CSI Korvosa!

The trial is thrown out, and the lawyer tells us that he wants to meet with us once our personal business is taken care of. Eorin figures out the body of Orias’ sister has been preserved with magic for a long time. Orias tells us that all he knew was that she died at an accident at the Academy several years ago. Eorin gives Davor a vial of his blood to experiment on how to remove the undead-ness from him. This leaves Eorin a touch woozy.

Orias’ sister, Celeste, had originally specialized in abjuration magic but had found, that she had a talent for illusion. So she decided to go that route, but then due to an accident with wards not being prepared during evocation class died from a rogue chain lightning spell. They repaired the body and put the body on ice to find her family. But she apparently had no next of kin, so her body went into storage. She has a different last name on the forms that she filled out than Orias, so she was using a false last name.  Which is highly confusing considering that Orias was told about her death by their mother six years ago. The school says that they never notified anyone, so how Orias’ mother was notified is a mystery.

They point us to Professor Ardoph regarding questions of body theft, because his job on campus is to procure or deal with anything slightly less than legal. He has a nasty scar on his head, and it looks like he stitched the wound back together himself. He’s got a floppy mohawk. He finds records of Celeste’s body being taken in the “necrophilia” pile, and he has kept meticulous records. The man took the body two years ago, and was a first time customer. Ardoph didn’t get the necrophiliac vibe from this guy even though that was the supposed reason he wanted the corpse. He was a tall, lanky guy with a peg leg on his right leg and was a sea captain. He was so stereotypically a sea captain that Ardoph almost didn’t believe it.  The name the man gave was “Captain Oglaf” but it’s probably fake. He paid in cash, like all customers.

There are only two professors still around from when Celeste was a student, the Necromany professor and the Universalist professor. We decide to go and visit them to ask if either of them knew anything. We visit the Universalist professor, Jack Delaphore, first. He’s busy teaching a cantrips class. We wait for him to finish and then go up to greet him. When we tell him we’re there with Celeste brother to ask about her, Professor Delaphore says that he will speak to Orias alone. So the rest of us leave the room so they can speak privately.

Delaphore tells Orias that it was unusual for a body to be kept on ice for that long. They usually wait a week and then use “Speak with Dead” to determine what the body wishes to be done with it. However, the necromancy professor was out of town at the time, and he is the one who usually deals with such things. But she was kept on ice even after his return, and Delaphore doesn’t know why. However, Mister Normandy, the head of security, has something of Celeste’s in his possession that Orias is entitled to as her next of kin.

We find the armory, and go inside. An arrow flies into the door right next to Orias’ head. That particular spot has clearly been shot many, many times. Mister Normandy is a tiefling with bluish-grey skin, short military cut hair, and a mean looking composite longbow. Orias explains that he’s here for something Celeste left behind. Mister Normandy goes into a back room and returns with a ring of keys which he uses to open a locker. It contains a book, an old school uniform, and a wand. He explains these are her belongings and hands them to Orias.

We then go see Professor Phyxious. He is directing a student production – he apparently also teaching theater. He said that he was never informed of her death, and he’s told whenever any body is put in cold storage. He agrees to take us to see the cold storage. Cold storage is vast, underground, freezing, and automated. That’s the polite term for run by undead. The vast majority of the undead that run cold storage were created before Prof. Phyxious arrived. “In the bad old days any student that failed ended up here.” “Failed a class or failed out of the school?” “I was never clear.” There are parkas at the entrance for visitors. There’s a cell door with wards, chains, and other protections across it that Kyle insists on looking through the window of even though Phyxious tells us we really don’t want to know what’s behind it. Kyle takes 2 wisdom damage. And we move on.

Professor Phyxious explains that the healing staff usually brings the recently dead here, and they are given necklaces that put them under the gentle repose effect. No body is meant to be here for longer than a week. He says that someone must have gone to a great deal of difficulty to hide Celeste’s body from him. Ardoph was taking a nap in cold storage. We come to conclusion that Celeste’s body was hidden from everyone for four years, and yet was conveniently visible and just lying around when Captain Oglaf came looking for “the kind of girl that doesn’t talk, ever.” It is likely that the body was kept in the school grounds for the time it was missing, because it is extremely difficult to sneak things out of the school. Captain Oglaf had been sought out by Ardoph, because he was selling items a professor was in need of, and Oglaf had asked for a body in exchange and picked Celeste out of the bodies available in cold storage at the time. The items Ardoph as in search of were not ones the school needed frequently and they came from the Darklands and were relatively rare.

We went to the Hellknights and asked if they were able to get anything out of the ghoul, but they were unsuccessful. The ghould speaks Osiriani, which none of the Hellknights do. They offer Eorin the opportunity to interrogate it because Eorin knows how to hurt undead effectively. The Academy won’t have a scroll of tongues available until the next day, so we decide to wait to interrogate the ghoul and go to the docks in the meantime.

At the docks, we look for information on Captain Oglaf. Captain Oglaf used to come around a lot, but hasn’t been seen in two years. No one bothered him though because he was under the protection of the River King, a Chelaxian crime lord that controlled the trade rivers and trade routes. No one has ever seen him (the River King). One thing they did remember is Captain Oglaf had a weird tattoo of red eyes (not sure how many, but definitely more than one) on his ankle. The ship was named “The Lola.” He also used gold measures, which are from Absalom, but that sort of currency is used everywhere because Absalom is the center of trade in this region.  While we’re at the docks, Illythan goes off on his own to buy a warehouse and some dock space. Illythan is offered a deal on a warehouse if we go clear it out because people are clearly squatting there.

Eorin recognizes the smell of corpses left out and not dealt with wafting from the warehouse.  Turns out Eorin was right! The warehouse is full of corpses, and fungus, and a perfectly good ship! Once you clear the moss off and clean it up…… we realize this ship is “The Lola.” The fungus is a rare and deadly kind that only grows in the Darklands and is used by people that don’t want undead cropping up because it rots corpses quickly and thoroughly.  If consumed or breathed in, it will cause us to blind and insane. The spores spread easily, so we’ll need to take special showers to get it off of us. Special poisons have to be used against it to kill it. Eorin opens his special umbrella, and it shields him from the spores. We decide to send two people in to investigate the boat, then everyone will clean and alert the dock authority to take care of the rest of the problem. Zelara and Eorin decide to be the investigation team while everyone else goes to wash and get the dock authority.

The Lola is not the most sturdy of vessels anymore. The bodies are in a very advanced state of decay – even the bones are rotting. Eorin attempts to cast “restore corpse” on one of the bodies, and it doesn’t work. The fungus blocks undead and is favored by assassins as well. It looks like someone came in and killed everyone – some of the corpses appear to have been killed while they were in the process of completing everyday tasks. Zelara spies heads in the water. We find more gooey bodies on the top deck of The Lola. The door to the captain’s quarters is locked. Eorin breaks open the door and we go inside. The fungus is growing in there, but it’s been growing in such a way that it looks as though someone kept it in there. We can see where it started – in a glass case in a potted plant area. We also find the Captain’s mirror, and laid out in front of it with great care, his razor, his beard, his peg leg, his uniform, and a makeup kit. It looks like the sort of peg-leg you could fit over your real leg. There is a blood covered rag, and the razor looks very well taken care of, and appears to be a war razor. Whoever was playing the character of Captain Oglaf clearly went out of their way to make the role believable. There are decades of journals with information about Oglaf. There are portraits of the Captain with people he must have known – not anyone famous. It’s possible that Captain Oglaf might have been a real person who was then assassinated and had their identity assumed by this imposter, but it’s difficult to tell if that’s the case or if the Captain was purely a false identity. There’s a hatch under the bed that leads directly to the exterior of the ship. Someone with the average height and weight of a human would have a difficult time squeezing through the hatch.  We also find a hidden compartment that’s a metal safe. We can’t open it and decide to extract it from it’s wooden surroundings and have Orias try to open it.

We go to the lower deck, and find tons of corpses. It’s clear that the captain killed the crew, and then prepared the bodies below decks where there is also a great deal of water to encourage the fungus to grow to cover their tracks and make finding any evidence difficult. We retrieve the safe and bring it out for Orias. The dock authority is at the exit waiting for us with plague masks and tools to eradicate the fungus. They hand us the fungicide spray and we get all nice and clean. We clean off the safe, and Orias manages to get it open.  However, the safe was trapped, and he’s stabbed in the neck by a dart, and Orias took 9 permanent con damage and is now blind. The safe turned out to be a music box and has a picture and a note inside. No one recognizes the lady in the picture because the only person who would is now blind, and the note says “Smile, no one cares how you feel.”

Eorin casts “Restoration” on Orias and he regains his eyesight and constitution. The picture is an iconography of Orias’ mother and there is an arm around her shoulders from a tall standing figure, and she is posed as though she were holding the hand of someone sitting next to her. However, neither of those other figures can be seen because they have been meticulously cut out of the picture. Orias recognizes the phrase on the note from someone who gave him a speech back in his early thief days in Riddleport about how a smile is the best disguise. Orias doesn’t know the man’s name, but he was tall, lanky, and has a perfectly groomed mustache. Orias would recognize him in a heartbeat.

Orias decides to spend his money to raise his sister from the dead. The healers at the Academy explain to Eorin (so he can explain to Orias, since they’re not used to dealing with people) that according to their tests, she died exactly when this murder supposedly occurred – meaning she may have been raised before only to be murdered by the ghoul. Secondly, there are signs of abuse – she was probably chained up at some point (her ankles are bruised), and there are stiches on her abdomen of the kind that only a master of the coronary arts could have performed. Her heart, liver, lungs, kidney etc were all taken, and she was filled with something deadly – if the healers hadn’t been as careful as they usually are, upon cutting her open, poison gas would have filled the room. (They used magic to look inside her, which is how they prevented this from occurring). They cannot, however, determine cause of death. They removed the poison gas, so her corpse is safe again, but resurrection will be expensive (at least 10k gold) and no one at the Academy knows how to perform that sort of divine magic. The healers also found a tooth with a hidden compartment in it in her mouth. Inside the tooth compartment there is a small rolled up scroll that has a small drawing of three red eyes on it. Eorin identifies it as a symbol given to those whom the River King trusts. It has to be on the body in order to be “official.”

We decide to go to the Pantheon of Many to find a cleric of Calistria in order to have Celeste resurrected. There are shrines to all the main gods/goddesses of Golarion in the building. Eorin goes to say a prayer to Pharasma. A shadow looms over him. He turns to see the young woman from the library in Absalom, Lorelai. He finishes his prayer, turning it into the extra long one halfway through. The shadow gets longer and he turns to see Jedah standing with Lorelai, commenting on how long Eorin’s prayer is. They have an awkward small conversation, and then Jedah hands him a hefty stack of paperwork and leaves. It’s an application for the entire group to join the Pathfinder Society. There are also similar forms for the Firebird’s Guild. Close inspection of the forms reveal that wee would have to choose between them, but both organizations do work together.

Kyle has a discussion with the statue of Cayden Cailen. He is displeased because she is on the road to drinking to excess. The two of them argue for a bit. Cayden is very concerned about how the onis are attracted Kyle and instructs her to keep it cool and only drink heavily on special occasions so she doesn’t end up like them.

Orias meets a priestess of Calistria and asks for a resurrection. She tells him they’re not the best at that type of thing, but that she’ll try to work out a deal for him, but it may take a day. Zelara goes to the shrine where Aroden used to be located. There isn’t anything there now, but someone is clearly keeping it cleaned and maintained. Apparently there are those who still believe he will return, and they keep his old shrine location clean.

Late in the evening, Orias gets a message from his temple that they can find someone to do the resurrection, but it will cost the normal amount to hire the spellcaster (910 gold) but he won’t have to pay for the spell components (diamond). Orias happily agrees, and sets a time for the resurrection the following day.

Illythan is at the Temple of Asmodius hiring someone to do paperwork for his business. He’s informed that someone is waiting for our group, and a messenger is sent to the Pantheon to retrieve the rest of us as well. We’re told that Stanley Highat Trinidad the 14^th Esquire, Eorin’s formal legal council, has been waiting for us for an hour, so we decide to go and see him. He would love it if we decide to go to Isger next. He’s from there, and Isger, much like Korvosa, belongs to Cheliax. The problem is, even with Cheliax’s wealth, Isger is still not getting the attention it needs. It’s a spawning pool for goblinoids and there’s an undead problem in the south. The only parts being protected are the trading routes and the river. It’s a place that’s getting very little help regarding military/martial support. So we’ll help a lot of people by going there. It’s also where the River King might be located, which would be something Orias might want to check out, plus there aren’t many temples to Pharasma so Eorin will be able to escape some of their harassment. Stanley says he’ll leave us to discuss amongst ourselves in his office and leaves.

Zelara explains the vision she had from the Whispering Tyrant about how the Army of Exploration that’s connected to Ravagug is our common enemy and that he knew who had set Eorin up and heavily implied that it was connected to the Army of Exploration. Eorin also brings up the paperwork from the Firebirds and the Pathfinder Society. If we join the Firebirds, we get an action figure automatically – being in the comic book is not assured. Firebird rules: we cannot be hired as mercenaries in a war, no assassinations, don’t be an evil jackass, etc. Pathfinder rules: you have to write down the information, people have to help each other, all knowledge goes back to the Pathfinders and they have it published. We decide to join the Firebirds, and Eorin gets started on the paperwork right away with much gusto. Illythan also tells us all that he’s willing to start selling us shares in his new company.

Stanley comes back in and explains to us that the guy who was pretending to be from the Temple of Pharasma has escaped. He also tells us that he had bribed the guards, and that’s why they wouldn’t let Kyle talk to him. Stanley then hands Kyle a bill for the pencils she erased (plus legal fees) that comes to 5k gold. The bill is specifically for Kyle to pay, even the legal fees, out of spite because Kyle erased all his pencils. They two haggle for a little and they come to an agreement for Kyle to pay him 1k gold.