Session 3
August 21 2019
Life is starting to get exciting in Athkatla! There are several events going on at the moment, and since a chronological record may make the noteworthy events difficult to follow, I have decided to record these events categorically.
First, the carrots. We received an unusually large shipment of carrots, which normally wouldn’t be noteworthy, except that the carrot situation is far more perplexing than a simple mistake in the order. The carrots were arriving earlier than the rest of the food we ordered, and other restaurants in the area have been receiving extra carrots as well. What’s more, the carrots register as slightly magical, and before long, a large group of magical rabbits has appeared as well. I have no idea who might be responsible for the sudden influx of carrots and rabbits or what their aim might be, but this is certainly a matter worth looking into.
Second, the park. A local boy asked us to put up a flier calling for the local authorities to “Free Starscape Park.” I brought the flier before the rest of the franchise owners, and we decided (in a 3-0 vote) not to put up the flier. Nevertheless, the Free the Park movement has spread, even without our involvement. The locals claim that, since their taxes help pay for the maintenance of the park, the public should have free access to it. This seems reasonable to some of us; however, the claim that their taxes pay (in any meaningful way) for the park has not yet been proven. So far, we have not gotten directly involved in the conflict, though our Decisionist, Star Moonwhisper, strongly feels that Starscape Park should remain private, believing that it is largely the nobles’ taxes that pay for the park.
Lastly, the spiders. In the middle of the night, a handful of mechanical, clockwork spiders entered our tavern. We destroyed one of them, but more spiders swarmed in. Thol Deepwood scanned the spiders with Detect Magic and saw that they were slightly magical. The Detect Magic spell also revealed another magical signature in our secret cellar. Some of us followed this signature and found a bag full of materials for making constructs that were enchanted by Transmutation and (troublingly) Necromancy. I have no idea how this bag got there, but Thol, Penub and I suspected that it was related to the mechanical spiders. Our suspicions were confirmed when one of the spiders spotted the bag and raised an alarm, causing all the other spiders to scatter. Thol dropped the back through the magical hole in our cellar, and Orel told the authorities about the invasion, the alarm, and the scattering, but he didn’t tell them anything about the bag, since he didn’t know about it at the time. I know far less about this matter than I would like, but I’m worried that we haven’t heard the last of it.
[What Kharagon doesn’t know is that the bag of construct materials was stolen from a candlestick maker by Lyaka last session. Unsatisfied, she snuck out again to try to get something more valuable from the candlestick maker, and she saw that, though the candlestick maker never left the house, his servants had unusual comings and goings, and some of them sustained mysterious injuries. On another outing, accompanied by Orel, they encountered the mechanical spiders long before the rest of the party and watched them for some time. One of the spiders snuck into a shop, and Lyaka broke in to watch it. It scanned various metals, but left them all alone, even the coins, seeming to only be interested in something else. Once Lyaka was outside, the local authorities started asking her some questions about a shop that had been broken into, but some slick talking on Orel’s part convinced the authorities that they were just out for a walk. However, they saw that the spiders’ search would soon include our tavern, so they hurried back and woke the rest of the party.]
There’s a lot going on in Athkatla these days. We have several new mysteries to unravel, in addition to that of the kobolds and their wizards, about whom we already knew. We certainly have our work cut out for us. Unfortunately, these events seem more likely to lead to trouble than to money.