Session 26, Leads Uncovered

General Summary

Following Hildred's defeat, the sky above Sweetvine was illuminated by a sickly yellow light from an unnatural source that quickly dissipated. Jess was especially affected by the light, levitiating off the ground and screaming with joy. As Luca, Tif, and Vaegon ran to check on Father Alwin and Ambrose and also to check on Jess, Tiblamir raced back to the Blackthorn House to retrieve Firion and fill him in on what he missed. Father Alwin and Ambrose were safe in the chapell, and after looking over Jess, Alwin couldn't find anything wrong with her. The group briefly reunited in the town square, with Sergeant Elira instructing them to return to their rooms for the night while the guards continued to clean the square up. At the inn, they spent time going through the notes they'd taken from Hildred's study and learned that during the War, he'd been an assistant to Genevieve Artois and had travelled with her to Weingarten to develop bio-weapons at a secret facility at the request of then-Marquess Abrahm Caerlight. His notes mention the creation of slaughter gas, tears of the hungerer, and glutton worms, which Genevieve believed would be an effective weapon against the rebellion. He also noted increasing resistance from Count Olaf Penrose, and wondered if the Count would reveal what they were doing to their allies in the Heartland.
  The followng day, as Luca and Jess rested, they were invited to meet with Mayor Edric Willowmere, who thanked them for defending the town and gifted them with some wine from his private reserve. After learning they were in town to hunt the Smiling Knight, he suggested speaking with Mira Thornbloom, the gossip mongerer of the town. In town, they were accosted by Corbin Dovrel, the half-elf from the guard barracks whom Vaegon had identified as a smuggler. Corbin introduced himself as the owner of Compass & Crown Logistics, the company that managed Sweetvine's shipping. He also thanked the party for defending the town and invited them to have dinner with him the follow evening, slyly insinuating that connections are everything to someone in his line of work. During this conversation, Vaegon also proved himself to be illiterate to subtext.
  After meeting with and bribing Mira, she gave them two leads to work with: one involving the residenthalf-orc bard Fennel Brightharp, and the other involving suspicious sightings around Corbin's office. Vaegon and Tif split off to case the Compass & Crown while Firion and Tiblamir went to investigate Fennel. After a botched attempt from Firion, Tiblamir was able to get Fennel alone and convinced him that he (and the rest of the party by extension) were Merry Men, learning that the answer to the cryptic message "Do you know the way to Bells Canyon?" is "Not since the Candle Keeper took the road." He learned that Fennel and Corbin's involvement with the Merry Men were separate, and that the north-east section of the town's stone wall was somehow used for communication. After failing to convince Fennel, Firion met up with Tif and Vaegon, who'd realized that the location of Corbin's office had been strategically placed next to the park to make watching it difficult. The three of them investigated the north-east wall, finding a loose stone with a smiling face carved into it's corner, though the meaning/function of it eluded them.
  Meeting back up with the rest of the group at the inn, they began formulating a plan to break into Corbin's office to snoop using the service for the dead guards as cover, and using Firion's homunculus servant as a means to communicate with each other.