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====== Report 5: Red Shroud and Broken Reach ======
{{tag>The_Bishops_Report}}


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ACTION REPORT (played over email)

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Attn: [[bishop_von_figaro|#RadagastVonFigaro]] #Skae’phae #BrokenReach #RedShroud #Reinhalt #Balbeeto #Tobey #Abyss #Balbeetoe #plague-mort #outlands #M’lar #cambion

Over in Sigil, the party prepared for yet another interplanar mision, so soon after catching Grazz’t’s attention. The Bishop’s followers, led by Skippy, joined Helga’s forces at the Ysgard camp, and tried their hand at the massive rock – while others went in search of a certain Aasimar searching for the Bishop. Bishop took Tobey to meet with one of his followers to perfect a tiefling disguise (the Bishop himself used the hat of disguise), then met with Savrin at the Hall of Records to research Red Shroud.

Some of the hearsay picked up from the other Fated planeswalkers:


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Stewart Heuz, a bear of a man with a handsome mustache, strikes you as barmy if well-intentioned. He brags constantly about the number of demons he's killed in pursuit of some sworn enemy, but you tune out most of it and drill down to the details, steering him with occasional praise of his exploits, leading into a pointed question.


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"Red Shroud...she's a plotter, that one. Rules that little spit of a burg with a light touch, but it's an iron fist if anybody crosses her short list of rules and she finds out about it. Lie, cheat, steal, all of it's your own problem. Until you actually throw a punch or spill blood...then her goons, and everybody else in town has carte blanche to tear you to shreds. Some say she pays a bounty to whoever brings the corpse of a troublemaker to her door. I didn't tarry long in her shadow...what good is a fortress full of demons if I can't slay any?!"


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Elfreda the Blue Sister is a cheerful elven woman, if harried...the shadows under her eyes give her the look of somewhat forever behind on sleep. She seems eager to prove her wits and knowledge, so much so that you barely need to steer her into divulging details at all.


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"I was with a sellsword contract, some Mercane looking to do business in Broken Reach. We actually escorted him into chambers with the Succubus lady herself. Shameless hussy...barely wearing anything at all, and lounging in an ocean of pillows at that. No decorum at all. She had a bevvy of cambion concubines, but they each looked ready and able to kill with their bare hands. No wonder they let us keep our weapons in the room. Anyway, she took the poison gift our Mercane was offering and allowed him to bring his caravan into the city, but not before she charmed one of the sellswords into giving her a kiss. He looked sick for days afterwards, white as a sheet! She seemed to react to it as though she'd just eaten a good meal, or tasted a fine wine. Why the Mercane let it happen, I'll never know! Never working for one of THEM again. Oh, one other thing...Red Shroud? She's obviously no mere garden variety succubus. Based on the paraphernalia scattered around her audience chamber, I'd say she's a wizard...or a sorceress. Or some kind of spellslinger."


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The last of them is Bowman Rennes, a dwarf who drills you with an intense stare the entire time you talk to him. He has a stern and rather stiff demeanor, but you find it quite easy to coax information out of him...if you considered yourself a judge of men, and you do, you'd say he couldn't keep a secret for his life.


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"Red Shroud acts like she's above Abyssal politics...her neutral stronghold, her no-violence-policy in Broken Reach. But she's politicking with the worst of them. Rumor is she's secretly amassing mercenaries and allies for a strike on Mithrengo, a nearby fortress. Add a second city under her belt and mark the start of her own personal empire.


In the meantime, though, she's making a tidy killing off her trade burg position. Right on the portal in from the Outlands, she's got guaranteed traffic. And the no violence rule means Abyssal interlopers and Blood War deserters alike flock to the place. Probably why all the merchants in town can get away with charging triple for everything, even if a third of the take goes straight into her coffers. Mark my words, not a thing goes by in town without her hearing about it...she has spies everywhere in town, so visitors are advised to assume she knows anything they've done in town before the day is out."

Reinhalt also conducted his own research at the Hall of Records, and also research for contingency escape plans. He also supplied our cover story: going there under the pretense of assessing Broken Reach as a viable market for a reclusive but wealthy merchant investor that is interested in investing in new markets. That settled, and telepathy spells in place, the party pick up Balbeeto and head through an intermediary portal into Plague-Mort.

Immediately on the other side of the portal, inside a crypt of some sort, the party is threatened by two tieflings and a Cambion (named M’lar), weapons already at the ready. They demand we pay a visitors’ tax of a hundred gold per head. The Bishop tsks at their attempt to grift us, and successfully casts a silent Suggestion spell at the leader, and to escort us directly to Red Shroud. 

The Cambion leads us straight to a cathedral, decorated in subtle blasphemies, where some sort of service is already underway-- several Vrock, in ceremonial robes, sacrifice an enormous soul larva to Pazuzu-- and, at the back of the cathedral, on a palanquin carried by four more Cambions, Red Shroud herself. 

Reinhalt speaks for the party, successfully hiding our intents, and present her with a ravage of unicorn’s blood, to add to her foul collection of poisons. Red Shroud, sensing we’re not completely being forthright, still allows us to conduct our interviews, and for our merchant masters permission to sell (though with a steep price of a dozen star rubies and six souls a day). Just before she dismisses us, she demands a kiss from Toby.

The Bishop steps in, hoping to protect the boy, as he’s fond of him. He silently casts the spell Seeming on Toby and Balbeeto, to look as if they are both recovering from a sexually-transmitted disease, and replicate the vision via the hat of disguise. The Bishop stands up, and warns Red Shroud that kissing him would not be a good idea. She forces the Bishop into Toby’s place, and, after a short prayer to Olidammara, Bishop kisses her, thinking of Savrin’s smile – and passes through unharmed! Greatly annoyed, she passes telepathic instructions to M’lar, and dismisses us.

The party then splits up-- Tobey and Bishop at the tavern, while Reinhalt and Bal look for planeswalker merchants. Magically augmenting his charisma, the Bishop asks questions while trying to keep his cover intact. He soon learns an interesting story about the current location of the airship, as well as about an upcoming scarcity in iron from Razorforge.



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