Cliffshadow Murders: All Growed Up

Freelancers Tavern was abuzz with the news that Arnari had involved herself in the prior day's investigation gone awry.  The Freelancers involved however were pretty mum about it, other than mentioning that a person they'd been interrogating had been slain whilst in their care.  Meurig in particular was hot about that.

Somehow that news inspired more Freelancers to ask for a mission, so Ondar and Glesni were accompanied by Nix and Mia, Sabah and Murai.  Sabah had been working on changes to their studded leathers, making them more showy; but that was nothing compared to Murai.  They had upgraded their armour to chain mail, and now bore a plain shield; but were wearing, hanging from around their neck, an extremely tacky, large, diamond-studded, gold holy symbol of some type of bird.

Anyhow everyone filed into Arnari's office and sat down, except for Glesni, who stood against the wall.  Arnari, after mentioning in a wry tone that "eggs and pollution will be always," launched into a list.

• Mayor Kaiea would really like to ensure there are no more Cassowary fiends.  150gp/each
• Go to Hindmarsh to check on Jamie's boss.  Try to be sneaky, try to find out what's up.  200gp/person.

Glesni interrupted.  "Who is Jamie?  What is this?" she asked.

Arnari explained briefly, "Anti-Skyguard graffiti correlated to 3 people working for the pirate ship Osprey."  Glesni's face hardened a little, as Mia said wonderingly, "I remember my parents talking about this."

Ondar declared, "Ondar has no idea what you are talking about.  No Sir."  Sabah looked bewildered at Ondar's declaration, but Murai nodded emphatically.

Arnari closed her eyes to recruit her patience, then continued.

• Investigate Waypoint Alarm for Church of Storms.  This waypoint is one that we know the Daystar lotion was sent on to.  Also stay somewhat discreet, I have one Church of Storms badge

Murai interrupted.  "Have not heard of this."

Arnari raised an eyebrow, then said, "Weird cult, who worship the Daystar."  None of these Freelancers had been involved with these missions, and the shocked reactions to such a far-out heresy were predictable.

Arnari:  they sell lotion because they "worship" in an Unfortunate Position, and long use of the lotion does mental damage.
Mia:  so, you think this is a multi-level marketing scheme that we need to shut down.
Arnari:  exactly
Glesni:  mental damage?
Arnari <wryly>:  after enough time using it, one loses common sense.

Everyone's face showed what they thought of the common sense of those who did that in the first place, so after a pause, Arnari continued.

• The final mission is, there are some disturbances happening between Haven and Cliffgate.  Travellers are getting harassed when camping on the road between these two towns.

This mission was even more confusing.  They all knew these words, but what did these sentences even mean?

Mia:  harassed by what
Arnari:  that's why Freelancers are needed.
Mia:  I mean, animal, humanoid, or what
Arnari:  mostly supplies/foodstuffs going missing
Glesni:  flying bears!
Arnari:  not in the right place.
Sabah:  how much does this mission pay?
Arnari:  100gp/person.
Murai:  I'm gonna vote for the not-stealth mission.
Mia:  investigation is not my strong suit but I'm down with any one.
Sabah:  that Cassowary sounds like somethin'
Nix:  demons are fun.
Mia:  we will make no progress.
Sabah:  we were checking something different, before.
Glesni:  we don't have to "investigate" much, wandering around Guildstrom
Mia:  we can just ask around; I'm good with that
Murai:  wandering around asking and inviting attack seems like a tactic.
Arnari:  please don't spread Cassowary fiend rumours
Mia:  we could just as about a missing large bird
Glesni:  the Cassowary thing was in Trade District and Guildstrom
Mia and Glesni:  where were people jumped?
Sabah:  between the Map guild and the Academy of Magic.
Mia:  we should start where they got jumped.
Glesni <remembering>:  one of the kids talked about Cassowary momma
Mia:  might not be lady, might be another person.
Ondar:  Ondar thought that referred to the actual god.
Glesni:  what about the lady, we took her to Church of Ua
Ondar:  yes
Murai:  oh if she is still alive, we should start there

By now it's probably pretty plain the Cassowary fiend was the mission they actually took, and soon thereafter the Freelancers headed out of Arnari's office, out of the Tavern, and over to pay a visit to the Church of Ua.

As they walked to Church of Ua, Nix was accompanied by Mercury, her jet-black tressym, and Sabah had a wolpertinger!  This caused the others to comment, until Sabah explained the wolpertinger's name was Fluffy, in which case the others fell into an uncomfortable silence.

Upon arrival at the Church of Ua, the Freelancers asked if they could speak to the Downpour, but she was unavailable.  However the cleric Jeanah was available and happy to talk to them.

Mia:  do you still have the old lady that was making the murder dolls, or did you have to get rid of her?
<Murai gave Mia a strong side-eye.>
Jeanah:  we still have her in custody, but I wouldn't recommend talking to her.  She is completely crazy
Mia:  at least one doll became a full-sized bird. <to Sabah>  didn't you guys bring it here?
Sabah:  yes, I believe we did.
Jeanah:  I do remember this, a couple days ago
Mia:  so, you still haven't gotten much out of her?
Glesni:  did you show her the bird?  How did she react?
Jeanah:  she still calls herself Cass; we can't tell if it's a name or reference to the god.  We gave her a spoon, she sharpened it and tried to kill someone.  She's incoherent; every other word is 'murder', etc.
Sabah:  even if she's bug-fuck crazy, were you able to research the birg or the dolls?
Jeanah:  it's weird dark magic, as far as we can tell Cass was infusing life into the dolls, using the infusion of the bubbling thing.  They weren't very strong until they were able to convince the child to murder.
Mia:  that implies something really bad.
Glesni:  at least 3.
Jeanah:  we haven't gotten a straight answer out of Cass about how many dolls she made.
Ondar:  even with zone of truth?
Jeanah <small headshake>:  won't work, if protected by another god.
Glesni:  what about showing her the bird?
Jeanah:  no, we did not; we weren't sure she couldn't reanimate it.  We disposed of any fiend corpse properly.
Glesni:  is there a way to let her out and track her?
Jeanah:  no
Glesni <to the others>:  we should do wellness checks around prior places [of murders]
Mia:  check if anyone has been stabbed by a beak, or something
Glesni:  that's part of wellness
Mia <restlessly>:  we should check with Guard posts
Glesni:  Jeanah, will you be available in the off-chance we discover someone was stabbed by a beak?
Jeanah:  I do not have speak with dead prepared, but will make sure someone who does is available.

At this, the Freelancers took their leave, and headed to the nearest Guildstrom Guard station house.

The nearest Guard house wasn't terribly far from Freelancers Tavern and the Academy of Magic, and had other taverns and bars nearby.  When the Freelancers walked in, Mia announced loudly, "Hello boys, no handcuffs needed this time, and I promise to behave."

Sabah looked at Mia, confused, and then looked at the amused Guards, and back at Mia.  "Needed, or wanted?" he asked, and Murai burst into laughter.

They spoke to two guards.

Glesni:  we are following up on incidents from earlier, and were wondering if there have been any incidents lately in those neighbourhoods.
<The taller guard failed to remember.>
Shorter Guard:  oh, that.  Nothing out of the ordinary, some muggings/stabbings.
Glesni:  have you recovered the knives?
Taller Guard:  no
Murai:  any thing where items left on body?
Taller Guard:  not really
Murai:  any unusual wounds?
Taller Guard:  not super good at telling.
Mia:  any other Guard houses to check?
<Both guards shrugged.>
Glesni:  anything in the last half-prime?
Shorter Guard:  no
Glesni:  well, you know how to reach us
Shorter Guard <smiled>:  we all know where Freelancers Tavern is
Mia:  might wanna refresh your friend

The taller guard glared at Mia as the Freelancers took their leave.  They decided the next step was to find the friends of the children who had turned into murderers.

The murders had taken place a full 2 eighths ago, and it took the Freelancers a little bit to remember where to go to find the right place.  Once there, they started asking around, and looking around, and they learned exactly nothing.  Also, while they didn't notice until much later, Ondar and Glesni were targeted by an unusually good pickpocket.  Ondar lost 27gp, and Glesni lost 21 plat and 6 gp.

They finally remembered that when the murders happened the key was the kids, so the started talking to the kids.  The stories they got were consistent:  "If you wander through back alleys when it's dark, be really careful!"

Intrigued, the Freelancers tried to find out if this was new, and also to narrow down the location.  They found it was recent, and more dire than normal; it was worth your life to go out in the alleys after dark.  They spent an hour on it, but were unable to narrow a location, or find any pattern beyond "unlit alley".  However, the stories corroborated each other; they weren't just rumours, people had started going missing about two primes after the Planting Holiday.

Frustrated with the entire affair, a silent consensus was building just to wait until dark and tempt this adversary out.  Well… almost silent.

Glesni:  we are just going to strut our stuff?
Mia:  you got a better idea?
Glesni:  NO  <cast a side-eye at Ondar>  maybe we will have a better outcome if we try to sabotage this.
Ondar:  sabotage, or ambush?
Glesni:  well…
Murai:  need to buy torches.
Sabah:  yes
Ondar:  maybe the Cassowary is not expecting to encounter adventurers.

The Freelancers headed back to the Tavern.  Murai hadn't been kidding; they lacked darkvision and stopped at the quartermaster to acquire a lantern and flasks of oil.  Glesni noted she had a potion of fire breath.

Sabah tried to remember if the cassowary fiend they'd encountered was fire resistant, but they only could remember that it was hard to damage.  Glesni smiled cynically and nodded at Murai.  "It won't resist any damage from smite from Paladin of Bling Thing," she observed.

Ondar splurged on spider silk rope, and worked on making a lariat.  Murai kept their thoughts to themself regarding Ondar's knotmaking skills.  Glesni considered carefully, and picked up a bag of ball bearings.

Then it was just a matter of waiting until dark.

It was beer o'clock when the Freelancers left their rather busy tavern and headed over to Guildstrom to wander through the dark alleys.  Nix flew above, silently, on her broom of flying.  Party people could be heard on the busier streets but the noises were eerily distant, as the alleys were abandoned.

They came upon a join between two alleys, building walls looming overhead, and Sabah's wolpertinger, Fluffy, poked them that something was ahead.  Ondar and Glesni saw a strange shape in the shadows, and the Freelancers readied themselves.

It was a cassowary.  To the Freelancers' surprise, it flew up to one of the roofs and hid.  While still digesting this surprising turn of events, another cassowary, much larger, jumped in front of Ondar.  It was actually larger than Ondar, but fortunately for the quinametzin, it missed with both swipes of its claws.

• Glesni, unhappy to have a murderous fiend thing modelled after the god of murder on a roof over her head, shot a seeking arrow at the cassowary that had flown up to the roof.  The flying cassowary avoided enough of the arrow that Glesni still could not tell where it had gone.
• Mercury prepared to dodge anything that came his way.
• Mia burst into a rage and came up on Ondar's right, completely missing the large cassowary with her longsword.
• Sabah stepped up to Ondar's left, and attempted to use their staff to inflict booming blade on the large cassowary, and also missed.
• Fluffy flew past the large cassowary, distracting it enough to help the next attacker.
• Ondar became large, then attacked the large cassowary with his vicious rapier.  The magical damage pierced the bird badly.
  • He then invoked his fire rune, to bind it with the fire shackles like he'd done to so many enemies in the past.  The large cassowary shrugged it off; although it was somewhat burned, it could not be bound.
  • Peeved, Large Ondar pierced it again with his vicious rapier.
  • Large Ondar stepped back, daring the fiend to attack him, which it did, claw ripping open his leg.  He stepped back and forth a couple times.
• Nix cast an upleveld chromatic orb, which settled on poison before it crit the large cassowary.  Immune to poison effects, the cassowary shook it off entirely, to Nix's thorough dismay.
• Murai pulled out a sawed-off boat hook and whiffed the large cassowary.  They backed off 10', next to Large Ondar.

The large cassowary was not bound, but still was burned by the fire shackles at its feet, so it hopped over Large Ondar and Mia.  Sabah struck it with their quarterstaff, but the strike did not seem to hit as hard as they expected.  Once it landed the large cassowary tried to slice both Mia and Ondar, but missed.

• Ondar invoked his stone rune, sending the large cassowary to la la land.  It stood there, oblivious.

• The cassowary on the roof flew out and tried to attack Nix on her broom, but utterly missed.  Then it tried and failed to hide again.
• Glesni shot the flier twice with arrows.  They also did less damage than she expected.
• Mercury prepared to dodge anything that came his way.
• Mia, raging, recklessly attacked the oblivious cassowary, slashing it with her longsword.
• Sabah walked over to the large cassowary and tried to grapple it, but could not.
• Fluffy flew over to help.
• Large Ondar stabbed the oblivious cassowary twice with his vicious rapier.  It was bleeding weird, thick, black blood.
• Nix flew away from the flying cassowary, which slashed at her and missed.  Then she turned and cast chromatic orb at it, which settled on thunder before striking.  The cassowary only shook off part of the damage this time.
• Murai moved up to the cassowary still enthralled by the stone rune.  They swung with the boat hook, touching the excessively blingy holy symbol and calling upon the blessings of the Magpie.  Sparkles flew out from the boathook as they attacked the fiend with smite, and the cassowary exploded like a piñata into bright glitter, which dissipated into nothing.

The flying cassowary screeched angrily at this turn of events, and swooped down on Murai, entirely missing them.

• Glesni moved to her right to get a better shot, but entirely fumbled the arrow.  Hot with embarrassment, she surged to attack again and shot the cassowary twice.
• Mercury prepared to dodge anything that came his way.
• That flying cassowary was on the ground and Mia was right there!  Large Ondar quipped, "You'd think the Avatar of Murder would be better at execution," and everyone booed.  Then Mia moved around the fiend and recklessly slashed it with her longsword.  The air shimmered as her ancestors moved to intervene in its attacks on others.
• Sabah swung their quarterstaff, missing, the rode their own surge of adrenaline and whapped the cassowary with the other end of the quarterstaff.
• Fluffy flew past the cassowary, distracting it enough to help the next attacker.
• Large Ondar pierced the cassowary with his vicious rapier, then turned and stepped away, reversing the pommel and stabbing backwards, killing the creature.  It melted into smoking black ooze and flimsy scraps of cloth.

Glesni and Nix looked more closely at the smoking black ooze, and Nix concluded they had actually turned into demons.  The ooze looked like it was sublimating, and Nix tried to get some of it into a flask, but it was gone before she was able to set a stopper.

Nix started a ritual to cast detect magic, which reminded Glesni, "Oh!  I have a wand."  She put up her bow and pulled out the wand, and cast detect magic.  Her peers had various magic items, and Murai shone with divine magic from that fabulous smite.  Unsurprisingly, there were remnants of transmutation magic from the cassowaries.

Glesni moved along the alleys, checking for more, but mostly just found wards on back doors.  She used her winged boots, still nothing.  Murai roused, and activated their divine sense, looking for undeads, fiends, celestials… also nothing.

They turned to the others, and Mia said, "What next?"

Sabah:  Church of Ua
Murai:  we sure we got them all?
Glesni:  any remains?

No; so the Freelancers shrugged, then left a message at Church of Ua that they would come calling in the morning, then hied to Freelancers Tavern for a well-deserved drink and rest.

After breakfast, the Freelancers visited Church of Ua and were met by Jeanah.

Jeanah:  I have speak with dead, did you have anyone?
Mia:  no; we did find and slay cassowary.  They faded out before we could do anything.
Sabah:  we tried to get some goop, but it faded out.
Jeanah:  hm
Murai:  could it be harmful / leave traces behind?
Jeanah:  if they were doing that, there won't be a lot left to clean up.  <made a face>  Not sure it's great.
Glesni:  one was much larger.
Mia:  we've gotten all the Freelancers knew about, but we can't be sure there weren't more.
Jeanah:  will try to get more info out of Cass but don't really have a lot of hope.

The Freelancers took their leave, and returned to talk to Arnari.  They weren't sure of the completion of the mission, and had concluded that Arnari would be able to talk to Mayor Kaiea about it.

Arnari:  how did it go?
Mia:  well we found two in an alley.
Sabah:  they evaporated?
Mia:  we think we got them all; the send off was really weird
Ondar:  disintegrated
<Arnari wrote notes, brow furrowed>
Ondar:  were you expecting more?
Arnari <slowly>:  I will talk to the Mayor about this; we'll angle for at least one more mission to verify you got them, or … get more.
Glesni:  one was flying

Arnari was even more worried at that remark, but paid them all 135gp each, and sent them on their way.

• Murai → lvl 3 Glorious Paladin of the Magpie!!!