The session began with the PCs leaving their evening meeting with one of the town's judges, and deciding if there was anything worth doing in this "tiny little Prime burg" that the Planar characters found themselves "stuck" in. The only character who knew of a good way to pass the time was Jack, seeing as how this was also his home world and he had passed through town before. After spending some time gathering information in the local seedy tavern, the gambler ventured forth and found a local store by the name of "The Leather Shop".

Here, he picked up some information from the local theives' guild, as well as getting to indulge in some rather deviant sexual practices. (One odd piece of info gained was that in one of the robberies, the victims were awoken by the sound of breaking glass. The city guard did find a broken blue vase at the scene of the crime. The odd part about this is that the victims are fairly certain they never owned a blue vase.) Jack did decide against picking up any new fashion accessories or toys. (However, later, Twig and Shazarr found the store and instantly revised their opinion of Brandolyn upwards a few notches. Twig also finally added some clothing to wear under to her false habit - but bondage gear might actually be a worse choice than simple nudity.)

Also that night, Rusteen convinced Jack and Zin that they needed to break into the prison and question a thief that had been caught in association with the string of robberies that has been terrorizing the middle and upper classes. The three carefully snuck their way through the darkened streets of the town, carefully timed the patrols of the guards, and then rushed forward so that Jack could cast Rope Trick allowing easy access into the cell through the window. It was only after waking the cell's occupant and pulling him up into the extradimensional space that Jack and Zin realized that Rusteen had no idea what cell or prisoner they were supposed to be looking for. (Seems they entered the cell of some guy arrested for illegal fishing.)

Deciding not to let the night be a total waste, they relied on the intelligence of Jack's familiar to find the right cell, which was up on the second floor. Once located, Zin used his psionic abilities to communicate with the prisoner and get his side of the story. His side was that he didn't commit the crime, but he agreed that he had no albi for the night in question and that the evidence was indeed found in the secret compartment where he hides his loot. He had no idea how it got there. Without any really convincing arguments, the PCs decided to leave him there and retire for the night.

The following morning, in addition to introducing themselves to the rest of Rusteen's siblings, the party spent the morning trying to gather more information and otherwise pass the time until the judge could send them copies of the files on the murders. The most interesting activity involved Zin and Dr. Fever attending the trial of the thief some of the party questioned the previous night. As this crime was related to the crime wave, the newest judge presided. Dr. Fever was impressed that a Prime world could have such a remarkedly efficient legal system - the prisoner was found guilty in fairly short order as the case was open and shut. Zin, on the other hand, came to the conclusion that the outcome of the trial was predetermined, but only the judge seemed to be aware of that fact.

Later in the afternoon, the party got back together to review the evidence files from the murders. There had been a total of six murders over the past year. All the victims, according to the files, were unimportant everyday folk. Although messy and gruesome, there was no evidence that any internal organs were missing. All in all, rather uninformative. However, further investigation revealed several patterns. First, while all the people were unimportant from the standpoint of city government, all the victims were well known local fixtures for one reason or another. Second, it appeared as if every major quarter of the city had been affected - except for the Docks. Finally, there was a pattern to the killings - they occured every time there was a "blood tide" (a time when large patches of red kelp from the lake wash ashore).

Given this info, the party concluded several things. First, as suggested by Que, the murders seemed to be about causing terror among the common folk. (Which would serve to explain why the lower classes didn't really know much about the robberies when it was all the rage of conversation for the more well-to-do.) Second, the next victim would be in or from the Docks area. Third, the next murder would take place in the next couple of days, as that's when the next blood tide seemed to be due (according to local sailors). Rusteen immediately jumped to the conclusion that the next victim would be his uncle.

In the flurry to decide how best to protect Uncle Beavis, the party found out that they might be protecting the wrong person. Beavis brought up the question of "why me" and asked if they target couldn't be an ogre by name of Broom - apparently a creature not right in the head who fastidiously sweeps the streets of Brandolyn. As part of the party started to take off to find Broom and attempt to protect him, another potential victim came to light - a little girl whose father died in a fishing accident and the whole area had adopted to help comfort her. Rusteen, Jack, and Twig decided they'd better go out and find her just in case they had the whole Beavis thing figured wrong. Which they did.

These three managed to get to the docks just in time for Rusteen to catch an arrow meant for the little girl. The PCs immediately spotted a lone figure up on a nearby roof with an immense longbow. As Rusteen set up return fire, Jack and Twig rushed the building, with Twig easily jumping up onto the roof through the use of her suspenders. In the meantime, the other PCs managed to hear their companions' shouts and turned around from the search for Broom.

Upon arriving on the roof, Twig discovered that she faced a very large male orc who had the appearance of having just escaped from a mental institution (shredded straightjacket, broken manacles). The orc immediately dropped his bow and pulled a dagger. Twig had time to notice the sickly green color of the metal before it slammed into her chest - reducing her hit points by one third. Considering it a lucky blow, she brandished her brand new rapier (made of Tanar'ri Red Steel) and struck back, doing an equal number of hit points in return (but only reducing the orc's total by about one fifth). The next round, the orc went mental - gaining strength - and knocked Twig down into deep negatives with his next two blows.

At this point, Dr. Fever arrived on the scene and saved the day by casting a Hold Person spell that was not resisted. This allowed one of Zin's astral constructs and Jack to attempt killing blows on the now helpless orc. (Jack was able to kill the murderer; the construct couldn't do enough damage.) After the death of the orc, Twig as able to be revived and the murderer's corpse inspected. The orc really had no identifying marks on him save a brand of unknown origin (but it had the look of a prison brand). The dagger, on the other hand, was a bit more significant. This was because it was made of Baatorian Green Steel. And seeing as how Rusteen has repeatedly stated that his home has aboslutely no contact with the Outer Planes... there's obviuosly a bit of a mystery as to how the orc got his hands on that particular weapon.

DM Note: The weapon in question, now in the party's posession, is only a normal Baatorian Green Steel Dagger. It has a psuedo-magical +2 to hit (+3 on threat checks), 1d6 damage, with critical hits on 18-20/x2. The reason why the combat was rather quick and brutal, and Dr. Fever's spell really saved the day, is based on the wielder. The orc was an 8th level Barbarian with a 20 STR (24 when Raging) and the feats of Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, and Power Attack. This made his final stats with the dagger be +18/+13 to hit, 1d6+7 damage, 15-20/x2 criticals. With Power Attack active at full force, this becomes +10/+5, 1d6+15, 15-20/x2. So, a single critical (which he did score once) does 32-42 points of damage. Also, when raging, the orc had 120 hit points. Yes, this was tailor-built to be ugly, but I did expect the party to confront him all at once, rather than in waves.

At this point, a large number of conspiracy theories were put forth. Everyone agreed that there seemed to be three seperate parts to the crime wave - the murders, the robberies, and the bandits. It seemed as if each threat was designed to target a specific stratum of society - the commoners (murders), the wealthy (robberies), and the government (the bandits). However, no one could agree if each segment was related, or just doing their own thing at the same time as everyone else. There were many different opinions as to what role, if any, the changes in goverment played in the whole affair. Rusteen and Jack want to continue the investigation; it's unclear if anyone else really has any motivation.

The tentative plan was that the next day (or at least, very soon), the party would make the trek out to the Silver Death mine and confront the bandits.

Authored by: Ken Lipka E-mail me: krlipka@yahoo.com

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