1 Autumn, 500 A.O.V.
Having tracked down Kaja Stewart, the black-market dealer who sold the dangerous magic staff that disrupted the Kaybeau Arms Fair, the Squad went to meet her at a nearby subrail construction site, posing as potential customers.
Gruul spotted some “walking guns” hidden amongst the piles of construction materials, which was a bit worrying, but Kaja countered that they were a reasonable precaution, given that she had not been expecting a whole squad to show up.
Kaja invited the Squad to approach, across the mud-slicked tiles and a narrow bridge over the subrail tracks. Kaja’s massive bodyguard, now seen to be a golem, opened a chest to reveal a variety of interesting weapons for sale, and also a pair of primitive-looking magical items – an amulet and a strange obsidian-bladed weapon.
With the Squad crowding around her and asking a lot of questions, Kaja decided that it was time to leave. Of course, the Squad wasn’t about to let her walk away, so a fight broke out.
Kaja showed the ability to conjure firearms out of thin air, including an honest-to-gods cannon. In addition to the bodyguard and four walking turrets, there were two pistoleers hidden by the entrance. The slippery mud hindered everyone except Kaja, who used misty step to get to dry ground.
When Kaja was badly hurt and her golem bodyguard was down, she surrendered. The pistoleers tried to run away, but Mireya cast a fireball (her first ever) which prompted them to surrender.
Kaja Stewart was reluctant to answer questions at first, but she opened up after a sympathetic chat with Aleric in a mage-proof cell. She admitted stealing the magic items from Reed Macbannin’s manor, where she worked as a researcher. She witnessed a tiefling bringing the items and overheard Macbannin complaining about “compromising protocol.”
After Macbannin’s arrest, Kaja took to fencing items she stole from the collapsed manor. She insisted that she had no idea the ancient staff would summon other-worldly monsters – it was only supposed to cast magic missile, as far as she could tell.
In the evening, the Squad went to a party at the arms fair hosted by Benedict Pemberton. He thanked the Squad for saving everyone on the Coaltongue and showed off some of his company’s latest offerings, including a large battle-bot called “B.E.A.R.” which he wanted to sell to the RHC.
2 Autumn, 500 A.O.V.
The next morning, Gruul noticed someone following him on the way to the office. He used the messenger wind to notify Uraesco, but nothing came of it.
At the office, the Squad was summoned to Lady Saxby’s office, where they met the national head of the RHC, Lord Viscount Inspector Nigel Price-Hill, who was conducting an audit of the Flint RHC in the wake of the revelations about Mayor Macbannin.
Stover Delft told the Squad to track down the source of the dangerous and valuable ancient artifacts. Their first move was to try to find outfitters that might know about an archaeological expedition related to Macbannin. They did hear tell of an expedition by some “academic types” but the outfitter didn’t know where they had been going and it was too recent to have anything to do with Macbannin.
Next, the Squad went to Pardwight University’s Museum of Natural History in North Shore, where they talked to Prof. Hans Weber. He told them that the artifacts came from an expedition to a pre-Kelland archaeological site, but the artifacts were missing because disaster struck the expedition and only the leader made it back alive. The expedition was sponsored by Caius Bergeron, who might be in Flint but was hard to reach. The expedition leader, Dr. Xambria Meredith, was also staying in Flint, but Prof. Weber asked the Squad to treat her gently after her horrific experience.
The Squad was able to find and talk to Caius Bergeron at the Silver Swan Inn, after a bit of a farce in the hotel hallways. He turned out to be the tiefling that Kaja Stewart described giving the artifacts to Reed Macbannin. Bergeron talked about the expedition a bit, but clammed up when asked about his relationship with Macbannin. He denied giving the artifacts to Macbannin.
While walking through North Shore, Uraesco noticed someone following them. Again, nothing untoward happened.
The Squad went to talk to Dr. Meredith, the expedition leader, who was staying temporarily in a University apartment near the Museum. On the way there, Mireya told them that she knows Xambria, but didn’t know that she was back in Flint.