Standing at the limit of an endless ocean

Stranded like a runaway lost at sea

City on a rainy day down in the harbor

Watching as the gray clouds shadow the bay

Looking everywhere ’cause I had to find you

This is not the way that I remember it here

Anyone will tell you it’s a prisoner island

Hidden in the summer for a million years

The Wrathbreakers have discovered that someone sinister is operating in Estona, directing criminals to do dark deeds by mysterious notes. They have found the first link in some kind of chain, the fixer Creosote, who hired some mercenaries to harvest body parts from Selkie and then shipped them on to a warehouse in the docks. He was hired to do this by note, which he destroyed, and had little else to tell them. Now they must move on to the warehouse of the man who received the goods, one Gerald of Hamm. The roster for today’s session:

  • Bao Tap, human stormcaller
  • Calim “Ambros” Nefari, human rimewarden
  • Kyansei of the Eilika Tribe, wildling barbarian
  • Itzel, elven Astrologer
  • Quangbae, wandering blacksmith

Standing in the smouldering ruins of Creosote’s bar, they decided to head straight to Gerald of Hamm’s warehouse before he received a warning from one of Creosote’s flunkies.

Warehouse failure

At the warehouse everything went wrong. As they approached they saw a group of men loading some goods, and deciding to be careful they sent Bao Tap sneaking down a side alley to investigate the back of the warehouse. He failed to sneak, and was sprung by a wizard smoking a cigar. Fortunately this man was unconcerned with his business, and after introducing himself this man made off to the front of the warehouse to oversee his goods. He was an Astrologer from the western isles called Jonah, who was shipping coal out there for new technologies he was developing. During this brief chat Bao Tap was able to establish that maybe fey magic is absorbed by coal, though he learnt no details before the man walked away. With Jonah gone Bao Tap was able to sneak inside, through a kitchen and into a completely dark back store room.

Meanwhile the rest of the Wrathbreakers entered through the main door of the warehouse. Kyansei and Quangbae lounged against the entryway looking threatening while Calim and Itzel sought out Gerald of Hamm. They found him soon enough, a balding man wearing simple workman’s clothes, carrying a clipboard and yelling at his labourers. He agreed to talk to them and took them upstairs to an office that had been built onto a gantry overlooking the main warehouse. Here they tried to talk him into telling them about his delivery arrangements, using threats and insinuations.

Unfortunately as they were doing this trouble hit them on multiple fronts. In the dark back store room Bao Tap realized that some men were coming to the door, so he hid in the dark behind what he hoped was a solid object; however, with no light to see by he did not know where he was hiding. Moments later the men entered the room carrying lamps, and in the sudden glow Bao Tap realized he had hidden in direct view of a consignment of mirrors, which stood in direct sight of the entering men and were set up in just the right way to ensure he was visible in all of them. After a moment of mutual shock Bao Tap pushed them out of the way and dashed for the kitchen exit, accompanied by their clamour.

While Bao Tap was preening at the back of the warehouse, at the front a gang of men were approaching, armed to the teeth and obviously intent on some kind of violence against the Wrathbreakers – maybe sent by Creosote, maybe by someone who had begun to realize what they were up to. Kyansei and Quangbae moved to meet them just as Bao Tap hit the side entrance. Up above them Gerald heard the clatter and yelling and made a break for the entrance to his office. Before he could reach the stairs Itzel hit him with a levitate spell and lifted him into the air, dangling him over the warehouse below, an obviously fatal drop. As he hung there and the sounds of battle began to drift up from below Calim began negotiating with him.

They heard the same story from Gerald: he was given instructions by note, which he promptly destroyed. In this case he had immediately shipped the goods to a dropbox in the Old Town. He gave them the location but was unable to give them any more information because as Itzel was searching his room for shipping records and other details she triggered a trap, and the shock and damage broke her concentration. Gerald of Hamm fell to his death in the warehouse below, and as they heard the clashes begin outside Itzel and Calim decided they had better go help.

The battle ended quickly once they were all there in force, leaving their assailants either dead or limping away in terror. Worried that more trouble would soon come they only had time for a quick search, and found nothing. The back room where Bao Tap had been hiding was obviously some kind of smuggling room with a hidden stash beneath the floor, but they could find nothing of use there. They gave up and headed off to find the drop box.

The dropbox

It was evening on the 8th of Ice, a bad season for staking out postal boxes. Their target was a small compound of eight stone rooms with locked doors, an open gate and no apparent guards. They stood across the road in the freezing cold watching the snow fall, and after a while decided to go and investigate. They did not know which room they were looking for but based on the limited information they had been able to get from Gerald before Itzel killed him they guessed which door it was. They were about to open it when Itzel sensed a magical alarm, and they backed off. There was every possibility it was also trapped, and now both Itzel and Kyansei were very wary of trapped things. In fact Kyansei was across the courtyard, “keeping watch” on the deserted and frozen street. No one was coming, of course.

They retreated to the shadow of a doorway across the street to consider their options. They were tired, lightly injured, and they did not know what they were looking for. The latest delivery by Creosote had been some days ago, likely had already been picked up, and they knew – since all the men Creosote had hired had been killed by Selkie-enchanted lampreys and Gerald of Hamm had been killed by Itzel – that no more deliveries were likely soon. They guessed that the alarm on the door was intended to tell the owner when the door was opened, which they guessed was how he knew his goods had been delivered. But if he was not expecting more goods they did not think he would blithely open the door, and they guessed that their target was likely a powerful astrologer. Gerald had indicated that the person who sent him the notes did not always nominate the same dropbox, so triggering the alarm would probably just alert their target to the fact that his or her note-based arrangements had been discovered. They could see no easy way to solve this problem.

In the end, not seeing a way to solve the problem by direct violence, they gave up and headed back to their stronghold. They grabbed a local urchin and paid her a small amount of coin to keep an eye on the drop box, and headed off to sleep.

The lost apprentice

Two days later, after recovering their strength and taking some time to discuss what to do, the Wrathbreakers decided to head back to Estona to continue their investigations. They took rooms at their regular haunt, a tavern called the Boar, and prepared for the next stage of their investigations.

Here they were approached by Alephia, one of the apprentices to the astrologer Siladan who they had met when they visited him. When they visited Siladan he had mentioned that one of his apprentices had recently left him, probably because she could not handle the pressure of study, but Alephia told them she thought something more sinister had happened. This apprentice, called Sara, had been very committed to becoming a wizard, and in Alephia’s view was not the kind of girl to give it up. She thought that Siladan had misjudged Sara because she was the kind of “nice girl”, all shiny manners and big breasts, which made people think she was weak and simple, when in fact she was a strong woman with a deep desire to learn the secrets of Sun. Alephia thinks something happened to her.

In fact, Alephia was able to pinpoint her suspicions: Sara’s new boyfriend. This man she had only seen once but he was much older than Sara, quite oily, and he seemed sleazy and “not quite right.” Sara had spoken about him a lot, calling him her “starfall”, but Alephia thought she was being manipulated. She thinks maybe Sara’s “starfall” has done something to Sara, and in exchange for a magic weapon she would like the Wrathbreakers to investigate. Surely they have contacts and abilities?

Of course the Wrathbreakers did not say no. They took her initial payment – 6 magic arrows – and agreed to investigate. In fact they set out immediately to scour the docks, pretending to be agents for Sara’s family looking for information about her. It was a pleasant break from investigating lost notes held by tight-lipped criminals, and they suspected it would be an easy investigation that would yield a nice magic gift from Alephia.

Strange notes from arcane fey-harvesters, lost girls, flying gangsters – Estona was proving more troublesome and more complicated than they had expected, and they had not even begun investigating the many mysteries they had encountered on their journey here. They had much to do, and many secrets to uncover …