Session 23: Machine Head's Betrayal

General Summary

The Last Raven Pub

• Slowly, the Crypt Crew filtered their way into the Last Raven Pub, a higher-end tavern in Upper Menthis Plateau. N'nchyk had arrived earlier, with the dwarven bartender showing him to his room, where he tucked Bell and the tablet away.
• Everyone but Dooturr and Thanos were present, as he was concerned about the current state of the Skeleton Crime Syndicate following the business with the coral tablet, particularly with the Order of the Emerald Claw compromising several of its members.
• Promptly at 9:00pm, the well-dressed elderly tiefling Cressel arrived. He complimented the beat-up looking party on their efficiency; he apparently did not expect them to have successfully completed their mission on the first day. They informed him of the construct, which seemed to concern him, but said that perhaps the parts could be harvested and rebuilt.
• He then distributed handouts detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each individual present, as they would be key in forming the plan to retake the Boromar hideout in The Cogs. While they were speaking with Cressel, the bartender had retreated upstairs.
• N'nchyk remained suspicious of Cressel and his employer, and asked what he could want with such a clearly dangerous artifact. Cressel replied, saying that his employer may be an eccentric man, but he is not an inherently dangerous one. He is a member of The Aurum, which Maleakos recognized to be a private society of some of the continent's wealthiest individuals who have special interest in history and artifacts of the past. And his employer was just that: an individual with a special interest in the Codex of Tsll Y'gall.
• This satisfied the group, and N'nchyk summoned Bell to hand over the coral tablet, as the group returned their questionnaires. With that, the dapper tiefling departed, promising to meet them the next morning in the same pub at 9am.
• While rooms had been provided for each of them, some Crewmates decided to stay the night elsewhere. Verin, who had recovered a book of curses against some entity called the Undying Court from the warehouse, began researching them the next morning.
• N'nchyk returned to work in removing the flesh from Grundhelm, and was as successful as he was previously, but realized that chunks of flesh were slowly starting to reform around the skeleton of Grundhelm.

The Ghallandan Dwarf

• As the party reunited in the Last Raven Pub, they found something rather odd: they were alone in the pub, and the bartender was nowhere to be seen. 9am came and went, as did the next half-hour, but neither the man with the machine head nor Cressel made an appearance.
• Verin snooped through the kitchen, which was devoid of any bodies, but looked rather dirty, with dishes strewn about with old food still caked on them.
• A halfling woman eventually knocked on the door, who looked worried, saying that her husband did not return home the previous evening. Verin hurriedly invited her in, and the party gave a rather impatient and agitated interview. When they described the bartender to her, she said that could not have been her husband; as her husband was a halfling. As were all familial members of House Ghallanda, the halfling house of hospitality that ran most of the pubs and tavern in town.
• The poor confused halfling woman was ushered out, with the Crew now feeling thoroughly double-crossed. They discussed what leads they could possibly grasp at, which admittedly was not much, but they came up with two: Verin would go to the Sharn Watch and file a missing persons report for the missing halfling bartender, who the halfling woman said was named Finnan, hoping that he may have some information. The rest of the Crew went to the warehouse, hoping Cressel hadn't been lying about wanting to recover the pieces of the construct.
• Verin found the Sharn Watch station that Sila Zakona, the dwarven Watch chief, was at, and had a hurried discussion with her. He explained their situation with the Boromar Clan, which Sila took to mean that even the Crypt Crew had been bought out by the mafia.
• Her clear disposition against the Boromar Clan made it evident to Verin that she, at least, was not dirty, as so many of the Sharn Watchers tended to be. Regardless of the faction politics, she seemed more keen on investigating the disappearance of Finnan.
• While the Sharn Watch was sent off to investigate the Pub, Verin reunited with the group in the factory, which was seemingly in the same state it had been in previously. Much of the construct's remains were still on the bridge, but it was impossible to tell if it was the same amount as when it was first destroyed.
• N'nchyk found a body of one of the Mechanimations and a slain agent of the Emerald Claw, raising them as his own servants. The Mechanimation in particular was a rather peculiar zombie, with some of the metal and chitinous plating still covering its body. The former agent's zombie had a wound near its shoulder that seemed to be perpetually bleeding.
• Verin persuaded the rest of the Crew, saying that the factory was likely a dead end, and that whatever leads they could find are back at the Last Raven Pub. And so this is where they returned, with the Sharn Watch having taken about a minute and a half to find the unconscious bartender and cooks tied up in the basement.
• They couldn't remember much of anything, but one of the cooks remembers catching a glance of a dwarven man before the blackness of unconsciousness. A sketch artist began drawing the man, but Verin used Disguise Self to change his appearance to match the dwarf the best he could. It was an approximation, but Sila in her years of experience, recognized the dwarven man as Barendd, a notorious master thief who will work for anyone with the money to pay him.
• He's taken all manners of jobs, but has evaded capture from the Watch thus far. He was too good at what he did to leave any obvious trails, but they did know that he had a lover - a scummy gnomish woman by the name of Falkrunn. She was a former prostitute, and has a stump for her left hand.

Tracking a Stumped Lover

• Falkrunn and Barendd had evaded capture for as long as they've been wanted, but Sila conceded that perhaps the unique and unconventional skillset of the Crypt Crew could accomplish what she could not. So, she recruited their aid in finding Falkrunn.
  • Viribus used his persuasive talents to glean what information he could from seedy bars and taverns in the lower districts.
  • Verin used his deceptive skills to pose as someone who simply wished to know where Falkrunn was.
  • N'nchyk traveled to the red light district, trying to use his knowledge of medicine to do god knows what, and was unfortunately unsuccessful.
  • Maleakos used his incredible performance skills to please some loose-lipped women who were also prone to talking.
  • By this point, the party was beginning to glean a vague, but meaningful, picture.
  • Sila used her good old-fashioned investigative skills to help clarify the situation, and was able to get vague directions to a place she may be.
  • Ashpin used his survival skills to interpret the directions as best he could, which correctly led him to an undercity nightclub.
• Finally, Verin used his super sneaky stealth skills to scout out the nightclub, where sure enough, Falkrunn was present. He disguised himself once again, and made his way into the bumping nightclub. It was packed to the brim with people, and bright lights lit the dark space.
• He approached Falkrunn, but as soon as he mentioned Barendd's name, he was restrained and she began to scurry away. He used a combination of his teleportation and webbing powers to stop her, while the rest of the Crypt Crew was close behind. Verin wished to speak with her alone, so the party remained in the club. Most people inside had fled from the scene, as the criminal and seedy inhabitants of the nightclub were not keen to party with the city's newest heroes. (Some were, though. Especially with Ashpin.)
• Verin managed to soothe the cussing and spitting Falkrunn with Charm Person, who evidently wanted nothing to do with this individual she did not know. He gleaned from her that Barendd had told her while she was stump-deep in him that he had taken a job from a strange machine-headed man to pose as a bartender, and to steal a coral tablet either while a discussion was happening or during the night if things didn't go according to plan.
• After Verin learned where she planned to meet Barendd next - in an old abandoned bar in a nearby district - he gently lay her on the ground alongside him, and began to choke her. The Charmed Falkrunn seemed to enjoy it at first, but as it became harder to breathe, she started to resist, but not before Viribus snuck up behind her and knocked her unconscious with a well-placed chop to the neck.
• The Crypt Crew hurriedly rushed to the bar, while a freezing sleeting rain began to fall from the sky, causing N'nchyk and Maleakos to enact Code Ferret. They made their way to the bar, which was little more than an abandoned wooden shack with a single room. It was filled with old, rotting furniture, and a collapsing bar, behind which were a couple bottles of fresh booze.
• The unconscious body of Falkrunn was placed next to the bar alongside a bottle of booze, giving the appearance that she had passed out. Verin and Viribus ducked behind the bar, while the rest of the Crew stationed themselves outside, seeking shelter underneath the massive towers of Sharn from the freezing rain. N'nchyk had his undead helpers form a rain tarp to shelter him.
• Eventually, midnight arrived, and a few minutes later, a creaking was heard, as the door to the "bar" was opened. After hearing a few footsteps, Verin leapt up and used his Wand of Web to capture the intruder. It was a clearly terrified agent of House Sivis, who was simply delivering a letter and a package.
• Verin furiously took the letter and package, and began to read. The letter was from Barendd, and apologized to Falkrunn, saying that the man with the machine head had paid him well enough to start his own life as his employee, but that perhaps the small gift attached would make up for it. He also mentioned that he was risking his life by telling her this, but if she wanted to make more money, there were the remains of a construct in a secret factory in Lower Menthis Plateau that his new employer might be seeking to recover.
• At this point, the Crypt Crew was sick of the shenanigans of a clearly cruel universe. The terrified House Sivis agent remained where he was, even after the Web was dissipated, and before Verin stormed out, he said that if the gnome said anything to anyone, he would murder his family.
• They wanted to get back to the factory as quickly as they could, but the clumsy and slow zombies of N'nchyk were going to slow them down. So, he scavenged an old menu and ink from the ruins of the bar, wrote a note to protect his friends, and sent the zombies to Patty's Pancake Pandemonium, where they were so popular last time.
• There was no time to deal with the unconscious body of Falkrunn, so she was merely dragged along. Verin's knowledge of the city came in handy, as they were able to make it back to the factory in record time. It was again seemingly untouched, though a warehouse down the street from it was on fire, and the rain was strangely doing little to help it.
• Ashpin tucked the body of Falkrunn in a small room in the back, and placed crates and barrels in front of the door so that it would be very noisy if she tried to leave. Compared to the last time, the factory was rather quiet, devoid of the industrial and mechanical noises that had plagued it the last time.
• The party decided that, since the main elevator was the only entrance that they knew of (and the only one on the factory's blueprint), they should strategically place themselves around that entrance. Maleakos distributed his inexplicably large stock of Emergency Orbs, which were designed to put out fires, but could also do incidental damage to anyone nearby, and they all began to wait.
• After about 20 minutes of uncomfortable silence, the creaking of the main elevator began to echo throughout the factory.

Character(s) interacted with

• Cressel, the elderly tiefling servant
• Sila Zakona
• Falkrunn, former prostitue

Created Content

• Codex of Tsll Y'gall 

Date begun:
25 Zarantyr, 998 YK
Date ended:
27 Zarantyr, 998 YK
Party level:
6

Report Date

03 Jun 2021

Primary Location

Sharn