ADVENTURE 50: AN AUDIENCE WITH THE SUCCESSOR
PC Roster:
Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 14
Darrien, half-elf ranger 14
Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 14
Gilbert Fung, human wizard 14
Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 14
NPC Roster:
Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 5
Malrin Ivenheart, elf druid 7
Game Session Date: 28 July 2018
- - -
It had been an eventful week.
The return trip from the arctic in the dragonfly ship was a solemn affair. Jinkadoodle parked the spelljamming vessel on the cloud island as normal, and then everyone went down to the extradimensional space at the bottom of the ship's hold and stepped onto the runes carved onto the floor of one of the bedrooms that would take them, two at a time, to the
carpet of teleporting they had left unfurled in the courtyard of Battershield Keep. Aerik was still at his duties in the castle with King Galrich when they returned; thus it was only Helga who saw them arrive without her daughter among them, carrying her gear. She turned to Finoula with a fearful question on her face, but then didn't even need to ask - the tears streaming down the elf's face were all the answer she needed.
In the days that followed, the stern-faced dwarven clerics of the Church of Moradin performed a series of divinations and confirmed what the heroes had told them: Ingebold Battershield, beloved daughter of Aerik and Helga, had been slain in battle against an undead scourge that could quite literally have eventually led to the destruction of every living thing on the planet. Despite the lack of a body, Ingebold Battershield was given a formal burial ceremony, even though it was recognized by the Head Cleric,
Duerna Forgewife, that Ingebold's soul had been obliterated in destroying the calcimortum demilich; there would be no eventual reunion with her parents in Moradin's Halls after their deaths, for there was no longer any piece of Ingebold to pass on to an eternal rest. It was a difficult concept for her parents to adjust to, knowing that their daughter had been taken from them not just in this life but in the next as well. Still, they harbored no ill-will toward Ingebold's adventuring companions; rather, Finoula practically became a second daughter to Helga - if Ingebold had been taken from her, then she would hold on all the harder to Ingebold's Battle-Sister.
Hagan was even allowed to move his belongings into Ingebold's old bedroom, rather than continue sharing a room with the two gnomes.
But there were other things to do, other matters that needed attending to without delay. Castillan and Binkadink had both been slain by the demilich and had to be
resurrected; fortunately, their souls had merely been torn from their bodies, not obliterated entirely. Finoula, Hagan, and Gilbert had all been drained of a portion of their vitality; they required
restoration spells to be made whole again. It wasn't lost on the group that these were all tasks that Ingebold would normally have performed; it would take them long to get over their grief at the loss of their friend, but equally long to adjust to adventuring without a powerful cleric by their side.
And the very day they had flown off to the arctic and saved the world from the demilich, back in Kordovia, King Galrich had formally announced his intention to step down from the throne. Publicly, he credited the decision to advancing age and poor physical health as well as Princess Kaelanna's readiness to take his place; privately, he realized his mental faculties weren't always all there and he was getting easily confused more and more often. For the good of the kingdom, it would be best for him to retire and pass the
scepter of succession to his adopted daughter.
Castillan was also called away; he was summoned to his father's study and returned to the group shortly thereafter, explaining he had to attend to a family concern and could possibly be gone for some months. So soon after being
true resurrected, he too was gone from the heroes' midst. "Group getting smaller and smaller," observed Gilbert Fung.
And then, at the end of the week, the group woke to a summons from Princess Kaelanna herself. A castle page had been sent with a horse-drawn carriage to escort the adventurers to the castle. "What this about?" demanded Gilbert, cranky from having been awakened early, but the page had no answer to give. The heroes were herded into the carriage, although Binkadink opted to ride alongside on his jackalope Obvious, and the rangers had Wrath and Grumps Junior tag alongside as well. Gilbert shrunk Mudpie down to pebble size with his
slingshot of rock shrinking and put him in a pocket of his robes.
The answer to Gilbert's question came soon enough, though. Upon being escorted into a receiving room, Princess Kaelanna greeted them warmly. "Thank you for attending me so promptly," she said. Her skin, which had always been fairly light with a slightly greenish cast, was noticeably paler than normal. "I am sure you are aware of the King's recent proclamation of his intentions to step down from the throne and appoint me in his stead. It would seem such a course of action is not appealing to everyone in the kingdom." With that, she handed over a piece of folded parchment to Hagan.
The half-orc opened the sheet of parchment. Inside was written the following:
KAELANNA,
IF YOU TAKE THE THRONE, YOU WILL DIE. KORDOVIA NEEDS NOBLE LEADERSHIP, NOT ANOTHER HALFBREED MONGREL. AT LEAST GALRICH WAS THE SON OF A QUEEN EVEN IF HIS FATHER WAS A LOWLY BRUTE. GO BACK TO THE CAVE OF YOUR BIRTH AND LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE AN ANIMAL. WE DON'T NEED A DRAGON MONSTER FOR A QUEEN.
REMEMBER: IF YOU TRY TO BECOME OUR NEXT QUEEN, YOU WILL DIE. ANNOUNCE YOU WILL NOT BECOME QUEEN AND YOU WILL BE ALLOWED TO LIVE – PREFERABLY FAR AWAY FROM KORDOVIA.
YOU ARE NOT WANTED HERE, GREEN DRAGON DAUGHTER. LEAVE OR DIE.
"Lovely," observed Hagan, frowning.
"When this come?" demanded Gilbert.
"A week ago," answered Kaelanna. "The afternoon of the morning King Galrich announced his intentions, as a matter of fact."
"You wait this long to do anything about it?" Gilbert sputtered.
"In truth, I gave it little concern," admitted the princess. "I assumed it was just the ramblings of a madman."
"But now you called us in," observed Finoula. "What has changed, Your Highness?"
Princess Kaelanna managed to look both embarrassed and angry. "Last night..." she began, sighing deeply, "...I was poisoned. I'm not sure how it was administered, but I'm told it was only luck - or perhaps my draconic heritage - that prevented me from dying last night. In any case, I've come to the belated conclusion that perhaps I should have taken that letter seriously."
"That a good idea!" piped in Gilbert, a note of exasperation in his voice.
"Can you tell us what you know of the poisoning?" prompted Finoula.
"I ate with King Galrich, Aerik, and my two ladies-in-waiting,
Daedre Amathar and
Lilibeth Everfaith. It was from...oh, about seven bells until eight. None of the others have showed any signs of having been poisoned. But I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible pains. I rolled out of my bed and crawled to one of the pull-cords that summon my ladies-in-waiting. Daedre came to me at once and sent a page immediately after a cleric. He cast a
delay poison spell upon me, and then a
neutralize poison, I think he said it was. He said from the symptoms - the paleness of my skin and the bluish tint around my lips - it was likely something called 'dark reaver powder'."
"I know of it," admitted Binkadink. His Uncle Winkidew and cousin Jinkadoodle were both expert potion-crafters and had some experience with poisons as part of their trade. "It's deadly. But it needs to be ingested - it would have to have been added to something you ate or drank."
"It didn't hit her until the middle of the night," pointed out Darrien.
"There are ways to delay a poison's effect," replied Binkadink. "It would have been simple enough to prepare the dark reaver powder in such a fashion that it would take effect hours after being eaten."
"But you say no one else who ate dinner with you was affected?" asked Finoula.
"That is correct. And the poison isn't the only threat of late. There have been reports of someone stirring up trouble in the marketplace from time to time, warning the citizens against having a queen with both elves and dragons in her bloodline, and thus ruling the kingdom for a thousand years. It's quite apparent that somebody doesn't want me to assume the throne of Kordovia. I would like you to use your adventuring skills to find out who's trying to kill me. I assume the throne in four days; it would be best if we had found the culprit before then!"
Binkadink asked to see the message. Looking it over, he noted, "This sounds like Vandergrotten. Did he have any relatives?" Nobody knew, but they could go see the castle historian, Zalian Darisath - he would surely have records on the Vandergrotten lineage, as it was one of the older noble families in Kordovian history.
Finoula saw another possibility, but was hesitant to approach it before the princess. "How much do you know of your birth, Your Highness?" she asked tentatively.
"That my mother gave birth to me in a dragon's cave, you mean? Or that she asked that I be slain for being a half-breed abomination?" Finoula's face reddened; apparently King Galrich had long since related to his adopted daughter the tale of her birth. But Finoula also thought back on her occasional disdain - and jealousy, if she were being honest - of her own younger, half-elven half-sister, Feron Dru, whose human father had been the second husband to Finoula's mother after the death of her first. Finoula, being a full-blooded elf, had often bridled at the speed by which Feron had advanced through the ranks of her own druidic order's levels. It was all too easy, she knew, for an elf to feel superior to one whose elven blood had been diluted with other races.
"I only wonder if it might be one of your birth parents," Finoula answered. "Or another elf, perhaps, who doesn't want to see a 'half-breed' take the throne."
"I acknowledge the possibility," responded Kaelanna, "but no specific names come to mind. And my birth mother,
Nimashkihel, was taken back to her village by King Galrich, long before he became our king. He never learned the name of my elven father, and so neither did I. But as far as I know, they don't even know of my present whereabouts, let alone my imminent ascension to the throne of Kordovia."
"Several avenues to pursue," decided Gilbert, folding the note back up and sticking it in a pocket of his robes. "We have Aerik take guards to marketplace, see if they can find troublemaker. We talk to Darisath about Vandergrotten family, then question those from last night dinner. And I want to hear Daedre tell us story about last night when she find Kaelanna on bedroom floor."
Aerik was dispatched to the marketplace with a complement of guardsmen to question the vendors about recent instigators trying to stir up trouble against Princess Kaelanna assuming the throne. Then the group visited the castle historian. Zalian was able to tell them that although Targus Vandergrotten had never married and had sired no children, he had a younger sister,
Telga, who died several years after Targus had been put to the sword. Telga had married a man named
Gorkin Boorhaven and they had a daughter,
Sabina Boorhaven, who moved away from Kordovia shortly after her mother died. There was no further record of the Vandergrotten line; if Sabina still lived, it was possible she held a grudge for the death of her uncle, but as Kaelanna had had nothing to do with Targus's death it would seem foolish for her to be trying to kill the princess - unless she shared her uncle's views on "half-breed abominations."
Daedre Amathar was brought before the group to tell her story of the night before. She confirmed that she had eaten the meal with the Kordovian royalty, she had suffered no ill effects from having done so, and that she had been awakened from her elven reverie by the bell from Kaelanna's pull-cord.
"Was there any food or drink in her room?" Finoula asked.
"I...I don't recall seeing anything like that. Although Princess Kaelanna does occasionally have a glass of wine in her room before bed. I'm not sure if she did last night, though."
"I did!" recalled Kaelanna. The group rushed to her bedroom and a quick search revealed a fluted glass goblet under her bed, where it had likely been knocked from the nightstand in her collapse from the bed. There was a tiny bit of residue on the inside of the glass; Binkadink held it up to his eye and proclaimed it looked like it could certainly contain dark reaver powder. "I'd want Uncle Winkidew to do some tests to be sure," he offered - and was promptly sent to bring the glass to Winkidew's Potion Shop for testing and analysis.
"Who brought you the wine last night, Your Highness?" asked Hagan.
"
Voopie Meadowclover," replied Kaelanna without hesitation. "But surely she wouldn't want to poison me? She's been a loyal servant for years!"
"We go check this Voopie out," decided Gilbert. But Voopie was no longer at the castle - it was, apparently, her day off. Another trip to go see Zalian gave the heroes the address of Voopie's mother, where she stayed when she wasn't working at the castle - she generally served the princess for six days and five nights and the previous evening was the end of her week's shift. They caught up with Binkadink as he was returning from his uncle's shop - "He'll have some answers for us in a couple of hours," the gnome promised - and then everyone headed to Voopie's residence.
Voopie's mother answered the door, a wizened gnomish woman. "Oh, she's at her other job," the old woman announced, and gave the group the address of the home where her daughter was making some extra money on her day off. Finoula looked at the address and recognized it as being not far from her own mother's residence, in the more well-off elven sector of the city.
"Do you think this elf woman might be Kaelanna's birth mother?" asked Darrien.
"No way to know for sure," mused Gilbert. "None of us--wait! Aerik see her when Kaelanna first born! Darrien: use
ebony fly to go to marketplace and fetch Aerik! Bring him to elf-lady's address, we meet you there!"
Once Aerik and Darrien had rejoined the group (and the half-elf ranger had returned his
ebony fly to its statuette form and stashed it away), they approached the door. Binkadink, who had insisted he lead the interrogation, knocked on the door. Moments later, it was opened by a lovely young gnome wearing commoner's clothing and a fresh white apron; in one hand she held a feather duster. She'd had to reach up on her tippy-toes to reach the doorknob, being somewhat shorter than even Binkadink's three-foot frame.
"Voopie Meadowclover?" the fighter asked, smiling involuntarily at the cute maiden before him.
"Yes?" asked Voopie. "May I help you?"
"We'd like to ask you a few questions about last night. I'm afraid the princess was poisoned."
"Wh--what?" gasped Voopie, visibly shaken.
"We know you guilty!" called Gilbert from behind Binkadink. "Confess, or it go even worse for you!"
"Gilbert!" hissed the gnome fighter, looking over his shoulder at the hefty wizard. "We know no such thing!"
"What's going on?" demanded a voice from deeper inside the manor house. An elderly elf woman approached - the mistress of the manor, one
Cerlynnes Kahalitae. "What business have you with my maid?"
"We're here to ask her some questions," Binkadink answered quickly, before Gilbert could get a word in. "There was an incident last night at the castle and your maid was a witness."
"Well, hurry it up, if you please," sniffed Cerlynnes. "I'm not paying her to stand in my front doorway and chat."
"Did you serve Princess Kaelanna a glass of elven wine last night?" asked Binkadink.
"Y-yes, I did," Voopie admitted. "It was my last task before I returned home for the evening." Sudden realization hit her. "It was poisoned?
I had no idea!" Tears welled up in her eyes, and she asked her next questions in a ghostly whisper: "What will happen to me? Will I-- will I be put to death?"
"Absolutely not," Binkadink reassured her, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Probably," countered Gilbert Fung. "We take you to castle now. You can give statement under
zone of truth spell." Aerik stepped forward to escort the young gnome maid from the home of her employer, much to the consternation of the elven matron. As they left the premises with their prisoner under escort, Aerik turned to the others and said, "That was definitely not Kaelanna's birth mother. Much too old."
"Was worth looking into," replied Gilbert.
Once at the castle, Aerik took Voopie away to a secure room while a cleric of Moradin was sent for to oversee the
zone of truth interrogation. Binkadink offered to stay with them to observe the procedure, mostly out of a desire to ensure the pretty young gnome wasn't mistreated, but Aerik assured him they wouldn't be ready for some time and he'd personally make sure she was treated fairly. Binkadink fully believed that while Voopie may have been the one to administer the poisoned wine, she hadn't known it was poisoned at the time, but he trusted Aerik and thus caught up with the rest of the group.
The heroes pondered their next move. "We need way to
scry on possible suspects," Gilbert mused.
"Isn't your dad a druid?" asked Darrien. "Maybe he could
scry for us."
"Nah, he not home," Gilbert answered. "He spend weeks at time, sometimes months, living out in forest in bear form. We want druid, we need to find another one."
"What about Castillan's sister?" asked Finoula.
"She a bard."
"His other sister," retorted Finoula, somewhat exasperated at the mage's hasty dismissal. "Malrin's a druid - she may be able to help us." Thus it was that the heroes' next avenue of approach was to head over to the Ivenheart estate and seek out Malrin, the eldest of Castillan's two younger sisters.
"Let me do the talking," suggested Finoula, thinking she'd have better luck as an elf than a pushy human wizard with little tact. Binkadink stood back from the porch with Obvious, Wrath, and Grumps Junior - no sense in a menagerie of animals making the Ivenhearts nervous. But Malrin was eager to assist Castillan's adventuring partners in his absence, and in fact had two castings of the
scrying spell already prepared and ready for use. "We'll need to go out back, though," she advised, leading the way to the expansive yard behind the Ivenheart estate, which included an artificial pond of clear water - for druids cast their divination spells upon bodies of still, natural water rather than in mirrors or the like, in the manner of wizards. Gilbert thought the practice unreasonably limiting, but for once held his tongue.
"What would you like me to scry upon?" asked the druid. Finoula explained about Targus Vandergrotten and his niece, Sabina, who was a potential suspect in Princess Kaelanna's poisoning. "Without anything substantial to focus upon, the chances I'll be able to establish contact for long - if at all - are somewhat slim," she explained, then began casting the spell, seeking out Sabina Boorhaven, niece of Targus Vandergrotten. The still, smooth waters of the pond clouded up for a moment, and then for an instant - a mere second at most - there was an image of a dark-haired woman passing over a large book - possibly a spellbook - to a man in a wizard's robes. Then the image faded back to the normal waters of the pond. "I'm sorry," apologized Malrin.
"Not at all," reassured Finoula. "At least we now know that Sabina is still alive, and thus on the potential suspect list."
"I can cast one more
scrying spell," offered Malrin, "but I won't be able to try to see Sabina again until tomorrow. Is there anyone else you'd like me to try?"
Gilbert took the note from his pocket. "This tell us several things," he said, "It look like written by child, but that likely just ploy to throw us off scent. It reference details of Kaelanna's birth - it mention her living in cave, for one thing - and it use term 'Green Dragon Daughter,' which is meaning of princess's name in Elven tongue." Finoula and Darrien both nodded their agreement. Gilbert passed the note to Malrin and said, "See if you can
scry on writer of note for us."
"Having this at hand gives us a much better shot," agreed Malrin, concentrating on the parchment as she cast her second
scrying spell. Once again, the waters became cloudy, only to clear with an image floating within - this time, one that stayed for more than a mere second: a scruffy-looking human boy, perhaps nine or ten summers old, poking a dead rat with a stick in a back alley somewhere.
"That look like marketplace!" Gilbert cried. "Hagan, you ready?"
"Ready!" he answered as everyone crowded close to him. With an arcane utterance, the half-orc sorcerer
teleported the adventurers and their animals straight to the marketplace, within eyesight of the boy in the alley. Binkadink jumped on Obvious's back and the jackalope hippity-hopped around an intervening building so they could flank the boy from the far side. Grumps Junior ambled forward; the boy saw a brown bear heading his way and took off in the opposite direction - only to be slapped to the ground by one of the jackalope's front paws. Obvious put just enough pressure on his paw to hold the boy in place.
"What your name?" demanded Gilbert.
"
Jimby," the boy answered. "What's it to you?"
Gilbert patiently unfolded the threatening note that Kaelanna had received earlier that week. "You write this, Jimby?"
"You're not in any trouble," Binkadink tried reassuring the boy, although being held in place by a jackalope with a brown bear sniffing around him probably didn't make him anywhere near as comfortable as he could have been. Still, Jimby answered without hesitation, "Yeah, I wrote it. A lady paid me to do it."
"What lady?" asked Finoula.
"I dunno. Some lady - a dwarf, I think. She had gray hair and walked with a cane, and had this really big wart on the side of her nose. It was pretty gross."
"She tell you what to write?" prompted Gilbert.
"Nah," said Jimby. "She already had it written down on another sheet of paper. She just wanted me to make a copy of it for her."
"You can read?" asked Finoula.
"Pssh - yeah!" snorted Jimby, as if offended by the notion that he couldn't read. "But she paid me to copy it, not agree with what it said."
"How much she pay you?" Gilbert wanted to know.
"A dozen silvers. But they're mine! You can't have them!"
"But I want them," Gilbert insisted. "I want them very much. So I make you a deal: you give me the twelve silver pieces, I give you twelve gold pieces in return. That a deal?"
Jimby's eyes widened as if he couldn't believe he'd run into the biggest chumps of his short lifetime. Then realization struck. "I only have ten of them left," he said.
"That fine. Then I pay you ten gold pieces for your ten silver pieces. But they have to be same ones dwarf woman gave you, or deal off!"
"Deal!" Jimby agreed instantly before this goofy-talking fool could change his mind. Naturally, he didn't have the money on him - he'd hidden it away where it couldn't be taken from him. But he led the heroes to his secret stash - beneath a loose brick in the back alley behind a candle-maker's shop - and handed over the ten silvers. Gilbert counted out ten gold coins from his purse and handed them over. "If we find out these not coins from dwarf lady, we find you again," Gilbert warned. "And then maybe we let bear eat you."
"That's them, all right!" promised Jimby and ran off at once to find a new hiding place for his sudden wealth. Gilbert watched the boy scamper off and lose himself in the crowd of the marketplace. "We have Malrin
scry on old dwarf lady tomorrow," he said, having procured something she'd recently touched.
Jinkadoodle was waiting for the group when they returned to the castle. "Dad said there was definitely dark reaver powder in the remnants of the wine in the glass you gave him," he said. "And not only that, it was a really heavy dose - like, so heavy there's no way she could have missed tasting it. No way at all."
"Weird," mused Gilbert. "Princess didn't mention wine tasting funny." Binkadink shared a quick glance with his cousin and made a subtle back-and-forth headshake, silently warning Jinkadoodle to silence, for he'd realized in an instant - as he assumed Jinkadoodle had done as well - that a gnome could easily have altered the taste of the wine using their inherent
prestidigitation abilities. Binkadink had used his own such abilities to randomly change the hair color of members of his adventuring group, but it could also be used to change the taste of food or drink. He didn't want to voice these concerns, though, and offer up additional evidence against Voopie Meadowclover, who already was in enough trouble as it was.
Checking in with Aerik, the dwarven bodyguard reported that Voopie had passed her
zone of truth interrogation. "She didn't know it was poisoned when she brought it to the princess," Aerik explained. "Now we're tryin' ta find out who gave 'er th' wine bottle in th' first place; all she remembers it were a blond-haired human girl - an' that description fits a dozen or more servants."
"Told you," Binkadink smirked at Gilbert, glad that the young gnome maiden had been vindicated.
Shortly after, a contingent of dwarven guards trickled back in to the castle to report their marketplace findings to Aerik. "We found plenty o' eyewitnesses what said there was an elderly dwarven lady stirrin' up trouble a few days back," reported a sergeant. "Nobody's seen hide nor hair o' 'er since, though, and by th' soundsa it, she didn't get nowheres wit' 'er grumblin'. General consensus is Princess Kaelanna'll make us a fine queen." The description the testimonies had provided matched Jimby's description of the woman who paid him to copy the letter: gray hair, nose-wart, and cane.
"We
scry on this dwarf tomorrow," Gilbert decided. "But I think that it for tonight - it getting late!"
The next morning the group reconvened at the Ivenheart estate so Malrin could try some more
scrying spells. Gilbert had her try Sabina again, but without anything physical from the Vandergrotten niece upon which to focus her divination, she had no further luck than on the day before.
"Try this," the hefty mage suggested, passing over the ten silver pieces they'd gotten from Jimby. "They come from gray-haired dwarf woman who pay human boy to copy letter we show you yesterday." Malrin took the coins, holding them in her hands and concentrating as she cast the
scrying spell for the second time that morning. This time, the waters of the pool showed a clear image of an elderly, gray-haired woman sitting at a desk, writing, with a raven at her shoulder. But this was no dwarven woman; rather, it was an elf - and an elf the group had seen very recently.
"Cerlynnes Kahalitae!" exclaimed Finoula. "The woman Voopie works for when she's not at the castle!"
"She's not a dwarf," Darrien pointed out.
"Pffff!" scoffed Gilbert. "That easy enough to fix with illusion spell!"
"Let's go get Aerik and round her up, then," suggested Binkadink.
"You want me to just
teleport us there and take her down?" asked Hagan.
"We bring Aerik along," agreed Gilbert. "She citizen; we can't just barge into house and arrest her - but Aerik can!"
Unfortunately, by the time they returned to the castle, got Aerik and a group of castle guards, and returned to the Kahalitae Manor, there was no answer at the door. "We let her get away!" cried Hagan, irritated that they hadn't followed his suggestion to
teleport in and grab her when they could have.
"Go ahead and open this door," Aerik commanded, and Gilbert cast a
knock spell that had the locked door open in a jiffy. Darrien and Grumps Junior had gone around the manor house to the back door to ensure Cerlynnes didn't escape that way, but the back door was also locked and nobody came through it while the others searched through the elderly elf's dwelling. "She gone," Gilbert sighed. "Her and her raven - probably her familiar. She wizard, no doubt."
"Or a sorcerer," pointed out Hagan.
"Either way, it would be easy enough for her to cast an illusion spell to appear to be an elderly dwarven woman, both to hire Jimby and to try to stir up a revolt against Kaelanna in the marketplace," pointed out Finoula.
"So what do we do now?" asked Binkadink.
"I'll have me men keep a watch on th' place," suggested Aerik. "And we'll pass word around to keep an eye out for 'er. She'll show up, sooner or later."
"I think we should go talk with Voopie again," suggested Binkadink. "Now that we know this Kahalitae woman was behind the letter and the marketplace shenanigans, it makes sense that she was behind the poisoning as well. Voopie can tell us what she knows about her."
Voopie Meadowclover was back to work at the castle; the head maid, a heavyset, no-nonsense woman named
Madame Scolina told the group where the gnome's duties would have taken her. Voopie looked worried at the approach of the group of adventurers, no doubt thinking she'd already cleared her name the day before. "Is everything okay?" she asked nervously.
"Everything's fine," Binkadink reassured her, smiling. "We think we know who it was behind the poisoning: Cerlynnes Kahalitae, your employer."
"Really?" Voopie asked, clearly puzzled. "She can be a bit bad-tempered, I agree - but to try to kill the princess? Why?"
"We don't know. We were hoping you might be able to tell us a bit more about her," Binkadink replied. Voopie recounted what little she knew about her elven employer: she was very stern, liked things just so, and had little use for slackers. But as Voopie went on about her employer, Binkadink got the sinking sensation that Voopie was holding something back. He really didn't want her to be complicit in the plot against Princess Kaelanna, but he had to press her for the truth.
"Voopie," he interrupted her. "What aren't you telling us about the night you served the princess the poisoned wine?"
The gnomish maid stopped talking at once and her face turned pale. "I..." she began. "I'm not supposed to tell...I'll be fired if I say."
"Fired by who?" demanded Binkadink.
"Madame Scolina," Voopie replied, looking around to see if the stern maid was within earshot.
"You'd better tell us everything," Binkadink commanded, his voice stern. "We'll handle Madame Scolina, if it comes to that."
Voopie sat down and gave her full story. "I went to the cellar to get the wine," she began, but a blond girl had already fetched it for me. She gave it to me on a silver tray, along with a bottle opener, a glass, and a packet of dark powder." Gilbert's eyes flashed at this last bit, while Binkadink's heart sank - but neither interrupted the gnome's story. "Then Madame Scolina appeared, took the blond girl aside, and they talked for a while. Madame Scolina told me to follow the girl's orders directly, and not to say a word about any of this or I'd be fired.
"The girl told me to open the bottle, pour a little sip into the glass, and taste it. Then I was to fill the glass up, add the powder, and stir it around to allow it to dissolve in the wine. I was then to cast
prestidigitation on the wine to make it taste normal again."
Gilbert couldn't help himself from interrupting at that point. "And you didn't think you were poisoning the princess?"
"
She said it was medicine!" insisted the gnome maid.
"Medicine for what?" prompted Binkadink, wanting to believe Voopie.
"For...this is the embarrassing part...apparently there's an ailment those with green dragon blood can get, which involves...acidic flatulence." Voopie whispered the last two words and immediately blushed, embarrassed at having revealed her princess's secret shame.
"Is that even a thing?" asked Binkadink, looking over at Gilbert.
"No!" scoffed the portly mage, before looking at Voopie. "You an idiot," he asserted. Voopie buried her face in her hands and started weeping silently.
"You're a bully!" countered Binkadink.
"Let's have Aerik supervise another round of
zone of truth questioning," suggested Finoula.
"I think he's already making arrangements for all of the blond-haired human servant girls to be questioned," Hagan observed.
"Better add Madame Scolina to the list," suggested Darrien. But the heavyset maid passed the questioning; it apparently hadn't been she who had instructed the blond girl on what to tell Voopie, or who had demanded the gnome maid remain silent about Princess Kaelanna's "medicine." And Voopie's story panned out under the lie-revealing spell; everything she had said had been true.
"Elf-lady probably used illusion to look like Boss Maid," Gilbert observed. "Blond girl probably hypnotized into obeying, then forgetting conversation." The theory explained why none of the blond servants confessed to giving Voopie the poison on the silver platter - if magic prevented them from even remembering the act, they certainly couldn't admit to it.
"This Kahalitae woman is very good at covering her tracks," observed Hagan.
"I think we need to stand guard over the princess," Finoula said. "Cerlynnes has tried a threatening letter, a rebellion by the citizens, and a poisoning and gotten nowhere. I wouldn't put it past her to try an out-an-out assassination attempt."
"Princess Kaelanna becomes queen in two days," pointed out Binkadink.
"Then we guard her until then," Gilbert decided. "You guys stay here with her; I go see mom. I have idea." Gilbert didn't have far to go, for his mother, Harriet Fung, was in the castle with the king, who was instructing her in the Orc tongue. Since Harriet had been
reincarnated into an orc body, the plan was to try to insert her into the orc and goblin forces the next time they attacked, so she could track them back to their hidden lair. And to do so, she needed to not only look like an orc but speak like one as well.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. But at bedtime, Finoula escorted the princess to her bedchambers, on the upper floor in one of the two towers of the women's wing of the castle. Darrien walked with the two women up to the point where the two dwarven castle guards stood outside the door to the women's wing. Beyond that point, men were not allowed. "I'll be here if you need me," Darrien promised. If any of the guards were curious as to why the princess's new female elven bodyguard carried a rolled-up carpet under one arm, they didn't ask.
Kaelanna and Finoula climbed the steps to the princess's bedroom, where the ranger unrolled the
carpet of teleportation at the foot of the half-dragon's bed. "The command word is 'umerguth,' Your Highness," Finoula explained, leading her future liege to stand upon the carpet.
"And where will I go upon saying that?" asked Kaelanna.
"Aboard our ship," Finoula responded. "We have a place made ready for you there. It's safer if you spend the night there, under guard, while we post a decoy here to draw in any assassination attempts."
"Very well," said the princess. "Thank you, Finoula. I knew it was a good idea to bring you and your team into this investigation. Umerguth!" And with the utterance of the command word, Princess Kaelanna was transported to one of the bedrooms in the extradimensional hold of the group's dragonfly spelljamming vessel, parked on a cloud island tended to by the cloud giant Zaralia. Most of the other adventurers were there, as well as a few Princess Kaelanna didn't recognize, like Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin and Aithanar Ivenheart, who was there to tend to the group's animals, housed in a different room. Binkadink escorted the princess to the room they had set aside for her use that night - where another Princess Kaelanna stood waiting, identical in appearance to the original.
"It me," said Gilbert Fung, the faux princess. "I borrow
hat of disguise back from mom. I be sleeping in your bed tonight - anybody try to kill you, they try to kill me instead. And I very hard to kill."
"I see," said Princess Kaelanna. "Very well, then. I bid you all a good night." She stepped into the room while her lookalike exited.
"Okay then," Gilbert said, his normal voice incongruously emanating from the illusory body of the half elven, half green dragon princess and future queen of Kordovia. "We got
Rary's telepathic bond spell linking us all together." Gilbert had cast the spell before the majority of the team
teleported up to the dragonfly ship. "Only problem: can't use it between pocket dimension here and outside world. So Bink, you stand guard outside princess's room. Hagan, you stand at top of stairs, outside extradimensional space. Anybody try to kill me, I holler over link, Hagan go get Bink, everybody
teleport back onto magic rug. Show up in princess's bedroom, take down assassin, good to go. Questions?"
There were none, so Gilbert walked over to the teleportation rune carved into the bedroom floor, said "umerguth," and
teleported back to Princess Kaelanna's bedroom to be greeted by Finoula. "Wow," the ranger said, impressed. "You look just like her."
"Yeah, but voice way different," Gilbert replied. "Best if I don't talk."
"Agreed," smirked Finoula. "It's always best when you don't talk."
"You shut stupid elf mouth." Gilbert pulled Mudpie out of his pocket and used his magic slingshot to return his earth elemental familiar to his normal, three-foot size. "We stick you under bed, Mudpie," Gilbert commanded, and the elemental bent down to comply. As he crawled underneath the head of the bed, he had no idea that there was already someone else hiding under the foot of the bed - this would be
Eye-Plucker, Cerlynnes Kahalitae's imp familiar, who was often seen in his raven form looking like a more traditional familiar to the elderly elf enchantress. He was in his true imp form at the moment but hidden by
invisibility - and not only hearing everything said in the room, but using his telepathic abilities to not only broadcast a running commentary to his mistress, hidden nearby outside the castle, but also to
Larianna Ghostwalker, another invisible entity, this one hidden in Princess Kaelanna's closet.
Larianna Ghostwalker was an elven assassin, one who had made enough money over the years to have long since retired and lived in luxury for the rest of her days. But she knew the boredom of such a life would likely soon kill her - having had such a taste, she craved danger and excitement and the prospect of taking down a half-dragon elf in her own bedroom two nights before her coronation was a challenge she couldn't pass up. She'd made it invisibly past the guards outside the woman's wing quite easily hours before, her practiced footsteps lighter than air, scoped out the bedroom, and hidden herself inside the closet where she could step out as quiet as a ghost once her target was asleep. She'd kill her target with the special dagger she'd been given by Cerlynnes to slay Kaelanna - a
soulslayer dagger, one the elderly elf had taken directly from King Galrich's personal vault, having walked in there using her
hat of disguise to appear to be one of the trusted dwarven guardsmen. The
soulslayer dagger had been taken from an assassin who had tried to kill Galrich Slayer in the days before he had taken the throne, a desperate measure put into motion by Targus Vandergrotten - who did not want his beloved kingdom ruled by what he considered a "half-breed mongrel."
But now there was a wrinkle in the plan: Kaelanna was somewhere at the other end of the
carpet of teleportation - unknown territory to the assassin. No matter, though; she'd overheard the command word and memorized it, so all she'd have to do is take out the sole bodyguard - the silver-haired elf woman pacing the room slowly, always keeping her eyes on the doorway leading to the stairs, the only entrance to the bedroom - and Larianna could be on the carpet and off to who-knows-where to slay the princess. The unpredictability of the assignment just made it all the more exciting! In fact, she was half tempted to spring out now and be about the mission, but she hadn't amassed her impressive kill record over the years by being impulsive. The plan had altered, granted, but it was still best to stick to its core: allow Kaelanna enough time to fall fast asleep and then strike. The fact that Larianna didn't know where Kaelanna was now other than "wherever that carpet led to" made no difference; it would still be best to allow the princess to fall fast asleep. And so the assassin waited in the closet for a good two hours before silently opening the door and slipping into the bedroom, cloaked in invisibility due to the ring she wore.
<It begins> thought the assassin to the imp hidden beneath the bed, as she crept silently behind a pacing Finoula, still making her rounds and expecting any potential attack to come from the doorway leading to the stairs. The pacing was part nervous energy and part a way to keep her awake and alert.
<About damn time!> retorted Eye-Plucker. <I'm going after the fake princess once you strike down the bodyguard.>
<Why? That's not part of the plan.>
<No, but it'll be fun.>
Larianna struck suddenly and struck hard, the
soulslayer dagger still tucked into her belt, for it could imprison the soul of but a single victim and was set aside for Kaelanna. Instead, using the martial disciplines she'd mastered years ago, Larianna struck out with a rapid series of blows using the hardened edges of her hands. The flurry of blows took Finoula quite by surprise, having come out of nowhere. The fact that the assassin popped back into visibility meant nothing at first, either, as she struck from behind so the elf ranger couldn't see her attacker in the wan moonlight coming through the room's narrow windows.
Still, Finoula had the presence of mind to call out to the others over the
Rary's telepathic bond spell still active among the group. <Guys! I'm under attack!> she called telepathically. But despite not being a member of the spell's recipients, Eye-Plucker was telepathic by nature and he heard Finoula's frantic calls as loudly as if she'd used her voice and not her mind. <Larianna!> he warned. <She's got a telepathic link active with others!>
Back on the dragonfly ship, Hagan picked up the cry and raced down the stairs leading to the extradimensional area of the ship. "Binkadink!" he cried. "The attack's begun!" He and the gnome fighter raced to the bedroom whose floor contained the teleportation runes linked to the rug at the foot of Princess Kaelanna's bed. Darrien caught Finoula's call as well and pulled out his
ebony fly. He opened the doors to the women's wing before an astonished pair of guards could stop him, cried "There's an attack!" and flew, fly-back, into the women's wing, heading for the stairs that spiraled up the tower to Kaelanna's bedroom.
Gilbert also heard the cry and whipped the covers from his body - which still, due to the
hat of disguise he wore, looked like that of the princess. He was personally glad the attack had happened, for it had been getting difficult to stay awake while lying motionless in bed, pretending to be asleep. At this point, he assumed the assassin was here to try to take him - the "princess" - out. But despite his eagerness for battle and the realization that he was the prime target, the attack on his person took him by complete surprise, given that Eye-Plucker was still invisible when the tip of his scorpionlike tail stung the portly mage in the side of the neck. The tiny devil's venom coursed through Gilbert's system but he shrugged off the worst of the effects by sheer force of will.
Mudpie, however, had heard not only the rustling under the bed as the invisible imp extracted himself from his hiding place but also Gilbert's involuntary cry of pain when he was stabbed in the neck. Fortunately, the attack on Mudpie's master forced the
invisibility effect to fade from the imp, giving the earth elemental a visible target to hit. Scrambling from the bed faster than his bulky form would have made an onlooker think possible, he brought his stony fists crashing into the imp's frail body from either side, crushing it between them. (Less than a mile away, Cerlynnes Kahalitae felt the empathic link between her and her imp familiar go suddenly silent and she realized her diabolic servant had been slain.
That did it, she decided. She was too old for any more of this nonsense - the princess's protectors were beyond her ability to overcome and likely beyond Larianna's as well; it would perhaps be easier to leave Kordovia to its Monster Queen and find a different land in which to live out her remaining days. Using her
hat of disguise to assume the form of a male human merchant, she began walking away from Kordovia forever.)
Finoula was staggered by the assassin's sudden assault, but she remained on her feet and brought
Tahlmalaera swinging around to face her enemy. In the dim moonlight she saw she faced an elf woman wearing dark leather armor. The woman was lithe and very quick; she easily avoided the ranger's sword-strike but fared poorly against the
flaming whip of thorns Finoula used in her off-hand. The whip struck the black-clad assassin, its flaming thorns scratching across her face and forcing an involuntary cry of pain and surprise from her. Then Larianna smiled, looking forward to taking out this upstart bodyguard before moving on to her true assignment.
And then, suddenly, a gnome holding a ridiculously large polearm and a half-orc in robes stood upon the
carpet of teleportation that Larianna had been planning to use to get to the princess. This fight just got more interesting! Larianna threw a flurry of daggers at Hagan, expecting him to either fall from the sudden attack (the daggers had been coated in venom, after all) or at least stagger away off the carpet so she could use it to her own advantage. But the half-orc stood his ground; worse, he began the words to a spell! Larianna tensed, ready to dodge whatever might be coming, but the
chain lightning arced over to her before she could react, knocking her to the floor. That really hurt! And then the ridiculous gnome struck at her with his oversized glaive, cutting a searing stripe of pain across her torso as she tried rolling out of the way.
A commotion from behind the assassin caught everyone's attention, but the buzzing sound was just Darrien's
ebony fly flying up the curving stairwell. The half-elf ranger took in the contents of the room at a glance, then sent an arrow from his
Arachnibow flying at the assassin. But Larianna Ghostwalker easily, almost contemptuously, swatted the arrow from its course while regaining her feet. She struck at Binkadink, hoping to get past him to the
carpet of teleportation, but the tiny little gnome might have been a statue for all he moved from her blow.
And then Hagan cast a
disintegrate spell that caught Larianna Ghostwalker full-brunt. With an astonished expression on her face, the assassin's body was blown to a fine powder.
"That it?" asked Gilbert. "We take down assassins?"
"Just the one - and an imp," added Finoula, seeing the crumpled form Mudpie held between his hands. Just to be sure, the entire group used the
carpet of teleportation to spend the night on the dragonfly ship guarding Princess Kaelanna, with Hagan staying behind only long enough to roll up the carpet and use a
teleport spell of his own to join them. No sense in leaving a "back door" to the spelljamming ship sitting around in the princess's bedroom!
The next day was uneventful, but focused on the next day's coronation. The heroes were a constant presence around the princess, making sure nobody got close to her. They had Malrin
scry upon Cerlynnes, just to be sure, and the druid saw the image of a male human merchant walking down a road, leading south. "I think she's had enough," the druid commented.
And the day after that was the day of the coronation itself. A large space in the castle courtyard had been opened for attendees, with tables overburdened with food and drink set up along one edge. A shaded pavilion was assembled along one side for visiting dignitaries, and, surprisingly, what looked like a cattle pen had been erected behind the throne, with three strong bulls pacing nervously back and forth.
Finally, at the appointed time, trumpets sounded and a procession marched from the castle to the throne set up outside. A hush fell across the crowd as King Galrich took the throne, with Princess Kaelanna standing at his right and Aerik Battershield at his left. To Aerik’s left stood Father Bendrick, the current head cleric of the Church of Kord.
Galrich rose from the throne and waved his arms out majestically. "Thank you all for your attendance," he boomed. Turning to the pavilion, he said, "And I thank our visiting dignitaries from the neighboring lands. Your presence does us great honor. But there is another dignitary my daughter has asked to attend; I ask you now to remain calm while Princess Kaelanna's own half-brother, the dragon Clauguthrax, takes his place."
With a great flapping of wings, a green form dropped down from the sky, landing in the cattle pen behind the throne. Princess Kaelanna nodded her greeting, and the dragon nodded his great head in return. Then the ceremony began.
Father Bendrick took the crown from King Galrich's head and handed it to Aerik. Galrich then stepped aside and Princess Kaelanna took his place before the throne.
"Kneel before the symbol of Kordovian royalty," commanded the head cleric. Kaelanna lifted the hem of her flowing skirts and lowered herself to one knee. Father Bendrick then passed over the
scepter of succession to Kaelanna, who cradled it under one arm. Father Bendrick then took the crown from Aerik and placed it upon Kaelanna's head. "You may rise, Your Majesty," he said to the half-dragon elf kneeling before him. Then, turning to the assembled crowd, he called out, "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Court, I present to you Queen Kaelanna the First, Ruler of the Kingdom of Kordovia, by the blessings of the Gods Above. Long may she live!"
"Long may she live!" repeated the crowd with enthusiasm.
"May she rule wisely," intoned Father Bendrick, then turned to the newly-crowned queen. "Your Majesty, the floor is yours." He then stepped aside so that Queen Kaelanna could make her coronation speech to those assembled.
Behind her, Clauguthrax grinned at this turn of events. He had attended not only out of curiosity but also to show the Kordovians that their little kingdom was under his protection now. Queen Kaelanna intended his presence to be reassuring to the people of her kingdom; she still didn’t see why some people feared dragons so much and wanted them to see that dragons – even green dragons – could be a force for good. Clauguthrax found it eminently amusing that he was now a blood relative to royalty to a humanoid kingdom. But he was appreciative of the thoughtfulness of his little half-sister in providing the three bulls as a snack; in return, he was thoughtful enough to wait until she had finished her speech and the banquet that followed immediately afterward had begun before starting his own feast.
"She'll make a fine queen," said Galrich, beaming with pride.
"Aye, that she will," agreed Aerik, thinking wistfully of his own daughter.
- - -
This adventure was a departure from our normal fare, which generally skews more heavily to the combat end of the spectrum. But it was an interesting approach, forcing the players to use slightly different mental gears to accomplish their goal of not only keeping Princess Kaelanna alive but tracking down her attempted killer. It's not a sudden new direction for our campaign, but a type of adventure I don't think we'd mind trying again in the future.
Of course, this was somewhat problematic in that I had no idea which avenues the players would choose to explore, so I had to have a lot more ready than we actually used. Sabina Boorhaven, for example, had left the kingdom years ago and married a man named
Jorbin Wenkler; he was an illusionist (and the wizard momentarily glimpsed in the
scrying attempts) and had the PCs successfully scried upon them and teleported in for a confrontation they'd have found out Jorbin is an illusionist more of the "kids' birthday party" variety and that he and his wife have no particular feelings towards half-dragon elven queens one way or the other. But I statted them up, just in case. (I also gave Jorbin a miniature phantom fungus as a familiar, thinking a permanently invisible, foot-tall shambling fungus creature would come in handy performing magic tricks for children.)
So with a bunch of possible investigative paths, the adventure itself was one of the longest I've ever written, even though a good chunk of it was never used. But another factor was that unlike most adventures I write, I had no idea how long this would take to play through. So, just in case, I had the adventure that comes after this one prepped and ready; we only play about one Saturday a month and I didn't want to waste a gaming session on a three-and-a-half hour adventure (which is about how long it took us to go through this one) when we typically game for five or six hours a session. So, immediately after concluding this adventure we started up the next one, which was more combat oriented and thus easier for me to estimate how long it would take us to go through.
One half-intended side effect of this adventure, though, was that Binkadink Dundernoggin now has a potential love interest, in the form of one Voopie Meadowclover.
- - -
T-Shirt Worn: My black shirt with a green dragon on it, to represent Clauguthrax.
