Elder Scrolls GLOG Report 4: How to Skin a Cat

Where last we left off, the party had infiltrated the Caldera Mining Company as workers and guards, under orders from the Balmora Hlaalu to find out where Odral Helvi had been selling extra ebony and embezzling Company profits. The party did their best to maintain cover, but several incidents forced them to stick their necks out.

Vilamon risked his cover as a guard helping a slave escape the mines. The party investigated the disappearance of a miner, without finding a trace. They saved the overseer's children from a grisly death in the mine shafts, but left them injured. Finally, Hama'ak joined some would-be thieves in an ill-fated burglary of the Governor's Mansion, from which only he returned safe, and with loot.

However, the party may find their rest disturbed...

The Cast

Vilamon Hawker, Redguard Destruction Wizard - kahva

Gwynabyth Muriel Ysciele, Breton Conjurer - retrograde tardigrade xenograft

Riadell Fernhollow, Bosmer Knight - mtb-za

Verdgrss-Wears-Copper, Argonian Hunter - grimlucis

Hama'ak, Khajiit Thief - Walfalcon

J'Hanir, Khajiit Soldier - Hireling

The Game

• Vilamon and J'Hanir, acting as guards were woken up after the burglary. Supposedly, there had been a break in by some assassins. They were foiled, but their leader was ratted out: a Khajiit named Hama'ak, in the employ of the Redoran. 

Walfalcon: Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't introduce myself to random criminals by name. Oh well.

Oil painting, u/Kreatio

• The company guard surrounded the boarding house at dawn, with Vilamon, J'Hanir, and two other guards entering to find and arrest Hama'ak. Vilamon made a ton of noise and loud threats to warn him, and the thief made his escape by climbing out the window while invisible (the Shadow birthsign is a hell of a drug). One internal monologue later, he hides in an attic across town.
• The other guards, Helga and Naral, burst into the party's common room looking for Hama'ak. The party pretends innocence, Hama'ak's footlocker is confiscated (luckily, his stolen jewels weren't there) and they are left otherwise unmolested. 
• The party receives a letter from their Hlaalu handlers. Their spies have located the destination for embezzled ebony; a smuggler hideout named Shushishi, a day's march from Caldera. The party's new mission, which they don't have much of a choice as to accepting, is to travel there, assault the hideout and pacify its inhabitants. Recovery of the ebony itself and capture of some smugglers is an extra. 
• The party relocates Hama'ak and heads out of Caldera on foot at night. Hopefully leaving their guar will help their covers hold for longer. They pass through the border to the Ashlands and find Shushishi. 
• The front door to the cave has a note on it which reads, “Yell GUAR BALLS for entry.” Hama'ak, of course, immediately does this. 

RTX: Uhm. Fuck.
Verdgrss: "I hope that is not a local delicacy."
Gwynabyth: "No, it's a trap"

• The party scouts around the hill, and locates a top entrance, successfully ambushing a smuggler on lookout. He's left on the brink of death, and interrogated by Vilamon. As the smuggler begs for help, Vilamon (who has a healing spell) drives his spearhead through the helpless elf's heart. 

STRAIGHT! THROUGH THE HEART!

• Hiding the corpse and continuing down the upper entrance, the party comes to a nexus. The ground entrance leading outside is, from the inside, clearly trapped. A long tunnel leads down into darkness. A short tunnel leads to a rickety door covered in padlocks. A carpet in front hides a note: "10 boxes, 10 stone each. Reminder to Teren. Sticking your hand in the fire doesn’t fix frostbite. You have to soak a towel in hot water and wrap it."

Verdgrss: "Already are we forgetting the poor sschmuck Vilamon just murdered in cold blood."

Riadell: "Wait, what?"

• J'Hanir takes the lead going down the long tunnel with Gwynabyth's skeleton. Verdgrss lights a torch, but just too late; J'Hanir trips a wire, and gets himself caught in a net. The party proceeds to completely lose initiative to the smugglers, who drop to J'Hanir to death's door with a spell, restrain the skeleton, and back the party into the tunnel. Their leader, an armored Cyrodiil with a silver mace, grabs J'Hanir. "One step forward and I break the cat's head open like an egg!"
• From this rather fragile situation, the party manages a surprising recovery. Riadell and Verdgrss pretend to be Redoran operatives, cleaning up the remains of the found-out smuggling operation, and offer the smugglers amnesty if they come forward and help indict the Hlaalu. The smugglers ask about their companions outside. A plausible lie and a critical Charisma roll later, the smugglers lay down their arms. 
• The Cyrodiil isn't so easily intimidated, however. He steps back and tries his hand at negotiation, but the party launches a coordinated attack on him. The skeleton body slams him to the ground, Riadell catches him in the net, Hama'ak rips up his arm, and J'Hanir takes his weapon. 
• So pacified, the party takes a closer look around the cavern. The Cyrodiil (one Martin Severus) has a desk full of papers detailing the ebony sales. The buyer is one Hanarai Assutlanipal, and the next transaction is supposed to happen tomorrow. Strangely, the amounts of coin exchanged for large amounts ebony are tiny; even if Helvi were pocketing all of it, hardly worth the risk of smuggling one of the most controlled materials in the Empire. 
• The party deliberated their next move before opening up the vault. Do they wait a day and ambush the buyer to tie up loose ends? Skip out now back to Caldera? Head back to Balmora? Stash the ebony in a secure location? Intervention back to Balmora to inform their patron, splitting the party hundreds of miles apart?

Takeaways

This is just the second time the party has rolled initiative in eight weeks of gaming. Regardless of how the online pace translates to regular games, that's quite a while. Part of this is due to the fact that the campaign has just begun, and a lot of time has been spent introducing mechanics and getting the PCs set up in their new lives. Further, the players have spent a good deal of this time without solid equipment, so going and looking for trouble isn't advisable. They're going to level pretty soon, and their options for travel and jobs are going to open wide. 

It's good to remember just how fragile PCs can be. J'Hanir, a hireling with 5HP, got dropped to exactly 0 by a first level wizard as a result of being ambushed. If he had been reduced to -1 or less, I'd have started rolling for injuries or death. This is good to remember, especially because, at this stage, two of the PCs have even fewer hitpoints, 2 and 3. They're wise to avoid combat where possible, and use every dirty trick in the book otherwise. 

This is the first time since the intro to the campaign that they've been in anything resembling a dungeon. They were suitably paranoid, especially about the carpet in front of the vault. I like making some red herrings and fake traps right before placing a real one. That one might just be schadenfreude though. 

Related to the first point, the PCs aren't hardened killers by any stretch. They've tangled with slavers who were between them and freedom, but they're more than willing to take prisoners and negotiate when they have the wiggle room.