Journal of Rollo Lavius 3

Entry #528 - The Scarab of Death

(G528 24/06/2023 via Roll20 - JF(GM), AP, KT) WA118

[Fenrir and Reinward have been tasked with staging a coup in the city of Westgate to stop the evil vampire lord the Night King from doing the same. Just recently they have been trying to hide all their nefarious schemes from the city authorities.]

DAY 548 (2nd Eleint)(September) cont ...

After Judge Nylo had left, Jasper came to Fenrir to tell him that one of the house guards had been found dead out in the city.

DAY 549 (3rd Eleint)(September)

Fenrir and Reinward were lost. They did not know how to perform a coup attempt and were finding it hard to grasp the full picture. They had been tinkering around here or there and getting some people on-side but had only the vaguest of notions what to do next.

It did not help matters that (to steady their nerves perhaps) they spent a good deal of each evening drinking.

In the morning though, they decide to go and find Mintassan the Magnificent. If they could get him on their side then that would count for a lot within the wizard community of Westgate, or so they hoped.

Just as they were approaching his large house and magical emporium they were startled by loud screams of agony and terror. When they looked to see where they came from, they saw a young fashionably-dressed man on the ground, his pants stained with blood. Another man of lower status was trying to save him, yelling for help, but to no avail.

The young noble stopped moving, and shortly after, a beetle-shaped creature drilled out of his chest in a burst of gore and blood. Fenrir and Reinward watched in astonishment as the beetle then reverted back to being an inanimate beetle-shaped brooch.

They talked to the other man. His name was Liam Roogs. He was a domestic servant working for the Littlehorn family. The young man who had just died was his master, Aaron.

Fenrir, as Commander of the Watch, took charge of the situation and after summoning some watchmen he questioned Roogs further.

They learned that Aaron had found the brooch in the auction room of Nabulee's Bazaar of the Extraordinary (which shared a building with Mintassan the Magnificent's House). Aaron's behaviour had been odd. He had noticed the scarab early during the auction, but had waited until everyone had left to pick it up. Aaron was an honest person, but he had seemed intent on stealing the brooch.

A few minutes after they had left the auction house, Aaron started to scream and fell to the ground. He convulsed for a brief moment, and then the scarab burst out of his chest.

To Roogs's knowledge, the Littlehorns didn't have any enemies. He suggested taking to Lord Archibald Littlehorn.

Fenrir would do that, but first he wanted to see Nabulee at his bazaar. It appeared that Mintassan the Magnificent was his business partner and was renting out part of his large house to Nabulee.

Just then, the man himself appeared! Nabulee was an overweight, eccentric-looking man with scruffy fiery hair. He came bursting out of a nearby door and ran toward them with a preoccupied look. He was wearing a blue tunic embroidered with silver and matching pants, and was holding a gold-inlaid sceptre shaped as a dragon. After taking a moment to catch his breath, he gazed at the scarab on the noble's chest and sighed.

Fenrir and Reinward talked to Nabulee.

His name was Nabulee el Jasafir. He was a merchant from the desert city of Calimport who had packed up his Bazaar of the Extraordinary and taken it to Westgate.

The brooch that killed the Aaron was a scarab of death. He was pretty sure that it belonged to him, but he didn't know how Aaron could have acquired it. This brooch was supposed to be safely stored in an extradimensional vault that only Nabulee could access.