Session 01.5 — Someone Always Wants to End a Good Thing#

Duskgrain, Day 23, Year 700AG — continued

The Captain in the Corner#

The evening at the Strangled Goat continued. Bruna — the Goat’s owner — stepped to the party’s table and offered her hand to Vail, suggesting with practiced diplomacy that the table dancing portion of the evening might be concluded. The ship’s captain in the corner had looked over his shoulder toward Bruna with an expression that said, plainly, please end this.

Bo-Bo recognized him. The captain was the man who took her family from their island home. Not the one who captured them personally. But the captain of the ship that did. She said nothing. Dreskin said nothing. The moment passed.

Fen’s Problem#

Vail and Ender stopped at the bar on the way back to their table. Fen, the Goat’s barkeep, took the opportunity to strike up a conversation — casual on its surface, careful underneath. Satisfied that the party was what they appeared to be — a group recently come together, not working for any guild or guild-adjacent organization — he asked for their help.

Stock had been going missing. More than could be explained by ordinary loss. He needed it found and stopped, and he needed people who wouldn’t ask too many questions or report back to anyone official. Ender brought Axis and Alden to the bar. Vail retrieved Bo-Bo, who had to be pulled away from her fixed attention on Dreskin’s table.

The party accepted. Fen’s offer: enough to cover the 25GP Guild certification fee for each of them.

He brought them to the storeroom beneath the Goat and showed them the source of the problem — a fairly recent entrance to the room from the sewers below, more or less hidden behind a stack of goods. A hole in the floor. Pitch black below. He offered two lanterns. He told them to knock on the trap door when they returned — he’d keep it latched but would be listening.

The party descended.

The Sewers#

Vail initially took the lead, Bo-Bo on her shoulder. When it became clear that Vail’s approach to caution was to have none, Bo-Bo elected to stay back with Ender.

The rat swarms were waiting at the wooden slat bridge over the sewer sludge.

Vail bolted to the rear of the party and did not engage. It is now established fact — Vail is afraid of rats and will not engage them under any circumstances. This joins her table-dancing as confirmed canon.

Axis took the lead. His Unstoppable ability made its debut, shrugging off hits from the swarm. The rats were dealt with. The party crossed the bridge — Axis flying over — without incident.

Eastward and Westward#

The eastern door: Bo-Bo unlocked it after Ender listened and heard scratching and gnawing. Five giant rats stared back at them from inside, eyes glowing red in the lantern light. The party closed and locked the door and moved on. The supplies inside were few and mostly unusable.

The western door: Ender listened and heard nothing. Axis opened it to a mostly empty room containing a trap door in the floor. Ender had been tracking the footprints in the residue on the sewer floor since they descended — they all led here. Axis opened the trap door with a low wooden scrape. A ladder. An empty room below in the torchlight.

Below#

Down the ladder, through a door, following the footprints east. Bo-Bo dug through a pile of junk in front of a sealed-off pipe and found a pair of very fine leather boots — too large for her. She handed them to Vail, who seemed to recall Fen mentioning something about a recent patron missing a pair of boots. The matter was set aside for later.

North tunnel. Light visible at the base of a doorway. Voices beyond — muffled, mostly indistinct, the sound of ordinary conversation. Vail crouched and peered under the door: booted feet, chair legs, a table leg. Her interest was piqued.

Bo-Bo unlocked the door quietly enough that no one inside noticed. Axis opened it.

The bandits and thugs inside were caught off-guard. The fight was mostly conducted in the doorway — Axis holding the threshold, ducking occasionally to give Ender and Alden clear lines. Bo-Bo slipped up beside Axis to assist. Vail slipped into the room and took out a couple of the lesser thugs from atop their table, where she was, naturally, dancing.

After the fight: the room was stacked with what appeared to be most of the missing stock from the Goat. These men were muscle, clearly not the architect of the operation. The party pulled the bodies into the room, Bo-Bo locked the door, and they moved on.

Rask#

Further north in the tunnel, then west. Another door — unlocked. Axis opened it and stepped inside.

A large rat-person stepped from behind an old sheet.

“Figures. Someone always wants to end a good thing.”

Rask tried to negotiate. Bring them in. Pay them off. Whatever it took. The party was not interested. Bo-Bo, having reached the limit of her patience, gave Rask a shallow cut on the arm as a warning — a signal rather than an attack. Since he hadn’t reached for a weapon, the others held.

Then Rask transformed. Wererat. He bolted for one of his bolt holes under the sheet.

Ender called out. Axis — who had stepped out of the room during the negotiations — caught Rask in the tunnel. Rask wriggled free. Bo-Bo lunged forward and scooped up the slippery rat. Ender ended it with several well-placed stabs of an arrow.

Vail had already left the room when Rask stepped from behind the sheet.

What Was Found#

Rask’s room yielded a steel-bound chest containing approximately 30 gold pieces, a ledger documenting the stolen Goat supplies along with other thefts not connected to the Goat, several personal items of no value, and an old folded oilskin.

Inside the oilskin were two items.

The parchment fragment — roughly a third of what was once a larger document. Careful, precise handwriting in an archaic but recognizable form of Common. Measurements: depth readings, pressure notations, something described as resonance gradient at the third column. Along one edge, a partial seal — a geometric design of interlocking radial lines that matches no modern guild or institution. Alden identified the script style as pre-Algari, likely several centuries old at minimum.

The copper disc — roughly coin-sized but heavier than it looks, with a deep green patina. One face blank. The other bearing an engraved geometric design — a pattern of interlocking radial lines recognizably related to the partial seal on the parchment, though simpler, as if copied by someone who understood the shape but not the full grammar of what they were reproducing.

Neither item is magical in any detectable sense. They are simply very old, well-made, and strange.

Notes#

The captain is the one Bo-Bo holds responsible for her family’s capture. No confrontation occurred. The encounter was noted.
Bruna intervened diplomatically to end Vail’s table dancing at Dreskin’s silent request.
The missing Goat stock has been located — the party has not yet reported back to Fen.
The leather boots found near the sealed pipe may belong to a recent Goat patron. Vail has them in her possession.
The parchment fragment and copper disc are in the party’s possession — pre-Algari artifacts whose significance is not yet known to them.
Vail’s fear of rats and tendency to dance on tables are now established campaign canon.

Next session: The party returns to Fen. The guildhall opens in the morning.