Adventure 4: On Guild Business
Session 1
Just prior to this adventure starting the party expanded its membership by one; Randy felt that the party did not have enough brawn, and he was a bit worried that he might actually get hurt. This meant a new protagonist joined the merry band, a fighter with a strong arm and a healthy heart, enigmatically named Anoni Mouse. Mr Mouse was hired because of his ability with weaponry (that, and the welcome return of "Oscar", aka Nathan, to the group).
Taking in the scene around Eversham, the party became interested by the stream of young ladies going into the church of Pendaroch. They discovered that these are the interviewees for the position of 'Sacrificial Virgin' for the Midsummer Rite, which takes place in just a few weeks. The role of Sacrificial Virgin is just an honorary position these days. Not like it used to be. I mean, technically you still have to be a virgin (although Pendaroch's clerics don't check to be sure beyond a shadow of a doubt), but they no longer sacrifice the young lady.
After spending a few minutes admiring the view, Jim was met by a courier from his guild; he was summoned to see Merton Willam, the South Vale Guild's director of operations. Once in Mr Willam's office, Jim (and Formil who seemed to have just tagged along) is told that his name had reached the top of the rota, and that there was some work available - something that might be of interest to the party as a whole, not just to Jim. Mr Willam wents on to tell them that the apothecary on the Ridstock Road had been broken into and robbed during the last few days. This is a disaster from the guilds point of view, because this shop is within the guild's own patch. And, because they have always been very helpful when it comes to sourcing some of the, er..., "less popular" substances which are widely used in their line of work, the the guild have always granted them special protection. This situation is potentially very embarrassing to the SVG, the Guild Chief would hardly be able to look anyone in the eye at the Yuletide Rogues Award dinner, if news of this event got out.
What made it even worse was that the robbers only took supplies of three substances: Vantissom (which can induce sleep), Belisti (which is a muscle relaxant which can cause temporary paralysis) and Cobbinth (which can debilitate an individual temporarily). These drugs were supplied by the SVG's own drug network. The SVG know where the items have been taken to, and who is responsible; all they need is someone to go there and recover the stolen goods. It is the Sect of Ruoyar who are responsible; they have taken the goods to a safe house of theirs in Ridstock, but the SVG do not know who has paid them for this work (and, to be honest, they dont really care). The situation is complicated because the SVG have no rights to operate in that town (but it's a good job that Jim did not notice that other guild members were being overlooked for this task before he accepted it). The fee for carrying this task out successfully is 750gp, and that money is coming from the SVG themselves; there is no external party fronting the cash for this job - and they are keen to redress this personal insult! Mr Willam suggests that the party may wish to take revenge upon the Ruoyar; the official stance of the SVG is that such practices are beneath them, but (unofficially, of course) it would be nice to let them know they're messing with the wrong guild. Also, the SVG has no interest in any other liberated items (it is outside of their territory, after all) and so will not be asking for stolen goods to be booked in at the SVG.
The party need little in the way of supplies for this trip, but spent the afternoon restocking their trail rations supply, as these had begun to run low while operating in the mountains of North Nuneith. They set out in the direction of Ridstock the following morning. The weather had picked up, this journey was mostly in warm sunlight with only the occasional light shower. The party were not the only travellers on the road, they managed to befriend several others, including Kenton McBride who was travelling southwards from Callenhall with a mule packed with cloth to sell in Ridstock. He seemed to delight in travelling alongside Randy the Gnome, and telling him of his exciting adventures as a trader.
The party arrived in Grigans Fen before Randy had reached the point of losing all will to live, and they checked into the village inn with many of the traders who they had journeyed alongside all day. For once, the party spent a night in this quaint village inn in peace and quiet.
The next day of travelling was much like the first. Randy still couldn't shake off McBride who had even come down to breakfast and searched the gnome out to tell him even more of his 'hilarious' tales. As far as Randy was concerned, the end of the journey couldn't come soon enough.
That afternoon, while the party stumbled along the road, the column of traders was overtaken by two members of the Kings Guard, riding hard along the roadway. Eventually, the party made it to the city of Ridstock at dusk. They booked into a suitable inn, and went out in search of the house they were looking for. The directions they had been given were extremely good, and they found the place really quickly.
Rather than just barging into the house, the party took the unprecedented step of watching the house to look for weakness and gather information before formulating a plan to get themselves inside. It looked like the front door is the only possible route, the back yards of this, and all the neighbouring houses backed onto each other, and the buildings themselves were so close, they might as well have been terraced.
Their tactic worked well, they managed to observe the comings and goings over three days, and formulated a plan which involved sneaking inside using Jim's skill with locks before starting a fight with anyone they found, and putting them out of action as quickly as they could. The party even went to the trouble of moving to a different inn, one closer to the city wall, which offered a quicker escape route out of town if things didn't go exactly to plan. Once they'd done that, they went straight to try and gain entrance to the house, in the process completely missing the presence of some new posters hanging around town and especially around the grotty inn (the posters were a call to arms, for a weapontake in Eversham, to go and deal with an orc problem in the Nuneith mountains).
Jim's skill with the thief tools was exceptional, firstly, he ensured the house's door and the area in front of it was completely free of any kind of traps, before he expertly and soundlessly unlocked the door. He then backed off to let the fighters enter first. It took Formil just a few seconds of 'sneaking' into the house on the wooden floorboards, in his hobnail iron-bound dwarf boots, to grab the attention of the guards who, up to that point, had been in the recreation room playing Poker for pocket change. Formil was assaulted from both sides, as behind him the office room opened to allow two wizards to begin attacking with Magic Missiles, and another rogue-like individual who's only contribution to the fight was to open the door, as he fumbled his weapon shortly after that, which was soundly punished by Formil, who had charged in to deal with the mages.
The fight went reasonably well for the party, but saw Formil fall in combat (once again). He had been fighting alone in the tight entrance hall which did not suit the use of a large double-bladed axe. Insorce the cleric, was (fortunately) right behind him, and managed to get him healed in the nick of time; the debilitating effects of the near-death experience made fighting hard work now for Formil, who tried his best despite the discomfort. The melee went on for several more minutes - it was a long fight, with everyone being involved in different ways. Anoni and Insorce backed up Formil in the hallway of the house, while Jim squatted down onto all fours to allow Randy to get a good enough view through the badly-shuttered window to expend his entire supply of Magic Missile spells. He even rattled off a couple of cantrips before climbing down to allow Jim to dart into the house and land the final blow to end the fight.
While the rest of the party tidied up downstairs and searched for clues (and re-sellable equipment), Insorce had crept into the kitchen at the back of the house. He managed to sneakily grab a bowl or two of warm stew while the others collected all the valuables together.
Session 2
Scrabbling around the ground floor, the party discover the card game that was taking place when they turned up. They appropriate the piles of cash from the table, and go search the bodies in the office. They wizards carried nothing of importance, but the rogue had a ceremonial serpent dagger on him, much like the one they discovered before when their hotel rooms were ransacked. Insorce the dwarf continued his search of the kitchen, checking out the food supplies in the larder while the others looted the ground floor.
It soon became clear that the party were not alone - footsteps could be heard upstairs. They decided at this point to split their force up - Jim and Randy made their way downstairs to the basement to look for the stolen goods, while the others stand and defend the bottom of the stairs against anyone that comes down them.
Presently, four sleep-ridden and pyjama-dressed guards armed with long swords stumble down the stairs and fall into a fight with the party. With Formil being so badly hurt and Insorce still in the kitchen, they take a little longer than they would normally have expected to deal with the threat, but they did so for minimal damage.
Downstairs, Jim passed a milestone in his career as a rogue - he discovered his first trap, and went on to disarm it successfully. It was some kind of poison-gas device protecting the door to the downstairs storeroom. In the ensuing search of the area beyond this door the small boxes of drugs were recovered; the other boxes contained mundane items, many contained food or beer. They earmarked these for later, and returned upstairs to join the others.
The party regrouped and went on to search the rest of the house. The only item of note was a simple spell book that Randy discovered among one of the wizards private possessions. Formil checked that no one had escaped, and they made their way down towards the ground floor again, while discussing what to do next. As they approached the bottom of the stairs, they were disturbed by a loud banging on the door. "Open up in the name of the Law!" was the shout from outside. Jim tried to sneak over to the door to lock it before they tried to come in, but was not quick enough. The door started to open, and he just hid behind it out of sight.
Poking his head in and looking a little sheepish was a member of the militia who took one look at the carnage around the hallway of the house and went white. From the bottom of the stairs, Anoni tried to charge at the militiaman, and struggled to cross the distance; the militiaman just closed the door as he approached, before bolting to raise the alarm and get help. By the time the door was re-opened, the militia had gone, so the party made a hasty exit. They returned to their inn in the seedier district of town, and hid for a couple of days. There was no chance they could pursue the mustered army, and go chase down orcs, because of Formil's injuries which would make it impossible to travel that quickly - he still needed bed rest following his wounds at the hands of the Ruoyar's guards.
Finally, (two days later) the party headed back to Eversham to claim their reward, the South Vale Guild are very pleased with their performance. Randy was invited to his Sect too; they had some information that he might be able to use. It turned out that the Pale Flame's own copy of the map to Charles Derren's tomb has been removed by someone from the Eversham library. The Pale Flame were a little concerned about this, but they made sure the party knew what is happening, considering the information Randy recently provided about Yanneg.