#2 - Battered and Bound

The symbol of Onatar, the
Sovereign of Forge and Flame.

• The seventh adventurer, the middle-aged dwarven priest Doongul was just returning from a sojourn to the city's temple of Onatar. Bearing a peg leg, and a very fine warhammer, he was returning to the inn to join his travel companion, Magnus.

Outside the Bookmark Inn, an older human pushed past Doongul. Rudely. Doongul then went inside, only to find a room in chaos: A battle had erupted between the human mercenaries and the human strangers! Spells and illusions were cast, chairs were broken, hammers were swung, and the four men were quickly defeated. Amid the chaos, Halbazar used a spell of invisibility and some unseen acrobatics to break the glass of the display case and pocket the bronze necklace. While Cypher tended to the spellbound Wenrick and the whimpering goblin Dursha, the others worked to free their weapons from the webbed-up rack. Cyzicus began to interrogate the only conscious mercenary.

Then the lyre-playing gnome minstrel, Jag, who'd been quietly observing from his corner, introduced a new development just as things started to calm down. With an apologetic but irritated sigh, Jag dropped a ceramic jug of some kind in the center of the room. From admidst the broken shards, a poisonous vapor expanded outward across the room like a spell. The PCs struggled to escape, only to find out that both the front door and every window had been webbed. Worse, even the stairwell up to the second floor had been filled with sticky strands.

Magnus, Halbazar, Doongul, Cyzicus, and Xoma all managed to break through one window, burning away the webs with spellfire, and even jumped through. But more mercenaries awaited outside, led by the elder human in the cloak. Crossbow bolts and deadly spells were unleashed—and the PCs put up a valiant fight with spells and attacks of their own, even going so far as wounding the old man and killing one of the mercenaries with divine magic. But they were still outnumbered and outmatched. One by one, they fell. None were killed, but all were defeated.

All but one. Only the drow elf, Xoma, managed to escape into the night. Using a potion of flying—one of the prized possessions he'd carried since leaving Xen'drik—he easily eluded pursuit and rose up into the night, his ebon-black skin camouflaged against the night.

An airship from the nearby Lyrandar docking tower descended to the park across from the Bookmark Inn, and more mercenaries—or whoever they were—descended. No help came. No opposition from any Korranberg watchmen. Just an organized round-up of all victims in a quiet and darker corner of the city. The sleepy little inn had been unprepared for this strange assault. And most of its occupants had not been killed, merely subdued. The PCs were taken aboard the airship, alive, along with all the gnomes and even a trio of humans from inside the inn.

Still wounded, Xoma was inclined to simply fly off and seek healing at the Jorasco enclave elsewhere in the city. But when the airship began to rise up again, he knew he had only moments to decide. The drow wizard flew up and latched onto one of the back-flung fins of the unknown airship. He bound himself there with rope, knowing the effects of his fly potion would eventually expire. With Nymm, the pale yellow moon, full overhead and the Ring of Siberys visible on the southern skyline, Xoma bundled up and waited. His fate was now affixed to this ship and its villainous crew.

Inside the cargo hold of the airship, the rest of the PCs eventually awoke, battered, caged, bound, stripped of weapons and much of their gear—and angry. Seeing the other survivors from the Bookmark Inn—about ten gnomes and three humans— locked up in cages across the hold, they worked to free themselves. The human Halbazar and the warforged Cypher freed the rest in short order. But they were still weakened, without weapons, and without many answers.

Wenrick, the proprietor of the inn, was conscious. He whispered across the way, telling them that they (their captors) now had "the emperor's key"—the bronze Dhakaani necklace. Evidently the one in the display case, the one that had been swiped by Halbazar, had been a decoy. The real one, according to Wenrick, the gnome had worn around his neck.

According to the old proprietor, the necklace was referred to in several prophecies. To do what, he couldn't say. He also said that they had "creatures" with them. Aberrations.