Seven's Sawmill

“Seven's Sawmill”
Rise of the Runelords episode
Episode no.	Episode 39
Date	2009
Game Master	Abbe
Characters	Dorothea Honeypot Nathaniel Nell Velicia
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "The City Guards Arrive" "Father Skinsaw"
Rise of the Runelords chapter list

In this chapter the heroes ask around town to try to locate Seven's Sawmill.

Seven's Sawmill

We decided to find out where the Seven's Sawmill is located through working the streets, looking for rumors.
"We'll ask around."
"And I know where to start. Nell, you need to go to the tailors." Nathaniel said.
"But, I already have clothes."
"You need new clothes, worthy of a Foxglove!"
Honeypot went looking for rumors herself and Velicia took off to go look for the Eladrins she met earlier. I, Nathaniel and Dorothea went to the Keystone district of Magnimar to look for a good tailor. We choose one and entered. Nathaniel looked around at what they had to offer and used his sense of fashion to select the style and fabric. I didn't really care as long as it looked good and I could move in it. Dorothea found a new set of clothes too and Nathaniel chose a dress for Shayliss Vinder to bring back as a gift for her. We ordered the clothes and while they took our measures we talked to the tailors and seamstresses. I asked innocently if they had heard any news lately as I had been out of the city for a while. They told me of murders of bankers, rich merchants and "people that matters". After some follow up I got some names and could ask some questions about them to see if they had been greedy. They all had been!

When all finished we continued on to Pug's Contraptions in the same district. They had a lot of different cages, traps and locks. A man approached us.
"How can I help?"
"This young lady have recently acquired a house and in it's inventory there were some cages of remarkable craftsmanship. We would like get to know more about them." Nathaniel answered.
I batted my eyes and smiled at him. Pug took out a big book and opened it on the counter. Browsing through it he stopped at an entry some four weeks ago and told us he had sold 10 cages to Aldern Foxglove. He had requested a quick delivery to the Foxglove townhouse in the Grand Arch district. I thanked him for his helpfulness and Nathaniel bought some music boxes for his sisters.

We had agreed to meet for lunch at a tavern we passed earlier and having finished our plans we went there early. I ordered a big lunch. You never know how long till the next meal. I took a couple of apples for later too. Soon Velicia showed up. She told us stories of Brothers of the Seven. They are an old organization of rich bankers that's got a lot of power. Soon Honeypot too showed up and told us that there were rumors of living forever surrounding them too. There were stories of the undead and of proposals to rich people to join them and all that agreed disappeared. It was some mystic merchant consortium. She had also heard that the Seven's Sawmill were located upriver. We decide to hire a boat instead of riding up the road.

Going to the harbor Velicia disguised herself to look like a human girl selling flowers. Looking around there were no boat for hire, but we found a boat and crew of two that we convinced to row us upstreams. The captain talked a lot in a friendly manner. I guess we payed him too much. The man rowing wasn't as happy though. As we went upstreams passing several sawmills, all working hard, the captain told us that there was a big demand for their work now. We passed Seven's Sawmill studying it, but didn't stop there. Instead we continued on to the next sawmill and put in at their jetty.

As we were disembarking we were met by a guard that wanted us gone. I talked to him and tricked him that I wanted to buy planks and mentioned some names I've picked up. He hesitated long enough for the boat to leave before answering we couldn't buy at the mill but had to talk to the owners in Magnimar. We left by walk back along road. It had been improved lately by adding gravel. It went through a swampy area leading out to a bigger road. We turned towards Magnimar and continued on until the next road leading to the Seven's Sawmill. That road was better and older than the road to the other sawmill. We left the road and sneaked through the forest to get there unnoticed.

When we could see the dark shape of the sawmill between the trees standing out against the river, we circled to the right and looked for a hiding place. We found one but noted that there were lots of footprints in the woods. There were even marks on the trees as if someone had been climbing too. I thought of the gangs of thieves back in my youth on the streets of Magnimar, training to become catburglers.

Looking closer at the sawmill we saw that it was much bigger than the one we landed at. It had been developed in stages and remodeled several timed but the original looked very old. It was a very tall building, built mostly over the river and had several waterwheels built into it. There was a tower to it too. It made a lot of noise suggesting they were working hard. There were still a couple of workers standing talking next to a pier. We noticed a quite flamboyant style of clothing on the workers, but the clothes were still used and worn. We could also tell they were not ghouls. We noted that small groups of workers left and others arrived. It looked as if they were some sort of patrols and not workers coming to work and goinghome. I sneaked up to one group and followed them. I overheard them talking.

"..looking for a group of five, with one satyr and one eladrin."
"That should be easy enough to recognize."
"As the last targets."
"Yes and I don't like it. Attacking richer people than we were told earlier. We have lost the spirit lately. It's not the way Norgober told us. I think the man is getting old. We should do something about it."
"That's dangerous talk."
"But he is straying from the true path."
I had heard enough. I hid in a bush and let them continue. Then I returned to the others and told them of what had been said. They knew who we were and that we were coming.

Velicia told us that Norgober is an old deity who is killing on Nerull's behalf to prevent things from happening in the world. Honey told a story about the skinsaw man that appeared as the boogeyman and killed in ways much like that.

As it looked very hard to approach undetected we decided to wait for the sunset. Still keeping the sawmill under watch we retreated a little further away to wait for dusk. When darkness slowly fell we discussed which way to approach and decided to swim. I didn't like the idea as I'm not a good swimmer and there was a strong current in the river. With the risk of getting into the waterwheels I thought we should try another approach, but the others insisted and Honeypot suggester a ritual turning us into sea otters. I'm not that fond of strange magic, but it's preferred to drowning and had the added bonus of being harder to notice and if the workers saw us they would just think it's a couple of otters swimming by. She also cast telepathy and some dark light that made sure we could see but that couldn't be seen.

The swim was hard and dangerous but it was made easily by being a sea otter. It almost felt sad to stop swimming and start climbing. We climbed the wall of the sawmill. It was a sparsely planked wall and we could see light shining through the slits, but they were too small see anything clearly through. When we were almost at the top Nathaniel got stuck. He's a good climber but he was also the heaviest with his armor and all. Since we had been using a rope to make sure no one would fall, we all got stuck. It was easily enough solved, but there were a few tense moments before we all got up on the roof. The next step up the tower I climbed first and secured a grappling hook and the others followed easily enough. Carefully we lifted a trapdoor peeking down, ready to spring into action. There was a small room. It was lit but there were no one there.