After a rest, the constables returned to Goodson's Estuarial Reformatory, where they delivered the warrant freeing Travis. He told them what he knew about the wand smuggling operation. Viveen told him to keep his nose clean, at which point I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose loudly.
"No problem, officers."
On their way back, Gale's canary found them. They set up the meeting for very shortly thereafter. At the waterfall, as soon as Gale appeared, Vesta stepped forward, offered a wrapped parcel (the mirror), and began speaking in eladrin. Vesta's player and I had a side conversation via text chat, so the other players wouldn't read:
Vesta: [Hands over parcel.] "My friends don't speak this language, and I hope I can trust your discretion as this is a matter they are not involved in."
Gale: "Should I open this now, or wait?"
Vesta: "You may open it whenever you desire. It comes with the message ''The Unseen Court is watching. Take this mirror, and when you see the face of our enemies within it, bring them down and we shall reward you.'"
Gale: [She seems slightly taken aback.] "what do you mean by 'bring them down?'"
Vesta: "I am just the messenger, my lady."
Gale: "I see. I won't promise to obey orders from a faceless court... especially when it comes through a new contact, however courteous. So far I have avoided killing people who pose no direct threat..."
Vesta: "Honestly, i hope their requests keep within those bounds. if I can assist in a non-lethal removal of such enemies, I would be glad to aid you."
Gale: "I understand. Thank you."
They listened to what Gale had to say, and asked about the wand smuggling. The adventure assumes the PCs have followed up on the House Elf lead before meeting Gale, and in hindsight I should probably have given them more time to do so before having the canary find them, but I thought that Nevard would be a busy boy while he was still feeling spry, and also liked the imagery of a lone canary fluttering out to meet them on the ferry as they returned from the Reformatory.
So they got the information on the smugglers from Gale, rather than from the House Elf, and she mentioned that the smugglers were bringing in many more wands than she had intended to buy. She also said that if the PCs succeded in what she assumed to be their impending raid on the exchange, that she would find something else to spend her tens of thousands of gold coins on.
They agreed to continue their investigation into Nilasa's death, and keep her appraised of developments, especially any that relate to the conspiracy Gale suspects.
The moment they were alone again, the other three constables rounded on Vesta. "What the eff was that?" seemed to be the sentiment. Vesta said he wouldn't talk about it here, but if they could find a noisy bar or something he could tell them more.
First, they went to report their meeting to Delft. He was livid, but they persuaded him that they'd have had no chance to actually capture Gale, given her ease of movement relative to theirs, and also that they'd only committed to doing something they were already planning on: solving Nilasa's murder. Delft accepted this reasoning, but complained that if it all went south, he'd be in a politically untenable position.
"Even after you fired us?" asked Murdok.
Delft nodded. "Even after I fired you."
The House Elf thread is pretty much obviated at this point, so all that time I put into getting the map ready and figuring out how to do fog of war in MapTool turned out to just be long-term investment in the campaign's future. We'll see if they follow up on it anyway, but I'm doubtful they'll get a chance.
From HQ, they headed to Bosum Strand and the noisiest pub they could find -- specifically not the Thinking Man -- for dinner. Once they got a few drinks into Vesta, he opened up. He told them he'd made some bad choices in life, and that 'some people' had helped him a great deal. In return, they occasionally asked him for favours, and this was one such. Another couple of drinks, and he confessed that they were Vekeshi. Murdok's 24 history check put her knowledge level well above that of the average citizen, so she knew the Vekeshi were better than their reputation, but was still concerned about just how beholden Vesta might be to the mystics. Vesta claimed he was relatively unimportant and that even if asked, he wouldn't kill for the mystics. The other constables seemed satisfied with this for the time being.
I had them place the pub where they ate, but the spot they chose wasn't close enough to Dawn Square (whose location I hadn't yet revealed) for Reginald to detect the mystical screaming that they'll be finding out about on the morning of Day 4.
Next they decided to head to the safe house where they'd last left Nevard. A drunken Vesta started singing loudly in the streets, and attracted some conversation, during which they heard about Nevard's planned rally. Sure enough, he was no longer at the safe house.
That was when we called it a night. They're actually talking about heading over to Pine Island to look for the smuggler captain once Vesta sobers up; that would be interesting and I'm not quite sure how I'll handle it, if they do.
