Chapter 5, Session 4: Indulging Murdercorum Inc.

General Summary

'Well, you're MY family Bazzle and I'm glad I finally found you.'

• Mimsi speaks to Bazzle after finding him within The Hook and Knife Foundation laboratories.

Persicorum had light drinks and stayed alert into the night as they decided to enact their plan to use Thordak as bait to lure out the necromancer Lancel Barbarios and entrap him. With Thordak sent out to pretend to be heavily intoxicated in the centre of the tiers square, the rest of the party set themselves up in the area and stayed stealthed in nearby alleyways, during this time, Kodo noticed a group of The Crownsguard passed out with a strong scent of alcohol though he could not gather anything more about their conditions after critically failing a medicine check.
Eventually, the party watched as a dark cloaked figure approached Thordak, seemingly not being noticed by any of the drunk commoners in the area. They conversed in Orcish for a short time which nobody else in the party seemed to understand before the party watched the mage cast a spell on Thordak that made the orc's eyes glaze over and forced him to follow Lancel as he began to walk away.
Hoping to use this chance to avoid a drawn out and dangerous combat, Kodo snuck up and stunned the necromancer for a time before Anastasia helped to tie him up and they dragged the mage to an abandoned alleyway, stressing throughout that they wanted a negotiation and a conversation with him. During this time, the mage was also gagged but still very nearly succeeded in casting a spell using just his grimoire which Fen managed to counterspell in time before showing off his own Grimoire of Envy to the necromancer who was transfixed at the sight of it. Eventually, Lancel calmed himself and agreed to at least speak to the party, not seeing an easy chance of escape otherwise.
With that, the party asked the necromancer what his motives were for his current killing spree and why he simply doesn't leave Eastbourne to which he replied that he had a personal vendetta against the elected ruler of Eastbourne, Imbros Verity after Lancel claimed that Verity was an Aist Mage who had used his powers to protect Eastbourne against the threat of The Dread King 75 years ago. However when the The Crown versus the 'Aist' act was established Imbros allowed The Inquisitors to remove his memories, though Lancel claimed that Imbros still has aist magic and has figured out a way to fool Inquisitors senses meaning they cannot smell the aist magic on him. Lancel tried to publicly find proof of Verity's nature in order to force others to acknowledge the truth, however, Verity caught and defeated Lancel and so now he wishes to assault the city with his undead horde and sew chaos to get a response instead.
The party explained to Lancel that they wanted to break into The Hook and Knife Foundation to break out a friend of theirs and that they wanted the necromancer to attack the front of the building with his undead to make a distraction for them to exploit, the necromancer agreed as long as the party agreed to give him any dead they make so he may animate them and that they agreed to torch the building afterwards to ensure there was as much chaos and discord as possible, with Lancel seeing this as an opportunity to begin his conquest of Eastbourne with the assistance of Persicorum.
With this agreement in place, the party decided to attack the building the next night so that they could all be properly rested. For the rest of the night they then split up.
Kodo and Anastasia went to the highest tier of Eastbourne where the government offices where and they hid out in an alleyway to watch the Hook and Knife foundation out of fear that Bazzle would be moved. While keeping watch, Anastasia realised the ground floor of the building was completely abandoned at night but that there was a shaft of light emanating from within that she realised was coming from a basement door, she also learned there was a backdoor space where deliveries were accepted which could act as an entry point for the party.
Meanwhile, Mimsi spent her night making a start reading the observation notes that Hook and Knife had recorded in their notebooks, she realised she had been collected by them and made a part of The Talented as a baby which is why she had no memory of it. The notebook went on to claim Mimsi's body was extremely receptive to 'the scale' but that she displayed far too much joy and emotion to be a perfect member of the talented. From reading, she then realised that Hook and Knife had organised her being found by Monastery of Flowers and trained by them whilst being observed the whole time, though it seems they did not want her to join the Yurshis but were interested in her free will being exercised... when they realised it was a mistake it was already too late as the Yurshi horde did not allow their agents close enough to take Mimsi away. Mimsi stopped reading there for the night as she completed a long rest.
The next morning, Persicorum gathered in The Slotted Spoon to have breakfast where Anastasia and Kodo explained what they saw last night outside the foundation and the party agreed to try and attack the building from it's warehouse at night after vetoing Olympia's plan for them to use the carriage to pretend they are delivery drivers for the foundation. Once agreed, the party went to The Ratcatcher's Trinkets to be served by a Tiefling boy named Minus who sold the party a variety of magical items including several potions of healing, a potion of fire breath, an arm bangel to empower Kodo's unarmed strikes and a pauldron that Anastasia bought, the pauldron specifically allowed Anastasia to scry or read the mind of a chosen person that she writes the name of on the armour.
Equipped and ready, the party made their way to the Hook and Knife foundation when the sun began to set where they waited in a nearby alleyway for Lancel to appear, which took several hours. However, before long, the necromancer appeared and summoned hordes of undead to start assaulting everyone in the area, innocent and crownsguard alike.
Using this opportunity as Crownsguard were summoned to the surrounding area, the party stealthily reached the back of the Foundation, assisted by Anastasia's Pass without a Trace spell. The party quickly dispatched the two guards at the back of the building, taking them out before they could respond or raise an alarm.
The party quickly searched the guards and found that they each had a messaging stone that was not activated, the party took these and moved into the building, breaking into Hook office where Anastasia broke into and searched his trunk, taking all of his papers, a 300gp diamond and 450 gold pieces. With that, the party opened the basement door and moved down into a white tiled, clean and well defended laboratory.
The party immediately entered and started combat, with Olympia loudly killing a guard using Vicious Mockeryand then using Locate Object to learn Bazzle's ruby eye was in the nearby vicinity... confirming that they had a chance of finding the goblin.
With that, an incredibly chaotic encounter started where the party fought groups of Crownsguard emerging from nearby rooms in the laboratory, with Grendel running into a seperate office and taking heavy damage in the process in order to steal several different documents.
The encounter proved to become further complicated when the party were forced to fight the intimidating and violent Inquisitor Jaxos who seemed to have a Masked Brigade mage under his control called Nash who attacked the party, notably using blood magic on Fen and casting a high level Thunderstep that badly damaged Kodo and Olympia. Nash was in the habit of constantly apologising but soon moved back to keep their distance, proving not to be as hardy as the other soldiers.
As the fight wore on, Jaxos engaged the party, specifically focusing on Fen and claiming that his father, Magus Erolith Undergaige had recently had his tongue removed which enraged the young wizard and led Fen to channel the pact he had made with his Reaper hound to deal massive damage with a fireball blast to the Inquisitor, using his fiendish blood to make the flame hellish by nature. Kodo faced the Inquisitor for a time before deciding to focus on reaching Bazzle. Leaving Anastasia and Fen to face Jaxos who used an action surge to deal massive damage to Fen. Luckily for them, Olympia used her wand of Magic Missiles to finish off the Inquisitor... leading Fen to store his soul in his Grimoire of Envy.
Inquisitor Jaxos dying led to a major turn in the battle as his hold on Nash was severed and the other Crownsguard began to panic as the Aist mage desperately tried to rip his mask off, finally succeeding in doing so with the help of Kodo. Upon being freed, they tearfully hugged Kodo and apologised for what they had done, thanking him profusely and then focusing on the fleeing Crownsguard.
During the fight, Mimsi was turned Invisible by Olympia and used this magic to sprint ahead and run through an office space for scientists and researchers before reaching a heavy, locked door. There was a Crownsguard on the other side who became panicked when he learned that Mimsi was trying to get inside... he notably refused to open the door and Mimsi (looking through the keyhole) saw that the tip of his blade was bloodied. Kodo and Anastasia soon joined Mimsi and used the key Anastasia had taken the day before to open up the door.
During this time, the rest of the party decided to kill the remaining Crownsguard in order to ensure there were no witnesses of what the party had done... and also so that Olympia could coin the party brand of murder as 'Murdercorum'. The party used Nash's spellcasting and desire for vengeance to paralyse the crownsguard and finish them off with ease.
Entering this final lab, Mimsi, Kodo and Anastasia found themselves in a dark and dingy space that they could only fully appreciate when the Crownsguard within was allowed to run away (to find Fen and Olympia waiting to execute him from around the corner). Within the lab there was a centre console contained many incubation chambers with large eggs inside... all broken... Though more concerning to Mimsi was that in each corner of the room was a goblin, three of them were dead whilst the fourth was a barely breathing and freshly wounded Bazzle Strum-Strum. Mimsi angrily yelled at Kodo to come and help Bazzle as he was not responding to her and seemed clammy and near death. Soon after, Anastasia ran into the room and used Cure Wounds on Bazzle, he was exhausted and feverish but came to enough to see Mimsi again and tell her about his disappointment at finding his 'family' as well as stating the other three goblins were fresh as Knife was bringing more and more goblins in to experiment on each day. With that, Bazzle allowed himself to be carried by Kodo and the party set fire to the laboratory and the rest of the building, after stealing all of the papers and evidence that they could. As they left, Anastasia realised that the eggs in the incubation chamber were actually dragon eggs of a wide variety of colours. Anastasia grabbed the shards of a red dragon egg as she left.
Nash was waiting for the party outside and expressed his gratitude for everything they had done for him as well as offering them a night in his small home to lie low and rest out of sight. He then explained that he recognised Bazzle, he was being used as a piece of experiment equipment as they were grafting the jewel in his eye and taking his blood before feeding it to the other goblin in an attempt to 'recreate' what Bazzle could do. Though Nash explained that every goblin died from the experience, he also explained that the dragon eggs were the newest in a batch that had failed to survive the incubation chamber, Nash also explained that the scientists were bringing through so many dragon eggs that they likely were using a supplier (though the only one Nash could recall was Saravix who supplied a local Maestro with dragon meat) the party then allowed Nash to guide them to his home on the lowest tier, a cheap and dingy studio apartment space with very few sleeping implements and a small rodent problem. 
During this time, Fen received a Sending message from someone who claimed that he had killed Inquisitor Jaxos too quickly and that they had valuable information for him about his father, he was to meet them in an alleyway that night, alone. Fen reluctantly agreed to this. 
Mimsi insisted on staying the night at Bazzle's side with Grendel (Kodo gave them a blanket to warm themselves), Mimsi fell asleep watching Bazzle sleep deeply but constantly moan as though they were suffering night terrors but lacked the energy to wake up from them.
Nash spent some time apologising to Anastasia for attacking her wolf in the laboratory and, to make it up to her, used Life Transference to heal the creature before he went for a long rest, leaving Anastasia as the only individual awake to see Fen put on his cloak and walk out of the house. Not wishing to alarm him, Anastasia instead used her pauldron to scry on Blackey as she commanded the wolf to follow Fen at a distance. 
Fen went to the meeting place, an alleyway next to the Worn Penny inn, where he saw a figure leaning into the shadow, difficult to work out the features of. This figure explained to Fen that the Grimoire users very much had a disease, an insatiable desire for more power and more knowledge... as they approached closer to Fen he heard the sound of fingers snapping and watched as Wight zombies began to climb out of the ground and Fen found himself face to face with Lancel Barbarios. Intent on taking the grimoire for himself.
During the night, Fen tried to sneak out

Rewards Granted

• The party purchased 6 regular Healing Potions.
• Kodo purchased a potion of fire breathing. 
• Kodo purchased a bicep bangel that empowered his physical attacks once per day. 
• Anastasia purchased the Pauldron of Connection. 
• Anastasia recovered a 300gp diamond from Hook's trunk. 
• Anastasia recovered 450gp from Hook's trunk. 
• The party found a variety of research papers from the Hook and Knife laboratory. 
• Grendel recovered Hook and Knife's daily routines. 
• Grendel recovered a sealed letter addressed to Hook and Knife. 
• The party recovered a Bazzle Strum-Strum

Missions/Quests Completed

• The party successfully found Bazzle Strum-Strum

Character(s) interacted with

• Bazzle Strum-Strum 
• Nash
• Inquisitor Jaxos
• Hook 
• Knife 
• Lancel Barbarios 
• Minus

Report Date

04 Dec 2021

Primary Location

Eastbourne

Secondary Location

The Hook and Knife Foundation

Related Characters

• Hook
• Knife