After a narrowly avoiding a TPK in The Riverfront Rat Gang in Session 0, we started Everyone Lies by Ben McFarland from Streets of Zobeck in the first full session. Here’s the write up.
27th Low Summer, 92 FY
At the Seven Bells Tavern, Grigori, a second-storey man, asks the characters to find his girlfriend Ilyana before the Spyglass Guild can track her down, offering a (stolen?) necklace as a reward. When the party leave the tavern, they are accosted by men from the Spyglass Guild who insist the adventurers bring Ilyana to the Blue House when they find her.
The characters go to the Silk Scabbard to speak to Filipa and Iskra, Ilyana’s friends. While Bubbles offers her services as a manager to the barman, Penumbra talks to Rajak from the Cloven Nine. The Gears and Louthin are thrown out by members of the Cloven Nine after the kobold cleric asks loudmouth gentleman-adventurer Timolius Druzeldorg if he knows Ilyana, but they do find out that she is the daughter of Lord Greymark. Penumbra seizes the opportunity to question Filipa but the girl doesn’t know where her friend is hiding.
Retiring to the pub opposite to plan their next move, the characters are joined by Sergeant Hendryk of the City Watch. The bent copper fills them in on the true story – Ilyana stole the a “black book of secrets” from the praetor Lady Marack, so the Spyglass Guild and the Cloven Nine are both after her and the book, and the adventurers are caught in the middle. Best they go to the Cartways Black Market and talk to Mr Underhill to get things sorted.
At the entrance to the Black Market, the Gears defends a kobold tinker from an angry duergar, backed up by the rest of the party. Inside, Bubbles asks Dobricar, the ghoul slaver captain, if he’s seen her brother. He hasn’t.
Mr Radu Underhill offers to tell the characters where they can find Ilyana, and suggests they invite Lady Marack and the Cloven Nine to a midnight meeting at Hommal’s Botantical Rooftop. Mr Underhill will whisk Lady Marack away so he can have “a word” with her, so the party can hand the black book to the Cloven Nine to get them off their backs. As the characters leave the market, they are attacked by a wererat with a Cloven Nine tattoo and Bubbles is bitten.
28th Low Summer
The characters visit the Old Stross Bathhouse and find Ilyana, rescuing her from a bunch of greedy patrons, and taking her to a private room at the Dented Shield where she will be safe. Ilyana explains things have spiralled out of control – she just wanted her father to acknowledge her as his daughter. She has stashed the book inside a cloak in Iskra’s room at the Silk Scabbard. The characters have yet to share Mr Underhill’s suggested solution to the difficulties with her.
Richard Green | Game Designer 