A Touch Of Taggit

The group has just emerged from the Underdark, climbing their way up from Blingdenstone. They follow a nearby river until they are able to acquire passage on a passing ship. Eventually they make their way to the docks of Baldur's Gate. There they disembark.

The outer city is bustling with activity and the group splits up to explore around. Azalea's mission is to find protection for Stool. She finds a blacksmith who will mend a large pot for her and then she fills it with mud and dirt from the nearby shore, planting her myconid friend in the planter for nourishment.

Yeava finds a street kid and hands him a message to drop off inside the city. She will ask the assassin's guild within to send her a horse and carriage to enter into the city. Yeava follows the boy until he passes the city gate into the inner city. The group reunites and waits. Not long afterwards a horse and carriage pull up to the tent pub they are in and the driver gives Yeava a subtle nob and walks away. The group climbs aboard the the cart and Yeava drives off towards the inner city.

The guards at the gate, bearing symbols of The Order Of The Obsidian Dagger, make people pay a "gate tax" to enter the city. The guards ask varying prices depending on how much they think the people can afford. As the group approaches the gate they are asked to pay 2 gold each. The group hesitates only a moment before handing over the gold. No point in stirring up trouble right away. The guards take the gold greedily and snicker.

Inside the city the group travels to the inn, which Yeava knows is a front for her assassin's guild. They enter the Goblin King Inn. Inside a bard is playing while many of the patrons are gambling at a large table at the back. Yeava approaches the large bartender and makes an exchange. The contact information for the purple worm poison farmers for a large sum of gold.

Oorr, an aarakocra, watches the bard playing for the inn and pulls out his own lyre. Soon Oorr goes from accompanying the other bard to overtaking the song and raising the tempo. The inn erupts in cheers and sings along with Oorr. The other bard, Nolan, infuriated by the poor manners of Oorr demands that Boyle, the bartender, kick Oorr out, but the patrons disagree and Nolan storms out of the inn. Oorr makes a tidy sum in tips that evening.

Saraphina, meanwhile is checking out the gambling table. The table is running a game of 'Twenty Bone'. Large sums of money pass back and forth between the inn and the players. Coins won by the inn are swept into a slot in the table. Saraphina, being the halfling she is, is able to duck under the table and inspect the lockbox fixed to the underside of the table. Noting the information for future use she returns to watching the game.

Yeava notices the same young boy, of about 8 years, that had relayed the message for her earlier has returned to the inn. He picks his way through the crowded part of the inn, near the gambling table. Yeava watches him, clumsily pickpocket several patrons. The boy then moves on to a table with several guards of the Order Of The Obsidian Dagger. They are loud and drinking heavily. Their white robes dirty and unkempt. The boy inexpertly bumps into one of the guards and attempts to relieve the guard of some gold. Unfortunately, the guard is too quick. He grabs the arm of the boy, the boy still holding a couple of gold in his hands taken from the burly guard.

The guard raises up his catch to show the others and they work together to hold the boy down while the affronted guard draws his sword. They will take the boys hand for his offence. Yeava and the others get up and prepare to fight. Yeava intervenes and speaks to the guards, while subtly ushering the boy away. The guards distracted by the adventurers soon forget about the boy. Yeava soon recaptures the boy outside and finds that the boy must collect enough to pay the 'Children Of Gwynt' otherwise they will beat him and the other children. Yeava schools the young boy in his stupidity and gives him a card which will help the boy find her, when he is ready to learn how to truly be stealthy.

Back in the inn, the group is approached by a senior officer of the Order Of The Obsidian Dagger. He has witnessed the group's helping of the boy and feels they could be what he has been looking for. He tells them that The Order is not quite what it used to be. One of the generals of The Order, Onthar Frume, has tasked him with finding a group of capable outsiders to bring to him.

The rest of the evening is spent drinking and listening to Oorr entertain the inn while Azalea flirts, successfully, with the attractive halfling barmaid. Eventually they find their ways to various beds and sleep more comfortably than they have in ages. Azalea taking comfort in the arms of Sarra. It has been too long.

After spending a comfortable evening in the Goblin King Inn, the group is found again by the officer who leads them to the lower city's Order Keep. Once inside the fortified keep they enter a large ornate 'throne' room. There is much activity, which seems to be mostly centered on a well dressed figure at the 'throne' area. But the group is instead ushered off to a side office. There they wait in a small but well furnished room. The desk is littered with maps and letters, while on the shelves along the walls is an assortment of eclectic trinkets. Items such as a silvered flute, a steel gauntlet with six fingers,  a petrified songbird, a simple gold ring engraved with "To My Love". At the center of the memorabilia is a beautiful obsidian dagger, with what appears to be still some blood on it's blade.

A large man dressed in clean and simple Order Of The Obsidian Dagger robes enters the room. He greets them and introduces himself as Onthar Frume, one of the leaders of The Order. He tasks the group with investigating several assassinations and disappearances. There has been nefarious activity in the last ten years, which has seen many political figures of Baldur's Gate disappear. Some have returned with vague and odd excuses but many have not returned. Some of the Parliment Of Peers have been simply found dead. He suspects the 'Children Of Gwynt', an thieves/assassins guild which has seemed to recently shown itself within the walls of the city.

Since the group is mostly outsiders he feels that they will have not been corrupted by whatever is beginning to influence even The Order itself. He trusts very few people with The Order. The direction The Order has taken within the past few years has weakened it. A 'conscription' policy has seen the induction of males as young as 14 years into The Order. Most of The Order has not taken the famous sworn oath and as such, the city's army has grown vast but corruption seeps through it like a disease.

The group is given badges of The Order and robes to designate themselves as members of The Order, so that they will be able to move through the city unbarred. The group looks to Azalea, who still clutches the large pot, in which Stool happily sits. They tell her that it will not be easy carting around Stool while they move about the city and they don't want any harm to come to the young myconid sprout. Reluctantly, Azalea sighs  in agreement and forces Onthar to babysit Stool. She gives the soldier a list of instructions and demands for the care of her companion before the group leaves.

Before Yeava leaves she gives Onthar a bag of empty spellgems. She instructs Onthar that she would appreciate it if he could find someone to charge the spell gems with several spells of  'Zone Of Truth' and 'Healing'. They can be left at the Goblin King's Inn with the bartender there.

The group splits up and moves through the city. Artemis and Saraphina move to the upper city where they find the upper city's Keep for The Order. There they try to move about the Keep in order to learn what they can, only to find that their unrefined manners show them as member of The Order which have not been trained for the upper city. Here diplomacy and manners are as important as skills in defense.

Oorr and Azalea patrol the streets looking for shops that would sell magical items. After encountering a couple of shady places which sell trinkets and pass them off as magical, they find the genuine article. They enter a shop which is owned by a haughty high-elf named Minreth. He is persuaded to show the two adventurers items only after they have shown him their worthiness in gold. He shows to them a few wands, a couple of weapons but they find nothing to their interest.

Yeava searches the lower city until she spots a group of children moving about the crowd pick pocketing and working in teams to pilfer from the various shops and carts in the market place. She follows them until she finds them returning to their shared hovel, which is a basement of a run down house. She moves silently down finding the small room filled with children, street rats, gathering their collected treasures, small as they may be and sharing in their meager food.

She waits off to the side, disguised as a homeless beggar half buried in garbage, and watches the hovel. She is rewarded some hours later as night falls, when a robed figure approaches the run down home. He enters the basement and soon returns tucking away the small amount of gold he has collected into his pouch before moving on. Yeava follows and witnesses the same collection from a half dozen similar hovels housing similar 'street rats'. Yeava follows until the hooded figure approaches a nice looking stone building.

Before the hooded figure can enter the building, Yeava sends out an illusion of a small child bearing a small sack of coin. As the hooded figure approaches the child, Yeava springs from the shadows and touches the figure with a drop of 'Oil of Taggit'. The hooded figure drops unconscious. Yeava drags the body off to a deserted alleyway, covers the body and returns to the Goblin King Inn.

There at the inn she finds her companions and tells them off what she has discovered. Collecting up her horse and carriage the others follow. Oor and Artemis take flight to watch for approaching guards while the others try to load the body into the back of the carriage. Saraphina making every attempt at looking like she is helping but the little halfling only makes things worse.

The body is haphazardly half in and out of the carriage when a couple, perhaps out for a moonlit stroll or returning from dinner, walk past as the group is quickly able to toss the rest of the body into the back of the carriage. Trying not to act suspiciously, the group watches as the couple quickens their pace with furtive glances over their shoulders. Yeava takes chase as both Oorr and Artemis fly to try and keep track of the couple. They are soon tracked down and followed into a dead-end alleyway.

Yeava threatens them with death if they tell anyone what they have witnessed. The couple anxiously agree and Yeava lets them go. She watches as they run home and she follows. Once back at their poor home she watches and listens as they console each other until they fall asleep. Once sleeping, Yeava slips into the house and kills them both. Quickly and quietly. She then moves about the small house setting the scene for what will look like a break-in. She then slips back out and returns to the inn.

Unnoticed by Yeava, Artemis flying above followed Yeava and watched the incident. Once Yeava left back to the inn, Artemis entered the house, finds the murdered couple  and uses her magic to return them to life. Telling them they have to leave immediately, she tosses them some gold as they flee from their home, never to return. Artemis then flies back to the inn.

Back at the inn, Oorr, Saraphina and Azalea have transferred the still unconscious body to the basement of the Goblin King Inn and placed him in the bartenders quarters. Soon the adventurers are all reassembled and stare at the unconscious and now bound body of the robed figure. He is bound hands to feet behind his back and the group decides what to do next. The 'oil of taggit' will keep the bound figure unconscious until the next evening. They will retire and sleep.

Artemis worriedly peeks at Yeava and rushes off to find sleeping quarters behind locked and magically bound doors. Yeava watches the elf's odd behavior as the rest of the group finds sleeping arrangements.

Yeava decides that Artemis deserves watching.

The next day, the group decides to take their time exploring before getting down to the task of interrogation. Oorr and Azalea tell Yeava of  the magic item store, Minreth's Runes. They go together to find what kind of deals they can obtain there.

Meanwhile, Saraphina and Artemis return to the upper city to see if they can learn more of The Order there. They learn little but  instead wander the streets and regale the well-to-do citizens of the upper city with their feats of daring, as Artemis would pick up Saraphina, fly her up to dizzying heights then drop her, then diving down to catch her. This worked but only after Saraphina had the first time crashed to the ground smashing up her already misshapen face.

The others have more success at Minreth's Runes. They convince the proprietor to show them a prized possession only to find that the 'Cloak Of Displacement' is thousands of gold beyond their means. This barrier is only temporary, as Oorr casts 'Dominate Person' upon Minreth. Oorr tells Minreth to give the cloak to Yeava, as a gift. The high-elf hands over the cloak and the group quickly depart.

Minreth, who is unable to break free of the magical dominance, struggles for the next minute to free himself of the magical spell. While he can do nothing but stand still, he plots his revenge.