Freeport Campaign

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 800
• Treasure: 225 gp, several cutlasses, and several daggers

Having made several potential trading contacts in Mavinar, the group was ready to set sail for the next city on the Spice Coast. Before departing, though, they decided to make a final sweep through the merchant quarter to look for various odds and ends.

While strolling through the pleasantly aromatic neighborhood known as the Waft, the party heard the ring of steel a block away. They were alarmed to see their new trading partner, Kathkallan, beset by a trio of what looked like cutlass-wielding sailors. Most of the party rushed up the street, while Chow took to the rooftops and Balama zapped one of the thugs with magic missiles. Within a minute, several thugs lay dead on the street, three had surrendered, and one had fled.

The surviving thugs said that they had been approached by a porter named Bernal when they had gotten off the ship that morning. Bernal had informed them of a money-making opportunity offered by a fat man at a tavern called the Silent Siren. The sweaty, portly man had offered them 50 gold pieces each to accost Kathkallan and retrieve five or more jars from his body, alive or otherwise.

Upon hearing the thugs’ story, Kathkallan confessed that he had slightly misled the party the previous night. His wagon-load of wool had been a cover for his true mission in Mavinar – collecting on two lucrative contracts he had arranged with merchants in the city some time ago. The first contract involved the sale of several jars of royal jelly from Kathkallan’s giant bee farms outside Usharad. The other contract was for a large quantity of vanilla beans. While he was enacting the sale of the wool, he had sent his assistant Galliad to arrange meetings with the merchants detailed in the contracts – Jazasari Arrasti was to buy the royal jelly, while the Greater Galleon trading company was to sell the vanilla beans for a previously agreed-upon prince.

Things had gone wrong for Kathkallan, however, when Galliad had turned up missing three days previous, along with Kathkallan’s copies of the contracts, without which the agreements were void. Because of the Imperial court system’s tradition of requiring the plaintiff to procure witnesses and evidence, the merchant had been attempting to retrace Galliad’s steps when the thugs had attacked.

His story told, Kathkallan asked the party if they’d be willing to assist him, or at least protect him while he investigated his assistant’s disappearance. They agreed and set off immediately to find the young man.

They made several discoveries over the course of the afternoon:

• Remembering the beggar who had mentioned the location of a messenger’s body three days ago, the party searched the river until they found the remains. There was an empty satchel nearby, the body did not appear to be Galliad.
• Kathkallan had worked with Galliad’s father, and did not think Galliad would run off and try to cash in the contracts himself.
• Galliad had indeed visited Jazasari Arrasti’s pavilion to arrange a meeting between Kathkallan and Arrasti. Arrasti’s scribe, Omannar, remembered talking to Galliad, and mentioned that the young man had talked to a female porter about finding a caravan broker. The woman recommended a place called “the Platinum something-or-other.”
• Galliad may or may not have visited Greater Galleon to arrange a meeting between Kathkallan and the trading company.
• The party found a caravan broker in the Atrium, a few blocks away, called the Platinum Quill. The proprietor, a man named Catellion, said that business had been slow lately, and that he didn’t remember anyone by Galliad’s name or description in the last few days.
• Another merchant in the Atrium, a moneychanger named Gheldieg, called the party over and told them that he did remember a fellow of Galliad’s description talking to Catellion a few days ago. In fact, Gheldieg said, Galliad and Catellion filled out a fair bit of paperwork and seemed to strike some kind of deal. After their business was concluded, Galliad asked Catellion something, to which the other man responded by pointing toward the Atrium’s west exit. Galliad had walked out that exit and into the Silent Siren tavern.
• Balama attempted to cast a charm on Catellion and talk to him again, but she got the same story as the earlier group.
• After talking to the party, Catellion handed a couple of pieces of paper to one of his guards and said, “Give these to Anteashara.” The guard delivered the notes to a woman standing near Gheldieg’s tent. The woman then left the Atrium and gave the notes to a pair of runners, who took off in different directions. Chow and Richard pursued the runners, and Richard tracked one of the fellows to a manor house on the north side of the merchant district. The other runner showed up a few minutes later, and both of them went to a local tavern after delivering their messages.

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