Another City, Another Heist

The group moves through the rooms of, the now dead, Doctor Modar. The possibility of new and wondrous items excites the group as they dig through the pile of discarded items found in the room with many covered bodies.

Saraphina moves among the many bodies, which are draped in white linen. She approaches one and pulls back the sheet covering the face. She is horrified to find that the body underneath is without a face. It has been carefully and surgically removed. The nose is an odd cavity in the middle of the face. The eyes, without eyelids, bulge, unblinking. She moves the sheet to re-cover the body, but as she does so, she notices it breathing ever so slightly. She lays her hands on the creature and uses her magic to restore more life to it. The human regains consciousness and is soon screaming in agony. He panics as he reaches for his face and screams, demanding to know what is going on.

Grim Treasures

Saraphina, feeling sorry for the the person, pulls the human upright, supporting it under its shoulders. She assists it, climbing the stairs in to the brightly lit room above. The human wails as it comes into the light, unable to shield his eyes. She pulls him up to a mirror and exclaims, "This is what's going on. You have no face." The pitiful creature sobs and screams until she uses her magic once again to calm it and lays him down. She returns to the others who are simply sorting the treasure trove among themselves. The creature's quiet death is witnessed by no one.

Yeava and Oorr find a vast array of discarded items but very little money. Apparently the doctor was more worried about hard coin than the personal belongings of his victims. Saraphina moves to the doctor's library and finds a dizzy array of medical books with intricate detail of various spieces and their anatomy. As well as she finds a diary of the doctor's various experiments on grafting various body parts, skin, eyes, arms and such to some of the Children Of Gwynt. Azalea, frustrated that the others are getting first dibs at finding various items moves to a different part of the building in order to find things for herself. In the doctor's office she finds a letter addressed to the doctor.

It reads:
"Please obtain the Lady Stehlen.
She has obtained much power and garnered much influence.
She will be a useful addition and she is a growing nuisance."

The signature is not easily readable, but it is possible that it could be "Ondine", the leader of The Order Of The Obsidian Dagger.

Once the adventurers are confident that they have pilfered what they can the steathily exit the building and, feeling they should not return to the Goblin King's Inn, for fear that they have been spotted, Yeava leads them back to an old hovel, which she knows to be vacant currently. It is the old shack of a house in which she had killed the young couple who were possible witness the other night.

Once there, they set about preparing defenses, scattering ball-bearings under windows and blocking doors. While the others are working on the defenses, Saraphina jumps on the old mattress, carefully landing on the one spot not covered in blood and claims the bed. Then they lay down to rest. Yeava mentally notes that Artemis is nowhere to be seen.

Artemis has flown off to the far woods which are outside the city walls. She worries about any retaliation Yeava might commit in response to her riving Yeava's kills. What she lacks in sleep she gains in the hopes that she will not be found.

A Disturbance In The Night

During the night, the group is awakened by the sound of a body slipping and falling upon the ball-bearings under one of the windows. As each of them quickly rise ready to fight, they see a man and a woman, the woman laying on the floor underneath the window, her breath knocked out her lungs. The man stands nervously, hands raised placatingly. The group surrounds them and soon the two are bound in rope lying on the floor. Using magic to force the truth from them, the group finds that the two homeless people were told by a mysterious stranger that they could find safe and warm lodgings within this small home and that there would be no one within.

The group extracts a description of the mysterious figure from the couple and find that it seems to fit the store owner of the magic store they had stolen from. Minreth. After deciding they have learned what they needed, Yeava looks to the group, dagger in hand close to the homeless duo. The group give a collective shrug. Yeava dispatches them with efficient stabs to the temples.

No loose ends.

The next morning the group debates their next course of action. They must let Onthar, of The Order, know of their discovery of Doctor Modar and his activities. They also feel that the Lady Stehelen must be warned. But their overriding priority will be Minreth's Magic Store. They need to question, perhaps with force, the proprietor.

Yet Another Store Heist

The group approaches Minreth's Magic Store but before standing in front of it, they move to a secluded alleyway and prepare to disguise themselves as best they can. They do not want to match the description of the group that had stolen from the store the other day. A remarkable feat considering the fact they are a memorable and eclectic group of adventures: A half-elf, an aarakocra, an ugly halfling, and a dragonborn.

As they approach the store, they see that it is now guarded by a half dozen soldiers from The Order. They mill about but when the group moves close enough they stop the group and ask their business. What follows is a bewildering flurry of distracting arguments about the rights of dragonborns, discrimination as well a a oddly disguised halfling on stilts made from wooden crates found in an alleyway, arguing about racism.  While the soldiers are distracted with a burgeoning protest outside the shop, Yeava and Oorr gain access to the store by magic. Yeava using her stolen cloak of displacement and Oorr using invisibility.

Once inside the store they look about the empty room. No sign of Minreth. They smile at each other as they look into the multitude of magical items displayed in large showcases. They try to gain access to the cabinets but they can find no lock to pick and cannot shatter whatever force is protecting the items within.

Then Oorr looks down the corridor he had tried to sneak down using invisibility, the last time he was here. The corridor has an anti-magic field. He smiles at Yeava as he gestures to the corridor. Both of them push on the showcase cabinets with all their might and one of the corners of the cabinet enters the corridor. As it does so some of the containment spell breaks down and Oorr reaches in and begins hauling out as much as he can grab.

The Doomsday Device

Yeava moves down the corridor and finds a room at the end of it. Minreth's personal quarters. It is a nicely furnished room but the elf is not here either. Or so it would seem. As Yeava stands quietly scanning the room, she hears a slight shuffle from underneath the bed. She moves to the bed and flips it up.

Underneath the bed she sees a cowering elf, Minreth. The elf holds two odd pieces of metal rods, one in each hand. As Yeava reaches for a drop of Oil of Taggit and then stretches out her hand to touch the elf with it, Minreth joins the two pieces of metal. There is the sound of rushing air and the crackle of magic from back in the direction of the storefront. Oorr, in the corridor still collecting booty, looks into the storefront area and sees a teleportation sphere grow to encompass most of the store and then disappear, taking most of the store with it. All that remains is a slightly glowing edges of wood and rock where the sphere's edges touch.

Outside the store, Yeava and Saraphina's argument with the soldiers has escalated to the point where weapons were drawn and the two adventurers kill off the contingent of guards. The sounds of battle has brought the sounds of many heavy footsteps running towards their position. They enter the store just as the sphere of teleportation has disasperated and they tell the others that there will soon be many more soldiers arriving.

They quickly make their way out of the store by means of both magic and stealth, but not before Yeava sinks her dagger into the temple of the  unconscious Minreth.

No loose ends.

They each head back, by various ways, to the vacant hovel of the evening before. They will regroup rethink and inspect their booty.

No one will tell them what they can and cannot afford.


Meta Game Spoiler

"DM Note: Here I had thought I had protected this magic store from thievery so well. I thought, there's no way I'll need this doomsday device to teleport everything away. Stupid DM.