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Amherth Diaries, Session VII: Backlash (clues recap for the readers!!!)


They finally face Fynch, the "feminine" thief of the Adventurer's Guild.
They know he's a member of the secretive assassin's guild and that he knows more than they think.
In the last session, Celemor told her nephew Elowen that he noticed him following her and Morgane Harrow during one of their "journeys" to the Magic Academy. 

Fynch awaits and doesn't take long before the fellowship pushes on. He confesses: he's an assassin. But not the assassin. He just noticed that another assassin (the actual killer) was moving like a "real" assassin during Summer's End and Fynch got that he was part of the secretive guild himself. But that guild as a golden rule: you don't kill unless a real "murderer order" has been given and no orders had been given. So, the killer was acting on his own. He didn't lie in the end, if you remember the interrogation during the early sessions. 



Fynch tried to stop him writing a message (the fellowship found it a couple of sessions before), but it was too late. 
This explains pretty well why the killer has been slain while "hosted" in the advernturers guild's halls (by someone of its own order, Fynch confirms), to punish him for having accepted an "illegal" contract.

So, the first suspect Fynch is not a suspect anymore. 

What they got so far from the clues:

- Hleib witnessed a cheat-talk in between a woman and another person. They wanted to "kill the hags" (probably referring to the Greyston Sisters). He's been seen, but he managed to escape.

- Someone, using elven calligraphy (in common language) wrote the killer the "contract proposal", offering 200 gp in advance. This person was probably a man... ora woman dressed as a man. 

- During Summer's End Party at Blueberry Manor, Hleib has been poisoned with a violet poison, pointing at the "awesome fruit" which the family is named after. 
- The main intent was probably this: create a guild wars, a conflict in between guilds where the Greystones (the "hags") would have been accused (since the assassin would have revealed to have got the contract in "elven calligraphy"). 

Luckily enough (???) the group, with Fynch's help, managed to spot the victim and hide it. Remember that no one outside them and the adventurer's guild know anything about what happened. 

The Meeting with Celemor

As requested, at night, the group leave the town to meet Celemor and Morgane Harrow, ready for another journey to the Magic Academy!!!
But right outside the town borders, they are attacked! Three men, one of 'em casting black/evil-ish energy spells, try to kill them! It's tough, but the fellowship manages to win!
One of them, captured, reveal to have been payed by an old sailor at the Tradeport's port. 
Who the hell knows?
Are they attracting unwanted attention?

Soon after, they look for Celemor and Morgane, but they onlu find the latter, wounded and frightened. "They took her! They took Celemor!!!" He asks her child (Cirice) and her friend to look after his elven friend, he would go back in Tradeport with a horse... 

That's what they do. 
They follow a creepy trail of "ink bottles" hanging from trees... They get them to the abandoned ruin/manor, where the Matroni escaped... And where, as far as they knew, Beatryce, his huge companion "May I?" and the two mages (master Jansen and his gnome student) would have investigated...

They get near sneaking. 
The "manor" is actually a collapsed structure and they only see the underground dungeons through the stones. 
Celemor is there, prone, asleep. Naked. 
Around her there are candles.
At her foot, Beatryce, in a zombie-like state, her face deformed by the silouhette of a hag.
At her head, "May I?" with his enormous sword, standing above Celemor's head and a weird looking book, whose pages are flipped by a mysterious wind...

On the opposite side of the room there are two wooden graves, standing on the wall, from where voices ask for help! Jansen and his companion!

Gillian acts. Opens up a space between the rocks and "jumps" in, while the others try to wound Beatryce without killing her, knowing she's possessed by the matroni. Her deformed face smiles and screams "I got you! I got you all!"

A deadly fight starts. Cirice successfully cross the "battlefield" and frees up Jansen. 
In the meanwhile, Gillian the Grim attracts the attention of Beatryce and May I, getting severely wounded and losing a couple of fingers... 
Liam the Bard frees up the gnome-ish mage, while Elowen shoots at Beatryce, trying to cover Celemor's body and step on the weird book.

Jansen, now free, casts a Lightning and kills off Beatryce! While she dies, May I runs to her and starts screaming. The possession is no more active, but now the huge guy is raging for the death of her master (not knowing exactly what was going on...).

The matroni, in spirit form, crawls like a shadowy spider and tries to get into the book.
That's clearly part of a ritual and while the group does its best to protect Celemor and Gillian, Jansen strikes again, this time burning the book itself and destroying (hopefully) the Matroni in the exact moments she's entering the book!

Silence follows. May I cries and ask for a resurrection. Kinda rare. Probably in the not far Kingdom of Tyr a Priest or White Mage capable of such a feature still exists...
Jansen and the gnome call a spiritual familiar and ask the academy to send two griffons.

One brings May I and Beatryce to the academy. They want to "try" to help the priestess (even if, if you remember, there's no good relationship between her church and the mages... But Jansen is a good man and understands the May I's suffering)...

The other one, with Jansen and the Gnome on top, escorts the fellowship back to Tradeport, where some new questions and (hopefully again) new answers might arise.
The Matroni wanted vengeance and, in the end, she got some. She wanted the map, probably, knowing that was the thing Celemor and Morgane (and then everybody else) were looking for, just for the sake of "having it". It's in the Matroni nature. 

But now the Matroni is no more.
Still, her lacerating screams and cries resound in the fellowship's soul. 


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