Week 64 - Gathering Intelligence

When Hebrin got home he found a note under his pillow, purporting to come from their spy-master, Grey Smoke. It warned them that a man call Gaetane was building a ‘Horne of the Killing Cloude’ for Lord Irovetti and that there was a potential ally called Ilora somewhere outside of the city.

After some confusion concerning a stevedore with a droopy moustache and a foreign accent called Gitane they managed to track down some information about the real Gaetane. They now know that he is a weasel faced man with a thin black moustache, who is one of Lord Irovetti’s assassins. He is also associated with Kharne Vereel – a gnome underworld leader who controls most of the drug manufacturing in Pitax. They also discovered that Kharne’s headquarters are somewhere down by the docks. They also know that Gaetane was seen heading north with a small group od soldiers.

Ilora, on the other hand was the leader of a group called the River Razors, who were that strange mixture of mercenary guards, pirates and smugglers that seem to be found all over these parts of The River Kingdoms. Irovetti fell out with the River razors and wiped the group out – Ilora is the only one who is known to have escaped his wrath so far. Scrying discovered that she is living rough in a camp somewhere by a river. She was armed with a pair of short swords and seemed particularly adept in the countryside.

It wasn't all that straight forward of course, and they went to all sorts of places to collect snippets of information.

Cassandra retuned to the River Song Trade house, where she asked questions of Biz - the old man who looks after the trade counter. It cost her a few Gold Pieces (although not really all that many) to garner a few pointers down there.

Then Rudy decided to visit Atalia Gitaren at the Academy of Grand Arts – the Pitax bard school. He nearly blew it by praising the play at the local theatre (which Atalia finds offensive) but recovered the situation with a virtuoso performance on the bagpipes. After listening to a short recital in the schools small auditorium - there was a chamber orchestra, a chorus and the headmistress her self sang two or three short (but compelling) arias. Conversations afterwards discovered that one of Atalia’s friends went missing after turning down a part in the current play, and she hadn't been seen for a few days. The rumours had it that the friend (Asmeranda) was either being held down by the docks or was a prisoner of the king - but no one really knew. There was a small amount of confusion over bunches of flowers and Rudy managed to talk himself into starting up a travelling company in New Haven.

He has already promised one young woman, Cora, a part in the company. Cora is an out of work chorus girl who is ‘between roles’ and working as a barmaid at the Inn where they are staying.

A trip to the docks was a bit of a disaster, where Rudy managed to spend 50gp on drugs that had a street value of 20gp 50gp – and met a Gnome (not Kharne) who was prepared to act as his dealer.

Then it was off to the Cathedral of Calistria. The High Priest, Drey Yarnes, took a shine to Cassandra and offered her a personalised induction into the Calistria way of doing things. He was persistent, although fairly polite about it in an oily, practised sort of way. Cassandra managed to keep her temper as she refused his advances. It was, however, a fairly successful visit and the High Priest was one of the better sources of information. And though a misunderstanding, Rudy even managed to learn that his sister-in-law, Kissandra, was in a relationship with the priestess of Calistria (Satinder Morne) in Port Slough.

Then it was back to Port Slough (via teleport) for a council of war - although Cassandra made sure to book her room for a whole month, just so she had somewhere to teleport in and out of.

It was only a brief visit – but Rudy managed to give the drugs to Kissandra and Satinder as a present and then got into trouble for not bringing Tamary a gift back from his travels. In the end Rudy promised her a life sized statue of herself for the art gallery in the New Haven palace. Robert was finding scrying without the right resources difficult – so there was a mad dash to Horcroft to commission a special silvered mirror to help Roberts scrying and a necklace to ease Tamary’s pain at not getting a present from Pitax.

Back to Pitax, to discover that someone had been in Cassandra’s room – it might just have been the cleaner - but who can tell? Notes were sent to The Riversong Trade House, The Academy of Grand Arts and the sculptor – and they say back and awaited responses. There were no responses that evening, althou Rudy met two or three new entertainers who wanted to be in his travelling company. Rudy (the party loving bard) finished up going to bed early to get away from the wanna-be performers and Cassandra put her foot down about proper auditions when this was all over …

Finally they got a head cloth that Asmeranda had used – and they were able to return to Port Slough for more scrying. Robert was then able to ascertain that Asmerandra was in a fairly well appointed room, sobbing – and theat there was some fairly eclectic art on the walls – what looked like a well executed portrait of a man and a poorly executed landscape.

Robert’s scrying also allowed them to ‘see’ Ilora in her camp – but he couldn’t get any sort of ‘fix’ on Gaetane at all.

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