During the days after, Jenny and Victor apply for fencing classes and Lauren starts a collection of living spiders. They sell some of the loot for a nice sum of 5000 GP. With it, they buy a sorely needed Wand of Cure Light Wounds and that leaves 850 GP for each of us to spend or save for ourselves.
Jenny’s mother, who is curious to the company her daughter keeps, decides to organize a surprise dinner party to get to know the adventurers. So that evening they are all invited for an original Halfling dinner…
Starters
- Halfling rolls: sticky buns with caramelized vegetables
- Sharp Varisian goat cheese
- Stewed prunes
Main course
- Mutton with blackberries
- Carrots in vine leaves
- Korvosan duck eggs
- Alikan oisters
- Crusted jigsaw fin
- Bordeto (fish stew) with thileu bark
Dessert
- Plum pudding
- Flatbread
- Custard and apple pie
- Oliphant ears
Not just the dinner is a surprise for Jenny: there is also a very special guest. Jenny’s mother invited Irina, a handsome, sturdy battle priestess of Saerlindrea who used to adventure with Jenny’s father.
The evening is very pleasant, the dinner excellent and completely stuffed the party rolls home.
The next day Irina shows up to teach Jenny how to handle scimitars, something they had talked about the other night. She and Piousa have an interesting and educative (for Piousa) conversation about church and faith.
Along the week Piousa helps Lauren with her collection of spiders. When they return home one evening, walking on the river bank, they hear the alarm bells sound from the harbour. When they walk back to check it out, they see a ship, lit with only one lamp, entering the city river from the bay. Soon it is sunk by ballistas from the harbour defense.
When they get home they tell Victor and Ulfgard what they saw. Unable to resist such a sensational story, Victor immediately leaves for the harbour, accompanied by an equally intrigued Ulfgard. They find out the mystery vessel refused to identify itself – it even seemed as if no one was on board at all. That is why it was sunk.
Of course the city is rife with rumours: it was a ghost ship, the ship was quarantined, they were pirates…
A few days later Grau calls upon the party, more specifically Piousa. He tells her his niece has fallen very ill and that his sister-in-law is unable to cure her, and asks Piousa, as priestess of Abadar, to come and see if there is anything she can do.
With the attack of their vengeful enemy still firmly in their minds Ulfgard and Lauren are unwilling to let Piousa go by herself. Victor and Jenny decide to tag along as well and so the entire party walks to Trail’s End, a poorer and mainly Varisian district of Korvosa, close to where the ship was sunk.
Upon arrival they meet Taecy, the mother of the sick girl, and her two sons. There is also a priest of Abadat present. He asks if Piousa also wants to take a look at the girl, who has high fever, coughs and is covered with red spots. He refuses to cast Remove Disease because the family can’t afford the fee so Piousa, who can’t cast the spell herself at that moment, pays him for the spell. The event catapults her into a crisis of faith.
When the girl is healed and the priest has left, Piousa questions her on what she has been doing before she got ill. The girl tells her she helped out with the laundry, went to check up on her brothers who were fishing and that she found a small case with some money on the beach.
Jenny searches the beach, Victor tries to gather information from the neighbours and Ulfgard keeps watch in a tavern. He is not there for the beer (at least, that’s what he said). Jenny stumbles upon a small cilinder, covered with strange markings and as they seem religious to her, she takes them with her for Piousa to study.
Piousa knows the markings are symbols of Uruagatoa, the goddess of disease, gluttony and the undead. She thinks the money in the cilinder was infected with the disease the little girl caught. When Grau drops by that evening she tells him of her suspicions, and Jenny and Piousa bring the cilinder and the coins to the temple of Farrasma for research. Victor and Ulfgard report their findings to Cressida.
At the temple of Farrasma the cilinder causes great upheaval. The bisshop, Cappira D’Bear, knows it is a so-called Death Heads Coffin, a box used to transport a disease from one place to another. She wants to keep it for further investigation and so does Cressida, when she hears of it.
When everyone gets home the lights are on and Selara sits at the table, prepared for a Harrow Reading. Everyone has to pick a card:
- Piousa: the Survivor – she conquered many misfortunes
- Ulfgard: the Brass Dwarf – beer (?)
- Lauren: the Tangled Briar – she is still dealing with issues of her past
- Victor: the Desert – he wants to manipulate the city into becoming a better place
- Jenny: the Trumpet – if we do good, good things happen for us
The reading:
| 1. The Beating | 4. The Rabbit Prince | 7. The Snake Bite |
| 2. The Crows | 5. The Peacock | 8. The Mute Hag |
| 3. The Keep | 6. The Avalanche | 9. The Betrayal |
Past
1: People whose actions have been critisized from all sides but who found strength as a group
2: Loss, theft, an important person has gone missing
3: Opponents whose underlying strength endures the most difficult of times
Present
4: Our versatility. The broken sword warns us our strength must not be broken.
5: Beauty can only be kept when people accept they themselves change. Indicates a major change in your vision on the world around you
6: Unthinking, unreasonable something which can break anything in its way. Uncontrollable.
Future
7: We will be heartbroken by something which will become huge and will paralyse. We will discover what is behind it and it will be of help in the future.
8: A secret pact to poison the city. It will be difficult to know when and how to act.
9: Nothing is like it seems and a beautiful facade hides an evil heart. In the end it will result in destruction.
The next morning Piousa finds a note from Vencarlo Orisini, who asks if we want to drop by that evening. Of course we go and we’re taken to a darkened study where we meet with Vencarlo and Trinia. Orisini asks if we want to help Trinia escape the city through the North Gate.
We disguise her as Piousa and manage to safely send her on her way. Before she leaves, she gives Victor a present and a kiss (and he’s over the moon…). The present contains her painting kit.
While we escort Trinia, Piousa discoveres many more people have fallen ill. She goes to the temple of Abadar to try and speak with Ishanti, the priest who was at the girls house yesterday.
The next day a messenger from Ishanti arrives. He asks us to come to the temple because he cannot come to us. We leave for the temple but take precautions againt the swiftly spreading illness. The temple is besieged by many who have fallen ill. Inside we meet with Ishanti, who needs an escort to the Guard House. We disguise him (it’s becoming our forte) and help him through the crowd.
When we reach the Guard House we are just in time to hear Cressida announce the presence of the Gray Maidens, an order of warriors directly under command of the Queen, and an order called The Queen´s Physicians. Both Orders need to be obeyed at all times by the guards, without questioning, as they are here to fight the plague that has begun to spread through the city.
Tags: gray maidens, irina, ishanti, queen´s physicians, trinia, vencarlo, zellara