Barking Up the Wrong Tree

General Summary

In the morning, the party headed into town to tend to personal affairs while waiting to make contact with Ra'zik. On their way to the apothecary to purchase healing potions, they spotted a large group of people gathering in the market square. After purchasing several potions of healing they left the square to find the crowd growing even larger, after which they learned that the crowd was gathered to witness the execution of the captured New Dawn leader Ricgard Ciendric. As a mobile gallows was wheeled out, Margrave Anton Thornsby addressed the crowd flanked by Prior Confessio of Odelion Priory and—much to the party's surprise—Draven Gnash. The margrave thanked Draven and the Eloqui Order for their assistance in capturing Ciendric and ordered the man to be hanged.
After the execution, the crowd slowly began to disperse. Lethe set out to find a blacksmith, and on the way there the party was flagged down by a small child handing out flyers asking for help finding his pet dog. Precision and Erevan peeled off to search for the dog, and Erevan came to realize that in the entire time they had been there he had not seen any stray dogs which was odd for a city of this size. After asking a few people on the street they learned that soldiers had recently been rounding up dogs in an effort to keep the streets clean, and rumor had it that the margrave then sold them off to be trained as hunting dogs (although a few children thought that he ate them). After trying and failing to attain an audience at the margrave's personal mansion, Precision and Erevan headed down to the prison where they spoke with Warden Donald Ward. After some persuading, Warden Ward revealed that the city guard had been ordered to round up dogs a few months ago and lock them up in a free cell. Once a week, men he did not recognize came by to collect the dogs. The men bore symbols of a two-headed dog on their robes and while Ward did not personally recognize them, a few of his men said that they recognized it as the sigil of the Cult of Solkath. Precision and Erevan headed down to the scullery to ask the men Ward mentioned and they confirmed that they ran into some Solkath cultists among a group of mercenaries from the Rumiyyad Autarchy that they served alongside once. Armed with this information, the two headed back to the Five Brothers Inn to meet back up with Lethe.
On their way back, they ran into a group of dissatisfied customers harassing the traveling salesman they purchased basilisk oil from the night before. Erevan stepped in and calmed the group down, having the customers agree to wait for three days to allow the "miracle elixir" time to work. The salesman, Professor Harold Merchantel, thanked Erevan and said he would be sure to be out of town in two days. At this point Precision recognized the salesman as her father. While catching up with him she learned that Harold was currently in serious debt, owing 450GP to a Klenhelmer loan shark named Irnthi Valorum. He asked if there was any way she could help him out, and Precision said she'd look into it. After catching up a little more, Precision and Erevan headed back to the inn.
Meanwhile, Lethe had been trying without success to sell some magical armor. After being rejected by two blacksmiths, he learned from a halfling armorer named Killarby that if he really wanted to sell it he'd have to do it on the black market. Around this time, Lethe noticed a note that had been slipped into his pocket at the execution reading "Let's do business. Meet at Crow & Hornet after midnight. -D.G." Lethe took this information back to the Five Brothers and met with Ra'zik. Ra'zik revealed that the man who was executed was in fact not his second-in-command, but was actually the leader of the group. Ra'zik himself actually had been second-in-command but allowed Ciendric to be executed so he could take over. He revealed that he knew Ciendric had been taking money from some mysterious benefactor in exchange for occasionally doing jobs at the benefactor's request including the attempted assassination of Queen Harriet. Ra'zik knew that another meeting with this benefactor was scheduled for later that night, around 8PM beneath the Aureline Bridge. Ra'zik offered the party 30GP each if they came along as protection, and Lethe agreed. Shortly afterwards, Precision and Erevan returned to the inn and were told of the arrangement.

Chapter Sixteen

"Making Our Way Round Town"

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Previous Chapter: Stiff As A Board

Next Chapter: Prior Knowledge

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Ingame Date: 12^th of Rainseed, 1855
Real-Life Date: August 23, 2020
Protagonists:

• Precision
• Lethe Argie
• Erevan

Featured NPCs:

• Ra'zik
• Harold Merchantel 
• Jee-Kai

Locations:

• Roselawn