SPQT -- Crestquest: Karmic butt-kicking duly administered

When we last left our story, we had apprehended/killed/turned to jellyfish a group of Leaguers who attempted to invade our home. Their mage had been rendered unconscious, but teleported away on a contingency spell, so it's interrogate-the-flunky time again.

June 30, continued. We took them downstairs to the cellars, which the servants are beginning to call the interrogation cells, after searching them and relieving them of various lockpicks et cetera. After we secreted them in separate rooms, Robyn borrowed an apron and some beef blood from the cook and created an artistic ensemble in which to question the first one, who was under the impression that he was the second person to be interrogated. To be fair to his courage, he did not actually begin to talk freely and rapidly until after he learned that he'd been sent to assassinate an archmage, a detail omitted from his mission briefing. Rightly considering that he owed nothing to superiors who sent him in thus inadequately prepared, he explained that the League had sent them specifically to assassinate Uncle. There may or may not be other assassination teams on similar missions around the Empire tonight. He was not certain where the wizard teleported to - possibly to the rendezvous point; possibly back to the League. He described a teleportation circle approximately ½ day outside of town, and drew us a map. Personnel on duty there might be a wizard with bodyguards, a scout, and up to eight half-elves.

Uncle woke up one of his military acquaintance to turn over our prisoners, and they agreed that, under the circumstances, it made sense to teleport us - since we were already up and armed - directly to the circle, while a proper military detachment prepared to follow us. We went about dawn - Decimus and I wanting to take time to prepare appropriate spells - and found an apparently empty camp. Presuming that they had been alerted by the failure of any of their party to return, we proceeded with caution, and soon detected the eight half-elves lurking in the trees with bows. Fortunately their aim was spoiled, since I had cast a spell on myself that encouraged my friends and blinded my enemies with the shining power of Orus's glory. My contribution to the proceedings were otherwise typically minimal; between spells, bows, and Robyn's dogs we were soon victorious. Unfortunately the only person we killed was also the scout, who was the highest ranking person there. Robyn is angry at himself, but indeed, he had no way of knowing that the poor scout would fall out of the tree, and I've assured him at least a dozen times that it was the fall, not the arrow wounds, that killed him. He was quite thoroughly dead, however, and I had neither Raise nor Speak with Dead; so we returned - rather more laboriously than we departed - to town with our strings of prisoners, and turned them and the corpse over to the army.

We then returned home, I for one looking forward to finally getting some sleep; but there was commotion in the street. Our neighbor's infant son has been kidnapped! I handed in my card in case the mother needed spiritual solace, and Robyn asked Gaius what had happened, on the theory that he'd know at least as much as the vigiles, and be more forthcoming. He was in fact quite well-informed, largely due to a servant girl named Guilia, but there was little enough of which to be informed. The nursemaid, who I fear will not be employed much longer, had only left the child napping for a moment. No noise, no sign of forced entry. I detected magic discreetly, and found no traces on the property, but the event had occurred two hours before, so this doesn't mean much. I've been trying to take a nap, but my brain won't shut off. Can it be conicidental that two senatorial families were assaulted within 24 hours? How many others have been similarly annoyed, and how many attacks have been successful? Of course, this may not be the League at all. If only -

July 2 - My last entry was interrupted by a summons next door, where the parents were in tremendous distress and longing for the comforts of Orus. I prayed with them, and probed delicately for any inklings they might have of the reasons behind this kidnaping, which they might have been forced by political necessity or national security to withhold from the vigiles. He's such a junior senator, he couldn't think of anything directly, but allowed as how the boy's grandfather might be the real target. As we were discussing the matter, a brick with a message wrapped around it was hurled into the garden. I at once sent Gaius to follow the vandal, and ran next door to tell Robyn and Alfredus to follow Gaius if they can, then returned to the distressed parents.

The note instructed the senator to be three miles south of the city gate at the mile marker - alone - at midnight. Robyn and Alfredus, having lost Gaius almost at once, proceeded to ride out and examine the ground, selecting a spot from which to observe invisibly. Decimus wanted to go with them, but Uncle sent him on an errand which could only be carried out by a wizard of the utmost probity - an errand we all regret now, but I get ahead of myself.

Gaius reported back, in time, that he had followed the vandal to his employer and the employer to an insula down by the docks. Robyn and Alfredus, when they returned from scouting the location, requested that Gaius accompany them on their observation mission, so I gave permission, and sat up with the bereaved mother to scry the meeting as best we could. We got little enough information - a masked woman with two half-orc bodyguards met him, demanded sensitive information in return for the child's safety, and teleported away. In due time, however, Alfredus came home and told us that our party had trailed two other invisible watchers to a rendezvous point just outside the city gate, where the woman unmasked and the half-orcs disguised their armor. Robyn had then told Alfredus to take the horses home, all but one, slung Gaius over the pommel of the other, and dashed through the gate under the guise of taking an injured boy to receive medical attention, thus getting well ahead of his quarry so he could quietly lie in wait and pick them up without their suspecting that they had been followed from beyond the town. Alfredus led the horses home more sedately, and we all proceeded to wait more or less patiently, all of us on tenterhooks. No Robyn, no Gaius, and no Decimus, whose errand took much longer than Tamara had been led to expect.

At last, however, Gaius came running to take us back to the insula, and we proceeded to make a long string of mistakes. If only we'd had more sleep - but there's no use repining, I must just get through the account. Six people, two of them half-orcs and one a mage, held the child on the third floor of the insula. They were definitely more Leaguers. We gave Gaius our last remaining invisibility potion and set him to climb up to the open window. On achieving the sill, he dropped a pebble to signal to Alfredus and then counted 20 to give Alfredus a chance to run upstairs and signal us to begin. Gaius's target was the child. Alfredus was to deal with the half-orcs. Tamara was to immobilize the mage with her tanglefoot bag and then deal with whoever seemed best while Robyn and I subdued, held, commanded, or otherwise neutralized the mage as expeditiously as possible.

Well, the tanglefoot bag worked.

It was my fault. I thought the spell she cast was Summon Swarm, which would have gone away when she dropped unconscious. It wasn't - it was some foul Leaguer spell that would not, would not, would not go away! I had cockroaches in my eyes, and in my mouth when I commanded her to surrender, and I didn't try hard enough, soon enough, to dispel it. And they kept biting, even after we moved out of the swarm. Tamara was grappling the woman who tried to retrieve the baby, and never got a chance to do anything else. I didn't have Deathwatch that day, so I didn't even realize till Alfredus dropped how badly the beetles were chewing him up. And we couldn't call retreat till we heard the crash and whoop of Gaius exiting the other room through the window, with the baby. The sheets available did not make a long enough rope, so he created some sort of arrangement that involved sliding furniture and leaping the last half-story. Fortunately the Leaguers realized that the vigiles would respond to the noise he made and that they needed to retreat as much as we did. The mage was unconscious by this time, but as Tamara dragged Alfredus away and I frantically brushed beetles off of Robyn's corpse, they cut the tanglefoot bag loose and read off a teleport scroll to get away.

So we achieved our primary goal of retrieving the child, but the villains escaped, and who knows when they will try again?

Gaius is quite the hero now, and our neighbor is trying to hire him away from me. I suggested that it might be disruptive to have him and Guilia in the same house, and if I have to increase his salary, I'll do it. I doubt she can tempt him with quite the level of adventure he's always enjoyed with us. The journey across town with a crying baby reduced his self-satisfaction somewhat, but he has reason to be proud of himself, and I told him so. I was of two minds about letting him see Alfredus and Robyn, and I am of two minds about taking him to Annalubia - but Orus knows, it's as dangerous in Brigantium as anywhere.

Fortunately I was able to Raise Dead on Alfredus yesterday and Robyn this morning; but Greta is furious with me and insisting that Alfredus take up a safer line of work. Robyn is depressed, blaming himself for poor planning.

I thought he was inexpressive before, but a depressed Robyn is a monster of stone-facedness. Decimus blames himself for not being there, though it was on Uncle's business and I - well, I tried to resign. It was my responsibility to keep them alive, and I didn't. Uncle refused my resignation, on the grounds that he needed continuity of service and that I'd see things more clearly once I'd slept. I suppose I do. I think I'll sleep some more.

We will meet these people again. I feel it in my bones. And we'll be ready, next time.