Wan Mei
Wan Mei
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Short, lithe, with muscles that aren't very well defined.
Body Features
Blue tattoos along her upper arms- script that forms symbols important to her monestary.
Facial Features
Grey eyes, pale skin, short black hair half shaved
Social
Religious Views
While Wan Mei doesn't really respect gods or goddesses, she recognizes their inate powers. Her spirituality is rooted more firmly in her sense of self, and she has a pragmatic, unvarnished view of herself.
Probably not a good person but there's for sure a set of ethical codes, just not the ones she should have
View Character Profile
Birthplace
Anjing Shán
Children
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Investigating Badrin's Disappearance
In Dunladur proper- the city has restricted areas for people not cleared by the dwarves- which we are not. We have free reign in the trades and craftsmen district, where we are, but likely the consortium is in the more protected area of the city. Which is just a good excuse for a heist tbh.
Antares wanted to search for Badrin, even though Wan Mei wrote him off as mostly dead. But he's the boss, so we start tracking him back, using the usual path from the Earthen Urn to the Cask, where Basdrin was staying. On the way, Silas and I kept an eye out for people following us, and Antares tried to look for signs of trouble. Which he promptly found in an alley- trash bins overturned, deep gouges in the earth, like feet being dragged, and bootprints walking off to the cobblestone main road. The bootprints were hobnail boots, consistent with hosue guards in the city.
We sent Silas off to talk with the shopkeeper across the street, since he's by far the most likable of us, and he's really good with dwarves while he's wearing that belt that gave him the beard. They remembered seeing a set of house guards they couldn't identify came and roughed up a man in the alley. When I went to ask followups, trying to see if they killed Badrin under the guise of trying to help out an unfortuante acquaintance, they said he was able walk away. Well, be frog marched away, but it meant basdrin wasn't dead when they left with him.
Not knowing which house the guards came from, therefore not knowing who to investigate, we swung by The Cask to check his rooms. Likely they were not occupied still, since they'd taken Badrin himself. We got to the Cask, got rooms so we could go upstairs, and I quietly picked the lock to Basdrin's room. His room was trashed- the writing desk ransacked, bed turned over, clearly items were missing but it was hard to tell what was missing. Someone had broken the window from the outside in, and clearly used a housebreaking harness to get into his room on the second floor. We didn't find anything useful left in his room- any secret cubby holes or convienient codes were already taken. The B&E could have been hired out, or from the house guards themselves, more likely the hosue guards since the archbreakers crack down on crime fairly hard, and there isn't so much organized crime, like a thieves guild.
Antares tried sending to Basdrin again, saying to make an inocuuse noise if he was still alive, for fear of being overheard. No response. So in a complicated bit of magic bullshit, Antares adopted the illusion of Basdrin, using the amulet, letting Alfy scry on him, and then using that description to scry on Basdrin. Alfy was able to scry on him, in a stone dungeon which just doesn't even stand out in a dwarven city. By sheer luck, a captor stepped into view, and Alfy was able to see an insignia on his uniform. A foaming mug (classic dwarf) in a spiked mace like mug (less cliche). I was able to recognize the insignia as the Grimbrew house, another old house known for brewing caught in a mostly one sided rivalry with the Greatshaper house. Apparently Grimbrew ale is an acquired taste- I'll pass on acquiring it.
Antares was itching to go after Basdrin, but was shit house on spells after using sending so many times. And we didn't know where the Grimbrews even were within the city. So he took one of his patented 4 hour meditations while I popped off to go talk to an Auricles contact in town, Thelwin.
Thelwin is in the trades district; he runs a textiles shop. He'd closed up shop for the night, but standard protocol got the shop open long enough for him and I to have a quick chat.
The Grimbrews do have escalating tensions with the Greatshapers- even more than usual. Family members in the same public spaces are resorting to fist fights, which is always a smashing sign amongst the nobility. The Grimbrews seemed to be applying more economic presure than normal, and there's clearly some underlying conflict, though Thelwin's not totally sure what that underlying tension might be.
He was able to provide a map to the Grimbrew stronghold in the city, along with the other strongholds of the great houses. Techincally public knowledge, is's a suspicious piece of paper to carry around with me for too long.
After warning Thelwin briefly about the current hijinks the consortium is getting up to, and warning him not to put humans on caravans between the dwarven cities, I went back to the Cask. With three more hours before Antares was able to go, Silas and I hung out quietly in the common room.
Maybe not quietly enough- a young woman, probably elf, pink hair pointy ears, approached the table upon hearing the name Antares. She claimed to be working for Basdrin, looking for information for Antares. After a few questions, and deciding to let Antares confirm the information, we waited for Antares to come down.
Once Antares was up, he questioned Aura and she seems trustworthy. She reported some hunters leaving Nyrithyll would come back sick. The flu like symptoms came on suddenly, leaving bed ridden and weak for days before passing as qucily as it came. Whey they left again, seemingly fully recovered tounts relatively close to Nyrithyll, would never return.
So what's left is to determine the plan. We can all absolutely sneak to the Grimbrew tower, the four of us can sneak in and break Basdrin free. Do we teleport him out to the tower immediately? Do we bring him to a safe place in a city to try and solve the issues with the consortium? Leaving the city will inevitably make it more difficult to return, and the issues with the consortium will only grow and turn into another Ardenmore. But Nyrithill is currently, clearly, under some sort of attack from the inside. We also have the axe of the old dwarf kings, as just a fun thing to throw into the mix. Decisions decisions.
Dwarf Babysitting
It's the last few days in the Tower after the underdark vacation. Talmun - spooky, helpful tower that he is- noticed my interest in the gardens. I'd only been sleeping in there and bringing back more plants for poisons and potions and things. He mentions that bringing back earth from the plane of earth would make for great fertilizer; we aren't planning to go there but our plans tend to go sideways the minute we lay them out, so it's good intel to tuck away.
In the down time I got Antares to identify teh glowing orb I stole from the underdark, in that room with the imperion we wasted. Apparently it's a golem heart, a key component in making an iron golem. No current plans for it, but no sense in wasting a good resource.
In the mean time, we have to figure out how to get the dwarves out of the tower. We can't just walk down, because I don't want them knowing where the tower is. Best way to keep a secret is to limit who knows it. Which is all well and good, except the only place Nzuri knows well enough to telleport is the base of the tower, where there is an inconvenient snowstorm raging. And none of the dwarves have cold weather clothes, and it does no one any good if the dwarves turn into icicles. Anatres wants to get them back to their city, so we need to find them cold weather clothes.
We end up deciding to wait a day. Silas preps a spell that should emergency remove us from a situation back to the tower - handy in a pinch, he's a good kid- and Nzuri poped over to Arcanaeum to get the dwarves winter clothes. I also ask her to look into some enchantment for Spit and Spot, so they can tag along with us. I hate leaving them behind, their good boys and the exercise would do them good. Plus I think that bite would be nasty in a fight. Nzuri found a wizard willing to do it, but he wants to "meet" Spit and Spot. Apparently he's fascinated by the idea of a tamed death dog, and he's got a bit of zoo. He doesn't not want to steal my dog, so while I don't have time to meet him today, when I do, I need to be very very careful with my dog. I'd hate for this wizard to make a mistake he can't fix.
Finally, the next day, Nzuri teleports Anatres, Silas, the dwarvese and me to the bottom of the tower, a few days walk to Dunladuhr. Or, the tunnel into Dunladuhr. When we get to the tunnel, Antares reached out to Basdrin using sending, and got back "guard your life" which, while the sentiment is appreciated is damn dry of facts to go on. After prodding, we were able to figure out the dwarves with us had targets on their backs from the consortium, and the attack on their caravan was likely orchestrated.
When I ask them more questions, while Antares is trying to wring actionable details out of Basdrin, the dwarves are able to remember that before they set off for their last route, their shipment was delayed by a week. They were told the mythril wasn't ready for a fullshipment, and the suppliers wouldn't send less than a fullshipment. They were told this by their consortium contact, Thastoutalin Silverfinger. Additionally in the underdark itself, the last guard patrol went missing. They thought the patrol was just late, but then they were attacked by the duergar.
Which all leads us to think that if those dwarves were to go in the city, they'd be dead dwarves walking. Someone clearly wants them to shutup; I doub the consortium knows what the dwarves know, but they're going to get sileneced on the off chance. Laying out the options before them, Anatres convinced them to go back to the Tower, and if we couldn't guarantee their saftey in a few days, they would move to Arcaneum to stay with the dwarves mining on that continent.
It takes a few days still to get to Dunladuhr. Silas walked in undisguised, since his face wasn't likely remembered, but Antares illusioned himself to look like a human, and one dose of spider climb and I invisibly crawled into the city via the ceiling. We tried to meet Basdrin at their contact spot, the Earthen Urn. We waited their for a while, Antares flirting with the innkeeper's wife who handily took his spice pouch off him. She made a good Rothe, I'm fond of her.
But Basdrin never showed. And he didn't respond to sending, when Antares tried again.
I think the man is dead, but Antares is dead set on finding him. Which isn't a total waste of time, we can probably find some good clues off him and wherever we find him. But if we're going to address this problem, I think we're going to have to topple the consortium, and every moment we're in this city is a moment theirs a glowing target on our back.
This should be fun.
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