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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 7, 2021 14:21:28 GMT
July 14Whitewind Company Launches Investigation Into Alleged Brinebreaker Gang, Uncovers Evidence of Organized Crime, Brings Underboss and Underlings to Justice
The Whitewind Company visited Boralus to investigate allegations of organized criminal activity by one Marcus Brinebreaker, specifically racketeering and extortion. The crew first met with Captain Donnel, a local security officer, who gave them the lay of the land. Captain Donnel explained that, off to his left, the Ashvane Company Yards could be found past the gallows, and explained that it was a grim place to work. Off to his right lay the Dampwick Ward, the most severely impoverished district of Boralus. Beyond that, he explained, were two bridges, one stone, one plank. These led to Hook Point, another slum, though the far side of it wasn’t quite so severe. Further on, the military district of the city lay between Hook Point and Proudmoore Keep. The military area included barracks, the brig, Kul Tiran Naval Officer cadet training, and more. The Captain finished by explaining that there was very little to go on in this investigation beyond just rumors, as people who talked tended to disappear. There was, however, one brave young woman willing to volunteer information. Joanessa Seaslums seemed to have inside information, and was willing to share it with investigating guards and adventurers alike.
Finished, Captain Donnel exchanged farewells and well wishes with the Whitewind Company, and the Whitewind Company proceeded off to the right, past the gallows. There was already a pair of pirates there awaiting the noose. The group quickly hurried past, entering the Ashvane Company Yards proper. The Captain had been right; this was surely a grim place to work. Massive sea creatures were being butchered in plain sight. Huge rats roamed freely. The employees seemed to be put to work quite hard. One was scrubbing up a puddle of blood that looked like it could have come from a creature twice his size. Moving past the general work area of the Yards, they found themselves in a messy mud puddle of an area, guarded by bouncers. Calleigh Silversong, a Kul Tiran that seemed to be well-known amongst the locals, ordered the nearest bouncer to let her and her entourage pass, and pass they did, the intimidated bouncer moving aside to give them room. The group realized the area was an outdoor fighting arena of sorts, with fight spectators aplenty. The Salt and Shanty was on their right, a tavern filled with Seventh Legion soldiers. It seemed that, in the wake of Lady Ashvane’s demise, the Seventh Legion has the Ashvane Company straightening up their act. So, pausing to gawp for a short moment at a massive great white shark dangling from its tail in the center of the yard, the group passed the next bouncer, exiting the yard, and proceeding into Dampwick Ward
From there, the group found a shabby, filthy, run-down setting that made the Ashvane Company Yards seem like Upton Borough. Captain Donnel’s description of Dampwick Ward as being the most impoverished section of the city did not prepare the group for just how muddy the streets were, how gaunt and emaciated so many of its citizens were, or how people would line up at a soup kitchen manned by a penniless vagabond dishing out small bowls of a particularly thin soup. Nor did it prepare them for the conversations they’d overhear. Passing one run-down building that seemed to be a home of sorts, the group overheard a distraught woman talking to a man who was trying to console her as he attempted to figure out an answer for their problem: the two had found themselves financially prepared to have one child, though it would be rough going. Yet it seemed the two now found themselves with twins, and knew they could not afford to feed and cloth both children. The distraught woman was in anguish of heart, and the man – presumably her husband or life partner – suggested taking one child to the orphanage. The woman’s heart broke at the prospect of choosing to love and nurture and raise one child, and rejecting the other.
Continuing on, the group also overheard a trio of children discussing how much more they have to pick pockets if they hoped to eat two days in a row. The Brinebreaker name was overheard, and Ais’la stepped forward to question the children, offering first silver, then gold coins for information. The leader of the three, a young boy of about ten years named Rob with sandy-colored hair and blue eyes, revealed that the big, burly gang member that collects the gang’s cut of what they’d pickpocketed that day comes around shortly after breakfast, and that, just as Captain Donnel had said, there was a woman named Joanessa Seaslums that has some kind of inside scoop on the gang. The children ended up with a silver and gold coin apiece after Ais’la’s successful questioning, and Rob suggested they return if they get stuck and need further clues. It seems he could get used to the idea of easy money.
There was a dubious-looking guard leaning on the wall further down the muddy, dilapidated street, eyeing the “mainlanders” with what Calleigh referred to as the “stink-eye” and looking insolent. The group attempted intimidation for more information, though it wasn’t until Calleigh, a Thornspeaker, assumed her astral form as a druid and ensnared the young man with roots that he was forthcoming. He gave away little, save for the same name – Joanessa Seaslums. Calleigh relented after that, releasing the guard from the roots, and the group continued on, rounding the next corner and proceeding through the Dampwick Ward, witnessing Tidesage Doomsayers preaching to more desperate, impoverished people looking for something, anything, to cling to. The Tidesages were portending dark, shadowy dooms, however, and the poor folk did not seem mollified.
Once a full circuit had been made around the Ward, the group found themselves at the waterfront. They were at a place that seemed to be the one Captain Donnel had described as being Joanessa Seaslums’ house – a waterfront home bordering the Ashvane Company Yards and the Dampwick Ward. The house was in rather good shape, given its location. Comparatively ornate framework with well-painted walls and a thick wooden door comprised the little waterfront home. Nat approached the door to knock.
A kindly, petite young woman with soft features and kind blue eyes peered out at the group from under a disheveled bunch of sandy-colored hair pulled partly into a loose bun. Her clothes were drab, but were not torn or patched. She seemed to be a bit more well-off than her neighbors. Her dinner table held four crabs, which she seemed to have prepared for dinner. Her demeanor was kind and polite, and she seemed to be genuinely pleased that she had a group of surprise guests. She offered them her crabs, though only Nat accepted. The rest hung back. Calleigh and Ais’la were suspicious, Ais’la in particular. Cletcher seemed to be willing to partake, though Calleigh stopped him. Jornaar seemed strangely silent and stoic as he considered the scene. Joanessa, or Joan, as she prefers to be called, offered as much kindness as she could as the conversation got around to the Brinebreaker gang. Her voice was kind and pleasant, a soft alto, and her speech was nearly without the blue-collar accent prevalent among the locals. Her eyes shone as they spoke, an extension of her warm smile.
Joan revealed that, when she checked her crab traps she had along the pier outside her house (left to her by her late husband, who had disappeared at sea), she’d hear conversations across the water at Hook Point at the open-air tavern there in which large, burly, knuckle-headed men, presumably Brinebreakers, were not only extorting the barkeeps, but also demanding that they reserve their establishment for Brinebreakers only. She admitted that what evidence she had was only such hearsay, however, and suggested that the group might investigate the establishment for more solid evidence.
Agreeing, the group left the kindly young woman’s house, proceeding across the plank bridge into Hook Point and finding the open-air bar almost immediately. One bartender ignored the group altogether, seeming to desperately want to pretend they didn’t exist, and the other was protesting their presence, pleading with them to leave immediately in a voice so terrified that it was reaching a true shriek. A third man, however, younger and smaller than the other two, was working as a bar-backer, keeping the bartenders supplied with what they need. His furtive, pointed glances toward the group, the bottle shelf, underneath the bar, and back at the group again made several rounds before the group went to investigate these places. Ais’la seemed interested in the bottle the shrieking, trembling barkeep had, and that distracted the man as the rest of the group proceeded in to investigate the bar. Cletcher and Calleigh each found slips of paper that the bar-back seemed to be indicating, and Jornaar took note of the terrified barkeep now looking up the hill at the far end of the yard. Pointing this out, the group looked up, and they could now hear a man yelling from around the corner that the barkeepers better not be selling their services to non-Brinebreakers. The boots of many men could now be heard, and the much smaller group, evidence in hand, took that as their cue to leave.
Leave they did, making their way out in a hurry back to Joan’s house, taking a peek at the discovered evidence along the way…
Upon arrival at the house, however, Joan’s kindly young face went from smiling as she answered a knock to a sudden look of alarm. After yelling a warning to the group to duck, she tackled Nat onto her front porch. The group heard a loud shot from a high-powered rifle, a bullet smacking into something soft, and Natasha Ebonlocke’s shriek of pain… To Be Continued… *******
Participants:
Calleigh Silversong
Cletcher Tidebringer
Natasha Ebonlocke
Ais’la
Jornaar
*******
Each member gains +1 Favor.
Whitewind Company gains Threatening Brinebreaker Letter
Whitewind Company gains Bartender’s Discreet Letter
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 14, 2021 21:00:26 GMT
July 14
Whitewind Company Launches Investigation Into Alleged Brinebreaker Gang, Uncovers Evidence of Organized Crime, Brings Underboss and Underlings to Justice
When the group next looked up from the warning to duck and subsequent high-powered rifle shot, they found Nat lying on Joan’s front porch, groaning in pain. Calleigh immediately looked her over, and found no wounds. Nat’s injuries, fortunately, turned out to be nothing more than a hard tackle onto a hard wood porch that just knocked the wind out of her a bit.
The group next noticed a deep divot in the mud several feet from where Ais’la and Jornaar were standing off the porch. It appears that the soft impact of a bullet they heard was the bullet striking the mud, several feet from anyone. Joan and the group deemed the shot to be a warning shot… but to whom? It had come from a rooftop in the general direction of the open-air tavern they’d just investigated. A warning, perhaps, to keep away?
Maya Maxwell arrived just then, a Gilnean druid, a Voyager, and a good friend of those in the company, to the point of being regarded as a sister by Ais’la and Jornaar. She had intended to come earlier in the night, but had been taking care of business on her own first. The group quickly filled her in on events to this point
Joan did her best to welcome her visitors inside and calm them down, reassuring them with kind words. She complimented each of them on their outfits and appearances, trying to be friendly and calm as she could despite what happened to each of them. She went around the group, speaking kind words to each member by name, reaching Jornaar last. Details on this exchange are scarce, but it seems that Joan, when she got to Jornaar, was speechless, eyeing him up and down before turning away with a blush. It seemed that no one noticed this other than Ais’la, who quickly moved to stand between Joan and Jornaar with a hostile look at the former as she did her best to block the view of the latter. Jornaar seemed confused as to what was going on, and no one else seemed to notice at all.
After the commotion from the gunshot died down, the next lead was inquired about. Joan suggested that, in light of what had just happened, perhaps another foray into the heart of Brinebreaker territory wasn’t the best course of action. She decided, instead, that the group’s next course of action might be to go and inquire around a tavern in the Ashvane Company Yards called Priscilla’s Parlor, a tavern manned by Ashvane Company employees, catering to Ashvane Company employees. The group left to follow up on the lead immediately.
Upon entry to the nearby tavern, the group found a scene full of cigar and pipe smoke partially obscuring sailors and Ashvane workers that crowded the establishment. A band in a corner was playing an obscenely bawdy song that made Nat blush deeper and deeper with each line. Flustered, Nat rashly asked aloud to the tavern for any information regarding one Marcus Brinebreaker.
The effect was instantaneous. The music immediately stopped, the chatter ceased entirely, and most of the tavern moved for the door with a hasty exit. The exceptions were a handful of tall, burly Kul Tiran men who gave menacing looks to the group, the bartender himself, and one man who slipped something to Calleigh with a pointed look before dashing away himself.
The bartender spoke up after a hushed silence that hung in the air like the smoke from the pipes and cigars. The gnarled, scrawny old man made it quite clear, in hostile tones, that the Brinebreakers weren’t welcome in his tavern, that they were well outside Brinebreaker territory, and that the group was to leave immediately. It seemed this lead was a bust…
…Or was it?
Calleigh quickly called the group to herself outside Priscilla’s Parlor, brandishing a note at them. It seemed that this was what the tavern patron had handed her as he exited. He, it seemed, was keen on having someone take down the Brinebreaker gang, and the lead the note provided was to head directly downstairs to the pier beneath the tavern and wait on a boat owned by a Rolfe Braxton.
Whitewind Company and friends did just that, and, sure enough, a boat approached bearing Rolfe and a deckhand. A brief exchange between Calleigh and Rolfe later, and the group was boarding for a boat ride in which they couldn’t be overheard.
Rolfe, eager to dish on the Brinebreaker gang for his own reasons, informed the group that the Brinebreaker-controlled open-air tavern they had investigated was run by a Brinebreaker underboss that kept an eye on it from a boardwalk that went over the middle of the Hook Point slums. He was usually at a table under an awning with a few men, drinking and dicing, or drinking and napping. Rolfe advised against taking the same route in as before, as the Company and their allies would have to fight their way through the heart of the Brinebreaker’s territory in the district against overwhelming numbers. He suggested, instead, docking at Bo’s Crab Shack, which was situated in the peaceful, somewhat more upscale stretch of Hook Point that ran along the ledge across from Upton Borough. Up the stairs from there, across the street, and somewhat to the right, they’d find an alleyway that leads directly to the underboss’s boardwalk. This boardwalk was generally lightly guarded, as the nobles on this side never really seemed to care about the people of the slums.
Following Rolfe’s advice, the group went up the stairs, across the street and to the right, and found the alleyway. Sure enough, two guards were seated at the bottom of the stairs that led out from the alley to the underboss’s boardwalk.
Jornaar wasted no time with sneaking. He simply walked right up to the guards, and told them both he was there to fight them. This enraged one guard, who attacked Jornaar furiously! Cletcher taunted the other, who rushed up to meet him with a rather less effective series of attacks. Calleigh let loose a series of Starsurge attacks. Nat was unable to help Jornaar, as two of her friends were directly in the line of fire. Maya used multiple forms in the fight. Ais’la was there with the healing mists of her monk training. Despite a furious attempt by Jornaar’s foe, who landed a series of hard hits on Jornaar, the two guards were grossly overwhelmed and soon abandoned their posts and fled out into the noble’s strip.
Thus the group finally discovered the man behind the bullying of Hook Point’s open-air tavern, a tavern so poor, it couldn’t even afford a sign bearing it’s name and logo like all the others. The massive, beastly man was seated with a few men at a table under an awning, just as Rolfe said, playing Deathrolls. The group was so engrossed in the obscene Truth the man was revealing (making Nat blush again) that they didn’t even notice the approach of the Whitewind Company and their allies. The group took advantage of this, launching a surprise attack that laid them low quickly. Calleigh’s Starsurges, Ais’la’s spinning crane kick, Cletcher’s bear form trambling, Maya’s cat form clawing, Jornaar’s charging and punching, and Nat’s Splitting Ice Lances all came onto them at once, with Maya’s claws finishing off the last man standing, the underboss. The man had pulled an ice lance from his shoulder and had just leaped up onto the table to stab downward at Ais’la with it when Maya knocked him off the table. The last words the man spoke before losing consciousness was that they were too late, and the Brinebreaker was about to do… something. The man blacked out before he could finish his sentence!
The group searched the knocked-out quartet of men, finding nothing of interest other than a large, angry red B branded into the inner forearm of the underboss’s right arm. Calleigh ordered her subordinate Cletcher to bind the man, and informed Nat she’d be happy to have her own crew haul these four off to the local stockade.
Calleigh also expressed that she was quite impressed with the way the Whitewind Company handled things, and offered to have Cletcher serve as her personal liaison to the Company. Nat agreed to run this by Lady Whitewind, while Ais’la, Jornaar, and Maya bid their farewells and returned home. Another job well done for the Whitewind Company!
As for Marcus Brinebreaker and his gang, the investigation is only just beginning...
*******
Participants:
Calleigh Silverson Cletcher Tidebringer Natasha Ebonlocke Jornaar Ais’la Maya Maxwell
All participants earn +1 Favor with Lady Ciellica Whitewind.
Whitewind Company gains knowledge of Suspected Brinebreaker Brand, Rolfe Braxton, and Rolfe Braxton’s Locket.
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 22, 2021 16:34:05 GMT
July 28
Whitewind Company Investigation Leads to Gladiator Combat for One Member, Hostage Situation for Another, Series of Puzzle-Solving for the Rest
The Whitewind Company returned to Boralus last night with the intention of carrying on with their investigation into the Brinebreaker gang. The Company’s Kul Tirans, Calleigh and Cletcher, were not present this time, but the Company’s group was rounded out with a few outside contractors anyway in Maya Maxwell and Carilina Halverson. The Company itself was represented by Ais’la, Jornaar, and Natasha Ebonlocke.
The group arrived as scheduled at Joan’s house at around the fifth bell, though Natasha had already been there for some time, eating a grilled chicken and veggies dinner and drinking iced tea with Joan, with whom she seems to have become fast friends. Joan and Nat greeted Ais’la, Jornaar, Cari, and Maya as they arrived, though reports of tension have emerged between Ais’la and Joan over Joan’s purported attraction to Jornaar. Details continue to emerge of a rift between the two over Ais’la’s mate.
The investigation continued regardless, with Joan advising them to seek out a young man in a red hat who claims to have the deepest and most recent inside scoop on the Brinebreaker gang. The group thanked Joan for her latest lead, with Nat thanking her for dinner as well, and left.
The group found the man quickly, his red hat sticking out from the crowd as it did. The young man seemed insolent and cocksure, leaning on a post at a butcher’s shop with his hands never leaving his pockets. He confirmed that he did, in fact, have quite the scoop on the Brinebreakers, but wanted the group to do something for him in exchange for the information: they would need to entertain him!
The young man quickly organized the group, taking Jornaar and Nat away first, then returning for Ais’la, Maya, and Cari. These he took to the Ashvane Company Yards, where the fighting pit is located, and arranged them all around the pit. To the group’s surprise, Jornaar was in there, unarmed, alone, with Nat up at the top of a tall ship’s mast standing in a crow’s nest, and the entire base of the mast was surrounded by highly flammable wooden barrels and crates, some of which bore the designation as explosive!
The sneaky, smirking young man told the group that the entertainment would be a simple show. Jornaar would fight as a gladiator in the pit, without help and completely unarmed. The rest would be arranged around the pit with the job of searching for clues, solving puzzles, and finding information in the process that would help Jornaar in his fight. If they don’t solve the puzzles, he said, then Jornaar would fight… until he loses.
Fatally.
Reports from eyewitnesses at the arena state that Ais’la seemed ready to take the young man apart on the spot, but he assured Ais’la that to attack him would mean unleashing an incredibly overwhelming force on Jornaar. Thus the cocky young man ensured his own security and gave the Company no choice but to participate.
The fighting began quickly, with three young street toughs being unleashed on Jornaar. Jornaar quickly put a couple of good hits on the nearest one, though, without help, healing, or weapons, the three landed even more hits on him.
Meanwhile, Ais’la was searching the ship she had been positioned near after finding a note nearby. Being unable, as yet, to read Common, she found a nearby fight spectator to read it for her. The young woman agreed, reading it out loud: “You seek direction in what to do next. The helmsman has received his direction from the captain.” She went to the helm, searching the massive rudder wheel for the next clue. She found a note sticking out that seemed to need the wheel turned to just the right position in order to free it up without ripping it to pieces. Ais’la tried spinning the wheel to several different positions, eventually getting it right and securing a note. The note stated that there was a shield located inside the mouth of the great white shark dangling by its tail in the yard! She quickly yelled out the information to Jornaar, who retrieved the shield from the shark and was now much better able to defend himself.
Meanwhile, Maya, positioned at the Salt and Shanty tavern that opened up into the arena, had found a note that read, “Roll the dice. Draw a card. Move a rook.” She ran around the tavern for a bit, looking for such a game, eventually heading upstairs and finding one on the table there. A few dice rolls and card draws later, the intended rook was located and moved, revealing a note underneath it that stated there was an accuracy potion located in a barrel floating in the puddle next to the great white shark! She yelled this out next, and Ais’la leaped into the arena to retrieve it for Jornaar, incurring the wrath of the Man in the Red Hat, who seemed to be thinking of how to penalize the move.
Cari, while the others were moving around, had found a note that read, “The recipe for our spicy chicken has been passed down for generations! Can you eat just one?” She quickly located a man named Colonel Tenders, a large man with white hair, a little white, pointed beard, and a white suit, surrounded by chickens. The man grinned as he gave her plate after plate after plate of chicken to eat. Cari, confused and growing steadily more and more full, consumed plate after plate of spicy chicken tenders, finally finding a note under the last piece of chicken on the last plate that stated that a heavy war mace was located under a stack of flour sacks in the wagon nearest to her. Jornaar retrieved the weapon quickly.
Jornaar, meanwhile, was being hard pressed, though his odds were beginning to even out. The man in the red hat, not wanting the fight to be over so soon when Jornaar appeared nearly ready to drop, granted him one, and only one, heal from a tidesage with healing waters. Jornaar, back in the fight, exchanged blow for blow with the young street punks, and things were looking to be turning to his favor!
Ais’la, deeply concerned for her mate, had found herself being sent to a balcony after the ship was finished, finding a note that another spectator read for her: “Cranes in the rain are a pain, but a gain!” She spotted a crate nearby, running over to look. Sure enough, another note was there… but it was tucked into a cargo net dangling off the far end of the crane. Ais’la observed the mechanisms of the crane, then began turning the wheel to raise the load and bring it over to the balcony. She grabbed the next note at once, which stated that there was a speed-increasing potion that would allow Jornaar to attack at twice the speed located in another barrel floating near the shark.
Jornaar welcomed the extra speed as he received the potion, and his movements became a blur. Attack after attack was swung at the trio of punks, who now seemed far less sure of things. They seemed to be on the verge of fleeing!
Cari was sent into the warehouse next, while Maya was sent over in between the bar and the boardwalk where Cari was. Maya found a note that read, “Daylight lingers outside, but down inside and under here, it’s perpetually dark. Mind your feet; don’t step in anything you’d rather not have stepped in.” Cari’s next note read, “There are many barrels in here, but some are loaded up and ready to move.” Cari moved into a warehouse loaded with barrels, while Maya found a cellar door open that seemed to be what her note indicated. Maya’s shoes were soon gooshed with chicken droppings as she waded through a flock that had found its way down there, but eventually found a note under a candle that stated there was a trio of frost traps in a wagon full of steel lobster traps at the west entrance to the arena. Cari found a wagon full of barrels that her note seemed to indicate, finding a note that one of the barrels under Nat’s tower contained a quartet of gnomish grenades.
Meanwhile, Ais’la, working at top speed to save her mate, had already found a third clue at her third location. Her note read, “Shimmy, shimmy, into me. If you do, no fight you’ll see. Yet with my info, he’ll fight with glee!” She was on the very top of the roof of the highest building bordering the arena, and she found a rope leading down the side of the building that didn’t face the arena. Rather than shimmy down the rope, however, she simply leaped down into the enormous wooden bowl affixed to the end. There, she found a note that stated that there was an enraging potion that sent the user into a fighting fury any time they were badly injured.
Ais’la, Cari, and Maya all emerged at once to yell out to Jornaar about their latest finds, but the young man in the red hat was also yelling. He ordered to his men to “Set it loose,” though he didn’t say what “it” was. The group didn’t have to wait long to find out – moments later, an enormous yeti, towering, brutish, with eight-inch claws and four-inch fangs, fresh from the mountains of Drustvar, came roaring into the arena! The three young punks were caught between it and Jornaar, and chaos reigned instantly! The yeti advanced on the quartet of fighters in the arena, raising its massive right paw for a swipe, its enormous, saber-like claws glinting in the light of the setting sun. The yeti roared, a terrifying, deep, window-rattling bellow that rattled windows all around and shook the very walls of the building. Its eyes fixated on the fighters, it advanced slowly, ready to attack…
To Be Continued…
*******
Participants:
Natasha Ebonlocke Jornaar Ais’la Maya Maxwell Carilina Halverson
All participants earn +1 Favor with Lady Cellica Whitewind.
Whitewind Company gains New Brinebreaker Contact: Young Man in the Red Hat
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Jul 28, 2021 13:33:10 GMT
July 28
Whitewind Company Survives Unannounced Arena Appearance, Solves Clues to Gain Useful Items, Vanquishes All Foes!
Details on last night’s arena fight involving a couple of contractors and a pair of outside assists are a bit confused beyond this point. It seems that the yeti scream drowned out Maya’s yell about frost traps in the lobster trap wagon, and she didn’t have time to yell again, as she was immediately whisked away by the young man in the red hat, who used his grappling hook as he grabbed her to swing up to the smaller storeroom on top of the warehouse that opened up into the Ashvane yard being used as an arena. There she found another note that read, “Ships are for sailing, but sometimes they’d rather stay put and wait out some nasty weather. Throw one of these overboard, and you’ll weather the storm just fine.” Maya soon spotted an anchor right in the middle of the floor. Using her worgen form, she was strong enough to move the anchor and spot another note underneath it that hinted at four grenades hidden in an open crate among all the explosives surrounded the tower Nat was held prisoner at the top of.
Meanwhile, Jornaar was bashing the injured young street punk over the head from behind as the youth had his back turned ogling the yeti, who was swiping a paw the size of a barrel lid at the face of one of his companions, sending him flying several feet. Ais’la finished that one off with a hard kick from one of her hooves. Jornaar’s target dropped like a ton of bricks, leaving one remaining street tough.
Ais’la found the grenades, having just brought Jornaar the enraging potion she found a moment before. After a brief explanation yelled from Maya atop the warehouse on how to use a grenade, she pulled the pin and tossed it under the yeti. A deafening explosion, compounded by an eardrum-rattling roar of pain from the yeti, rocked the arena next. The yeti’s legs were severely injured, and an additional fragment of shrapnel burst into the last street punk’s right thigh. This was just too much for him; the young man turned and fled from the arena, right past Jornaar, who showed mercy and let him go as he turned his attention to the roaring, raging yeti. The bouncers, however, shoved the young man down the stairs and back toward the fight. Consumed by fear, the young thug stood cowering at the bottom of the stairs, unsure of what to do next, though Ais’la had invited him to fight alongside the group in exchanged for protecting him.
In the midst of all this, Cari had found a note that read, “There are many barrels in here, but some are loaded up and ready to move.” She quickly located a wheelbarrow full of barrels after looking at others, including one barrel that was loaded up into a crane. This one had the final note of the game, one that indicated the presence of a gnomish shield generator behind a mailbox. Cari came out to yell about the shield generator, then sprinted across the arena after the suggestion from Ais’la to grab it and bring it to the fight. This she did, finding rather simple instructions on the back to press an amber-colored button to project a shield outward in a twelve-yard radius.
Maya, meanwhile, had leapt from the warehouse roof to the balcony overlooking the yeti. Running wild on all fours in her worgen form, she quickly sprinted the length of the balcony and leaped off the edge, slamming into the yeti’s back and finishing it off with her claws. The yeti fell face-forward into the mud, sending up a miniature tsunami of mud flying in every direction. With the group having found all the clues, all were now in the arena!
The young man in the red hat that organized the event was incensed at the deliberate mass disobedience of his rules that the others were not to join the fight. As promised, he unleashed all the rest of his fighters at once as consequence! A massive wicker bear, much bigger than even a normal grizzly bear, emerged from the same direction as the young street toughs and the yeti. Trampling the yeti, it took up position on the yeti’s back, snarling silently at the group. An even dozen wicker men rushed out in a group right on its tail, stampeding past it and standing between Maya and the group. A massive, burly, barrel-chested Kul Tiran bruiser came out, looking much like one of the Brinebreaker gang, though he looked more like a simple arena fighter than a criminal gangster. These took up position all around Maya as the rest of the group found safety within the shield generator Cari was operating.
The wicker bear attacked first, surprising Maya from behind as she faced the dozen wicker men with a deep rip of its claws across her back, severely injuring her. The Kul Tiran charged at her a moment later, crashing a fist the size of a brick into the right side of her head. It looked really bad for Maya, though the swarm of wicker men weren’t able to get through her defenses as she focused on dodging and deflecting their attacks.
Just as Maya fell to her knees from the Kul Tiran’s punch, however, a stream of healing mist came from Ais’la, healing her up enough for her to run past the foiled wicker men and into the shield generator. She was safe at last, the wounds on her back closed!
Maya’s next act was to call forth a Starfall spell onto the wicker men. Lunar energy rained down like a meteor shower of little lights, shattering and smashing the wicker men to pieces! Snaps and cracks resounded as the wicker men were cut down all at once, their shards littering the mud where they stood. The arena suddenly felt much less crowded!
Jornaar taunted the Kul Tiran fighter next, calling him, “nothing but a small man who bullies others.” The Kul Tiran flew into a rage at that, running at Jornaar, just as Jornaar had intended. The burly brawler, being non-magical and firing no sort of magical or natural energy at the group, was able to make it into the confines of the shield generator as easily as Maya had. The wicker bear, however, was trapped outside and was kicking up mud in every direction as it thrashed against the shield, inadvertently kicking up one rock in the process that bashed Maya right in the snout. Ais’la had Jornaar and Maya completely healed in the next moment with a spinning kick that blurred out healing mist in all directions, finishing the healing of Jornaar’s and Maya’s injuries.
Cari, in a flash of her usual brilliance, had quickly set a very simple trap for the Kul Tiran charging at Jornaar, opening a portal to what looked like Theramore, sending the guy to a beach to cool down. Jornaar blinked as his incoming fight suddenly disappeared, but soon had more fun coming his way – the young street tough, finally finding his courage again, was rushing back into the fray in all the commotion, charging at his original target in the fight, aiming a kick at the back of Jornaar’s thigh, seemingly trying to gimp him. Jornaar taunted the youth, advising him to aim a punch at his unarmored face next time instead. Ais’la wrinkled her nose at the young man’s cowardly attack from behind after being let go by the very man he was attacking. The young punk soon paid for his cheek, however, as Jornaar’s mighty fist crashed into his face and shattered it. The last of the Kul Tirans was down for the count!
The wicker bear, suddenly the last remaining foe on what was a short time ago a rather crowded arena, was sapped of part of its magic by Cari. Weakened, the wicker bear lost some of its form, only vaguely resembling a bear now. Ais’la weakened it further, removing its teeth and jaws from the equation by launching herself from the shield generator with a flying kick that connected with its head, shattering it like Maya’s Starfall had done to the wicker men! Headless, only vaguely holding any form resembling a bear, the wicker creature wandered about aimlessly for several seconds before Cari finished it off by a Dwarven runic spell fired from her wand. The wicker creation burst and shattered, falling to several dozen pieces in the mud. The fight was OVER!
The young man in the red hat was enraged at this outcome, his rules having been broken to pieces. However, being himself a stickler for his own rules, he upheld his end of the bargain. Yelling from the boardwalk along the waterfront to the group, he advised them that there was (just as Lady Whitewind had foreshadowed in her job listing), always a bigger fish, and to beware the Tidesage that was pulling the Brinebreaker gang’s strings!
He seemed on the point of telling how to find the Tidesage when a massive tentacle, resembling a much smaller version of the tentacles of the kraken the Whitewind Company had faced down barely more than a month prior, suddenly whipped from the water, grabbing the young man by his ankles and dragging him screaming into the sea! Nothing remained to tell the tale of his presence there except his red hat and a long trail of water where the tentacle had dragged him away.
Nat, still chained at the top of a ship’s mast in a crows nest, called down for help after the group recovered from the sudden scene. Maya scaled the mast quickly, using a worgen claw to open the lock on Nat’s chains and freeing her. She then assumed her massive owl form, carrying Nat back to the others on her back.
Ais’la, by this point, seemed to have had enough of Joan’s leads. She was even more suspicious of the woman than ever, and advised Nat to stop visiting her for friendly lunches and dinners and games. Nat, defensive of her friend, was reluctant to do so, but promised to at least be open to investigating her new friend over the course of their investigation of the Brinebreaker gang. She seemed to be confused at how everyone was blaming Joan for all their adversity now, rather than just Ais’la, as Jornaar, Maya, and Cari also expressed their concerns. Nat reassured her friends that she would do her best to conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation into Joan and her leads and possible motives, if any, to lead the group astray.
That settled, the group returned to Stormwind City via a portal conjured by Cari, retiring for the evening. They’d rest. They’d return. And when they did, they would be bent on finding the answers to the mysteries that already beset them.
*******
Participants:
Natasha Ebonlocke Jornaar Ais’la Maya Maxwell Carilina Halverson
All participants earn +1 Favor with Lady Cellica Whitewind.
Whitewind Company LOSES New Brinebreaker Contact: Young Man in the Red Hat
Whitewind Company gains rumor: Brinebreaker gang controlled by a Tidesage.
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Aug 11, 2021 14:28:13 GMT
August 24
Whitewind Company and Friends Lose Insider Contact After Hostilities, Seek Own Leads, Become Embroiled in Murder Mystery!
Two delegates from the Whitewind Company, as well as a pair of outside contractors, were dispatched to Boralus once more last night as the investigation continues into Marcus Brinebreaker and the alleged Brinebreaker Gang to continue seeking clues concerning allegations of extortion, racketeering, and general organized crime. Natasha Ebonlocke, Ais’la of the Draenei, Maya Maxwell, and Carilina Halverson returned to the home of Joanessa Seaslums, their point of contact with the inside scoop on the goings-on of the local slums.
Local bystanders report that the tensions between Ais’la and Joanessa reached a breaking point soon after their arrival, as the spat between the two concerning Joan’s interest in Ais’la’s mate Jornaar (who was dispatched to an undisclosed mission within the same investigation) quickly descended into a heated exchange of harsh words audible to anyone standing near Joan’s house outside. The group quickly acted to split the two up, leaving Joan’s house quickly.
Once outside, a plan was needed, as Joan had begun the discussion by reporting that, for the first time, she had no leads to report. Natasha suggested splitting up and going to different taverns for drinks to try and overhear the local conversation for a new lead. She had the Hops, Line, and Sinker, the Raven’s Flock, the Loose Cannon, and the Drunken Gryphon in mind, though the rest of the group felt that going alone to any of these taverns would be ill-advised. Nat rued the halving of the number of places that could be eavesdropped upon at once, yet eventually conceded to the wisdom of pairing off. Thus it was that Maya and Cari took on the Loose Cannon, and Nat and Ais’la took on the Hops, Line, and Sinker.
Eyewitnesses report a rather bawdy crowd in both locales. Cigar smoke and laughter hung thick in the air, and it was easy for both pairs to simply blend in with their own drinks and listen. Most of the local gossip was considered “light, but spicy” by tavern-goers interviewed, yet at both taverns, men tried to lead the women upstairs. Nat, blushing, remained downstairs as Ais’la followed one such man upstairs, believing he was summoning her for information she was seeking. The man, instead, had his baser instincts in mind, and soon found himself dragged downstairs without even the chance to hitch his pants back up from around his ankles, thrown into a corner of the bar, and a barrel of fish dumped over him.
Meanwhile, at the Loose Cannon, Maya and Cari (a druid and a mage, respectively) were following a man upstairs as well. This man had the same idea in mind for the women, though the women flipped the script on him with threats from the druid and mage of clawing or freezing something off he wouldn’t be able to reattach. The man quailed before them, seeming useless at first as far as information on the Brinebreakers go, though he did mention being a street hawker who might be able to help them with underground wares instead. The pair were uninterested until a locket was mentioned. A silver locket, tarnished, with a sunburst emblazoned upon the front. The same description as the locket lost by Rolfe Braxton, the fishing boat owner the group had ridden with and gained information on the Brinebreakers from some few weeks prior, when he’d implored the group to help him find it, as it contained a picture of his wife that had been missing since he returned from two years lost at sea. After further prodding, the man admitted having sold it to Madame Gosu, the black market Pandaren who hawked her goods right outside the Loose Cannon. Maya and Cari left the man with very clear orders not to go luring any more women into shady places and left the quivering man to head outside and look for the aforementioned Pandaren woman.
By this point, at the Hops, Line, and Sinker, Ais’la and Nat had noticed that, though most of the tavern were ogling Ais’la and the man she’d just humiliated, two men were so deep in discussion that they hadn’t even seemed to notice. Listening closely, they were able to overhear such words as Brinebreaker, Tidesage, woman, and control. Ais’la stood from her barstool once more and approached the two men, turning on a bit of charm and asking about the Brinebreakers. One man, appearing frightened by this, immediately got up and hurried off, but the other, taking in Ais’la’s lightly-clad form and summer attire, grinned broadly and appeared immediately enthralled by Ais’la’s charm. Ais’la was able to get the man to repeat himself, which he was all too happy to do, in return for a bit of Ais’la’s time at his home afterward. Though Ais’la promised nothing, he took her continued questioning to mean she had agreed.
Ais’la was quickly able to extract the information she wanted from the bearded Kul Tiran, learning that there was, as the man said, “always a bigger fish.” The rumor the group had learned during their previous excursion about a Tidesage being involved somehow with the Brinebreakers, was seemingly confirmed by this man. He said that the Tidesage, a female, was the real leadership behind Marcus Brinebreaker’s gang. The man did not know the Tidesage’s identity, nor any further useful information, aside from the fact that he’d heard this himself only just across the street at the Raven’s Flock tavern. Ais’la took the opportunity at that point to clutch at her abdomen and excuse herself, citing the suddenly urgent need to forcefully defecate and hurrying quickly away, Nat in tow. The pair made their way back to the street to cross the muddy thoroughfare to the Raven’s Flock.
Maya and Cari, meanwhile, had found Madame Gosu and were haggling over the locket, having confirmed that she had, indeed, purchased it from the man they had spoken to moments before. Madame Gosu had something of a rather commanding presence and was clearly not going to be intimidated as easily as the man upstairs. However, she was there to sell, and, as such, a price for the locket was haggled over and agreed upon. Madame Gosu knew, of course, who the original owner of the locket was, being deeply invested in the local black market, and gave the women a discount on the locket when the women revealed they wanted to get it back to Rolfe. The women took their leave of the Pandaren at this point, who kindly gave them a cookie apiece for the road.
Nat went inside the Raven’s Flock first, finding a man down on the floor, seemingly out cold. Two others stood over his unmoving form. Thinking to render aid, she knelt over him, though she took note of Ais’la’s absence from the scene. After a time, Ais’la did show up, though she had something muddy in her hands that she hadn’t held before. A closer look revealed it to be a long, sharp knife! Through the mud, there was fresh, red, wet blood visible on the blade. This knife had recently been used! Nat, not wanting to associate herself or Ais’la with that bloody knife with the prone man on the floor, headed back outside with Ais’la. Just then, Maya and Cari, who had spoken with Nat over the communicators, arrived to the Raven’s Flock to reform the group.
The two pairs exchanged the information they’d learned thus far – the newest rumor of a Tidesage being involved with the Brinebreakers, possibly even leading them, the information on Rolfe’s locket, and the information that the Tidesage information had been learned here at the Raven’s Flock. Ais’la showed Maya the knife, who assumed her worgen form to attempt to get a scent. Maya didn’t recognize the scent of the owner of the blood, though she did recognize the scent on the handle as belonging to a Brinebreaker. What’s more, with a bit of blood cleared away, a large, angry-looking red letter B was emblazoned on both sides of the bone handle… The same B that was branded onto the forearm of the Brinebreaker underboss in charge of extorting money from the Hook Point open-air tavern and keeping all business other than Brinebreaker members away.
The group looked at the locket next. Ais’la and Nat agreed that it fit the description given them by Rolfe Braxton. They opened it next, thinking to get a look at Rolfe’s long-missing wife to see about searching for her.
What they saw inside shocked them.
There, within the locket, the face of Rolfe’s long-missing wife looked back up at them. A young, pretty Kul Tiran woman with sandy-colored hair. A woman who, though usually smiling, they’d last seen snarling. A woman who had just had it out with Ais’la only earlier that evening. A woman who had long coveted Ais’la’s mate, Jornaar.
The woman inside was Joanessa Seaslums.
Before the group could react, however, a drunken patron of the Raven’s Flock stumbled out onto the boardwalk, staggering around the women to pass them. One casual glance at the large, angry red B on the bloody knife, another at the woman in the locket, and the man immediately looked terrified. He slurred something about “the Brinebreaker <expletive> woman,” and tried to flee, though his sudden drunken sprint did nothing more than send him sailing over the edge of the boardwalk, thudding to the ground below, knocked unconscious by fall and alcohol.
Nat seemed distraught at this sudden revelation. All her one-on-one meetings with Joan, friendly meetings over crab leg dinners and tea and cookies and games, all their deep discussion or exchanges of funny stories, all the times they’d hung out, had all apparently been a ruse all this time. Her friend, her close friend, Joan, involved with the very gang she’d been giving them unhelpful leads on all this time, often leading them into harm’s way. Angry, she summoned Onyx down from the skies and boarding him quickly, leaving her friends in the dust and flying like a shot toward Joan’s house in a fury!
Eyewitness reports from here are quite muddled, but the general agreement is that the rest of the group discovered Nat leaning over Joan, who was lying in a puddle of mud and blood near her home. Nat’s hands were blood-soaked, and a look of shock covered her face.
It appeared that Natasha Ebonlocke had murdered Joanessa Seaslums.
Upon pulling Nat away from Joan’s corpse, however, doubt arose. Nat seemed to have found Joan this way, and the blood on her hands was from trying to staunch Joan’s many stab wounds. Nat, recovering from her shock after a moment, remembered how Ais’la had disappeared for a moment while following Nat to the Raven’s Flock, only to show up with a knife with fresh blood on it. Nat gasped, pointing at Ais’la, who had shown up with a bloody murder weapon, a missing period of time, and a motive.
It now appeared that Ais’la had murdered Joan!
Before the group could clear things up, however, the sounds of several approaching horses could be heard. The Kul Tiran guard had arrived, a full squad of armored and armed men astride Kul Tiran horses. The captain surveyed the scene quickly. One woman in the mud, bloodily dead. One woman with blood on her hands. One worgen holding a knife (still holding it from attempting to get the scent of the blood and the scent of the wielder a short time before). One more woman, a Draenei, being angrily accused of having the motive, unaccountable window of time missing, and the bloody murder weapon.
Maya and Cari were quick to defend Ais’la, saying she had actually been with them the entire time, and had not gone missing, not seeming to realize at the time that Ais’la had actually been missing for a short time before they showed up. The guard captain took this to mean that the literally red-handed young woman was the prime suspect, and immediately ordered his men to drag Nat away.
Nat was taken away, hands still dripping with red, protesting tearfully. The guard captain mentioned her facing the gallows at sundown, then turned his attention to the remaining three, prepared to question them on the murder as well.
Things did not look good for the Whitewind Company and their friends…
To Be Continued…
*******
Participants:
Natasha Ebonlocke Ais’la Maya Maxwell Carilina Halverson
All participants earn +1 Favor with Lady Cellica Whitewind.
Whitewind Company LOSES Brinebreaker Insider contact Joanessa Seaslums.
Whitewind Company LOSES Whitewind Company Officer: Natasha Ebonlocke
Whitewind Company GAINS Reaffirmed Rumor: Brinebreaker gang controlled by a Female Tidesage.
Whitewind Company GAINS Murder Weapon: Bloody Brinebreaker-Emblem Knife
Whitewind Company GAINS Rolfe Braxton’s Locket
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Aug 18, 2021 15:31:38 GMT
August 24 Whitewind Company And Contractors Avoid/Evade Arrest, Gain Reinforcements, Pursue and Corner Murder Suspect
Witnesses on the scene report that the guard captain turned next to the remaining Whitewind Company and friends. Two of the witnesses were large Kul Tiran men. As the guard captain questioned Maya on her possession of the apparent murder weapon, Ais’la on her apparent disappearance and reappearance with the murder weapon, and Cari as a potential accomplice of some form, the two large Kul Tiran men, in particular, seemed quite invested in the scene. Maya was eventually able to talk herself out of suspicion, pointing out the fact that she’d only just gotten there herself, and that the victim could not have been attacked, struggled with, stabbed, and bled out and passed away, all in the few seconds she’d been there before the guards had come. The guard captain nodded his agreement, turning next to Ais’la, who had yet to say a word in her defense, though the captain repeatedly brought up her having disappeared, reappeared with a bloody murder weapon, and having motive after her weeks-long row with Joan that had culminated in the widely-heard argument between the two merely an hour or two before Joan’s brutal murder.
In that moment, Ais’la turned and fled the scene, increasing her suspicion in the guard captain’s mind, who dispatched two of his fellow mounted guardsmen to give chase.
Maya and Cari, the only two in the group remaining now that all Whitewind Company members were either fleeing or incarcerated, maintained their friends’ innocence. Meanwhile, one Kul Tiran had entered the conversation, identifying himself as none other than Whitewind Company new hire Cletcher Tidebringer. The man claimed to have information on someone fleeing the scene, but, as he wasn’t able to think of anything else on the spot, the guard captain dismissed him and turned back to Maya and Cari. The argument continued for a short time before the captain allowed the two to leave, informing them that Nat was being held under guard at the stockade on the far side of Hook Point, and that they were free to appoint an arbiter from amongst themselves on her behalf.
At that point, the other large Kul Tiran man, who had also been adding in his two cents from time to time, stepped forward. A shimmer of illusion sparkled and faded from around him, and the Kul Tiran male appearance faded… revealing none other than Nahlia “Nah” Lifebloom, best friend of the accused, and fellow officer in the Whitewind Company! Once again, there were two Whitewind Company employees present!
The guard, confused by this, shook his head, leading his men onward after the two he’d sent after Ais’la. The men rode off, leaving the two Whitewinders and the two outside contractors to inspect the scene a bit more before the Kul Tirans could reach it to do the same.
Maya, still in her worgen form, gave the murder weapon another sniff. Joan’s scent still couldn’t be discerned from the blood under all the mud, but the Brinebreaker’s scent was still all over the handle. Sniffing around the crime scene, she was able to find a matching scent in the area. She followed it to the back door of Joan’s house, which was slightly ajar.
Entering the house, they saw that Joan’s house had been rapidly ransacked. The place was a complete and utter mess, and the scent Maya followed meandered all over the building before exiting out the front door.
It was here that Cletcher’s unexpectedly keen perception, a recurring theme for the evening, discerned two pairs of boot prints leading away from the front porch. One smaller pair was the same size as Joan’s boots, and clearly seemed to take a daily march into the higher-traffic area of the muddy street in front of her home, given how many days most of them were. Another pair, massive and deep, and no more than a half-hour old judging from how wet the tracks still were, also led away from Joan’s front door. The group followed this set of tracks out into the higher-traffic area of the muddy street, where the tracks were lost in the heavily-trodden street. Maya, however, was still on the scent.
Following the scent off to the right, the group walked across the plank bridge over the water, back to the open-air tavern they’d somewhat liberated on their very first night here, though it was still deep inside Brinebreaker territory. As such, a number of very short scuffles broke out between the group and the easily-overwhelmed thugs as the group followed Maya and Cletcher in front of the open-air tavern, Maya hot on the scent and Cletcher’s keen perception still picking up the tracks in the mud and discerning them from the myriad of others.
Around the tavern the trail led, until the group came upon a duo of Mechagnomes conversing indignantly about a large Brinebreaker that’d stolen one of the many gizmos hovering overhead with helicopter propellers. The Mechagnomes were all too eager to dish the dirt on the criminal in their anger, even pointing out that he’d been there several weeks before, taking a sniper rifle to the top of the building they were standing next to, to take a single shot across the water at a group with two Kul Tiran women, one of which was known to them as Joan, a Kul Tiran man, a human woman, and a Draenei male and female. The group, remembering the sniper from their very first night on the investigation, accepted an offer of help from the Mechagnomes to use their flying devices to get to the roof and investigate. Maya smelled the same Brinebreaker’s scent all along the roof, and, once again, Cletcher’s keen perception found him spying a spent bullet shell casing that had fallen down the roof and come to rest against the protruding chimney. Evidence collected, the group proceeded back down to follow the tracks once more.
The tracks led around the edge of the main yard of Brinebreaker territory, to a table sitting in the mud where three massive Kul Tiran men were sitting and discussing the planting of a knife near two investigating women, one human, and one Draenei. As Nah, Cletcher, Cari, and Maya approached, the men jumped to their feet, angry about having been eavesdropped upon. The man who had been speaking of having planted a knife near the Draenei investigator reportedly admitted, albeit inadvertently, to having done planted the knife while arguing with Maya. He also inadvertently outed himself as being the sniper on the roof some weeks before. All this being hearsay, however, if the group were to report it to someone else, they were doing to need further proof of this to clear Nat’s name and save her from the gallows. They were going to need to arrest these men.
The group moved to intimidation next, Maya brandishing her claws, Nah her blades, and Cletcher his enormous bulk. Cari, the smallest of the bunch, seemed to intimidate the man most of all, threatening him with the fact that the group had a mage present. The man, mentioning memory of what the Lord Admiral Jaina Proudmoore had done with her own spells in the region, soiled himself heavily at Cari’s threat, and could stand idle no more. He directed his two mates to attack! The two men drew long knives, each with bone handles with a large, angry red B on them, just like the murder weapon. The same B that all three had tattooed on their inner right forearms. The suspect Brinebreaker, suspiciously being without his knife, reached down and snapped a leg off the table he’d been sitting at, brandishing it now as a large, heavy club. The three massive men advanced on the mostly smaller Whitewind Company members and their friends, snarling in rage and ready to kill them all…
To Be Continued…
*****
Participants:
Nahlia "Nah" Lifebloom
Cletcher Tidebringer Carilina Halverson Maya Maxwell Natasha Ebonlocke (ICly imprisoned, OOCly DMing)
Whitewind Company gains: Evidence: Spent Shell Casing
Each participant gains +1 Favor with Lady Whitewind
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Aug 25, 2021 12:57:56 GMT
August 24
Whitewind Company Defeats Brinebreaker Underboss and Toadies in Perilously Close Fight, Redeem and Free Natasha Ebonlocke with Underboss Confession
Witnesses next report a yard full of shouts, screams, pistol shots, and roars. Brinebreaker knives flashed in the light of the waning sun, and the suspected murderer, identified later as another Brinebreaker Underboss, doled out punishment in the form of his snapped-off table leg. The fight that broke out was beyond ferocious. Cletcher took the brunt of the damage from the Underboss, having received several bashes over the head from the enormous man’s club.
Cari was able to disarm one of the men by heating up the knife he was holding until it burned him and he dropped it, but the same move on the other knife-wielding man proved fruitless; he was wearing leather gloves so thick that the heat didn’t penetrate it. Consequently, the man was able to aim several slashes that mostly found their mark across the abdomens of Cari and Maya, though none were quite deep enough to cause something rather more grisly to happen.
Meanwhile, Nah was taking on the man Cari had disarmed, who was causing plenty of chaos with his fists in the meantime, before a pistol shot into his knee from Nah put him on his back and caused him to draw his own flintlock. The man, aiming a pair of panicked, agonized shots from his back while cradling his destroyed knee, was able to drill both through Nah’s left shoulder.
To complicate matters, the Underboss, who had Cletcher seeing stars and had somehow evaded every attack upon him, had come to his screaming comrade’s aid, and was now attacking Nah, who also suffered several shots over the head with the table-leg club.
This ganging-up on Nah happened while things were looking grim for the Whitewind Company and their friends overall; Cletcher looked like one more crack over the head would do for him, Cari and Maya had been slashed several times by their attacker, and Nah was getting beaten over the head repeatedly by a heavy wooden table leg and was bleeding profusely from her shoulder wounds. All four members appeared to be one more good, solid hit away from being done for.
With no healer present, it seemed the Whitewind Company and friends may not make it out, which meant neither would Nat, who still faced the gallows…
Just then, however, the tides were finally turned!
A couple of Sunfire spells from Maya, a couple of arcane pulses from Cari, and their attacker flopped over on his back, blistered and burned, and did not move again, though he still seemed to be bleeding. Meanwhile, Nah’s pistol shots seemed to have finally done for her target, who seemed ready to yield before blacking out.
Cletcher, meanwhile, was using his moment’s reprieve from the Underboss to cast a couple of Regrowth spells on himself, Maya was doing the same for Cari, and Nah was using the mysterious Crimson Vials used by rogues to heal her own wounds enough to continue the fight. The Underboss went from the verge of victory with his two cronies to suddenly finding himself alone and surrounded by an angry mob that suddenly looked quite a bit healthier!
The Underboss continued to fight ferociously, landing some grievous blows with his club and had Cari in particular reduced to casting from her knees with broken glasses, but in the end, Maya’s claws, Cletcher’s huge mace, Cari’s magic, and Nah’s flintlock had the man down in the mud and begging for his life. The Underboss had finally yielded!
A bit more healing was done as Nah put the Underboss hard to the question. The Underboss agreed to confess his crimes in exchange for his life, hoping, at best, to avoid the gallows, or at least, have a kinder end dealt to him than it seemed to him he’d get from this crew. The Underboss was carried off by Cletcher, who had assumed his thornspeaker stag form, and the group took him straight to the prison Nat was being held at to get her free and clear her good name with the confession from the Underboss.
The plan didn’t go as well as expected – Nat was found in a cell, but the constable was nowhere to be seen. To make matters worse, shortly after the group began reassuring Nat that she’d be freed as soon as they talked to the constable, the prison guards came for Nat, dragging her off – it seemed her time at the gallows had come!
The group raced off after Nat and the guards, arriving to find Nat already standing on the trapdoor on the gallows with the noose being lowered around her neck as the Constable was reading off her crimes! According to the constable, the time she was scheduled to hang was just a few minutes off!
Fortunately, the crew’s arrival was in time to yell for the constable to stop and listen to a confession. The constable, seeing a Kul Tiran citizen draped across a stag’s back and beaten to a pulp, instantly misread the situation, and took the group’s shout of a confession to mean that the mainlanders were going to confess to another crime against another Kul Tiran. But, before the group could be arrested, the Underboss, terrified of the group, began confessing as quickly as he could. He confessed to Joan’s murder, to planting the knife Ais’la had found near the group in order to pin it on them, and to taking a shot at them from a rifle from a distant rooftop besides. The constable heard the confession in full, then ordered Nat’s immediate release. The young woman was reunited with her friends at last, and the Brinebreaker was hauled off to the same prison Nat had been held at for healing and interrogation. The group’s association with Calleigh Silversong may well give the group a lead from her Kul Tiran connections from whatever comes out of that interrogation…
One other tidbit to come from eyewitnesses is that Nat, as she was coming down the stairs from the gallows after being released, had said something in a very strange language that the constable had thought he'd heard as being in Shath'Yar. However, the Brinebreaker Underboss had understood her as having spoken in Common, so, after a word to Nat to be careful what language she uses in this country, he let it go.
In the meantime, bruised, battered, and exhausted, with Nat frightened from her near-death experience and distraught from the loss of her friend Joan, the group returned home. The group seemed set on locating Marcus Brinebreaker himself next time, and now their motivation to do so went well beyond simply having accepted a contract to do so…*****
Participants:
Nah Cletcher Maya Cari Nat
Each member gains +1 favor with Lady Whitewind
Whitewind Company regains Natasha Ebonlocke
Whitewind Company gains potential source: Brinebreaker Underboss Whitewind Company gains potential source: Brinebreaker Toadies
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Sept 2, 2021 15:52:47 GMT
(( For August 31st, what with Nat's birthday (and her birthday pool party) falling on a Tuesday, and to take a break from the intensity of the story as an added bonus, no guild campaign RP event was held for that date. The campaign will resume this coming Tuesday, September 7th! ))
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Sept 8, 2021 15:59:44 GMT
September 7 Whitewind Company Returns to Orphaned Children For New Lead, Gain Four New Leads In the Process, Scouts Prison, Lemptheby Auctions For Next Expedition
Whitewind Company members and outside contractors were once again spotted in Boralus Tuesday night as the investigation into the infamous Brinebreaker gang continues. According to eyewitnesses, the group sought out an old, unlikely contact, one they’d inadvertently made on the first excursion of the case. The contact was an orphaned, confessed Brinebreaker pickpocket by the name of Rob, who was overheard stating his surname by way of naming his parents, Rolfe and Janine Braxton.
At first, however, the group was unable to locate the orphan and his two orphan friends, fellow Brinebreaker pickpockets and siblings Billy and Bernadette. The group had, however, passed another group of children a short way past the Tradewinds Market flighmaster, in the Ashvane Company Yards, not far from Dampwick Ward. The children’s presumed leader, a confident youngster named Ethan (and whom one eyewitness to the scene named a “pottymouth”), stated a personal friendship with Rob, and, after he, his friends, and their cat Velvet were given food and gold, said the best place to find him was in the bushes and brush near Quimby’s Chowder, a ramshackle soup kitchen for the poor and destitute of Dampwick Ward. The group replied that that was the first place they’d looked, as they’d found him there last time, but he was not present this evening. Ethan replied, with a plea to get his friend free of the Brinebreaker’s service and back to shooting at marbles with him, that he could generally be found anyplace that might serve food in Dampwick Ward that also had bushes for him and his friends to hide in.
Thanking Ethan and his friends, the group proceeded into the heart of Dampwick Ward. After making a couple of rounds, the group found Dampwick Tavern located in the center of the neighborhood, a broken-down old building that only had one patron inside. After another quick scan outside the building, Cari heard children’s voices from the bushes next to the ramp up to the tavern proper, and Maya, assuming her worgen form to locate them, had caught their scent as well.
Just as Ethan had said, the group located Rob, Billy, and Bernadette in the bushes outside the establishment. Rob and his friends, though they recognized Natasha Ebonlocke from the previous encounter, did not recognize the entirely new crew she’d brought along, and he and his friends did not immediately warm up to the newcomers. However, as before, food and gold made everything okay, and Maya in particular won the affections of Bernadette, a round-faced young girl who made a mad dash to cling to her leg with her free arm (with the other, she was sucking her thumb, according to witnesses near the scene) after Maya presented the group with an entire bag of her expedition rations. Bernadette, though Rob seemed to be the leader of the group, seemed to be the one with the information, though her odd method of communication by sucking her thumb seemed to be interpretable only by Rob and Billy. Through their translations, and after a hefty amount of bribery, the children were all too happy to reveal a few new leads for the group. Rob and his friends promised to reunite with Ethan and the rest of their pals if the Collector was found and stopped, though not before, as the risk of capture and punishment from the Collector was too great otherwise.
One such lead was the Boralus Stockade, a prison near the naval base that sat at the base of the hill Proudmoore Keep was built upon. The prison itself might actually be two leads, as it apparently still held the two underbosses the group had combated and turned over to Boralus authorities. Their sentencing for their crimes was undoubtedly delayed, according to Rob, by their intimate knowledge of Marcus Brinebreaker’s inner workings.
Another lead was the Collector, a Brinebreaker thug who made the rounds through Dampwick Ward each morning to collect the coin the Brinebreaker pickpockets had scrounged up the previous day. But, with most of the group unavailable for most mornings to find him then, it was deemed that they’d need to locate and stop the Collector through some other method.
The final lead offered up by Rob and his friends was Lincoln J. Lemptheby’s Auctions, an open-air auction operating on the nicer side of Hook Point. The auctions were reportedly frequented by another Brinebreaker underboss, a man described by Bernadette (through Rob’s translations) as “a scrawny git with a little black ponytail who-“ (Rob declined to repeat the language Bernadette used to describe him, though he did reveal it was from her Ethan learned all his profanity) used the auctions as an opportunity to dress up and feel “fancy,” though he rarely actually made a purchase.
The group conferred, and it was decided that Maya would scout the prison to find the prisoners for a later excursion, while the rest would attend the auction and keep a sharp eye out for anyone fitting the description of the Brinebreaker underboss.
Dividends were almost immediately paid. Boralus citizens witnessing the scene report that a man fitting the description was indeed present already by the time the group arrived. The skinny man in question was in the middle of bidding for a painting of Stormsong Valley set in a handsome mahogany frame when the group came in and took their seats. The man proceeded to engage in a bidding war for a highly detailed and authenticated map of Earthen ruins in the Storm Peaks in Northrend for the next item, outbidding an enthusiastic Boralus citizen by one single copper penny every time the unfortunate man raised his bid. The Boralus citizen, initially having matched the starting bid of six hundred gold, eventually became frazzled and skipped all the way to the buyout price of eight hundred gold and retreated with the map in a state of near panic, causing the shady, skinny man to snicker. The man’s indifference to having been outbid cast doubt upon him in the eyes of the group, who suspected him of being in league with Mister Lemptheby to drive up auction prices to their buyout marks. The skinny man left after that, taking his painting with him to the food court just down the street.
Speculation abounds following the conclusion of Tuesday night’s investigation into the case by the Whitewind Company and their friends. Was the skinny man at the auction really the Brinebreaker underboss described by Bernadette? Is he really in league with Mister Lemptheby? Why does Rob, with his sandy hair and blue eyes, look so very familiar to the group? And, most troubling of all, are the ears of witnesses deceived… or is Natasha Ebonlocke occasionally speaking in a language not heard for nearly a year in Boralus… Is she really speaking Shath’Yar from time to time and not even realizing it?
*****
Participants:
Nah Maya Cari Nat
Each member gains +1 favor with Lady Whitewind
Whitewind Company gains favor with Rob Braxton and Dampwick Orphans Whitewind Company gains potential lead: Brinebreaker Underboss(es x2?) Whitewind Company gains potential lead: Brinebreaker Auction-Attending Underboss
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Post by Natasha Ebonlocke on Sept 15, 2021 15:28:23 GMT
September 14 Whitewind Company Questions Underboss Prisoners in Kul Tiran Stockade, Discover New Leads, Secure Proof of Criminal Activity By the Collector, Collector Arrested and Imprisoned
The Whitewind Company returned once again to Boralus in their ongoing investigation of the Brinebreaker gang, pursuing leads gained the previous week from Rob Braxton and the Dampwick Ward pickpocket orphans. With the options to either visit the Boralus Stockade first, or attend another Lemptheby auction, the group elected the former. The group made their way safely across the city to the stockade, guided by Maya Maxwell, who’d scouted the prisoners’ locations within the stockade the previous week. In short order, interrogation of the prisoners began.
Maya led them first to their most recent arrest, the Brinebreaker boss that had taken a sniper shot at the group on their first night on the case, as well as allegedly having murdered Joanessa Seaslums and framed the Whitewind Company for the murder in order to throw them off the case. Reliable records tell us this much.
However, Kul Tiran stockade guards, charged with prisoner interrogations, report not having had any luck with their questioning, voicing doubts that they’ll get anything at all due to the prison warden’s insistence upon keeping the pair from their sentencing of hanging for as long as the prisoners hold valuable information on the Brinebreaker gang. As such, the prisoners remain alive, and, with the knowledge that giving up information would change that, are remaining tight-lipped on the whole affair.
The guards also report that the Whitewind Company came away with no answers at all either, and for the same reasons. However, eyewitnesses, who have chosen to remain anonymous, report that both prisoners gave up all the valuable information they possessed to the mainlanders that had come to put them to the question. The guards did, at least, allow the mainlanders into the stockade to try questioning the prisoners themselves, as they had, after all, been the one to locate, gather proof on, and arrest the prisoners to begin with.
The sniper/hit man/frame man underboss, when questioned by Maya after Maya had changed to her worgen form and was snarling and demanding answers, appeared frightened at first, but then replied that the steel bars between them would keep him safe. Carilina Halverson attempted the next intimidation, threatening the use of freezing frost magic in the man’s cell if he doesn’t answer. The man replied that a noose around the neck was colder, and remained silent.
A breakthrough in the questioning came when Natasha Ebonlocke, appealing to the man’s surprisingly softer side that the group had glimpsed when the man saw Nat with a noose around her neck, posed the question more gently. According to anonymous witnesses, Nat came forward, gently taking the bars into her hands and resting her head forward on them, spoke of a side of him that seemed to want to be more noble, and wanted redemption for all he’d done, a side that had shown remorse. Promising not to tell the guards the information she’d get if he told, as well as to use it to stop others in the Brinebreaker gang who were doing bad things to good people (thus affording him some self-redemption, if not in the eyes of the Kul Tirans), Nat coaxed the man into talking.
Now open to quiet questioning by the group, the man told what he knew. Maya wanted to know where the Brinebreakers were hiding. The man stated they were situated all around Dampwick Ward and Hook Point, not exactly hiding. Perhaps still feeling apprehensive about his agreement with the group, he was not, at first, giving up anything useful. Cari, clarifying the question, asked specifically where the Collector was. The prisoner began to open up at that point, stating that the Collector was the biggest of all the Brinebreakers, though his size and fighting power were wasted, as he preferred to intimidate the smallest targets he could find, including the orphans of Dampwick Ward that he’d conscripted into pickpocketing and petty theft. The prisoner revealed that, though he didn’t know where the Collector lived, he did know that the big man frequented a restaurant called That’s A Moray in Mariner’s Row. An extra nugget, thanks to Cari’s prompting, was that the prisoner let slip confirmation that a man named Marcus Brinebreaker was, indeed, the leader of the Brinebreaker gang. Then, at a question from Nat, the man revealed that there were four Brinebreaker underbosses. Two they’d imprisoned: himself, the enforcer/hit man, the extortionist, an exceedingly violent man that they’d arrested their first night in that had been extorting money from, and keeping non-Brinebreaker tenants from, the open-air tavern in Hook Point, as well as extorting money from a large percentage of Hook Point and Dampwick Ward citizens. The other two were still at large: The Collector, and their black market specialist, a skinny man with a small black ponytail known to dress up in fancy clothing and attend Lemptheby’s auctions in the nicer stretch of Hook Point.
With their lead from Rob Braxton confirmed on the two underbosses, and now with the knowledge that there were no others, the group then questioned the prisoner on the location of Marcus Brinebreaker. It seems that, according to witnesses (who wish to remain anonymous) eavesdropping on the conversation, Marcus Brinebreaker does not allow anyone to know his address, but, according to the prisoner, the man did love wild parties quite a bit.
As it became evident that the prisoner possessed no further useful information, they proceeded on to the next cell, with promises to the prisoner from Nat that they’d hold up their end of the bargain, and not forward this information on to the stockade interrogators.
Guided by Maya, who still remembered the way to the next cell from the previous week’s scouting mission, the group found their way to the next prisoner in short order. No sooner had the group reached the cell, however, than the violent man snarled in rage, throwing himself violently at the cells and screeching threats of violent, gruesome deaths at those who had overcome him and his men to arrest them and land them in these cells. Cari took the first crack at interacting with the man, freezing the bars he was slamming against and attempting to wrest from their frames as he screeched at the group. The frozen bars had little effect; the man, overcome by blind fury, simply froze the skin of his hands, arms, and face to the bars and ripped it back off repeatedly. Cari, disgusted by the sudden appearance of many blood-oozing wounds all over the man’s exposed skin, turned away and attempted no further interaction. Nat tried pleading with the man, appealing to his conscience as she had with the first man, but her pleading fell upon completely deaf ears – the man had no interest in anything at all except bursting through his cell door and doing all the many gruesome things he was threatening to the group.
This time it was Maya who swung the interrogation. Where intimidation hadn’t worked on the first prisoner, it worked on the second. Shifting into her massive and incredibly imposing bear form, the underboss instantly changed from a violent, raging mass of furious profanity and violent death threats to a cringing, whimpering man, retreating to the back of his cell and crying at the sight of the massive beast that had trampled and mauled his men the first night in. This man, unfortunately, had no new information that the group hadn’t gotten from the first prisoner, except that Marcus Brinebreaker was only ever seen inside the Hook Point slums, the heart of Brinebreaker Territory and surrounded by his henchmen, and never ventured out. Rumors abounded among witnesses that, after the group departed with a promise from Maya that they’d be back for him if they didn’t find Marcus Brinebreaker, the previously violent man had soiled himself.
The group now had the choice between That’s A Moray, to find the Collector, and Lemptheby’s Auctions, to find the black market specialist. Having witnessed firsthand the poor orphans the Collector had bullied into servitude, the group unanimously decided to visit That’s A Moray in Mariner’s Row to investigate the lead the first prisoner had given them.
Cari, thinking of finding the man eating dinner, had an idea at that point that took the other two by surprise. She wanted to find an alchemist and brew a potion that would cause the Collector to feel the need for a sudden and explosive bowel movement. After the initial moment of mischievous shock passed, Nat led the group toward Hook Point’s bustling marketplace, a muddy, yet vastly upscale stretch of Hook Point in comparison to the slums in the middle of the district. Here, the middle class bought and sold, cadets of the Kul Tiran Naval Academy would gather at the food court or at the vendors, and even the odd Kul Tiran noble, doing their version of slumming, might be found. The group moved through the marketplace, browsing stalls, until they found Timothy Green at Green’s Alchemy and Potions, just behind Lemptheby’s Auctions. Witnesses report that Mister Green, upon hearing the ingredients and their quantities from Cari, had a good laugh, knowing what she intended to brew. Mister Green didn’t quite get it right – the group wasn’t intending to prank a friend – but he did give Cari a fair price for the ingredients and a crystal vial. With a promise from Nat that Lady Whitewind would reimburse her for the purchase, as it was for a Whitewind Company job, the group departed from the marketplace and made their way further down the road.
Reaching the end of the road from Hook Point, along the canal where it went along the outside of Dampwick Ward, the group was able to see why the Collector favored That’s A Moray as a frequent dining experience. The Mariner’s Row restaurant was only just across the canal from Dampwick Ward and his collection route among the orphans, with a convenient ferry crossing back and forth in between. The group boarded the ferry, enjoying a nice, peaceful ride across the canal before going to work again in Mariner’s Row. This district, being right across another section of canal from Upton Borough, was even nicer than the marketplace along the canal’s edge of Hook Point, and the restaurant, spotted by Maya first, had a rather nice interior (though, much to Maya and Cari’s amusement, and Nat’s horror, the paintings inside were like something from a nightmare!).
Entering the restaurant with the first prisoner’s description of, “the biggest, meanest-looking one o’ th’ lot,” in their minds, the group began to look around. Maya and Cari browsed the paintings as well, while Nat averted her eyes from the disturbing images as much as she could. Maya and Cari, in the meantime, found one that looked very much like their friend Mordale, though the main in the painting looked to be possessed by a deranged spirit of some sort. With a laughing promise to find Mordale and ask him about the painting at some point, the group soon found the Collector next. The massive man was feeding his massive frame with a plate of food heaped high with steak, salmon, and pork chops, and nary a vegetable among the lot, though he did have a heap of buttered rolls and a tall tankard of ale. His eyes were glued to a drunk woman staggering around the restaurant. The group conferred on who was to deliver the potion to the man. Nat, citing her horrible clumsiness, and Cari, making no claim to subtlety or sneakiness, both ruled themselves out. Nat found herself wishing aloud that Nahlia Lifebloom had made the trip with them, as this sort of sneaky ploy was right up her alley.
Maya, however, taking an idea from the drunken woman, came up with the plan to deliver the potion. Opening her shirt up a bit more than normal (causing Nat to blush and avert her eyes, which, between Maya and the paintings, meant she looked mostly at the floor), Maya affected the same sort of drunken stagger and slurring of words as the drunken woman in the restaurant as she went to the cushy couch in the corner and sat next to the Collector. After a brief flirtation, the man’s attention was rapt. That’s A Moray diners report that the man’s gaze “was like that of a starvin’ wolf eyeing a choice bit o’ prime rib,” and that the man never looked up higher, into Maya’s eyes, once. Maya, with the man’s attention, was able to take the man’s tankard with the flirtatious claim of getting it topped off for him. Once across the restaurant, she added the potion to the man’s tankard as she got it topped off, then returned to him with a tankard of her own besides, drinking and flirting with the man, though she was careful not to drink nearly as heavily as the Collector, who had chugged his all in one to prove his manliness to Maya.
It took a full forty minutes, but eyewitnesses report that, eventually, a large man sitting in the corner eating a veritable mountain of food had suddenly leaped to his feet with a screech and propelled himself full-speed toward the restroom. The occupied room was locked, and the man sprinted from the tavern next, down the road, and back to the canal. Not even bothering to wait for the ferry, the man leaped into the canal, swimming across in his haste. The group pursued at a distance, emerging from the canal after a portal across to give chase through Dampwick Ward, up the ramp in front of Dampwick Tavern, and along a series of boardwalks, including a terrifying third-floor leap across a large hole in the broken boardwalk. The route eventually went to a safe house towering over Dampwick Ward that had no other route leading to it except the broken boardwalk, perhaps by design.
The Collector had left his front door open, and the group gave chase inside. They were too late to stop him from reaching his restroom, however, and thus was their most immediate form of leverage against him lost. Cari, however, shined once again. Immediately turning to ransacking his lodging, she quickly found a ledger the man had kept. On this ledger was a list of every Dampwick Ward orphan, topped by the name Rob Braxton, as well as the locations he’d ordered them to operate in, how much they’d been made to pickpocket, and how much he himself taxed from their earnings to go to the Brinebreaker gang (including a hefty chunk skimmed off the top for himself, explaining his ability to afford ferry rides to nice restaurants). The Collector, meanwhile, was indisposed, according to the reports of screeching and the echoing ringing of porcelain overheard by Dampwick Ward residents outside along the streets, and was completely helpless to stop the search by Cari.
Between the persuasion efforts of Nat, the intimidation and then flirtations of Maya, and Cari’s ingenious idea, it seemed that all group members present really had their chance to shine, and thus the Kul Tiran guards, after the group brought them proof of the Collector’s deeds, raided the safe house and made the arrest. Another Brinebreaker underboss has been brought to justice!
There still remains one underboss (the black market specialist), Marcus Brinebreaker himself, and, if rumors were accurate, a rather sketchy tidesage to deal with.
And the mystery of Nat’s Shath’Yar usage without her realizing it yet persists…
*****
Participants:
Maya Cari Nat
Each member gains +1 favor with Lady Whitewind.
The Collector has been located, charged, and imprisoned.
One definitive lead remains for the Whitewind Company and outside contractors: The Black Market Specialist.
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