Session 16: Side-sidequest

General Summary

Upon finally entering the gates of Morheim and walking around the rainy streets of the provincial capital, Nacklenook left Thomas and Úshrir in order to find information on his personal mission. Thomas and Úshrir on the other hand tried to find their way around the town in search of information about the shard that might be hiding in the city. As they walked around they saw a notice about a dwarf noble who had been sentenced to die in two days for attempting to raise the dead. What stood out was the fact that the mage hunters of the Iron Circle claimed to have exonerated the merchant Viktor Kling who was accused by the dwarf nobleman for framing him for his own crimes. Remembering the alias of the vampire Lazarus, they realised that the dwarf was most likely innocent.   They made their way to the Iron Circles ebony tower, a four-story tower with an iron halo circling the top. Inside they were met by a Magus of the order who seemed suspicious of the pair since they seemed to be trying to contact and take the party of a sentenced malpractioner of necromancy. After asking them to leave he turned around and without noticing dropped a key with three symbols on it. The pair picked it up and snuck over to a door marked by one of these symbols. Inside they found that it was a massive walk-in closet for the robes of the order's members. They decided to try and break the dwarf out. After being found by the halfling Novice Heidi and helping her with her chores they managed to find the holding cells where the dwarf was being held, now wearing Iron Circle Novice robes.   Inside they found that the guarding magus was fast asleep and thus Thomas could easily sneak in and find the dwarf named Mikum Himmler Naysayer, and after getting the noble's belongings they managed to quietly sneak out of the building. Together they made their way up to one of the more independent and diverse inns. The Red Teeth Tavern, the frequent home of many adventurers, bounty hunters, and monster hunters. There they also met the owl-like aarakocra Heiwa, a druid of the Wylde Hunt. She was sent to help the group by her fellow druid Jerrycoy, who deemed their mission of the utmost importance.   Later that same day they went down to the Mormine district to see the famous Grand Temple of Torag, which bore a statue of the god which always glowed with the light of a bright summer's day. Fearing that something had happened to it in the time that Mikum had been mind-controlled by Lazarus, since he had shown interest in the Grand Temple. They quickly realised that the light had come from a shard in the statue and it was now in the vampire's possession. They also realised that the shard that might have been the reason for the massive fertility of the Baurlandian soil had likely also been stolen. This meant that they had most likely travelled in the wrong direction since the next big city that might hide a shard was on the other end of the empire. They needed a way to travel quicker to catch up with the vampire.   Finding trader of rare mounts in the western part of the city, they set their gaze on a couple of hippogriffs. But to afford such mounts they realised they had to make a massive amount of gold fast. Luckily they were in the epicentre of monster hunting in the empire, and with the struggles to produce enough food down in Bauerland, the demand for the craft had risen tremendously. Therefore they went out to the local guilds that might have an interest in their services, namely the Clot Cloaks and the Gourmet Gorget. After much deliberation they decided to take on a mission to travel north and retrieve some dragon eggs from the lair of a red dragon that had been plaguing the mountains to the north-east of Morland. But first they needed gold to finance this mission and so took on a quest to rid a part of the sewers from Othuygs, which had been a growing problem in the city's underworld. They spent a day to do this first mission and then prepare before setting out towards the dragons domain.