18th Session
General Summary
You wake up the next morning (28, Aquvis, 8499) after the bar fight, to rain. Tyrell is with the royal family, but comes over to arrange to take the party to the meeting with Thane later. Tasha does some bonding with Shalom.
At the meeting with Thane, he expresses disappointed that Skyla's not there and that without that "view" it's not worth it. When Tyrell gets upset, Thane explains that Tyrell should be thankful since there's no way Skyla didn't treat him "real good last night." Thane says he'll talk for 60 gp. With an amazing roll, Ellie convinces him to talk for 15 gp.
Thane speaks in a circumlocutory manner. Over the course of the questioning, he admits it's not owlbears responsible for the disappearances and that the scouts are getting paid to keep quiet about it. Thane implies that it's the people who are the motivation, not their things and it's not important people. He insinuates that leaders in the guard are involved, because they're not pushing the bandits and missing travelers enough and the scouts have not been called in to help track them. He suggests that if the party wants to see what the "termites" don't want them to see, they should look at what the "termites" have been dismissing; after all, isn't funny that there's only owlbears when there's no witnesses, and only bandits when there are? This suggests that both Colonel Corbin of the Scouts and Colonel Luka of the Guard are involved. Slavery is illegal among the elves and the thought of an elf being sold makes Tyrell sick.
After the meeting, Ellie fulfills the favor Tyrell asked of her, to figure out who has been turning to turn Skyla against him. She tells him that it's Eldred who has been feeding Skyla's doubts, to not leave Skyla alone with Eldred and that Eldred seriously loathes Tyrell. Tyrell seems a little unsure since Eldred has been nothing but polite to him, but he will watch and prevent the two from being alone.
The party spends the next two days gathering information about slaving and Tyrell schmoozes Skyla's stepmother for information about upper-class gossip while he courts Skyla. The evening of the second day (30 Aquvis), Caspian returns early from visiting his father's family. He has a moment with Alle before he checks in with the rest of the party. They explain the whole situation and Caspian mentions that he was attacked on his way to Mythme.
The next day, the party takes Tyrell and Daniel with them to check out where Caspian was attacked. They find signs of bandits and Caspian tracks them back to their camp. They kill 4 of them, knock out one and Tasha gets the captain to surrender. They tie the bandits to trees and Ellie casts zone of truth. It works on the still unconscious bandit, but on the captain.
Through a series of questions, intimation, and punches to the face the captain, Albert admits to being a slaver from Inhorn as part of the gang Oynx Vipers, whose sign is placing the thumb between the middle and ring finger with the index and middle fingers extended while twisting the wrist, and code phrase involves "black cobras." They capture unsuspecting travelers and keep them in a cave until they transport them south to the Tunlet River. There's six groups who capture slaves, lead by Vedran, Aaro, Julius, Lain and Blas with Probus being the main man in charge. Probus has a connect among the upper crust of Gardabor elves from whom he receives messenger birds. Tasha found a royal seal from the Gardabor Court which indicates the bearer is performing official duties and tools for faking owlbear attacks. Albert, after prodding explains they use it for cover in case any guards or scouts find and question them. All of the groups have one. He's also used it to trick a female traveler to come with them. Tyrell gets specifics on the security of the cave base. Albert also says the asking price for a about 40 year-old male is about 800 gp
Theodore beheads the still unconscious bandit and they let Albert go with promises it will not go well for him. He says he's going to Ostra. The party does a not great job of staging an owlbear attack. They give the seal to Tyrell to keep and head back to Lensee.
TLDR: The party meets with the scout who wrote the owlbear attack report. They find out there's an active slaving ring, which is very illegal, which seems to have ties with the bandits and is being swept under the rug by high ranking officers in both the guard and the scouts. Two days pass and Caspian comes back. He leads the party to where he was attacked. They find bandits and keep some alive for questioning. They learn more information about the slaving ring. There's a rat in the Gardabor Court.
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