Session 1 Report
General Summary
We start the day in the briefing room with Captain Aries and the four investigators who had come together merely a month ago - Zariel , Izirael , Cato , and Damocles the III. The Captain starts their briefing by introducing their newest team member, Remiel. After a short round of hazing New Girl, the Captain deems that it is time to get down to business and assigns them their missing persons case. A well to do family's daughter has reported that her sister and her bodyguard entourage had gone missing the night before. The family's manor is located in Peak Valley and the person to get in contact was named Mina. With that, he sent them off.
Arrving in Peak Valley, the door is answered by the member of the Last Defenders that the group had pushed away from Delmare a month ago. After threatening him once more, he relents and lets the investigators in to speak with Mina. Mina explains that her family regularly employs the Last Defenders as bodyguards for both her and her sister, Ava. Mina further explains that her sister regularly goes out at night, but is always back by the next morning. She left with her bodyguards and nobody has sent word as to what was happening, so she became worried. The investigators interrogate Azer, the Last Defender that opened the door for them, as to what his group might be up to. The most they could get from him was a reccomendation to speak with Loran. Mina offered to seal a letter of introduction, and the group thanked her for that. While Azer was writing up the letter, the investigators moved to search Ava's room for any clues or information as to why she might have left without saying a word. The room did not yield any explanation, but it was strangely devoid of the supplies for a trip that would take longer than a day as well as a missing armor set from one of the displays around the room. Azer finished the letter and begrudgingly gave it to them before the group made their way outside to see if they could pick up any tracks.
Remiel was easily able to pick up the trail and followed it all the way to the slums where the tracks became mixed and mangled with the numerous other trails that people left behind. From here, Zariel was able to summon a horse and transform it into a hellhound to pick up a scent trail to follow. They followed their hound, who was deemed Fredrick, through the slums before they were stopped by a Last Defender sitting on a rooftop, guarding the area. She introduced herself as Rinra, and offered to help them out after ensuring that they were not a threat. Fredrick lead them to the wall of the city where the trail seemed to end as it ran straight through the wall.
The investigators, expecting some foul play, cast spells to detect any lingering magic and, luckily, whoever cast the spell left an aura strong enough to last long enough for them to pick it up. Somebody had cast a high level spell, Passwall, and traveled through the stone. Zariel sent her familiar over the wall to inspect the situation and Lyra came back reporting a secret door carved into the wall. While some of the investigators were debating the best tactic for crossing to the otherside without using the North or South gates, Remiel decided to begin climbing her way to the top. She made it about halfway up before the guard tower spotted her and told her to get down. After Remiel climbed back down, the investigators decided to fly themselves over the wall after notifying the guard tower that they would be crossing.
On the other side, the group confirmed the secret door, but could not find a mechanism for opening it. Fredrick was able to pick the scent back up and lead the group into the nearby forest. They followed Fredrick on into the evening until they caught up to the group they were tracking. Ava was indeed with the group, but had not been kidnapped. Ava explained that she hadn't been kidnapped and that she had told her sister that she would not be returning. The group identified themselves as the Last Defenders and told the investigators to turn back. The investigators agreed to, after arguing for a bit, but only if Ava would write a letter to her sister explaining the situation once more. Ava agreed and the tension faded as the investigators turned back away from the camp of the Last Defenders.
The investigators, sensing something still was not right here, decided to follow the Last Defenders to find out what they were up to. They sent Virgil back to Mina with the letter, and called in Owlman to scout ahead for them. As they continued on, the Last Defender's scout circumvented theirs and stopped the investigators to talk. He introduced himself as Alvaris, and asked them to not make his job difficult. He explained that the Last Defenders were just out here to meet a guy and kill some Meerans, so it was nothing to worry about. The investigators countered by telling Alvaris that his friends had evil auras surrounding them, and that it could only help to have the police here; even if they were outside of their jurisdiciton. If his friends weren't up to anything nefarious, then they would leave them alone. If Alvaris' friends were up to no good, then he would need their help to stop him. Alvaris hesitantly agreed and lead the investigators onward.
Once the Last Defenders had set up camp, Alvaris told them that they would probably only be getting a couple of hours of sleep at this point and to be ready to move again soon. He left them and returned to his friends camp. Lyra was tasked with following to make sure Alvaris didn't betray them and to let the investigators know when the Last Defenders were getting up to move. When it was time for the investigators to continue tracking their marks, Lyra was brought back to remove their drowsiness from how little sleep they got.
After following the group for a little longer, the investigators found themselves on the souther coast near the rarely used docks. Offshore they spotted a ship and used some divination magic to get an idea of what was coming to shore; nothing but sailors and refugees. As the ship came closer, a noble Aasimar teleported in. Darsin. He came in and was greeted by the Last Defenders and Remiel read their lips to get an idea of what was happening. Darsin first confirmed that the Last Defenders were not followed; Alvaris confirmed to both Darsin and his group that they were not. Next, he explained that they would be in charge of taking care of the refugees and bringing them, and any potential Meeran among them, to a building just inside of the southern gate. When the ship arrived, Darsin gathered all of the refugees and took a good look at all of them. Once done, he proclaimed them all to be Meeran, and the Last Defenders sprung into action, rounding them all up. Both Alvaris and the refugees pleaded and begged for Darsin to look again, but Alvaris was dimissed and the refugees were quickly beaten into submission by the hired group.
After rounding them all up, Darsin teleported away and left the Defenders to transport them back to the city. The investigators followed the Defenders route northward back to the city, and Alvaris broke away to speak to the investigators with the excuse of scouting around. Alvaris was not convinced that the entire lot of refugees were Meeran and didn't want to mistakenly kill innocents. He worked with the group to come up with a plan to get the refugees away from the Last Defenders and into the custody of the investigators.
First, Cato infiltrated the refugees due to the defenders never seeing his face during their encounter the night before. He passed the plan along to the refugees and kept them all quiet and calm. Next, Cato "mysteriously" broke free and began running into the forest when only one guard was left awake, and Alvaris was scouting around. The guard, Diesel, did not have time to call Alvaris back from scouting and ran to catch Cato himself. Izirael was ready, disguised as a hag, to give them both a speed boost and buy enought time for the others to free the refugees. Damocles created an illusory veil over the refugees to make it appear as if everything was fine in case any of the other Defenders awoke. After keeping the refugees calm and moving them far enough away, Remiel and Zariel had them all wait here. Izirael and Cato teleported back to the group, and Damocles, along with Zariel, created an illusion of a tentacle monster eating all of the refugees; using the spell black tentacles to add a physical touch to the act. Diesel returned to the camp and informed them that one Meeran had escaped and the others were eaten by the magic of the Hag in the Woods.
The group moved the refugees northward overnight and around the city. Before bringing the refugees into the city, the investigators checked to ensure that they took care of any actual Meerans that were hiding amongst the refugees. They split the refugees into three smaller groups, explaining that it would be suspicious to bring in this many refugees at once, leaving only the Meeran in the last group. They sent word to Captain Aries that they had captured some Meeran outside of North Gate and asked him to bring some help, off the books. Aries agreed and met Remiel at the North Gate. Remiel's father, Torin, had also just finished delivering a group of refugees into the city, and agreed to go smash some Meeran with his daughter and old friend, Aries. The investigators, along with their backup, easily dispatched the Meeran and made their way back to the city.
After hearing their verbal report, Captain Aries asked the group to follow up with Mina before concluding their investigation. Something still wasn't sitting right with him with Mina just forgetting or refusing to believe Ava was leaving. Arriving back at Mina's house, the group conducted one more search of her house and noticed two things amiss. First, there was an enchantment aura lingering on Mina, and, second, their household registry had shown Darsin visiting about two weeks prior. Quickly surmising that Mina's memories had been altered, they asked her to confirm the date. She said that it was the date of about two weeks prior. They thanked her for her time, and confirmed the correct date to her, but she didn't seem to think anything of the discrepency.
The investigators returned to the precinct to give their full report to Aries, who agreed to give them two days off and offered to help them requisition things that they may need. Cato asked for his hospital and war records. The team also asked if they could set up a refugee receiving system similar to the one set up for North Gate; implying that there were some shady dealings with South Gate.
Missions/Quests Completed
The Missing Persons Case: Ava
Report Date
15 Jan 2022
Primary Location
Related Characters