Characters:
- Gisbert Highforge, dwarf fighter exiled from his homeland
- Marek, human fighter on the run from a tyrant lord
- Tobias Rune, human warlock focused on the science of the arcane
- Thane Ganymede, monstrous darakhul wizard
- Leonid, rough-living weretouched fighter
Objective: Discover the whereabouts or untimely fate of Nikolai Rodescu, a member of Windermere Parish's watch.
Events: The party was hired by Alice van Kemper, a watchwoman employed by the Parrish Church of St. Ophelia, to investigate the disappearance of her fellow watch member, Nikolai Rodescue. Nikolai had been investigating the murder of six local drunkards, each found throughout Windermere Parish with strange piercing wounds, before his own mysterious disappearance. Alice had been investigating Nikolai's whereabouts herself, but had been told to cease her search by her superior, a clergyman named Father Raspard. Raspard claimed that Nikolai's experiences as a soldier had traumatized him, and that it was only a matter of time before he ran off. Alice gave the party a key to Nikolai's apartment.
They considered dressing one or more members of their crew as inebriates to stake out the parish, but first the party decided to investigate Nikolai's apartment. On top of his desk was a note that read:
- Stale beer
- Beliza, Old Dieter, Coppermop, Rose, Callister, Vargo
- Woman in paint-stained cloak
- North Street Smilers
- (the last item on the list is a sketch of a winged monstrosity with an elongated snout)
Further investigation of the apartment revealed a flat parcel wrapped in oilcloth sitting on Nikolai's kitchen table. Leonid examined it and found that the parcel had been unwrapped before and later re-wrapped. Removing the oilcloth unveiled a portrait of Alice van Kemper--with her throat slit! There was a three-part signature in the corner, but the name was impossible to make out. Gisbert's investigation of Nikolai's bedroom turned up the watchman's sword from his soldiering days underneath the bed and, strangely, a mix of both men and women's clothes in his trunk.
Reporting on what they had discovered to Alice added more pieces to the puzzle. Alice told them that the reference to "stale beer" in Nikolai's list likely indicated a nameless tavern that sold the old beer from other establishments to a particularly destitute and downtrodden clientele. When shown the oil painting of herself with her throat cut, Alice was aghast with horror; she knew nothing about it, but did give the address of an art dealer who might be able to help them track down its painter. Pressed about the presence of women's garments at Nikolai's apartment, she admitted that their relationship was more than just comradeship in the parish watch.
The group ventured to the poorer, more lawless, section of the parish, reconnoitering the headquarters of the North Street Smilers and eventually entering the stale beer tavern. Banter with Wolfric, the dandy bartender at the tavern, added the fact that a nobleman had visited this down-and-out establishment offering hard money for the address of Nikolai Rodescu--the nobleman claimed that he had a parcel to deliver to the watchman. Wolfric pointed out an old, broken-down man who had given up Nikolai's address; plying the old man with beer made him very agreeable to leading the party the nobleman's residence.
The party followed the staggering old man to a small stone cottage in a nicer section of the parish. Through the front window, they spied a man with a long blond mustache wearing finery and military medals he almost certainly hadn't earned. The party split up--with Gisbert, Leonid, and Thane covering the back door in case the noble tried to run, and Marek and Tobias at the front to try to get information from him by persuasive means. Marek knocked at the door...and was surprised that the face of the nobleman who answered bore a striking resemblance to the tyrant he had armed his countrymen against.
The conversation that followed indicated that the nobleman had been acting in service of Pietra Donna Sangino, a portrait artist of high repute in Krevborna, because she held leverage over him. He stated that the portraits she created gave her power over their subjects. The nobleman assumed that Tobias and Marek were in the same boat as he was, and had come to him for the woman's address, so he made them an offer: if they would agree to steal back the portrait that she had painted of him back, he would take them by carriage to her home.
The party regrouped and set off in two carriages to the three-story home of Pietra Donna Sangino. Unlike it neighbors, this house did not have an entrance at the ground floor; rather, a set of wrought iron stairs led up to an entrance at the second floor. Two ruffians, one in a top hat eating an apple and one shuffling a pack of cards, sat on the bottom stoop of the stairs--clearly hired protection from the North Street Smilers. There were no lights on in the house save for the third floor. Thane had his raven familiar scout the perimeter; the raven saw that there was an open skylight at the third floor, and that the entirety of the third floor was an artist's studio. Inside sat a plain woman with black curls in a painter's smock, working away at what appeared to be a wintry landscape in oils.
Thane made an ill-fated attempt to stroll by the front of the house and cast a casual sleep spell on the two toughs, but never were affected. Backpedaling Thane's strange gestures and arcane words into a religious greeting, Marek thrust Nikolai's list at them as if it were a religious pamphlet, but the thug in the top hat visibly recognized the drawing of a monster at the end of it, which prompted both of the ruffians to draw their weapons.
The thug in the top hat flicked his fingers out, revealing blades at the end of his gloves; his compatriot merely had a straight razor. Leonid assumed his hybrid werecreature form, Marek hefted his greatsword, Thane and Tobias readied their spells, and Gisbert stood fast with his shield and pick. The combined efforts of the party eviscerated the North Street Smiler gang members in short order, but as the last thug died he exploded in a shower of wet pigment--luckily everyone was able to dodge out of the way in time.
The immediate opposition eliminated, the party made their way up the stairs to the second floor. They entered Sangino's parlor, traversed the back hall, and found stairs that went to both the first and second floors. They deliberated whether to search for Nikolai on the first floor or head directly to the third to challenge Pietra Donna Sangino. They chose the latter. Approached in her studio, the group attempted to parlay with Sangino, hoping to get her to let them leave with Nikolai--but at the mention of his name it was clear to her that if they knew about him than they certainly knew too much about her to live!
Her opening salvo was to cast a wicked spell upon Tobias and whistle shrilly; his mind was wracked with an image of all his diabolic research amounting to nothing in the end--the mental damage from his psychic assault nearly ended the warlock. While the party attacked her in return, the creature she had whistled for--a large, mosquito-like monstrosity that matched Nikolai's hasty sketch--arrived at the open skylight and flew in to join the fray.
Sangino proved to be a slippery opponent; sometimes an attack that seemed to hit her would reveal a simulacrum that dissolved into oily paint upon the studio floor. Ultimately, she lost the upper hand and attempted to run back to the landscape painting she had been working on--as she retreated the party took their parting shots at her, nearly killing her before she reached the painting, but reach it she did and...she disappeared as she touched the canvas. Left to face the party on its own, the mosquito thing traded piercing strikes from its proboscis before falling to a fiery blast from Thane.
Among the blank canvases in the room, the party discovered three portraits--including the one they had been asked to retrieve by the nobleman who took them to Sangino's studio. On the first floor, Thane rescued a battered and weary Nikolai from where he lay tied in a sack. Unfortunately, Thane's attempt to detect magic in the house was interrupted by the arrival of another mosquito-like beast. Having secured the kidnapped watchman, the party chose retreat over further acts of valor--but not before the mosquito-thing destroyed Thane's raven familiar as it sat perched at the skylight.
The nobleman had his portrait returned to him, for which he gladly returned the group via his rented carriages to Windermere Parish. Gisbert opted to stay with Nikolai in his apartment--where he fortified the watchman with dwarven liquor--while his compatriots found Alice and told her of Nikolai's restoration. Alice and Nikolai's reunion was emotional, but restrained--used to hiding their relationship, they weren't performing their joy at being brought back together, but to them it was everything.
Nikolai confirmed much of what the party had already surmised: he was on the trail of the murderer of the drunkards when he was told about one of the victims being seen in the company of the a woman in a paint-stained cloak; he had also heard the inebriated ravings of a homeless man who ranted about a "thin-winged monster" that chased him through an alleyway; he got a tip that the North Street Smilers were involved; apparently his inquiry had been noticed by Sangino and she had done a little investigating of her own--she had sent him the portrait of Alice with her throat slit and a note that he was to come--alone--to her residence or Alice would be killed; he was overpowered at Sangino's studio and confined to the basement.
Mystery solved!
The Spoils:
XP - 335 each.
Coin - 50 gp each from Alice +5 gp each looted from the pockets of the North Street Smilers.
Salable Items - Two paintings by Pietra Donna Sangino, price depends on if you sell them anonymously through a fence or take them to a reputable art dealer; you also have the painting of Alice with her throat cut, which would require find a morbid sort of art buyer. The first two paintings detect as magical, but how you would use them is unclear.
Magic Items - Potion of healing, scroll of phantasmal killer (I believe Thane took these).
Intangibles - Alice and Nikolai will provide you with whatever help they can muster on a future occasion.
