Session 18 - The One Where It Really Wasn't Looking Good For Them
21st Feb 2021 19:00 - 22:15
In-game timeline: DR1489 Elesias 23 - Eleasias 23
Our "Heroes" are enjoying a quiet drink in the beer tent when they are approached by Sallow and Crickhollow - the halfling and gnome associates of Togruk. The group's asking around and sometimes unsubtle listening in has obviously drawn some attention, as Sallow and Crickhollow seem to be aware that the party is looking for a half-orc named Togruk. The two newcomers settle down at the party's table and after some introductions Crickhollow explains that Togruk has been arrested for murder!
It seems that Togruk was drawn towards Chadstone Manor, but was sent away when he visited there. Keen to find out more, Togruk hired a sewer worker named Wendel to lead him to the Manor via the underground sewer network, but the next thing anyone was aware of was Togruk emerging from the sewers carrying a dead Wendel! The half-orc has been arrested and is currently awaiting trial when the Magistrate, a gnome named Greta Krystal, returns after her Midsummer holidays.
At this point the gnome, Crickhollow, suddenly collapses at the table, his head falling forward and spilling his mug of beer. Quick as a flash TC tries to revive him with some healing touch, but when Kandi checks it seems it has had no effect and Crickhollow appears to be dead. Sallow cries out for help from the Watch, who arrive very quickly. The party are then shocked and surprised when Sallow turns to the Watch and accuse the party of murdering his friend - pointing particularly towards TC and suggesting they check the unsubtle gnome-hater's pockets for evidence of poison.
And evidence is what they find. A vial of strange liquid is found in TCs pocket. His insistence that he has never seen it before and that the party is innocent seems to fall upon deaf ears, and the whole party are arrested on suspicion of murder!
They are taken by the members of the Watch to the stockade, where they face Captain Icespine. He is very unsympathetic to their cause and their pleas and he also seems to be worryingly open to Sallow's suggestion that the whole group is responsible for the gnome's death. Carro has the genius idea that the party should fight their way out, possibly killing a number of innocent guards in the process, as he is sure that's the best way of proving their innocence, and that murdering the legitimate law enforcement of a dwarven town will in no way hamper their progress in the world. Mahtis just about manages to convince Carro against this plan of action.
And so they are led to the cells in the basement of the stockade, where a jovial young dwarf named Greyal signs them in, removes all their belongings, and locks them in a cell, promising to return later with some food.
The neighbouring cell is occupied by Togruk, and the group spends the next hour or so chatting to the half orc, introducing themselves to him and hearing his story. He claims innocence in the death of Wendel - apparently the hafling had just turned against Togruk whilst in the sewers, attacking him with bare fists and teeth, and Togruk just held Wendel at bay, but Wendel then collapsed, dead. Togruk handed himself in and wanted to follow the due process of the law to protest his innocence, but is getting more worried, as he feels that Captain Icespine is untrustworthy, and his story is not being investigated. Now he hears that Sallow may be a traitor to his cause, and Crickhollow dead, Togruk feels even more concerned at how he would be able to prove his innocence.
The party decide that they must escape the stockade and find their own proof - of both Togruk's innocence and their own. They are convinced that the answer may lay somewhere in the Chadstone Manor and that maybe the sewers may be the safest (least conspicuous) means of getting in there.
Locked in a cell and without weapons or spell components, they have to come up with a plan for escape. Mahtis changes into spider form, and goes a-scouting, finding where their possessions are being kept, and a way out of the stockade. She also notes that there seems to be only a single guard, Greyal, in the building with them at present. The scouting as a spider seems to take a while, and Mahtis is forced to use both of her wild shape abilities to avoid reverting back to her natural form too early.
In heading back to where Greyal is sitting, she launches into her plan. Reverting back to normal form in the shadows, she casts Fog Cloud around Greyal, causing him to jump up in alarm, but to not see the dragonborn druid grab the keys from the wall and run to let the others out of their cell.
By the time they all get back to the watchroom, Greyal has emerged from the cloud of fog and is surprised to see them out of their cell. He reaches for his weapon, but Mahtis and TC are too quick for him - Mahtis grabbing him by one arm and TC grabbing his other, preventing him from drawing his weapon. Quick as a flash (well, out-of-game it took a while, but poetic licence applied…) Kandi grabs the iron manacles that are on the desk and tries to attach them to the flailing dwarf's wrists, but the guard is writhing around too much. Greyal manages to break TC's grip on his wrist, so TC punches him in the face. This shocked the dwarf enough to ensure he couldn't break the grip Mahtis still had on him, and it allowed TC to re-grab his other wrist, this time allowing Kandi to snap on the manacles. They gagged poor Greyal and threw him in their cell, locking him in.
It was at this point that the group started to hear a loud commotion from above. Worried that perhaps more Watch were coming into the stockage, they proceeded to grab their belongings from the storeroom. An argument took place between Carro and TC regarding whether to steal Togruk's money from his crate of belongings, in order to make it look like they were just thieves, but also to ensure Togruk was not implicated in their escape. An agreement wasn't reached on this subtle point, but TC took the purse anyway.
As they headed upstairs, hoping to escape by the main door into the stockade courtyard they heard an almighty thump from above. Heading up to check it seemed that the main exit door was now blocked by a very large, and very heavy statue of an anvil that was previously standing in the main square. Panicked voices and shouting could be heard outside, and, via Kandi's translation of dwarvish, they suspected that the commotion may have been caused by some of the carnival animals having escaped and were running amok in the town.
With that escape route blocked, they headed back down to the storeroom, where there was another door. This led into a rather gruesome execution chamber. One of the doors leading off of this revealed a very large humanoid, looking a little like a half-ogre, wielding a very large and very sharp great axe. He was The Executioner, and he was wondering why a group of non-dwarves, and non-watch members were unaccompanied in his execution room. Luckily for the party, this half-ogre seemed to be a little dim-witted and the party managed to convince him that they were friends of the Watch and that they needed his help upstairs in clearing a blocked door. The Executioner rushed upstairs to try to help, which bought the party a little time.
Just enough time, in fact, for them to spot a grating beneath the chopping block in the execution room, which seemed to lead down into darkness below. They managed to move the block and open the grating, but the ladder down was broken halfway. With time pressure on, and The Executioner calling to them to help from upstairs, Kandi quickly tied a rope around himself and gave the other end to Mahtis to hold, and the bard started climbing down the rope. Unfortunately the druid was distracted by the shouting from above, and the rope slipped through her fingers. Kandi fell the 20 feet down to the damp, smelly and rather hard floor beneath, taking "merely a scratch" from the fall. Learning from his mistake, the others tied a rope to the end of the ladder and used that to descend in a more orderly fashion into the darkness below.
And so we leave our "Heroes" in the darkness of the tunnels beneath the stockade. A pungent smell greets their noses, and Carro is very worried about how these damp, dirty and smelly tunnels will affect his clothing and general appearance. Luckily they had managed to get a basic map of the sewers from Togruk's belongings before they descended, but it won't be long before the Watch realise they are gone, and they are bound to know where they went…