With things cleared up, and Ironbriar pointing out that his coachman is stabled nearby and should be told to wait for the night, Kael decides to perform this duty. Ironbriar looks exhausted - not so much from his physical exertions (although he is bruised and bleeding), but perhaps more from his surrender and subsequent unloading of information.
The sawmill is starting to stink of death, with so much blood and so many corpses starting to bloat. Jokad starts hauling corpses down the stairs, trying to put some distance between them and your likely place of sleep. When Kael and Jokad return, Jovik finally takes his eye of the elf and begins to search the place.
On the floor are 2 discarded masks from the 3 cultists that fled (1 must have held on to his). There are also masks on each of the dead cultists. The bodyguard has a fine medallion around his neck, a very ornate (but still well balanced) longsword, and very high end studded leather armour. The dead cultists have little, 18 gold pieces, some personal trinkets, a few knives and of course their war razors.
As Jovik moves towards the unexplored room that Ironbriar entered from, the elf, almost asleep against the far wall under careful guard, starts up.
"
Don't go in there. You won't like what you see. We have a pact. We have a pact!"
Ignoring the pleas, Jovik enters the room.
The walls of this room bear macabre decorations—human faces stretched flat over wooden frames by strips of leather or black twine. Each face grimaces in a slightly different expression of pain, looking down on a cramped room that contains a desk, a high-backed rocking chair, and a low-slung cot heaped with scratchy-looking blankets.
A ladder in the southeast corner of the room leads up to a trap door in the ceiling. Jovik, ignoring the birds for now, climbs the ladder and opens the door after checking for traps. Inside is a small rookery. A timber cabinet sits against the northern wall here, its doors made of iron mesh. Inside perch three strangely silent ravens. A table nearby holds a tall narrow bucket of birdfeed, a quill, and a vial of ink, as well as several thin parchments weighted down by a polished rock.
Jovik frowns. Messenger birds. Probably for communicating with the 'lady' in the clock tower. He closes the hatch, returns to the room, and sets about searching it.
The faces of Ironbriar’s victims are ghoulish but worth little. The large footlocker, however, is filled with oddments that Ironbriar has collected from his many victims over the years.
A fair number are of a historical nature, including books, sea charts, etchings of vast rock formations and dolmens accompanied by maps, several pamphlets discussing a “forgotten” school of magic known as The Alchymyc, and a fine painting depicting a city carved from a vast frozen waterfall with towering ice cathedrals and domes.
Near the bottom are several books. The first of these is a wizard’s spellbook emblazoned with two entwined snakes (one red, one green) that contains many pages filled with indecipherable characters. Jovik takes it to Kael who can tell that the following spells are inscribed (even if he cannot use them all): all cantrips, blink, cat’s grace, chill touch, enlarge person, fox’s cunning, grease, haste, lightning bolt, mage armor, magic missile, scorching ray, shocking grasp, shrink item, spider climb, and web.
The second book is an old and beautifully filigreed tome containing numerous hand-drawn illustrations and titled The Syrpents Tane: Fairy Tales of the Eldest. The book presents tales of the Tane—goliaths of war and madness dreamt and stitched into being by the Eldest, the most feared of a group of notorious fey known as the Twisted. The Tane are said to be terrible to behold, and the stories speak of them stumbling into mortal lands, where they ravage kingdoms by creating firestorms, crushing keeps with their feet, and eating dragons. Specific Tane described include monstrous creatures like the Jabberwok (a thing of thorns and fire and crushing fury the size of a castle), the Thrasfyr (also known as the Dreaming Hill of the Dark, a barbed thing of iron and hooks and blades that the book claims took part in the Three-Thousand-Year War of the Eldest), and the Sard (the Storm of Insanities, a thing of boughs and briars and misery, an ancient Wychwood Elm given life and hate by the Eldest, a mad creature apt to pull a roc in two or fell a castle at a blow). This fine and rare tome that Jovik's fine eye for a treasure tells him is well worth getting valued.
Finally, a slim volume near the bottom of the chest contains hand written notes using a mix of Draconic, Elven, and Infernal characters. Jovik's cannot get his head around the language of the journal.
---
That night passes without incident. Ironbriar is guarded at all times, but the party still manage to catch good night sleep.
OOC: If any healing was taking place before sleep - please do the rolls and let me know who has been healed and for how much
Early that next morning, with bellies growling, the group share meagre rations and haul Ironbriar into the cold light of day. He leads the group to the stable, awakens his coachman, and orders him deliver everyone, including himself, to a block near the Shadow Clock Tower (but not quite near enough to be obvious). The coachman, seeing the heavily armed and armoured men with his master, and the brutal swelling around his master's right eye, knows better than to question.
The short journey is in silence. The group want to talk, to plan, but it feels wrong to do it in front of Ironbriar.
When the coach finally pulls up outside a small coaching inn a couple of hundred yards from the clock tower, Ironbriar wishes the party farewell, and once again promises that they will never hear from him again. With speed, his coach disappears into the early morning streets.
OOC: You are near the clock tower. Image below. Let me know what you wish to do.
