Tansiarda and Animal Cruelty

General Summary

Aboard the Audacity

The party settle in as the ship takes off, it is crowded with passengers desperate to avoid what they fear is coming for Haven.
Early the next morning they see red light on the horizon behind them, Hauflin shifting into an eagle, gets a better look at it and finds that Haven is burning.
Later that evening Hauflin discovers a web tyrant in the ships hold and decides to adopt it, it becomes Hauflin's animal companion.
Astra spends time working on some scrolls.

Stopping at Tansiarda.

Early on the third day out from Parlainth the ship decends into the port of Tansiarda, stopping for the day to offload goods and passengers.
The party head out to the market to have a look around, Ragnaros wants to buy himself a cloak, Astra hopes to find some spell books or scrolls, while Hauflin and Giltris are just going for curiosity. Their day out is interrupted by the sound of a commotion, heading to investigate they find that an owlbear has escaped from it's cage and is starting on a rampage, Ragnaros throws a stone at the creature to get it's attention and engages it in a wrestling match attempting to buy time until Hauflin catches up to them and can calm the beast. Giltris sneaking up from another direction spots two hooded figures fleeing through the crowd, judging that they must have been up to no good she begins tracking them.
Hauflin arrives and after a while manages to talk the owlbear down. The owlbear reveals that there were other owlbears with it and that they were captured by Dwarves, as Hauflin is leading the owlbear towards the gate out of town and Ragnaros and Astra are dispersing the crowd, the guard finally arrive, accompanying them is an older Dwarf who thanks the party for recovering his property but grows angry when they refuse to hand over the owlbear, loosing his temper with the rude Dwarf Hauflin conjures a wall of wind across the ally then a cloud of fog to cover the fleeing owlbear who escapes through the main gate while Hauflin slips away.
When the the fog dissipates the guard question the bystanders including Ragnaros and Astra, both deny knowing Hauflin, Ragnaros stating that he stepped in to prevent the owlbear from hurting anyone, in the conversation they let slip that they arrived aboard The Audacity, afterwards Astra notices the Dwarf now identified as Elgrim Stormwell talking to a suspicious looking Troll.
Meanwhile Giltris tracks the cloaked figures to a tavern named The Sword and Flagon, using the Sliver earrings she communicates her location to the rest of the party who decide to meet her there.
Inside the Tavern the two cloaked figures are revealed to be a pair of young elves named Isttion & Istiel Aeramin, they claim to be members of a group called the Free Animals League, Hauflin is extremely unimpressed with their reckless and ill considered actions, they could have gotten the poor owlbear killed.
Somewhat shamefaced the two admit that they are still students and are only here because their farther got an important job working on the bridge, they do plead with the party to help them stop a horrible underground fighting club that forces animals to fight eachother for the wealthy patrons amusement, it is pointed out that stopping this one club will not solve the problem and that they really need evidence against those who profit from such things.
They all put their heads together and come up with a plan, Hauflin, Isttion, Astra & Ragnaros will get into the Stormwell Club in disguise under the ruse of entering Ragnaros into one of the fights.
While they are doing that Giltris & Istiel will sneak into the mansion of Elgrim Stormwell and attempt to find evidence of wrongdoing.

At the Stormwell fighting Club

Arriving at the club that evening the party manage to talk their way inside, Ragnaros spots the large Troll from before and has a brief chat with him before he is informed that he is to go on first. With Ragnaros grabing peoples attention Hauflin sneaks into the back rooms in rat form, there he discovers a caged owlbear, a grizzly bear and 2 wolves, Ragnaros discovers that they also have a tiger as it is sent into the fighting pit with him.
With Ragnaros trying not to get killed by the tiger Hauflin steals the keys from the guards, summons a sleetstorm and begins unlocking cages. Just inside the entranceway Astra summons a mephit with orders to soften the stone round the doorways and to summon an earth elemental to dig a tunnel out for the animals.
Ragnaros manages to bap the tiger across the nose and intimidate it so it leaves him alone, then sets about attempting to force the door to the fighting pit.
Astra summons an archon hound to deal with the Troll before he can interfere with their plans and then retreats to the rendezvous point near the town wall.
Hauflin successfully gets the animals out, Ragnaros breaks down the door and escapes while the Troll is still occupied fighting the archon, the mephit misinterpreting Astra's commands continues to soften the stone in the area, with the ceiling cracking alarmingly Hauflin gets delayed attempting to grab a chest that he thinks must contain something important, Astra getting alarmed at Hauflin's delay sends an archon lantern to assist him and he just manages to get out in time as the club collapses taking part of the Tansiarda arena with it.

Meanwhile at Elgrim Stromwell's Mansion.

Giltris & Istiel sneak over the wall into the mansion gardens, hiding in some bushes they case the building looking for a likely entrance, spotting one on the 1st floor they slip across the ground, climb up the wall and sneak in through the window into an empty bedroom.
Peering out into the hallway Giltris sees that there are guards around the corner of the hallway guarding a door, reasoning that whatever they are guarding must be important she draws them away from their post by throwing a candlestick down the stairs and hiding in an empty room while the guards pass.
Sneaking into the room the guards were protecting she finds that it is Elgrim's office. she searches the place finding a hidden safe, it yields to her lockpicks and inside she finds a set of Ledgers.
As Giltris is retrieving the ledgers the guards return, spotting that someone has gotten into the room they sound the alarm and Giltris and Istiel are forced to jump out the window and flee across the grounds and over the wall dodging several arrow shafts as they do, unfortunately one of the arrows finds Giltris but luckily doesn't do much damage.
The two women then head to the rendezvous.

Escape

The party all meet back up at the rendezvous point by the east wall and Astra casts feather fall on the animals and the party members and they all jump off the wall into the river below.
Swimming to shore the animals are sent off back to the wild and the party set about discussing their options.
After much debate it is decided that it is too dangerous to head back to the ship now and that they should try to meet with Istiel & Isttion's teacher the Druid Achardirion before they make there next move.

Rewards Granted

Elgrim's Ledgers

Character(s) interacted with

Elgrim Stormwell
Isttion & Istiel Aeramin

Campaign

Ashes of Ardanyan

Protagonists

Giltris

Hauflin

Ragnaros

Astra

Report Date

20 May 2018

Primary Location

Tansiarda