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Muscular and imposing in a green-dyed longcoat, tunic, and puffed trousers, the half-orc Venture-Captain Calisro Benarry kicks out a chair for herself from under the massive oak table at the center of her well-furnished cabin and sits down. “Welcome to the Pixie, Pathfinders. Enjoy your tour while it lasts, ‘cause by Sunday night you’ll be off the boat.
“We’re a day’s sail from a rendezvous with a Pezzacki whaler, the Patience, which has permits to cross the Chelish blockade to fish. That town’s been locked down since the people upended the empire’s government five years ago, and those permits are hard to come by. We’d teleport you into Pezzack if the damned devilfolk didn’t have the place blanketed with spies, so instead we’ll throw you into the hold with the Patience’s catch. Which is good for you, trust me, because nobody in that town smells any better than you will.”
Calisro leans forward, and whispers gruffly, “You’ll be dropped off to my contact at the Academy of Applied Magic, professor Kalizandrex Poppo. He’ll help you track down a trapped Pathfinder named Olandil, who’s been stuck there for five years—your job’s to get him out. Be careful who you talk to, though, and how you ask questions. That place is more volatile than Gorum on a bender, and the more you poke around, the more likely you’ll be the next to burn it down.”
The venture captain pulls a sheaf of nautical charts out of a case at her hip and unfurls them on the table. “As for getting you out of the town, I know a thing or two about the sailing patterns of the ships around here. The Pixie can pick around the coast north of here for a week before Abrogail’s folk come asking questions.” The venture-captain smirks as she continues, “In case you hadn’t noticed, the Pixie, well, she looks an awful lot like a pirate vessel, and the Chelish navy doesn’t exactly welcome pirates with open arms. You’d better get back here by then. Any questions?”
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Pitbull smiles at the Venture Captain, seeing a kindred spirit.
"What does this Olandil look like if we are hunting him? Anyone else hunting him? Nothing wrong with Chelaixians" Says the half-orc, wearing the insignia of Cheliax, and the Order of the Gate - who are homed in Citadel Enferac just east of Pezzack "The Hellknights always have some diabolists need hunting down, and Zarta pays good too"
Olandil ’s an old friend of Venture-Captain Drandle Dreng, and when Dreng wants someone smuggled out of a blockade, I don’t argue., then turning to Pitbull, Olandil is not a wanted man in Cheliax, he is just stuck behind the blockade that has been up the past five years.
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Rasamoro grins and takes out small flask of strong alcoholic beverage: "I remember you liked that stuff, when we were near Abendego. So, I brought this one from Mwangi for you. The taste is quite special..." as he passed a flask, he asked:
"Is there any dangers, so we need to hurry get Olandil out? If we cannot do it out of the city in a week? Does this mean our chance is gone and we need to sit tight for several month or years until Society organizes another party for our retrieval?"
Callers answers Rasamoro: “If we’re gone, find a whaler who is willing to sail you farther afield. It won’t be cheap, but it’s better than being dead. Trust me when I say we’d rather have you on the Pixie then a Chelish brig—or worse, turned into a strix’s nest. I’ll have someone contact you magically and we can arrange a rendezvous. Don’t worry; I’ll get to you before the Chelaxians do.”
Olandill never sent a message, but Poppo did: ‘Many faces fail to find the path. Send the worthless ones my last request for a vacation.’ There’s something else, too, but I can’t tell if it’s code or a diversion: ‘Noodles, the highest form of poetry, point all slave masters to my lost memory.’
Five years ago, a combination of Hellknights, guards loyal to the empire, and strix burned the city of Pezzack to the ground in a battle known as the Second Ashes. The Chelish navy established a blockade on Pezzack that persists to this day.
The Second Ashes began after revolutionary playwright Amalia Wraxton premiered the play Abrogail I, which portrayed the first Thrune Magistrix as Asmodeus’ lover and blamed her for many of the ills that have befallen Cheliax in the last century. Wraxton vanished that night, and rumors about her whereabouts are a favorite tavern debate topic.
Pezzack is a coastal town in Cheliax. Its most prominent industry is whaling.
Four factions vie for power in Pezzack: the idealist White Thistles, the anarchist Galtans, the commerce-minded people of Docktown, and the Loyalists, whose allegiance lies first and foremost with the empire of Cheliax. The town is under a strict blockade from the Chelish navy, and only whaling ships with the appropriate permits are allowed to pass in and out of the struggling city’s harbor.
The naval blockade is particularly effective at hindering trade in Pezzack because overland trade out of the town is nearly impossible. A race of birdlike humanoids known as strix control the mountains, and their hatred for humans makes them a constant threat to the city.
The following four factions constantly vie for influence in Pezzack.
Docktown: Representing the stranded merchants in Fat Harbor, the tiefling “mayor” Bruck wants economic dominance over Pezzack—a greedy oligarchy made easier by the town’s well-honed smugglers and perpetual unrest.
Galtans: Violent revolutionaries fronted by the grey gardener Habar Curl, Pezzack’s pack of Galtan rebels want the town’s freedom to spring from the blood of dead Loyalists—and anyone who might be aligned with them.
Loyalists: Pezzacki still loyal to the Chelish crown believe there can be no peace until rulership of the city is returned to its diabolical masters.
White Thistles: These idealists led by Amalia Wraxton want a unified, free Pezzack and hope to win over the other factions’ hearts and minds through verse and acts of derring-do.
Members of the Dark Archive find a mysterious letter among their possessions on their first night aboard the Grinning Pixie.
The new moon and clouds keep the pre-dawn sky dark as the Pixie sidles up to the Patience. The ragged whalers silently pull person after person from their hold of scant fish—emaciated elderly people, several haggard-looking young men and women, and even a trio of children—each of them looking like they’ve gone years without rest as they listlessly cross the plank joining the ships. Venture Captain Benarry welcomes the refugees in a booming voice, and her crew sets to work bringing provisions to the newcomers. The Patience’s crew lacks their ship’s namesake as they hurriedly wave over the refugee’s replacements.
It's an uncomfortable hour on the ship, and once the Patience docks, several crew members unceremoniously scoop and dump the adventurers and fish into a large wagon. Within a half-hour, a trap door in the wagon spills the party and fish out of its underside, down a metal chute, into a larder.
After a few moment, a gnome throws open the larder door, and helps the adventurers to their feet.
The gnome, Poppo, hurries the party down several dimly lit stone halls and into the basement of what he explains to be the Academy of Applied Magic, which hosts cramped quarters for them to unload their gear and a single small tub of stale but clean water to help wash off the fish guts, if not the stench.
“Split me like Nethys’s eyebrow! I’m genuinely surprised the Passfinders sent people!
Sorry for the lack of a good cover story— didn’t have room in the notes—didn’t expect a response—and sorry for the fish guts and the bumpy roads and—oh, sorry for everything. If we had a little more time...”
Poppo trails off, but picks right back up after a moment of silence. “Right! You’re here for Olandil. It’s... it’s complicated. He’s, well, he’s not himself lately. He’s four selves. Since your little Pathfinder Society left him behind, he’s had to make do— improvise—take on new names and jobs waiting for rescue.
“When I first met him, he went by Jax Telandril and needed me to enhance some goggles of disguise for some work in Docktown. He kept asking questions about Fat Harbor and the town’s magic item economy. A year later he came in needing me to add some disguise charms to an eye patch; I asked him why, and he spilled it all—so tired of keeping secrets—he was also Jacks Falger! The one-eyed Galtan spy!
“He kept coming back over the years. He came in one day as Jaks Arunai, some hot-shot White Thistles poet. Last week, he comes in looking awful, and said he was a Passfinder named Olandil, and I just... I couldn’t process it! Four people! One person!”
Poppo gesticulates madly, alternating between raising four fingers and one finger to emphasize his point. “I told him my own secret—I had been teaching a Passfinder vantage-captain as a correspondence student—and he told me to send her a message saying he wanted out of Pezzack. As though that’s even possible! But I sent it, and he thanked me, he left, and I haven’t seen him since.
“Night before last, I had Loyalists—” Poppo smothers the word with disdain, and doubles up on his disgust as he repeats it. “—Loyalists in my office, telling me to stop doing business with Olandil, following me everywhere except the Guts because I bet they don’t like to get their boots dirty. They knew who Olandil really is, too! And they’ve been outside the Academy since, watching, waiting. They don’t know about my ladder to the Guts, but they’ll find out eventually.”
Poppo fishes a rolled-up map of Pezzack from his robes and spreads it out on the basement floor. He points out five places the party are likely to get information about any of Olandil’s public personas.
Gold Street: “The thieves’ guild operates out of here. Lots of information if you can buy it. You didn’t bring money with you, did you? Nobody takes money here. Maybe the Loyalists, but still, nobody worth spending it on.”
The Inkwell: “Literati hangout. Lots of rebels, lots of fights. Someone who knows Jaks the poet, the one in the White Thistles, will be there, I’m sure of it.
The Throne Defiant: “Loyalist inn. If you want to get to the bottom of Olandil’s connection with the Loyalists, you can try there.”
Auntie’s: “Big tavern in Docktown, and a good place for gossip. You can try asking about Jax Telandil around there—he’s the Docktown Jax—but mind who you talk to if you don’t want to spread rumors.”
Madge’s Noodle Cart: “Madge doesn’t know anything except noodles, but she knows noodles! You have to try them.”
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Bones grumbles "By the gods it will take weeks to get that fish smell out of my beard! Yes, the order is as good as any other, have to start someplace."
Picking a small hermit crab from his beard, the cleric ask Poppo "Would we look out of place in the city or do we need to dawn some type of disguise?"
Hmm. I can give you some Academy robes if you want to try and blend in. You can use the Guts to enter and leave the academy, loyalists keep check of everyone moving in and out of the academy. They call them the guts because they are the guts of the city, and because they are full of guts, you see? ()
You can also use the basement. It's the only safe and vacant lodging in Pezzack.
Phelorosa? Never heard of her.
Noodles really are the highest form of poetry... Poppo finally answers absent-mindedly
All bones knows is that Poppo is indeed a gnome. And an academy professor.
The jagged cobblestone street is lined with storefronts looted to the buildings’ bones. Entire walls have been hauled away, stripped not just of stone and wood but also the nails that secured them, and anything remotely valuable was picked clean years ago. One shop stands relatively intact, however— Torandril’s Finery. Its windows are boarded shut, though lights inside appear to shine between the planks. There's eight men loitering about, though heavily armed.
With only Rasamoro wearing Academic robes, the party makes its way through the guts to Gold street.
Hah, a customer, on of the guards says with a wide grin, showing some rotten teeth, Just move on in and see Cessia, she'll be able to help you.
Inside, a dark-haired chelish woman sits behind a lavish desk, with a row of chairs opposite of it at such a distance to create the idea of an audience. Welcome, she says what can I do for you. I have not seen your faces before, and I remember faces. I always do. I assume you have come here for business. You may call me Miss Florianthus. And you might be?
Bones tries to improve the woman's attitude, though he doesn't quite manage to sway her. She is hard to read, too, a tough negotiator.
I can give you information on this person. The standard price for such information is twenty crowns.
I believe this is the beginning of a very good business relationship indeed, the woman says, so let me help you on your way with an incentive: I shall divulge this piece of information for ten crowns. Once you are aware of the cost involved to obtain this information, you will realize that it is a very fair price point.
-editing-
So, Jax Telandril?
“He’s been doing odd jobs around Bruck’s little fiefdom in Docktown for years. My associates claim he’s been scrounging the harbor floor in his spare time in hopes of finding something valuable enough to pay off his debts, though I doubt even that will work.”