That takes a lot of courage,” Nat said. “Vencarlo would be proud of you.” Amin blushed, but puffed up with pride.

Amin told them that the Red Mantis had been staking out Vencarlo’s house in pairs, switching off in 12-hour shifts. The next shift wasn’t due for another eight hours or so, but they decided to move to Amin’s abandoned building, just to be safe (they weren’t entirely sure if the assassin who dissolved was dead, or if he’d somehow escaped in gaseous form). Nat was all for staging an ambush of their own, when the next shift arrived. “The more of these bastards we take off the board, the better!”

Wren was still questioning Amin about Vencarlo. “After the quarantine, he was gone a lot,” the boy explained. “He was gone at odd hours, and sometimes came back with his clothes bloody. He just laughed and said he had to fight off a thief, but I think there was more to it than that.”

Wren thought about Vencarlo’s role as Kroft’s secret informant, and just nodded. “Do you have any idea where he might be now?” she asked.

Amin was silent for a moment. “No,” he said, “but I think I know who might.” All ears perked up. “In the last few days before the attack, Mr. Orsini had an odd visitor – a jittery man with wild hair and paint on his hands. Mr. Orsini just introduced him as ‘a friend’, but from his attitude, I don’t think they were friends at all. He’d always take him into the back room to talk, and the last time, I think they were arguing; Mr. Orsini sounded angry.

“Mr. Orsini never told me the man’s name, but I’m pretty sure I recognized him. I think he’s an artist, a man named Salvator Scream.” Tomas’s eyebrows shot up. He’d heard that name from his brother. Scream was a notorious artist whose gruesome and often scandalous art was held in relatively high esteem by several of Korvosa’s nobles. “Is that they guy who paints the grisly backdrops for the plays at Exemplary Execrables?” Nat asked excitedly. Tomas’s eyebrows went up even farther. Exemplary Execrables was a ‘playhouse’ that specialized in explicitly bloody and violent entertainments. He wondered how Nat knew about it.

Amin was nodding in agreement. “Yeah – that’s him. He lives over in Old Dock. I’ve wanted to go to his house, to ask him if he knows where Mr. Orsini is, but, well, that area’s under the control of the Emperor, and I don’t feel safe going there.”

“What can you tell us about this Emperor?” Erin asked.

Amin shrugged. “Some rumors say he’s a cannibal. Some say he’s beheaded more people than died from Blood Veil. Some say he’s actually a devil taking human form. I don’t believe half of what I hear, but even if only half of it is true …” He shuddered.

The group had a decision to make. Ambush the next set of Red Mantis assassins, or go visit the artist?

The PCs earned 3,333 XP, putting them at 36,143 and 8^th level. They’ll need 50,000 for Level 9.