Session 7: Unhanded

Characters involved:

• Aramil, elf cleric of Helm.
• Pisqual “Piper” Dunraven, human rogue and ambitious thief.
• Primeiro d’Pirazzi, human mage extraordinaire.
• Shrain, dwarf cleric of Moradin.
• Tredek, half-orc barbarian and reader-of-books.
• Zelder, halfling rogue and pastry aficionado.
• Vaicht, elf monk of Kelemvor.

When Ulther and Shrain started towards the Twin Songs district in pursuit of the suspected culprits, Zelder went and fetched the others from the opulent Helm and Cloak inn, where’d they all been staying on Silvershield’s coin. Tredek, Primeiro, and Zelder, met up with the others at Hadru’s pottery shop, and brief introductions were made. Ulther trusted the newcomers enough for now, and that was good enough for them.

Together, with no small amount of balcony-jumping and prestidigitatorial antics, they went into Hadru’s  cellar and confronted the patriar youths who'd sought asylum there. Led by Marek Oberon, a 16-year-old boy who brandished a rapier, the six kids tried to get the PCs to leave them alone. Marek's younger sister was among them, as was the Ravenshade boy, whom the PCs had learned never returned home the previous night.

Through a combination of intimidation and persuasion, the Heroes of the Wide and their new friends took charge of them all and discovered among them the missing hands of Minsc! And Boo, the beloved (stone) hamster. A large chunk of cracked marble, it was certainly unwieldly, but Ulther shouldered the backpack and took charge of it—there was probably no greater prize in all of Baldur’s Gate than that piece of the Beloved Ranger statue.

The other statue hands were not to be found. Marek and the other patriar adolescents eventually divulged that they’d be convinced into breaking off the hands when they were at a party with some other kids. Alcohol had fueled the ill-advised prank. They all agreed, too, that it had been a boy of the Rillyn family (another patriar family) who had suggested the act, but had not taken part of it.

Boo, safe and
mostly sound.

Shrain was kept by his companions from driving a blade into the hands of the kids (or at least Marek)—the dwarf's vision of justice. Zelder made friends with Marek, who eventually came to trust that while he would be in trouble, they wouldn’t be harmed, and Marek told him that if he was brought back to his home, the halfling would be given all the pastries he could ever want. Meanwhile, Primeiro made some suggestive, if idle comments about Ravenshade’s mother—a noblewoman of whom Primeiro seemed rather fond. To be fair, all noblewomen seemed to garner the mage’s interest. Zelder, intrigue'd by the boy's offer, frequently spoke of muffins and tried to convince his companions to seek out a restaurant next—even though it was the middle of the night. They declined, as more pressing matters were at hand.

The PCs faced an important choice. Would they...

• Bring the patriar kids to Duke Silvershield in the Upper City, as he had requested?
• Bring them to the Seatower of Balduran in the Lower City, to face the justice of the Flaming Fist, as Ravengard had demanded?
• Bring them to the Counting House near the docks of the Lower City, as Rael had asked?

After much deliberation, they decided to bring the patriar youths to the Counting House. According to Rilsa Rael, the Counting House's owner, Rakath Glitterbeard, was the treasurer for the Council's Eminent Fellowship of Financiers, and he was in a position that could ensure the patriar families would be held financially responsible for their children's crimes. More importantly, Glitterbeard was a Guild sympathizer.

In order to bypass the garrison of the Flaming Fist, the PCs sent out their surreptitious new companion, the Piper, with one of the silver Fist brooches Marshal Ravengard had given them. He bluffed his way past two guard checkpoints using the brooch, and secured a ferry that was docked at the base of Wyrm's Rock specifically for the use of the Flaming Fist. Meanwhile, the others had carefully wove and bluffed their way past a Flaming Fist patrol by covering the kids up—who were manacled and hooded—as they brought them to the beach by the Outer City district of Rivington on the other side of the river. There the ferry picked them up, and the PCs drifted on the waters back towards the harbor of the Lower City.

When they came into the docks, not all went according to plan. A surprising number of Lower City residents were out and about at this early hour, and when the PCs brought the patriar youths to the door of the Counting House (as Rilsa Rael had asked them to), the crowds began to take notice of them. In fact, several men with torches came in and tried to seize the kids by force, demanding to know who they were. Someone even called out asking about Minsc’s hands. The crowd was initially rebuffed, mostly by Tredek, Vaicht, and Shrain, but a handful became a mob and soon something like a riot—or a lynching—commenced. The backpack containing Minsc’s hands and Boo was spilled open, exposing it to many in the crowds.

While Piper dashed off after some suspicious shadowy figures, the others contended with the surging and increasingly-maddening mob. Aramil shouted his god’s name and sought to calm the crowd, while Ulther warned them with his light-imbued greatsword that they were the Heroes of the Wide. Primeiro tripped several people with his quarterstaff, being jostled (and elbowed in the face) in turn. Tredek, Shrain, and Vaicht wrestled with the chief antagonists, successfully throwing down many, while Zelder defensively smacked the hands of those who got too near his charges. The halfling rogue was certain that this mob had formed much too quickly to be natural—it had been orchestrated somehow. Its individuals were reacting as mobs do, but it seemed to have been coaxed into being.

Piper chased the two figures who may have had a hand in the mob's creation, but they split up and he pursued one toward the docks. There she waited, then climbed down into the water of the harbor itself—confirmed later by the wavemistresses of Umberlee to have swum eastward.

By the time the PCs had scattered or beaten off the crowd (while killing none), four of the patriar youths had been spared from lynching. Yet both Marek Oberon and Veldyr Ravenshade had been torn from them and soon disappeared, screaming, apprehended!  With the statue hands and the four remaining kids, the PCs spilled into the Counting House for temporary refuge, where the dwarf Rakath Glitterbeard recorded what they told them…as promised, documenting the crime and the identity of the children to ensure that the families—and only the families—would pay the price. The PCs were, of course, not happy about losing two of the kids.

Then the PCs went to the Seatower of Balduran, imparted their tale (minus an account of meeting with Rael of the Guild), and surrendered the hands of the Beloved Ranger. Soldiers then went to collect the kids at the Counting House, as expected. The PCs stayed the night in the austere quarters of the Seatower, amidst the company of grim-faced (but appreciative) Flaming Fist soldiers.

The very next day, the PCs—and the whole city—learned of a grisly conclusion: The two boys that had been dragged off, Marek and Veldyr, were found at the base of the Beloved Ranger, bound, beaten, but alive....with their hands cleanly sliced off, and chained to them were all the other missing statue hands. The reaction in the Upper City was of horror and embarrassment. So great had been the outcry against the culprits of the defacements that the patriar families implicated in their children’s crime were said to have closed up the gates of their estates and holed up, hiding from repercussions. There was talk of exile. The two crippled boys were secreted away, and the four children taken into custody by the Flaming Fist were now being held for trial, and everyone expected they’d be imprisoned for several years, in the very least. Their families weren’t making much of an attempt to intervene on their behalf, fearing greater controversy and shame.

Several days passed, and Marshal Ravengard was not to be seen. Neither had Duke Silvershield called on the PCs, but they quickly learned that they were no longer allowes to stay at the Helm and Cloak Inn—it seemed clear Silvershield was displeased in the PCs’ actions. Meanwhile, the PCs suspected Rilsa Rael’s involvement in the quickly-assembled mob that had ripped the two kids away from them—and which might have lynched all the kids, had the PCs not fought to protect them. Her pawn shop, the Calim Jewel Emporium, was conspicuously closed.

During these days, the city seemed to calm down somewhat. Justice had been served, if confusedly, and clearly the three patriar families involved in the defacement of Minsc and Boo were also being blamed for the removal of all the other statue hands as well. The people were largely placated, for the statues would be restored with the help of the Gondsman priests. But unrest certainly continued to simmer between the poor Outer City, the beleaguered Lower City, and the paranoid Upper City.

Tredek spoke of what he had learned in the library of the High House of Wonders, about Bhaal, the Lord of Murder. Bhaal had been slain during the Times of Troubles well over a century ago, but foreseeing his own death, he had sired children in the mortal world in order to spread some of his divine power. In this way, he and his foul disciples had hoped to reincarnate him again someday—and that was a plot that Abdel Adrian had thwarted in his adventuring days long ago. Or so he believed. Duke Abdel, himself one of Bhaal’s mortal “children,” had slain the villain Sarevok, mightiest of the Bhaalspawn, and in the process had saved Baldur’s Gate from war and suffering. Abdel, the last of the Bhaalspawn, had managed to suppress the murderous evil in himself, the latent divinity of Bhaal.

But perhaps not. When he was slain by an unknown assassin in the Wide just several days ago, dark energy fumed from his wound—and his killer had transformed into some of fiend before the PCs had brought him down. Tredek would have learned more about Bhaal and his cult, but he found that some of the pages in the books he’d found had been carefully cut from the binding.

In any case, the PCs next received an invitation to meet Ulder Ravengard at the Hissing Stones, a bathhouse in the Lower City where Duke Abdel was known to frequent.