After the old wererat crone finally caught up to us, and
provided her crucial tip regarding the source of the plague, we were off to
search the riverbed for a ship.
Fortunately, we were able, through the wererat crone, to get some cheap
potions of water breathing and so went for a dip. Since Artox was fairly debilitated by the
plague, I decided to leave him out of this, and instead rely on minor summoned
minions instead. After a couple of hours
searching the riverbed, we found a ship, named the Direption. An amusing enough name, and in this instance
a wrecked ship inhabited by a sea hag (literally a hag, and yet still not as
ugly as our woman) druid and her shark companion. We killed the hag and her shark, although it
was a very tough fight thanks to the watery conditions and both four-arms and
the gun nut were dealt grievous wounds.
A search of the ship revealed that it was owned by Dr Davalus, and that
it was the source of the plague. Quite
an ingenious option, those responsible were using some kind of magical item,
deaths head coffers, to spread the disease.
The is clearly what that little girl found on the beach filled with
silver coins, the magic of the box being that it will infect anything stored
within with a disease, and so apparently the coins were the start of the
plague. Not only the coins from the
little girl though, as apparently the wererats had found several of these
coffers as well, on the beach, and realizing that there was something amiss
with them simply pushed them back into the water to be found by someone with a
less sensitive nose.
That a ship owned by Dr Davalus was the source of this
plague made it quite clear to me that the warrior was right all along, and that
the queen was responsible for this terrible event in her city. It appears that her personal physician is in
charge of the cult, and that he and the Queen’s Physicians are actually
worshipers of Urgothoa. I decided that
this was sufficient evidence, and most of the other agreed that we immediately
look into the good doctor in detail, and hopefully obtain evidence as to the
location of the temple of the cult of Urgothoa in Korvosa.
We returned to the inn so that four-arms and the gun nut
could recover from the fight with the hag, only to discover that they had both
been crippled by their wounds. We headed
for the bank in the morning to investigate healing the gun nut, since four-arms
was OK with his issue, as he seemed only to have damaged the fingers of one
hand, and with three extras he was happy to wait for repairs. At the bank, the gun nut was appalled at the
price quoted for healing and decided to live without it, at least until the
plague was over and the Archbanker’s excuse to massively over charge him had
gone. After this debacle, we headed to
the Hospice of the Blessed Maiden to question, or more likely murder, the good
doctor.
At the hospice I was able to talk our way past the
receptionist, a very solidly built woman, and once we entered the main room saw
four Queen’s Physicians ministering to a large number of plague victims, and four
Grey Maidens standing guard, one in front of a door and three on raised
catwalks, with bows ready. I had just
drawn breath to talk our way past all of these people when the gun nut, as per
pre-arranged signal, revealed that the Grey Maidens were all evil. The Queens Physicians weren’t, but this
wasn’t a significant issue as they were all wearing plagubringer’s masks,
magical items we know to conceal alignment.
After this, rather than letting me talk our way into the doctor’s office,
the ugly chick decided to pick a fight, and we were on.
The fight wasn’t too bad, although the Grey Maidens were
very well equipped, and we were able to overcome them without too much trouble,
and in fact it was the solidly built receptionist who caused us the most
trouble, entering the fray as soon as she heard the ruckus and laying into the
cleric and the ugly chick with a sap.
The ugly chick took care of her, although strangely she seemed to regret
killing a woman. Regardless, her issues
with this seemed to last for about 3 seconds, and then we were off searching
the rest of the place for the Doctor, and hopefully for sufficient evidence of
his involvement with a cult and the plague, otherwise we may be in for a lot of
trouble, having just killed eight people it currently carries the death penalty
for interfering with, and one “innocent” woman.
And all in a hospital.
Incedentally, during the fight I dropped into the reception area to lock
the doors and hang the closed sign. Not
entirely convinced that this will keep the watch or guard out if anyone finds
out about our activities here, but it may slow the spread of the news.
Should also note that four-arms, oddly, decided to claim a
bunch of the war razors that had been used by the Queen’s Physicians in the
fight. Maybe he’s finally worked out
that there’s little point in having an extra pair of arms if all you’re going
to do with them is to fold them across your chest and try to hide them under
your cloak. He honestly thought no one
could tell that they were there too.
Bizarre. You make yourself look
like a misshapen freak, and you think that no one will notice that there is
something odd about you. On the other
hand, he’s almost as delusional as the ugly chick about his looks, constantly
insisting that he’s really good looking and merely has poor social skills.
Trouble is, the really, really good looking people with no social skills start
out seeming really, really good looking and as one gets to know them, they
become really, really good looking and a dick.
Four-arms started out seeming at best average looking, poor bastard, and
now he’s just an average looking dick.
Artox can barely contain his mirth at the idea that the big fool thinks
he’s attractive. Strange for someone as
ridiculously good looking as myself, even with this hideous plague disrupting
my looks to be hanging out with two people who are so ugly, especially since
they both lack the ability to compare themselves to me and see that they are
sorely lacking in the appearance department.
Maybe I should buy them both mirrors.
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