The characters in this session were:
- Alabastor Quan, a gnome rogue-turned-illusionist and failed circus ringmaster; wielder of a cursed dagger and member of the Ravenswing Thieves’ Guild.
- Garvin Otherwise, a human rogue and burglar of the Ravenswing Thieves’ Guild, with a very, very peculiar past and a zoog pet, Lenore.
- Viridian “Grove” Greengrove, changeling druid, exile from his former druidic circle for unknown transgressions.
- An ancient and enigmatic Lengian cleric of the Mother of Spiders, name unknown. She wears bulky ecclesiastical garments covering an uncertain number of limbs and goes by “Sister.”
- Yam, an eccentric gnome illusionist and local graduate student at Umbral University. Yam cares little for money. Yam is curious. Yam is Yam.
XP Awarded: 700 XP
Alabastor and Garvin were at a Ravenswing safehouse in Gloomway, one of the guild’s major rookeries outside of Corvid Commons, off Eidolon Street. Accessible only through a discrete back door cloaked in illusions, the safehouse was sumptuous, if eclectic, decorated with the spoils of a thousand lucrative burglaries. They were in the trophy hall, a place where the guild’s Masters displayed the most precious objects they ever stole – fabulously rare paintings covered almost every inch of the walls, and plinths displayed everything from precious jewels to spellbooks.
Doors lead to the safehouse’s common room, the Blackmail Armoury where incriminating objects collected from the city’s elites were kept, and the Raven’s Nest, where the guild kept some of its magical thieving equipment. On the level above this one were training halls, where new initiates skulked through mazes of shadows and halls of mirrors under the watchful eyes of guild instructors, while below was the Map Archive, containing floorplans for buildings throughout the city.
The two thieves were in the presence of Veronika Foxstalker, a young Ravenswing thief with premature white hair, as well as two Ravenswing high-ups: Janus Wren, a retired art thief, long ago convicted for her crimes by a Hexian court and sentenced to the Curse of Bad Taste, and Broodfather Valentine Dusk, one of the guild-members responsible for training thieves.
“Glad you could make it, boys,” Veronika said. “Broodfather Dusk has something of a job for you. You can consider it a test, as well. Pass it, and you’ll both be promoted from the Fledgling rank to become Talons.”
Garvin nodded. “I think we’re both eager to move up in the ranks.”
“The task will not be easy,” Valentine said. He was a ghoul, well-dressed and mischievous of expression, with large yellow eyes and glinting white fangs in a face that made them think of a wolf. “You are welcome to employ outside assistance from trusted associates; numbers may be helpful for certain parts of the undertaking. Janus, perhaps you’ll describe what precisely has happened.”
“Sure,” Janus said. She was a pale, slight woman of middle years, human, and a living legend in the city’s underworld. “So. About ten years ago, I stole an object called the Angel’s Eye – a magical gemstone. Probably Librarian in origins, but could be from Nornhold, no one’s quite sure. If you look through it, you’re supposed to be able to perceive reality absolutely – drives most people mad that look too long. Anyway. As you know… I got caught. Not my proudest moment, but the Warders had been chasing me for years, it was practically bound to happen eventually. One slip-up and they had me. And they took the Angel’s Eye. Put it in the Museum of Magical Arts up in Fanghill.”
“The guild wants to acquire the Angel’s Eye,” Valentine said. “It may be useful in appraising certain objects in our possession. We had long been planning a heist of the Museum, but as you probably know, it’s the most heavily warded building in Hex apart from the Bird & Key City Bank. Getting in and out is nearly impossible. Unfortunately… we weren’t the only ones planning a burglary.”
“Crowsbeak idiots got wind of our plans and beat us to the punch,” Veronika said. “They broke in last night, pinched the Angel’s Eye and a bunch of other stuff. But, because they’re a bunch of bloody five-sided amateurs, they got caught. The Warders threw most of them in Golemsgate Gaol. However. There’s an added complication.”
“Of course,” Alabastor said.
“You see, the Angel’s Eye actually made of three different parts,” Janus said. “The Sclera, the Iris, and the Pupil. You fit them together and the Eye functions. On their own, they’re still valuable, but don’t have the same powers.”
“When the Crowsbeak broke in, they split the Eye up into its separate components,” Valentine said. “One of their burglars was imprisoned by the Warders – he had the Sclera. One made it back to Corvid Commons – she had the Iris. And a third, while fleeing the Warders, reputedly tried to hide in the tunnels below Fanghill. He had the Pupil. You two are tasked with recovering all three parts of the Eye.”
“There’s some potentially good news on the Warder’s front,” Veronika said. “We’ve learned that they’re supposed to be moving the Sclera back from Golemsgate to the Museum tomorrow, by carriage. It’ll be guarded… but it’ll also be an opportunity to get hold of the Sclera without breaking into either the Golem or the Museum.”
“The Crowsbeak thief who made it out has disappeared into Corvid Commons,” Janus said. “But we think we know where she’s staying – a Crowsbeak rookery beneath the Dark Drop, a shadowmilk bar on Badblood Boulevard. The Iris should still be there, but it’s probably only a matter of time before they offload it in the Midnight Market.”
“The only problem there is, things are pretty volatile with the Crowsbeak at the moment,” Valentine said. “So for this phase of the job, you’ll have to be totally unseen, or else adopt some sort of disguise. If you’re spotted breaking into a Crowsbeak rookery, it could be bad for the guild.”
“The final piece, the Pupil, is presumably still with the thief stupid enough to flee into the Old City in Fanghill,” Veronika concluded. “This might be the most dangerous part of the task. Most likely, the thief entered the tunnels through Piranha Boulevard.”
“The Guild is willing to grant a payment of three thousand guineas to each of you if you manage to retrieve the Angel’s Eye,” Valentine said. “Any associates you hire will have to be paid on your own dime. In addition, though, as Talons you’ll be given an object of your choice from the Raven’s Nest.”
The two thieves discussed strategy, and agreed to contact a few trusted associates. Armand and Yam had been useful on the Van Lurken job, and so the Ravenswing thieves headed for Armand’s townhouse in the Dreamer’s Quarter.
Admitted to Armand’s house, they made their way to the greenhouse, where the sorcerer was cultivating all manner of strange botanical experiments – many culled from samples taken during the extended party’s adventures. They found him deep in conversation with a fellow botanist, who he introduced as Viridian Greengrove, a trusted associate from years past.
A short, human-seeming man, Viridian was lean, ropy, and heavily scarified, with sharp, angular features, a crooked, once-broken nose, and vivid green eyes. Though the man was garbed in oddments of fur, leather, and feathers – resembling some wild-man from the woods – he carried himself with alien grace and dignity, and there was something unsettling about his demeanor. Though too rough-hewn to be one of the enigmatic Fair Folk, Garvin and Alabastor both recognized a changeling when they saw one: an elf child abandoned in Hex by its parents, who would have kidnapped a human child in exchange. Many parents in the city considered such an even the height of good fortune, secure in the knowledge that the child of their blood would attain the grandeur and immortality of the Fair Folk, while gifted with a replacement sure to excel in a myriad of arts.
“We came to discuss some, ah, rather delicate business,” the two thieves said, unsure of how to react to this stranger.
“You can trust Viridian,” Armand assured them. “He has no love of the law.”
“If it’s something criminal you’re planning, I am no stranger to such things,” the druid said frankly. “Indeed, I have… certain abilities which might prove quite useful.”
Elsewhere, Yam and Sister were experimenting with the Portal Chalk, and seeking ways to track down the ones who made it. With Garvin’s help, they had deduced that the magical chalk was an artefact of the Antinomian, the mad, laughing trickster deity, god of primal chaos and absurdity, whose religion was one of the few banned in Hex. Together they had made contact with one of the god’s cult’s, secret societies in Hex, using a secret note drop to communicate. Sister drafted a note about a “hypothetical” Portal Chalk puzzle, looking for ways to expand the Chalk’s use. The cult, in due time, responded: they were intrigued, and sent half of an elaborate arcane cryptogram in return. For the other half, they said, they needed an object of power: ridiculously, the undergarments of the Infernal Archbishop, Arabella Sickle. Bewildered and somewhat amused, Sister concealed the note with care. Shortly later, they were contacted by Garvin and Alabastor, informing them about the upcoming job. Yam, owing something of a debt to their companions, quickly agreed to participate. Sister took some additional convincing, but as a servant of a god of schemes and deception, she was ultimately persuaded. Planning for the heist to come began in earnest.
The party first set their eyes on the carriage – the most time sensitive of the three heists they would have to pull off. Speculating about likely routes the carriage might take, the thieves began making arrangements. First, they hired a small number of Ravenswing associates to guard a Portal entrance they scrawled in the backroom of the Cockroach Pub, a seedy drinking establishment in Goatsbridge.
Secondly, the group learned that S.A.D.I.S.M. – the Society for the Abolition of Diabolic and Infernal Servitude and Maltreatment – was planning a protest against the use of conjured labour at the Bridge of Sins. The group planned to capitalize on the distraction, using a Portal to convey the Sclera to the Cockroach Pub. Yam would help incite the protest; Alabastor would infiltrate the protest himself; Sister would serve as lookout; Garvin and Viridian would sneak into the carriage. Their plans made, the Ravenswing thieves and their companions slept, preparing for the job to come.
The dawn was misty and damp. The five made their way through Behemoth Bend to the Bridge of Sins, where protestors were already gathering. They’d set up a crude barricade made from bits of furniture and piled scrap. They held up signs: “Summoning is Subjugation” and “Break the Circle!”
Soon enough, the Warders’ carriage approached the bridge: an armoured carriage of gunmetal grey rumbling across the cobblestones, drawn by a team of four automaton horses, snorting steam from their furnace-bellies. The carriage had a Warder driver, a second Warder with a crossbow in a small turret, and two Warder escorts riding alongside the carriage on their own mechanical steeds. One was accompanied by a bound demon who keeps pace with the carriage, led by its summoner with a silver chain. The creature had a sigil-graven collar, a magic circle round its neck; it had chicken-like legs, a beard of writhing tentacles, and carried a wickedly glinting scythe. Judging from the decorated uniform of the summoner, he was the ranking officer of the group.
Alongside was an identical carriage, flanked by identical guards! One of them must have been an illusion.
Alabastor urged the protestors on. “Look at what they’re doing!” He said, gesturing to the bound demon. “Enslavement!”
Sister, thinking quickly, used detect thoughts to perceive which of the carriages was crewed by real people. As she furthered this information to Yam, the Warders began casting a spell to suppress the crowd, and a stinking cloud of magical teargas exploded over the bridge. Dozens of protestors slumped to the ground.
Yam, thinking quickly, hurled an acid arrow at the demon’s chain. The demon, newly freed, turned quickly on its master.
Alabastor, a gas-mask hastily affixed, conjured an illusion: another protest, coming from the other direction. The Warders spun in place, confused, even as their own demon lumbered towards them.
Meanwhile, the shadowy Garvin and Viridian crept toward the carriage, Grove transformed into the shape of a zoog. Garvin used his abilities to flit through space to enter the carriage stealthily, Grove close behind. A large steel chest was the only object within. Hastily, Garvin used the Portal Chalk to create a portal in the floor, dropping the chest through to the Cockroach Pub.
Outside, the demon raged, charging the summoner, but the quick-thinking Warder cast mending, restoring the chain. The demon spun, once more under Warder control.
A guard from the turret darted down into the carriage, arriving just in time to see the thieves making off with the chest. He dart forth as the Portal closed, and instantly was severed in half.
“Gah!” Those in the Cockroach winced as the man fell into the room, screaming, blood pouring everywhere. He passed out quickly, dying within moments.
“Damn,” Garvin said. “That wasn’t in the plan.”
“We’ll get the remains back to the Guild,” one of the Ravenswing associates said. “Ravenswing’ll raise him and wipe his memory. Guild policy.”
Garvin nodded soberly. Ravenswing frowned heavily on deaths, but recognized that occasionally, accidents happened. Garvin picked the lock on the chest; within was the Sclera of the Angel’s Eye, a white, opalescent stone with a depression where the Iris would slot.
Back at the Bridge of Sins, Yam, Alabastor, and Sister had hastily fled, scattering into the streets as the Warders dealt with Alabastor’s illusory crowd, unaware that their prize was gone.
One down, two to go.
Next stop: the Dark Drop.
Badblood Boulevard led towards the open square of Crow Court from the districts of Faunsweald and Groanwell, more salubrious neighbourhoods where the folk of Hex revel and carouse. Some of the spirit of hedonism had spilled into the Commons here, as the Boulevard was lined with taverns and drug dens – places like the Bloated Flea and the Laughing Fiend, as well as a large shadowmilk den, the Dark Drop, from which junkies stumbled with eyes like lightless voids.
The Drop was typical for a shadowmilk bar: a place where those seeking to empty themselves of all their cares and woe could seek the abyss at the bottom of a cup. The folk who crowded the dingy bar and swilled down cups of the stuff, served by a good-natured hunchback tattooed with holy sigils of the Unspeakable Ones, were a mix of poor and desperate souls in search of some relief from their suffering and avant-garde philosophers, nihilists hoping to map the terrain of the unthinkable through alchemical means. A good number of dark-robed necromancers from Grey Hook were in evidence, too – students from the Académie Macabre, slumming it in Corvid Commons and discussing thanatology, necropolitics, antivitalist metaphysics, and the ethics of reanimation.
The group took up seats at the bar, while Lenore scuttled stealthily from Garvin’s shoulder. Able to peer through the zoog’s eyes, the arcane trickster used her to scout out the backrooms of the Dark Drop. She entered a chamber filled with complicated distillation equipment, including huge copper tanks and masses of snaking pipes and tubes. Portholes in some of the tanks revealed them to be brimming with a viscous black liquid – shadowmilk. There were two exits. Some of the pipes extend from the machinery through one of the corridors.
Sister provided a distraction, asking the barkeep about the possibility of stowing stolen items at the Drop, a known rookery. Meanwhile, Albastor crept down the stairs and drew a portal; the rest of the party exited the bar and entered through the other end, scrawled in a nearby alleyway. Alabastor got out his dowsing wand, and the group stealthily followed its pull down one of the corridors.
They followed the hall to a stair leading down into a cavernous brick vault that had been made habitable with the addition of a few wall hangings bearing Crowsbeak symbols, a handful of tables, and a well-stocked bar of cheap ale – Blackheart Brew and Moonrise Pale Ale. Three ugly ruffians lounged about the room, drinking and counting coins – two humans and a trollblood. There were two wooden doors visible, one of them open.
Though the thieves were using the utmost stealth, the new member of the group – Viridian – stumbled on the stairs. A brief and vicious fight ensued, bullets, crossbow bolts, and spells whizzing across the chamber. At the end, Grove’s ear lay bloody on the floor, blood streaming from his face, but the three Crowsbeak thieves lay dead.
“Shit,” Alabastor cursed. “We’d better get the Iris and get out of here fast.”
They quickly found a safe hidden behind one of the wall hangings.
Yam quickly cast knock, and the combination lock swiveled to 7, then 13, then 43. Within was the Iris: another gem, this one iridescent and bluish, with a final depression for the Pupil. The safe also contained various other ill-gotten gains, including various articles of jewellery, gemstones, gold, and an obviously enchanted necklace.
“Only four murders and a riot so far,” Grove muttered, holding his severed ear to his head while Sister cast a healing spell, divine spiders flowing from her robes to switch the ear back to the druid’s head.
The band beat a hasty retreat through their getaway Portal, before additional Crowsbeak could appear.
Only one piece of the Angel’s Eye remained – the Pupil, lost in the tunnels beneath Fanghill. The party hastened there now, as sullen twilight turned to light, waspkin streetlighters flitting about with torches in the poorer districts, electric and magical lights flickering on in the more salubrious ones. They reached opulent Fanghill as the sun slunk beneath the jagged silhouette of Mount Shudder. An investigation of the plaza near the Museum of Magical Arts quickly turned up a manhole askew.
Exhausted, the party decided to retire for the evening and to meet up again early the next day, full of fresh spells and energy.
They returned to the Museum in the pre-dawn darkness; the city was once again clad in heavy mist. Careful to avoid detection by early-morning watch patrols, the group dropped down into the sewers.
Even the sewer tunnels were ostentatious in Fanghill, the stonework well-maintained, but even so the corridor was as filthy as any in Hex, puddles of murky water growing stagnant on the floor of the tunnel. Buzzing insects were everywhere, having laid their eggs in the filth.
Garvin – having scavenged his share of sewers as a lad – knew that valuables often turned up in such much. A moment’s search produced a glittering pearl necklace, dropped from the street about and swept into the drain.
Grove, eager to show his worth, transformed himself into a bloodhound-like creature, though hairless and alien. He sniffed about, trying to smell the Crowsbeak thief. The group followed the druid to a larger tunnel. Heavy rains and snowmelt had left the storm drain swollen with dirty water, flowing steadily south. A slippery-looking metal catwalk led across the tunnel. There was something lying on the ground on the other side of the bridge, but it was hard to see what it is.
Use of the Portal Chalk and a rope which Garvin shimmied along bypassed the treacherous torrent. The lower half of a human being lay on the floor of the tunnel . It looked as if something had ripped a person viciously in two. A trail of dried blood led from the remains through a doorway to the south.
Following Viridian and the blood-trail, the group made their way to an old maintenance room with several burst pipes spraying filthy liquid into the chamber. The cause of these was a rent in the wall – a huge split, leading into a dark, natural tunnel beyond. The scent-trail led through this chamber and down the tunnel.
Tentatively, the group descended into the darkness, the smell of blood and decay clotting their nostrils. There was a steady, rhythmic noise, like something breathing slowly.
The tunnel opened up. A great pile of gnawed bones and clothes was strewn across the floor of the disgusting cavern beyond. Squatting in the darkness were three twisted creatures that looked as if they might once have been people. Horribly deformed, the monsters had massively prognathous jaws and enormous yellow teeth. Their eyes were shrunken deep into their sockets, while their nostrils flared, sniffing constantly. One extended a hideous dripping tongue as if tasting the air.
Alabastor was the one to blow the group’s cover this time, sending a stray bone clattering down the tunnel. He used some sort of illusion to intimidate the monstrous creatures, looming up out of the darkness.
Lenore’s zoog eyes glimpsed magic – the Pupil! Garvin hastily used mage hand to grab the obsidian gem from the carrion heap. However, the creatures were creeping back towards the group. Hastily, Garvin scrawled a portal, while Sister, Yam, Alabastor, and Grove flung blasts of force, waves of thunder, and other spells to keep the creatures at bay.
The group were back at the bridge over the tunnel of surging sewage. They crossed, Yam casting ray of frost to cover their escape. Hastily they made their way out of the sewers, returning to Hex, all three parts of the Angel’s Eye in their possession.
Once safe, the group assembled the eye. Sister – eldest and perhaps bravest of the crew – decided to test its abilities. Garvin stood ready with the Pocketwatch of Time Dilation in case some adverse effect took hold. What Sister saw through the Eye appeared to be a universe very much like their own, but subtly different. Shimmering ghosts of the various adventurers seemed to bud off their forms – choices unmade, roads untaken. Swiveling the Iris and Sclera, it seemed she could peer into a plethora of alternate timelines – many of them ruins, burnt-out or overgrown or monstrously mutated.
Reluctantly, she gave the item over to Garvin and Alabastor, who made their way back to the Ravenswing safehouse, the means of their promotion within the Guild secured.
Did you get into Papa’s no-no juice again?”
Eventually, a compromise was reached, and the party decided to place the precious grimoire in a safety deposit box at the Bird & Key City Bank, Hex’s most secure financial institution, where it would be magically warded with various non-detection spells and magical traps. Though expensive, this would keep some would-be thief from divining the book’s location. For added precaution the group required several passwords from at least three of their number to be stated as part of the access conditions for the box, and even disguised the book itself with an illusion just to be safe, making it appear quite mundane to the casual reader. These measures taken, the adventurers considered their next move. Cephalus, unfortunately, was now in a state of extreme torpor, and it was becoming increasingly obvious that something needed to be done concerning the terrible winter. Wondering what was being done on the part of Hex’s authorities to remedy this calamity, the party resolved to visit Master Melchior – although, they agreed, they would not tell him that they had recovered the second of the Greater Mysteries. Not yet.
