XP for posting a recap of the last session and a half for Remy.
After laying low and quietly growing the organization over many months, Esme summons the group for a potentially lucrative job. This includes Forza who was recently released from prison. A wizard from Iott named Manfred offers to hire our guild to locate and retrieve an ancient artifact of the Orcs and Bugbears somewhere in Borkondoff. This artifact is named City Cleaver and is reportedly buried with Borkon the Rusted himself. It is a mighty stone great sword capable of leveling cities' defenses. He offers $50K to each guild member who helps collect the item and return it to Manfred. We all agree to accept the job.
After some negotiation with Manfred, shopping, and prep work, we set about our task. First was to find out who else was interested in the City Cleaver and to scout out any potential competition. Our information network discovered there is one rival of note named Parker. This Parker is apparently a foppish Bard type bathed in privilege who is extremely well funded and surrounds himself with powerful allies. He is looking for City Cleaver but we don't know if he has any leads or any hired associates in Borkondoff at the moment. We approach the situation by acting quickly in the hopes we can beat him to the punch. Ayva also puts out feelers and calls in a couple favors to find out all we can about the politics and economy of Borkondoff. We discover that they're not at war with anyone at the moment, they mainly barter for food and supplies using mined minerals, and they have a thriving slave trade. We use this intel to disguise our group appropriately. The Kobalds and some of our merchants go as slaves and the rest dress up as slavers or generic Drow merchants.
The trip to Borkondoff would take us three months by caravan so we convince Manfred to supply us with Greater Teleport scrolls. He agrees and we use the scrolls to get us about 20 miles east of the capital city of Cleeve. We split up into groups to do some recon while the rest of the group slowly approaches the city. Vincent sneaks in while Istvan, Remy, and Profit make their way in disguised as traders with their Kobald slave.
Vincent makes his way in pretty easily using stealth, but on the way to Cleeve, Istvan, Remy, and Profit encounter a number of natives. They first pass through a Kobald ghetto and are quickly approached by Hobgoblin enforcers. When confronted, Istvan and Profit quickly create a cover story that they are potion traders and wish to do business in the city. Profit assumes the role of slave translator. The enforcers use a Kobald translator of their own to try to extort potions from us, but Istvan snuffs out their attempts by putting on a firearms display at the expense of a random Kobald passerby. The Hobgoblins quickly withdraw their threats and instead offer to be our guides into the city. We agree and make our way to the city. Once in the town, we realize how disorganized and chaotic everything is. No street signs, cut off roads to nowhere, dilapidated mud huts and overcrowded conditions. The guides prove very useful and they get us to a potions shop. The shop has nothing impressive to offer, so we leave and head towards the city proper guided by tall spires as landmarks. It's slow going and difficult to make any progress. We eventually spot an angry Orc shoving his way through the crowd and walking determinedly towards the outskirts. We follow him to discover he's a prize fighter who was late for a pit fight. He ends up winning and Istvan tries to get info from him. He isn't very smart, but a Kobald lackey who works for the fight promoter approaches us and we hire him as our new guide. He speaks six languages and can get us around a little quicker.
At this point, the sun sets and the Drow and Trogladytes come out of hiding. The crowds clear out of the streets, but not completely. We approach Cleeve with caution as our new guide/translator leads the way.
