The party is joined by Jeeves the warforged butler in a tavern and inn in Lower Dura called the Anvil. Together, they meet a priest named Father Gregor who asks them to investigate a group of Silver Flame emissaries that are acting suspiciously. Meanwhile, the innkeeper bemoans the messy state of her establishment and wonders if any kinds souls would be willing to lend her a hand in making some improvements to the place.
Player Characters: Jeeves, Mickey Bishop, R. Sativus
I.
Jeeves was a warforged veteran who served as a scout during the Last War and specialized in hand-to-hand combat and acrobatic manuevers. He found it hard to adjust to civilian life and tried to find work as a household butler, but he often found himself falling into his own habits and performing the manuevers and exercises from his military training, much to the consternation of his employers. It was not until he was hired by the head butler of House Vadalis that he had steady work. Despite his recent employment, he still searched for a task that gave him a greater sense of purpose in his civilian life.
Jeeves had been sent down to Lower Dura to meet with some associates of one of his Vadalis household masters and aid them in the tasks they were undertaking. They were waiting for him in an old tavern called The Anvil. Perhaps he would find what was he seeking with these new companions.
Despite its location in a poorer sector of the city, the Anvil was a homely eatablishment maintained by the halfling dragonmarked house Ghallanda whose scions possessed the mark of hospitality. The innkeeper, a kindly halfling woman named Eranna d’Ghallanda, made sure all of her patrons felt welcome at the Anvil.
There were a number of warforged who came here as regulars. They held empty mugs in front of them and even clanked them together in mock cheering in an attempt to emulate human behavior. They paid for their empty mugs with coppers which Eranna dutifully collected but later returned to their owners.
Jeeves found the gnome wizard R. Sativus and a shady looking man named Mickey Bishop sitting at a table. Beside them was a goblin acolyte of the Silver Flame named Flash who carried a bag full of teeth.
R. Sativus was deep in contemplation when the warforged butler arrived. She had been using her powers of divination to better understand her own innermost thoughts and emotions
Buried somewhere deep in her subconscious, she had heard the voice of her elder sister Cat, short for Catalina, who had left the family home in the Eldeen Reaches long ago. Cat had always had been awed by lab tables laden with artificer’s tools and trinkets, and she often said that she was “going to make it someday.” R. Sativus jokingly wondered if her sister meant she was striving for success or simply wanted to make a fancy lab table.
Beside her, Mickey Bishop observed the occupants of the Anvil, trying to pick out the wealthiest looking patron as his next potential mark. Little did anyone realize that this was not the real Mickey Bishop that they had known, but a changeling impostor who had replaced him. “Mickey” was a sorcerer and warlock who had made a pact with fiendish powers. None but “Mickey” and the Sovereigns knew what dark fate had befallen the real Mickey Bishop.
II.
Flash the goblin was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Father Gregor, a devout priest of the Silver Flame and Flash’s superior in the Church. Father Gregor soon arrived and joined their company. He had received word from Flash of the heroes’ success in their battle against the demon Uvimahm at the Tomb of Saint Faela. He had come all the way from Flamekeep to thank the adventurers for their brave deeds.
While they were speaking, a loud voice was heard outside. A religious procession was taking place right in front of the Anvil. When the heroes looked out the window, they saw priests and paladins of the Silver Flame accompanied by guards, all marching through the streets of Lower Dura. The members of the procession entered the Anvil and loudly addressed the people inside.
The leader of the procession, a priestess named Evangeline, introduced her entourage as emissaries sent by Cardinal Krozen of Thrane. She explained that they had come to this district straightaway upon entering the city to minister to the poor and needy souls of Sharn and illuminate their lives with the light of the Silver Flame.
Privately, Father Gregor explained to the heroes that Cardinal Krozen was a powerful leader in the church whose authority was second to none other than the Keeper of the Flame. The Cardinal was an ambitious man who treated Thrane as if it were a principality under his sole dominion.
His misgiving about Cardinal Krozen aside, Father Gregor held suspicions about these professed followers of the Church. He had heard rumors that foul elements may have infiltrated the ecclesiarchy for their own wicked purposes. Gregor had even heard dark whispers of a clandestine meeting that been arranged for these pretenders and unknown parties. And it seemed especially dubious that these emissaries would come to this part of the city first before even visiting the High Cathedral of the Cleansing Flame.
Father Gregor turned to the heroes and asked if they would investigate these newly arrived emissaries. Being a member of the church himself, he could not openly taken part in an investigation. Instead, he offered each of the heroes 100 gold galifars as a reward if they took up the quest, though he did not explain where a humble priest of the Silver Flame had acquired such wealth.
Mickey Bishop agreed to accept the mission. Father Gregor thanked him and looked to Flash who reassured him that everyone at the table could surely be trusted.
III.
When Father Gregor had retired, Eranna came to the table to check on the adventurers. As she spoke to them, loud banging noises were heard from the ceiling. Eranna poked her broom at the ceiling in frustration. Evidently the noises had been occurring for some time, but Eranna had been unable to get the attic door open. She also lamented the state of her establishment which had not been thoroughly cleaned in a long time.
“Oh, if only there were some kind soul who would deal with the source of that racket,” said Eranna. “Or track down my missing cleansing stone so I can get this place cleaned up.”
The heroes took pity on the halfling innkeeper. Before going to check on the emissaries, they first went to the attic to investigate the source of the strange noises.
Mickey blasted open the attic door with an eldritch bolt from his outstretched hand, leading the others wonder why he had never revealed such powers before. A great plume of dust billowed from the entrance. The party entered and found what appeared to be an artificer’s laboratory, right above the Anvil! Eranna seemed just as shocked as they were when she saw what was inside.
“Oh my! How did that get there? It must have been here all along!”
The heroes entered cautiously. Inside, they saw some large rusted metal parts that looked like they might belong to a gargantuan construct or war machine built decades ago. Jeeves instantly recognized them as part of a warforged titan, the gigantic and less intelligent predecessors of the modern-day warforged. These pieces looked like they might belong in a museum collection.
From behind one of these antique parts, a voice was heard.
“Who… Who goes there?”
Even after all these years, R. Sativus recognized the voice of her elder sister Catalina.
“Cat, is that you?” cried R. Sativus. “What are you doing here?”
“Ratty? I don’t believe it!” Cat replied. “Don’t come any closer! It’s dangerous!”
Cat looked toward a lab table standing against a wall. It was a large, heavily built worktable, outfitted with a series of cabinets and slots for all manner of tools.
“I told you I was going to make it, and I did. I made the most amazing worktable that any artificer had ever seen. But I made it too perfect. Now the table even has a mind of its own! Watch out!”
Suddenly, the table began to shudder and shake, then stood upright. The lower legs shifted into treaded wheels, while the upper legs sprouted into cannons. The worktable transformed before the heroes’ eyes into a machine of war!
The table’s right cannon launched what appeared to be a metal pineapple. It landed in the midst of the heroes and exploded, spraying them with a shower of hot metal shards. The heroes were taken aback, but they quickly regrouped and counterattacked. With fiery bolts and metal fists, they soon reduced the living table into a pile of ruin.
Jeeves observed as R. Sativus began to speak excitedly with her long-lost sibling and engaged in an activity that the flesh-born referred to as a “reunion.” He was familiar with this custom and knew that it could take quite a long time, especially when the speakers were gnomes. He spent the next hour repairing the damage caused by the metal pineapple while Mickey Bishop took a rest beside him.
III.
Eranna was grateful to the heroes, but dust had blown down from the attic and filled the tavern downstairs. Once more, the innkeeper lamented the loss of her cleansing stone. It was a magical sphere of quartz that could instantly clean a person or a location of dirt and grime. Eranna suspected that hers had been taken by a drunken patron, perhaps by mistake. She had checked the whole premises and turned the place upside down on several occasions. The only place she was unable to check was one of the cellar storerooms whose door had rusted shut.
By now, Mickey Bishop had grown wary of the Silver Flame emissaries and wished to conduct his investigation into Father Gregor’s suspicions. However, Jeeves and R. Sativus wanted to help the innkeeper. As Mickey retired upstairs, the gnome and the warforged descended into the cellar.
They returned a short time later with the missing cleansing stone in their possession. It seemed that Eranna’s suspicions were correct. A former patron had taken the cleansing stone and stumbled downstairs to the cellar where he fell victim to a gray ooze. The heroes had narrowly escaped the ooze which had nearly melted the warforged butler. Jeeves and R. Sativus advised the innkeeper to bar the entrance to the cellar to keep the ooze from harming others. Eranna thanked the heroes profusely and promised them the gratitude and hospitality of House Ghallanda should they ever need it.
IV.
Having done all that they could for the innkeeper, Jeeves and R. Sativus began to ascend to the guest rooms of the Anvil to check on the Silver Flame emissaries. As they did so, they met one of the priests who claimed to be looking for the broom closet. Growing suspiscious, the party asked Flash to entertain the priest and keep her preoccupied in the tavern downstairs. Flash produced his bag of teeth and offered to share the wisdom of the Flame with his very unique, one-of-a-kind divination tools.
With the priest distracted, the heroes went upstairs in the guest rooms where they found a most peculiar situation. The head priestess Evangeline was dead, and one of the paladins had gone missing. The remaining paladin was found in his undergarments. Though R. Sativus and Jeeves were startled at first, the near-naked paladin quickly revealed that he was in fact Mickey Bishop. Mickey had been a changeling all along! Though this revelation came as a shock, the heroes had no time to think about it.
Mickey the changeling informed them that the two paladins had gone ahead to a secret meeting with none other than Merrix d’Cannith! These so-called emissaries of the Silver Flame were in fact members of the Swords of Liberty who were trying to meet with the famed artificer and baron of Cannith South.
The heroes discovered a secret entrance in a broom closet which the paladin had used before them. They followed the hidden passage to an unfinished masonry tower with an open roof above it. There they witnessed the clandestine meeting between the two paladins, a noblewoman whom the heroes had not seen before, and a ruggedly handsome man in his mid-forties wearing the robes of a Cannith artificer.
From the brief bit of conversation that they heard, it was clear to the heroes that this was Merrix d’Cannith, and he was selling arms to the Swords of Liberty. However, Merrix was unhappy that the two priests were not present at the meeting.
“Where is Evangeline and the other priest?” Merrix inquired impatiently. “I very much wished to speak with my fellow acolytes of the Traveler.”
The heroes tried to sneak up to them without being noticed to better hear their conversation, but Jeeves’ metallic body clanked as they approached and gave away the party’s presence. Merrix, startled by the intruders, turned to the noblewoman and reprimanded her.
“Lobana, you have failed to secure this location. I am ill pleased.”
Then Merrix produced a scroll from his robes and tore it. Instantly he and the noblewoman named Lobana vanished from sight, being teleported away by the power of the scroll.
The remaining paladins were dumbfounded by the situation, but they were startled even more whem Mickey Bishop, still in the guise of one of the paladins, shouted:
“That guy knocked me out and stole my clothes! But don’t worry, I brought some backup. These fine fellows are new recruits for the Swords of Liberty. Long live the revolution!”
Before the paladin whom Mickey was impersonating had a chance to protest, his fellow comrade, being convinced by Mickey’s ruse, had run him through with his sword.
From the surviving paladin, the heroes had gained enough information to confirm their worst suspicions. Merrix d’Cannith was indeed selling weapons to the Swords of Liberty. In fact, these emissaries were arranging a visit to Merrix’s hidden laboratory.
What was more, Merrix was a follower of the Traveler, one of the deities of Dark Six pantheon. The Traveler was a deity who represented change in the world. Merrix was part of a cult of the Traveler within House Cannith that advocated technological advancement above all else, and through any means necessary. It seemed that the famed artificer had begun to spread his philosophies to top ranking members within the Swords of Liberty.
Perhaps most significantly, the revolutionaries were being financed by Nolan Toranak, the Sharn city councilor who represented the Cogs and was a secret supporter of the Swords of Liberty. Nolan was also known for his support of anti-warforged protestors who set up picket lines in front of factories and establishments that employed warforged. The protestors, who were mostly hired actors, held up signs and chanted messages which claimed that the warforged were stealing jobs from human citizens. These revelations disturbed the Rabble, whose ranks now included two warforged members.
The paladin began to grow suspicious of the adventurers, so they had to restrain him while R. Sativus resorted to a deep mind probe. She discovered that Nolan Toranak also frequented a clandestine dreamlily den inside an old building with a sign above the entrance that read “Silvermist.”
Once they had gained all the information they needed, the Rabble had no more need of the false emissary of the Silver Flame. The priest that was being distracted by Flash had departed from the Anvil, but Mickey Bishop and R. Sativus did not wish to leave any more loose ends. Somewhere in the unfinished masonry tower are buried the bodies of two revolutionaries that will never see the outcome of the movement whose seeds they had sown.
Jeeves wondered if he had finally found his calling in life and said,
“I think I am rather proficient in this killing game.”
IV.
Father Gregor was pleased by the party’s success and gave them the promised reward, though he did not ask what became of the emissaries. He was too troubled by the information that had party had delivered to worry about aught else. He wondered about the identity of the noblewoman named Lobana and whether this plot pointed to a darker truth about Cardinal Krozen.
Empowered with their newfound knowledge, the Rabble began a whisper campaign aimed at the conspirators involved in the secret arms deals between House Cannith and the Swords of Liberty. Using their contacts among the criminal underground and the nobility of Sharn, they spread word about Councilor Nolan and Merrix d’Cannith’s involvement in a conspiracy against the crown.
Merrix, the baron of Cannith South, proved difficult to topple. The lone article that appeared in the Korranberg Chronicle alleging his involvement with a radical terrorist group was quickly retracted by the newspaper. However, his rivals in Cannith West and Cannith East now knew about his involvement with the Swords of Liberty, having been informed by the Rabble of this fact, and they would be watching him more closely in the future.
Meanwhile, Councilor Nolan’s fall was swift and brutal. Within a week, a full investigation into Nolan’s involvement with the illegal dreamlily trade was launched by the Sharn Watch and the Dreamlily Prohibition Bureau. Being hounded by investigators led by Chief Inquisitive Kavill, Nolan was swiftly removed from office by his political rivals on the Sharn Council. New elections would soon be held to appoint a new city council member to represent the Cogs.
As the Rabble observed the events unfold in the city, Mickey Bishop received an urgent message from Erin, the exotic dancer who had helped his own whisper campaign against Cyril d’Orien a month ago. She said that she was in trouble and needed Mickey’s help. Erin asked him to meet her on the Menthis Steps, a famous tourist location and a crowded stairway that connected Middle and Lower Menthis.
Although Mickey suspected that something was amiss, he agreed to meet her on the steps. Yet he did not go unprepared. He was joined by Jeeves the warforged butler who accompanied him. And R. Sativus went ahead of them to take up a sniper’s position on a rooftop overlooking the steps.
V.
As R. Sativus sat on the rooftop awaiting the appointed hour, she thought about her sister Cat who had vanished once more without so much as a letter. During their hour-long conversation in the Anvil, R. Sativus had learned that Cat had become an artificer since her departure from their family and was a longtime fan of Merrix d’Cannith. In fact, she claimed to have corresponded with the Baron of Cannith South. Cat explained that it was Merrix who had helped her procure the rare antique pieces of warforged titan technology from Morgrave University’s rare items collection.
R. Sativus tried to convince her sister to write home from time to time, but it was clear that Catalina’s passion for artifice left little room in her heart for others, even her beloved family. The gnome diviner wondered if there was any meaning behind this fateful reunion which was preceded by the memory of Catalina’s voice and the last words she spoke before leaving the family.
Meanwhile, R. Sativus spied the crowds of people passing through the steps. She noted that a number of the pedestrians seemed to be loitering about as if they were waiting for someone. Then, when Mickey Bishop and Jeeves arrived at the base of the steps, these loiterers turn their attention to the two adventurers. R. Sativus wanted to warn them, but that would give away her position and perhaps endanger her companions. So she watched and waited.
From her vantage point, R. Sativus saw that Jeeves had noticed a woman trying to pull her baby carriage up the steps and was offering to help. Jeeves helped the woman up the stairs while Mickey waited for Erin at the base of the steps. When Jeeves was halfway up the steps, Erin appeared at the top of the steps. She saw Mickey and gestured for him to walk up to her, but Mickey stood his ground. R. Sativus couldn’t see the expression on the woman’s face from her high position, but Mickey could see Erin mouthing the words, “I’m sorry.”
A crowd of people began to swarm around Mickey and Jeeves. Producing knives, crossbows, clubs, and staves, the assailants surrounded the changeling and the warforged and began to attack them. Yet the adventurers quickly surmised that these were not professional killers but ordinary people who had been forced into this task.
Reacting to the sudden threat, Jeeves thrust the baby into the mother’s arms and pushed her out of harm’s way, then flipped and somersaulted out of danger. Meanwhile, Mickey continued to stand his ground. He raised up his hands burning with eldritch power and commanded his attackers to stand down. Being easily intimidated, the would-be hitmen dropped their weapons and fled.
The attackers quickly dispersed, but as the crowd parted, several more loiterers that had been watching the scene unfold transformed into grey-skinned changelings. But these were unlike Mickey Bishop. They had had their mouths ritually stitched shut. They were led by an elf who clucked his tongue and sneered at the attackers in a mocking tone.
“I told Merrix that he should not have bothered with those witless civilians. If you want something done right, you’ve got to do it yourself.”
As the empty baby carriage stumbled down the steps, time seemed to slow down as the elf and the changelings drew their blades.
To be continued…
A Holy Visit
Treasure
– 330 gp in coins
Treasure
– cleansing stone
Cleansing Stone
Wondrous item, common
A cleansing stone is a quartz sphere one foot in diameter, engraved with mystic sigils. When touching the stone, you can use an action to activate it and remove dirt and grime from your garments and your person. Cleansing stones are often embedded into pedestals in public squares in
Aundair or found in high-end Ghallanda inns.
Story Award
Respect from House Ghallanda
If the characters helped Eranna d’Ghallanda improve the Anvil, they earn the help of House Ghallanda. They are offered a 50 percent discount on rooms and a safe place to hide, should they ever need it.