Session 2
[!abstract] The Job
We free Adon Twirtho from his cell, and Offsha Di'aylen finds us at last. Then we follow the stairs up into the far tower, where two exiles from Baldur's Gate, Mardon Rueh and Wendy Rueh, stand between us and their unpaid mercenaries. When the blades come out, the siblings fight beside us against their own hired swords.
Previous: Session 1 - To New Beginnings
The Man Behind the Bars
Brok Digginstone was the first to speak to the man in the cell, with all the delicacy of a dwarf who has never once waited his turn. He asked who the fellow was. The prisoner gave his name as Adon.
I told him we had come to bring him out. A stranger who says that in a place like this has to be tested, so we asked him enough about his brother and his home that no impostor could have bluffed it. He answered every question. This was Adon Twirtho, the man Rolf Twirtho had promised us fifty gold to find. His cell was a room off the tunnel, near the far tower.
The Lookout
It was about then that Offsha Di'aylen found us. He had held his post as our lookout up top, and when we had not come back, he had followed our trail down. The timing was good, because we had just reached Adon.
We broke the prisoner out of his cell and started back the way we came. I did not like the thought of either of them walking beside us into whatever waited at the far end of that hall, so we left Adon and Offsha on the surface, away from the dark below the creek, and went back down.
The Stairs
We went on exploring. At the end of the hall, near the staircase leading up to the tower on the far side of the creek, we found two rooms with bedding pallets. Just bedrolls, and nothing alive in either room. The hallway under the first tower had carried us beneath the creek, past the two stairways that lead down at the halfway point, to a second tower. We haven't looked at those stairways yet.
At the top of the stairs stood a large set of wooden double doors, and they creaked. They creaked so loudly I felt it in my teeth. Behind them was a second set of double doors. I had Havelin Alderhilts open it. On the other side, we heard noise.
The Foyer of Five Doors
The room on the other side was an odd shape, a foyer on the main floor of the far tower, with five more doors and an entrance to the outside. A room like that has been built to confuse a visitor, or to hide a good many people. We split up to listen at every door. Two of them carried the distinct sound of voices.
While we spied, one of those doors opened and out stepped a well-kept man and woman. Clean boots, good cloth, hair that had met a comb that morning. People like that make my skin crawl, and I do not trust a roof that shelters them. The man asked who we were.
The Rueh Siblings
His name was Mardon Rueh. The woman was his sister, Wendy Rueh. They were from Baldur's Gate, and from an aristocratic family there. Another family had ruined their name, and they had fled the city. It is a long way from the city for people with hands so soft, and an odd place to hide.
We did a bit of negotiating, and we tried to get what information we could out of them. They gave us bits and pieces and no more. We told Mardon that kidnapping a man is a crime, and that his best path forward was to come with us and face justice for it. We promised to advise the authorities to be lenient, because Adon had not been harmed. He listened. When we pressed for more information about their reason for fleeing, Wendy muttered, "We aren't devil worshippers." I wrote that down in my head. Nobody had accused her of it. She appeared to be a priest of Oghma, the Binder, the god of knowledge, and I watched her closely.
Then their mercenaries returned, and the room tightened like a drawn string. Everyone was on edge. We did our best to resolve it peacefully. Mardon Rueh commanded the hired swords to leave. They refused. They would not go without payment.
The Knight Bursts In
That was when Offsha Di'aylen burst in through the exterior door of the tower, behind the mercenaries, shouting something about evildoers, and the battle began. We never saw how he crossed the creek on the surface to reach it, but it was the only way he could have come. The Ruehs, to my surprise, did not run, and neither did they stand with the men they had hired. Brother and sister both chose our side, Mardon having been persuaded to face justice rather than fight us.
One of the mercenaries advanced on me. I loosed a Guiding Bolt and struck him square in the chest. It did not drop him. He stepped up and knocked me unconscious.
I woke to Teager's healing. I cast Sacred Flame at the man, scrambled to my feet and retreated. As I stood, he slashed me again. Then Wendy Rueh tapped me with a bit of healing. She had been staying behind us, and Mardon Rueh kept telling her to stay out of the fight. "But I can help," she kept saying, and kept following along, offering healing now and then. I noted that.
We set up on the corner, funneling them into a tight space so we could press our quarters to advantage. Offsha Di'aylen fell, and Teager managed to drop one. I hit Offsha with a Healing Word, and Havelin Alderhilts dropped another. Four and a dog remained.
I hit one with Sacred Flame, and Teager dropped him. Havelin Alderhilts pressed into the next room, slaying another, and another. Brok Digginstone slew the dog. The final mercenary threw down his weapon.
[!info] What we know about the Ruehs
Mardon Rueh and Wendy Rueh held Adon Twirtho. We don't have the details, but it was some scheme to raise money, to help them press a campaign to reinstate their family name in Baldur's Gate. They were a wealthy aristocratic family who fled the city after rumors spread that they were devil worshippers. We only have this from what they told us in pieces, and from what Wendy muttered.
[!question] Threads to pull
- The two stairways that lead down at the halfway point of the tunnel. Mardon Rueh and Wendy Rueh may know where they go.
- The rest of the Ruehs' story: the scheme to restore their name, and what they wanted with Adon Twirtho.
- The doors in the foyer we haven't opened yet.
- Rolf Twirtho's 50 gp, now that his brother is free.
#session