Freeport Campaign

Rewards Earned

• Experience Points: 8000
• Treasure: Recovered from Mantatlus’s manor (and subject to the Imperial “ownerless property” laws): Statue of an efreet (3300 gp); statue of an ancient general (1500 gp); bronze dagger used to assassinate ancient general (1000 gp); illuminated Matyanist religious text (700 gp); bronze scroll case (150 gp); ancient clay water jug (50 gp); painting of a Mavinar street scene (1500 gp); gilded plate (750 gp); matching gilded chalice (750 gp); Mantatlus’s spellbook; 2200 gp; 3 rubies (700 gp each)

Still convinced they were missing something important to tie all their clues together, the group followed up on their remaining leads. First, they questioned Mossan Zahad, head merchant of the Greater Galleon trading company, after he finished auctioning a single vanilla bean for an exorbitant sum of money. (The party had learned in previous conversations on the street that a large shipment of Maztican vanilla beans had been sunk by pirates a few weeks ago.) Zahad stated with a smarmy smirk that Galliad had indeed arranged a meeting with Greater Galleon, but had not shown up at the agreed time. He then smiled and excused himself to begin another auction.

Irritated with the merchant, Chow and Spike headed off to surveil the house that Richard had seen the messengers enter. On the way, the two sailors strolled down the Path of Silk Flowers, the red-lamp district whose courtesans tended colorful gardens of silk vegetation during off-hours. The manor house sat at the end of the Path, at the intersection with the Avenue of Chimes. Chow and Spike learned from their conversations that the fellow who lived in the house, apparently an art collector and dealer, tended to keep to himself, and rarely enlisted the ladies’ services. After an embarrassing unintentional double entendre, Chow also arranged a meeting for later in the evening with Nashafeen, whose talents reputedly matched Chow’s perceived tastes.

Still chuckling, Spike and Chow approached the artfully carved front doors of the manor house. A couple of unanswered knocks informed them that the manor’s owner was either away or not amenable to guests. Disappointed, the two headed back to the inn to meet up with the rest of the group.

From there, the party went to the Silent Siren, the bar just outside the Atrium, to look for any further clues before calling it a night. The proprietor, Able Yaleen, confirmed that Galliad had been in the bar the night he had disappeared. The young fellow had enjoyed many drinks with a black-haired woman who wore an orchid brooch. Chow remembered that the ladies from the Path of Silk Flowers had been wearing similar brooches, so he was unsurprised when Yaleen mentioned that Galliad had left with the young lady.

The barkeep said that the group’s description of a fat, sweaty man did match that of a fellow who had been to the tavern several times. He remembered the man both because of his size and the fact that during each visit, the man left the bar numerous times, only to return an hour later.

During the group’s conversation with Yaleen, Carmina noticed a heavy drinker scowling at Kathkallan from a corner table, and surreptitiously brought the burly fellow to the group’s attention. Spike sent the guy a drink, and then went over to introduce himself. The party recognized the man’s name, Bernal, as that of the fellow who had hired the thugs to attack Kathkallan. Bernal chatted for a bit about his work as a porter, but got more belligerent as the conversation turned to Kathkallan and the fat man. He finally had enough, stood up, and weaved his way through the bar and out the door. Chow followed Bernal and watched him fall to the ground a dozen yards from the bar. Recognizing an opportunity for further questioning, the party paid their tab, thanked Able Yaleen, and left. Richard and Spike dragged their stumbling “comrade” back to the Sea Wind, while Chow went back to the Path of Silk Flowers for his “date,” and the rest of the group reconvened at the inn where they were staying.

A few splashes of water to the face awoke Bernal, but it was the realization that he was tied up in the hold of a ship that seemed to sober him up. Spike and Richard asked him again what he knew about the business between Kathkallan and the fat man. He told them that the fat, sweaty guy had paid him to recruit some sailors and send them to the Silent Siren. Spike looked carefully into the porter’s eyes, didn’t like what he saw, and mentioned to Richard that they should try throwing Bernal overboard to try loosening his tongue. The porter howled that he couldn’t swim, but Richard just slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Sorry.”

They dragged the fellow to the deck, tied him securely, and dumped him unceremoniously over the gunwales. Richard estimated the time remaining on the waterbreathing spell he had cast on Bernal, and helped haul him back up after what they deemed a suitably frightening interval. After Spike told him that next time he wouldn’t have the benefit of magical protection, Bernal repeated his story, along with some additional information about Anteashara, the female porter who lived with Catellion at the Platinum Quill. Apparently, she worked for a secretive client near the Path of Silk Flowers, and frequently used her knowledge of the city to dig up information on sculptures and other artworks for him. Bernal also mentioned that he hadn’t actually met Kathkallan before tonight, and only knew the mechant by sight after the thug who escaped the ambush in the Waft had hunted Bernal down, kicked him in a rather sensitive area for signing him up for that “clusterfuck of a job,” and then sat drinking with Bernal and regaling him with the details of the fight.

Satisfied with Bernal’s story, Spike suggested that the porter stay on the ship for the evening, so as to avoid any further repercussions from his involvement in the current mess. With that, Richard and Spike went back to the inn to meet up with the rest of the party to discuss how to proceed.

Meanwhile, Chow’s “date” with Nashafeen went well until he started talking afterwards. After a few statements that, depending on context, could be construed as bashful compliments or cold insults, the courtesan snapped at him and asked him to leave. She then apologized and said that she should have been more professional, even given the conversational pit he’d dug for himself. She admitted to being somewhat out of sorts since Zinni, her best friend, had gone missing recently. Zinni had been visited frequently by a fellow from Meghani lately, who had hired her a couple of days ago to meet a friend of his at the Silent Siren and take him to a nearby garden for a “surprise.” She wasn’t sure which garden the man had meant, but she knew that there were only a couple of nearby houses that had gardens, including the manor house about which Chow and Spike had expressed an interest. She agreed to let Chow drop by the next day to look through Zinni’s apartment for any clues as to her disappearance. With that, Chow said goodbye and headed back to meet up with the rest of the group.

The group talked and planned with Kathkallan well into the night. The next day, Richard used divine magic to ascertain that Catellion, Anteashara, and the mysterious art collector, whose name they discovered was Mantatlus, were in fact involved with the deaths of Galliad and Zinni; that the two bodies were still on the manor premises; that the contracts were also still on the premises; and various other facts regarding the case. Rather than risking their lives in what would probably amount to an illegal assault on private property, the party decided to give their information to the proper authorities and see what happened.

Before doing so, though, Spike, Chow, and Carmina went to investigate Zinni’s apartment on the Path of Silk Flowers. They didn’t find anything, but had a strange encounter on their way out of the building. On the front steps, a man and his escort bumped into Spike and dropped some money on the ground. When Carmina pointed out the coins, the fellow grabbed them, thanked her, and tossed the coins to her. Suspicious, Spike advised her to be careful handling the coins and give them to Chow or Richard later for further investigation.

Finding nothing of note in Zinni’s apartment, the group asked Nashafeen if she’d be willing to gather a couple of trusted friends to act as lookouts in case somebody tried to sneak up the Path while the party raided the manor house. She agreed and wished them luck.

The party then took their information to the city judges, who confirmed via a zone of truth spell that the party had cast the divinations and received the results they reported. The judges then deputized the party to assist in bringing the suspects, including Mossan Zahad, to the Pillar of Truth near the dockside entrance to the city for questioning.

They apprehended Zahad without incident and captured Anteashara after a brief struggle, but did not find Catellion. The lead investigator then took the party and a squad of guards to Mantatlus’s manor house and demanded entry. The combined forces took out several low-level thugs, but a couple of stouter individuals and a quartet of summoned gorillas killed Balama and several guards, including the head investigator, while fighting their way from the garden out the front door. Kathkallan and Bezzem dispatched the pair of gorillas that attacked them, but took some wounds in the process.

Meanwhile, Chow kept watch on the manor garden from an adjacent rooftop, and Richard staked out a position in the alley beside the manor house. Shortly after the fight in the house started, Chow suddenly jumped into the alley and began attacking Richard. The priest managed to dispel the magical domination, dodged a sickly green ray from above, and then created a hole in the garden wall. Chow entered and fought off a couple of thugs, but winced as another thug ran between the two lemon trees and quickly fell to a pair of ghasts that had emerged from the ground beneath the trees. Trusting Richard to be able to handle the undead, Chow retreated back out of the hole in the wall.

Out front, Carmina had seen the green ray in her peripheral vision and spotted what she assumed to be Mantatlus flying a hundred feet above the manor house. She shouted a warning at about the same time that a nearby group of guards fell to the effects of a confusion spell, fleeing or babbling or just standing around. Richard emerged from the alley next to the manor house and summoned some mist to obscure himself and Carmina from the flying mage. While they made their slow way to the front door, Carmina heard a voice in front of her say, “Gil, Holm, to me.” Richard dismissed the mist to discover the crumpled forms of Balama and a couple of guards, but saw no signs of their attackers.

Spike and Isaac, having taken out several thugs in the house, helped the city guards mop up the stragglers and dispatch the ghasts in the garden. While clearing out the rest of the ghasts and zombies that emerged from the garden soil, the party and guards managed to avoid succumbing to the alluring scents of the vines growing on the lemon trees. Further research in Mantatlus’s library revealed the vines to be Pillars of Umisavi, the berries of which, when consumed, could both poison the eater and compel him to ingest more berries. The speculation was that the vines were the “surprise” to which Zinni had been paid to bring Galliad. Indeed, to their horror, Kathkallan and Nashafeen identified the first two ghasts as the reanimated corpses of the courtesan and the merchant’s assistant. The rest of the undead were too decayed to identify.

With the opposition dead or fled, the remaining guards and party members methodically searched the house. They discovered Kathkallan’s contracts hidden behind the descriptive plaques for a couple of Mantatlus’s collected art pieces, and found the wizard’s spellbook and some gold in a chest in his bedroom. The guards cautioned the party not to take anything yet, but let them know that, as the owner of the manor seemed to have left the property, the judges and the governor would probably consider the loot “ownerless” and return at least a portion of it to the party with the city’s compliments, and more importantly with the Emperor’s thanks.

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