Curse of the Crimson Thrones Recap # 2 [RPG]

 [14 Gozran, 4708 AR continued]

The battle at the Old Fishery continues!  Yargin Balko tries desperately to flee, but The Reckoner grabs him by the back of the collar and yanks him into the center of the fishery’s main floor.  There, the four intruders tie him up and question him about how to reach Gaedren Lamm.  At first, Yargin tries a variety of lies, but as each deception is exploded by the group (accompanied with more and more severe threats by The Reckoner and Tharl), the amateur alchemist finally admits the truth: there’s a secret door in the hold of the rotting ship moored outside the fishery.  That secret door leads to planking that takes one underneath the pier and into Lamm’s hideout.  Yargin is forced to lead the way outside and around the side of the building along a rickety boardwalk to the ancient sailing ship.  He points out the door to the cabin but refuses to go in, stating that there are spiders inside.  Goldcape verifies the truth of the statement, but that doesn’t save Yargin from danger—Tharl opens the door and throws him in first!  The drain spider sinks its venomous fangs into Yargin, providing the perfect opening for The Reckoner to smash it against the wall with a single swing of his warhammer.

But Yargin’s ordeal isn’t over yet!  Despite his protests that the hold below is infested by a whole nest of spiders, the intruders push him down the stairs and into harm’s way again!  He gets to his feet at the bottom of the stairs and sees four of the spiders quickly crawling towards him on strands of sagging webbing.  The Reckoner makes a quick plan with his allies to wait at the top of the stairs to tackle the spiders when they emerge, and Yargin instinctively provides the perfect lure.  He dashes back up the stairs and tries to make a break for it, but The Reckoner kills him with a single blow to the back of the head!  The drain spiders are quickly dispatched, with the only hiccup being Yraelzin accidentally shooting himself in the foot.

The hold of the ship is dark and dank, with barrels and crates of rotten goods scattered about.  Initially the group is apprehensive that without Yargin, they won’t be able to find the secret door he spoke of.  But Tharl takes a quick look around and spots it instantly.  When the secret door is pushed open, it leads onto a wooden walkway from the sodden ship into a narrow space under the fishery and just above the foamy river water below.  The walkway terminates at a small door that’s just two and a half-feet square.  Goldcape squeezes through and finds herself in the same hidden area she first reached by swimming underneath the entire structure.  The alligator, Gobbleguts, is there, and, with ironic justice, is chewing on the remains of Gaedren Lamm!  Goldcape instinctively uses magic to temporarily calm the alligator.  The Reckoner, however, is eager to search Lamm’s secret hideout and when he learns that the calming enchantment won’t last very long, he persuades Goldcape that they should try to subdue the alligator.  But such a task is easier said than done—despite catching Gobbleguts with a surprise attack, The Reckoner is nearly torn apart by a vicious rejoinder!  Fortunately, Goldcape manages to knock the beast unconscious with a blow on its snout.  She promises to come back every so often to feed it.

Meanwhile, Tharl and Yraelzin have been watching from the small doorway—with the former finding it too difficult to squeeze inside and the latter not particularly concerned one way or the other.  After extracting an apology from the paladin for mocking The Living God, Yraelzin enters the room and magically heals enough of The Reckoner’s wounds that the vigilante is able to regain consciousness (but with a serious risk of the wounds reopening if he undertakes any strenuous activities).  Amidst piles of worthless junk, the foursome discover a footlocker full of riches: jewellery, beautiful statuettes, even a gold ingot that weighs two pounds!  But four objects stand out as having particular significance.  The first is a dagger with a  strange blade shaped like a key that bears the inscription “For an inspiration of a father.” The second is a ledger written in coded Varisian—what secrets was Gaedren Lamm trying to keep?  The third is a hatbox containing a blood-soaked veil wrapped around the most incredible harrow deck the group has ever seen: the images on each card are hand-painted, their frames are made from silver so they sparkle and flash, and the images on the faces are so vibrant they almost seem to move.  The Reckoner surmises this could be The Harrower’s personal deck. Fourth, and finally, even an untrained eye can discern that the most valuable item in the footlocker is a bejewelled brooch with a broken clasp.  The gold brooch depicts a house drake and an imp coiled around each other, with the drake’s eye an amethyst and the imp’s eye an emerald.

 Gaedren is dead, his legacy of evil hasn’t been completely redressed.  When the avengers return to the main floor of the fishery, they find that the orphans there are still terrified.  One of them whispers that one of Gaedren’s meanest henchmen is still nearby!  The child says that in the next room, “Hookshanks” bunks with several other orphans but often disguises himself as one of them.  With The Reckoner unfit for action, Tharl leads the charge, bursting open the door to an upper workroom.  Several orphans are indeed present, but the half-orc notices one of the lads has sideburns and is hiding a wicked-looking kukri behind his back.  The wretched gnome threatens to feed the children to Gobbleguts unless they attack Tharl, but Tharl’s affiliation with Sarenrae are enough to earn their trust.  Hookshanks lands a few cuts on his taller opponent but is knocked unconscious without too much difficulty.

Although every member of Gaedren’s gang of criminals has been dealt with, what should be done with the children of the streets he kidnapped and exploited?  Tharl promises them that Korvosa’s temple of Sarenrae will help.  The Reckoner gives each of the over two-dozen children a gold coin and a password, hoping to enlist a network of messengers and informants that can pass through the streets unnoticed.  One of the older lads, a boy named Kester, seems especially brave and keen to assist.  Yraelzin also passes out some coins, but with a very different message: he tells the lads that worship of the Living God will bring them out of poverty and into prosperity!  Many of the children giggle when Goldcape is around and ask to pet her fur.  Having been freed from Gaedren’s cruel slavery, the children formerly known as “Lamm’s Lambs” gradually disperse into the night to seek better lives elsewhere.

 

After the children are gone, the four adults limp out into the street, planning to report to The Harrower on their success.  But they emerge into a city gone mad.  Orange flames flicker from buildings scattered around the city, while the frantic clang of alarm bells mix with the cacophony of angry shouts and some terrified screams.  Explosions, surely of arcane origin, light up the sky.  A wing of Sable Company hippogriff riders swoop overhead, angling toward Castle Korvosa at a breakneck pace, with one of the mounts raining blood down on the street before crashing headlong into a statue!  Amidst the chaos, the voice of a town crier can be heard:  “The King is dead!  Long live the Queen!”

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GM's Commentary

Finding the blood-soaked veil and the one-of-a-kind Harrow deck should be a major clue to the PCs about the Harrower, but they never really pondered the items' significance after this session.

In this session and the previous one, The Reckoner takes some hard hits and goes unconscious.  But this will *not* be the start of a pattern, as pretty soon The Reckoner becomes a juggernaut!

Like a lot of GMs and reviewers, I think the "anarchy in the streets" happens too quickly--after all, the PCs can't have been inside the building for very long.  It's very cinematic though!