Looking around the room with the now dispatched Tongue-eater and his other hired goons, the adventurers find the head of a man nailed to the wall. Hoping this is not Sarcem, they move on to search the rest of the first floor.

With no luck, the party moves on to the basement to find several “people” shocked to see our presence. Against the wall is the body with no head. The startled strangers quickly try to escape but fail and lock themselves into the fruit closet. After a bit of back and forth with the party trapped in the fruit closet, we find out that Tongue-eater was hired to attack Sarcem and get something in his possession. The party in the closet are eventually forced to exit and try to escape but it ends up costing them their lives. During this scuffle, it is discovered that an Elf Durid named Shensen Tesseril had locked herself in a closet trying to save her life. The door she was hiding behind was frozen shut dealing non-lethal damage to several party members that came close. Hilde summons an Ice Elemental to get rid of the bacteria freezing the door, then Lelenia finishes the the door off with an Ax she found outside. To big for her to wield, Loskid uses his carpenter skills to turn the ax into a hatch.

We learn from Shensen that the beheaded body in the room is in fact Sarcem. She was there tending to the alter on the first floor when the attack took place. They both ran downstairs trying to evade the attackers but she was the only one that managed to lock herself away.

Loskid gathers Sarcem body and head as the party heads back to inform Jenya of what happen. The party is told that he was carrying the wands used to prevent the flooding of the Cauldron. Jenya uses the spell “Speak with Dead” to get more answers from Sarcem head. He is able to give a very good description of who the wands were handed off to. Hilde, based on this description, is able to come up with a very decent sketch.

The sketch is taken to Skellerang who recognizes the woman as Triel Elderest. She was a town guard but left after a disagreement and killed several guards on her way out. With not much else to go on, the party head to Tyson for a new lead.

Tyson is familiar with Triel's backstory but not much more. He says to see a man a the Tipped Tankered named Artus.

The party then heads to the Tipped Tankered to see Artus. The bartender points out a man that Loskid immediately recognizes from a previous encounter. They find him drunk and attempt to sober him up. He is displeased with the way we choose to do this and wants 300 gold for information. Loskid fails to use his diplomacy to talk him down to 200 gold, then threatens him. He gives a random location. This lead turns out to be a dead end. Returning to Artus, we find he has left the bar. The bartender motions us over with a note left for us. It reads something to the effect of meet him tonight if we really want more information on Triel's whereabouts along with 500 gold.

Shackled City Home
Last time: Session 19
Next time: Session 21