Lamashan 18, 4712, continued
With the Coopers sisters and their ally Dhukhean reunited aboard the ship, they stealthily move down the creaking steps. In the hold of the ship is a tall and muscular individual lifting weights, facing a mirror and admiring himself while exercising. Daryle hears the sea waters lapping at the side of the ship, indicating that they are below the water line. The muscle man, clearly intended as a line of defense against intruders, does not notice the invisible ranger. Darelle who also consumed a potion of invisibility, stands next to where she thinks her sister is. Dhukhean, who does not have the means to magically disappaer, also attempts to remain stealthy though his heavy armor is rather unwieldy for such an activity. However, the thug is so engrossed in himself that he fails to notice the intruders.
Daryle moves parallel to the ship's wall, and soon notices a small secret door leading away from the cargo hold. Keeping an eye on the thug to ensure that he does not move, she carefully opens the door, bracing for water to rush in. Neither happens. Instead, she discovers an underwater tunnel that leads back to the pier. She enters. Darelle chances the passage next, and she successfully reach the tunnel. Only Dhukhean is left by the stairs to the ship's deck. The thug is still lifting weights, sweating profusely and admiring himself in the mirror. The dwarf decides to also attempt the move across the hold. Luck is with him, and he too crosses without being noticed. With all three of them in the tunnel, Daryle softly closes the secret door and spikes it so the thug will be hard pressed to open it.
The tunnel emerges back under the Old Fishery, in a room that appears to have been hastily constructed using the pilings to support a platform and crude walls. In the middle of the room is an opening leading into the sea, and the rangers immediately spot two large sharks lazily swimming around. On one of the pilings they see a set of manacles hanging from a rope and a system of pulleys that can be pulled from the safety of the deck. The amount of clutter in this large room is overwhelming. A small wooden door leads to another room. Daryle checks the door, and notices that it is locked. Darelle steps up and uses her tools to unlock it.
Two small candles are the only illumination in this room, which is as overcrowded as the other room. A mix of sweat, rot, and old age overpowers the nose, and Daryle shakes with disdain. Sitting at a small desk counting piles of silver coin is an old man, in his early eighties. He does not notice that the door was opened. The sisters are sure they are now in the presence of the infamous Gadrien. The invisible sisters position themselves in the room, and Dhukhean enters the room and smashes Gadrien's left arm before grabbing his face and demanding to know who is patron is. Gadrien is startled and soils himself before regaining his composure. He refused to answer the dwarf's question, and instead asks how he might have wronged any dwarf. Dhukhean leans in, and casts cure light wounds to heal Gadrien's arm. He then breaks it again, before questioning the rogue one more time. Gadrien inquires if they were sent by the Grey Mantis or by the Sable Company. Dhukhean replies that he was sent by the Fellowship of the Longbeard, and he threatens to hurt Gadrien again if he doesn't talk. Gadrien agrees to talk if Dhukhean will then depart the premises. The dwarf agrees. Gadrien identifies Verik Vancaskerkin as his patron. He tells Dhukhean that Verik works for the Korvosan Guard. Dhukhean writes Verik's name with Gadrien's blood on a piece of paper, and tells him that he did promise to leave, but not to let the rogue live. Gadrien smiles a crooked and evil smirk, and tells the dwarf that his death would bury many secrets, secrets that are worth their much gold. Dhukhean replies that he has ways of making bodies talk. Gadrien's smirks widens.
Daryle notices that during this time Gadrien's left foot has been slowly moving. She yells a warning, but she is powerless to prevent Gadrien from activating a trap. The entire floor by the desk drops in the choppy waters below, attracting the sharks. Gadrien and his desk remain bolted to the wall. Dhukhean manages to jump through the door, while Darelle lands on Gadrien's lap. She uses her wand of magic missiles, while Daryle fires a few arrows. The wounds are enough to kill Gadrien.
Dhukhean searches the piles of objects littered throughout the main room. He finds a gold ingot worth about 100 crowns. This ingot bears the Cheliax coat of arms. He then discovers a miniature gold crown worth 350 crowns, a fist-sized scrimshaw carving of a kraken with garnets for eyes worth 200 crowns, and a silver ring worth 150 crowns. The ring bears the inscription “For Emmah—the light in my nights." The dwarf then comes across a highly realistic and highly scandalous ivory figurine of two entwined succubi worth 450 crowns, a masterwork shuriken, an adamantine arrowhead worth about 500 crowns, an abalone-shell holy symbol of Shelyn worth 300 crowns, a tiny glass tube containing a dose of oil of keen edge, an obsidian wand of magic missile (23 charges), a crystalline vial, itself worth 50 crowns, which contains a dose of silversheen, and a bejeweled brooch with a broken clasp. The circular gold brooch depicts a pseudodragon and an imp coiled around each other in an almost yin-yang pattern. The pseudodragon’s eye is an amethyst, while the imp’s eye is an emerald. The brooch is worth more than everything else put together, and it looks familiar to the dwarf, but Dhukhean can't immediately place where he has seen it. Upon further reflection, he remembers Queen Ileosa wore such a brooch not a month ago during the Breaching Festival.
Darelle uses her jar of cloud to create a floor to replace the pieces now at the bottom of the river twenty feet below, and she rifles through Gadrien's desk, finding his ledger books and whom he has collected money from over the last year, as well as more than a dozen shady deals the rogue has been conducting in Korvosa. Daryle searches Gadrien's wardrobe and comes upon Zellara's head in a hat box located above the wardrobe. She has been dead at least a month. Whom did they meet at her house?
Walking on the cloud, Daryle searches Gadrien's body, and discovers a signet ring of the Korvosan Guard inscribed with the name Verik on the inside. Done with her search, she shoves the body in the water below, where it is quickly eaten by the two sharks.
Ready to leave, the Coopers decide that they don't want to pass through the ship. There are no obvious means of escape except for the waters below, however, so Dhukhean decides to collapse one of the pillars holding the floor above, both to damage the building and collapse the floor, creating an exit for them. The floor collapses, providing a ramp to climb back in the slurry room. The foremen are dumbfounded, and immediately run away, quickly followed by screaming orphans.
Daryle announces that they should set the building ablaze, to destroy this nest of villainy and to prevent any other group from setting up shop. Darelle feels that the thug training in the hold of the ship deserves a chance to escape, so she runs through the tunnel to warn him. Simple-minded, the thug introduces himself as Kevin, and proudly tells Darelle that his job is to open and close the door and only let Gadrien through, but since she came from the other side she must be all right. She tells him he can leave, Gadrien is dead. Kevin appears not to understand this concept, so she tells him to follow her. Kevin agrees. He grabs his weights, then drops them to grab his bag, but returns to the weights and drops his bag for them. He is utterly bewildered, so Darelle grabs his bag and leads him to the road. Daryle and Dhukhean set the Old Fishery and the ship on fire. Darelle runs back in the building to retrieve Zellara's head, and places it in her bag of holding.
Outside, they realize that no patrol responds to the fire. They notice that many areas of town are featuring large pillars of thick black smoke. They stop a passerby, who informs them that King Eodred II has died in the night, the victim of an assassination. He then curses Queen Ileosa, and wishes her a speedy death before leaving the wharf to join a mob heading southwest. The Coopers board the jar of cloud and take a bird's eye view of Korvosa. There are several riots going on in various neighborhoods, and large mobs are converging on Castle Korvosa. The Korvosan Guard has congregated around the Castle and is violently putting down the mobs. North Point is heavily defended by Hellknights, who are protecting Chelish interests. The Sable Company hovers in the air, assisting detachments of Korvosan Guards, but appear overwhelmed. The city is in utter chaos.
Dhukhean has a theory that the master of puppet has given Gadrien tokens from each of the factions currently fighting in Korvosa. Daryle decides that they must help the city, so Darelle lands her cloud in North Point. Dhukhean recognizes the Hellknight in charge. It is none other than Lictor Severs DiViri, head of the Order of the Nail and usually headquartered at nearby Citadel Vraid but now here in Korvosa supervising the Hellknights' effort at quelling the riots. Daryle decide not to meet with the Lictor at the moment, even though she is aware that the man's daughter, Chaid DiViri, a Hellknight officer, perished in the Emerald Spire a few years back. Sir Maurice is there, however, and Daryle attracts his attention. Sir Maurice meets with them and listens to what Daryle has to say, and advises that now is not the time to distract the Lictor. If she really wants to help, she can patrol the city and stop crime. When asked why the Hellknights do not deploy more widely, Sir Maurice informs her that the Lictor's orders are to only protect Chelish interests in Korvosa, and the fate of the local Varisians and Shoanti are not their concern.
The Coopers decide to split up and meet at dusk at Zellara's house. Daryle thus decides to go hunting. She comes across a large mob attacking a lone Korvosan Guard. She successfully defuses the situation and sends the mob on its way to Castle Korvosa. The guardsman, Grau Soldado, is drunk, and Daryle manages to convince him that he stands for the defense and protection of the city and its people, not of the Queen, something Soldado has trouble accepting, but eventually Daryle manages to convince him as well, and he drunkenly heads back towards the Guards' headquarters.
Darelle and Dhukhean meanwhile go to visit Pastries and Things, the bakery she helped a few weeks ago. She tells him they took care of Gadrien and she compensate them for the money they paid to the villain. The baker, Ernest Mildenhall, tells Darelle of the history of Korvosa and particularly of its conflicts and domination by Chelish nobles despite its supposed independence and claims by Varisia. Darelle also reflects that some of this chaos could be caused by Duke Mosley, a member of the Order of the Nail, who might appreciate a closer base of operations than the Emerald Spire. Ernest informs Darelle that the most likely successor to the Queen were she to also die or abdicate would be a member of House Arkona, the wealthiest noble family in Korvosa. Darelle departs the bakery with a basket full of goodies.
At dusk they arrive at Zellara's house. There they confront the imposter, who claims to be the real Zellara. When Darelle produces the head, Zellara shimmers and glows, revealing that she is a ghost. She tells the Coopers she needed their help to defeat Gadrien. A month ago, she had indeed suffered the assault she had described, but in the process she had not managed to escape but instead had been murdered. She thanks the Coopers and Dhukhean profusely for their help, and she gives them her deck of Harrow cards. She tells them that on the table they will find a deed signed and notarized, giving them ownership of her house. She can't always follow the Coopers, but they can consult her anytime through her Harrow deck. The sisters and the dwarf decide to spend the night at Zellara's house, so as to avoid looting and mobs still roaming the streets of Korvosa.
