Session VI - Bargewright Slaughterhouse

 Having accepted Nalaskur's offer, our heroes head straight for Chalaska's headquarters. The one guard at the front door does not seem very inclined to help the heroes albeit confirming Chalaska is inside the building but wouldn't have visitors until morning. Tico does not hesitate to make subtle use of his charm magic and embody a friendly acquaintance of the ruffian. Still, the party understands the man to be a lot more scared of repercussions in disobeying his mistress, than he is willing to help them. Tico still manages to make good use of his spell by drawing his attention away from Trash who slips behind the thug, grabs him in a rear naked choke and put him to sleep. They quickly tie him up, gag him and leave him weaponless in a barrel. 

Wanting nothing of sneaky, slippery or furtive actions, Klaes with Zomith at his side, kicks the door open, demanding loud and clear to be brought before Chalaska. Without waiting for a response, Tico starts throwing balls of fire while Etlhas rips holes into time and space with arrows of energy that pierce Chalaska's men through the guts. 

Halvarth and Trash start opening doors, waking up yet more thugs. While Halvarth uses winds of magic to put his opponents to sleep, Trash summons gallons of grease onto the dormitory's floor before shutting the door locked with a clever use of his tinkered armor set.

Rushing foward, Klaes reaches the end of a long corridor just in time to see two women armed with shark tooth appended swords and the barnacle man standing closely behind them. Meanwhile, Trash finally opens the door to the common room where they had previously observed Chalaska's main forces to be feasting and drinking. He is met with armored men wielding scimitars and crossbows. Yet more men pour out of the room through a second door and the battle rages.

   

While Klaes fends off most of the women's attack, he is targeted by magic missiles against which his armor is of little use. On her end, Zomith is reluctantly keeping 3 thugs and their captain at bay while yelling that this is way above her paygrade. The situation gets even worst when Chalaska finally enters the scene, positioning herself between Halvarth and Tico. She wastes no time and throws a green gem in the general direction of the melee. Upon hitting the wall, the gem explodes to pieces from which emerges a monstruous water elemental. 

  

Acting on instincts, Halvarth turns around and tells the creature a magically empowered dad joke. He can hardly tell, but the creature cannot contain the laughter, in a sort of weird watery way, and becomes effectively useless. Furious, Chalaska charges Halvarth, attemping to break his concentration on the spell.  Like a boss and despite the red haired warrior slashing him with a spear, he manages to keep a hold of his magic.

Meanwhile, Elthas recognizes the item from which the elemental creature sprouted and understands that Chalaska is under a lot of strain to keep control of the creature. After being submerged in its body and emerging on the other side, Elthas draws his weapon and runs head first towards her. While Owl the owl distracts her, he finds his mark and manages to make her lose concentration. 

With the help of his faith, Klaes finishes the barnacle man before turning around to cut the last of the sharktoothed lady in half. Zomith and Trash finally get the upper hand against the thugs and their captain, and while everyone else focus fires Chalaska, the water elemental simply slips out the window, still agitated with humorous visions of pool tables suddenly falling from the sky onto people. 

Seeing their leader laying on the ground lifeless, all remaining ruffians surrender and answer the party's line of questioning. They pretend being kept in the dark by Chalaska who was the master mind behind whatever operation was running here. They do admit to having dealings with a strange cult from up the river who have been drawing the inverted triangle everywhere. They tell a grim tale of exchanging valuable goods with them in exchange for drowning people after carving the cursed symbol on their forehead. 

In Chalaska's chamber, the party finds a map, hidden in a ledger, with the same symbol drawn on a specific spot along the Dessarin river. 

Speaking with Hobrebelle Beastriver, the mirabarian dwarf captive, they learn that the dwarven delegation was attacked by a company of men wearing the colors of the Black Earth cultists. She says having barely escaped with her life, staying intent on completing her mission. After some hesitation, she reveals the delegation took the detour towards Summit Hall in order to bring books to some Order of the Gauntlet and Harper representatives. 

Having gotten lost in the wilderness after escaping the ambush and trying to find her way back to Summit Hall, she ended up in Womford where she heard of dwarven books being sold out of one of the kennelboats. In a desperate attempt to retrieve them, she got caught by Chalaska's men and locked up here. 

Although the party is in rough condition, Hobrebelle implores them to help her retrieve the books as soon as possible, before the kennelboat leaves town.