Freeport Campaign

The party shut down the “serpent house” in Drac’s End, killing a gnomish wizard, several apprentices, and a couple of local gang members. They captured one gnome apprentice who eagerly gave up as much information as he could regarding the white smoke “project.” The serpent house produced scrolls of charm person, which were combined with snake weed to create white smoke at the alchemical lab located on a wrecked ship on the northern end of A’Val. The apprentice also volunteered the name and location of the leader of the white smoke organization, one Garrus Oruck, who disguised himself as an orc and mingled with the workers camped out on the island of T’Wik, where Drac’s Folly stood.

Peg Leg used a scroll of Raise Dead to bring Carmina back to the land of the living. The group also used a scroll of Speak with Dead to interrogate the leader of the guards who had operated the magical ballista that had destroyed the third floor of the House of Serenity. The fellow’s temporarily animated body reported that they had been hired by a priest named Saul Hawthorne. Peg Leg Peligro mentioned a run-in with such a fellow over at the Rusty Hook, a drinking establishment and inn over at the intersection of the Warehouse, Merchant, and Docks districts.

On the way to the Hook to investigate Hawthorne, the group stopped at the address given for “Mrs. Safe’s House” in Soderheim’s ledgers. They were greeted by a sweet, confused elderly lady whose late husband had been a carpenter in Arias Soderheim’s employ. “That nice young man Arias” continued to pay the rent and send contractors to maintain the house for Mrs. Safe, and even visited her every once in a while. The group explained the reason for their visit and requested permission to check the house for evidence related to the investigation, to which she readily agreed. Although they found nothing overtly condemning, the party figured that Soderheim had probably used the nicely furnished bedroom in the basement to conduct discreet business without the lady’s knowledge. This avenue of investigation closed, the party thanked Mrs. Safe and headed to the Rusty Hook.

The proprietor, an affable, foul-mouthed chap named Karl Wine, informed the group that Hawthorne had indeed roomed at the Hook for the last several months, but that he had checked out earlier in the day. “Good riddance,” he added, as none of the regulars had liked Hawthorne.

More flavor text to follow…

With the storm still 6-12 hours out, the group decided to track down Soderheim before he had a chance to get away. Will scried on him using a lock of hair procured from the Councilor’s house. The crystal ball showed Soderheim making his “O” face at the House of Serenity – getting in one last poke before his likely arrest and/or demise.

The group headed to the House of Serenity, which was just down the street from Teach Investigations. They noticed a nondescript fellow make a relatively unobstrusive hand gesture, which triggered the door to the establishment being barred from the inside. Will, of course, used a dimension door to skirt this rather pedestrian method of security, and Spike and Chow made quick work of the lone guard on the other side of the door.

Chow peeked behind a nice silken curtain to discover four toked-up guards in the House’s snake weed den. He offered to allow them to walk out and join their compatriots at the Soderheim house, who Will had bought off a half hour previous. Instead, they all fired crossbow bolts into the curtain and the wall around Chow. In return, Chow stabbed one of the guys and repeated his offer. With a chorus of, “Dude, you killed Donnie!,” they dropped their crossbows and grabbed the hookah mouthpieces.
About that time, somebody dropped a barrel filled with beer-smelling rocks and dirt on Will as he tried to ascend the stairs to the second floor. Will responded by floating up the third floor and dropping a shrapnel globe on the 5 guys assembled up there. They looked like 4 bodyguards and a leader of some sort, all dressed in Soderheim’s livery.

The leader appeared to be something other than human, as he flicked a fireball from his finger and regenerated the damage the shrapnel had done. As Will and Spike pressed the attack on him, the guy studied their faces and teleported away.
Meanwhile, Chow found 5 kitchen workers locked up in the cold-storage pantry behind the kitchen, and Balama used a Detect Thoughts spell to scan the second floor. Will followed the same tack and scanned the third floor for people, narrowing down the locations of the guards up there.

Chow had the good idea to tie the doorknobs of two adjacent doors together to keep the guards in one of the third-floor rooms trapped, but the plan failed when the guards heard him, opened the door, and jiggled the door to dislodge the rope. At that point, a thoroughly fed-up Will said, “Drop your weapons or everybody dies.” That’s when the third floor exploded.

An enormous fireball reduced the top floor of the House of Serenity to smoldering cinders. A quick search revealed that Carmina had been burnt to death, along with all of the guards, patrons, and workers on the third floor.

With a newly clear view of the surrounding area, Will spotted a heretofore unknown ballista atop one of the Old City towers 500 feet away. The four-man crew (who all had their hands pressed to the ballista, strangely) were still aiming the ballista at the House of Serenity. Without another thought, Will scorched them with a delayed-blast fireball.

While everybody else descended to the first floor to recover, Spike acted on Balama’s guidance that she had found Soderheim in one of the back rooms of the second floor. Spike killed guard after guard at the top of the stair, all the time keeping Soderheim in sight as the Councilor tried to make his way down the hall to the stairs. The elf tried to cast several spells on Spike, but none of them seemed to work. When the crowd thinned enough, Spike leapt from the stairs and impaled the Councilor with one rapier stroke.

With the House cleared, Will flew with Carmina’s body to the Temple of Harrimast, while Balama sprouted wings and flew to the top of the recently unmanned tower to investigate.

1500 miles away and several hours previous, while having a nice lunch with Finn and Lady Elise aboard the Sea Wind, Richard suddenly felt as tired as he ever had in his life, as though he’d been up for two days straight. He excused himself and retired to his cabin.

The group got back to town before the storm. They talked to Mother Lorilee, the high priestess of Shalimyr (god of the ocean) to try to convince her to intercede on the city’s behalf. While the group was still in telepathic contact, Richard talked with Elise and Finn. Elise basically said, “To hell with Freeport – I quit. I’m going back to Montaigne,” but Spike and Richard tried to convince her to help stabilize the city. Finn gave some details about his capture and expressed a desire to get back to his city.

The group also presented evidence of Soderheim’s involvement in Elise’s kidnapping to the acting chief of the Sea Lord’s Guard, to the Captain’s Council (Marcus Roberts, specifically), and to a couple of the city’s judges. Roberts called an emergency public meeting of the Captain’s Council to “discuss storm preparations,” but when all of the Councilors except Elise and Soderheim showed up, he presented the evidence against Soderheim to the Council and the assembled rabble. Predictably, the Council complained and bickered. Marilise Maeorgan (younger sister of Melkior Maeorgan, who was killed at the Battle of the Lighthouse) pointed out that Elise could have staged the kidnapping to eliminate Soderheim as a rival, and the group pointed out that Marilise could have staged the whole thing as well. In the end, the Council eventually agreed that Soderheim should at least be arrested and brought in for questioning.

As the meeting was breaking up, 4 assassins stepped out of the shadows and attacked members of Elise’s faction. Two Council members died (Dirwin Arnig and Marcus Roberts), while the rest of the Council got away with treatable injuries. The Four worked with the gathered clerics and mages to kill 3 of the assassins and capture the fourth. The surviving assassin caved to Spike’s intimidation and admitted in a zone of truth that Soderheim had contacted the assassins and hired them while the Council was discussing the Councilor’s fate. With the city in turmoil, the Council in tatters, and the hurricane just hours away, Marilise followed Spike’s suggestion and declared martial law effective immediately through the end of the storm. Sister Gwendolyn (Council member from the temple of Shalimyr who survived the attempt on her life) seconded the motion, and a curfew was set for 6:00.

The acting chief of the Guard deputized the Four and they headed over to check out Soderheim’s residence. They gathered a stack of ledgers, journals, letters, and other incriminating documents to study while holed up to ride out the storm. Among the documents: further proof that Soderheim offered Fargas Ironfoot both Finn and a sum of 20,000 gp in exchange for the pirate’s kidnapping of Elise; indications that Soderheim had at least known about the planned riots; letters of pardon for various gang leaders, including Partch Carty, Mr. Wednesday, and Finn, among others, signed, “Arias Soderheim, Sea Lord of Freeport”; several payments to “Armada Shipping and Transport Company”; and several payments to “Mrs. Safe’s House.” The plan, should the party and the city survive the storm, is to present these documents to the Captain’s Council, the Sea Lord’s Guard, and the judges, and to put Arias Soderheim on public trial, assuming of course that he hasn’t fled already by the time the storm passes.

The Freeport Four rescued Finn and Lady Elise in a daring raid at Felix’s Resort, where Fargas Ironfoot and his cronies were having their way with the staff and guests. Richard instantly recalled himself and the two high-profile captives back to the Sea Wind, while the rest of the party made quick work of the assembled pirates. Unfortunately, a familiar pair of Crimson Fleet wizards teleported away with Fargas before the party could capture him. (One of the wizards departed with an unfriendly admonition for the doomed Bosun – “Good luck, asshole.”) The group sailed Fargas’s ship, the Widowmaker, back to Freeport after having cleared the Resort and the ship of crew (including pirates and a cabin boy who turned out to be a succubus, presumably feeding on the degenerate pirate who was violating him when Chow opened the door to the crew cabin). Amongst Fargas’s personal effects, the party discovered an odd map and a journal incriminating Arias Soderheim as the instigator of the kidnapping of Lady Elise. The elven shipping magnate and member of the Captains’ Council had apparently offered Fargas 20,000 gold pieces and the right to capture Finn in exchange for seizing Elise. The group noticed on the way back that the weather was changing, indicating that the hurricane bearing down on Freeport would probably arrive a couple of days sooner than anticipated.

More flavor text to follow, maybe…