February 8, 2026
25 I’amondrix, 826
The party proceeded to the next door out of the necromancer’s lounge. As they examined it, the handle began to turn. They flattened themselves against the wall, but the hooded figure who filled the doorway was not taken by surprise. He pumped a magic missile into Annais, who dropped to the ground.
Oskraks swung at the necromancer, but his blade slid off the caster’s mage armor. Slamming the door, the party barricaded him out of the room with a couch.
Gerald staunched Annais’ wounds.
Dragging Annais out of the dungeon, the party slipped on marbles. Attacking from a side room, the necromancer narrowly missed Aida with a ray of frost. Aida dropped caltrops, allowing the party to escape.
In the entrance of the dungeon, the party came upon a corpse with metal spikes hammered into its eye sockets.
In the wine cellar, Gerald examined the body. It had been strung up and tortured before being executed with goblin spikes through its eyes. Wiebeke identified the body as Two-rat Karl, a rat-catcher who frequented the Pink Unicorn six months ago. He stumbled on some get-rich-quick scheme and disappeared.
Searching for a healer for Annais, the party spent a long, long time discussing the merits of Golden Talon membership. They could trade the wand for membership, which would give them access to many services and employment opportunities. But the guild has laws against infighting and open political affiliation.
Annais worried that the prohibition on fighting other guild members will interfere with Oskraks’ paladin oath to intervene when he witnesses injustice. Oskraks decided it is worth the risk; if he must take down evil adventurers, the party has options to lie, flee the guild, or say that the targets were committing crimes and harming the good name of the Golden Talon.
The party discussed their political affiliations. Aida wants Calloway for emperor, as she has promised to bring the nobility to heel; Aida’s homeland was torn apart by warring vassals of a weak king.
Gerald rejects military rule, preferring Viceroy Statius von Stettin, a career bureaucrat and current administrator of the crownlands.
Annais told how her homeland, the vassal Great Kingdom of Massara, is being ravaged by buccaneers, left to its own defenses since its armies were called to the Khavandri-Shethya War eight years ago. Great King Baudrain is a weak ruler, but Annais supports his canny advisor Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Oscine.
Oskraks doesn’t support anyone in particular, aside from the general concept of a peace candidate.
With everyone pulling in different directions, the party decided that they wouldn’t be declaring a political affiliation any time soon anyway. They went to the Golden Talon guildhall and exchanged the wand. They were given packets of guild policies to study and told to prepare for an exam to confirm their membership.
