Session 40

Icarus manages to invent a popular new pastry that has become a hit at the Dead Goose Inn and has customers lining up outside the inn to try some.

Dain inquires with Haryk about purchasing property in Eldham to open a new shop and is quoted 2,000 GP. On the way back to the Dead Goose after his meeting, he and Grim realize they are being followed. Upon getting back to the Dead Goose, Dain and Grim confront the goons, who attempt to bullshit their way out of the situation to no success. They claim to be investigating Dain to make sure he is not a "shady type" as Haryk has had many such characters attempt to purchase property from him recently. They attempted to lure Dain to a secondary location, but were unsuccessful.

Icarus purchases custom made furniture to display baked confections at Tabitha's inn.

Summer and Icarus attempted to investigate Belegor's office in the Temple of Lys further. They found a letter detailing an apparent abduction and drop-off of Myriani Faremel at an unknown place called The Pits sometime shortly before Haldir's first sermon. They also find an unidentified potion (Disguise Self) in Belegor's drawers along with a key. Summer uses wax to make a mold of the key and returns it. At this point, Belegor returns to the office, noticing it is open, and traps Summer and Icarus inside. He lights up the room and attempts to use Color Spray and then Hypnotic Pattern to reveal them, but is unsuccessful. Summer blows the Horn of Silent Alarm to warn Dain, but Icarus decides to reveal himself by using the Cape of the Mountebank to quickly open a portal to teleport the both of them outside. As a result, Belegor has now seen Icarus' face. Icarus then decides to use Disguise Self to change his appearance to that of Tabitha's "twin brother".

The next morning, the party learns from Merith that Wolfwater has been attacked and all but a handful of the Emerald Company contingency stationed there has been wiped out. More than two dozen Humans were also brutally slaughtered and the remaining ~280 Humans were taken captive. Merith says she does not know where the Humans have been taken but that Talindra needs to be made aware of the situation. Dain briefly considers dispatching a courier to send the message to Talindra but decides that is not fast enough, and instead, Icarus volunteers to fly at full speed directly to Fort Elden.

Summer goes to the library to attempt to find any information she can on "The Pits", but is unsuccessful, and instead spends some time researching the Seven Sisters trying to learn if they have any sort of connection to the Wellsprings. Meanwhile, Grim heads to the seedy back alleys of the Market District at Summer's instruction to find an information broker attempting to learn more about the same things. The information broker has no useful information, but upon mentioning "The Pits", a man gets up and leaves the building. Grim attempts to follow him but the man gets away. Upon asking the information broker what the man was there for, the broker tells him that the man was looking for information about the Emerald Company, specifically who is running the show around here.

Icarus arrives at Fort Elden and delivers the message to Talindra, collapsing from exhaustion as she reads the letter. Talindra tells Icarus about Mara and her visions and how she outed Variel, the Elven infiltrator at Fort Elden responsible for poisoning all the Human inhabitants. Then Mara tells Icarus about her vision of the Shrieking Pits. After resting, Icarus creates mochi and sits down to speak with Talindra and Mara again, and is given a vague description of the dark cave's location, which is somewhere east by southeast of Eldham, less than 10 miles outside the city in the foothills. Icarus decides to immediately fly back to Eldham to tell the party this information and takes a letter from Talindra with a personal message for Merith and a description of Mara's situation.