The Shackled City, Day 16 (2007-01-13, 6:30 PM), Chapter 5: The Demonskar Legacy

Players (Characters)
Scott (Rain)
Catherine (Amber)
Tony (Roland; Grokk)
Rachel (Horkina)
DM: Tom (Garlen)

Amber spent the next several days walking around town, looking for people to heal in the name of Ehlonna and putting out word that she planned to start a temple soon. Roland set out looking for Meerthan, and was directed to meet with Tyro Amberhelm. The dwarf merchant revealed that he, in fact, was Meerthan in disguise. The two exchanged spells and stories. Meanwhile, tax collectors were being seen more and more frequently. Fliers appeared all over town, saying a tax protest had been scheduled.

At the protest, a merchant named Maavu stood to speak. He explained that the new, higher taxes were illegal, and that the government had become hopelessly corrupt in its recent hiring of half-orc mercenaries. "The paladin Alek Tercival has issued a challenge to Tereson Skellerang, captain of the town guard, to prove his valor in a duel according to the Old Law of Peers, but the city council has tried to keep the challenge quiet as they continue to collect illegal taxes!" As the crowd got more and more rowdy, a young watch sergeant approached with a group of half-orcs and called out to Maavu, saying he was under arrest. Suddenly a young man screamed out "let's kill these half-orc brigands!" and the mercenaries were quickly slain.

Horkina stepped to the sergeant's side and screamed out an intimidating warning, scaring most of the crowd into stepping back. Rain, Garlen, and Grokk closed in, dropping the provocateur and his allies who Rain recognized as being affiliated with the Last Laugh. A group of rioters to the north began fighting and breaking things, but Roland charmed several of the rioters. Amber cast Air Walk on sergeant Krewis to allow him to escape, which he did rather quickly. Roland and Amber used a few more spells to calm the rioting group, and Horkina continued to disperse the crowd. Suddenly a strange air creature appeared next to Maavu and swiped at him, while archers in town hall fired several arrows at him. The party surrounded the breathdrinker while Maavu dove for cover, and the breathdrinker was dispatched. The party escorted Maavu safely out of the crowd, and he invited them to come to redgorge to meet with him about a matter of importance. He instructed the party to find him at the redhead miner's inn and told them the answer to a riddle they'd be asked.

Later that night, the bells at city hall began to ring out -- a building down by the lake was burning. As the party rushed to investigage, it became apparent the fire was at Minutia's Board, where many of the half-orc mercenaries had been staying. The mercenaries were doing their best to put out the fire with a bucket brigade, passing water up from the edge of the lake. Several of Cauldron's citizens yelled insults against the half-orcs, though a shout from Grokk scared many of the racists away. As the orcs tried to create a fire break, the inn owner yelled at their leader to have them stop. He responded "you tiny idiot! You not get it! Flame-demons kill us! Blades useless! Fire unstoppable!" Moments later, a pair of fire elementals burst out from the building and began to burn the nearest half-orc.

The party responded with a string of axe blows and cold spells, and the fire elementals were neutralized. Rain heard a cry for help from inside the building, and spotted Deakon Stormshield trapped beneath some rubble. Roland used a transposition spell to free the boy and trap himself, and then Grokk and Horkina helped lift the fallen timbers off of him. As the party moved to help put out the fire, a tall blue-haired man in blue robes arrived and cast a pair of cones of cold into the building. Amber discerned that the man was evil, and the party suspected he might be the "Blue Duke", an ogre mage they'd been warned about before.

The next morning, the party learned taxes had been suspended, but that there was a bounty for capturing the "evil merchant Maavu" for the trouble he'd stirred up. The group set out to investigate exactly what had happened. Jenya had been a good friend of Alek Tercival's, and mentioned that he'd gone missing just after issuing the challenge. She said he'd sold a lot of treasure to Tygot, so the party asked the merchant to see what Tercival had recently sold. One item was a strange carved plate with an image of a six-armed creature holding up a strange star-filled pentagon. A crude map had been scratched on the back of the plate.

The party reached level 9.