Kingston – R2 - Royal District of Prince Gilbert
Meet with Gilbert and Emma and speak about Theobald. Bale returns the rattle to Emma, who is overcome with emotion. Gilbert tells Bale that it is likely that Pyyrhos was aware the rattle was Bale’s heartbeat.
We meet with Theobald, who is still a strange kid. He is perfectly polite. Codex enters his mind and finds a calm, carefully controlled place. He considers each question before answering. Codex uses his Suggestion to force Theobald to answer Bale honestly, when he asks if Sabre told Theobald not to see the Royal family. It is then he sees the first indications of fear, actual emotions.
Codex presses Theobald, grabbing a bit of gold from a mantelpiece. “Do you like gold?” Codex knows that Theobald hates it, as he used it to banish him. He manages to get a response, anger, suggesting Theobald is in there, somewhere.
There is some conjecture, later, that Theobald’s odd heaviness is because he has a gold box in him. A gold box containing a magic item of control, perhaps similar to the collar he used to control his victims. But how do we get it out?
We head to the Church of St. Cuthbert, the main headquarters, to speak to the Inquisitor and hand over the copies of the documentation. The Inquisitor is as dour and to the point as possible. While there, Bale also requests the church of St. Cuthbert aid the city of Everlife. The inquisitor notes the request, and will bring it to the heads of the church for consideration.
We then head back to Sabre Khaludz Manor and clear the last of it out. The back part of the main floor is trapped with acid, which we avoid. One of the doors into an area is locked well and trapped, there’s an orb from a necklace of fireballs that Berdyn recovers and puts into his bag of holding for later.
In one of the rooms is a bedroom and two cages. There’s a big steel table. There’s a bookshelf that has been rifled through. There’s a writing desk, also rifled through. It turns out from the writing left over this is in fact Utopah Dayseeker's bedroom. This is where he stayed when he was doing things he didn’t want seen. We find a lantern of darkness here, which causes some confusion as we stumble in the dark. Finally, we find a stairway down four stories to the depths below.
We check another room, and find a kitchen and some water closets. We then head into the depths.
We are four stories underground and at a door. It is barred from the outside. We enter and find ourselves at an underground river, with a trio of strange quadrupedal monsters with scorpion tails. They are Shusuvahs. They are hyena demons, gifted by the demon lord Yeenoghu. They are bonded to a gnoll and fight alongside them. They have a sting that paralyzes, and if they knock someone to zero hitpoints they will rampage. From the Ecology of the Gnolls reading, they really dislike orcs, so Codex uses Simon as a material component to banish one of them. We defeat the other two.
The basement contains the bodies of three gnoll chieftains. They were killed, one by no visible means, one by weapon damage, and one by starvation. It is unknown why they are down here. We cremate them (this is the gnoll honorable burial – that way no one can eat the body).
We return to the body of Mary in Sabre Khaludz bedroom upstairs, in the bed where he drains the life of his victims. We wrap Mary up and hand her off to the guards for burial. We tell the guards to secure the building now that it is emptied.
We head to the Kingdom of the Tiger Embassy and show Karesi where the Teleportation Circle is in Everlife, and we will work with her to return some of the Kingdom of the Tiger people to help secure Everlife.
We then head to the Royal Library. We are seeking out the information on the ancient cities pre-freeze. There are hundreds and thousands of books, and almost no one here, other than librarians. We search for teleportation sigil sequences using locate object, and find five books with sigil sequences in them. We find the following sigil sequences for - Nekhtoteh, Sejdak Monastery, Diseragar, Sidjehen and unfortunately Everlife again.
We then put the books carefully back. Bale speaks to the librarians to find out the furthest north Teleportation Sigil Sequences. They will have something for us tomorrow.
We return home and Bale is given the cost from the Church of St. Cuthbert to retake Everlife. It will cost 500,000 gp for a force of 100 troops – Paladins, Clerics, and acolytes to head to Everlife and work to clear it. They are a formidable force, seasoned and powerful. It will be a six-month campaign. Bale writes off the costs using his personal funds as Duke.
Bale, Maud, Simon and Berdyn then teleport to Southspire to pick up some items. Codex goes to the church of Ioun and researches Theobald’s malady, the possibility of a golden receptacle implanted in a body – and how to safely remove it.
Codex, meanwhile, heads to the Thirsty Cleric Inn. He looks inside, and sees it is a seedy place filled with seedy people. He doesn’t go in, it looks incredibly dangerous, and then goes back to his carriage and to the church of Ioun. The carriage driver hands him a note, given to him. It says “Welcome Home, Brother”. The Cinnabar clan knows he is in Kingston.
While there he researches Theobald’s issue, the gold receptacle, and how to implant and safely remove them. There is no judgement in the church of Ioun, and the information is disturbing, but it might help save Theobald.