Session 16: A man of Wealth Report

General Summary

Alashna brings bad news to the party, their order will not be able to help them at this point. Verlaine is far more powerful then Freeport's Temple to Odis. The party will have to gather much more concrete evidence if they want to try and get the Sea Lord Milton Drac on their side to stop Verlaine.   With this the party decides it would be best to sleep before attempting any further adventuring for the day. They return to The Rancor and get a good nights sleep. The next morning they head to the Bilge Rat and have a quick breakfast before taking the chest to Verlaine's Residence, located at 100 Wave Avenue. When they arrive it is easy to tell the Merchant District is the district with money. Many of the residences are large and hold their own private guard. The shops are far more higher quality as well.   Arriving at Verlaine's Residence, Hanz and Ganbold carrying the chest approach the guards with the rest of the party. Diala tells the guards they are hear to deliver it, the guards point where they can drop it, however Ganbold and Rothgar overhear them talking to each other wandering who the hell these people are, they ask the group and Ganbold quickly says they work for a Captain with the guard. The guards are a little skeptical and decide to call their captain over to confirm. Realizing they may have been made the party quickly leaves before the captain arrives and they get into any trouble with the guard. With this lead now have run it's course they decide to follow the next lead they have, trying to find more info on Verlaine at the Office of Public Records.   Arriving they are met by a grouchy old man named Reed. However Elitessa already being on somewhat friendly terms with him easily gets the group into the door and having Reed quickly spill all the info on Verlaine the Office of Public Records holds. Hear they discover some of Verlaine's men were inquiring about maps for the sewer around the Merchant District, however Reed informed them there where none. Reed would finally give them the maps to the Eastern District because they were being pushy and rude and he did not want to deal with them further. When the party checks the map they realize a smudge on the map and it leads along one of the lines through The Docks and to the border of the Merchant District before ending. Reed also brings the group all the Captains' Council meetings and court proceedings that Verlaine attended. From this they are able to find that Verlaine before the assassination of Anton Drac the previous Sea Lord was just a wealthy but unremarkable merchant with stakes in several ships sailing to and from Freeport. After the assassination he quickly became an immediate presence on the Captains' Council, dominating meetings and bending even the most reluctant councilors to his will. He amassed a power bloc and finally managed to have himself elected head of the council. After which he pushed Milton Drac's platform including the forceful argument for the Lighthouse of Drac.    With all this info the party now leaves the Office of Public Records thinking about maybe talking to the religious orders and maybe trying to investigate the sewers to see why Verlaine's men, who could have even been Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign members were so interested in the sewer. However outside they were quickly surrounded by Verlaine's men. The party was told to surrender, to hand over their weapons peacefully and to come in for questioning. The party realizing this was not a fight they could win comply with the orders. They are then lead to The Courts.   Verlaine himself arrives to question the party after they are waiting for close to 30 minutes within the halls of the building. Verlaine makes it no secret he does not like the adventuring types but accepts them because they are needed to keep the monster populations under control. He goes on how the party had trespassed on the temple when they entered it the night before. Although he accepts they had done good work for the good city of Freeport, they have now overstayed their welcome. It was time for them to leave the city and not to return. Rothgar manages to get a quick question in, if Verlaine had known their were additional snake people in the hidden tunnel. His response was, he knew of the tunnels. His men checked them this morning and there was nothing there. Rothgar asked if he checked them himself and Verlaine was quite curt in a response on why should he have to do that kind of work? That is what he pays people to do for him. After this Verlaine tells his captain to toss the party out, maybe rough them up a bit so they get the message.   With battle lines being drawn, the party getting ready to fight back Egil rushes in. He quickly crosses the room and approaches the captain. With some exchanges of words and Egil passing along a sealed scroll to the captain. The captain reads it and grunts. He tells the guards to leave the party alone for now, but warns the party if they did anything else illegal he will personally throw them into jail.   Egil returns to the party and tells them Lucius has been kidnapped once more! He ushers the party out of The Courts and into a dark back alley in The Old City where he fills them in on what happened. With all the evidence pointing towards the sewers and the party having a map and a location on an entrance. They head for the sewers.   Arriving they have no problems entering the sewers in the Eastern District, the door to it is unlocked. Following their map closely and hearing what sounds to be footsteps within the tunnels, they find a grate at the border of The Docks and the Merchant District. Diala realizes that it has been cut so that it can be removed. The party scampers through and continues on their way. It is not long after Ganbold finds what appears to be a hidden door within the walls.   The party opens the room and begins to head on inside to investigate the strange room. With Hanz still standing outside as he wanted to be last one in Egil quickly pushes Hanz into the room and slams the door shut! The room begins to shake and the sound of machinery can now be heard.... Diala thinking back realizes... that was not Egil they were talking to but someone using a disguise self spell. Who could it have been?