23. Crime Response Intervention and Prevention System

Far from a scrub ‘cause from the East Side

Encounters

Summary

The party regrouped back at the tavern to discuss recent developments and rest up. Grick went out and had some flyers printed up for an event he was planning in two tendays. He handed a flyer to Aradaine and told him that he (and the rest of the party) would be guests of honor at the event. Grick is planning to start something of a ‘neighborhood watch’ program whereby members of the community could aid the local constabulary in their fight against crime and the moral corruption of the city. Grick’s new organization is to be called the ‘Crime Response Intervention and Prevention System’ (or CRIPS for short).

Meanwhile, Hamidal was finally able to figure out the last pieces of a… procedure he’d been working on up in his tower. He’d finally figured out the right combination of materials that would allow the reanimation of dead flesh with the application of galvanic current! Excited by his new find, he decided to introduce the crew to his new friend Merle, who was until now a cadaver that he’d hidden in his rooms. It turned out that Merle was not the talkative sort, but that wasn’t so bad as Grick failed to take notice of him.

Grick was dissatisfied with their failure to resolve the mystery behind the Yellowspire Tower. Given the nature of what had transpired he felt something untoward was happening there that required him to investigate. Having nothing more pressing to do, the rest of the team decided to follow Grick’s lead and return to the tower. Knocking was once again fruitless, and so the party entered the tower, with Grick at the lead, and climbed the stairs to the upper floor, which was covered in painted by human hands in the shape of some kind of symbol that he didn’t at first recognize.

There he found a number of cultists surrounding a prone and unconscious commoner, the lead priestess with a knife at the ready making threatening motions towards the supine body. Feeling like no good worshipper would perform such a rite, Grick went on the offensive. The party made light work of the cultists, pushing some of them down the stairs, felling two of them outright, and eventually forcing them to surrender to prevent a slaughter.

Once surrendered, the party determined that they appeared to be worshippers of Bane, an evil and malicious deity of fear and tyranny. They said they didn’t intend to kill the unconscious human, but only to break his will in order to have him do their bidding. Upon awakening, their victim said his name was Shan Chien, publisher of the broadsheet called The Targe. The cultists showed up at his home and the next thing he knew he was waking up in the tower.

The leader of the cultists, Amath Sercent, overheard the party speak of the stone. She said that ‘he’ was coming and they could be sure that he would hunt them until the stone was his. When asked who ‘he’ was, she told them that it was Manshoon, an infamous and very powerful wizard who was once the leader of the Zhentarim in far away Zhentil Keep. Hearing this, Hamidal determined that they should definitely not stick around to see if she was telling the truth.

Aradaine noticed some details in the Amath’s appearance - her tongue was forked, and there were noticeable scales on parts of her skin. His ire was raised, realizing she was one of the yuan-ti, masked to fit in with human society, but still obvious to those who knew the signs. He warned her that he wouldn’t tolerate her presence in the city as the party assembled all of the cultists in the lower level, planning to bring them to the Watch.

During this time, Footsteps led Shan out of the tower, whereupon Shan wanted to find the Watch to report what had happened. Finding guards on patrol, they led them back to the tower to deal with the cultists. The patrol captain took the party’s statements while his guards gave the tower a more thorough examination. The party warned the guard that there might be a powerful wizard present and that exploring the basement of the tower may be harmful. He took it under advisement, but explored anyway, finding nothing but a door locked from the other side that he was unable to open.

The guard gathered up their prisoners and the party decided to beat a hasty retreat from the tower as well, heading home again.

Aradaine found the box that had been delivered to Grick while the rest of the party was out, and opening it, found a bag of gold with no note attached. Grick pulled Footsteps aside to discuss the matter of Vevette, who was still locked up in the wine cellar, and to give him a copy of his flyer for the CRIPS meeting.

The party was all in agreement that Vevette served no more purpose and it was safe to finally let her go. They offered to hide her in order to ensure her safety, but she insisted that she would rather run - and even then she might not be safe. At this point she wasn’t even sure why Manshoon would want to kill her, but she was certain that he would. Aradaine gave her the bag of gold he’d found in order to help her to escape, and she nervously ran for the door and out of their lives.

Hamidal had bought a bell for Merle to ring as a security measure in case someone were to enter the bar while they were away, and so as Vevette ran from the bar, Merle started to ring his bell - bong-bong bong-bong bong-bong!