Episode 03: Assassin's Attack

657 New Era 1 Fallharvest

Velvet Rose

An hour after Squirrel Eater had departed for Baramore, Phase is studying a book containing the spell Shield in his room. Katherine has seduced a young farm boy and has taken him to a room. Miss Behavin believes she sees a man across the brothel that she recognizes, but when she investigates, he is not to be found.
The next morning: Miss Behavin hears a thundering crash in a nearby room. Going to investigate, she discovers the man that she thought she had seen last night destroying his room, his skin steaming and his hair smoldering. Katherine and Phase come to help out and stop the man before he burns down the Brothel. Miss discovers that the man is an Assassin Guild Watcher that she was familiar with from her time on Baramore. In addition, she discovers a copy of a letter that has already been sent.
The letter implies that Squirrel Eater’s family is going to be attacked, and the assassination needs to be completed before Squirrel arrives at his families manor.
The party scrambles to try to discover who Squirrel Eater really is, in order to prevent him from coming to harm or his family’s murder. They eventually give up and just take his shield (painted with a coat of arms that none of them recognize) with them to Baramore.

That very evening

Meanwhile, Squirrel Eater has arrived on Baramore and has discovered his mother’s failing health has gotten far worse while he was away. His father has hired a private nurse to care for her while he is wrapped up with his business concerns.
Squirrel visits his mother and speaks with her while her nurse “Nanny” takes care to feed her chicken broth. Squirrel discusses her condition with his father, who leads him out of the room so they can discuss it without upsetting her.
They speak, and then his father decides to let them rest before speaking more in the morning.
Squirrel waits to speak with his father, but finds that he is sleeping in. He goes to the kitchen to get some breakfast while waiting for his father to wake. He is eating while speaking to Jeeves about his family and their health. The nurse arrives and gets gruel to feed to Squirrel’s mother. Jeeves hands “Nanny” a small scroll, a bird message has arrive for her. She takes it and the gruel and departs to the Lady’s chambers.
After quickly finishing his breakfast, he follows “Nanny” to go speak with his mother.
He enters and finds his mother finishing her morning gruel. He speaks to her about her failing health, but she begins to nod off, her fatigue overcoming her.
Nanny drops the scroll from her waist when she turns to put the bowl down, and Squirrel eater chances to read the unrolled document. It is the same letter that Miss Behavin has discovered, and when Squirrel looks up, he realizes that she dropped the letter to distract him, because she has daggers drawn and is attacking.

Assassin
Shadow Spider x 4 --- 800 xp each

Total XP : 5200

Unarmed, he flees after being swiped by a dagger, running quickly to his nearby room. He is pursued by the erstwhile assassin. He reaches his sword and pulls it free from his scabbard and turns to meet his attacker. They exchange blows, and he stabs her through the stomach, a mortal blow. Refusing to die, she slides up the blade and stabs him in the chest, but misses anything vital. She states, “The job is already done…” He twists the blade, hastening her demise.
After she falls to the floor, he stumbles to his mothers room, where she is foaming at the mouth form the poisoned gruel the assassin was feeding her. He calls for the guards to retrieve a healer to assist her, also noting that his wounds are tingling painfully.
Recalling her final words, he rushes to the Lord’s chambers, to find his fathers body, cold and covered in a fan of blood where he died from having his throat slit while sleeping.
A healer arrives a short time later, and begins prayers to the Lady Trigga to save her, purging all poisons from her body. Over the next hour her health greatly improves over her recent condition.
The healer also heals the wounds that Squirrel Eater has endured, purging the lingering poison from them.

Party Arrives

The party arrives at Baramore, getting a guide in the form of “Jimmy the Hand” from a guard near the landing from the Swinging bridge from Dravlin. Jimmy leads them on a winding course that cuts around the crowded markets. They arrive at the High Seat, which Jimmy states he cannot enter.
They show the Shield with its standard to a woman walking on the High Seat and she points them in the direction of Verrin Manor.
They arrive and find the manor grounds being guarded by members of the Watch, the guard of Baramore. After talking with a guard, they are escorted in to see the “lord”.
They are brought to the Lady’s chambers, where Squirrel Eater has been speaking with his mother. After they are announced, Squirrel comes out, sword leading the way. Untrusting due to an assassin attack, he levels his sword at the throat of Katherine before anyone can greet him.
Tense conversation ensure, prior to him lowering his blade. The group sees the guard carrying out his fathers body, and they understand that they have arrived too late.

Gathering and Guilds

Phaze sends the dagger of the assassin and the sample of gruel to an alchemist he knows in Baramore. The gruel has an incredibly large concentration of Essence of Nightshade, a normally slow acting poison given in small doses. The dagger has a quick acting poison on it.
Mist Behavin leaves the Manor, to “put her ear on the street” to see what she can learn. In reality, she heads right to the Assassins Guild, which is located underneath a shop in the Grand Market.
Meanwhile, Jedrek (Squirrel Eaters given name), Katherine, and Phaze plan to gather together his family members from their various homes and schools so they can interview them for possible motives. They believe that someone may have arranged the attacks due to Edward being deposed as Heir due to his sexual partners. (He’s gay.) If they eliminate the Lord and Lady, they might stand to inherit.
They gather that evening and Jedrek talks while the others look for suspicious emotional reactions. No one seems overly suspicious however.
Mist, at the Assassins guild, goes to the record keeper to get information on who took out the job on Squirrel’s family. She finds a lot of information, but the keeper won’t release the name without the signature of the Guild Master.
She goes to visit him, inquiring. He misunderstands her desire for information, and thinks that she wants to finish the bungled assassination. She makes it clear that she is interested in performing a Reversal, a rare tradition in the assassins guild where those who ordered a job are killed, making the guild even more money. When she says that, yes, she will do a reversal, he provides the information. The Guild was hired to eliminate the Lord and Lady Verrin by Krace Madrarin. House Madrarin own the largest fleet of sky galleons and are a large shipping company, shipping goods to Allied Isles and others. The Madrarin and Verrin Houses frequently but heads about dock and repair fees.
She leaves the Guild house and returns to the Manor.
Meanwhile, at the family, Squirrel has learned from Edward, his elder brother, that the family’s newest contract with the Baramore Exploration Group is hot and contested, and promises to be very lucrative.
The Madrarin’s are the House most likely to win the contract if the House fell and lost the contract. Heated words had been exchanged between the houses.
The Family gathering breaks up.
Mist Behavin arrives and provides the name that she discovered behind the assassination. She does not provide more details about how she got this information. The others do not pry too much.

The Next Morning

The party has breakfast and attempts to determine a course of action, on how to take revenge on the House of Madrarin. Many plans are made, but most would take a long time to impliment and Jedrek's blood is hot, so they plan to attack quickly, this evening. Mist Behavin and Katherine plan to scout out the estate of Krace Madrarin, which Jedrek has been to on a number of occasions.

Scouting

Mist and Katherine scout out the estate, noting the patrols of the guards and the structure of the building. They return to the Verrin Estate 5 hours later to inform everyone of what they have discovered.

Attack

The party approaches the estate of Krace Madrarin.
Mist and Katherine shimmy up a tree and jump over the large metal fence landing safely inside. Working together with Phase and Jedrek, they take out guards patrolling the grounds and enter the house through the back entrance near the kitchens.

Guards
Shadow Spider x 2 --- 800 xp each

Total XP : 5200

They sneak through the house, and take out several guards on the ground floor. They climb the stairs to where they expect to find Krace Madrarin, but are surprised to discover the top floor of the building is deserted, with signs of it not being inhabited for some time.

Guards
Shadow Spider x 2 --- 800 xp each

Total XP : 5200

Searching the building leads to the discovery of a passage leading underground into a series of mined out tunnels and chambers.
A series of prison cells reveal the decomposed body of an inmate.
Nearby, two caretakers stay in a jailors room. Phase, who has an intense hatred of slaving and imprisonement, busts into the room with hands a blaze, burning the occupants of the room to death and setting the wooden walls ablaze.
In additional chambers, the party discovers some elite guards and an archer that provides a serious threat. Pulling together, they succeed in defeating these foes.

Krace Madrarin

In the final chamber of the house, they discover an illegally carved dock, hewn from the bottom of Baramore. There is a Sky Galleon berthed within. Near the ship, Krace Madrarin speaks with a cloaked figure, which gestures at the approaching party angrily before jumping aboard the ship. With his boarding, the ship descends from the dock and flies away.

Krace Madrarin
Shadow Spider x 2 --- 800 xp each

Total XP : 5200

Combat ensues between the party and Krace Madrarin, a tense battle. Krace gets a number of hits in on Jedrek, but the Eater of Squirrels is covertly healed by Phaze and the fight continues.
A slash from Jedrek's sword removes Krace's arm, which falls through the open dock and into the sky.
Jedrek attempts to interrogate Krace, but Krace is angered beyond words and seems to imply that House Verrin had been holding back Madrarin for years, and that they would be in charge of Baramore without their interference. He then dies of blood loss.
On the wall of the dock is a flag, black, with a white skull and the image of a scythe behind it. Jedrek has heard of this standard, a flag for a newly formed band of raiders who use a captured Sky Galleon to attack travelling vessels between Isles. They are coming to be known as Sky Pirates.
Above, the house is in flames due to Phazes flaming hands attack. Thick smoke prevents an exit from the docks.
A launch is discovered, and the party leaves through the docks and lands at the Verrin Estate.

Plot type

Episode

Parent Plot

Sundered Realms Season 1