Previously, on The Broken World Campaign...
Your heroes just finished rescuing a number of people from a Neogi slaver ship and have resumed your return trip to Tradeport. You learn that your guests were on an Ordo Arcanis ship that was delivering the red-skinned and horned female that was nearly killed by the neogi. Upon awakening she introduces herself as Vayl Naris and she was en route to Tradeport to consult with a colleague, the dragonborn aetheronomer Rogan. Also aboard the ill-fated Ordo Arcanis ship was the mage that was sent to tutor Brahm, but he was slain in the initial neogi attack.
[I forgot to mention this next part, so I'm setting it apart so that you know that this is new information]
When you first saw Vayl, you were unsure of what race she was. She had red skin and horns, so you may have assumed that she was a tiefling, but upon getting a closer look at her, you see that she is missing several tiefling features. Your small talk with her reveals that she is actually human, originally hailing from the Kingdom of Anduin. Apparently her skin tone and horns are the ways that magic has marked her.
You tell Vayl of your acquaintance with Rogan and she then discusses her mission with you on your journey back, telling you that she only intends a short visit with Rogan because her actual mission is time-sensitive. She is en route to an island in the province that had a dwarven mine that had to be evacuated very recently because it began to lose its air envelop at an alarming rate. She said that she has been studying the phenomenon of living islands losing their capacity to support life and this incident had provided her an opportunity to study it as it occurs. She convinced her superiors in the Ordo Arcanis to fund her trip to this island so that she may try and determine what may be causing the rapid deterioration of life-sustaining energy. Bantu questions her about her thoughts on the Life Equation, but she seems to know nothing about it. He also mentions extra-terrestrial causes (as Leikner had witnessed) and she did not subscribe to that theory, but didn't discount it. She said that her working hypothesis involves the existence of a ley-line network connecting the living islands and providing them with life-sustaining energy. She believes that the islands that die, or are dying, are somehow losing their connection to this network. She's been working on a thesis, but has lacked any hard evidence to support her theory, which she hopes to gain on this expedition. Your group suggests that perhaps they may take her to the island and help with her investigation, but she politely declines, stating that she has already reserved passage with a company called Expeditions Unknown, which operates out of the city of Greed on Tradeport. You caution her on the reputation of that business as pirates, and she considers your offer and says that she will look you up when she concludes her business with Rogan.
Upon arriving at Tradeport, Vayl departs with her surviving crew and says that she'll return probably later that evening or night. You all disembark and notice that Kern has not come out to meet you as he usually does. You search the port and find no sign of him. You decide to go up to his house and discover the front door ajar. You enter and find the place a shambles, with broken furniture indicating a fight had occurred. Kern's guardian golem stands in the parlor. In the next room, the secret door leading to Kern's sub-basement where his vault is has been revealed and opened. You descend into the sub-basement to find all of Kern's personal possessions gone and the vault open. Within the vault, the evil book that was encased in the glass cube is gone, as are the stone Life Equation tablets. You search the place for clues and find large footprints from a very heavy intruder and Kern's keys. You also note that the stairwell leading down to the cellars have markings on the walls, as though something large and made its way down and back up, scratching up the walls in the process. Your return to the main level and observe scratches on the golem's shoulders, suggesting that it was what had descended the stairwell. Norro notices on the back of the golem's head a strange object attached to it. As he does so, the object begins to glow and the golem animates, attacking you all. But after a short fight, Norro manages to pull the object off the golem's head and Leikner crushes it.
The object was a scarab-shaped and apparently enchanted to override Kern's control of the golem and use it to attack the dwarf and to break into the vault. Signs of blood droplets lead from the house to just beyond the gate where they end at an area that has wagon tracks in the ground, suggesting that Kern was placed in the wagon and taken away. The trail is lost at the main road that leads both to and away from Tradeport, so the wagon could have gone either way. You go into Tradeport to see if you can ask around to see if anyone knows what happened to Kern. Solomon learns from his brothel contacts that a couple of the pirate Gates' thugs were bragging about having a way to break into Kern's place and rob him blind without having to set foot in the house. The rest of you decide to pay a visit to Kern's main buyer, the orc merchant named Trog One-Arm. You find Trog in the tents lining the street in front of his shop, "haggling" with a customer who he had held upside down by the leg with his one arm. The customer agrees to Trog's terms and is dropped before Trog noticed your presence. After hearing about Kern's disappearance, he suggests you go inside to talk privately and he takes you to a back-room in his shop, but before he does, he stops a old woman dressed in rags from shoplifting, throwing her roughly into the street. Strangely enough, the old (and apparently hardy) woman picks herself up, calls Trog a bastard and leaves. Inside the shop, Trog tells you that Kern's main enemy is Councilwoman Krais, who he once adventured with in an adventuring company called the Salvage Crew. Apparently, the enmity between the two started when the crew discovered an evil book on their last mission together. The majority of kern's group wanted to find a way to destroy the evil book, but Krais wanted to use it and learn from it. Kern refused to let her use the book and had it sealed away in his private vault. Krais left the group (which disbanded shortly afterwards) and used her considerable adventuring wealth to buy a position on the Pirate Council of Tradeport. Since then she has been making Kern's life as difficult as possible, trying to find a way to get the book.
As the group discusses Kern, Leikner makes an observation about Trog's un-orcish manner and abruptly accuses him of being something other than an orc. Trog laughs off the accusation and ends the meeting to attend to his customers.
Meanwhile, outside the shop, Solomon makes his way to Trog's shop and sees Brahm outside. Solomon window shop a bit while waiting for the others to emerge but then notices Brahm enter the shop and a strange cloaked fellow follow. Solomon starts to go in, but then he spots Brahm outside the shop by one of the tents. Brahm signals to Solomon that they're being followed, so the two go into the shop to see who the cloaked stranger is and why he's tailing them. The two enter and find the cloaked stranger searching for Brahm, fooled by the gnome's illusion. Brahm manages to paralyze him with a spell and finds that he is a young man that was hired by someone across the street to keep an eye on your group and report back. Solomon runs outside the shop but the man who hired the boy is gone.
The rest of your group emerges from the back room to witness this scene. You let the boy go and get ready to leave when you notice the old woman from the street in the store, obviously stealing as much as she can stuff in her rags. Norro attempts to question her, but she becomes violent, accusing the "pointy-eared bastard" of trying to rape her. Trog hears the commotion, grabs her by the leg, turning her upside down and shaking out all of his goods before again throwing her out very roughly on the street, where she again picks herself up, calls him a bastard, and leaves.
After this, you all begin to discuss your next move.
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