Railjacks Campaign Log

An agent of Daask, a half-orc named Gran, approached the Railjacks at their hideout, with a job offer. Daask was moving in to the Ambassador Towers district, which was currently run by the Tyrants, a gang of Changeling information brokers and spies. The job was to assassinate one of the Tyrants' informants, Ushrir of Clan Toldarath, who works at the Mror consulate.

The group managed to sneak in with a cover of negotiating a trade agreement with the Lhaazar Principalities, but still needed to sneak their way into the Toldarath enclave within the embassy.

They caused a distraction in the inner chambers of the enclave, where Ushrir was eating, and snuck him out invisibly. It seemed, however, that someone knew that he had been taken; there was a heavily armored guard stationed at the door to the embassy tower, preventing the group from exiting without a fight. The Railjacks also heard an additional voice where Ushrir's invisible form was positioned.

The party made short work of the guards, who all seemed to be changelings in dwarven disguise. Finally, the unseen voice revealed themselves. A changeling form appeared before them and offered to talk things out. They appeared unfazed, and a little annoyed, by attempts by the party to wound them, but retreated before they could suffer any real harm. They said to spare Ushrir's life, and then the Tyrants would work with the Railjacks to counter Daask influence throughout the city.

The Railjacks decided to remain professional and honor their contract by not immediately siding with the Tyrant, but neither did they kill the dwarf. They flew off in their skycoach with Ushrir in tow.

Invida tips the party off to a potential client and sets up a meet. The client, a shifter named Munro feels slighted by her paramour Pietro, the director of a play in the Lower Central Plateau. She wants you to ruin his play and reputation, then murder Stamatina, the actress Pietro hired to replace her.

The Railjacks stake the theater out during the final dress rehearsal. Wix actually joins the cast as a supernumery actor, Echo steals some tickets for a private box (one in which the actual owners are presumed not to appear), and Scrip met a half-orc named Toof, the production designer. They formulated a plan to stage an accident during a climatic moment of the play, in order to disguise the killing and ruin the play in one fell swoop.

On opening night, the group entered the theater and went to the box to put their plan in motion. Wix fell in with the cast, waiting for the right moment to set some fires and create chaos. Scrip went and played dice with some of the stagehands, while Exile found a vantage point in the rafters, hidden from view.

As the play began, the announcer made a point to thank the Sharn Watch for its heroic deeds, and pointed out a large host of them in attendance, seated on the ground floor. Echo and Tusk snuck backstage, abandoning the box.

Echo went to plant some evidence on the director, to shift the blame off of them and onto him. Munro had prepared some complaints about Pietro ignoring safety regulations, and Echo managed to slip them into his safe unseen.

Tusk went invisible and attempted to learn some information about the understudy Stamatina, but was almost spotted when his spell ran out early. He tucked himself into a wardrobe, but didn't have a chance to escape until the play ended.

As the play reached a climax (a burst of fireworks from Toof's wand), the well-timed plan went into effect. Wix set the curtains on fire with his wand, and Exile sent the curtains falling with a well-placed arrow to the rigging lines. With another arrow, he dropped a heavy sandbag onto Stamatina, killing her almost instantly.

With the stage plunged into chaos, the heroes of the Watch leapt into action, to evacuate the theater patrons and assist the cast and crew. In the commotion, Echo filched the wand of Pyrotechnics from Toof, and the Railjacks escaped the theater relatively unscathed, and with a new appreciation of the dramatic arts.

House Tarkanen contracts the Railjacks to securely transport one of their agents to a safehouse in Boldrei's Heart. The contact, a fixer named Invida, was a half-orc woman with a very prominent aberrant dragonmark. She was being pursued by a Dark Lantern agent named Aron Fainn, the Sharpsword. He was known for his ruthless pursuit of his prey, as well as his cunning in choosing the right moment to strike. He preferred to fight one-on-one, and in that, he was a very competent killer.

The party made a plan to have Exile escort Invida by carriage, with Scrip tagging along in a servant's disguise. Echo watched from the rooftops, Tusk followed behind on foot, and Wix trailed in the skycoach. The idea was to disguise their numbers to draw out the assassin, and then gang up and kill him.

They met Invida in a café in Olladra's Kitchen, where she seemed nervous and skittish. Exile went in alone and, with some difficulty, managed to convince her to trust them long enough to get going. The others kept watch, and caught glimpses of someone watching them from afar.

They embarked in the horse-drawn carriage, progressing cautiously, when they came to an overturned cart in the road. When Exile turned the cart to avoid it, through a narrow passage between the obstruction and the walkway, Sharpsword jumped out and took a swing at Exile with his massive greatsword; the fight was engaged. Exile crossed swords with the assailant, his double scimitar a whirlwind of blades spinning and clashing. Tusk rushed up and joined the melee, using his glowing mindblade, and Echo dove in from above with their knife. The Railjacks surrounded the Dark Lantern, preventing his escape, and keeping him from using any of his potions to aid himself. Wix provided fire support with his wand from above, and Scrip tore off her disguise to stab their mark in the back. Her blade struck true, but not before she was forced to escape or be mortally injured.

They killed him quickly and efficiently, but it wasn't as clean as they would like; since the murder happened in broad daylight, the Watch was bound to be on their way, so they had to leave quickly. Wix set a fire in an alleyway as a distraction, and helped Tusk and Echo get into the skycoach. In order to distract any patrols, they flew in the opposite direction of Exile, who continued with Invida on foot to her safehouse. Tusk's visions prevented him from being able to carry their attacker's corpse, so they left him there in the street.

House Tarkanen paid well, and Invida agreed to serve as a fixer and negotiator for the party, helping to squeeze more coin out of their lower-class clients.

Wix checked his dead drop location; he knew that's where his friends in Daask sent them jobs sometimes. And this time, there was a simple message telling him to visit Gnash'vog'thar in the Cogs. The gnollish bartender told them about a contract, given to Daask by an anonymous client. The contract was to kill a minor noble named Daine ir'Bronwyn, who has taken to hiding in his well-protected home.

The Railjacks cased the joint; it's well-guarded by half a dozen warforged sentries, and there's no back entrance. So they made a plan of luring the mark to a window, and having Exile take him out with a well-placed arrow. Scrip and Echo bribed a delivery person and brought a crate of groceries to the front door, while Exile got in position to shoot, and Wix and Tusk hid around the corner to rush in and support if necessary.

Scrip managed to talk her and Echo's way through the door, then had one of the maids show them to the larder in the basement. With silent precision and brutal efficiency, Echo strangled the young khoravar woman while Scrip covered her mouth. Scrip put on the servant's clothes, and went upstairs. She rushed into the kitchen, grabbing a tray along the way, and brought it to the mark's bedchambers. She told the warforged guarding the upstairs landing that she was bringing food for the master, and left the tray inside Daine's doorway, leaving the door ajar. Then, she walked over to the window at the other end of the hall, and "accidentally" knocked over a fragile stone statuette, causing a great deal of noise and commotion.

Meanwhile, Echo was searching around the basement, and found a hidden door in the wine cellar, which opened to a secret closed vault. Exile found a well-hidden vantage point, well beyond normal bowshot range, to further obscure the assassination.

Roused from his slumber by the crash, Daine stormed out into the hallway, sword and potion-belt in hand, but still clad in his bedclothes. Once he got to the end of the hall, right in front of the window, Exile let loose an arrow. The arrow flew well, crashing through the window and lodging itself deep in the young noble's eye socket. As the window broke, the sharp piercing wail of an alarm begun blaring, rousing the guards on the first floor and in front of the door to come to attention.

The arrow struck true, but did not quite kill their target. Scrip had moments to act before they were discovered, and act she did. Before the warforged could come to their master's aid, she seized the arrow, embedded in the man's eye, and shoved it as deep as she could, riding his fresh corpse to the ground. She begun wailing desperately, making a big show of trying to aid the dead man.

Tusk and Wix used the distraction of the guards heading inside to spring into action as well; they rushed into the door, and right down the stairs towards Echo and the vault. The three of them worked swiftly; Echo did the primary job of opening the locked door, but utilized his compatriots' dexterity and expertise to disable traps and wards as he found them. They opened the vault without any other problems, and saw two small chests of gold and jewels and a bright golden wand with the symbol of Boldrei, goddess of Hearth and Home, at the tip. They emptied the chests into the grocery crate, stuffed the maid's body inside the vault, and closed it all up, leaving no trace behind.

Upstairs, the warforged had assembled around Scrip and Daine to protect them, as Exile rained down volley fire from his unseen hiding spot. The warforged could do little except hide behind their shields. The valenar elf hit one of the potions on the potion belt, causing a showering explosion of frost, which killed two of the guards, and injured Scrip. The half-elf grifter became even more hysterical, attempting to rush downstairs. The warforged tried to stop her, and cover her from the incoming fire, but she pulled the guard's shield down at the exact right moment for one of Exile's arrows to pierce his skull, killing him instantly. She threw him off of her and rushed downstairs.

Waiting for when the door guards' backs were turned, Echo, Tusk, and Wix joined Scrip in rushing towards the door. Since the guards were focused on looking outside, it was trivial for four sneaky assassins to dispatch them quickly, and they ran out the door.

The Watch had not yet shown up, so they seemed to be in the clear. There wasn't much of an indication in the papers the next morning about the murder in Stormhold, so it seemed like they might get away scot-free. Wix's dead-drop had the full payment in it the next time he checked.