Session 10: Volunteer Pigeons

The PCs awoke in a dungeon, in a spacious but very dark cell. Vaicht and Amaril, the elves among the party, recalled the presence of a woman in their fleeting moments of consciousness. She was pressed over them, whispering, a blade to their throats, seeming eager to cut. But the memory was blurry now, and they lapses back into unconsciousness for an indeterminable amount of time.

In their cell was another elf...a mage with a foggy memory of his own calling himself Arylon. Hours stretched into days, and through the bars of a raised portal, a kobold appeared each day to bring them bread and water. The captors didn't appear, but it seemed clear enough that this incarceration was the Guild's doing. It didn't feel like the dungeons of the Seatower of Balduran's probably would. At one point, a charm person spell was uson the kobold. He coudn't be coerced into letting them free, but he did go to fetch more food....and then returned later with a second kobold. Amaril immediately used and inflict wounds spell to kill the second kobold, but it didn't effect an escape, and the first kobold fled.

Sometime later, the door opened and a human hand tossed down a flint & steel...and a single black candle. And no explanation.

With nothing else to try, Shrain lit the candle. Seconds later, they heard a voice issuing from the candle itself. Some sort of enchanted candle, and it seemed to contain a disembodied voice. Shrain recognized it as the voice of Duke Abdel himself! Who he'd only heard speak once before, in the Wide on the day of his assassination. Abdel's voice said:

“How does this thing work? Magic? Whatever, of course. So what do you want me to do? Talk about...oh, godsdamn it, not him again. Not again. Sarevok? Look, I killed him. He wasn’t the last one, no...but I killed the last one. Damn it, Coran, I’m done with this. No, I’m not doing this….”

The voice drifted away. Abdel had sound frustrated. But after ten minutes of utter silence, his voice returned, issuing from the candle in almost a whisper.

“....Viekang. His name was Viekang. I don’t think he was a Bhaalspawn. He kept turning up, but…he kept vanishing. Literally vanishing: teleporting away whenever fear overcame him. That man was so full of fear. It ruled him. He was afraid of dying, and the other spawn kept going after him… That was eighty years ago, at least. Maybe more...”

And that was all. The PCs weren't sure who had this candle delivered to them. But the suggestion was, Abdel had admitted that another Bhaalspawn—another, like him, invested with the vestigial energies of the slain Lord of Murder—may have survived all these years. If so, was he connected to the Bhaal cultists who'd been showing up in the city? What of the general unrest in the city? Related?

The PCs let the mystic candle burn out, then Shrain, the only one with darkvision, set to work on the stone beneath the bars with the piece of steel. In vain, of course, but he was a dwarf and dwarves do not sit idle.

Hours passed again....

Until finally, on what might have been the third or fourth day, the door opened and a man stood there, telling them to follow. He tossed a rope down for them to climb up to the door with. Through a warren of tunnels they followed the jailor and eventually they found themselves entering the central chamber of the Undercellar, a subterranean festhall beneath the Wide. A known tavern not policed by the Watch but clearly frequented by both patriars and wealthier Lower City business persons. Primeiro was there, and had just that morning met with an agent of the Guild to secure their release.

From him, they learned of what had transpired in the city during their time in the cell: the Upper City's lockout, the fires, the continued trash pile-up and sewage problem. And in one particularly tense scene, they quickly and awkwardly learned that in their absence, old dueling laws from Baldur's Gate's early days had been reinstated. Evidently, any citizen can demand redress for a perceived wrong in a civilized "duel": at first blood, the wounded can submit to defeat. However, the first blooded can choose not to yield, in which case the fight can legally be allowed to be fought to the death. The PCs came upon a patriar adolescent dueling a lamp lad with a dagger, ostensibly defending his sister's honor, for the lamp lad had led the girl to a gambling den (i.e. had done what she had paid him to do). The PCs interrupted this incident, but in the process had rendered unconscious a pair of Watch from the Upper City. There could be repercussions from that, but they had clearly saved the lamp lad's life.


Soon after they met with Ravengard, who asked about their several-day absence and was not pleased with their obvious skirting of the truth. He gave them some recompense for their work so far, though the incident with the crypts had not gone perfectly according to plan. Yet Ravengard was willing to wave it away and let the the PCs prove themselves again, if they helped save another life: the life of a boy who'd been kidnapped.

The kidnapped was Omdarsh, son of Darsh Nyach, a prominent member of sailcloth; Nyach wasn't only a wealthy merchant, he was both a member of the Lower City and a member of the Parliament of Peers (one of the few non-patriars). During a session of the Parliament early in the day, he had received a ransom note from the unknown kidnappers. The message read:  If you want your son back, and alive, bring 800 gold pieces to Blind Darcaryn’s corner. Drop 2 platinum pieces into the beggar’s coin cup.

After the recent rash of fatal kidnappings, the prospect of actually delivering the demanded ransom and saving the boy seemed grim. Yet the Ravengard was asking them to try, to take the ransom money (a small chest of coins) to Blind Darcaryn's corner, which was a known locale in the Lower City just outside the gate to the Upper City: Baldur's Gate, the gate the city is named after. While Ravengard's instincts are to storm the ransom delivery sight, he knew that this wouldn't likely save the boy. The Guild, who he was certain was beyond all the recent kidnappings, would be ready for that. If the PCs went, perhaps they could find Omdarsh.

So they did. With disguises and strategically staggered groups, they took the chest of gold and two platinum pieces and went to where Blind Darcaryn begged for money. He sat there, with a basket beside him and a cup in front of him. When they placed the two platinum pieces in the old man's cup, he handed them a scrap of paper from his pocket. It read: You’re the pigeon now. Let’s see who’s faster, the real pigeon or the volunteer pigeons. Bring the ransom to the roost. Don’t be late.

While the message was being read, Darcaryn opened the basket beside him and a pigeon flew frantically out. A homing pigeon, trained to fly to specific destinations! Suddenly it became apparent that where the pigeon flew, the PCs would need to follow, and quick! It took the pigeon several long moments flapping through the air to get its bearings, then it started off vaguely southward. Vaicht, a monk and street-savvy elf, immediately scaled the nearest building in order to watch where the pigeon flew.

With his keen elf eyes, Vaicht spied the pigeon sail down to a building near the docks...four districts away. All the PCs gave chase, pushing or weaving their way through the crowds....

Don't be late...

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