Reeling from their misadventures in the Vexman estate, the party took stock of their surroundings as they brushed off the dust and turds from their escape from through the sewers and the close call with the Purple Handle. Behind them, the walled inner circle of Daros, and ahead of them, a pond of sewage surrounded by fields nobody could stomach living near.

On the edge of the fields where the drains of the city’s working class led, they spotted a skirmish between two groups of armed soldiers. As the group weighed their options on how best they might escape the city, the soldiers felled one another until all but two remained. All but two, and two figures bound in rope, carried on the shoulders of the soldiers like sacks of rotten, thieving potatoes.

Unfortunately, Tenli recognized one of those sacks of thieving potatoes as Zain. The group decided to engage the soldiers in combat, and for a few minutes that felt like two hours, an epic battle ensued. Some members of the group took some serious blows. Even Sven seemed on the verge of death, until he and the DM remembered that his Rage gave him mad resistance to the exact type of attacks he sustained, and he popped back to life ready to bash some brains. Somehow, the party managed to find out the names of their opponents - Brock the Breaker and Thorne the Thumper - which made victory all the sweeter when they finally slew the giant men.

Just as the battle was coming to an end, the two restrained rogues managed to break their bindings, giving them the opportunity to say they helped. As the group caught their breath, the man tied up with Zain introduced himself as Orophor, a thief caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As the city guards descended throughout the city, one of the rogues spotted a member of their guild, a boy named Turtle or something, indicating a safehouse in which they could rest. So the party took caution and entered the house as boots pounded the pavement on the street outside.

On a credenza inside the safehouse, Zain found a note, which read: “I had hoped for a tweezer, but hired a hammer. Meet me by the giacchi tree at midnight if you are able to escape the city. I will hold true to our deal.” This discovery instigated some strong suspicion of young Turtle or whomever, and after questioning, the party trusted that he was but a messenger eager to keep the city guards out of his hair so he could later scavenge the fallen corpses.

He informed them that the city had burst into turmoil upon the discovery that the sole heir of one of Daros’s oldest noble houses had been slain, along with his food tester. A handful of nobles banded together and blamed Duskfallow, creating a militia to stand against the city guard. The city guard themselves were looking for the assassins, whom Duskfallow had decried and said in no uncertain terms that he had nothing to do with.

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The party had a short rest, licked their wounds and prepared an escape from the city. Tenli pulled out her bag of disguises, and somebody else, maybe Beorn, did something else cool to help them get through the city undetected. Relying on Uncle Iroh’s historical knowledge of the city, they made it to the gate nearest the old giacchi tree, and scaled the wall, seeing as the gates were barred.

Outside the city, the party breathed a sigh of relief, as the search for them seemed contained within the walls. They followed Iroh into the woods outside Daros, and made their way to the giacchi tree.

The ancient tree took their breath away with its splendor, as its canopy extended out hundreds of yards and draped from well above the other trees all the way to the ground. They found a small crevice in the tight knit branches, and entered into the cloistered space. Inside, small mushrooms nestled in the branches glowed a soft green, providing them enough light to see by.

They took a moment, briefly discussing the possibility of trying to kill Duskfallow, when he flew in as a bat and landed himself in a high branch above them. He seemed… displeased. The party threw his tidy little city into turmoil, with power vacuums erupting from Vexman’s death, and Duskfallow’s soldiers dying at the hands of the nobles’ resistance.

Still, he promised to give them what more information he could, and he delivered. The Death Head desires order and stability in Dellin. Duskfallow never spoke directly to any of the 6 Heads, but through his leading officer, Dark-Colonel Clysl, using a void orb. Through Clysl, Duskfallow was instructed to establish firm trade routes from Samso to Thad. Without knowing the full plan, Duskfallow assumed it has something to do with mining Ice Stone.

Whether the assassination was a way to get their puppet, Vester Lester, the regency in order to promote order in the country or who committed it, Duskfallow can only conjecture.

Duskfallow grew quiet and pensive. He admitted considering bringing them back to Daros on a spit to restore order. But, he believed he can quell the insurrections and establish his order anew, with perhaps several fewer nobles to moderate his rule.

Still, he will deny ever having met them. After the arrest and subsequent torture of Majordomo Coover, everybody in the city knows who killed Vexman. They will be hunted, likely throughout Dellin, as enders of a long standing noble line.