The party strip their opponents of their wealth and collect what information they can find, loading Aszar's horse as well they can so as not to too horrifically encumber themselves. Rather than risking further trouble, they take the intelligence they've gathered and head back toward Venza.
[sblock=Loot this encounter]
No direct gold value: logbook and correspondence
Human:
+1 scale mail (1200 gp)
Heavy steel shield (20 gp)
Javelins (4) (4 gp)
Masterwork longsword (315 gp)
8 gp
Adept ("Shaman"):
Masterwork chain shirt (250 gp)
Javelins (2) (2 gp)
Masterwork morningstar (308 gp)
Orcs (each, so 2x the below):
Studded leather armor (25 gp)
Falchion (75 gp)
Javelins (4) (4 gp)
Potion CLW (1) (50 gp)[/sblock]
They make a cold camp off the trail, and are unassaulted by anything more than a rustle of brush and the hoot of night birds.
Given the cold camp, there is some concern at the scent of ash and soot in the morning, but when those who slept confirm that those standing guard have not made a cookfire, a hasty detour to the closest break in the trees tells them the source of the scent.
Billious, black smoke rises over the forest. You have no way of confirming, but the size and apparent distance suggest that someone set the fort ablaze. Unsure if that suggests allies or further danger, the party quickly gathers itself and makes haste for the City of Glass. There is mild debate about staying off or on the path, but as soot begins to fall like snow, the party decides speed is preferable to stealth, and takes the road.
The mood that second day is tense and slightly moody at first, but as midday approaches and no further sign of threat surfaces, the party begins to relax. Still, they choose to eat on the move rather than interrupt their progress to make a proper meal.
The smell of evening meals being cooked which waft up from Venza, then, are especially welcome. It is just falling into twilight. The city lamplighters are still at their work, speckles of flickering glow springing up as they make their rounds.
You haven't the time to actually send for Galen Parsons before he rides up on you. Apparently, he'd left word with the gate guard. He takes your report, and has special interest in the papers you collected. He skims them there in the street, one of his men holding the lamp for him, then swears under his breath in elvish.
"I knew this was all a distraction!" he mutters. He shoves the pile of papers at another of his men and scrawls a handful of missives, handing them to officers and sending them galloping off to the various districts.
"And make sure that rat-faced Handso knows he's not to talk to anyone about this, no matter what they're paying, or I'll have his head if Moretti won't!" he calls after the last courier. He scrawls one more piece of parchment and hands it to the party.
"What's next isn't for your kind," he says.
"Internal matters, you know. But hand this off to the commissar in the morning and he'll see to it you get your contract payment."
Parsons mounts his horse, and turns in the direction of Roses D'Avorio.
"And who knows. Maybe we'll have need of your services in future."
[sblock=ooc]I'm going to call this one, folks. My apologies for the various delays. I hope it was moderately entertaining despite them. The end above is an intentional loose thread, so there's no need to follow up on it. If I don't manage to work it up into something, I figure it's always there for others to run with, so no harm either way.
Final totals are below, pending approval. SK was our original judge, so I'll likely need to get someone else to stamp them, but it was a fairly straightforward set of encounters, so I'm not too worried.
Treasure is in flat gold. You're free to use part of your share to "buy" any items from the loot pile in the first post of the thread (and those who used the found potions should do so for that at the least). Just reduce your actual gold by the proper amount. Otherwise, it's all off to the shop for trade-in.
[/sblock]
[sblock=Adventure totals (unapproved)]
Wilmorn & Aszar (10/22/2014 - 3/26/2015):
Time Based XP: 1085
Encounter XP: 375
Total XP: 1460
Time Based Gold: 930
Encounter Treasure (worth): 336.8
Total gold / worth: 1266.8
Kepli, Siddhartha, Erin (each - 10/22/2014 - 6/12/2015):
Time Based XP: 1943
Encounter XP: 629
Total XP: 2572
Time Based Gold: 1788
Encounter Treasure share (worth): 819.8
Total gold (worth): 2607.8
[/sblock]
