Act 1 - The Vanthampur Investigations
Initial Investigations
Having agreed to become deputy Fists, the party was clued in by Zodge to the case at hand. Starting about ten days ago - the same day Elturel disappeared and refugees began arriving - someone began murdering refugees, and only refugees, in Baldur's Gate. The bodies were then dumped in Insight Park.
Six victims had been found so far:
Zodge gave the party a bag of gold to meet with an informant at the Elfsong Tavern who allegedly had a clue in the investigations, and sent them on their way. Grumph and Nephrite headed to the Elfsong Tavern to meet the informant (Tarina) while Solarys, Yelren, Bryzorwyn, and Flight Risk headed to Insight Park to investigate the scene of the crimes.
Elfsong Tavern
While at the Elfsong Tavern, Nephrite and Grumph heard the tail end of the titular elfsong - a disembodied, beautiful elven female voice mourning a lover lost at sea. After it ended, Alan Alyth, the owner, recognized them as Fists and asked them to help him solve a problem: he had a rather unusual customer in one of the suites upstairs who wanted no contact with anyone, but they were behind on their rent and also their room was starting to smell. Lending them the skeleton key, the two of them agreed to investigate.
Letting themselves into the room, they found it decorated with many undersea trinkets and treasures, especially art, and occupied by Oshalla, a sahuagin priestess who had fled after disagreement with her king over his plan to conquer the land. Realizing she was low on money but could still use magic to move around the city freely, they convinced her that she could easily sell art (which she did herself) to support herself, which was agreeable to her. They collected the current amount of rent and let Alyth know she would not be falling behind again.
As they waited, the elfsong sang a second time, the maximum amount of times it usually sang per night. Soon after, Tarina arrived, and the party provided her with her night's gambling money in exchange for a tip: she let them know that she had seen Dead Three cultist activity around the Poisoned Poseidon in the Brampton docks area. They then left to catch up with the rest of the party at Candulhollow's Mortuarium.
Insight Park
Meanwhile, Torimesh the druid was more than happy to show the rest of the group around the murder scenes at Insight Park. The first body was dumped by the Drawing Tree, which spontaneously showed the party a prophetic image when they arrived:
- A large sword held aloft by an angelic figure.
- The arms of the angelic figure are bound with chains.
- Below the figure is a large tablet or slab of some kind, cracking into two pieces while being consumed by flames.
After investigating the rest of the body dump sites, the party turned up two clues:
- Tanner's fluid on several of the sites, in a large enough quantity that it would have had to be from the bodies.
- A dropped set of entrance papers into Baldur's Gate. The kind you'd need to get inside as a refugee. However, as an expert forger, Flight Risk quickly pegged them as falsified papers.
Having gathered what they could from the park, they quickly moved to canvass the remaining friends or families of victims while they still had daylight to burn. Solarys left his owl familiar, Varen, here to watch for any suspicious activity and to return to him with it on spotting it.
Meeting The Victims' Friends and Families
The party followed up with the following:
- Madhuri Akhila's bunkmates, Sjang and Albaer. All three arrived on a boat coming from Elturel and had been living on the boat until they could find a place to live. They found more false papers, which some people confirmed came from Amrik Vanthampur, and also found that Madhuri's father was a Hellrider.
- Leiv and Aneta Diomidis were recognized by Yelren and Bryzorwyn as fellow Hellriders from a proud Hellrider family; it's said that there has always been a Diomidis in the Hellriders.
- Annika Silverleaf, who was a founding member of the Order of the Companion. Several refugees reported that despite a visible distaste for him, Annika was helping get them papers from Amrik Vanthampur.
Candulhollow Mortuarium
Since several of the bodies had been moved here, this was the final investigative stop for the day. The party turned up more fake papers among the personal effects of the refugees, as well as tanner's fluid on the bodies. As they were preparing to leave for the evening, Solarys received a telepathic message from Varen: cultists had been seen dumping another body in Insight Park, then heading back to the Poisoned Poseidon. After a quick stop in to talk to Zodge, they headed that way to stake out the location.
