S1 E5: Interior De-decorators
General Summary
In which a subset of our heroes thoroughly explores a private residence and appropriates a few items for the public good...
Finding themselves on the verge of a massive tactical blunder, the party pulled up short rather than chasing after the escaped priest. Pastor Naphan Agrippa, down the trapdoor, understanding the risk of running headlong into an easy ambush or worse. Instead, Lorfel sent his valiant crab familiar, Claude, down through the hatch to take a look around, or whatever passed for a look as blindsight was all he could offer. Scuttling as fast as his heroic legs could take him, Claude caught a 'glimpse' of someone darting through a cleverly concealed hidden door in the basement into a much larger and architecturally different space beyond. Reluctantly, Lorfel recalled Claude, who also noted large wooden crates in the basement. These were labeled with some kind of shipping codes, suggesting they had passed through some common system of transport and storage - or had been stolen from the warehouse on the other side of the street behind the building. Blizzard sets to eating a few hams while Lorfel and Keebler carefully explored the pantry and front room and made their way cautiously through the second floor.
In the rooms above they discovered two smaller bedrooms, one with a door to the attic; a master bedroom with an attached washroom, and a conservatory linking the master bedroom to a combination study, game room and library. The center of the house was dominated by the chimney, taking up most of the left side of the hallway upstairs. The rooms were very upscale, bordering on lavish, but the party recalled Pippa Ford complaining that the man was renting rooms and kept saying he was leaving, but never left; so the home and much of its furnishings likely were simply being rented, and had not been bought by Naphan himself.
The first room, with a neatly made bed, dresser table and mirror, and a closet of Dwarf-sized vestments and casual clothing, appeared to belong to the acolyte who was still resolving to room temperature downstairs. The only notable items here were a pair of small jade figurines, one of a rat rearing up on hind legs, and the other of a bat crawling on the ground with its wings folded. The second room was much the same, but a little larger, and featured a deep closet with a lovely crystal dragonchess set and a small tray half-full of sand on the floor, as well as clothing items, belts, boots, and gloves sized with different proportions than the first room - likely human or elven by the size. Keebler gave a doorway in that room a try, and found it had a staircase leading to the attic. He gave it a quick look, and saw something tall and wrapped with paper on the overhanging ledge at the top of the stairs like old furniture, but determined that it also sounded like a large number of house bats were roosting up there, so he decided to leave them be.
At the end of the hall they found a study where the hall turned to the left, with several desks with business papers, found to mostly be receipts for the large boxes of books in the basement, and a bookshelf with a few tomes, many more copies of the Voiceless God book, and a large black lacquer music box, as well as some reading chairs and a couple of game tables. The open door to a sunroom or conservatory on the far side of the study was noted but not investigated further.
Continuing down the hall to the left took them to the master bedroom and an attached white-tiled, spotlessly clean washroom. The bedroom was much more luxurious than the other two bedrooms, with a broad oak canopy bed and a large walnut wardrobe as well as a broad dresser with a mirror and various toiletries including a shaving razor and hair oil. The dominant feature was a large metal chest locked down and sealed airtight at the foot of the bed. Keebler fiddled with it a bit to determine it had a simple locking mechanism, three locks ordered 1, 2 and 3, barely a puzzle at all, but then again it had been enough to at least slow them down a little. After a brief debate they opened it up and determined why it had been so heavy - in addition to the airtight seal, the entire case was lead-lined. Inside was a simple metal staff with a tined headpiece like a stylized bat's wings, the ends coming to a forklike point. Fears that some kind of contamination had been kept in by the lead soon gave way to the sinking realization that the lead was intended to prevent magical location of the item, and having broken the seal, whomever had been searching for it could likely now find it, if they hadn't given it up and were still looking in this moment.
As this was still sinking in, a knock at the front door alerted them all. Fears that it was the guard come to check out all the noise were soothed, or at least postponed, with the discovery that it was Icies Veiss, come to finish the business he and Naaphan had been discussing earlier. Blizzard wisely opted to walk out to meet him on the stoop rather than letting him in, though they had at least dragged the dead acolyte out of the instant line-of-sight of the open door. Icies expressed irritation that the Priest had evidently left again, and seemed to be too interested in asking about the Eye of Quindarin, an amulet once owned by the wizard whose collapsed tower now constituted the Cave of the Unknown to the north, to ask why these three were in the Pastor's empty house; a cursory explanation that they were helping him get some business in order seemed good enough to satisfy Icies, who went on and on about the material value of the ruby in the amulet. He also let slip that this wouldn't be the first time he'd bought something of dubious legality from the Pastor.
Satisfied that they would continue the quest for the ruby, Icies left, and Blizzard found himself back in the main room, waiting on Lorfel and Keebler to finish their search. To pass the time he started tossing a dagger at a hideous velvet painting of three wolves howling at the moon, and on one throw it went through the canvas and bounced off metal behind it - a wall safe in the main room. Inside were more papers, a skeleton key and two sacks of gold, each containing 50 gold pieces, one of them clean and the other looking as if they'd been plucked out of the mud. The mud seemed consistent with the riverbank mud that the party was all too familiar with by this point. In addition there was a jade horse, expertly made but damaged with one leg broken off, and nowhere to be found; it seemed to be a match for the same set as the jade rat and bat found in the Dwarven acolyte's closet. A deed for a boat named the Bile Hex was also found in the papers, which were otherwise uninteresting receipts and sales documents related to the books.
The evening ended with the party dragging the lead-lined casket and its contents, which Lorfel identified via a ritual as the Staff of Bat Swarms, back to the rooms at the Silver Spade Inn; Blizzard agreed to keep the casket in his room. Though some arrangements were made to try to sneak the box in, the sight of adventurers lugging things around was evidently common enough not to seem to upset anyone, and the difficulties the Keep has in fielding enough guards was evident, even a little upsetting. The vulnerability of the fortress to outside attack or internal instability was made plain by the fact that what guards there were paid little attention to anything the party did, and in fact in that section of the town no guards were to be found at all, other than Icies' private security of two shirtless Goliaths and their two war dogs. The militia appears to be concentrated on critical resources such as wall defense, the bank and the warehouse, and evidently they had been more depleted by the unsuccessful attack on the Lizardfolk encampment than anyone cares to admit.
And the play, "Pretty Pretty Peacock", turned out to be surprisingly good - a cheeky, bawdy comedy hinging on an escaped peacock and a mix-up between the King's Menagerist - the one in charge of his royal menagerie of animals - and a Nymphomaniac member of court who was unable to engage in the physical act of love with fewer than two partners at once - also a 'Menagerist,' though the pronunciation is slightly different. Add to this a plucky peasant hero, played by Zeffirelli himself, and an innocent milkmaid love interest who gets caught up in more double-entendres, swapped with the Nymphomaniac, ending in an execution that ends up being a wedding. The party begrudgingly admits the play has merit, and Zeffirelli is a talented actor and playwright. But the thinly veiled criticism of the crown and outright insurgency in the final scene, as the King is overruled by the desires of the people and must perform a marriage and set free the two people he had condemned to death, mixes uncomfortably with the knowledge that the Keep is held together mostly by habits, politeness and luck these days, and not force of arms.
Rewards Granted
- Large (18"x18"x 8") black lacquer music box with many sheets of playable music, in fine condition. Keebler estimates it's worth a couple hundred gold at a trader and maybe a thousand if a collector can be found.
- Loose cash totaling 33 gp per character (distributed by the PCs in game)
- Sheaves of receipts and business papers, unsorted
- Ownership deed to a boat of unknown size, the Bile Hex, with a license number issued by the Crown of the Realm
- 3 x Play programs, on rough paper, listing the Dramatis Personae, their acting cast, the makeup and costumers, and sponsors of "Pretty Pretty Peacock," the newest theatrical play by the Zeffirelli Collective; each program can be traded in for a free pint of maple mead at the Silver Spade Tavern
- The Staff of the Bat Swarm:
The Staff of the Bat Swarm: Staff, uncommon (requires attunement) The top of this black meteoritic-metal staff is shaped like a stylized bat’s wings capped by a dark, translucent purple crystal. The staff weighs 6 pounds. You must be attuned to the staff to gain its benefits and cast its spells. The staff can be wielded as a quarterstaff. It deals 1d6 extra thunder damage on a hit, manifested as an ear-splitting hypersonic screech when used to make a weapon attack. The staff has 10 charges, which are used to fuel the spells within it. With the staff in hand, you can use your action to summon up to 1d4 swarm of bats, requiring one available charge per swarm. No components are required. The bats treat you and your allies as friendly creatures and take their action at the end of your turn. They remain in the area for up to 10 minutes or until they are destroyed. The staff regains 1d6 + 4 expended charges each day at dusk. If you expend the staff’s last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the staff crumbles to dust and is destroyed. (DND Beyond Link: https://www.dndbeyond.com/magic-items/4906239-staff-of-the-bat-swarm))
| This week: | XP |
| At Game | 360XP |
| Not At Game | 180XP |
Missions/Quests Completed
"The Musical Key"
"Na na - na na - na na - na na Bat Staff"
"Theatre Critics"
Report Date
26 Apr 2022
Primary Location
Secondary Location
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