Session 11

Responding to Chae's perceived distress signal, the rest of the party approached the isolated fortress in Downriver. Whilst Kana and Kathra charged the main gate, Wei Liang began to sneak around the outsides to an alternate entrance whilst Ryo and Sassani lay down covering fire. With the archers successfully pinned on the roof, Suna used Mage Hand to slide the dead bolt on the main door open and, still invisible, began sneaking through the inside of the building to the rooftop whilst Kana and Kathra stormed the main entrance. One of the archers, seeing their predicament, launched a screeching arrow into the air to signal for reinforcements of their own.

The priest, moving to investigate the reopened main door, was caught off-guard by Kathra and Kana and soon dispatched. Suna, making it to the roof, discovered that the old lady who was previously sat at the desk inside, had also moved to join the archers. Devising against a three-on-one confrontation she cast a Fire Bolt at one of the archers before leaping from the roof and teleporting safely to the ground below. This was enough to finally break the archers' moral and send them running for a back exit. Meanwhile, the old lady had moved into position and, spotting Ryo moving across an exposed bridge, launched a fireball at him that blew the bridge out from under him, forcing him into the water.

As Suna re-entered the building, Kana crested the stairs and reached the roof. Continuing at full speed towards the woman he launched her over the battlements with a running tackle, sending her falling to the ground two stories below. Seeing her fall, Sassani took up blasting her with Eldrich energy. The combined assault eventually forced the woman to take to the air and flee, leaving only the two archers running for their lives to deal with.

As this had been happening, Wei Liang had successfully jimmied the rear entrance to the fortress open and had been sneaking through the interior. As Kana took out one of the fleeing guards with two axes to the back the other fled down a second set of stairs towards the rear of the building. Hearing him coming, Wei stuck a foot out and tripped the guard as they reached the bottom. Not seeing the foot coming, they fell headfirst onto the concrete floor, blowing their head open on impact. Wei had been hoping to take them for questioning, but seeing the state they had been left in instead decided to put them out of their misery.

With the hostiles clear the party picked over the building for clues as to the Goto-Mei's activities. Rooting through the records in the infirmary on the ground floor and the woman's office on the first, they came to the conclusion that the building had previously operated as an independent clinic for the underbelly of Jiiwani. However, a recent contract signed with the Goto-Mei had granted the gang exclusive use of the facility in exchange for large sums of gold, meaning that other gangs were increasingly unable to heal their injured and increasing the Goto-Mei's dominance. The group, initially in two minds about having taken out an underworld hospital, felt a lot better on discovering that it was a Goto-Mei facility.

Whilst the investigation was taking place Wei Liang began sampling some of the herbs being stored in the infirmary. After chewing on a leaf for a few moments, he found that he lost all feeling in his body, then was swiftly overtaken by a murderous rage. Unable to communicate his condition, he launched awkwardly at Ryo, knocking him unconscious following his recent scrape with a fireball. As the rest of the party ran to investigate he began ambling aimlessly around the lab, until the others were able to restrain him enough for Kathra to cure him of his malady. Wei was able to explain away his actions as the response to drugs, but this didn't stop him pocketing a number of other unknown herbs in the lab for later experimentation.

Whilst the group had been planning to leave quickly before reinforcements arrived, the incident with Wei gave three Goto-Mei enforcers time to reach the fort. Two heavily armoured samurai, with armour sporting the white clasped-hands sign of the Goto-Mei, appeared at the main entrance and demanded to know what the group were doing. Kana, accurately, shouted “MURDER!” and charged the pair. With backup from Kathra and ranged support from the others the two samurai were quickly dispatched, but a third agent, sniping from a nearby agent, escaped to report back to their masters.

The team beat a swift retreat before more reinforcements could arrive, taking a short break en route so that Sassani could fence some stolen goods on the way. Wei also took a brief leave from the party to try to make contact with friends within his organisation to find out what has happened to Aman Bedzhi. Electing not to stop and rest at the Crooked Oar, they convince Qutai back into his sack and set off towards The Jungle on the North bank of the river to lay low, fearing retribution from the Goto-Mei.

On leaving the inn, they spotted an out of place, brightly coloured parrot sat nearby, which seemed to be staring at them as they left. The parrot took to the air so, fearing the worst, the party proceeded to blast it out of the air. When hit, the parrot's form shifted into that of an old man as it was falling, who then landed in one the canals that spread through the city. The party raced to where he fell but couldn't see any sign of him. However, they did spot the tail of a large crocodile as it slipped away round a corner away from them. They gave chase, but were ultimately unable to catch the beast.

Retrating back to their ferryboat, the group made their way to The Jungle. En route they kept watch for ambushes. They saw an increased number of obvious Goto-Mei stooges in Downriver as they passed through, but were alert enough to disguise themselves to avoid detection by the watchers. They arrived on the bohemian shores of The Jungle, where Wei reunited with them, and headed East from there into the jungle as Ryo searched for a secluded location for them to camp and bed down for the night.

The following morning, Kathra announced that she was heading out to searching for a boat landing spot that she suspected the murderers in downriver had been using. With the help of her allies she discovered a number of landing sites that could potentially have been the ones that the group was using, but wasn't able to discern which was the one she sought. Theorising that the group would soon return, she set up a secondary camp nearer the riverside and hunkered down to await their arrival.

The group, with urging from Qutai, decided that a raid on The Pit was their best bet to progress matters. They knew that Qutai's notes, now in the Goto-Mei's hands, could prove useful in trying to contact Aman Bedzhi, and also had good information that Dashya Ravi, Mana's brother, was being held somewhere in the compound. Finally, a note found in the fort-infirmary had indicate that a man called Sahrizan was now running the operation. As this was Jendrayana's predecessor in Dejang-e, the group felt like he deserved a visit.

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