Chapter 12: Risky business
The next morning, the group went out into the city to purchase healing potions from the alchemist and speak to First Speaker Alondo about purchasing Duke Rhyn's estate. The first speaker was highly entertained by their tale of the black dragon, and agreed to allow them to purchase the estate if they promised to keep it maintained and the staff employed. He would send the paperwork to hawk's inn.
After buying the potions, the group visited the Surbrin Mercantile Company at the docks to pick up the contract for retrieving Thorok Goldtooth's missing shipment. Though the encounter nearly ended in a fight between Nalzmyr and Thorok, the contract was delivered and agreed upon. The group set out into the trollmoors, tracking the shipment down after an hour thanks to Baen's expert skills and familiarity with swamps. At the wagon, they encountered their rival party The Pious Six. They prepared themselves for battle, sneaking up on the group and unleashing an initial volley of crossbow bolts, darts and a fireball that killed the cleric Dagnar Mountainbrook outright and wounded the rest of the group. The rest of the fight ended quickly with the Savage Seven slaying their rivals.
Kathra used her magic to ask the dead cleric 5 questions, and discovered they had been hired for the same job and that trolls had clearly attacked the caravan. They also discovered that the group were from another world, and the portal they arrived through slew the gold dragon Menexavaloss. Keladrien raised the paladin and wizard from the dead as zombies, and they began tracking the trolls down.
Baen tracked the trolls down to some nearby ruins. They killed the first two trolls after a prolonged fight, finding their regeneration troublesome. Baen used his monster lore to tell the group to use fire or acid. Finally, they encountered a venom troll and dispatched the monstrous beast without much harm. They packed up the shipment, finding illicit substances among the foodstuff in one of the crates. Back in Nesme, they returned the shipment to Thorok and claimed their reward. The gruff half-orc hesitated but paid them nonetheless, finding their dispatching of the rival group in his favor. As they left, they overheard him speak of a meeting with Kaggam Emberaxe (one of king dagna's secret enforcers).
They returned to hawk's inn and, after a night of rest, received the paperwork for the purchase of the estate but found it out of their price range. After much deliberation, the group chose to ignore the rumblings of Kaggam Emberaxe being in the city and decided to depart east to investigate trouble in Sundabar. They purchased a carriage, and with Kathra's smithing skills enhanced it with metal plating. After gathering supplies and their coin from the bank, they departed traveling east. In Silverymoon, they found a city largely returned to normal (a normal it had not seen in some time). They stayed at an inn on the south bank of the city that Keladrien recommended, and after purchasing some items from the market they left the city from the Sundabar gate in the morning (choosing to travel south through Everlund rather than the snow-burried Silverymoon pass).
They traveled for 3 days south towards Everlund, encountering bandits along the way but largely ignoring them. The city of Everlund would be their home for the next night, staying at the Dreaming Dragon inn.
Comments