Stepping outside after filling Talis, the party’s new bard, with numerous tales which she is left to incorporate into a new repertoire path, Vasco catches a sheaf of paper which has blown up out of an alley. The Sinchaser Report is immediately visible as not one of Prince Zeech’s sacntioned rags, but an underground publication cobbled together bear witness to the excess and hypocrocy of the nobles and bear witness to the pain and suffering of labouring under ‘his greatness. Nearly as fast as he caught it, Vasco is accosted by a patrol of hobgoblin Watchers, who challenge the strangers found with the rag but who are quickly left to understand ‘how disgusting’ the party feels about it and its contents as well.
With a week to go before the Great Banquet, the party decides to get to know something more of Alhaster. Zeek strikes out on his own for the Gallows and finds hangmen working towards an upcoming spectacle. Zeek impresses them with some architectural drawings for a an improved and more dramatic gallows system, and the minor officials leave with a sense that this guy has the real potential to contribute something good to the Princes’ fine city. Zeek is encouraged to return for the big show.
Vasco and Nadroc have more stealthy plans. They sit casually outside the Blessed Angels’ Aerie to scope it out. Seeing a few of these curious outsiders (as Nadroc was able to identify) coming and going, Vasco augments his hearing to see if he can work out what they are up to. It is all the infernal business of enforcing the law, clearly and efficient, observant. organized and coordinated omnipresence in Zeech’s Alhaster.
Yldar and Talis spend time at the market learning that higher level and more pricey wares may be had after hours from certain shops for a 10% discount from the prices they were paying in Magepoint. They also get a sense of the definately loyalty and apparent business advantage of working in the law-abiding city of Alhaster. Certainty makes business predictable, and predictability makes profitability, though the there is everywhere a slight recognition of the irony this brings to the overall quality of life.
They witness a large crowd gather for the excecutions. The first are two workers who had hoped to leave the construction of the Great Project before dusk so they could have advantageous hunting for their families. Not only were they insubordinate, but the prospect of fishing no doubt included the immanent theft of fishing gear, and the possibility of trespass to get to a bank where it would do them some good. Work is for workers, not thieving and lazing about, and everyone should remember it. While the crowd enjoyed the spectacle, the real energy charged up with the next group of three who, it was announced, were hanged for their affiliation with the Ebon Triad. The crowd spits and rages against the mere mention of this vile heretical belief, and are whipped up at the summary death of these traitors. Zeech’s undeclaired war against the Ebon Triad has obvious support in the streets.
The next day Talis makes for Miomay’s Playhouse to arrange for an appointment to have the wardrobe and makeup department set her up for Zeech’s feast – a service they are more than happy to commit to. Zeek, having heard about another service provided there, avails himself, finding that the mistress is much less inquisitive than her worker, who was happy to chat, and in fact seemed to want to know whatever she could learn about the dealings of an obvious man of wealth and power like Zeek.
After, they carry on to check out the Great Project, a huge construction that is well underway, and which strikes many of them in the architectural themes that are reminiscent of the ziggurat of Kuluth-mar. While the patrol forbid them to enter the premises, the group suspects that they could rather easily get inside, with proper stealth and preparation – but they would have to do it while keeping the Blessed Angels in mind, who no doubt would interject on such a trespass.Finally, they make it down to the harbour where they charter a boat on Eel River Transport to the island of the Traitors’ Graves. They had heard that this is where the executed are taken. It was named this by Zeech, who left the old knights of Alhaster to slowly die here after he rescued the city from their rule 20 years ago. The transport is arranged for drop off at high tide, but will not return until the next high tide as the Eel becomes too shallow for much of the lunar cycle.
The Traitors Graves is a muddy, reedy, mosquito infested place. On initial inspection, there is little to see other than the crows and marshy pools. However, the party does not go unobserved. Four black dragons – young but still large enough, close in from all sides, but not to attack but to make a proposition. They claim to have been watching the party and want to enlist them to help rid their mother’s old layer of a scourge who had moved inside. The party initially agrees, and once the giant boulder to their layer is pushed aside by the dragons, Yldar takes Zeek’s bait and lets out that it was he who had helped kill their mother. Enraged by this betrayal, the dragons attack. Two are slain by the party and two take flight, smart enough to know when they have been outmatched.
