Career Advancement Opportunities

General Summary

The party spoke to the creature, which Lethe dubbed a gnoll. The gnoll said that did not know who he was, and did not remember anything before awaking in a pool of blood with Thornsby standing over him. He said that he remembered attacking the party and apologized, saying that he did not have any control over his actions. During the discussion, Precision noticed three more of the creatures. They seemed weaker than the others who attacked them and she deduced that was why they were not called into the fight. The gnolls spoke amongst themselves trying to figure out what had happened to them and what they should do while the party explored the rest of the cult shrine. Lethe discovered a ritual book, the Kitab Almawtaa, and identified it as a sacred tome of the cult of Solkath. Within it he found rituals of life, death, and unlife, and deduced that he could reverse-engineer some of the rituals for his own purposes. Meanwhile, Precision began attempting to gain Deacon's trust while Erevan discovered some of the cult's treasures, including a Ring of Spell Sculpting. Before resting to heal their wounds, Lethe ordered his unseen servant to begin stripping the flesh and muscle away from the corpses, leaving only skeletons behind.
When the party awoke, Lethe used one of the new spells he discovered to raise the skeletons of Anton Thornsby and the cult worker as Precision and Erevan looked on in horror at his new undead minions. Then the party spoke with the gnolls, who said that they have decided to embrace their new forms and escape out into the wilderness, hopefully to find others of their kind in the future and create a community for themselves. The gnolls asked the party for their help sneaking them out, and also to give them names, as they did not remember their original names and were used as tools for the cult. The party agreed to help them, and named them Hogger, Edwin, Calciara, and Tucker. The gnolls said that they would remain hidden in the cult chamber for another day to give the party time to secure their escape, but after a day would take their chances on their own. Leaving them, the party headed back aboveground with Lethe heading to the Odelion Priory and Precision and Erevan bringing Deacon back to Sebastien Sutton.
On the way out of the manor, Lethe disguised himself as the Margrave and fired the two guards at the entrance, the same ones who had been harassing Jee-Kai. At the Priory, Confessio thanked Lethe for their assistance and assured him that he would take care of the situation. Meanwhile, the Suttons were overjoyed to have Deacon back. They offered a reward of 7 silver but Precision refused it, telling them to keep the money. Shortly after, the party met up at the Five Brothers Inn, where they collected their bounty from Ra'zik.
Their next stop was to make contact with Samson Killarby to find out where they could find Filster. He told them Filster's base of operations was the East Wall Taphouse. Once their they were escorted downstairs by Drogath, who told them to remain quiet as Filster was currently in a meeting. As they entered they caught Filster in the middle of an argument with a purple-eyed elven woman named Ilaria who claimed to be with the Tracery. After a brief dispute in which she mentioned something about the Black Rose Crew poaching contracts from the Tracery she left, warning everyone in the bar to consider their allegiance. After her exit, the party gave the painting they stole from the Margrave's manor to Filster, receiving their reward. Filster said he had another contract for them and asked Drogath to go over the details.
In speaking to Drogath, the party learned that the contract was to collect a bounty posted on Harold Merchantel. Drogath told the party that this was the job Ilaria was referring to, a Tracery contract that Filster was stealing. The Tracery had apparently been attempting to persuade the Black Rose Crew to join their syndicate for awhile but Filster consistently refused. Drogath said that he believes it would be better for everyone if the two groups merged, and if they got rid of Filster he could take over the crew and make the merger happen. He also said, after seeing the party's reservations about the nature of the contract, that the Tracery would be quite grateful for their assistance and could probably make Harold's debt disappear. The party agreed to come back later that night, after Drogath lured away the majority of Filster's loyalists.
In the meantime, the party waited until nightfall to head back to the Margrave's manor to help the gnolls escape. Expecting trouble, they found that one of the guards at the entrance was Sebastien Sutton, who let them through without question. After helping the gnolls sneak out of the city, the party then headed back to the East Wall Taphouse to confront Filster. Inside the bar they were greeted by some of Drogath's men, who nodded knowingly at them as they headed below. During an intense fight with Filster and his goliath manservant Tholok, Erevan tested out his new ring to envelope Tholok in flames while Precision remained unharmed. However, this angered the goliath who knocked Erevan unconscious before being slain by Precision, who also got the killing blow on Filster.

Chapter Twenty-One

"Career Advancement Opportunities"

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Previous Chapter: Who Let The Dogs Out?

Next Chapter: Down, Down to Goblin Town

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Ingame Date: 14^th of Rainseed, 1855
Real-Life Date: November 7, 2020
Protagonists:

• Precision
• Lethe Argie
• Erevan

Featured NPCs:

• Hogger
• Prior Confessio
• Drogath Goldworthy
• Filster
• Ilaria

Locations:

• Roselawn