The group continued their investigation into Gneverever's shop. We followed him for a week, watched his customers come in and out, and took note of his patterns. We also scouted his reputation, which seems to be reasonably good, and rich people buy his crappy clickers for 5 gp each. It's like collecting baseball cards for these people, only more expensive. Still, we suspect he's our best bet for the scroll case.
Ganshuk continued his survey of all the remaining hot spots with Vincent following his progress in the shadows. After scanning one of the shops we had on our radar, Ganshuk's cart was followed by two epbul wielding thugs. We set up an abmbush in a low traffic alley and laid low in a couple of the twins' psionic hideouts. After disarming and binding a gnome and human, we questioned them and found them to be hired muscle of the proprietor of the shop. Didn't seem unusual, so we name dropped the Drow guild as the group responsible for the scanning. We didn't take any of their stuff for fear of magical/psionic tracking and left them to limp back to their employer when the psionic shackles wore off...about 12 hours later.
We met back at Esme's to discuss all the hot spots that Ganshuk found during his scanning route. We got a couple hits at a school for the poor, a dive bar, and a couple other places. 5 total I believe, including Gneverever's place. We continued our reconnaissance by going to the bar. Remy distracted the patrons with a sword dance while one of the twins psionically confused the bartender and snuck down the basement. He found lead mugs and nothing else of import, so we left.
Esme went incognito to the school and found that the lead was simply in place because it used to be a wizard prison back during the Tinkocracy, so the walls are lined in lead to prevent casting.
There's only one place we couldn't scan because it's a private residence and would require us to infiltrate the grounds to get close enough to use the wand. We ran out of time before we could come up with a plan for that, but it's on the list of things to do.
We also did some digging on some of the up and coming guilds so we could pick one to frame once we break into Gneverever's shop. We found a guild of Tinker Gnomes that use low quality, single use clickers for their crimes and like to leave evidence as a calling card. We picked up a bunch of cheap clickers over the week that fit their M.O. and will plant them in order to frame their guild once we break in. We all agree that Gneverever seems to be our best bet so far since he's living in an old shrine to the Tinker gods and since the property has been around for at least as long as the time the scroll was created 150 years ago. If that doesn't pan out, we'll hit the private residence.
Also of note, Natsu was released from prison and all charges were dropped. Since he's laying low and hasn't been coming to guild meetings, we're not sure if he charmed his way out or if he paid it, but what we do know is that the Magicowners set him up. No big surprise there, but that fight is way above our pay grade right now, so it remains Natsu's problem and not the guilds for now.
In other news, word spread that the wizards of Iott launched their assault on the Horarians and their blockade. They were given an ultimatum to move the fleet out by a certain time. When that demand was not met, the wizards answered with a furious arcane assault that devastated the fleet and destroyed every last ship that was blocking the trade routes. They managed all this destruction in a few short hours over the course of one day. The fleet didn't stand a chance. The Iottians have now issued a warning to the Horarians to end their hostilities or risk total annihilation of their way of life. We haven't heard whether or not they plan to comply, but if not, I wouldn't plan on playing a Horarian character any time soon, because they may be extinct after this season.