A Pale Day

The troop broke off from the Saucy Mermaid without sitting down to the Temple's supply accounts. Dusty books and concerns over income sources were left in the rented rooms above the Saucy Mermaid. A trip to look into the weapon maker's marks and investigating Tyrus' address seemed like a much more fruitful (interesting?) outing.

The weaponsmith, Dvark Fireborn (just around the corner from Dorg Blackhand, the blacksmith) was forth coming: the weapons found on the Goblins were one of many shipments that have gone to the city's keep to equip the newly expanded militia and city guard. The fact that some items had gone missing was highly irregular. Bribes were awkwardly proffered to avert the need to inform the folks in the White Keep, keepers of the bureaucratic paperwork, that some of the missing equipment had surfaced.

Next over to Tyrus' shop which, as it turned out to be, was on the east side of town. The run-down, dirtier part. His shop lay on a street lined with flea market stalls selling  every imaginable piece of junk, food and fine antiquities (well, maybe). The shop itself was a narrow space with just enough room for a counter and a small pile of old books stashed in the window sill. A conversation with the portly shop keeper (clearly not the famed Pale Man) set a meeting for later in the evening to potentially purchase some valuable books.

Lucky Luke, Tordek, Grunt and Selwyn set up across the street to keep an eye on the back entrance to the shop with Lucky Luke doing his best hide-and-seek. No problem: after an hour or so of waiting around a man matching Tyrus' description arrived clothed in a heavy dark cloak. A little while later, another four similarly clad persons joined Tyrus at the back entrance to the shop. These folks were then tailed by Luke as they made their way to the mausoleum where the coin and the skeletons were found. They then deposited what turned out to be shovels and a pitch fork into a blanket against the wall adjacent to the partially dug grave where Grunt was recently found unconscious.

After Tyrus' party headed back towards the main square, Luke took it upon himself to pee on the equipment left behind, perhaps to "mark" them for later tracking... maybe. Luke then caught up to Tyrus and crew as they entered the Saucy Mermaid. Luke went back and retrieved the rest of the party who were working out how to ambush Tyrus in his shop and what preparations should be made.

Grunt led the way into the Saucy Mermaid and after numerous beer, managed to chase away Tyrus' assistants. Discussion floated back and forth. Tyrus was exceptionally knowledgeable about the Wights the party had encountered, a brief history lesson ensued. It eventually came out that Tyrus was not only a trader in rare books but almost certainly responsible for stealing corpses to use in some sort of necromantic scheme. He was horrified to learn that the Goblins had been killing people to supply corpses to him. Burn them, burn them all! (And as it turns out, that is pretty much the Fate those Goblins received.)

The conversation moved to the rented rooms upstairs, where numerous pieces of information started to fall into place.

There have been a few burnt farm buildings and rumours of unrest far out of town. Rumors of orcs, trolls, even a cyclops: all discredited as whoo-haa from the tribes people and so forth. Crop circles, orcs, cyclops foot prints. Ha. But then there is the militia being built up, and the city guard, and rebuilding the walls. And the Moonless Tribe's somewhat half-assed scouting of the city's fortifications from earlier in the week. Hmm.

More threats, and some menacing looks from Tordek, followed by a bit of smooth talking from Luke and Selwyn and it became clear that Tyrus is part of some sort of ancient secret society of Johkan, from before the last fall of the city. Selwyn is all for getting on board with the knowledge is power bandwagon. The rest of the party has concerns. Luke has already concluded that the potential (rumored) invasion might be the "good guys" coming to cleanse the Lich driven abomination army.

A meeting was set for noon the next day to meet a society member, Kallryn to discuss Selwyn's interest and the potential allies that the party has offered themselves as. Tyrus left a beautiful slate grey business card with two concentric circles as their calling card at Kallryn's address, the Grey Society.

The Grey Society

The moment Tyrus was out the door, the entire troop packed up their gear and moved house, hearth and home down the way to the adjacent tavern, "A Castle."

Luke followed Tyrus as he headed off to the richer side of town and after a while arrived at an abandoned building. Tyrus went around the side of the building past an ivy grown courtyard and out of sight. Luke crept up to the edge to hear the sounds of water running quietly: an eerie ornamental tea garden set three steps down in the inner courtyard. Abandoned building on two sides, small entranceway (maybe a storage area) set into a wall, and ivy grown walls at the back. A server carried tea from a serving table at the back and a half-dozen tables were scattered about the space with nine people, all in those dark cloaks, sitting about the tables talking.

Tyrus was no where to be seen.

Abandoned Building, Tea House