For a change, the adventurers try their hand at socialite behavior.
After the fight in the square, Valeria and her thugs lead the adventurers to another safe house. They also carried the one beggar they managed to knock out instead of killing. Shamil tortured some information out of him. It looked like the evil priests whipped the beggars into a formidable clandestine fighting force.
The adventurers rested and recuperated, then went to the tea party in the evening - in full armor and carrying weapons. The guards at the mansion sniffed, but had no other comments to put forth.
During the social encounter, the adventurers discovered absolutely nothing relevant. Besides Telicanthus, the wealthy and sociable refugee-turned merchant-turned baron, there was also Lord Torrance from the council, his lady wife, the head dean of the Daerim university, the head of the town guard, as well as Baranor the Black, a retired adventurer. I provided ample opportunities for roleplaying and information wrangling; however, unlike with the council, I did not provide detailed profiles for the NPCs beforehand, just to see how the players handle it. They bumbled through it all, never asked the right questions, and did not engage any of the NPCs as they should have. At one point, Athosian excused herself to the toilet to escape the drudgery of talking to the baroness about clothes and shoes. There! I thought. She'll sneak off and investigate the mansion. Nope. Nothing of the sort.
In the end, I got merciful and dropped a tidbit: Baranor sometimes cannot sleep, as he hears digging and other noises coming from his neighbor - Telicanthus.
The adventurers also followed other leads after talking to the head of the town guard. He gave them access to the corpses and weapons of the beggars from the square. (I really wasn't in the mood for delaying them even more, although they would have deserved it plenty for going to the town guard directly like that.) There they took advantage of Cahir's spirit sight. The paladin questioned the spirits, and found more info corroborating the story they put together so far.
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