Journal of Rollo Lavius 1

Entry #154 - The Assassin's Wife

(G154 13/01/2013 Sunday - BG - JF(GM) , AP , ON)

DAY 164 (22nd Eleasis)(August) continued...

Oz had everyone moved to a more defensible room in the basement of the inn.

It was a servant room with three bunk beds in it.

One bunk each for him, Fenrir, Parrie, Urol, Meree and Liamae.

He then sent a message to Captain Crispy to warn him about what was going on.

After that had all been sorted out, at about three o'clock he used a magical charm spell to pump a chambermaid for information. She said that people were most suspicious of a newcomer called Firebeard Elvenhair, another guest called Rina and the new assistant chef, a half-halfing called Tipsy Littlefeet.

He went to talk to Tipsy and after bribing the head chef and after Liamae had charmed him they learned he had done 'something' in Waterdeep and was on the run, but he had nothing to do with the assassination attempts.

Meanwhile, a very giggly and excited Parrie gave Fenrir a bed bath much to his delight and amusement. He was recovering in bed until the poison was out of his system and Parrie was acting as a very attentive nurse.

After they'd eaten some carefully selected food they all settled in for the night, laying makeshift traps.

As he drifted off Fenrir had a vision of Rizolde, one of the crew of the Sea Wyvern. She happily told him that she had come to a deal with Bnurgstickslackskin and had become a Warlock in his service. She then went into a trance and the demon took over.

Fenrir was never delighted to hear from the demon, but at least he was being reasonable. He told Fenrir that he had to get to Ellis Adarbrent pretty soon.

It was good that he was looking into ways of holding back Sertretous but the situation in Waterdeep was more urgent.

They needed Ellis under demon control. Otherwise the demons would go for the 'Armageddon option' which would be an all out demon attack on all enemy targets before leaving Waterdeep to the devils completely. Bnurg painted a scene of terrible destruction with many hundreds of deaths.

Fenrir shuddered to think of how the Inquisition would react to that and reasoned to himself that sacrificing Ellis to whatever fate the demons had planned for him might be the lesser of two evils.

DAY 165 (23th Eleasis)(August)

They were taking turns on watch and it was while Oz was awake, just after five o'clock in the morning when he heard a noise from above.

He opened the bedroom door and was hit by a bolt fired from a crossbow of a figure at the other end of the corridor. The black clothed figure then ran for it. Oz cast a spell to make him run faster and made chase, the others behind him.

The assassin made it out into the street and quaffed a 'gaseous form' potion but the pursuit was too fast and as they ghostly figure tried to make its way over the wall it was brought down by magical arrows fired from Meree's bow.

The figure crumpled into a misty head at the foot of the wall and Oz ran back to get Parrie but as he approached the door he heard a scream.

He called for them to open the door, but Parrie cried back that 'Some one is shooting at us from a hole in the ceiling and we are hiding under the beds!'

Oz ran up to the room above but the other assassin had fled leaving a torn up floor board and a hole behind them as evidence of what they had been up to.

Parrie ran as fast as she could to the captured assassin and healed her, as it was a female human and as the guards had shown up she was taken to the cells under the gate house.

It was deduced that this was Sal Fields the husband of Sammu Fields, researchers that had been at the Candlekeep Inn for the last five days or so.

Captain Hull was happy for Oz and Liamae to talk to her, but since all their charm spells had no effect on her Oz was limited to just asking questions. Sal Fields remained silent.

Meanwhile Mr and Mrs Fields belongs had been bought in and Oz had a look at them. They had a great many tomes and notebooks, most of which had been written by them. He spent about an hour flipping through them and got the idea that they started studying history, then the history of magic and then magic itself, but ancient magic used by lost civilisations.

For the next two hours after that he sat in Mrs Fields cell and read one of her books and eventually she began to talk.

She said that her husband, about a year ago, had gone off on trip to a ruin east of Baldur's Gate to read some ancient runes he had heard were there that he thought would help with some research. Two months later he came back, but was much changed.

She said he began more violent and moody and began to beat her and their children. He would strike off on some journey without much explanation as to why, this trip to Candlekeep being an example of this.

Then when they were here, her husband had said that, 'There is a very bad man here, a demon worshipper called Fenrir Thunderstaff. We have to kill him!'

I didn't want to kill anyone, she said, but she was frightened of what he would do if she didn't help and since when she'd asked in the inn who this Thunderstaff fellow was and had been told he was a villain, a murderer and said to be possessed by demons, well, she thought, the world will not miss him.

She could not say for sure, but when Oz proposed that her husband may be under the influence of a geas spell or something like it, she admitted that this could be the case.

At noon Oz went and talked to Mandral Sisten, the Gatekeeper of Candlekeep about Sal Fields. The monk said that, 'Money will be taken from the Fields possessions and given to the maid that was posioned to pay her for her trouble.

If however you decide to not press charges then she will be expelled from the Keep and told never to come back. If you decide to press charges and we find her guilty of attempted murder we will most likely hang her.'

Oz didn't really like either option so he asked if he could speak to the head of Candlekeep. He was told though, to get into the inner areas and the libraries he would need to give a book of at least 1000 gold in value.

He used magic to copy out some of the Fields books, but although they contained fragments of magic, the most valuable books were still only worth about 100 gold.

Oz then told Mandral everything he knew about demons and devils, Sertretous and about why certain people would want Fenrir dead.

Mandral was very interested in this and said that if this was true then the woman should be given to the 'wizards in the tower' who would extract every morsel of information out of her.

Oz was concerned though, since Mrs Fields later said to him she had a feeling that if she went into the inner areas she would never come back out alive and even Captain Hull admitted to Oz later that afternoon that usually this was the case.

We are all usually guilty of something, after all.