Summary
The party begins investigating their various personal quests now that recovering the lost gold has given them a great deal of wealth and notoriety. A wizard named Edgar shows up on their doorstep (literally), asking to join them. As they are lacking a true wizard, they decide to give him a try (Callum's new character). Valder goes off to meet with the mysterious woman who contacted him, looking for a loan. He meets her and finds she is the moneylender from the Divination spell and indeed works for the mysterious one-handed man who killed his father. She claims to be well acquainted with the elite of the city not simply the nobles but others as well. Her business fell on hard times which is why she was looking for a loan. He offers her a counterproposal and she decides to come to the party's inn to talk further. When she comes to meet, she comes with a few bodyguards, as agreed. Harker prepares Detect Magic upstairs, then comes down to check her and the bodyguards. Orie sneaks outside to listen. She indeed works for the mysterious villain, she is bound to him by a debt contract, until she pays off a loan to him. She does not know his name, but he travels frequently to interests outside the city. He resides in the mysterious Kolat Towers in the South Ward, a two towered building which is surrounded by a magical force field that keeps everything out. She was looking for a 10,000 gold dragons loan to buy out her debt contract, Valder offers her a 5,000 gp payment if she can help him find the mysterious villain. Since the villain's death would free her from the remains of her debt and earn her a substantial payment, she agrees to help. While she doesn't know the villain's name, she does know one of his subordinates, a merchant named Thames Hynes, who she makes her payments to. After agreeing to work together, Valder gives her a 1,000 gp as a downpayment for the information she has provided. In return, she reveals her name is Jelen Urmbrusk, she had previously given her name as simply "J". When she leaves, Orie confronts Jelen with a letter sent to her with information about Orie's past, it is also simply signed "J". Jelen looks at the letter, but knows nothing about it.
The party has a council of war, Valder offers his new contact's assistance in the group's other issues. Barakiel is investigating the run down tower in which he was trained. He finds out it has been seized by the city for lack of payments. Barakiel is able to buy it for 500 dragons. He also bribes the city clerk to tell him the name of the previous owner, a merchant named Thames Hynes…
The party has some other tasks to consider carrying out. Some want to go to the Yawning Portal and go into the dungeons beneath the city to hunt monsters. Or just hang out at the Yawning Portal and wait for monsters to come out. There's also a report of a grell hunting people. Since the Gray Hands want them to check up on one of their former members who hangs out there, they decide to combine the two. They arrive at the inn and the subject of their inquiry, Melune Wardragon is there. While waiting for any monsters to show up, Barakiel tries to question the bartender about Melune, but the bartender answers most of the questions by shouting the question to Melune himself, who does seem quiet and possibly depressed. Since no monsters show up, the party decides to run down some other leads. Fenriz wants to investigate the Casalanters' mansion, since they may be involved in his mother's disappearance. But the mansion is way across the city. Some want to head into the dungeons since the monsters didn't come out, but Orie protests, knowing the low return rate of those adventurers. They decide to go hunting grells, since that area is closer than the Casalanters' but they decide that will be next. They are very successful in searching for the grell and indeed find two of them. But the party dispatches them quickly and takes trophies to prove their kills.
Silly Quotes and Smart Remarks
We had two hours of dinners, unfocused rambling, GoT/Endgame discussions and lots of random nonsense. So I barely wrote anything down- Jim
Chmiel buys a magic greatsword for his character
Chmiel "Now I can attack with a plus NINE!"
Lee "I might have raised the price if I had known you were going to say that"
Callum is making a new character, a wizard
Jim 'What kind of wizard?"
Michael "Wait until you hear…"
Callum "A necromancer"
Jim "Great…"
Callum "Is that bad?"
Callum's necromancer is Chaotic Neutral
Jim "What's your next character going to be?"
Lee asked Callum if he had a backstory
Callum "He's a hermit"
Lee "That's your background, not your backstory"
Callum "It had the word 'back' in it"
Barakiel bought the wizard's tower he was trained in and Mike started all kind of penis/tower jokes
Mike "Look out; he's got a tower"
Lee "The tower is my penis"
