Session Date: 2/5/2024
I was gone for session 23. Bosch was very angry and started destroying the building, which Tabby used to make all of the guards leave him alone while Mary took all of the explosives and weapons and dumped it in the sewers so they are no longer viable. Faylen had a looney toons moment running from a ton of guards. Everyone but Faylen went back to the Murky Dragonfruit. They found the Guard Captain Idwal trying to execute Gurt outside of the tavern, which everyone was against. They take care of the guard captain and kill him, thank goodness, fuck that guy. People in the neighborhood have since begun to build barricades during and after what happened, so there’s going to be consequences to the fact that we killed a guard captain.
Faylen returns and we are all sitting at a table of the Murky Dragonfruit and a 50ish muscular man with five o’clock shadow and dressed well, he’s smiling and winks at Faylen. He settles in and starts talking to Mary. This man started talking about the group in an overly familiar form and had too many details, for example dealing with the Bone Boys. He introduces himself: Garm Clapperclaw, and he wants to know where the cargo is. Bosch protests and says he’s not, because he looks nothing like that.
Bosch says we will not be returning his stuff to him, and that he gave instructions on how to keep them dry and taken care of. He clocks that Mary has opinions about it, and asks what is going on with that. Bosch says that it is not going to be usable by him, anyway, making sure she doesn’t have to lie about what’s going on. Garm does confirm that the ministry lady (Ephiny aka Agent Bryce) is working with him, and then he offers us a few options:
- Fight this out
- We return the explosives and weapons
We point out we took care of the awful werewolf amalgamation and he says that us defeating it did surprise him, then goes into how he’s a businessman. He offers we can negotiate so that he can save face, we can save lives, and we stop bothering each other. Tabby explains that we know what he’s doing, trying to usurp the throne, and he says yes, of course, he’s the best. There’s a lot of underhanded threatening, and he ultimately admits that Gurt wasn’t his idea, which Bosch seems to be satisfied with. Tabby points out that we’re here to stop him from taking advantage of others, and he makes the point that he’s not unique in any way.
Clapperclaw explains that he has a friend down in the Hollow World that is on trial with the Aboreals, like our wizard is, so we may as well break his friend out while we are down there.
Clapperclaw explains that the Walkers are an old family and they quit innovating and they’ve left things as they are. He explains that he is coming in with new ideas and he admits that he builds order, and he does it better than the Walkers. There’s a succession issue, and there’s a lot of changelings around and he has nothing against the changelings, but there’s a lot of new blood here, and the people around here need order. He also points out that he has clean businesses as well. He says that he will leave the Murky Dragonfruit alone, pointedly looking at Gurt, and Bosch says he better.
There is a wizard that is working with Clapperclaw and we need to figure out what’s going on there, and while we did save the Sage from the Hollow World, we also haven’t seen him below. Bosch finally speaks up about how we need to get unions involved to try to dethrone his business empire for good.
We fill Joe in on what’s going on and he admits that we could put together the old Thief Guild, as there used to be one in Brex Grana.
To note: Bosch has the shard at this time.
We take a night and rest and then decide we need to go to the Hollow World to look for the Sage Axamonar and also see which of Clapperclaw’s associates are down there. As we are finishing up breakfast, a young lady with a guard’s uniform speaks up to the bar, which currently contains us and Gurt. She asks if there is any time for us to answer some questions.
She is Amaree Bloodwim, a guard lieutenant. She’s looking for the guard captain that we killed, and she mentions that he frequented the bar a few times a couple of days ago. We explain that there was mind control magic and that there was a fight outside, but people seemed to get confused and then stop and leave. Bosch prompts Faylen for information on the magic, and he starts to lecture the young woman about this type of magic and the theory behind it and how it works. We manage to dance around the topic and give her a lot of information that didn’t actually implicate us on what happened. We manage to get her to leave without thinking we did anything, then decide to visit Joe to see if he can get us into the Hollow World without running into the Aboreals immediately.
When we make it to where Joe is, his door is closed and he seems to be talking to someone. Bosch sneaks up to try to get a listen in on the conversation and peeks in, seeing that Joe has a plant-like creature on his desk and is speaking to it. He has a cigarette, but is not smoking. Bosch closes the door quietly and says that Joe is speaking to a bonsai Aboreal and Bosch explains that the little plant is trying to search for someone.
Mary knocks on the door and Joe opens the door, surprised that it’s us and that the universe operates on the laws of comedy. The leshy comes over to speak with us and we all introduce ourselves to him, and he introduces himself as Florian, and that he is here to deliver a message. He hands over an intricately carved leaf that is essentially a subpoena, to which we will be a witness for the case against Axamonar. Florian’s boss is Altwidus Changestaff.
Joe leads us the long way back to the Hollow World in an attempt to avoid as much danger as possible. He takes us to a playground and speaks some words at a tree, and the tree opens up to a spiral staircase that descends to the Hollow World.