Chapter 18 The Door in the Fog

[ewancummins]

The party explores and excavates the dragon's lair over the next two days, recovering three chests of treasure and a surprise--a malnourished human infant and a clutch of what Meela identifies as lizardman eggs that were kept in an air-filled side chamber.

The baby is weak and could die without clerical aid, so dropping it off in the nearest village would be a rather callous move.

Alwina appoints herself the child's guardian without asking anyone's leave. She's unmovable on this count.


Luckily, the unholy power of Bane can create milk.

..........

Displaying your newly-won riches in Elmwood might not be wise, so the party gets aboard the vessel Cadorna has waiting and out onto the Moonsea as quickly as possible. A last check around to find if any local mothers are missing a little one turns up no bereft parents.
Alwina muses over baby names.


…………...…….
The voyage back north across the Moonsea takes a tenday because of ill weather: snowy squalls, blinding fogs, and violent gales that lash the decks with freezing rain.

Theophilus gets seasick.

….


The ship reaches reach Phlan's harbor late in the evening of a cold, dreary day, where Master Cadorna's hired men and guards wait to unload the treasure and the nailed-shut box containing proof of your success: the dragon's severed head.

.....

At a private meeting room in his manse, the Master merchant greets you all warmly.

“I toast your great success. You have done well. As we agreed, keep this to yourself. The riches should more than compensate for any lost fame. I'll confirm your group's exploit through other channels later, if you like. For now, silence like the dead." He smiles, congratulates you all again, and then makes his excuses as he hurries away to his offices.

….

A couple of days pass in meetings with Cadorna’s appraisers and in study of the magical items in the dragon hoard.

Benn seems distracted, and he sends messages to Cadorna.


…..

Then, five days after returning to Phlan, you get a midnight summons to the Cadorna textile factory.

Master Cadorna, with a dozen armed men on hand, leads you into a strong room where he indicates an object on a table, something round hidden under a black cloth.
Pulling away the cover reveals the rosy Orb.
“You have one hour. That ought to be sufficient. The object is not to leave this room under any circumstances. And this settles all debts.”
He pauses, his handsome features pensive.
“I do pray you will see something that helps you find your way back home.”
He leaves the room, posting his guards outside the door.

Benn approaches the Orb, hands trembling slightly…

[ewancummins]

BENN'S VISION


The strong room turns to ice, everyone in it frozen and glazed.
In the depths of the Orb a door appears in the pinkish fog, appears, and grows larger, larger...

Soon Benn is standing in the Mists, before the rough oak paneling of the portal. He can hear voices on the other side.
A faint murmur, far off and yet very near, that might be Dorgio.
A child crying. His son, maybe?
Charlotte calls his name, startled, as if waking from a dream "Benn? Benn!"

A rush of wind swirls the fog.

The door rattles in its frame. Trying the handle, Benn finds it stuck fast.

He yanks, pounds, kicks, but it won't open.

Another voice, familiar, but not a loved one or friend:
Jonathon Matyr whispers though the keyhole.
"I keep my promises."

The door handle slips from Benn's white-knuckled grip. He flies backward or else the door shrinks as it flies forward. The mist all around thins and Benn is standing in city streets, surrounded by lanterns in the winter night borne by huddled, cloaked passers-by.
He casts about, taking in everything he can make out, memorizing landmarks, looking for a legible sign.
He discerns a crest carved and painted on the lintel of the nearest building, which looks like an armory or fortress of some sort. Two birds, dark, facing each over on either side of a capital R, some details he misses as the fog closes back in and blinds him.

The vision ends quite abruptly, leaving him standing in the room surrounded by his comrades.
It seems little time has passed.

[kintire]

Kat looks at Benn anxiously.

"What did you see? Do you know where we need to go?"

[ewancummins]

Benn relates major details of his vision, describing the door and the city.



A little later, after a brief discussion with the Orb’s current owner…

Master Porphyrio Cadorna recognizes the crest Benn described from his vision.
“That sounds to me very like the arms of Raven’s Bluff, a major city on the Dragon Reach and a center of magical learning as well as trade. I do vaguely recall some tale about magical portals there… If you want to go there before spring, I advise you to leave very soon—winter storms and ice will make travel perilous by water and the roads will be worse yet. I am sending just one vessel south before conditions worsen—a cargo of donations and discount goods for Harrowdale.”
He shrugs.
“If you’d like to go, I can instruct my shipmaster to sign you on as guards, working passage, and drop you off in Raven’s Bluff on the way to winter harborage in Hillsfar. He won’t have trouble hiring new men there—the city fairly crawls with mercenaries and out-of-work adventurers.”

[ewancummins]

KATRIN ALONE

VIEW CONTENT:

The Velvet Glove

Katrin finds the ‘festhall’ not far from the party’s inn, just across Stojanow Road and down a shaded alleyway.
The exterior looks handsome but unassuming for what’s reportedly a haunt of the city’s business elite; two stories of brick walls festooned with withered ivy, steeply pitched red tile roof, small dark windows fitted with ornamental-yet-functional iron grills, and for the main entrance a green-varnished door set in a covered landing at the top of a narrow run of steps that parcel the outer wall. No door sign, unlike most businesses in Phlan.

Gaining admittance proves easy enough, although the hulking doorman, who is having trouble with her foreign accent and dialect, mistakes Katrin for an ‘adventuress’ of another sort. This mistake proves useful when the day-manager— a paunchy, dark skinned man with a combover of blond hair— takes an immediate interest in the redheaded stranger and insists on separating her from the confused door-keeper for a guided tour of the festhall.

It is a brothel, of course. But more than that— the kitchen would be up to par for an aristocrat’s chateau in Kat’s home country, the day-manager mentions a ‘house illusionist’ who puts on magic shows in the evenings. A beautiful, tastefully decorated parlor and a banquet hall take up most of the first floor besides the kitchens and offices. Upstairs it is all private rooms. The owner, one Mistress Eldrane, likes to interview clients before letting them enjoy the hospitality of the house. At this time of day only a few clients hang about, well-dressed middle-aged men and a couple of young women whose expensive jewelry sets them apart from the working girls (to the eye of a discerning thief). The harlots employed here certainly seem better-fed, better-clothed, and happier than their oft-maltreated counterparts of Pont-a-Mouseau and Sainte-Ronges. No make-up concealing black eyes. Kat realizes they all wear gloves, but only one each, on the left hand. No two of the gloves worn look the same. Different colors, lace, beadwork, etc.

Careful observation reveals the means of selection and payment. Girls too young to work the rooms carry about a collection of right-handed gloves on silver platters. A patron picks the glove fitting the woman he wants and places money in it. The girls take it into a back room—off limits even for Kat’s little tour, and soon return with a key to the chosen entertainer’s chamber.

The tour continues, with Beldrazzar the day-manager talking up the ‘easy, fun’ job.
Kat passes a black door on the upper level and hears…something. A muffled cry of pain or fear, it sounded like. Or it might have been nothing more than a moan by an overacting working girl. Then indistinct words in a low, growling voice. Beldrazzar grimaces just for a second, then hustles Katrin back downstairs with a vague comment about needing to inspect the kitchens before tonight’s feast.
Beldrazzar gives Katrin a blue velvet glove for her left hand.
“It belonged to a former employee. Show it to the night crew and you’ll be welcome. And if you accept a job, please mention me to Mistress Eldrane. I would be most obliged.”
He favors her with an oily smile before rushing off about his duties.

[kintire]

VIEW CONTENT:

As night begins to fall, Katrin returns, dressed in her party gear for an evening out, a slight smile of anticipation on her face. Her eyes dart swiftly about as she turns into the alley, the very picture of a woman not entirely certain that she wants this night out much talked about. Which is true, though perhaps not for the obvious reason.

As she passes into the shady alley she seems to relax a little, and moves more confidently up the steps, eyes flicking to assess potential complications on the way out, until she is far enough up the steps for the doorman to see her well, by which time her eyes are flicking from the steps to the door in an entirely natural fashion. She approaches the door man with a confident smile, producing a blue glove and extending it slightly.

"Master Beldrazzar said I should show you this."

[ewancummins]

KAT

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The doorman admits Kat with a grin.

Inside, she finds the place much more active than she had seen it last; gentleman patrons chatting up the harlots, servants scurrying about on errands.
And in the feasting room, a tall, gaunt man dressed in blue velvet robes conjures dragons and warriors out of light and dancing dust-motes, setting these phantasms to battle for the amusement of seated guests.
Everyone is polite to her, very friendly.

She sees the proprietress, Mistress Eldrane, a gracefully-aged woman with well-coiffed silver hair and a flimsy green silk gown. But the woman seems busy chatting up a fat, well-dressed man who has the soft, burgher-ish look of a well-to-do merchant or high civic official, and so only briefly meets Kat’s gaze. A smile, and then back to conversation with the plump gentleman.

Even if Kat’s tastes don’t run in certain directions…there is still plenty to do here. Excellent food and wine, conversation with the other guests, the tricks of the illusionist, music, boardgames, and a show put on by a pair of halfling jongleurs.
Kat lingers as other guests begin to depart in ones and twos.

She lurks in a water closet until a peek out the door shows nobody nearby and looking her way, and then quickly sneaks to the cash room door.
The lock proves too difficult to open quickly and Kat is very nearly discovered by a servant girl bringing a last platter with gloves, but hearing the girl’s footsteps, Kat ducks into the shadows under the stairs that run to the second level.
A handkerchief pressed to her face gives her what she may hope is the appearance of a woman who has had too much to drink and didn’t make it to a better place to sick up. But no one finds her in the shadows.
She listens for the click of the lock, the girl’s footsteps falling away…

Quickly, she peeks out, and seeing the hall clear, hastens to the door.
A look through the keyhole shows a small, windowless room with no other door in sight, three platters of gloves set on a dark-stained desk.
Light like pale green fire comes from a glass sphere set in the wood-paneled ceiling.
She cannot see the whole room, and there could be somebody in there.

[kintire]

VIEW CONTENT:

Kat assess that it is unlikely that there is anyone in there, and that she is in more danger of discovery in the hall. Still, she makes every effort to be quiet, subject to her desire for speed as she slips her tools once more into the lock. She has spent the evening acting more as someone trying to impress with her ability to move among the guests and impress them than someone here for revelry, as if angling for a place rather than a return invitation, so it is entirely natural that she did not indulge too deeply in the revelry. Her senses still sharp, she strains to listen for movement within the room, even as she opens the door, preparing to loosen and shake out the soft bag from it place under her skirts. No time for care and sorting once within: everything movable into the sack, out of the establishment as quick as she can, and sorting the wheat from the chaff can wait for a safer time.

She also makes sure the small implement in her right sleeve is loose and ready. Just in case.

[ewancummins]

VIEW CONTENT:

. Kat breaks in and ransacks the office. A glance shows a fair bit of coinage and a few baubles in the piles of gloves. And there's a locked, bulky strongbox bolted to the floor...

[kintire]

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Kat sacks the outside loot, just sweeping the whole shebang into the bag, gloves and all, making sure the door is closed but not locked.

She then eyes the strongbox here's the real paydirt! but she approaches it with caution. You'd never put alarms or traps on a door used constantly by servant girls, but this...

She gives the thing a careful check over for unpleasant surprises before making with the lockpicks.

[ewancummins]

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Kat discovers and disables a "puffer" trap built into the lid and lockplate. One false move and tiny nozzles would have hosed her with....something. Acid, gas, poison... The lock proves more difficult. She works at it for a few minutes but it still refuses to open.

[kintire]

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Keeps at it for a total of five minutes, then if it is still recalcitrant takes what she has and prepares to slip out

[ewancummins]

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Kat works for a couple more minutes...

And the stubborn lock rasps open. She lifts the lid and looks in at stacks of coins and jewelry. A nice haul for a night's work.

"STOP THIEF!"

The shouting is coming from right in front of Katrin.
A mouth in the box lid! The wooden lips move like living flesh, a shallow orifice in an eyeless face.

[kintire]

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Katrin grabs a handful of gloves and stuffs them into the mouth with one hand, while the other opens the bag, then she sweeps as much of the contents into her sack as she can in a quick pass, before taking off from the chest, and diving out of the room, shutting the door behind her. She then bails for the door, until just out of the doorman's sight sliding the sack under her skirts.

If the alarm seems not have spread, she leaves, looking calm and nonchalent.

If it has, she runs towards him while dropping the object from her right sleeve into her hand, eyes wide in fear, looking over her shoulder and with an endearing stumble over her skirt gasping

"oh help! protect me! There are thieves in the house, I saw one! Oh please protect me!"

Then once close enough, she saps him crisply across the side of the head.

[ewancummins]

VIEW CONTENT:

. Kat saps the doorman, shoots the bolt on the door,and dashes out into the dark pursued by shouts and footfalls.