We took care of some personal issues on the way back to the
inn, including visiting churches and the great tower of the Sable Marines where
the ugly chick picked up a hippogriff.
Given that she seems to be free to do as she sees fit, just like the
rest of us, maybe military service is worthwhile, if you get a free hippogriff
for signing up and still get to do the same as the rest of us, and take your
share of any riches we find along the way.
Of course, the true benefit of our woman riding a hippogriff is that her
face is further away from my eyes, hopefully soon to be a long way away as she
starts flying, and thus I am spared exposure to her hideousness. Just need to get one for four-arms now, and
we’ll be spared exposure to ugliness most of the time. Artox thinks that stacking the group with
really god looking people might counteract the ugly ones, but more people means
less share of loot, so I can’t see that as a good idea. Maybe we just need to replace the ugly ones
with good looking people capable of doing the same job. Scarily, the ugly chick who had now started
showing symptoms of Blood Veil, was not made more attractive by the weeping,
puss-oozing, bleeding blisters all over her face hiding her natural appearance,
although they did make her finally realize that she’s ugly. I’m sure she’ll think she’s attractive again
once this disease clears up though. Still,
their impact on a victim’s appearance can apparently be minimized by ensuring
that only truly ugly people are infected.
Visits to several temples revealed (surprise, surprise) that
while the city is suffering from a plague outbreak, it is difficult to get
remove disease spells. The Bank of Abadar
is handing out free healing for the first time in its history, although they
are reserving some for those that can pay a price significantly higher than
normal. So they are supporting the city’s
poor, doing what they can to minimize the plague. Except that they are also profiteering from
it. I can see what the cleric sees in
this church, but I am confused as to his apparent conflict over church
policy. Anyway, we all stood around
twiddling our thumbs (except Artox, of course, who simply stood around) for
what seemed like an aeon while the cleric went and talked to other clerics in
the Bank. Wow, next time we have a day
of “rest”, I’m either staying in bed or in the inn’s taproom. And I’m definitely not accede to Artox’s request
to leave him unsummoned on such a day. Or
maybe I will, he was getting pretty desperate for me to release him by the end
of the day. At least he’s too proud to
grovel any more than he kind of has to by way of having no legs. Wonder if he’d show a little less without
four-arms around. That guy just really
rubs Artox the wrong way. We also
discovered that the church of Shelyn had been trashed by an angry mob. I guess I was right, and there are people who
just aren’t all that beautiful on the inside.
After this day of wasted time, wandering around taking care of other
people’s needs I was feeling in desperate need of a bath, and so was relieved
when we finally headed home to the inn.
Unfortunately, our return to the inn and a hot bath was
interrupted when we noticed that we were being followed. After rounding a corner, several of us hid in
order to confront our stalker, and after gun-nut pressed his weapon into her
forehead, we discovered that it was merely a young elven woman seeking our
assistance. Apparently her half-brother,
a well-known, half-elven musician, had disappeared after attending a party at a
noble residence in town. Her efforts to
investigate had led nowhere, with the house being closed up and not receiving
visitors, and with no signs of life, including a lack of lights in the building
at night. Naturally, given the clearly
racist nature of the attack on her family, we accepted her charge, not hurt by
the fact that she is an attractive woman, and headed for the mansion. Justin insisted on some form of payment for
our services, and the woman agreed to write a ballad about Mandraiv’s
Magnificent Seven and our deeds repeatedly saving the city from disaster. We really should get a move on with solving
this plague problem, or there won’t be anyone left alive to remember how we
saved the city and everyone in it repeatedly before the plague.
Given the potentially illegal activity we were about to
undertake, we headed around the back of the mansion and entered the grounds,
climbing over a hedge to do so. The
cleric had a little trouble with the climb, and four-arms seemed to think that
assisting him was a big deal, getting all puffed up and strutty after lowering
a rope. My link with Artox was going
nuts with his comments, and I was forced to agree audibly – how will four-arms
improve himself if we don’t explain some of the finer points of adventuring
manners and decorum to him? Or at least
let him hear when we are criticising him?
Artox got this quickly enough and we started speaking normally about
him. I also found that I was able to
mollify Artox somewhat by reminding him that soon the gallant deeds of Mandraiv’s
Magnificent Seven would be sung of in every bar, theatre and hall in the city.
Once over the hedge, we discovered that the garden was
filled with dropped masks, obviously left from the party. We then started on the servant’s quarters,
where we discovered that the building was filled with diseased bodies, although
the disease was not the plague infecting the city, blood veil, but actually
Vorel’s Phage, a disease that we had already established was very similar to
the plague but not as bad. As it was
starting to look more and more like the plague was deliberately set loose in
the city, and may even be a magical, enhanced mutation of a more natural
disease, we hurried on to the main house.
Inside we discovered that there were corpses everywhere, all diseased,
and several that were animated as zombies.
We started killing the zombies and were soon confronted by a crazy elf
woman dressed up as a clown. She was
pretty lethal with a crossbow, taking care of four arms without much trouble
(although a little help from a couple of her zombies), bet we were soon able to
close with her and force her surrender.
Interrogation proved difficult for a couple of reasons. Firstly, she seemed to be tuned on by
pain. While this allowed me a pleasant
diversion for a few seconds, other people objected to me beating her to
death. Secondly, four-arms kept
interrupting anyone talking to her, gagging her and generally being a massive
pain in the ass. Just for a change. Four-arms also insisted we treat her “right”. Maybe he has a crush on the warrior, as he
seems to be trying to act like him and more and more. This could play nicely into my hands, as a
gay relationship between those two should prevent any king of possible
political rivalry from them in my future.
She was also quite irritating with her mad ramblings, and with all these
issues, we were able to get very limited information from her. We
managed to extract that she had deliberately infected all of the servants and
guests with diseases, on Fyffe’s orders, from her. We discovered that Fyffe had taken our
target, the half-elf to some hideout in the city, and she also told us of a
cellar – presumably with a secret tunnel to allow Fyffe to come and go at will,
but our investigation of it revealed only a secret room. Inside the room were some racy paintings of
the manor’s owner and his wife, and the manor’s owner. He was somewhat annoyed when we informed him
that we’d found his wife dead upstairs, and for some reason this infuriated
four arms. Or maybe that he was
drunk. Four-arms started abusing the guy
for a coward, hiding in this room while everyone else was killed, and it took a
lot of effort for us to calm our companion down enough to have anything even
remotely resembling a civil conversation with the noble. Four-arms seemed unable to understand that of
course the man would be drunk – not by choice, but because he’s been trapped in
a cellar for several days with nothing to drink except wine. Some people have a really hard time dealing
with the fact that some people are simply their social betters, and deserving
of respect purely as their birth right.
It was nice to hear the gun nut agreeing with me (and basically everyone
else) on this, and we were eventually able to escort the noble, along with the
mad elf woman, to the city watch to report to the captain. For some reason four arms seemed desperate to
have her hanged, although I can’t think of a reason we couldn’t just deal with
her quietly and without fuss, but I guess a public execution might make the
citizens of Korvosa see that the guard is acting to protect the city from the
plague and calm them down somewhat.
On our way back to the inn from the citadel, we were again
approached by someone needing our assistance.
There is something badly wrong with Korvosa, a city where we can’t even
get home after a day’s work without being offered more work. Even with a plague raging through the
place. Anyway, this old, ugly woman with
yellow yes approached us. She told us
that she was a wererat, and that there was some crazy wererat hanging out in
the sewers and gathering others of his kind together in order to strike at the
human inhabitants of Korvosa, presumably trying to take advantage of the plague. The old woman told us that this had happened
before, and that she wanted him stopped quickly and quietly, as she could remember
the last time a wererat tried something like this, and the retaliations that followed. Given the certain failure of his endeavour,
she was afraid for all of the innocent wererats that would be harmed if he
attacked the city. She asked us to put
down this ring-leader, but to try not to harm the other wererats that had thrown
in with him. While I could understand
his feelings, having been treated poorly throughout my time in Korvosa due to
my race, I can’t see any reason why this would lead one to an attack on the
city which is doomed to fail.
Unforgivable stupidity. Anyway,
the old woman was offering up information regarding the source of the plague to
us for taking care of this dirty rat, so we agreed to murder him.
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