A Brief Reprieve, With Cake

Having dropped off their prisoner with the Guard and received their reward, the party spends the next several days recuperating from the sewer ordeal. On the first day, they are visited by the Elvish druid Faunra, who thanks them for rescuing her from Lucra. She gives them Goodberry tarts and urges Egan Silentall to visit her druid circle by the docks.

The next day, the Dwarf engineer Dolgrin also pays a visit to express his gratitude. He tells the party that they can come to him for information on the sewers the next time they plan to go down there.

A Stroll Through the Shingles

The morning of the third day, the party awakes to the all to familiar sounds of a riot starting to take place. Ser Arlynn questions a passerby on the street, the elderly toymaker Pestico. The old man explains that King Eodred, gods rest him, did not die a natural death but was in fact poisoned. Queen Ileosa has named the king’s portraitist Trinia Sabor as the culprit. Pestico worriedly notes that Trinia lives in the Midland District and expects blood on the streets soon as an angry mob hunts for her.

The party is about to join the search when Guardswoman Remmy arrives to tell them that the Field Marshal needs to speak with them. Cressida has set up a command post near the edge of the emerging riot. She tells the party that Queen Ileosa could have had Trinia quietly arrested, but instead the queen announced the news in the most inflammatory manner possible. Cressida provides the party with the young artist’s address and instructs them to retrieve Trinia discreetly, before the mob finds her. Cressida wants to have a word with the alleged king-killer, preferably using truth-telling magic.

Ashla leads the rest of the group through some back streets to avoid the angry crowd and they manage to reach Trinia’s cramped and rundown apartment building. They pressure the surly Dwarven landlady into giving up her room number, but her neighbors raise a ruckus and manage to delay their arrival at Trinia’s door. Ser Arlynn tries to coax the girl out, expressing the party’s suspicion that she is innocent, but when that garners no response, they bash in the barricaded door.

By that point, Trinia had slipped out her window as was fleeing across The Shingles, Korvosa’s unofficial rooftop highway. The party gives chase, with Ashla rapidly catching up to her. The others don’t fare as well: Egan falls to the street below and Arlynn, weighed down by her armor, nearly follows him. Zandu, meanwhile, is held up by several guard dogs.

After dashing through Twitcher’s Tavern and out a pesh den, Ashla finally tackles Trinia, who breaks down sobbing that she is being set up. Ashla tells her the Guard suspects she’s innocent and promises to stay with her during the interrogation. The party reunites and disguises Trinia as an Acadamae student to hustle her safely through the crowd.

Upon arrival at the command post, however, the party finds Sabina Merrin waiting to take Trinia directly to Castle Korvosa. The party try to pass off the disguised Trinia as someone else, but Cressida reluctantly calls out their ruse and has Trinia handed over to Sabina. This does not go over well with the four heroes, particularly Ashla and Zandu. Once Sabina departs, Cressida reiterates her sense on unease, but notes that all the legal technicalities are being met. The party, meanwhile, worries that the suspected Rakshasa could be behind all this.

A Night on the Town

Still fuming over the Trinia situation, the party decides to find out as much information as they can on the Queen, Sabina, and other key individuals. Zandu goes to a high quality Chelaxian tailor in South Shore for the latest court dress—high collars and dark colors are in—while Ser Arlynn does the same at a shop in North Point run by a family of over-eager gnomes. She comes away with a stylish yet spartan silver dress. They both talk their way into the same party at Carowyn Manor. Ser Arlynn focuses on finding a noble patron for the Midland Orphanage, ultimately persuading the suave Lord Tavius Jalento, father of the young Amin Jalento who Arlynn rescued during the riots.

Zandu, meanwhile, learns that the Queen has largely kept her distance from the nobles. He also hears salacious rumors that Queen Ileosa and Sabina are secret lovers, rumors that he then quietly promotes. He also catches wind that the city’s greatest philanthropist, Lord Glorio Arkona, is rumored to have very close connections to Korvosa’s criminal underworld. His information gathering done, Zandu proceeds to get tipsy and hit on all the ladies, before being escorted home by Arlynn.

Ashla visits Vencarlo Orisini for more training and also takes the opportunity to question him about recent developments. He likewise suspects something is fishy about Trinia’s arrest and is disturbed to learn that a “shapeshifter” is loose in the city. Vencarlo also suggests that Sabina and the Queen are an item, while noting that Sabina was a student of his until a “misunderstanding” caused them to part ways. He does not believe that Sabina would behave dishonorably. After her lessons, Ashla stealthily patrols the streets around South Shore, trying to eavesdrop on the nobles, but learns nothing interesting.

While the rest of the party scours the city for information, Egan spends the latter half of the day out in the countryside, reconnecting with nature and playing with his dog, Reno.

The Only Good Barbarian…

The following morning, Remmy once again knocks on the door to summon the party to a briefing with Cressida. On the way there, the guardswoman explains that during yesterday’s violence a mob attacked and killed a Shoanti kid, raising the grim specter of war with barbarian tribes.

When the party arrives, they find the Field Marshal consulting with Thousand Bones, the elderly Way-Keeper of the Skoan-Quah, the Clan of the Skull. Ashla asks if he killed the firepelt cougar whose skull adorns his staff. “Yes,” he replies. She is impressed.

Thousand Bones explains that he has tried to bridge the differences between his people and the Korvosans. However, the murder of his grandson Gaekhen and the theft of the boy’s body has driven many in his clan to call for uniting with the Sklar-Quah in war against Korvosa. The old shaman believes he can quell their anger if the proper funerary rites are performed in time over Gaekhen’s body. The spirits have told him that the boy’s corpse was stolen by the necromancer Rolth and taken to the Dead Warrens below the Gray District. Thousand Bones says that if his people stormed the warrens to reclaim the body, it would be seen as an act of aggression. But if Gaekhen’s remains are not returned to him, his people will be forced to take action.

Cressida tells the party she wants them to be the ones to enter the Dead Warrens in the Potter’s Ward of the Gray District and retrieve the body to present to the Shoanti as a gesture of goodwill. She gives them directions to where the body was left and describes Gaekhen as an 18 year old Shoanti with short brown hair, tribal tattoos on his arms and torso, and a scar on his left cheek. She urges them to hurry, as Korvosa can ill-afford a fight with the Shoanti during the present instability.