Lethal Lil:
Will join Cass in leading this group back to town, collecting Ned as well.
Since you only have two horses, you get back to town late.
However, once back, the town council is woken out of their beds, astonished at your success so far.
Some intense interrogations (not of you (well, I mean, sure, of you, but that's not the intense part. That's more a
falling-all-over-themselves-grateful interrogation, if you can even call it an interrogation)) happen.
By the next morning, the town council is ready for a new meeting with you...
THE POST-INTERROGATION FACTS:
1. Ned has told all. Ned was indeed "planted" at the house, on short notice, by a prominent merchant in Saltmarsh-- who was also on the town council! Said town council member has now been relieved of his duties.
The Town Council member in question was secretly a receiver of the smugglers’ contraband.
Ned is not really a rogue adventurer, he's a straight-up assassin. Ned’s task was simply to do his utmost to prevent the two brave adventurers from learning about the smuggling operation, and generally to try to lead them to abandon their mission. However, his fear for his own skin was such that he only attempted assassination as a last resort. The merchant former-town-council-member was the one who whacked Ned over the head for realism (and then tied him up and hid his clothes).
2. Unfortunately for the merchant, he didn't know how to contact the smugglers on short notice — Pomeroy (the smugglers’ leader) always initiates their infrequent meetings, and never arranges for them to take place in the House. Thus the merchant knew the smugglers’ base was accessed somewhere in the House but had never been able to find it. Planting the assassin in one of the upstairs rooms was the best plan he could conceive at short notice.
3. Pomeroy is, in fact, the name of the spellcaster you captured. Using mostly magic, he enchanted the two cavemen to come and work for him as his heavy-lifting bodyguards. Living in a cave and being given regular food and drink just for lifting things was a pretty easy lifestyle for them, but they'll surely be headed back home by now (all they have to do is look at the stars or just the sun, and they'll know to head northeast).
4. The town council is very pleased with Cassandra and Lil (to list in alphabetical order)... but they want more. They want the ship that's been smuggling this stuff in, too. So, they want to hire you for another job-- sneaking onto the ship the next time it comes back-- which should be tonight.
Even if the smugglers have reported the adventurers, they wouldn't know that Pomeroy has been captured, nor that the cavemen were defeated and vanished. So the ship will surely come back tonight to check-- and we have the lantern signals that will assure it that everything's fine now!
Will Lil and Cassandra take on this new (or old-but-expanded) mission?
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:52, Mon 12 June 2023.