Urbs Magna X: Spoils of War Report

General Summary

With Elissa bas Sisa rescued the party began to search the cellar of Domus Kerularios hoping to find supplies. They instead stumbled into a torture chamber. Alexandru Croitoru suggested they save this grizzly discovery until after they’d (hopefully) recovered their arms and armor and the party quickly backtracked to find a different series of rooms near the cells. As they rounded the corner, Kegho felt a thrum of energy up his spine and knew Skullcleaver was near.   They found a storage room and armory and found all of their belongings. Theophilus Chandler was tempted by a quality warhammer, but ultimately preferred the comforting weight of his trusty mace, Frogslayer. Asbjørn Þórsteinnsson appreciated the heft of the hammer and added it to his growing arsenal. Taint-stabber, slayer of the acolyte of a fallen god, practically danced as Alex slashed and jabbed about the room with it. Teleptyon Marathonos collected extra gear to give to Justina Phrantze to help her get a future crew supplied. Kegho found his axe, made of an unknown metal and inscribed with indecipherable runes; as he reached out to touch it the party briefly shared a vision of his hulking form on a craggy outcropping, littered with cloven skulls. Behind him there was an endless, starless void broken only by a fork of white-hot lightning; instead of thunder, the laugh of the Ashkuz barbarian pealed out across the wasteland. The lightning disappeared just as quickly and each believed his mind had played a trick on him and none mentioned it aloud.   Once re-equipped they found the wine cellar. Alex suggested they look for bottles that had been stored carefully and were older or dustier. They had fanned out to search the room for particularly lux bottles of wine—except for Asbjørn, who uncorked the first bottle his meaty fist could find, but Theo reminded them that the upstairs was filled with quickly cooling corpses and Liberius Kerularios was likely returning with a posse. Properly chastised, they shoved whatever bottles they could find into their bags and prepared to move on. Theo cleverly suggested that they create a distraction by telling the revelers outside that the master had opened his cellars in an act of good will.   They next headed to inspect on the torture room where they found a grisly scene. Alex checked yet another cell, which contained a skeleton showing signs of the flesh having been removed by implement rather than time. Knowing this, the party regrouped and headed out quickly, comforted that Gallienus had been a monster and feeling that Ator's Justice had been served by his death.   As they exited, Alex locked the doors to the dining room and the servant’s kitchen to hide most of the bodies and did his best to funnel future partiers to the stinking cells and the torture chamber before they'd find the wine cellar. He might not be able to get a knife into Liberius’s back, but he could make sure the remaining family would be rocked by scandal. They scooped up Flavio, and walked or stumbled outside, grinning gaily and waving expensive wine bottles, and shouting to the crowd about the generosity of the master to have opened his cellars. Tales of the abattoir below Domus Kerularios would spread through the city like fire that night.   They found Justinia waiting discretely outside the home and asked her to take them someplace with baths. They end up at Eliza's Inn on Lion's Square in Nestoria Harbor. Alex began sorting coin out of the party’s purse but is only able to pay for the rooms before Theo covered meals and baths for all. Clean and fed the party rested until healed. They dined with Flavio, who believed that his kidnapping was part of larger machinations relating to the assassination of Doge Alator. He explained that the Eknon Empire saw itself as the heir to the Rexan Empire, and all of its former territory, but the Aeriscan League operated as free cities and did not recognize the authority of Eknopolis. The constant threat of the undead was the only thing preventing all out war.   He asked the party to return to Fort Merula to help him by scouting a Monastery that had gone silent in the Getha Hills. The forces of Merula were already stretched thin and he did not want to send the militia until there had been some reconnaissance.   Teleptyon sent Justina looking for any enclaves of philosophers of the arcane or at least leads on any who might manipulate the Ar, but the mages proved too elusive in the current political climate. She did find a man looking for adventurers, and Teleptyon agreed to meet him at a Shemite inn. He told ancient stories of the Khemites and Myrmex, two great civilizations of the Third Age, who had fought over the once verdant region now known as the Sennu Desert and their collapse during the events that led to the Drachomachia and the ending of the Third Age. He believed that a Khemite tomb contained a map to the Library of the Myrmex and technologies and techniques for manipulation of the Ar which exceeded anything the current races could achieve. Teleptyon promised he would discuss it with his companions and give the man an answer in a week.   While Teleptyon sought esoteric guidance, Kegho and Asbjorn caroused, Theo engaged in charitable work, and Alex made contact with some upstanding Oameni in the import/export business in Xenicos and began marketing Abrian Oameni rotgut as a fashionably-rugged Aeriscan frontier wine. Alex was impressed that these legitimate business Oameni were able to secure an exemption from Eknopolite tariffs and was pleased to have generated a trade link that benefited both the battered Abrian Oameni community and the more robust Eknopolite one.