Arrest and Escape
Thoradin again with news
Here we are in the presence of another rakshasa corpse with questions unanswered and a potential mess. I do a sending to Az asking her to meet, she indicates that we should meet at her offices soon, as some things are happening.
Now to the questions, I perform the “Speak with the Dead” ritual and we can ask three questions.
First: who is in your pride? 200 members Lord Garrett was the leader, one of the princesses, Lord Garrett’s son, lord Merlin’s son.
Second: What does your pride want in Haarlem? What we have always wanted.
Third: Where is Lord Merlin’s body? South and east in the desert.
What books did Lord Merlin have? Book on two competing cults through history, Derrick takes that book, another on a cult of assassins, a series of papers about the doings of the Azure Sentinels. On the way out of the Guardian’s Guild house Derrick hires the secretary and leaves the books with her.
We leave the Guardian’s Guild to be met by the Chief Captain of the Royal Guard with warrants for our arrest for the murders of Lord Garrett and Lord Merlin. This is unusual as the corpse of the rakshasa masquerading as Lord Merlin is not even cold. We are reluctant to follow these orders but if we refuse our lands will be taken by the crown. We surrender but determine not to surrender our weapons and are taken to a magic suppressing tower and held there. Loof requests an audience with the prince with Derrick as legal advisor and Thoradin as religious advisor. The Chief Captain who’s name is Dagon leaves indicating he will report to the Prince and present our requests.
Derrick is extremely agitated because he cannot reference his book. Finally Loof knocks him out as a friend. I pray not knowing what to think because from one point of view we committed the crimes, not without good reason but we did kill the rakshasa masquerading as Lord Garrett and Lord Merlin. Maybe we should not have been so quick to fight and should have sought more legal ways of dealing with the imposters. Haarlem has a infestation of rakshasa and that is a major problem who they are impersonating makes dealing with them tricky.
We go to sleep for the night and in the morning Loof is awakened by the weight of Walter on his chest smoking a cigar and blowing smoke in his face I do not know what Loof was thinking but he seemed to be afraid of the Toad. Walter gets off his chest and goes back to Derrick.
Breakfast is brought in by servants and Tharek refuses to eat. Loof eats his and Tharek’s portion. The rest of us eat. After awhile Dagon the Chief Captain returns with news from the prince that he will see us as soon as he has time but with the upcoming coronation and the election of a new judge it will probably be a week. He also brings us ballots for the election of the new judge.
We ask if he can ask Az if she will come and see us. He says he will convey the message.
Derrick starts to work on something. He does not tell us what.
Az shows up and I tell her about her father’s death and being replaced by a rakshasa which we fought and killed at the Guardian’s Guild house. She asked if we could prove that we did not kill her father. I said that the rakshasa said that some of his underling had taken the body out to the south east desert. About that time Derrick finishes what he was working on and places Walter over it and stabs him with a dagger and we are all knocked unconscious for a few minutes.
We find out latter that Derrick had constructed an anti-negation device and had been able to reference his book. He found out that at least two of candidates were rakshasa. The last two on the ballot were rakshasa. This is very worrisome.
After a few minutes we come to and the Chief Captain Dagon looks at the device that Derrick appears to have burned then escorts Az out of the room. That meeting did not go well now Az is also suspicious of us.
Some time latter Derrick references the room in his book and finds a book on the shelf that is not a book but a storage device. Opening the book he finds a device and instructions in deep speech. Tharek is able to read the instructions and we activate the device. This opens a passageway and Derrick heads down the passageway. At this time we here two things slam against the door and the door opens to reveal Miharo and she says we need to get out of here that the arrest was contrived and the trial will be rigged.
Dagon chooses this time to return he asks where the guy with the book is. Miharo does some fast talking and convinces Dagon to take us to the Azure Fortress where she has proof of what we were talking about. Arriving at the fortress Miharo directs us to the dungeon. Where there are four corpses two rakshasa and two human lying on tables she indicates that a court arcane specialist could allow us to question the dead. Dagon agrees that he and his guard will be witnesses and set one of the guards as scribe.
A few minute later Nadia arrives and performs a ritual and says you have three questions you can ask each corpse and an hour to do it in.
We ask the two human corpses who they were, one was Lord Garrett and the other Lord Merlin. How did you die? Tortured for information and killed by about 30 rakshasa. he tells Raja to accept her destiny.
We ask the two rakshasa who they were and how they were killed. We find out that one was impersonating Lord Garrett and the other was impersonating Lord Merlin and they were both killed by the Azure Sentinels. We ask about the candidates for Judge if they were rakshasa and three of the candidates were and the fourth should be by sundown. The Chief Captain sends one of his guards to protect the vintner.
The final question was what would be the most effective way of stopping their plans. After and elaborate description of Lord Garrett’s methods with Haarlem which would be impossible for us also indicates that Derrick should contact the inventor.
The guards arrive back with the vintner in tow. They said they had found two rakshasa in the house. They had taken one into custody which had changed into a little girl so that it seemed that they were being cruel as they walked through the streets. Was there a place in the Azure Fortress to house a prisoner? Yes Miharo mumbles something under her breath as she leaves.
What to do and where to go now? We need to lie low for awhile Raja’s book says “Rockt.” We need to locate Ruse and let her know what happened. Derrick looks up Riana in his book she has a long life of trying to maintain a reasonable course in Haarlem. I wonder if we should give Riana the cudgel. Going to Rockt is a reasonable course of action as we now have property and contacts there.