You don't have to wait long for a party of PC's to seek revenge when they've been wronged by a corrupt Lieutenant. Such was the case this day as the party sought Lt. Faber for setting them up with some mean ogres. They returned, predictably enough, to an empty office faintly smelling of smoke. They found the remnants of a burnt note in the wastepaper basket, which Vocifera repaired using a mending spell. The note was from the ex-captain Skarros, instructing Faber to go to Lord Bartimeus' house to find a device called Chronos. The party left quickly to try to save Bartimeus. They arrived at the manor just in time before Faber finished him off. A heated battle ensued, dominated mainly by Brog slaughtering the rank and file soldiers and Tannis occupying Lt Faber in combat, preventing him from using his bow. Vocifera dispatched one of the guards while getting Fallister back on his feet, and Karsh did his part slaying two guards as well. There was also a bit of business with a goblin dog and a fit of hideous laughter. Faber saw the writing on the wall and stepped onto a mystic glyph which teleported him... somewhere else. Tannis saw to Bartimeus' wounds and gave him blood to drink. The remaining soldiers surrendered. (They had obviously never heard of Brog and his 'interrogation' techniques.
When Bartimeus revived, he told the group that the glyph teleported down to the slave pens. So Faber was trapped. They threw the remaining guards and bodies of the others into the glyph, then headed downstairs. Faber proved recalcitrant, and challenged Brog to a duel, which Faber promptly lost in one hit. (He was already very wounded.) They found on his body a sending stone, which they used to contact Skarros and tricked him into coming to the manor alone. Once Skarros entered the room, Tannis grappled him successfully and threw him into the glyph. The party threw Faber's body in after him for good measure. Fallister gave a convincing pitch to Skarros: Either cooperate and tell the group all he knew, and they would guarantee he would not be killed for his crimes, or they would let him starve in the slave pens. With little recourse, Skarros agreed.
Skarros filled the party in on what he knew of project Guyver. Guyver referred to the dam that kept the waters of Lake See from flooding the northern plains of the Eastern Empire. The Emperor of the West planned to destroy this dam, flooding much of the arable land in the East and their capital city, effectively devastating their ability to make war before war had even started. They needed the Apparatus of Kwalish to enact this plan, using modified eggmen as bombs. This was why Dr. Jessup was testing explosions in the harbor and looking frantically for the apparatus, which was believed to be in the bay at Freidvale.
With this knowledge, the party turned Skarros over to Lord Fatsbury, the only local authority they could trust. They headed to the Temple of Abadar where Gorgio held residence, and informed him of Dr. Jessup's plans. Gorgio declared the debt the party owed him paid in full, and agreed to sell his soul to Malrond in exchange for becoming High Priest of the church of Abadar. Gorgio gave the group a note with his seal on it to take to Malrond, which they did, in exchange for a scroll that would release one person from hell.
Before he left, Bartimeus left the party with a final tidbit: The Apparatus was believed to be in an underwater volcanic crater somewhere in the bay....
All loose ends tied up, the party called it quits for the night.
"I wonder if that was from the pastrami rueben I had yesterday?"
