Barkys Belch (The Barky Books Book 2)

And Baimagambet went on riding. Mustafa looked after him in surprise. Should I believe or not? He decided to ride to the Poor aul that had got this nickname because of its poorness long ago. It got an appropriate nickname but since dzhigit Tuleybay had grown up there people started being afraid of the Poor aul. All tribes around learned about such impudence. Tuleybay was sitting in the yourt among many people and telling loudly and hotly about something.

Having seen Mustafa he jumped up and went towards. Does anybody know about your values? But I learnt when I had been sitting in the pit. There is no a devil who can part us. I wish our friendship would ever live! Ahmet was one of his relatives. And he had taken away her in an unknown direction.

People had been looking for the escapees for a long time. At last they had found them, tied the both up and brought to Ahmet. Being blind with hart burn and revenge Ahmet dug up a deep hole, sat Tuleybay there and put his yourt over it. For that time Tuleybay committed an inexcusable misdemeanor. Nobody came Tuleybay to the rescue. When he asked for some water Ahmet added some salt water in it. Once Mustafa learned about this and Tuleybay disappeared from the hole. There was a gossip that he was sitting in Akmolinskiy prison but soon people forgot about him at all. It passed some time and Tuleybay settled in the Poor aul.

Now Tuleybay was already in years. He was of a medium height, plumpish, with a black beard, dusky, full of energy and sharp-tongued. He was always in motion as if some invisible power made him rush somewhere. He now rose on his knees and then sat down on his heels having tucked his legs under one — never a dull moment. His speech was flying like a mountain river. His penetrating eyes were constantly looking for something. He questioned Mustafa about the people of his aul, about the new migration, about his life and then turned to a grey-bearded Russian who was sitting on the place of honour and said:.

They are only one step removed from hungry wolves. What a poor man used the offspring of his land? I am not afraid of any gossip, Dmitry. Let people say that I am a thief, a swindler and a troublemaker. You cannot cover each sprout with a kerchief, let them bubble. I give my son to your hands. Teach him Russian, impart him your knowledge.

Dmitry started laughing loudly. Mustafa recognized in him the grey-bearded Russian whom Mekesh had beaten with his dagger last year not having made head of. Now Dmitry was a teacher in a Russian settlement and learned already well Kazakh language. No skill can be developed in a late-blooming dark area. We need the light of knowledge. In darkness a human cannot go, if you are blind you cannot go far… I will try to bring up a worthy man from your son. For me it is an affair of honour. Just lick my son into shape.

They are afraid that they can become peasants. I wish my son would open them eyes when he returns. Dmitry was going away. The mother kissed the five-years-old boy with inward slant of the eyes and shed tears. The father raised his voice:. My son, come up to me! Will you miss us? Having sat the child in the cart Dmitry went away. The whole aul watched them go. The gossip that Tuleybay decided to cross his son in the other faith flew around the local tribes. We build it for the costs of the whole aul. Here children will learn in a new light.

The things which they earlier were learning during a year now they will study them for a month. We have a teacher, I have agreed with one Tatar…. We will plant trees around. We will start fish-farming. We will sail boats… I have seen a school near Akmola. I want to build here the same one and over there, - Tuleybay pointed aside on the aul, - we will dig up a bid water gang in order the cattle of wandering Kazakhs not to trample our sowings.

They came up to the water gang. The only dzhigit was working at a depth of a human height. Mustafa thought that Kazakhs were lazy. But here it was dug up so much ground! Bay Nurlan robs his people all his life long. I have taken away a part of his pillage and given it to people. If it is not enough I will take away by big-bellied ones some more. If I am living the whole aul will be living. It took some time before Mustafa replied.

Minding his steps he smiled. According to the legend adherent of a different faith Shaddat has built his own paradise on the Earth and the God admitted it as the eighth one. And took it to the Heavens…. I wish the God would not take us to the Heavens and let us live on the Earth for the time being! The stories of experienced Tuleybay were endless. He had as many thoughts as hopes. He saw how people lived.

We have to start living on the same place, - he was speaking with conviction. Mustafa moved to the yourt, accepted the treatment and continued his way. Measured steps of the camel were drowsy for the boy. From time to time he opened his eyes and addressed to his father:. At first you should learn in Islamic manner. I want to know in Russian. The father answered nothing. The son was waiting and waiting but dozed off in some time…. The children were sitting in the yourt in a row from the front place up to the very door and everybody was reading in a singing voice.

They came here before the sunrise and now it was midday and hot. Everything alive was looking for a shadow and water. In the morning their voices sounded jollier and more agreeable but now there hear a tired, husky and disorderly mumbling. The mumbling quickened a little but soon quieted down again. Mullah cried out again… There was no table in the room. Children sat on the floor, on their knees. Only few ones had an underlay under their legs, the most plonked themselves down on the ground floor.

Their legs became numb but they were not allowed unbending. They were not allowed coming out for their needs without a permission. They had to beg permission by the mullah having stand in front of him with palms shut together. The children were of different age that is why they learnt by rote by different books hindering each other. Mullah Zhaksybek was their teacher. However, the mullah personally was more terrible than wigs and than a thick strange book with yellowed pages.

It lay in front of him on a book-holder. Children never heard any kind word from the mullah, never saw a smile on his strict face and shivered in his presence like in the presence of a constricting snake. In the middle of the yourt there stood a handy mill. Next to it there was a small bowl with some wheat. Two at a time children were winding up the millstone and Zhaksybek was checking over the process of grinding.

Here he lifted the rod and lashed Samet once more. How many times must I say it to you? Samet was older than others and he was a lazy-bone. He was sick and tired of grinding and he started coarse grinding instead of fine one. But the shrewd mullah made him regrind. But their weariness took its course and the voices started quieting. Meiram started even dreaming. He let drop the aptiek from out his hands and the pages flew apart. Abilkasen and Suleiman started quarrelling because of a hand-made pen.

The mullah gave a flogging all three ones. His angry eyes were boring each one. Exactly in the same manner Mahambetshe had been looking at the caught thief. The one just threatened, the others were afraid. They learnt the same. When Zhaksybek was providing loudly and monotonically a lesson his vines were swelling with strain. He required the same efforts from his pupils:.

Sarybala fluently repeated and asked:. The tutor took the boy by his ear, bitterly bent his head to the ground and started lashing him with the rod against his back like the devil. Go away, the rest of your punishment you will get from your father! However, when she saw the purple prints of the rod on the back of her son tears rolled from out her eyes.

She broke off a big lump of the only scone which was left for the guests and gave some red cheese and thick sour milk in addition. The boy became jollier. He told that he had not been guilty at all. These were the book and the god who mixed everything up. Last winter Mustafa tried to strangle a cat-thief. The boy went to bat for it. If it has done harm for a sum more than it costs then you can kill it.

It has eaten almost the half of butter. The father had one Shariat, the mullah — another one. After eating himself fill and having taken asykis Sarybala ran out from the house. Having reached the hollow behind the aul he broke into a run at full tilt. From time to time he looked around and checked whether the mullah was following him. Boys were afraid of the mullah and played asykis rather far off the aul. Five-six boys were already playing asykis.

Syzdyk threw best of all. His clever hit gave the others palpitations. Sarybala entered the game at once. He threw for two times and muffed. Not imitating Syzdyk he threw asykis for the third time in his own way and scored a hit. It was no use to fight with him. Samet was already sixteen. Sarybala showed one finger. Finally they agreed for three and Samet gave Sarybala his asykis. He always lost and quarreled, threatened if nobody agreed with him. Having motioned Sarybala with his index finger aside he whispered him:. And you are ready to die after just one lash. If you give me ten asykis in addition I will teach you how to save from his rod.

After counting the asykis and having put them into his pocket Samet advised:. Must I walk with this leather all the time? Before to go to the mullah, tie the leather and show it nobody. People say that it is forbidden to beat there: For a one month they will teach you both write, count and read.

My father sends me to Kozha for hiring me to herd sheep. If you are able to herd from summer to summer they will give you two sheep, one goat, some headed half-soles and clothes in addition! Having part with his friend Sarybala went to the aul. He was glad with his big gain. This time he won the rarest asykis.

The biggest one was arhara, the smallest one was jeirana. The both cost tens of asykis. Having remembered that it was Friday next day Sarybala cheered up — tomorrow he will play and win once more. Then he will go fishing. In a heat wave mellowed fish will come to the bank and he will jerk so-o-o quickly! Having imagined how he would hook fish Sarybala started laughing. But at once he stopped because he remembered Zhaksybek and felt his rod on his back.

Once mullah Zhaksybek went to a foreign aul to pay the rest of the bride-price and took two pupils along as his servants — Sarybala and one-legged Zhunus. But Sarybala caught it. He woke up early together with the mullah. He helped him to perform ablutions, then gathered kizyak up to the evening and carried water in heavy buckets. And it was the same day by day. Once when they were sitting at the fire Zhaksybek and Zhunus took their shirts off and turned their backs to the fire. The boy scratched their backs one-by-one and the mullah and the gammy one grunted with pleasure.

It seemed that he struck something out. Make something like a tumult in the aul. The boy came out from the yourt and ran to the steppe with all his might. He really missed home. He was running and looking around from time to time. There were some hills, a pathless steppe, hollows and ravines in front. There was no pursuit. Having grasped the rein the parent-in-law ran to the pasture, mounted a bareback horse and rode after the escapee. It was not easy to catch the boy. Sarybala decided not to ground arms. The horse shrank sideward. The rider grasped its mane being afraid to drop down.

How much life was there in this old man yet? Besides, while he was hobbling his horse the boy had enough time to run away far enough. Being tired and out of breath Syzdyk mounted his horse again. He caught somehow up with him, jumped off his horse and ganged up on him with whole his body. Oh my god, he has hardly killed the boy. What would you do if a wolf attacked you or shaitan tricked of you? Mahambetshe would wipe me out because of you…. The evening twilight died into dark.

Having released from the rider the horse rode to the aul. The two tired ones — the little boy and the old man — jogged home…. Now Sarybala remembered about that case and his back started aching even more. And what would his father say? It meant you can beat him how much you like but his bones must stay unbroken. Only his grandmother could pity him. She always calmed down those ones who cried and cheered up those who were sad.

Her first husband, brave Ahmet, had died when he was young. She had learned much from Ahmet and his father Kadyr who had been the leader of the tribe Kuandyk. The grandma was sitting on the floor and combing wool out. Nearby her there was a big glass bowl with some nasibay. She was never stingy like Mahambetshe. She gave some nasibay to everybody. Having seen the boy the grandma smiled. Sarybala showed her his beaten back and the grandma said angrily:.

That one who has called you an adherent of a different faith is an adherent of a different faith himself. Even an enemy would never lash so much. I wish he would teach using his brain but not a stick. Our Bilal is going to the Russian school. Will you go too? Yeginay, son of insignificant Kemelbay, has made his way in life because he knew Russian language. You should become an interpreter at least. Happiness is connected with wealth, my dear, and a fortune can melt as quickly as fame comes away. If a human is famous for his or her brain what for to rebuke him or her to his or her origin?

Russian study is like a favored river at our times. Having started speaking about learning Zhamilia was talking long about famous Avitsenna. Having laid on his tummy and underset his chin with the both hands the boy was all ears. People said that Avitsenna had learned somewhere under the ground. To the time when he had finished his learning his nails grew long, his beard — up to his navel, his hair hanged from his head down to his knees. When he appeared on the earth the crowd called him spitefully a devil and started persecuting him.

But he escaped like an eel: He disappeared from under the very nose of his pursuers. In exile he always did just good — cured ill people, freed prisoners, and defended offended ones…. When the grandma stopped talking Sarybala sighed dreamily. A young soul has so much strength as a sparrow but its dreams are like a mountain. These were difficult years. Plague killed all cows. During the Year of the PigI the severe jute took away a great number of sheep and horses.

What was much in the auls so these were bones of died cattle and hungry people. Just barymtaII turned into each day theft. Yahiya, Kamei, Bakibay became professional horse-stealers. Mustafa had gone to Mecca once more and became an even more ascetic and spoke often and often about the after-life.

By the example of Ukrainian back settlers many poor men engaged in agriculture. The plague and the jute left for Mustafa the only gray short-tailed one. They could plough on it but the hajji like many of his tribesmen tried to avoid nasty job. In heavy days for Mustafa the son of his friend Torgaut who had died in Mecca, Amanzhol brought him a cow with a calf.

Torgaut died at the age of ninety had prescribed to pray to Mustafa but not to dishonest Zhaksybek although he was a mullah too. Soon they changed the red one for a milk cow and two one-year-old heifers. Now Mustafa calmed himself down: Mustafa had been keeping silent for two years long. And once in the morning he suddenly said when the family was having their morning tea:.

I wish Allah would send some happiness for you. There are a great number of them. But never forget the god, be just and merciful. Always remember about three commandments and then you will not downfall either in this or in that world. IThe year of the pig — according to the old calendar each year in the years-old circle had by Moslems a name of an animal: IIBarymta — a weaponed rustle of cattle for the purpose of revenge or recovery of losses. The aul had the only sledge which was without shafts. Sarybala ran to the owner, impetrated the sledge and brought it home.

Mustafa fastened some ropes instead of shafts. He wrapped the son into some felt, fastened the ropes to the saddle, mounted the short-tailed one and set out. The sledge was sliding, banged now against one then against other road-side. But neither the enduring grey horse not Mustafa paid any attention for this. The horse was trotting short and the rider was mumbling a prayer. Crossing the peopleless snowy steppe there stopped an alpine hare in surprise, stood up on its hind feet and looked at the travelers at a loss.

Big dark-grey rats quickly crossed the road. A pack of wolves was looking after the travelers from far away from behind the bushes keeping their ears open. When his face was fully frosted he tied the strings of his cap under his beard. On one of the turnings the sledge overturned and the boy started crying. The father looked quietly back and dismounted his horse:. Ways are always long and heavy. An inpatient one is always tired.

I want to keep my eyes open. The grey short-tailed one was fully frosted and became white. From time to time it chafed against the knee of the rider to beat up the icicles from its nostrils. But Mustafa was enduring. Not once he touched his face. When the hoar hanged down from his cap and hindered him to look he shook it off with his whip. The boy saw a mouse with black eyes and black tips of the ears nearby the sledge. The boy ran after it, got up to but the mouse disappeared in snow. Having heard the voice the father looked around and turned back.

You cannot catch all of them. There are a lot of affairs in the world but you cannot do all of them. The grey one was slowly trotting along the road. At the river, in the valley among the mountains there appeared a small settlement in front of them but it seemed to the boy a town of the paradise about which people say in the old legends. When they were coming into the town they saw huts which were standing very close to each other.

There people melt copper. Sarybala was surprised by everything. It was the first time when he saw how boys skated. Here was another life and it was interesting. There were a lot of people in the street and all of them were dressed well. There shot a horse along that was harnessed into two-wheeled cart.

One by one there rushed noisily some carts. There sat some men in them who were black like soot. Only their teeth appeared white and their eyes glinted. They are bringing wood and coal into each house. They are higher than a camel! And why are roofs made of iron? Why are walls built of bricks like a stove? Why are bricks red? I wonder who lives in them. There crowded carters like a cloud at the wide gates of the plant. All of them were Kazakhs. They were making noise and clamoring. Each one tried to push forward his personal cart on the weighing machine.

The carts were harnessed with bulls, camels and loaded with the similar grey stone. The carts were going to the plant from far off, from the very Nildimskiy or in Russian — Uspensky mine. They melt copper from these stones. There heard some abuse. Three carts forced their way through the crowd of carters. In front of them a cobby young dzhigit cleared up the way.

He wore shekpene1 made of camel felt. Over the shoulder he had a strand of rope a finger thick. He dragged his sabre on the ground. He loudly gave everybody hell and the carters gave him way like a bullrush under force of wind. He has learnt in Russian. Mustafa pulled into the open gates nearby the weighing machine. Sarybala was charmed with the view of white and grey houses with big glazed in verandas.

Nearby the very chimney that was relentlessly smoking the sky one could hardly see a low brick-built hut with girders in two places. Mustafa rode close to it. Towards them from out the house there ran a lean nimble man without any cap who looked thirtyish. His long black hair was brushed back. He wore a shirt made of blue sateen with a cut-away collar and encircled with a stranded girdle made of black silk. He wore Russian boots and was smooth-shaven as distinct from steppe Kazakhs.

He greeted Mustafa with joy. One could understand at once that the man was deaf. He spoke loudly and moved up his ear again and again: Saying nothing as yet Mustafa performed ablution and started praying. While the guest was praying the host made tea. They started their leisurable conversation only at tea. Each time when we met together you advised me to teach my son Russian language. It has come the time and my son started speaking about the same — he wants to lean in Russian.

I have thought about everything and decided to risk. Here is my son. Teach him what you can. You know I am not a rich man — two cows, three heifers and just one horse. My family consists of five members. If you wish to share my household I will not be upset. Do as your conscience advises you. For the sake of my child I will give everything. We are just two. My wife Zagipa herself is almost a child yet. I think I will be able to nourish two children somehow. The worst one of grieves is not to have money.

I know that I will be rich still awhile away from now but I also know that we will not die from hunger. We must help each other. When I was a waif and lived as a tramp lawyer Duisembayev took me from the street, gave a houseroom and taught me reading and writing. It turned out that there had been a time when he himself had been in great necessity. Your brother, now-deceased Ahmet, had taught him in a Russian school and put him on his feet.

Duisembayev loved Ahmet more than his native father. The most generous is that one whose soul is rich but not that one who is rich for cattle. A human is happier when his or her soul is satisfied but not a stomach. My soul is satisfied. Now I can feel free. Dear daughter-in-law, there is some oil in the sledge. Zhusup brought the sack into the mud room and went out to say the guest goodbye. You were asking and asking and when your please has come true you are crying buckets.

You should inure yourself to the steppe. You should gain your aims not with the help of crying but with the help of courage. Having opened wide his beshmet he untied the girdle of his wide leather trousers, raised up the flaps of his camisole and pulled a purse from out some kind of hiding. He rummaged long but it turned out that there was only twenty kopek in the purse. Giving them to the son Mustafa said:. Learn more and play less.

Do always the things what a teacher will order. I will visit you. His ears were burning, having bent he was sitting like a caught sparrow. Zhusup tried to start with him a conversation — it was no use. Then he proposed with decision:. There rumbled, banged and rattled something deafly inside the big building.

A worker was throwing grey stones in the huge iron mouth.

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The mouth chewed them with rattle and threw out grey dust. Sarybala was looking with surprise at that wonderful power. Pointing onto the stamp mill Zhusup explained:. It was hot in the other large room. There were hissing glowing furnaces like a snake. One could hear nothing else but hissing. On one furnace the cast iron lid was opened. There flew out sparks from there — now there flew just one then the whole sheaf. The boy snuggled to Zhusup. The firestorm was controlled by a husky Kazakh dzhigit. By turn he wetted his hat and his apron made of white felt in a barrel but all the same he was hot and it was difficult to breathe him.

He wore the boots with wooden soles. In his hand he had an iron scoop with a handle long like a kuruk. When he stirred the boiling copper and lifted the scoop the metal bent in a crook. The firestorm raged even more.

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There was not a drop of blood in his face. He was pale, lean, just a bag of bones. But for the month he earns fifteen rubles. The boy was looking at the dzhigit. And when he lifted his scoop and tensed his muscles Sarybala felt a wish to run up and help. In the spirit he compared the furnace with the hell that he learnt from a religious book about. Zhusup took the boy by the hand and led him out. At the edge of the big stone yard there flew a river. Here fire flashed like a lightning, smoke was raging. Tapping with their wooden soles workers in felt aprons ran out from the clouds of smoke.

They pushed carts in front of them and overthrew them at the edge of the brink. Burning and flashing slag red like flame of fire was overthrown with hissing into the river. Here is the most difficult work. Have you noticed that only Kazakhs perform all kinds of heavy works? Something stung his throat but all the same it was interesting there. Everybody has to live. Having seen Zhusup two workers left their carts and ran up to him. Interrupting each other they started claiming:. Can you give me two days for not to go to the plant?

I will treat you with some kumis. Zhusup gave a wink to the both applicants. Being satisfied they came aside. Zhusup was a tableman. He wrote down work days. The office made calculations according to his records. Sometimes Zhusup could mistake — someone could lose a day. Zhusup led the boy forward. Using an iron ladder they walked upstairs. Sarybala saw a great number of pipes — thick and thin ones.

Suddenly something started deafeningly buzzing and having got a fright Sarybala snuggled to Zhusup. This buzz means that the work day is over. Vapour flows out from the pipe and buzzes. A shift — one workers go home, others come. They came out to the railway. Clouds of smoke and vapour. Cries, rattles, hissing of machines. People were in oil and soot. All of them were Russians. He had never seen a train but he had heard much about it and recognized it according to the stories.

The train brings coal from Karaganda. The god for everything is fire. And the father of fire is coal… If you start learning you will know the secrets of many wonders. And the difference between him and mullah Kaksybek is like between the sky and the earth. The affair was difficult and old.

And it was impossible to express his hurt in short. The Kokusek river divided the plant settlement into two parts.



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On one side there lived workers and officers, on the other one — marketeers and common people. It was the area of a beginning rich man, marketeer Aubakir Seitkemelov. His father Sentkemel was Uzbek, his mother was Kazakh. Sentkemel died when Aubakir was still a child having left the son just the smoked yourt, a mare and a grey horse. When Aubakir grew up and it came the time to marry once at night he rode tryst on his grey horse to the aul.

He hobbled his horse and left it outside the aul. Poor Aubakir withstood this mockery. Later, when he decided to marry people took him head on: Mustafa who was young at that time intervened on behalf of Aubakir. This marketeer was Tatar Ahmetzhan. It passed a little time and Ahmetzhan died. Only Allah knows how much foreign wealth Aubakir laid his hands on.

After moving to Spassk he opened his own shop and his business was on the climb. Once in the evening in the dark hut the mother kissed Sarybala and said:. Zhusup started speaking about the bride for some reason. Not for a one time well-known Tursun proposed Aubakir a bride-price. Aubakir thought not for a one time: But in spite of all his attempts to save his thoughts in secret Mustafa guessed somehow them right.

The hajji understood that it was no use to compete with rich Tursun. He had to take some other measures and he decided to learn his son in Russian manner. Zhusup turned back at once. While they were walking about the engine house it started darkening. On the way they were past by a rushing car. The flaps of his torn cap flattered, the curve heels clattered. The car stopped at the garage. Two tall men got out of it. They wore unknown clothes and their words seemed abnormal. Why does it run?

What does it have inside? They are Englishmen, the owners of the plant. Zhusup took the boy by the hand and led him home. At home he fed him, made him wash his legs and got him to bed. He cast about everything in his mind what he had seen during the day. There was shining a shaitan-lamp from under the ceiling. It was a wonder too… Both the ceiling made of old planks and the floor, and the table on the high legs, the coloured paper flowers on it, different pictures on the wall… The little mirror was covered with the towel with some cocks on it. It seemed to Sarybala that the room was a splendid palace.

Spring came, snow melted and the ground became dry. Having missed spring air people opened their windows wide. There came some smoke and coal dust into the rooms. That day it was a Russian holiday — Easter. Glassy eyed ones were rambling through the streets. Ones were already wallowing at the fences, snoring and watering. Other ones were playing pranks and causing affrays. They fought up to blood. As if somebody cheered them up someone raised change ringing in the bell-tower. The louder the change ringing was the more people went in the direction of the high church. They brought along bread and eggs.

Easter gave troubles to everybody. There was nothing to celebrate for Sarybala. He was sitting alone in the room and learning aloud:. To you — sagan. Have arrived — kulekpen keldy. Have come — zhayauksldy. Zhusup taught him in such a manner. On one half of the paper he wrote Russian words, on the other half — Kazakh ones and ordered to learn them by heart. Then Zhusup taught the boy four operations of arithmetic and told about the cases of Russian language. This was everything what the tableman could teach. Now it was time to give Sarybala to the Russian-Kazakh five-year school of the plant.

Feeling that Zhusup had taught him everything he could the boy started dreaming about the red brick-built school. After repeating the records on the sheet once more Sarybala locked the door and ran playing. Inside of the plant fence there lived three families: For a long time Sarybala took Zharylgap for a big clerk. But since he had made friends with his brother Nartai he knew that Zharylgap was a servant. He liked just playing. When he lost he started quarreling.

Having quarreled once with Sarybala he started crying and called his mother — a lean, dried, black old woman. She had not a kimishek on her head like all Kazakh women but a shawl. Her stuck out grey clumps of hair closed almost all her face. Her penetrating wide eyes were sparkling through the hair. The old woman quickly stepped out having drawn forward with all her body.

She moved with her long, dry and wrinkled fingers which looked like a leech. Her toothless mouth was something mumbling all the time. He keels over in agony, a throwing dagger embedded in his back. While the crowd looks on in shock, the folk hero cuts Trinia free and helps her up before turning to address Ileosa: Let us usher in justice, but let that be justice for Korvosa, not this shambles you petulantly call a monarchy!

Down with the Queen! Some demand that he release the assassin while others call for the queen to step down from the Crimson Throne. Queen Ileosa makes a rapid exit, accompanied by Sabina and several squads of guards. However, the executioner has recovered enough to take up his axe again and prepares to strike the distracted Blackjack down from behind.

Ashla calls out a warning to the vigilante, while Egan dazzles the executioner with a flare. Backlit by the setting sun, Blackjack bows before the crowd and offers a salute to Ashla and Egan. Then he drinks a potion of featherfall, grabs Trinia and tumbles gently off the wall with her. A Sable Company hippogriff rider swoops down to ask Zandu which way the fugitives are running. The sorcerer points in the completely wrong direction and proceeds to lead the pursuers on a wild goose chase. Back at the courtyard, Arlynn manages to calm the crowd down enough to allow for an orderly exit, while Ashla and Egan blend in with the rest of the attendees.

While Zandu roves about the city, the rest of the party checks in with Cressida. An intense battle follows as the monks drop down to street level to battle Arlynn and Egan while charging up to the second story to fight the monks. By the time a squad of Korvosan Guards arrives, the three heroes have the situation in hand. Ser Arlynn convinces the thugs to surrender, while Egan delays one of the monks until Ashla can knock him unconscious.

The leader, a Vudran woman dressed in white, manages to slip away. The captured monk is taken to the Citadel, where Cressida joins the party in overseeing his interrogation. Zandu , still carousing in town, has to be retrieved by Guardswoman Remmy and spies a pair of monks following him on the way to the Guard headquarters. The captured monk says only that his order attacked the party to repay a debt of lives owed to the person who arranged for their escape from Vudra. Cressida identifies him as one of the Iron Fists , a band of monks that arrived in Korvosa several years ago and have been acting as law-abiding mercenaries ever since.

Cressida also notes that the monks must have gotten to Korvosa aboard a trading vessel from House Arkona and says she can arrange a brief meeting with Lord Glorio Arkona the following day. The party makes some sales at the Gold Market before visiting the Midland Orphanage as the sun sinks low on the horizon. While there, they hear an altercation on the roof and discover Faunra slaying the fugitive Chittersnap. She says that the abomination had lured several Tunnel Terrors into the Shingles and was planning on attacking the orphanage.

She apologizes to Egan and the others for her harsh words when they slew Devargo , as she now realizes that both he and his ettercap ally needed to be destroyed. The following morning, Arlynn answers a knock at the door to find her father, Lord Alek Farima , and two bodyguards.

Lord Farima, dressed in plainclothes, speaks with her privately in the alchemy lab. He warns her to be on her guard, while he tries to take steps to root out this threat. Dressed to the nines, Arlynn, Zandu and Egan then go to meet with Lord Glorio Arkona as he prepares to address the crowd at the leveling of a dilapidated former brothel. Arlynn urges Glorio to work the party to find his cousin, but he cuts the interview short as he has a building to level. The party watches as Glorio addresses the crowd, promising to replace the old brothel with new affordable housing for the poor, while his servants toss silver coins to the masses.

Then, at his command, a pair of Acadamae students cast a spell that causes the building to implode into a single compact ball of masonry, which then falls to the ground with a thud. A moment later, the clump of masonry gets up and starts walking towards the Acadamae. The two young wizards follow after it, while their proctor tags along behind. The arrive in time to see the huge, scar-faced bouncer eject a pair of rowdy sailors. The party is directed to an empty table in a dark corner. They are soon joined by the scarred bouncer, who drags a barstool over to the table, sets it down, looks them in the eye… and leaves.

Moments later, a lithe halfling woman scampers up onto the barstool. Zandu hits it off with Kyra pretty quickly and suggests bringing in some more members of his extended family to serve in the guild. Zandu, still concerned about being stalked, asks Kyra to alert her people to give the party a heads up if they notice them being tailed by monks, while Arlynn urges her to be on the lookout for illegal slavers. He is still fuming over the action, which has left him vulnerable to reprisal from the Cerulean Society. Turning up little, the party prepares to leave, but Harrad does pause to tell them that the day before the monks broke their contract they had a visitor.

A strange cloaked figure with a backwards thumb. As the party prepares to fight the monks, a new threat emerges—three Bekyar warriors on horseback charge through the compound gates, their lances pointed at Lord Farima. Ser Arlynn pushes past her father to defend him. Lord Farima orders his bodyguards to protect her, then drinks a potion of invisibility and vanishes from the battlefield.

In the ensuing chaos, Egan keeps the monks tied up with a well-placed entangle spell, while Ashla circles the edges of the melee picking off stragglers. The charging horsemen bowl Arlynn over but fail to strike her despite repeated attempts. Attacked from all sides, Arlynn eventually collapses from her wounds but her father reappears to behead one of the monks assailing her.

With the threat from the Iron Fists resolved, the party has two weeks of relative quiet to rest, recuperate and look into less pressing matters. Glorio promises to inform the party once he has identified the miscreant. Arlynn also speaks with the orphans, leaving her copy of the Acts of Iomedae after several of the children express an interest in the goddess.

Ashla, meanwhile, continues her training with Vencarlo Orisini. Meanwhile, Zandu spends the next few weeks trying to get close to Kyra and insinuate himself into the Cerulean Society at the Sticky Mermaid. The halfling woman takes a liking to him, but is clearly reticent to trust him with any serious information about the society.

Still, the sorcerer becomes a familiar and welcome sight at the already boisterous tavern. The druid also spends some time outside the city to renew his connection to nature. Upon his return, he goes looking for Faunra and her druid circle. He finds them protesting outside the Posh and Turtle, a swanky place in North Point that advertises itself as the finest inn and tavern in Varisia.

Guests can view and even feed the turtle through an enchanted glass floor in the dining area. The Brackwater Druid Circle is led by a gruff half-orc named Qoro and also includes his son Akko, a human called the Antler Man who only speaks in Druidic and Deer, and about a dozen other members. With Qoro hauled off by the guards, Egan decides to address the circle. He urges them to patrol the city to protect its animal inhabitants from abuse by the humans and predation by abominations. The circle is ultimately convinced and abandons the protest.

Egan wishes him the best of luck. Faunra and Egan agree to patrol the city together on a regular basis. She learns that the Temple of Asmodeus has long been alleged to be involved in the slave trade, but repeated searches by the Guard have turned up no evidence. But any slaves that are brought in are likely coming from secret entrances in to the sewers. Arlynn also learns that the slaves are likely being smuggled in by ship and that the Cerulean Society has an effective monopoly on all smuggling operations in Korvosa. Arlynn follows up on this information with Kyra, who he finds drinking with Zandu at the Sticky Mermaid.

The paladin asks if the Cerulean Society has any information about the Bekyars, or about the fugitive necromancer Rolth. The halfling woman figures his skill set could come in handy for the party in vanquishing their myriad enemies. A Varisian man of few words, Slim keeps a rapier at his side. The night after Slim was introduced to the party, the residents of Korvosa are rudely awakened to the sound of a trebuchet firing near North Bridge. Stumbling out of his room in the Sticky Mermaid, Slim is able to glimpse a sleek brig burn and swiftly sink into the wine dark waters of the Jeggare River, just shy of North Bridge.

Ashla , on patrol in the Shingles, also hears the commotion but is unable to see anything. The next morning, gossip buzzes throughout the city and fanciful tales run wild. But all she knows for the moment is that a single ship tried to sail up the Jeggare and the Guard shot it down. Slim is suspicious of how easily it seemed to have sunk and ventures out to find more information. Ser Arlynn and Egan meanwhile head to Citadel Volshyenek to try to get more information from Cressida, but discover that she is tied up in a meeting.

Arlynn is stonewalled by the other guards, but Egan is able to find one who was on duty the previous night. He says that a sinister-looking ship refused inspection as it sailed into the river. When it neared North Bridge and still refused to make its intentions known, the watch fired on it and sank it. The pair then head for the Sticky Mermaid, pausing along the way to track down Faunra.

They report that there was no one on the decks of the ship and no bodies in the water. Slim, meanwhile, tracks down someone in Old Korvosa who was watching from nearby as the ship sank. The witness reports that there appeared to be no one on board the ship—but that the ship was lit with a single eerie lantern. Slim reports this back to Kyra, who pays him gp for his trouble. Kyra abruptly loses her enthusiasm for looting the wreckage.

Slim and Zandu bring Arlynn and Egan up to speed when they arrive, but by then the day is far gone enough that there is little else they can do. Ser Arlynn does a quick sweep through the city on horseback before dusk, coming across a crowd of about two dozen threatening a well-dressed merchant. The merchant, a supporter of Queen Ileosa, had criticized Blackjack , earning the ire of the mob. Arlynn is able to convince them to break it up shortly before a pair of Gray Maidens arrive, dressed in plate mail, faceless helmets, and bright red capes.

The Gray Maidens brusquely thank the paladin for her assistance and then escort the merchant home. That night, Ashla again patrols the streets, but the only evil she turns up is a con man running rigged games of chance. The next morning, uncertain of what else to do, the party—sans Ashla—heads to speak with Dolgrin Deepdelver about investigating Rolth and the Bekyar slavers in the sewers. But it also means that any slaves brought through the sewers would have to be moved under heavy guard, potentially leaving enough in the way of tracks for Ashla to follow. The Half-Elf Ranger, meanwhile, is woken by the sound of someone thumping on the door.

Ashla tells him the last she knew, Arlynn had gone to the Sticky Mermaid. Grau thanks her and sets off. A few minutes later, the rest of the party returns with a map of the sewers around the Temple of Asmodeus. Ashla sends Majenko to recall the guardsman and upon his return, Grau lays out the situation. His niece Brienna is very sick, broken out all over in red pocks and barely able to keep food down.

Grau heads upstairs to argue with Tayce about bringing in the priest, while the party talks with Ishani. It falls to Egan to remove the disease from the girl and Arlynn to restore her to health. An overjoyed Tayce pledges eternal gratitude to the party for saving her daughter, gripping everyone in a tight embrace—except for Arlynn in her spiked plate mail. Once Brienna is awake, the party questions her about when her symptoms first emerged. They tease out the fact that the girl found a small wooden coffer full of silver coins which had washed up on the river shore the night after the quarantine ship sank.

She then raced off to spend the windfall at the markets in North Point until she began feeling ill. The party fears that whatever infection was on board the ship has gotten loose. Ashla investigates North Point and spies several ailing merchants while the rest of the party fruitlessly searches the shoreline for the empty coffer. The party rushes to Citadel Volshyenek to bring the matter to Cressida, who admits that the Guard recognized the quarantine light but had hoped whatever contaminated the ship destroyed with it. She will alert the Bank of Abadar and the other temples to organize against the plague.

Upon returning home, Zellara manifests to perform a Harrow reading for the party. The Harrow Deck tells that the party has unmasked a threat to the city that could claim many lives. Gazing into the future, Zellara can see that a buried secret from the past may be key to overcoming this threat, but it may require great sacrifice to do so.

‘Solstice’ celebrates with ensemble of stars

Most worryingly, the cards warn that the very pillars and firmament of the city will crumble. The reading connects Slim to the secret, Ashla to the sacrifice, and Egan to the collapse. The disease bears symptoms from several different plagues, but appears to be something new and especially virulent. With those grim thoughts in mind, the party goes to bed. They awaken to a cryptic message from Vencarlo Orisini , summoning them to visit him at his fencing academy.

While the others review the cryptic summons, Egan Silentall wakes up feeling ill and is forced to treat himself with remove disease. Along the way, they see that the Guard has set up a quarantine around the Avenue of Arms where Brienna Soldado spent her silver. Slim, however, sidles around the building to eavesdrop while Vencarlo leads the rest of the party into a curtained and shuttered study. Then the old duelist invites in his other guest, Trinia Sabor.

Vencarlo explains that after escaping from the botched execution , Blackjack brought the fugitive girl to his academy. The fencing master and the folk hero had crossed blades in the past and had developed a respect for one another. Vencarlo agreed to hide the girl until she could be smuggled out of the city. Unfortunately, he is being watched closely due to his anti-monarchist sympathies and all his usual contacts have gone to ground.

So he has turned to the party to get Trinia safely out of the city. He advises against any flashy or grandiose escape plan, as the Korvosan Guard and Sable Company will be on the lookout for such attempts. After cluing Slim in that they need to sneak someone out of the city, they set out at a leisurely pace, meeting up with the caravan and journeying down the length of Korvosa to High Bridge and then over to East Shore. Along the way, Slim makes a show of playing merchant, pausing to inspect and purchase various minor trinkets.

Trinia plays along, but is always careful not to stand out from the group. Arlynn adds to the display by ducking out of the caravan to purchase a mithral sword from the blade shop Slicers and Dicers. Their progress is briefly impeded by the reemergence of the Mad Prophet, who warns that the gods are punishing the city for the sins of its harlot queen. Only when she is removed from the Crimson Throne will they show mercy. Zandu makes a scene accusing the Mad Prophet of being Blackjack in disguise and the rest of the caravan is able to slip on by with Trinia.

After passing through an exit inspection, Trinia and the party pass through the gates. The party members then each make their way back into the city, trying to allay suspicion.

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Slim returns to the Sticky Mermaid to give a somewhat guarded report of events to Kyra , who pays him for the info. Kyra says it might be a good idea for the Cerulean Society to stock up on wands of remove disease before the prices spike. She offers to give discount healing to Slim and the party, if they need it in the coming days.

Zandu shows up at the Mermaid a little while later, asking about the Book of Joy he ordered. Kyra then packs him off to bed. Arlynn, meanwhile, checks up on the Midland orphanage, where Headmistress Aula explains that they have closed the building to most visitors and sent home staff who have fallen sick.

The following morning, the party receives a message from Ishani Dhatri urging them to meet with him at the Great Bank of Abadar in North Point. When they arrive, they find the marble steps to the bank crowded with poor, sickly petitioners who are being turned away by armored clerics at the entrance. Zandu, Egan, and Ashla find ways around the crowd while Slim handily slips right through it.

Arlynn, however, is quickly recognized as a paladin and swamped by desperate people demanding that she heal them. Before the crowd can get too grabby, Arlynn is able to convince them she is on important business at the Bank where she will work with the Abadarians to combat the disease. Arlynn assures them that everything possible is being done as she enters the Bank.

Instead, a siege mentality prevails among patrons and clerics alike. Ishani explains that although the Bank of Abadar traditionally handles public health crises, they are presently in no shape to do so. Arlynn is once again able to convince the crowd to let them pass and they are able to arrive at the Citadel without further incident. The doctor is cautiously optimistic that it can be contained, if they section off the city and restrict movement between districts.

Zandu is skeptical of this approach. First on her list is the owner of the perfume shop Lavender, Vendra Loaggri , who has turned from peddling fragrances to hawking what she claims is a cure for the affliction. Cressida asks the party to investigate to see if her cure is genuine. Ishani promises to pay them 1,gp for the task. Slim and Egan, meanwhile, skulk around the alley behind the shop, while Zandu lurks at the alley entrance, trying to avoid contact with with the crowd. Slim spies a thug in a purple doublet emerge from an apartment facing the alley and carry a crate into the adjacent perfume shop.

Slim quietly sidles over to the apartment door and unlocks it. Ashla slips away to join him, while Arlynn convinces another thug to let her speak with Vendra. Inside the apartment, Slim, Egan and Ashla find a lushly decorated and perfumed interior. A careful search reveals a hidden door in the bedroom leading to the adjacent apartment, where Slim spies a third thug toiling over a big tub of something fragrant.

He tries to sneak up on the goon, but haphazard debris on the floor betrays his movement.

Items in search results

The thug ducks behind the doorway and shouts an alarm. Inside the perfume shop, the two other henchmen charge out in response and Vendra tries to excuse herself. Arlynn insists that she stay. Arlynn channels divine power through her sword and names Vendra as the false one. They each try to sway the crowd of frightened patrons. Zandu responds to the sound of fighting in the lab by blasting in the door. The explosion temporarily dazes the beleaguered henchman, allowing Egan to get behind him and Slim to land a devastating strike. The blast is also the last straw for the thug facing Ashla, who complies with her calls to surrender.

Half-blind and roasting in his armor, the thug in the lab surrenders, leaving Egan and Slim struggling to keep him alive long enough to get him out of his super-heated chain mail. They eventually dunk him in the tub of water. Ashla and Zandu sweep into the shop and Vendra offers to stand down. She says she was paranoid that someone would try to steal her cure for the blood veil and overreacted when the alarm went up from the lab.

The party questions her about how she came up with her cure and she admits that she stumbled across it while fiddling with perfume components. But she says that the treatment has proven effective on some of her regular customers, such as a local dockworker who is in the shop right now. As far as Egan and Arlynn can tell, it has no healing properties whatsoever. The party lets the thugs go, but takes Vendra and her cure to Ishani.

Zandu pays her 2gp for his vial of the elixir. Vendra will be held in custody while the liniment is investigated. If her claims prove false, she will be handed over to the Guard. If she was found to have been selling a false cure in the belief that it was genuine, she will merely be fined. If her intentions were more malicious, she will face steeper penalties. While all claim that it alleviated their symptoms, at least two of them are still infected with Blood Veil. Zandu, meanwhile, drinks the oily and bitter-tasting liniment to see what effects it might have on him.

Arlynn , Ashla and Egan awaken to acrid scent of bodies being burnt en mass in the Gray District. Arlynn travels to the Gray District, where porters have hauled cartfulls of bodies to be burnt in mass graves. The paladin joins a cleric of Sarenrae and a cleric of Pharasma in praying over the bodies. Their meditation is interrupted, however, when the last cartfull of corpses causes the mass grave to collapse into a another chamber below it. A ghoul pokes its bare, pale head out of the new hole. Several ghouls and a ghast have emerged from the smoking crater to attack the clerics.

The party engages them in combat, but the fight grows more challenging as a shift in the wind sends a plume of foul smoke from a nearby pyre billowing across the battlefield. The five heroes and Majenko struggle against smoke inhalation, giving the undead abominations an advantage. Egan also makes the canny move of dousing the pyre with create water to clear the air of smoke.

After successfully tricking and striking a ghast, Slim is stricken with paralysis and infected with ghoul fever. It takes two charges from the wand of remove disease to cure him.

List of In-Game Descriptions - Page 4

An investigation of the burrow discovers a small tunnel twisting off to the west. Following the tunnel, the party ultimately arrives at an ancient crypt. The crypt contains six sarcophagi — five unopened — as well as a desk and an altar to Urgathoa , goddess of gluttony, plague, and undeath. The area appears to have been well-trafficked until quite recently.

Arlynn immediately feels a powerful evil pervading the place, while Zandu detects necromantic energy in the sarcophagi. The party decides to have Arlynn pry them open one by one and then collectively destroy whatever is inside. But opening one sarcophagus alerts the denizens of the other four and the party soon has a desperate fight on its hands. The crypt is guarded by five armed and armored skeletons, their empty eye sockets ablaze with a pale green glow that clings to their gear as well. Perfectly silent, the skeletons attempt to surround and eliminate the party, who find that swords are less effective against bones.

The tense battle is ultimately concluded by Arlynn and Ashla, the former dismantling a skeletal warrior with a devastating blow and the latter lopping off the head of the last abomination. A thorough search of the place discovers some notes, none more recent than several weeks ago, scribbled by the leader of the Urgathoan cult , someone named Lady Andaisin.

One note mentions Rolth the necromancer, who was apparently trying to join the cult in order to get closer to Lady Andaisin. She is unimpressed with him, but intends to make use of his limited abilities. Arlynn has Egan deface the Urgathoan alter with stone shape an the party then travels up through the secret mausoleum entrance to the crypt and into the daylight.

From there, the party heads to the citadel, where they find Field Marshal Cressida Kroft mulling over a map of blood veil infections. They notify her of their discovery of the altar and she agrees that it seems likely the cult had a hand in the plague. The presence of a full-fledged cult makes them the second-biggest threat to the city after the blood veil itself, particularly since they seem to view Rolth as a chump.

At the very start of the plague, the Cerulean Society bought up every such potion and wand not in the emergency stockpiles and are presently scalping them at ridiculous prices. On their way to the Sticky Mermaid, the party is confronted by a ragged, filthy man suffering from the blood veil — recognizing Arlynn as a servant of Iomedae , he demands that she cure him.

As the rest of the party trickles in, the halfling woman explains that the Cerulean Society has already sold off its stockpile of remove disease wands and potions. Half the noble houses in Korvosa have bought up their own supplies, but Kyra says that the number one buyer was in fact the Temple of Asmodeus. Zandu stays behind to deliver a truly spectacular reading from the Book of Joy and buy drinks for the house, while the rest of the party stops in at the Bank of Abadar. They learn from Ishani Dhatri that the river water does not appear to be tainted with the plague.

When he hears that the Asmodeans have been hoarding healing supplies, Ishani is outraged. He explains that the faiths of the city were supposed to pool resources to fight the plague. Ishani also provides some background on the Asmodeans, who were invited to Korvosa to placate Cheliax and have been feuding with the Bank of Abadar ever since over who has the right to verify and witness contracts in the city. The party returns to Cressida to relay the information from Kyra. The Field Marshal explains that the Asmodeans have wormed their way deep into Korvosan politics, with strong ties to the Acadamae and its noble backer House Ornelos, as well as retaining the protection of the Cerulean Society.

That evening, Zandu sends a letter off to his family in Cheliax asking them to look into the background of Dr. After getting Zandu treated for Blood Veil symptoms at the Bank of Abadar , the party finds a discrete sewer entrance near the looming red marble of the Temple of Asmodeus and ventures into the fetid tunnels below.

After a short time in the sewer tunnels, Ashla hears a faint voice up ahead. She and Slim stealthily investigate, discovering a small, nervous man with a crippled arm rooting through a small alcove carved out of the sewer wall. The way is barred by a foot chasm that split open the tunnel floor, but Egan uses stone shape to morph a bridge out of the wall. Further down the corridor, the five of them stumble across an Otyugh devouring plague corpses that have piled up beneath a man hole.

Slim gets the drop on the creature, and the rest of the party follows up to bring it down. As they draw near the vault entrance, the party overhears a trio of wererats trying to stealthily approach. In the dark, Slim accidentally alerts the wererats while trying to discretely warn the others. A short skirmish ensues, and all but Arlynn have trouble damaging the lycanthropes. Zandu manages to slay one using the magic, provoking the other two to flee. Zandu, Slim, and Wolf-Egan give chase through the sewers, eventually catching up with the wererats after the shape-shifters were delayed by a swarm of bats.

While Slim distracts them, Zandu intimidates the wererats into offering a truce. After some negotiation, the party convinces the wererats to help them investigate the Asmodean vault, which the creatures are incensed to learn has been hidden below their shrine this whole time. The rat men leave to run the deal by their leader, while the party decamps to the shrine, which Arlynn determines is dedicated to the goddess Lamashtu , Mother of Monsters.

Slim discovers and unlocks the hidden door, revealing a spiral staircase running both up and down. Together, the party and the lycanthropes descend the staircase into the vault. The staircase opens into a large central room that sits empty except for braziers lit in the corners and closed doors on three sides. One of the doors soon flies open and the party is challenged by Mina Darklight , an Asmodean priestess, who demands an explanation for their unlawful intrusion. Her attitude rubs Zandu and Slim the wrong way and they quickly escalate to violence.

Mina summons a bound devil to defend her, then retreats into her chambers. A bound imp, Quigley, escapes up the staircase to get help. As Arlynn and the wererats converge on the devil, a second fiend appears near Zandu and Slim. Mina repeatedly urges the party to stand down and soon the sound of many pairs of boots can be heard tromping down the staircase. Arlynn and the wererats bring down one of the devils, while Zandu spiderclimbs to evade the other.

Slim demands that Mina surrender, while she insists that the party should stand down and negotiate. The arrival of a platoon of Hellknights and Asmodean guards brings the fight to an abrupt end, as the party backs down. The party finds several halfling families crowded into a pen that the Asmodeans insist is a barracks but looks more like a prison.

Mina explains that these halflings are contract workers whose passage from Cheliax to Korvosa was being facilitated by the Temple. When Zandu can detect no magical coercion over the halflings, Slim demands to review the contracts. Mina cheerily presents him with one. Everything about the contract appears to be in order—except for the date. Slim points out that the contract was allegedly signed and witnessed in the Chelaxian city of Westcrown eight days ago, but it takes seven weeks to sail from Westcrown to Korvosa.

The Hellknights seize Mina, while the other Asmodeans apologize for her indiscretion. The halflings are freed and the party searches the vault, discovering extensive documentation of the halfling trafficking program. The search of the vault also uncovers a mysterious circle of runes on the floor. Working together, Zandu and Slim are able to determine that it is a teleport circle, written in archaic Thassilonian and connected to another circle elsewhere in the city.

Together, Zandu and Slim attempt to activate the teleportation runes, which take the form of an appeal to Sorshen, the ancient Thassilonian Runelord of Lust, to grant passage through her city. One flash of eerie blue light later and the party find themselves in a different magically-shaped Vault chamber. This one holds a large metal stockade containing a dozen people, all suffering from the advance stages of the Blood Veil. The room also contains three man-sized cages that begin advancing towards the party on stout metal legs, making no sound.

The party soon realizes that they are within a silence field, making spellcasting difficult. Zandu and Egan search for the edge of the spell while Arlynn , Ashla and Slim confront the walking cages. The doors of one of the metal boxes swing open and in a single lunge the cage ensnares Arlynn, who struggles to free herself as the metal bars constrict around her. Ashla and Slim suffer similar fates but manage to free themselves, only to risk being swallowed back up. Zandu finds the edge of the silence field and spiderclimbs onto the ceiling, but has trouble damaging the metal constructs with magic missile.

Egan is able to snare two of the three walking cages with soften earth and stone , but is captured himself by the third. Arlynn finally forces her way free and teams up with Slim against one of the cages while Egan begins calling lightning against the other two while Ashla keeps them preoccupied.

Having become intimately familiar with the inner workings of the walking cages, Slim is able to cause devastating harm by knocking out a single pin, which Arlynn follows up with a blow from her warhammer. With the cages eliminated, the party frees the captives. They consist of foreign travelers and merchants from Cheliax , Nidal , and the Lands of the Linnorm Kings , as well as several people grabbed from the streets of Korvosa. They were left to die in the Vault three days ago when some of them began exhibiting signs of the Blood Veil. The party provides them with food and water before investigating the cellar above the Vault.

The crates were lowered into the cellar from the warehouse floor above. Slim scouts out the area and gets the drop on the Dwarven warehouse owner. The dwarf initially mistakes Arlynn for one of the slavers, who he claims is her spitting image. Under questioning, the dwarf reveals that the Bekyars took hundreds of crates down into the cellar over the past few months, but only brought empty crates up. They were also visited occasionally by clumsily disguised people of means, for some unknown purpose. The party locks the dwarf and his men in the Vault, while Slim goes to fulfill the contract with the Asmodeans.

The priest pays the party for their service and expresses an interest in any more information they discover about the slavers. Slim keeps that detail to himself when he reunites with the party on the way to the Citadel. Before they can report to the Korvosan Guard , however, they stumble across a murder scene. Ashla quickly deduces that the slain priest of Sarenrae was killed by a vampire spawn. She also asks the party to take more care in investigating discrete matters like the Asmodeans.

As the party leaves the Citadel, the are approached by a distraught young Varisian woman, Deyanira Mirukova. Ashla recognizes the name as that of a local musical prodigy who specializes in the ocarina. She investigated the mansion, but found it locked up, with curtains drawn and a sickly smell issuing from inside. Zandu and Arlynn recall visiting the Carowyns some weeks ago. Slim and Zandu then trek up to the Sticky Mermaid, which they discover was badly damaged earlier in the day when a mob stormed it looking for the rumored hoard of healing supplies.

The windows are now boarded up and uniformed Cerulean Society goons stand watch outside. Inside, the two of them confer with Kyra about the vampires and the slavers. In a dark corner of the room, he makes a personal appeal to her not to hold back anything, but she again rebuffs him. Zandu, meanwhile, has been talking with the bruised and battered thugs in the bar, learning that the Cerulean Society has been losing ground across Old Korvosa to angry mobs, rival gangs, and simple attrition from the plague. After a bungled reading from the Book of Joy, he stumbles off to bed. Slim passes them 5 gp as an advance on his taxes.

After meeting up with the others, the five of them plus Majenko tromp down to South Shore through the early morning light. Carowyn Manor is a stately, gabled mansion along Shoreline Way, overlooking the bay. Festooned with cinderberry garlands and bright red drapes, its grounds are surrounded by a thick, thorny hedge. Ser Arlynn knocks on the door, but receives no answer, though they can hear the faint sound of movement within.

Unable to get a response, the paladin turns to Slim, who deftly opens the heavy Bloodsworn mahogany doors. The doors open onto a entryway that expands into a great hall, where a massacre has taken place. Upon the marble floor and heaped in the corners lie more than a dozen corpses, each clad in garish outfits of sequined velvet, revealing silk, and colorful feathers. Masks of all shapes and sizes adorn the dead.

In several cases, though, these fanciful adornments have fallen away, revealing withered flesh covered in nauseating facial tumors. When Arlynn ventures into the great hall, the dancing zombies turn to attack her and Ashla. As the grasping undead converge on the paladin, a screaming bolt howls down from the balcony above and finds a gap in her plate mail. Ashla spies a giggling figure vanishing back into the shadows and warns the others before getting caught up fighting several lurching corpses.

Flanked by the walking dead, Arlynn tries to strike one down with her longsword, but the creature slaps the blade aside and it goes flying. The other zombie takes this opportunity to rip away her shield. Armed only with her spiked gauntlets, Arlynn ducks into the adjacent den—where she finds three more costumed zombies posed around the fireplace.

The dead converge on her from all sides, clawing at her with gnarled, grasping hands. The paladin is able to fend off most of them, but a zombie in a lioness mask gets through her defenses and sinks its teeth deep in her flesh. Arlynn begins chanting a prayer to Iomedae , while Ashla and the others try to fend off the zombies in the entryway. Her prayer complete, Arlynn channels the positive energy of her goddess into a flare of golden light that batters the zombies, killing some and leaving the others badly damaged.

The party make short work of the survivors, even as the sniper continues to fire screaming bolts at them. They get their first good look at her—a blond elf woman dressed in harlequin costume, a wild light in her blue eyes. The party takes this opportunity to retreat outside and regroup, while a stealthy Slim lurks in the shadows on the staircase landing. She feels an invigorating sense of confidence and resoluteness settle upon her for this fight. The elf pops up to pelt them with another screaming bolt and Slim takes the opportunity to strike back with a crossbow bolt of his own.

Cackling, the elf encourages them to play hide and seek, then quaffs a potion and disappears. Zandu uses spiderclimb to quickly scramble up onto the second floor gallery. A trio of zombies that are ambling around the room, pantomiming appreciation of the paintings on the walls. They all turn to come after him while the mad elf shoots him with a crossbow bolt from a nearby door. The sorcerer swiftly feather falls back to the great hall and warns the others. He and Arlynn then head back upstairs, where they get drawn into a fight with the zombies. As two new zombies shamble out onto the gallery, Arlynn and Zandu recognize one as Lady Olauren Carowyn, having met her at a party in the manor some weeks ago.

Egan summons a mountain gorilla onto the gallery to help his friends and the beast gets to work pounding on a zombie. The mad elf chides them for smashing her playthings. Combining magic missiles with another channel, Zandu and Arlynn finish off the zombies upstairs. Zandu then feather falls into the garden, while Arlynn and the gorilla rejoin the others in the great hall. Zandu, Arlynn, and the great ape then burst into a side room to eliminate the zombies while Slim and Arlynn investigate another route into the back of the house and Egan guards the great hall.

Moving stealthily, Slim is able to get the drop on several zombies, beheading them with a single deft swipe of his blade. He gets caught up fighting a third and is joined by Ashla and Egan. The three of them join Arlynn and Zandu in converging on a single staircase leading into the wine cellar. Arlynn takes point heading down the stairs, while Slim trails in back scattering caltrops behind them. They enter a dark and stuffy cellar with a well-stocked wine rack and several large casks lining the walls.

A small wooden door squats in the southeastern corner. Zandu detects the invisible harlequin just in time for her to shiv him. She barrels past the sorcerer and Slim and up the stairs. By the time the party is able to follow her up, she has already managed to slip past the beast, moving with a limp. Slim vaults over the caltrops and Zandu spiderclimbs, but Arlynn and Egan are slowed down and Ashla faceplants onto the spikes.

The badly wounded harlequin elf makes it out onto the street, where Egan brings here down with call lightning.

The elf lets out a cry of either pain or ecstasy and collapses. As she lies dying on the ground, Slim approaches her and determinedly finishes her off. With the villainess laid low and her zombies dispatched, the party explores the remaining upopened rooms on the manor. Behind the sturdy door in the cellar, they find a haggard Lord Ausio Carowyn. While Majenko is dispatched to summon the Guard to dispose of the bodies, the party conducts a thorough search of the manor but does not find Ruan among any of the corpses.

Ashla and Egan inspect the grounds to see if Ruan or anyone else escaped that way, but find no sign of a getaway. His whereabouts remain a mystery, but Zandu is convinced the youth is still alive. Ser Arlynn asks around South Shore to see if anyone saw what happened to Ruan , but the servants tending the nearby empty mansions are no help. Slim , meanwhile, reports back to Cressida and asks about the mad elf Jolistina.

He learns that she was a minor criminal with a morbid, self-destructive streak. Cressida is concerned that Rolth and the Cult of Urgathoa would give such valuable gear to a small-timer like Jolistina. It suggests the cult has far more resources at its disposal than expected. When pressed by Slim for any other leads, Cressida notes that they have little to go on beyond the sunken ship itself.

Sable Company dispatched a team to the vessel a few days after it sunk, but they never returned. If the party is willing to follow up, she would be grateful, but she urges them to confer with Marcus Endrin of Sable Company for advice on underwater expeditions. Egan visits Faunra at the Citadel, where she and the other druids are tending to guardsmen who have fallen ill. However, Faunra says she will follow up with her kinsmen at the Elven Embassy in South Shore to see if they saw anything. Slim then begins trekking up to the Sticky Mermaid, but is drawn into an alley in North Point by Kyra.

The halfling woman wants to pick up their conversation about the Bekyar slavers. She gives Slim a bag of gold for freeing the halflings , while swearing him to secrecy about her role in leaking the information. When Slim approaches Old Korvosa , he sees that the district has been effectively abandoned by the Guard, with even more sick on the streets while ruffians openly loot the houses of the dead.

The following day, the party seeks out Eries Yelloweyes , who says she can offer them all potions of water breathing —but only if they help her with a favor. She says that she has heard good things about them from Kyra and from Samp the sewer scavenger. One unlucky wererat was caught on the surface and killed by a mob. Now a band of wererats led by Girrigz are preparing to launch a retaliatory strike against the city.

Eries fears that their misguided effort could bring down another rat purge even worse than the ones under the old Queen Domina decades ago. Then she can help them investigate the ship. After dispatching a small group of ghouls, they draw near the wererat den. Hoping for a diplomatic solution, Arlynn, Slim, and Zandu enter with their weapons holstered.

They encounter a trio of wererats who, while initially suspicious, are ultimately talked into arranging an audience with their leader. But when one of them goes to alert him, Girrigz responds by bellowing for the wererats to kill the surfacers. Another four wererats spill into the from chamber of the den, but only about half of the lycanthropes take part in the battle, while the others hang back. The start of hostilities also alarms the shrieker mushroom in the front chamber, which lets out an earsplitting wail that makes further dialogue impossible.

To escape the crowd of wererats, Zandu drops a smoke stick and flees into the main sewer tunnel, where Egan and Ashla are waiting. Slim, and several wererats, soon follow him out. Arlynn is trapped in the haze, surrounded by wererats and enveloped in a biting swarm of filthy rats. A metal grate that sealed off part of the sewer channel grinds open, releasing an Otyugh that swiftly ensnares Zandu. Working together, Egan and Ashla are able to bring down the abomination, while Slim fends off the wererats.

Arlynn, meanwhile, is caught in a blind slugging match with a wererat inside the smoke cloud, even as the rat swarm continues to gnaw at her despite her spiked armor. With the otyugh dead, Egan and Ashla refocus their attention on the wererats. It is at this point that Girrigz himself appears, garbed in chain mail and wielding a mithral rapier. He charges Zandu and bites him savagely, sending the sorcerer tumbling to the ground with a terrible wound—and the taint of lycanthropy.

The wererat leader proceeds to deal grievous harm to Ashla, batting aside her defenses with two vicious stabs of his rapier. Soon, he is fighting Egan, Slim and Ashla while holding his own. Determined to help her friends, Arlynn stumbles blindly out of the smoke and is knocked to the ground by her wererat foe. But the lycanthrope leader is fully committed to wreaking vengeance on all non-wererats. Ashla deftly cuts down his remaining follower, but Girrigz then dispatches her with a terrible blow, leaving her near death in the sewer channel.

Slim and Arlynn grimly close in on the wererat, but it is Egan who ultimately brings him down with a lightning strike. The remaining wererats, who sat out the fight, vacate the den peacefully, pledging never to harm the surface. The party returns to Eries, who thanks them for sparing what wererats they could. Eries relates how some of her brethren watched the ship sink and saw strange debris drifting from the its hull.

The flotsam amounted to small boxes full of dead rats and a few bags of silver coins conveniently bound to floating timbers. Suspecting something wrong, the wererats kicked the the debris back into the river. Eries is convinced that the ship is incredibly dangerous. She then provides the party with potions of water breathing. The five adventurers check in with Commandant Marcus Endrin at the Great Tower to get his advice on aquatic expeditions. He explains that land-bound creatures will be out of their element in the water, making them vulnerable to creatures native to the environment.

The party pledges to keep him informed of what they find, though Slim fears that the answers they uncover may not be to their liking. Before they can get settled, though, they are visited by a city tax collector accompanied by four Gray Maidens. He requests that they pay an income tax on their earning from the Korvosan Guard. Once paid, he also asks to see their deed to the house—squatters in the homes of the dead have become a major problem, and no one has seen Zellara in weeks. Slim then steps in to claim that he saw squatters in an abandoned house a few blocks away. With a tip of his tricorn hat, the collector and his entourage tromp off.

With that matter dealt with, Arlynn shares her plan for reaching the sunken ship: They will hire a boat to taken them to the center of the river, then disembark with weighted anchors that will swiftly carry them to the bottom. Ashla endorses the plan, elaborating that the anchors should have cables for the boat crew to draw them back up quickly.

Egan visits Faunra at the Citadel, where the Blood Veil is taking an ever greater toll on the guardsmen the Elf is treating. Egan asks her if he can borrow her shark companion Silver for the expedition and she agrees, with some trepidation. The area around the ship has become somewhat notorious among the river wildlife.

Before dark, Arlynn swings by the orphanage, which remains on lock down. This has kept the children and remaining staff safe from the blood veil, but it has made the place seem even more prison-like. From there, the paladin does a quick patrol of the neighborhood, stumbling across an angry crowd hunting for suspected wererats to attack for bringing the plague to the city. Arlynn is able to convince them that she has dealt with the wererat threat and urges them to turn their attentions instead to helping their neighbors weather this crisis. Within the crooked alley, he find a large pile of dumped plague corpses, some of which feature tell-tale bite marks on their necks and wrists.

He also finds a hole ripped into the wall of one of the neighboring buildings. Slim does a quick sketch and sends it to Field Marshal Cressida Kroft along with a short message. Sable Company provides the party with a boat captained by one Rogar Saltspear , a grizzled dwarf with a peg leg. He takes them out to the approximate site of the sinking and Egan casts water breathing on the other four adventurers before diving into the water and transforming into a shark.

Rogar sets up a plank for the adventurers to walk and gets his men to beat a drum ominously. Zandu and Arlynn play along, while Slim and Ashla simply plunge into the dark, brackish waters of the Jeggare River. Shark-Egan and Silver circle around the others as they sink to the riverbed, kicking up a small cloud of silt. The ship lies on its side in two pieces, having broken over a rock outcropping.

While the bow sunk in a way that allows explorers access to any of its decks, the stern cleaved to the rocks it fell up, limiting entrance to its lower decks. The adventurers investigate the bow first, which bears an ominous moniker along its fire-scarred hull: The party disturbs a nest of silt eels that had relocated to the wreckage, but Ashla and Egan are able to calm them. Inspecting the forecastle and the galley, the adventurers find them curiously empty of the normal supplies.

Silver is dispatched to patrol the perimeter. Inside they find the ruins of a four-poster bed. Arlynn searches the man to discover a brass unholy symbol of Urgathoa in his possession. The others have to prevent her from instinctively destroying the corpse fly badge. As best the paladin can determine, the man drowned to death. While the rest of the party investigates the cabin, Shark-Egan picks up the scent of a third, unidentified shark as well as something fouler, both inside the ship.

Inside, they find the half-eaten remains of the Sable Company team sent to investigate the ship. They also find dozens of identical boxes floating eerily in the quiet darkness. Arlynn opens one to find it contains only an air bubble. The others are waterlogged and also mostly empty, though a few contain bits of flesh or dead rats infected with Blood Veil. Venturing up one deck into the crew quarters, Arlynn is immediately attacked by a large, powerful shark while a smaller jigsaw shark waits in the adjacent room.

The sight of the grotesque Sea Hag sends a shiver down their spines, but thankfully they are able to resist seizing up in disgust. Irked that her powers have been resisted, the hag swims into the fight with a pronged fishing spear. Despite the warning, Ashla and Shark-Egan soon join their companions, likewise overcoming their disgust at the sight of the creature.

Zandu remains below, granting his destined powers to Ashla as she battles the sharks. But the hag is no pushover. She pirouettes like a graceful fighting fish, striking first one adventurer than another. Yet fortune—or perhaps the Harrow cards—smiles upon Arlynn and Slim, as each blow against them somehow never lands quite right.

Even so, as the fight progresses the waters darken with red blood and Slim draws near collapse. The Field Marshal meets them in a ground floor chamber, eager for news from the wreck.