Back in Absalom, there was a young tax collector who once owed me a favor. He was a friend of a friend and I had set him up with a young woman I knew, and they got married. Since he offered to help me out if I ever needed it, I took him up on his offer, asking for information.
You see, I was still trying to learn the value of money in Golarion. If I had to work beyond performances at a tavern, I had no idea what would be a fair wage. I mean, I couldn’t use those performances as a comparison since I had no idea what bands back home make.
So it was that we spent a couple afternoons discussing the types of wages people make. Turns out, at least in his experience, that your average reasonably skilled craftsman makes somewhere in the neighborhood of around six hundred gold pieces a year. That amount comfortable supports the craftsman, a spouse and a couple kids at somewhere in a middle class lifestyle. Back home, for the sake of simplicity, let’s assume that puts us at around sixty thousand dollars a year.
By comparison, a somewhat skilled farmer makes somewhere in the neighborhood of four hundred gold. By our scale here, that means that he’s making around forty grand a year. Considering the general costs of living, that perhaps means he has the ability to put aside maybe forty or fifty gold year for larger expenses, injuries and the like.
Now, I’m making some suppositions here, but I’m reasonably comfortable with those numbers. It gives me a basis to work from. It puts every gold piece at around a hundred dollars in comparative value. If I assume I’m off by around ten dollars per gold piece or so, I can at least ball park things a bit.
To make sure I understood it well enough, I compared the value of some common items here with their counterparts at home. A loaf of bread runs around two copper pieces in most bakeries. At one hundred coppers to a gold, that means a loaf of bread runs about two bucks. That seems reasonable. A pitcher of common wine runs around two silver, or twenty dollars. Again, makes sense.
It breaks down in the face of the differences in our manufacturing culture compared to theirs, with things like a simple backpack running about two hundred bucks, but thus is the way of machines. What we can put out in the thousands per day in a single factory, a craftsman on Golarion might make one or two of in a day.
Now, I haven’t actually tallied up the value of what I own, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the possessions I carry are worth somewhere in the low millions of dollars in value by equivalence. Definitely at the point where the word million is a valid way of describing the value of my possessions, even if I’m only at a very high fraction of that. Perhaps three-quarters? I don’t know. Again, haven’t really calculated it. I do know that I’m currently sitting on about one hundred and eighty grand in liquid assets, mostly coins but also a few gems and such.
Not bad for a kid who has only lived here a decade or so.
After a few days of recuperation, we left Sandpoint for Magnimar. I worried that Sandpoint was setting itself up to be someone’s Doomed Hometown, so as we left I had the nagging feeling that something would go wrong while we were gone. Still, it would be worse to leave our lead to get colder, so we headed for the big city. Maybe I could come up with a way to protect the town while not actually being there.
Upon arriving in town in the early or mid morning, Lenn and Geo headed for the inn we had stayed at last time, to secure us some rooms and probably a bit of food. Aurora, Paulie and I went to sell the telescope I had taken from the manor and repaired with magic as well as the painting we had liberated as well. All told, not a bad haul.
As we were heading over to the inn, we noticed a house with a number of city guards outside. I talked Paulie into talking to the guards to find out what was going on, since none of them were women for me to try charming.
He did a good job as usual and we found out some troubling information. Turns out there had been a number of murders, all similar to the ones committed by the Skinsaw Man. I had suspected that he was nothing but a pawn. Sometimes, I hate being right.
We found out that the person in charge of the inquiry into the murders was a man by the name of Justice Ironbriar. I had heard the name before, in passing, but didn’t know much about him.
In a town of a good size like this in a world as horrifying as this one, it wasn’t too uncommon for there to be murders. Normally, however, they were confined to the seedier parts of town. These had spilled out into the wealthier neighborhoods. In fact, they seemed to explicitly target nobles and merchants of some means.
This had the town in an uproar. The ritualistic nature of the murders wasn’t helping either. As we returned to our inn, it seemed that everyone was talking about the killings.
Lenn was a bit drunk when we got to the inn. Geo told us that they had heard rumors of the killings and we compared information, before setting off to find out what more we could gather.
We had made a number of contacts in Magnimar when we were last here, so we tried those first. It was at the home of one of those, Amanda Kaddren, that Geo recalled the cage we had found in the Misgivings. Sadly, that meant that I had to decline Amanda’s offer to let me give her a thorough private interrogation. Lives were at stake, no matter how attractive she was and how thorough she was offering to let me be.
I had Geo take a few minutes to damage the cage as an excuse to go talk to the man who had made it, and we set off for Pug’s Contraptions.
The proprietor fixed the cage and we got what information we could, saying that our friend in Sandpoint had asked us to return it to his friend here in Magnimar, but we’d forgotten his friend’s name. The man did his best to be helpful, telling us that the one who had bought it was a strange man by the name of “Foxboot or something like that”.
Well crap, that told us nothing. We were getting ready to leave when he recalled one piece of useful information. Turns out the Foxgloves owned a place in the city. Since we had taken the keys from Foxglove, we figured we’d head there. Good a place as any to look.
There was a guard walking along the road out in front of the townhouse as we approached it. Lenn, unfortunately, was still drunk. “We’re breaking in!” he declared loudly to the guard.
If I could have facepalmed right then without looking suspicious, I would have facepalmed so hard that I knocked myself out. Instead, I laughed. “Sorry about our friend, guardsman. He’s drunk. We’re just airing out a friend’s house while he’s out of town. See, we have the key.” He didn’t quite seem to believe me, and I can’t quite blame him. After all, we were armed to the teeth. But still, he did nothing to interfere with us. He just called over another guard and they chatted outside the house. Probably making sure we weren’t stealing anything.
Once inside, I set up a magical alarm in the entry room, to let me know if anyone came in behind us. While I did that, Lenn picked up the rug, looking for mold. We weren’t bothering to be quiet. After all, the place should be empty and the city watch already knew we were in there. Being sneaky would have just raised suspicion.
We heard footsteps upstairs. I almost panicked, thinking a servant was still home. But then I remembered the words of Michael Westen. “I never run around in the bushes in a ski mask when I’m breaking in someplace. Somebody catches you, what are you gonna say? You want to look like a legitimate visitor until the very last minute. If you can’t look legit, confused works almost as well. Maybe you get a soda from the fridge, or a yogurt. If you get caught, you just look confused and apologize like crazy for taking the yogurt – nothing could be more innocent.”
I quickly recalled the name of the Foxglove hireling in Sandpoint. “Rogors, is that you up there?” I called upstairs.
I heard a familiar voice. “Oh, we have guests!” Aldern Foxglove said. “We’ll be right down!”
Aurora looked over at me and mouthed “What the fu…?”
I shrugged, replying with a mouthed “I know, right?”
After a moment, Aldern and Iesha Foxglove stood before us. What kind of magical trickery was this? Had we done the Time Warp and gotten here a few months ago? It wouldn’t have been hard. It’s just a jump to the left, followed by a step to the right. My mind began racing for the right thing to say.
Unfortunately, my right thing to say wasn’t as fast as Lenn’s wrong thing to say. “Didn’t we kill you?”
This time I couldn’t contain the facepalm. I decided to go with the assumption that either these were fakes or the Aldern we killed was. “Lenn, that wasn’t real. Remember? Aldern and I were fencing.” I looked at Aldern. “You were showing me some of your moves after the boar hunt and I accidentally tripped you. You were out for over an hour.”
“Oh! Right, right,” Aldern said. “I remember that. See, big guy, I’m okay.” That answered that. Either this wasn’t the real Aldern Foxglove or he knew about the fake and thus had to cover for his lack of knowledge.
“Anyway, what are you doing back in town? We took this cage to be repaired like you asked because you said you wouldn’t be able to make it back for a few more weeks. And this must be Iesha,” I said, removing my hat and bowing. “I’m afraid that your tales of her beauty simply don’t do her justice. I thought she was going to be out of town as well. Or did you set this up to make sure you could show off your extremely beautiful wife?”
‘Iesha’ tried to look flattered and Aldern laughed. “It seems you’ve caught on to my little scheme. Come, join us for refreshments in the dining room.”
“Sounds good,” I replied. “Lenn, why don’t you help our host with the refreshments. The rest of you go ahead, I’ll be right along. My boot seems to be coming untied and I need to attend to it.”
While they went ahead, I fiddled with my laces until they were gone, then cast a spell to allow me to hear thoughts. I concentrated as I made my way into the next room, where they waited, and began the questioning.
“Since you guys are here, maybe you can help us find work like you promised,” I called out to Aldern in the kitchen, focusing my thoughts on Iesha. “You said that the Brothers might have something for us to do?”
“We can certainly see what they have available,” Aldern called back, sounding uncertain.
Iesha’s mind, however, revealed something else. “The Brothers? What do they already know?” she thought.
I had to fight to keep from grinning. “Oh, and before I forget, if they don’t have anything, don’t forget to ask your friend Xanesha. You said she might have something as well that we could work on.”
The alarm in Iesha’s mind was immense. “This isn’t going well. What did that idiot tell them?”
Aldern walked into the room holding a tray of glasses with what I guessed to be some tea. “That’s also a good possibility. She’s always looking for help.”
I turned to focus on his mind, but before making it, I glanced at Aurora. In that moment, our eyes met and my spell allowed me to hear her thoughts. It was an accident. I never intended to do so. Still, I saw her thoughts anyway. She was utterly seething. Her thoughts were a bit jumbled, but if she had been given the chance, I think she would have hit Iesha right then and there.
I really am unsure why she was so angry. Unless, maybe she was jealous? I did get that my compliment to Iesha was part of it. That is somewhat intriguing.
<That had nothing to do with it. Just forget you ever saw anything.>
<But you were…you know what? Nevermind. I didn’t see anything.>
<Smart choice.>
I managed to break away from Aurora’s mind and focused on Aldern. He was just as close to panic as Iesha. “Dear, why don’t we head out into the garden and pick some fresh herbs. I bet some of that tarragon would go splendidly with the sausage our guest has brought with him.”
From in the kitchen, Lenn called out, “I like sausage.”
I motioned for Geo to check outside. He opened the door a crack and I looked out as well, hearing their thoughts as he heard the words. The gist of it is that Iesha was going to double back around and they were going to surround us and attack.
I rushed towards the entrance she would use and activated the hat of disguise I had taken off of the real Aldern, doing my best to look like him.
A few moments later, Iesha came in. She seemed startled that Aldern was there. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be surrounding them.”
I felt one corner of my mouth turn upwards and began chanting the spell I had chosen for this. As the power began to coalesce within me, I heard the fighting starting in the other room. I have to admit, I had never handled offensive power of this magnitude. It may have gone to my head. “And lo, the power of the gods was within me. The might of Zeus flows through me and I strike down those who would oppose me! My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Okay, so maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me to stop bragging as it brought forth those words. I can’t be sure.
Still, you have to admit that it was awesome when I stretched out my hand and a bolt of lightning, nature’s raw destructive power, shot from my fingertips into Iesha. As the bolt struck her, her form changed, revealing a grotesque creature I didn’t recognize. Some kind of shapeshifter, to be certain, but not sure what it was.
The rest of the fight was quick and brutal. When it was over, Geo opened the door and called out to the two guardsmen still standing outside. The fighting had gotten their attention and they looked ready to draw their weapons.
“Guardsmen, I must speak with you both immediately,” my betentacled ally said. They rushed in, weapons drawn. Immediately they saw the corpse of the thing that was pretending to be Iesha. “As you can see, we have managed to take out a pair of shapeshifters. I apologize for earlier when my friend proclaimed that we were breaking in. In truth, we’re part of a special task force deputized to deal with the perpetrators of the recent murders and we believed that some of the people involved were hiding in here. We wanted you to wait outside, but couldn’t risk tipping off these people that we knew they might be inside, so the big guy made up that lie.”
I was impressed. For someone who wouldn’t have any idea what a Bavarian Fire Drill was, Geo was masterfully setting one up. I decided to capitalize on his efforts.
“We didn’t realize that they had shapeshifters in their employ, so that was a surprise. We need to investigate the premises and can’t be disturbed while we do so, as we’ll be employing dangerous arcane methods to reveal what we can. As such, we need everyone kept away.” I pointed at one guard. “That will be your job. Secure the perimeter and keep everyone away.” I turned to the other. “We sent two of Sandpoint’s guards ahead on a related mission of similar importance. I need you to go locate them and have them come here to meet with us.”
The two looked at each other, a bit dubious. “You heard the man,” Aurora barked, settling into the tone of authority one usually hears from drill sergeants. “Now move!” The men rushed to their tasks immediately.
We searched the house, knowing that it would probably be no more than an hour or so before someone caught on to us. For the most part, it was uninteresting. Upper story windows were boarded up, though you couldn’t tell that from the street.
In one room, we found a fireplace with some lions on it. Geo recalled that one of the keys we had taken from Aldern had a similar motif, so we looked for a keyhole. It was in one of the lions’ mouths. Upon turning it, a secret compartment opened.
Inside, we found the deed to the Misgivings. Turns out it was financed in part by the Brothers of the Seven and would become theirs after one hundred years. They were going to be pissed when they found out that we’d burned it down.
We also found a ledger. In it was noted an entry “Iesha’s trip to Absalom” with notes that payment was to be made to someone called “B7” on Oathday at midnight at the Sevens Sawmill. In hindsight, I should have realized that the sawmill would have been related to them on name alone. Oh well, you miss some things.
We also found some platinum coins, which we went ahead and took as evidence. Spendable evidence. We then closed the hidden compartment, making sure to make it look like we didn’t know it was there.
When we returned downstairs, the guard I had sent to locate the folks from Sandpoint returned. “I found one of them. He wants to speak with you all. I’m to bring you to him.”
The others and I exchanged glances. “Let us go bravely forth!” Paulie proclaimed.
The guardsman looked a fair bit battered when we met up with him. I remembered seeing him in town, but had never caught his name. “I’m so glad that you’re here,” he said. “Marus was taken, along with Miss Vinder. I have no idea how they found out about you raising Miss Vinder, but they left a note with me. Found it when I came to. They want one hundred platinum coins delivered to the spot noted on this letter or they’ll kill both of them. Please, you have to save them. Marus has a wife and kid.”
One hundred platinum coins works out to the equivalent of about a hundred thousand dollars, in case you’re wondering. “We’ll find them and bring them home safely. Then we’re going to make sure that these assholes understand just how bad they’ve screwed up by trying to extort us,” I said.
Along with the hundred coins, I slipped in my Sihedron Medallion. Its shape should ensure I’d have an easy time finding it with magic, in case our foes gave us the slip. I also carved something into it with my engraving kit, to make it easier to find. We then headed to the dropsite.
Geo melded in with the crowd in the plaza, finding a good vantage point and then using his alchemy to chameleon himself against a wall. Lenn and Paulie watched his progress from around a corner, hidden from view of the fountain in the center. Once he was in position, Aurora and I made the drop, stowing the bag in a hidden spot under the outer lip of the fountain, then went a few blocks out of our way and doubled back around to where Lenn and Paulie waited.
It was over an hour later, once crowds had dispersed quite a bit, that someone checked the dropsite. Geo followed them, and we followed Geo. He went through a winding path, eventually reaching an abandoned looking townhouse in a bad neighborhood.
While the others watched from outside, Geo and I made our way inside. I used magic to hide myself while Geo relied on natural skills. We listened outside the room where the man and his friends were talking. Geo slid the door open ever so slightly. I got a good look at him and we heard them talking about how they would get even more money from us.
Geo shut the door and we searched the house. The victims were nowhere to be found. We had to find a way to learn where the Katrine and Marus were being held and I had already used my mind reading spell for the day. Any attempt to try using it again would likely blow up in my face. No, we were going to have to go with a trickery based approach.
I used a light spell while standing by the upper floor window to let the others know to approach and we headed down to open the door for them. Once Geo had it open, I activated the hat I had taken from Aldern and focused on appearing just like the man we had followed here as I could. It wasn’t perfect, but the lighting was dim enough that I was willing to believe it could work. I put on my magical sleeves to alter my clothes, giving them a disheveled and torn appearance, but otherwise looking like the other man.
The others followed me and set up in the hallway out of sight. I flung open the door and pretended to be startled by the doppelganger in the room. I did my best to imitate his voice. “Oh gods! He’s here already! Quickly brothers, we must subdue him!”
All three drew their weapons. Crap. One of the men, the one closest to the window, looked back and forth between me and the man I looked like. “What the hell is going on here?”
This might actually work. “I was bringing back the loot when they jumped me. We messed up big! That one there is their wizard. They tied me up and he used a spell to look like me. He said he was going to read your thoughts and find out where the girl is, and then the big one would make all three of us into sausage!”
The other two men looked to be buying it. My doppelganger looked irritated. “If I’m a fake, then how do you explain this?” He pulled up his sleeve, revealing an intricate tattoo. The others seemed to recognize it and looked to me. “Where’s yours?”
I hadn’t counted on that. I could still salvage this. Thinking quickly, I said, “You know full well I don’t have one. You used your foul magic to strip my tattoo from me and put it on your own skin!” I suddenly stopped, trying to look like I’d heard something. “Oh gods! It’s his friends! They’re in the halls! They must have realized I got away! Run!”
One of the men threw open the window and bolted out. I tried to kick my doppelganger in the crotch but missed, hitting him in the thigh instead. He slashed at me as I dove out the window, catching my side with a shallow slice. As I landed, I could hear Aurora clanking into the room, heading to the window. I shook my head at her, telling her not to follow right away and ran after the fleeing man, doing my best to keep up.
“Into the alley,” I called out. “I need to tend to my wound before I bleed out!”
The man dove into the alley and I followed. “Hurry,” he told me. “We have to get back to the warehouse before they catch us.”
“I’ll just be a moment,” I said. “Keep an eye out behind us there while I wrap the wound.” Once his attention was turned, I cast another spell I had memorized that day. It wouldn’t have worked with three together, but with the one, he was at my mercy. As the spell washed over him, he found himself trusting me as a close friend. Even if he realized I wasn’t who I claimed to be, it would no longer matter.
He turned back to me. “No one’s coming yet, but hurry.”
“All done,” I said. I then made a show of searching my pocket for something. “Crap. I must have dropped it. Give me one moment, I need to run back a little?”
“Why?”
“When they jumped me, I managed to get my hands into the wizard’s pocket without him noticing. Took about a dozen platinum coins and I’m not losing them.”
The man grinned. “You sly dog. Alright, hurry, but you’re giving me a couple of them.”
I grinned back. “Done. Just shout if you see them coming.” I rushed back and pretended to be picking up coins. In reality, I was crushing some chalk, leaving a bit behind for the others to follow. As I was doing so, I spotted one of the others coming out of the house. I gave the signal to stay hidden and rushed back to the other man. “Let’s go!” I said, and we were off.
I left two bits of chalk each time we turned, giving the route we were taking, more or less. I trusted Geo would spot them easily. It took maybe ten minutes to reach our destination. Probably could have gotten there more quickly, but the other guy was taking a circuitous route to lose any pursuit.
We arrived at the warehouse and entered by climbing up some crates to an open window. “Are we certain that they haven’t somehow gotten here before us and taken the prisoners?”
He looked around and spotted a pair of barrels. He went up and gave each a swift kick. I could hear a muffled sound from inside. “They’re still here. If they come after us, we’ll take the girl, put a dagger to her throat and threaten to kill her if they try to follow us. If they don’t show, well the boss will be here in the morning. We’ll see what he wants to do.”
I nodded. I had to make sure that the people inside the barrels were indeed Katrine and Marus, and I had to do so without arousing suspicion. He trusted me, but I didn’t want to take a risk. Someone could get hurt. “Hey, that escape got my heart racing and my wee man excited. How about we take the girl out of the barrel and have some fun?” Heavens help me for uttering those words. But I figured it would be a good way to make sure that the kidnappees were indeed the ones we were trying to save. Not that we wouldn’t have helped random kidnappees, but I had made a promise to Venn that his daughter would make it home safely and I aimed to keep that promise.
He shook his head. “The boss will flay us alive if either of us touches the girl. If you need a minute alone, go behind the crates over there.”
Crap. Well, at least I knew that they likely hadn’t been hurt. “I’ll be fine. I’ll just take some of these coins I got off the wizard and once we’ve taken care of what the boss wants, go buy me a whore. Maybe three.”
He laughed. “I may just join you.”
“Well, you better plan on getting your own, because I’m not sharing mine.”
He laughed again. “I’m going to go check and see if they’ve managed to track us. I’ll be back in a few. No touching the girl while I’m gone,” he said with a stern look.
“And risk you telling the boss? Not likely. Off with ya.” Once he was gone, I quickly opened each barrel and checked inside. The first contained Marus, tied and gagged. I slipped him my dagger. “I’m going to try to take out the guard. If he gets the better of me, you have to use this to escape before the boss gets here.” He nodded and I closed the barrel.
I opened the other barrel. Katrine was inside. She flinched away from me and tried to scream, but the gag prevented it. Obviously she had heard what I’d said to the other man.
“Relax,” I whispered in my own voice. “I’m here to rescue you. I just had to make sure it was you. Just be patient a bit longer and I’ll have you out.” She didn’t seem to believe me, but she nodded and I closed the barrel.
After the man returned, I waited a few minutes and told him I had to use the restroom. Well, in a more gruff and thuggish way, but you know what I mean. Once I was outside, I spotted the others maybe a quarter mile away. I cast a light spell so they could see it and then wrapped myself in a defensive illusion. Then I opened the door and headed back inside. Once my “companion” was in sight, I unleashed the power of another lightning bolt.
Sadly, it wasn’t enough to take him down. He drew his dagger and rushed at me. He never made it. From behind me, a pair of arrows sailed through the air, striking him in the chest. I unleashed a blinding burst of holy light in his face. I could tell it burned him and he was blinded by it. He didn’t even see Lenn as the giant man rushed in and cleaved him in two with his axe.
“Where are they?” Geo asked.
I ended the magical disguise by focusing my thoughts on my hat. “Marus is in this barrel,” I told him. “He has my dagger. I’ll get Katrine.” I opened her barrel again and quickly untied her bonds.
She had tears in her eyes as she threw her arms around my neck. “You came for me!” she said.
She was trembling, still terrified. I returned her embrace, trying to comfort her. “Of course we came for you. You’re safe now.” She cried into my chest for a minute before finally calming and regaining her composure. I dried her eyes with my handkerchief and gave it to her to blow her nose.
“What’s the plan now?” Geo asked, once Katrine had calmed down.
“Their boss will be coming in the morning. We need to clean this up and prepare for his arrival. This ends today.” My tone was a bit more angry than perhaps it should have been.
We cleaned up and rested in shifts. I awoke from my nap to find Katrine sitting beside me. She had held my hand as I slept and had fallen asleep herself, her head on my shoulder. Poor girl. She had been through a lot recently. The man she loved had been killed, as had she. Then, when she had been brought back to life, she had been put through this ordeal.
You know, she was just as hot as Shayliss. Must run in their family. I was in no hurry to get up. Alas, I had to. Geo came back in. “Someone’s coming,” he said.
I nodded and woke Katrine. I directed Marus to guard her, giving him my crossbow and quiver of bolts and we set up for our ambush.
The fight was quick and dirty. They surrounded him on three sides and he tried to run, but a slash from Geo to his calf sent him tumbling to the ground and it was over. He was still alive, so we tended to his wounds and tied him up.
Aurora and I escorted Katrine and Marus to the nearest guardhouse. Katrine threw her arms around me again and kissed me on the cheek before we left. I thought I saw Aurora roll her eyes.
On our way back, we grabbed a barrel of pitch. Well, Aurora did. I’m comfortable enough with myself to admit that she’s way stronger than me. Anyone who wants to give me crap about it can eat a lightning bolt.
We lightly heated the pitch and used the sticky stuff to effectively glue our prisoner into a barrel. The heat woke him and we began trying to interrogate him. “You know,” I said. “When your business plan involves kidnapping and trying to extort people to make money, you really should make sure you know exactly how your victims got their money. Because it could be violence. There’s a lot of money to be had in applied violence. Now you’ve gone and pissed off some murderhobos. Hope you have life insurance.”
Let’s just say that the interrogation didn’t go very well. He feared someone else more than he feared us and he was certain that his brother would save him and kill us. All we got was his name, Tegrin. Them’s the breaks, sometimes. I wasn’t content to live with that, though, so Geo knocked him out again and I went to take a nap.
Yeah, I know, that makes little sense. But I couldn’t cast spells in the state I was in. I needed sleep. Once I had my magic back, it would be easier to interrogate him. And that meant I needed sleep.
After my nap, the interrogation went a bit better. We were able to get his brother’s name, information that the one who had given them the information on the secret mission to revive Katrine was a woman and a promise that he’d leave town if we let him go, which I had promised during our interrogation. Truthfully, I intended to turn him in to some local paladins and ask that they execute him for his crimes, but I could tell that Aurora wanted me to keep my word, so I did.
We arranged a trip for him on a freighter heading towards Absalom and let him send a note to his brother that he was leaving. Yeah, don’t worry, we proofread the note. I also gave him the name of a contact in Absalom that could help him find more honest work.
After that, I visited the temple of Iomedae. “Back so soon?” one of the clerics asked me. “Don’t tell me you need another wand already?”
“No, this time I have a much more dire request. We were dealing with a ghoul infestation in Sandpoint before we were forced to come to Magnimar on more pressing business. We think we got most, if not all of them before leaving, but I’m still filled with a nagging worry that there might be more. I was hoping that a few of your paladins might check up on the town and ensure its safety. If they’ll stay for a week, we’ll be able to be sure that it’s safe.”
“Of course, the safety of the people is very important to us. We’ll gladly send a detachment to root out the undead.”
“Thank you. In addition, two Sandpoint guards and a young woman they were protecting were attacked by kidnappers. We rescued them this morning. If they can return to Sandpoint in the company of your paladins, I would feel much better. As thanks, I would gladly donate fifty platinum coins to your wonderful temple.”
“We could do good works for the people here with that money. Of course we’ll gladly escort the young woman and her protectors, since we’re going that way anyway.”
“Thanks, I knew I could count on you,” I said, handing the man the sack of coins. “If your men need lodging, tell them to seek out the Rusty Dragon and tell Ameiko Kaijutsu that we will pay for their stay, since they’re there to protect the town from the undead.”
I went to Katrine and the guardsmen and told them about the paladin escort, then returned to the inn as dusk fell. It had been a long day, but I had one more thing left to do. I spoke with the innkeeper and told him that I was looking for the bones of a large creature to decorate the front hall of the manor I was planning to build and asked if he knew of a merchant who might be able to get such a thing.
It seemed reasonable enough to him, so he said he would speak with a few merchants he knew personally. I told him what I was looking for, that an adolescent T-rex skeleton would be best, but that I was willing to consider other fearsome beasts as well. I gave him measurements of what I was looking for and a few gold coins for his trouble.
In truth, I was planning to use the secrets on the scroll I had gained from the necromancer to animate the bones into a steed, not unlike Flintlocke’s dead ram once I fully understood their use. And I was hoping for a T-rex because that’s what Dresden did, and just imagine how cool that would be. I didn’t want something that could suffer like Rarity had.
Then I went to bed. Naturally, we were woken in the middle of the night, but instead of an attack, it was much stranger. But that’s a story for next time.
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