Session 9 (3-18-21):
We slept for the evening at the RHC and awoke the next morning to report in with Delft. Bell went off to his lab to run tests on the blood and potion vial while the rest of us met Delft as soon as he got in.
Delft congratulated us on how much we were able to find out in only a day but urged us to keep at it and see if we could bring resolution sooner rather than later.
As we were about to leave his office, a letter arrived for us from Security Chief Le Brix. It was a list of items missing, all mundane, but it included a message in Danoran that seemed to suggest continuing our investigation would be a good thing.
I don’t remember who it was that brought up speaking with the dead girl but Delft told us we definitely had people who could do that. The reliable spell wouldn’t be available for a day or two but he had a… less reliable means of having it done immediately if we wanted.
We figured that was better than nothing at this point and so Delft sent for a man named Gaethan.
When he arrived, it was obvious why Delft described him as “less reliable.” He was very odd. We told him we needed to know any associates the woman had, what she stole from the embassy and what she said to the Doctor just before she died.
He wrote it all down but then looked at me and said, “You need to find out who killed your loved one. Their soul is in a very bad place right now.”
How he knew anything about me… I recovered quickly but I’m sure the others could see my troubled face. They didn’t press it however and we moved on.
We talked to a couple other constables who were going to do a little searching for the “family wharf” situation but they also asked if Heward Sechim was related to the skyseer Sechim? I’m not sure how we missed that connection but we did. It was an interesting lead to track down.
But first, we planned to stop at the Parity Lake police station and see what they could tell us about the victim’s recent arrests.
That turned out to be the right call as Sylvia and Vic were able to get ahold of her arrest record that included not only her address but the address of Heward Sechim! And, they were the same location!
We made our way there immediately and found it was a factory. Two other factories close by had protestors outside but Sechim’s didn’t. Sylvia got on a soapbox about working conditions in factories and made it very clear where her political leanings were on the subject.
That carried over once we got inside and found Sechim as she started the conversation off by talking about his factory. We moved further away from the task when Gyldiel jumped in and started asking questions about his relationship to the Skyseer. I pulled the team back to why we were actually here though and we got down to questioning him about Nilasa.
Apparently she was his adopted daughter. He was afraid we were here for the reason we were as his uncle, the Skyseer, had told him she would fly to her death about a week ago.
He told us she came from a rough background and that she ran with the wrong crowd sometimes but he thought all that was over. He did say she’d become enamored with Gale and he thought perhaps had tried to reach out to her.
He also told us a couple of men had come by in the last week trying to strong arm him into selling them strong corrosive materials off the record. He asked us to help him with that if we could.
We thanked him for his time, searched her room (producing only a book on how to learn elvish), and made our way out.
We decided to meet up with Bell before heading out to the Cloudwood in search of the Skyseer. Heward intimated that the Skyseer knew Gale and could potentially get us an audience with her.
Following the instructions from Heward on getting up to his uncle, we made our way out to the Cloudwood.
A bit of excitement occurred when, at one point in the mountains, we heard sounds of a fight up ahead.
We found an overturned wagon, three men with guns beside it and a host of others with crossbows firing at the men.
Not quite sure what was happening, we spent a few tense seconds getting everyone to cease fire. When we finally accomplished that, the men in the wagon had kidnapped a woman from the other side. The kidnappers worked for Lorcan Kell and this was a power move to try and branch out into the Cloudwood. The others were little more than bandits themselves but they hadn’t broken any law we could tell and so we let them go. In thanks, they showed us the fastest way to the Skyseer.
Finally arriving at our destination, the Skyseer told us he could indeed set us up to meet with Gale but he needed a favor from us first. He wanted us to take him up Cauldron Hill so he could get above the smog for a clearer reading of the stars… Cauldron Hill! Yikes.
We agreed as it didn’t seem we had much choice. We decided to stay up here for the night and then try to get up to Cauldron HIll after that…