[Fenrir and Reinward have been tasked with staging a coup in the city of Westgate to stop the evil vampire lord the Night King from doing the same. Just recently they have been to the Morningstar Haven to recruit the church of Lathander to their cause.]
DAY 547 (1st Eleint)(September) cont ...
The left the house of Jenner Fields at about nine o'clock at night. The party in the streets was in full swing, but with magical disguises they made their way home and stayed there the rest of the night.
DAY 548 (2nd Eleint)(September)
In the morning at breakfast Gelly mentioned to them that Dauntinghorn had been seen late a night, enjoying the festival. This was likely the Night King himself, back in Westgate.
This got Fenrir to thinking about how to deal with Dauntinghorn - perhaps they could get his body and cast Reincarnate on it? Thereby turning him into a dwarf or gnome or something. I assume the thinking was that he could then not be a stand in for the Night King version. Either that or Fenrir was getting his Dauntinghorns muddled up.
Today though, they wanted to speak to 'the wizards' and thought that going to speak to Gondeth of Gondeth's Mageries was as good a place as any to start.
He was friendly towards them because of all the money they had spent in his shop.
'Can we have a private chat?' asked Fenrir.
'Is this about the magical etchings,' said Gondeth. 'I can assure you, while they are rather risque they do not break any laws!'
'Not that,' said Fenrir. 'Well, stick a pin in that for now, no it is something else.'
In private then they discussed Gondeth's feelings about the current leadership of the city.
'I stay out of politics,' said Gondeth. 'It's bad for business otherwise. I have no strong views on it. I do know Urlyvl Athagdal to be a good man. Many people say he would have been a better Croamarkh than Trant.'
'But what if a new leader offered you a... tax break?'
'Haha! Don't do that on my account. What are you planning - a coup?' laughed Gondeth.
'Well,' said Fenrir. 'Treat this with the utmost discretion...'
He then went on to tell his by now familiar story about the Night King, his plot and the counter-plot against him involving bringing back the King of Westgate.
'Well, good luck with that!' said Gondeth.
'Will you help us?'
'I'm anti-vampire for sure, but like I said, I don't get involved in politics.'
'Can we hire you?'
'My days of that sort of thing are long gone. I'm a shopkeeper now. Try Mintassan
the Magnificent. He loves adventures and derring-do.'
Gondeth mentioned some other names, Fenrir and Reinward thanked him and left.
They went and had some lunch at home and talked about the noble houses. That would be next on their list of potential allies they decided.
They started by going to see Gwendeth Thavalar. House Thavalar was all in on the coup of course, and the planning of the small wedding was going well.
Fenrir asked about House Vhammos. 'Are they likely to come onto our side, or is it riddled with Vampires.'
(Rollo note: Darklady Dahlia Vhammos is one of the Night King's captains.)
Gwendeth didn't know much about vampires, but said,'they have always been aloof. As far as I know, they have no more trouble than anyone else with vampires. However, I heard that at one point they had dealings with the church of Shar.'
Fenrir and Reinward left House Thavalar and went to see if they could get anywhere with House Malavhan. Initially Fenrir sought out his girl-friend Werren and she introduced him to Varen Malavhan.
He was high up in the family, second only to his elder sister Duchess Vera Malavhan.
After the usual formalities they got down to business.
'You can be the royal guards!' suggested Reinward.
'Ahem well, yes,' interrupted Fenrir. 'The main thing is that Palla the White is with us.
'Very well, if you provide us with 30,000 gold then you can count on the support of House Malavhan,' said Varen. 'You should know though, the hardest part will be dealing with Urlyvl Athagdal. He is a good and honorable man and is well respected in Westgate. He is very democratic in his thinking and will not want to see a king back in the city.'
After all that skullduggery they went home. One of the guards told them that some "demon chickens" had been delivered, twelve in all.
'We put them in the shed,' said the guard.
Fenrir went to the shed and killed them all with a crowbar, then went back in for his dinner.
Later that night Judge Rona Nylo arrived at the door unannounced. He was a wise old half-elf, good in nature and with some knowledge of divine magic.
He asked to be let in and to be able to ask Fenrir some questions.
Nylo: Is there an investigation into the disappearance of Dreydal Trant?
Fenrir: Well, the Night King is starting to take control of the city and we are in danger of a feeding frenzy of vampires and Westgate becoming part of the Vampire nation along with the Blackrune Citadel.
Nylo: Surely then it is even more important to track down our ruler the Croamarkh?
Fenrir: I'll get people onto it.
Nylo: When did you last see him?
Fenrir mentioned the day he had talked to Trant and then bagged him.
Nylo: What did you speak about?
Fenrir: The Night King threat.
Nylo: What did he say?
Fenrir: He seemed strangely unconcerned.
(Not that this was a lie. Trant was going to sack him!)
Nylo: And then you left?
Fenrir said yes.
Judge Nylo changed his line of questions.
Nylo: You are a warlock, correct?
Fenrir: Yes.
Nylo: What sort of magical powers do you use?
Fenrir: Oh, the usual. Eldritch Blast, that sort of thing.
Nylo: You can be invisible?
Fenrir: Yes.
Nylo: And you can fly?
Fenrir: Yes.
Fenrir then went on for some time about how there were a great many warlocks around (which is true) and mentioned Barry Shitknees.
Nylo: Is Barry Shitknees a half-orc?
Fenrir said he didn't know.
Nylo: You see, an hour after you talked to the Croamarkh, according to the living statues and gargoyles that witnessed it, a half-orc warlock appeared, most likely cast Painful Slumber of
Ages on him then stuffed him in a bag and flew off.
Fenrir: Well that could have been a demon called Behemoth, or it could have been the Night King.
Nylo: Well yes, or it could have been you. You can see my difficulty? I would like to eliminate you as a suspect, so if there is anything you can do to help me with that, then please let me know.
Fenrir: You really think I would be so stupid to kidnap Trant an hour after I had just spoken to him?
Nylo: I merely follow the facts. I have several suspects.
After Judge Nylo had left Reinward said, 'maybe you should bribe him?'
'I'd rather keep him in the dark,' replied Fenrir.
Fenrir was getting the idea that it would take more than flim-flam to stop Judge Nylo from suspecting the truth - that it had been Fenrir that had kidnapped Dreydal Trant.
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