While Kormatin and company were waiting for the recipients of their letters to respond their news.
Experience points were cashed into character advancement. Kormatin and company sparred with their new arsenal and packed away the treasure into crates. The characters pawed through Emerande's journals while friendly NPCs continued making copies.
Ragani made some inquiries with the local wizard guilds, if they new of any wizards associated with the previous government of
Wooly Slopes Province and bought some potions and some more haber crystals at Brigid's request.
Ragani tried and failed to liquidate any of the Kantoca wood carvings but she did establish friendly ties with the local wizards and got useful information. Ragani found out the richest merchant not affiliated with
Emerande was rabble rousing. He believed the vampire story was a ruse concocted to let Kormatin's adventurers and the miiltary rob innocent merchants.
Kormatin gave the decorative shields and 16 pounds of Beeswax to the local Korus temple.
Kormatin gave 10 pounds of beeswax to the
Temple of the Mountain Winds.
Kormatin gave 600 gold pieces and all his wines and spirits to the
Prophet's Pass Government as a courtesy.
Kormatin turned over the Rover and Steward trophies Emerande kept to the local Rovers and Stewards respectively.
The merchant rabble rouser,
Mantas, brought a mob and some hired muscle to try to bully Kormatin and company into yielding their "unlawfully plundered goods". But the military leader of the local pentarchy caught wind early and had plenty of soldiers waiting to shut him down hard scaring his mob away and telling him in no uncertain terms that "he's never getting on the pentarchy now."
Representatives from
Order of the Lantern from the
Barony of the Dead arrived to congratulate Kormatin and company and obtain a first hand account of what happened. They asked for a copy of Emerande's journals which Kormatin agreed to.
Anja Deorac by Eron12 with Hero Forge
by Eron12 with Hero Forge
Anja guarded their loot while Kormatin and company attended the mass funeral for Emerande's many victims. Ragani helped a little bit with the Hallisan portion of the ceremony. Representatives from 8/9 of the Nonagon were present (no Testers).
Kormatin and his allies made it safely to the land of
Baron Fyodor Deorac IV without a serious incident.
Kormatin debriefed his allies and they discussed potential sources of soldiers. They agreed that the Duke of Fumaya's Heel would make a valuable ally but it would be difficult to recruit him without tipping off Swynfaredian spies so they agreed to recruit him last.
They agreed
Lord Tacitus Wiern would make a good potential Border Baron.
Nuldrun Dragon by Eron12 using Hero Forge
Nuldrun Dragonbane identified the Silverwood wood cutting depicting a battle between dwarves and orcs as being a commemorative art piece made for the
Red Shaft Clan. He suggested that the best way for Kormatin to help his nation against Swynfaredia would be for Kormatin to give the woodcutting to
King Henryk Linijka and have the king return the rightful property to the Red Shaft Clan as a matter of honor. Thus the Red Shaft Clan would owe a debt of honor to all of Fumaya by extension.
Kormatin gave Nuldrun a few tapestries for his consulting fee and he gave a tapestry to
Baron Fyodor Deorac IV. Kormatin also agreed to pay off Fyodor's debts when he arrived in
King's Lake.
Anja Deorac by Eron12 with Hero Forge
Lady Anja Deorac III and some of the Baron's men escorted Kormatin to the city of King's Lake. Then Anja met with some relatives in the capital.
The king debriefed Kormatin. The king agreed to Nuldrun's diplomatic suggestion and sent Jaromir personally as his ambassdor. He extended Kormatin's promotion to agent of the crown to be lifelong.
Kormatin donated the religious art seized from Emerande to the local Nonagon, scoring brownie points with them. The local Lanterns identified the famous lost artist who made most of it.
Ragani and Tihalt split up from Kormatin and Brigid. Ragani was to start selling things while Tihalt protected her. Kormatin and Brigid traveled to
Duchy of Wiern to privately meet with
Lord Tacitus Wiern.
Ragani began liquidating some of the trade goods they seized from Emerande. She got fair prices for the spices and perfumes but she had trouble offloading the fine silver and gold trinkets. The best she could find was people selling it at half price.
let her know that the market was currently flooded with fine silver. In exchange for letting him buy some silver at a steep discount, he explained that some shady Swynfaredians had been trying to fence what seemed to be goods stolen from Swynfaredia.
Lord Tacitus Wiern seemed receptive to Kormatin's plans in general but was on the fence about making him a Border Baron. He cited concerns that his father and brother might need him and it might be bad for the family and lands of Wiern if he left. He also cited concerns that putting a Wiern at the head of one of the Border Baronies might provoke the Swynfaredians and seemed somewhat concerned if that would put a target on his head personally.
He asked for time to consider Kormatin's offer (and to study up on the Border Baronies), promising to send a letter later to the Keeper temple with his answer later. Kormatin walked away even more convinced that Tactitus would make a good Border Baron.
Kormatin and Brigid returned to King's Lake and the party compared notes. They tried to impersonate criminals and try to "fence" some of their silver but they hit a proverbial wall. They then decide to bribe Reeyak with 50 gold worth of fine silver for his information on the shady Swyfaredians.
Still impersonating riff raff, Kormatin and company met with one of these fences, who was pretending to be a legitimate barrel seller. Ragani managed to negotiate trading the remainder of their fine silver for a generous portions of
reagents, but she put her foot in mouth revealing she wasn't a true riff raff criminal. Brigid covered up for her gaffe as best she could and when they left, she informed her allies that she wasn't 100% the fence was convinced.
Kormatin said "Let's just arrest him!"
The fence refused to come quietly, and he used an alchemical smoke to run away. Kormatin and allies pursued and cornered him in an alley. He refused to surrender again. He had magically disguised weapons on him. He also had magical armor temporarily enchanted to look like normal clothes.
Tihalt used
Wrath theurgy to make most of his allies weapons nonlethal. Eventually Kormatin and company beat him into unconsciousness but despite being outnumbered four-to-one and Kormatin's allies have magical augments, he did not go down easily.
Once unconscious, they discovered he had a magical disguise. Based on his appearance and the way he fought and the way that he refused to surrender. It was clear that he was ogre.
They searched his place and grabbed some more trinkets and reagents, plus a bit of coin. Other than that they did not find anything out of place for a barrel shop. They didn't find any haunches of mystery meat for example.
They manacled him heavily and finally, Kormatin got a good intimidation roll for once. "You are an ogre, you are criminal fence, and a Swynfaredian spy. The only way you can walk away alive is you give me enough information to spare you."
He spilled his guts. His name is
Gerallt. He revealed he is part of criminal cartel dominated by ogres led by a
skin changer witch. Their plan was to corner the local fencing market, slowly obtain useful information and sell espionage His nameworthy information to both sides of the upcoming Fumaya-Swynfaredia war and pursue any and all war profiteering schemes along way such as by hoarding valuable supplies in the event of a famine or siege and selling them at inflated prices later.
The ogre named some Swynfaredian spy contacts in Swynfaredia and claimed that one of
King Henryk Linijka's bastard half sisters was a freelance spy for criminal operations.
Kormatin got as much information as he could, then he quietly transferred custody of his prisoner to the king and Kormatin shared with the king all he learned.
The session ended.
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