#worstplanever

22nd of Rova, 4716

The Silver Ravens receive a message from Laria Longroads. They meet her in her coffee-shop. Laria says someone has asked for help and she recommends they take the job.   The team agrees to meet the person and hear them out.  The person in question is Setrona Sabinus, a fixture of old Kintargo. Small of stature with a larger-than-life personality, she is the owner-operator of a bar on the South side of Kintargo called the Tooth and Nail. 

She says she came here to ask Laria for assistance, since they go “way back” and Laria used to be a well connected lady.  She hoped to meet the Silver Ravens or anyone capable of helping her find a missing person. Her cousin, Octavio has not been seen since the Night of Ashes, yet she believes he is alive. Her suspicions are more than just instinct, as Octavio was the highest ranking Hellknight in Kintargo in the Order of the Torrent and a “very resilient and resourceful man” according to her. The team is doubtful he will be so easy to find, given how long he’s been missing but they politely hear her out.

Setrona informs them that one of Barzilai Thrune’s first proclamations when coming to Kintargo was to outlaw the Order of the Torrent, sieze their citadel, and arrest any members the Dottari could lay their hands on. 

Setrona has one lead to follow; she knows Octavio used a shrine to dead sailors Southwest of Kintargo to hide people the order was protecting from their enemies.  She suspects he may be hiding out there.  She requests that they check on him and adds that he might be of use in resisting Thrune’s tyranny. 

The team decides to head out of Kintargo and investigate the shrine right away, but there’s a problem: All gates and bridges are now taxed a few gold pieces with names entered in a log for added security and enforcing the curfew. The Silver Ravens quickly hire/befriend a riverboat captain by the name of Hank Marlow who joyfully (and musically) sails and sings them across the Yolubilis River to South Kintargo.

<< ^ press play and let it run for the full “Cap’n Hank Marlow” experience.

After a delightfully filthy and smelly trip across the river bay aboard the Fortune Star, Captain Marlow’s fishing boat, they disembark and head for the South Gate. This looks a bit heavily guarded for their tastes but Caleb has a plan. They turn Westward and make their way to the Kintargo Docks, searching for a famous pirate-hunting ship called “The Scourge of Belial.”

Asking to see Captain Cassius, they are lead up the gangway and introduced to the first mate. She is a half-elven gunslinger and the only name they get is “X O.”  She says the Captain will speak with them shortly and has them wait at the top of the ramp.

Within minutes the Captain emerges and they greet him politely, having only met him once at the funeral for Rexus’s parents. 

He asks how his ship can be of service to the friends of his friend? They share with him that they are meeting a friend at the shrine to dead sailors South of town and would rather not have the fact known to the Dottari. 

The party shows their rebellious hand deliberately knowing that Captain Cassius is known to be displeased with the Thrune proclamations, one of which forbids non-native captains such as him from leaving their ships for any reason. He had to obtain special permission to even attempt a funeral, and was required to return straight to his ship after.

Cassius agrees but requires a favor from the party, and it must be very soon. Tomorrow, preferably. He says he needs a message delivered discreetly across town and cannot do it himself. He could send his crew but they are busy repairing and refitting and even allows that perhaps they are less subtle than his new friends might be in executing this delivery.

They agree and they are rowed through the night and down the coast to the shrine. The sailors commanded to row them inform them a little about the shrine. It is dedicated to Saint Senex, patron saint of sailors lost at sea. 

Arriving on land, they are given directions to the shrine and they promptly find it, in all it’s glory. The Shrine of Saint Senex is, for the most part, a pile of flotsam from various shipwrecks. It leads into an underground chamber and the party is quickly climbing down the iron ladder, after using spells to evade the shrine’s guardians: an older pair of Seers of Senex.

Downstairs they find what they seek: a room full of dead sailors and one very-much-alive Hellknight. He is on his guard but greats them politely, and they reveal that his cousin Setrona sent them to find him.

Octavio, able to discern lies constantly due to his status as a Hellknight, trusts the party and shares with them some new information. He tells them of the Order of the Torrent, a group of Hellknights dedicated to the rescue of kidnap victims. Why they were instantly outlawed by Thrune, he does not know, but he is certain the move is illegal and thus he may cast the unjust law aside to some extent. 

He offers the party a deal: free his arrested/captured Hellknights from whatever jail holds them in Kintargo, and the Order of the Torrent will join forces with the Silver Ravens. They accept!

With this bargain struck, they return to their oarsmen who return them to the Scourge of Belial. The XO leads them down the gangway and reminds them “The Captain expects you tomorrow.” And they slink away into the night. 

Femmik and Boudicca use their various contacts to attempt to ascertain which prison the Hellknights are being kept in. This proves more difficult than anticipated, as there are no records of anyone with their names or ranks being entered into the system. 

Given the utter ruthless redundancy of the Chelish bureaucracy that governs Kintargo, they take this to mean that the Hellknights are being incarcarated illegally at one of Barzilai’s “black sites.”

They go deeper. Eventually they learn of four prisoners taken on the day the Order of the Torrent was outlawed to one of the off-the-books prisons the Dottari use in Southern Kintargo, known only as “The Holding House.”

Femmik hatches a plan to free the prisoners, using his stolen identities of “Captain Yuri” and “Corporal Foxworthy.” He strides into the Holding House as Captain Yuri at 1pm, and informs them that he will be arriving with prisoners for intake at 4pm. They explain to him that they can do nothing without paperwork, but Femmik brushes off their formality and leaves.

At 4pm, Boudicca, Femmik, and Azwraith arrive at Holding House disguised as Dottari and are lead into the cell block. There, the desk sergeant and guards turn on them and club Femmik unconscious with their batons. 

Azwraith is subdued shortly after while Boudicca escapes into an obscuring mist she has cast. She reduces her size to 1′ tall with a second spell and renders herself invisible via a third. She slips into a cell through the open view port and hides.

Many guards search the prison for hours but they are unable to find her. The party is well and truly stuck.

With their equipment taken, they wait in a cold cell and in the dark they make a new acquaintance. In each case, it is a civilian who has been severely tortured to the point where they can barely speak, and they spend most of their time huddled in the corner. They warn the new acquisitions that they will come for you, “she” will torture you and ask you many questions, some meaningful, some not. 

They soon meet the torturer. Her visage is terrifying. A tall, thin, hairless women with pale grey skin and dozens of spikes protruding from her head. Her eyes and cheeks are marked with a dark and twisting tattoo. Most disturbing of all, she is pierced in many places by many daggers and the wounds do not bleed, as if she sheathes her many blades in her own body.

She straps her victims one at a time to a stretch wrack, and slowly works through her extensive knowledge of inflicting pain. Azwraith and Femmik both resist her questions for now, but they notice she exudes an aura of truth. Within her aura they hold their tongues and refuse to speak at all, so as to deny her any truth.