Date: 10/17/10

XP Awarded: None

Start: The city of Tashluta, dry season (Ches), 1369 DR.

The party spends the next five days in Tashluta training, resting, and shopping. Laurrens has come down with some kind of blight from his time in the smuggling tunnels, but his skill with healing combined with several days of bed rest help him overcome the disease quickly. Taark spends quite a bit of time scouring the city for dwarves and in particular for information on members of something called the "Goldenshield Trading Consortium" - he doesn't explain much to the party, other than the fact that he's got reason to believe these dwarves are up to bad things. During his searches, the Smiths' Guildhall puts him in touch with Drelligar Coalbeard, a gifted smith who agrees to create a suit of dwarvencraft armor for Taark. Azaad visits the Library of Ultimate Truth attached to the House of the All-Seeing Orb (Temple of Savras) and pays a scribe to make a copy of a detailed map of Tashluta for him.

After everyone has wrapped up their business, the party reconvenes to make plans for visiting the Taxidermists' Guildhall to invstigate the claims in Penkus's final note. Azaad hunts around and finds a recently deceased cat and brings it along to the shop, which happens to be in a filthy and poverty-stricken area of Shadowshore District overlooking Dead Dog Plaza. While Nather, Laurrens and Tilan go to the narrow and reeking alley outside the building's back entrance and Taark and Memnon loiter in the triangular plaza out front, Azaad enters the front door. Inside, he is confronted by dozens of expertly preserved animals ranging from monkeys, parrots and bats to more exotic creatures like a monstrous centipede, a stirge, and even a black dragon wyrmling. A bell next to the door has a label reading 'Ring for Service', but Azaad moves to the door in the back of the showroom and cautiously opens it. Inside is a hallway with several doors. Listening for anyone approaching, he opens one of the doors to reveal a storeroom. Deciding he's being perhaps a bit too risky, he goes back outside the shop to bring Taark and Memnon into the showroom.

As Azaad prepares to explore more doors in the hall, he hears a door open and someone approaching. Quickly moving back into the showroom, he adopts a dramatic personality as a sharp-featured and well-dressed man enters. The man introduces himself as Nemian Roblach, taxidermist extraordinaire, and asks the group what they are looking for. Azaad spins a fanciful tale about how the two armored adventurers killed his cat and have offered to pay for it to be preserved, and asks for it to be posed in a dramatic, pouncing position. Nemian seems to have his doubts upon investigating the cat, but quickly gets down to negotiations for the works. Once these are concluded, Azaad slips out of the shop while the other two engage Nemian with a series of questions about the black dragon wyrmling and other delaying tactics.

In the back of the shop, Nather successfully opens the lock once the others receive Azaad's signal. Inside is a crowded workshop, and the party explore the back rooms of the building as the others keep Nemian distracted. The adventurers find a storeroom, a supply room, and a meeting room before Nemian tires of his fruitless talks with Taark. Telling the dwarf that he's a busy man and has no more time to waste, he returns to the rear of the shop where he encounters Laurrens. Surprised, the shopkeeper casts a spell and becomes invisible, but Tilan and Nather charge through the hall and grapple the unseen figure, quickly wrestling him to the floor and tying him up for interrogation. Searching the shop, they find a locked chest under his bed with a large amount of gold, platinum, and gems.

Nemian doesn't put up much resistance and quickly admits to acting as the Lotus Dragon's eyes and ears. He offers to show the party a secret entrance to their underground tunnels in return for being set free to flee Tashluta, and opens a secret door in a hall in the back of his shop. Behind the door is a narrow passage that leads to a trapdoor with a ladder descending a shaft. The party gags him and leaves him tied up on his bed before descending the ladder.

Below is a musty natural cavern with moisture dripping from the walls onto the rough stone floor. In one direction the cavern snakes into the darkness, and the party can hear the lapping of waves against stone. In the other direction is a stout wooden door reinforced by iron bands. Taark explores down the tunnel far enough to see it open into some kind of seacave, then the party goes through the wooden door to find a brick-lined passage reinforced with numerous wooden ceiling supports and lit by cheap lanterns set at regular intervals.

To the right the party finds a series of wooden doors left ajar leading to a small room with a closed door. In the other direction the tunnel rounds a corner and then takes a jog to the right where a couple more doors intersect the passage. As the adventurers round the jog, they come face to face with a group of shifty-looking men dressed in leather armor. In the tight passageway, only the first members of each group can fight, but the men have hand crossbows that they quickly put to use. Searching for a way to open another front in the battle, Azaad plunges through one of the doors at hand to find a large room with a floor covered in thick padded mats. Target dummies are scattered around the room, and three more thugs turn to regard the mage with surprise. Thinking quickly, Laurrens interposes himself between Azaad and the enemies, allowing the mage time to cast a spell that disables three of the four. Around the corner of the room is a wooden stage topped by a padded throne and two more thugs, and Laurrens engages them with his greatsword.

Out in the hall, Taark, Nather, and Memnon run back down the hall to try to find a way to circle around to the back of the group fighting Tilan. Bursting through a closed door into another brick-lined hall, they encounter another group of thugs running towards them and engage them. The enemies are cut down quickly and the adventurers are able to press forward to another jog in the hallway where they become bogged down by increasing numbers of men drawn by the raised alarm. A nearby door opens and more enemies emerge, and Memnon can see that inside is a very large barracks with row after row of double bunks, including what seems like a dozen men readying armor and weapons.

Back in the first hallway Tilan has dispatched several of the men he's fighting, but he hears a deep growl from the hall behind his opponent. A moment later, the man moves aside to reveal a huge, black-furred wolf with glowing red eyes that charges Tilan. It growls something at him in something that almost sounds like a language, then delivers a nasty bite to Tilan's thigh. Shaking its head, the wolf tries to drag the paladin off his feet, but Tilan keeps his balance and delivers a counterblow. In the nearby room, Azaad and Laurrens finish off the last of the thugs and get to work binding the unconscious ones with rope.

The other group of adventurers have found themselves boxed in at the corridor's jog, unable to proceed against the hail of hand crossbow bolts and continuous reinforcements joining the battle. Stuck in the rear, Nather scouts the hallways behind the warriors to ensure they aren't flanked. Meanwhile, in the other hall Tilan loses his feet to another of the wolf's vicious attacks and is badly wounded. Laurrens returns to the hall to heal Tilan's wounds before the wolf takes him out of the fight. This continues, with Tilan attempting to keep his feet against the wolf's onslaught and Laurrens using his healing magic to keep the paladin in the fight. Azaad's magic isn't much use in this battle, and he takes the opportunity to explore more of the nearby doors.

Taark uses his priestly power of the forge to envelope himself in flames and Nather throws a flask of alchemist's fire over the hand crossbow archers, forcing them to beat the flames out. With Memnon defeating every enemy that makes it out the door of the barracks, it doesn't take long before morale breaks and the survivors turn to flee. Taark stomps forward to find a connecting hall leading back to where he left his comrades, while Memnon races through the brick tunnels to join the others.

The stalemate in the other tunnel is broken when Laurrens is hit by a poisoned hand crossbow bolt and a debilitating sickness nauseates him. Dizzily slumping against the passage wall, he fights to stay upright. With his support out of action, Tilan is dragged to the floor and fights an increasingly desperate battle against the more powerful wolf. Fortunately, Memnon arrives not a moment too soon, giving Tilan a chance to pull himself to his feet and recover. Taark's path through the tunnels leads him into a dining hall, from where he approaches the fight from the other direction. After taking out the hand crossbow archers behind the wolf, Tark and Tilan flank the wolf and defeat it just as Laurrens recovers from his poisoning.

With the brick halls now quiet, Memnon moves quickly to secure the door that the retreating enemies fled through and hammers it shut with iron spikes. Nather moves into the dining hall and investigates a closed door in the back wall. Hearing what sounds like a fire, he opens the door only to see a cauldron of boiling liquid being flung at him, which he barely dodges in time. A metal pole extending from the fireplace to another door leads him to a tiny room covered in sand and seashells. A whimpering sound comes from a heap of blankets, and the party finds a cowering kobold buried within. The group tie it up within the hammock and move on to explore the series of rooms leading on from the training hall found by Azaad.

Opening the next door in a series of chambers and halls, Taark finds a room empty of all but a metal chain running across the floor from a hole in the wall next to a door. The party moves forward to continue when an enormous insect on the ceiling (attached to the chain) snags Memnon with its forelimbs and delivers a crushing bite with its oversized jaws. As it moves down the walls to approach its next victim, the party's warriors surround it and deliver a series of critical blows that quickly destroy it.

After tending to Memnon's wounds, the party opens the next door to reveal a room dominated by a large hexagonal oak table. One wall bears a huge map of Tashluta, on which dozens of coloured flags have been placed. Another wall holds a giant piece of slate covered in a tangled mess of chalk scribblings. By the door, a winch handle is connected to a drum and chain. The party briefly inspects the map of Tashluta, then move on through a door in the back of the room that leads to a long hall.

The party waits in the room while Nather cautiously moves up the hall to the door on the far end and opens it. With a shuddering moan, two large humanoid zombies shamble forward with arms outstretched. Nather quickly retreats down the hall and the rest of the party take up defensive positions in the room to await the slowly shamboling undead. When the zombies finally arrive they are quickly cut down by ready blades, and the party continues on through the room they were in.

Passing through a short and twisting hallway, the adventurers open the next door to find a small but opulently decorated chamber. Instead of the dank brick-lined walls the rest of the complex is composed of, the room's smooth plaster walls are painted violet. Delicately crafted silver lanterns flicker softly, casting light over a shelf lined with books, statuettes, stuffed animals, and other items. A five-foot landscape of Tashluta hangs on one wall, but all the ships in the harbour fly flags depicting a serpentine dragon coiled around a flower. A pair of overstuffed chairs sits beside a low table heaped with fruit and bottles of wine, the floor is covered with a thick, deep purple carpet, and in the back of the room an open door leads to what appears to be a bedroom.

Lounging in one of the overstuffed chairs is an athletic, red-haired woman. A bright-eyed and hungry-looking green draconic creature stands at her side regarding you with intense yellow eyes. The woman looks the party up and down with an appraising eye and says "You must be Lavinia's flunkies. You're obviously resourceful people with strong skills in a fight. I could use people like you in my organization. I'm Rowyn, perhaps we could come to an agreement." Tilan immediately reacts with disgust at the idea of working for someone who employs the undead as guardians, though a few other members of the party seem to consider the idea briefly. When Taark declines the offer, she sighs and nods to the draconic creature, saying "Gut Tugger, do your thing!"

With that, she nimbly springs out of the chair and takes up a defensive position behind Gut Tugger and surprisingly begins a salty sea chant with ribald lyrics, which seems to invigorate her and her ally. Within the cramped room, the party's warriors have a difficult time maneuvering around each other without dropping their defenses against Rowyn's probing rapier. Gut Tugger's scales deflect most blows from causing him any damage, and Rowyn moves so quickly that she's difficult to land any blows on at all.

The cramped hallway and entrance make it impossible for the spellcasters and archers in the hallway to target Rowyn or Gut Tugger. The head of the Lotus Dragons proves to be a canny combatant, and uses her acrobatics to evade the party's blades and position herself in defensive positions that threaten the warriors with flanking. The party's fighters maneuver to avoid the flanking, but Rowyn's skill at feinting allow her to drive her rapier home through dropped defenses several times. Once the party manages to land a couple of hits on her, she is starting to look badly wounded when she does a tumbling retreat to a corner of the room where she can drink a healing potion that restores her back to health.

When Taark and Tilan move to close on her position, she dodges out of the way and ends up in the room's entrance next to an unprotected Nather and Azaad. The party's mage desperately backpedals and dives through a nearby door to avoid her fierce onslaught - fortunately for him the room he ends up in is an unoccupied swimming chamber. Rowyn snarls at Nather "Too bad you chose such poor companions, you and I could have made a good team. Sorry about this!" as she stabs him with her rapier. Meanwhile, Memnon and Laurrens have inflicted several heavy blows upon Gut Tugger, and the fierce draconic creature finally drops from its wounds. Rowyn cries out in anguish and tumbles through a wall of blades to the side of her fallen companion. Pulling a wand from her belt, she points it at Gut Tugger's corpse and a shudder runs through it. She inflicts a nasty wound on Tilan, then tumbles again through the open door into her bedroom from where Nather has been firing a hail of crossbow bolts at her. Taark follows her into the room and positions himself to drive her back from the corner Nather has been driven into.

Gut Tugger's corpse slowly staggers to its feet in an unholy semblance of life, and a dim red light glows in its lifeless eyes as it snaps at Laurrens. Across the room, Laurrens helps the badly wounded Tilan and Memnon keeps the zombie busy. Although Laurrens is almost out of healing spells, an unexpected healing effect has been following the party around since they've been exploring the tunnels. Driving Rowyn back out of the bedroom where Nather is cornered, Taark follows her into the main room. Rowyn commands the Gut Tugger zombie to take up a position in front of the bedroom door in order to flank Memnon or Taark, but the two manage to avoid the trap. Foiled in her setup, Rowyn carries out an acrobatic tumble across the room and through the doorway into the bedroom where she delivers a deadly rapier stab to Nather, who gives a gurgle and slides off her blade onto the floor in a crumpled heap.

Nather's companions try to fight past the zombie to get to Nather before it's too late, but the creature has the doorway solidly blocked. To the party's surprise, Rowyn sheathes her rapier and bandages Nather's wound to stabilize him, then with one arm hoists him from the floor and with the other holds a dagger at his throat. She calls out "Freeze where you're at or your friend gets it!"

The adventurers slowly lower their weapons and step back, and Taark tells her that the party is only here for Vanthus Vanderboren. Rowyn gives a curt laugh and sneers "That's it!? Let's make a deal. I give you Vanthus, and you leave this place never to return." While Laurrens is inclined to make a deal, Tilan and Taark are considerably more suspicious. The paladin of Tyr still refuses to make a deal with someone who uses (and creates) undead creatures, and the dwarf doesn't know if the party can trust her to honor any deal struck. Azaad heads away from the party back through the map room to where the three Lotus Dragon prisoners are tied up.

The rest of the party debates for a minute until Rowyn tires of the stalemate and demands a decision. Just as she is about to plunge the dagger into Nather's unprotected neck, the trader gives a start as he regains consciousness. Surprised by this, Rowyn momentarily shifts her attention away from the other party members, and they take advantage of this to rush her. Nather grabs the arm that is holding him up and Taark bursts through the door to tackle them both. Memnon joins the fray while Laurrens and Tilan keep the Gut Tugger zombie busy.

Rowyn proves to be an able wrestler, and she manages to grab one of the potion vials from her belt and pop it into her mouth before one of the wrestlers can grab her. Her body dissolves into an opaque green mist that coalesces and flows into one of the several drainage pipes that open into the room.