Session 9

Kana and Wei Liang, the party's unknown helper, quickly move Qutai over a drawbridge and off the arena floor. They find themselves in a staging area, where some of the other (still living) gladiators are quickly packing up to leave the burning building. Kana spots the Scarlet Slashers preparing to leave, and after a quick discussion with Wei they decide to disguise themselves as part of the group to escape. Kana convinces the Slashers to assist, though the costume looks far too large on Wei. Under this guise, and with Qutai stuffed into a sack, they are able to successfully leave The Pit with the rest of the Slashers, splitting from them once they are outside.

In the stands the remaining members of the party split up and make for the exits. Suna and Ryo successfully mingle with the crowd and make their way out, whilst Sassani casts invisibility on herself and sits still to wait for the chaos to die down and make an escape. Kathra just walks calmly towards the exit, and when she is challenged by the guards points out to them that all she did was defend other members of the audience from The Black Beast, who'd tried to get into the stands. The guards' conviction is wavering, but at that moment the Beast completes his climb out of the moat around the arena and crests the top of the stands again. Not noticing the motionless Sassani, he bolts towards Kathra and the guards. The guards flee, but Kathra stands in its path to stop it hurting innocents. In grunting, broken Common The Beast says it only wishes to hurt the guards, so Kathra moves aside. However, she then offers to heal The Beast if it will leave without causing any more trouble. The Black Beast agrees, then flees towards the exits.

Once the chaos has died down Sassani sneaks out by holding onto the side of a leaving boat, still invisible. She stops for a bath before returning to rendezvous with the others back at The Crooked Oar.

Once everyone has reconvened they try to pick apart the situation. The party reveal that they had been sent by Shava Dehu to make contact with Qutai, whilst Wei Liang states that he had been sent by Qutai's employer to break him out of his confinement at The Pit. Qutai reveals that approximately three weeks previously The Pit had been overtaken by the Goto Mei gang; he was jumped on arriving at work one day and throw into a cell without any explanation. Whilst watching he had learned that some of the guards working at The Pit had changed sides, and some seem to have vanished and been replaced. They surmise that the timing of this overthrow could line up with Shava's portal to Hebi Palace being shut off, and that events may be related.

Once Qutai believes that the group really were sent by Shava he reveals that they all work for the same organisation, but that he should put them in touch with a man called Aman Bedzhi. Wei reveals that once he'd retrieved Qutai he was supposed to meet Aman to hand him over, so the group decides to attend the meeting together to meet Aman.

Though it's quite late at night, the party rents two boats to take them to the Imperial Gardens, the Easternmost of the five islands of Hebi Palace, and the only one that is open to the public. They hide Qutai in a box to transport him without being spotted, though this does look a little odd when passing through the gardens. Wei knows faster ways to reach the rendezvous point, but due to their fears of Goto Mei infiltration they take the route with the least amount of guard checkpoints rather than travelling directly through The Fangs. Moving through the gardens he does not see anything amiss, and upon reaching the checkpoint to move into the Serpent Clan's bureaucratic centre his password works without incident, allowing the group to progress.

Once they reach the drop-off point they find themselves in a large scribe's room. The walls are lined up to the high ceiling with scroll shelves, and rows of low writers tables are spread evenly across the floor. The only light comes from a lamp that Wei carries. Once the door is shut behind them a man's voice, Aman's, calls out from the darkness, demanding to know who the interlopers were. Between them, Qutai and Wei explain the presence of the rest of the party. Trying to look around the room in the dark, some members of the party spot a shadowy figure in the rafters of the tall building. Once they've explained the situation the voice changes, no longer Aman's, becoming that of an unknown woman. She thanks them for the information and explains that Aman isn't coming, before wishing them goodbye.

There's a flash of magical energy from the far end of the room as someone escapes through a portal, but before the group can react an arrow flies from the rafters and catches Qutai in the neck. The group scramble for cover and begin returning fire, doing some damage to the building as their assailant moves between the rafters trying to hide from them. Suna begins reading the person's mind, and uses this to track them even when they are able to hide from the others. Calling questions to direct their thoughts, she gleans from the assassin that they are there just to kill Qutai, that Aman is safely home in bed, and that they work for someone called Sanua.

The party eventually manages to knock the assassin from the rafters, and Kana leaps from the shelves he'd been climbing to catch them in mid-air, saving them from dying on impact with the floor. They quickly tie the unconscious assassin and put them in Qutai's box, before making a run from the guards that they can hear approaching to investigate the hole Sassani had blown in the roof. Sneaking out from a different entrance the group manages to double-back on the guards, stealing one of their boats and peppering the pursuing vessels with arrows and magic whilst Kathra put the men at the tillers to sleep, causing their pursuers to crash into each other whilst the group made their escape. They eventually scuttle the boat under a nondescript building and make their way back to the Crooked Oar on foot.

Once back they secure the assassin, a man, to a chair and slap him awake. He refuses to give his name, but Suna reads it from his mind as Yisul. He claims to be a professional, with no ties to Sanua other than the fact she hired him to do a job. He says that he has no way of contacting her further, but that there is a dead-drop for the second half of his payment that he was going to collect once the work was complete. He gives the group the location of the dead drop in exchange for a stay of execution, with Suna promising to let him go if his information turned out to be true. The group turn in for the night, though leaving a watch over Yisul, and the next morning head out to the dead drop location.

En route to the dead drop, located in an old, abandoned ship repair depot in Downriver, Kathra splits off from the rest of the party, saying she has a matter to investigate nearby. When the rest of the party arrive en location Wei takes some time to scout the area, but doesn't spot anything amiss. Wei and Kana head in by climbing across the underneath of the access bridge from the adjoining island, whilst Suna and Ryo head across the top, a floor up. Sassani elects to stay outside in case anything should happen and backup be needed.

Inside the depot the group spots the second-floor office, a box-like room attached to the sides of the warehouse space. Suna and Ryo begin heading towards it, whilst Kana and Wei take up vantages points around the building. Kana spots a man hiding on top of the office box, but has no way of notifying the others without raising the alarm. Ryo and Suna enter the office and successfully open the safe, as it was described, but when they try to leave the man above them kicks a pile of boxes full of black power down into their path, blocking the door and trapping them inside. Whilst they try to open the door from the inside Kana launches from his hiding place and tries to take out the man. Whilst he scores a good few hits the man manages to escape and throws himself from the office into the water below, calling out “BLOW IT” as he does.

Two archers appear on the roof of the depot and fire burning arrows into the black powder, setting off a huge explosion. Inside the office both Ryo and Suna are knocked unconscious. Kana abandons chasing the man to drop in through the hole rent in its side to try to stabilise them, whilst Wei climbs down from his vantage point to help. Once all four are inside the burning room the archers on the roof open fire on the ropes holding the gantry leading to it in place, scoring a hit and dropping the gantry away, leaving them trapped.

Sassani hears the commotion from outside and comes to investigate, opening fire on the scouts on the room with Eldritch Blasts. She draws their fire for long enough that Wei and Kana are able to stabilise Ryo and Suna and begin evacuating them via a custom pulley system from the room, eventually scoring enough hits to chase one of the archers off and blow another from the roof. Wei finds a use for the bag of sand he always carries with him and manages to keep the fire at bay long enough for everyone to be lowered into the water below whilst Sassani chases down the first assailant and blasts them away. The group carry their wounded comrades into a nearby abandoned building to wait for them to regain consciousness.

Whilst this has been going on, Kathra has been travelling through Downriver trying to find out more information about the apparent priest of Kazan no Saisei who has been killing people in the district. She initially doesn't have much luck as, despite the fact she tried to give out some coin for food to those that need it to gain their favour, most are too afraid to talk to her. She gathers that this is because she looks very similar to the person who has been committing the murders, and she is tainted by association. She does get a child to tell her that the priest normally goes to the “mutant districts”, but she is unable to gain anything else from him.

With this in mind, she spots as she's travelling a larger island that seems to have ramshackle houses that would be too small for normal human inhabitants. She disembarks to investigate, and finds clear signs of struggle on the island; doors hanging from hinges, destroyed furniture, and signs of fire. It seems mostly abandoned, but as she progresses further in a stunted woman runs screaming at her from one of the doorways, hacking at her armour with a bread knife. Kathra waits for the woman to exhaust herself, whilst trying to explain that she's here to help. It doesn't seem to work, but as the woman gives up and turns tearfully to leave Kathra casts a divine spell on the area to calm everyone's emotions. The woman halts and looks back, and an equally stunted elderly man emerges from another hovel and approaches her. She manages to make the man listen, and he eventually introduces himself as Ebron and the woman as Prose, then invites Kathra into his shack to explain the situation to her.

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