Session 40: You Winthrop, You Lose Some

We teleport thousands of miles away to the city of Winthrop. Our eyeless rakshasa friend tells us that the one we seek is named Isvoth, but is disguising himself as a king by the name of Leopold. After the rest of us waltz right in, we notice that our rakshasa is gone. We look around for a bit, but once I notice that his trail is leading to the woods outside the city, we shrug it off and move on. Leopold is surrounded by guards, so the chances of this being a quick assassination are slim to none. TT suggests that we act as a group of travelers who took out a would-be assassin after hearing him talk of Leopold’s death in a bar. Without much to work with, we all split up to study the city some more and hopefully learn of something to swing things in our favor.     Amelia will hit up the courts to find us jobs that will hopefully bring us closer to the king, TT will find a target for us to frame, Owkbanok and Inami will check out the libraries, and me and Stabby are going to collect information from the commoners. Winthrop is very upscale and diverse compared to other cities we’ve found ourselves in. Owk learns of its history and it appears Winthrop was never involved in any recent wars publicly. Winthrop had a very mundane start as a mining town centuries ago, but as soon as thirty years ago, the architecture and its name changed quickly. It’s considered a capital city that heavily emphasizes the importance of magic, so much so that anyone who doesn’t have a knack for it is pushed to live on the outskirts of society.     TT pretends to be a servant tasked with cleaning the barracks. She manages to get into the captain of the guard’s office, rifling through his belongings until she finds a note. It details how he hasn’t spoken to the writer in a long while. Things have been okay where they’re at and they’ve reached a standstill. They’re keeping their eyes out for perpetrators, but it’ll be awhile before they can return to the force. It’s signed off with only a first name; Marcus. Before leaving, TT makes off with the captain’s jacket, his badge reading “Captain Rory Drugio”. Continuing her cleaner act, she steals a few more badges and is let into an evidence room. There’s a few interesting objects lying around, but nothing noteworthy enough to swipe.     Me and Stabby find ourselves in the poorer side of town, evident by the lack of guards and groups of homeless folk set up wherever they could find a spot. We head into a lounge simply called the “Clubhouse” and to keep a low profile, we sit down for drinks. There’s people talking shit about Leopold at the next table over, stating that he has obvious favoritism towards certain factions and isn’t great with handling Winthrop’s resources. Some are starting to doubt that the king is even human, but they keep very quiet with that discussion. As I ask what’s up with the city, a catfolk named Harvey pipes up about how the courts force everyone into a magical academy and those with no magical ability at all are left to fend for themselves.     The bartender urges me not to listen to Harvey because he’s a conspiracy theorist, but I believe there’s more to his words than they’re giving him credit for. He tells me that the homeless are disappearing all over the city, but no one seems to notice or care. I tell him I’ll look into this, so me and Stabby make our leave. We head into the park to question the homeless, but they either no nothing or aren’t willing to talk unless they get a hefty amount of gold. Eventually, we stumble across a tiefling child in an alley and this kid has seen too much. Guards donned in black armor sweep through the neighborhoods at night and snatch people off of the streets. The child, Tanner, tells us that his parents fell victim to these guards.     Amelia gets dolled up in some gothic gear and heads straight to the courts. She introduces herself as Amanda Vanderin, the leader of a mercenary group known as the Blackguard. The won’t let her back to speak with their senior knight as they catch her in a lie about her attitude, but with that same attitude; she somehow convinces them to let her in. She’s led into a room to watch as the senior knight, Simon Oxbow, materializes right before her. He asks about our mercenary crew and she tells him of our accomplishments, such as slaying dinosaurs and all sorts of monstrous beasts. When asked of our specialties, she lists them as tracking, infiltration, and suppression. Simon’s impressed and after getting the names of some of our references, he tells her to bring the rest of us by tomorrow.     We reconvene and go over everything we’ve managed to gather today, including introducing our orphan, Tanner. Everyone assumes I’m having a mid-life crisis and maybe they’re right, but I wasn’t going to leave him for the guards to kidnap. We make our way to the inn, telling Julius to get in touch with my mother and Eustace to give a good word about the Blackguard. In order to keep suspicion off of us, we’ll have to take on a job or two to keep up the mercenary act. So far, our plan is to get close to Simon and kidnap him. Amelia will steal his entire identity with a creepy spell she learned and under that disguise, we’ll be able to get to the queen. Once we manage to dispose of her and Amelia has her face, she’ll keep the rest of us around to pose as guards with the badges TT pilfered.     If that all goes according to plan, she’ll have no problem getting the king alone with her and when she does, we’ll ambush him.