Previously, the heroes decided to press Céleste for more information on the attack on her shop. She revealed that a demonic creature had been left behind by the intruders, which had taken up residency among the destroyed stock of the wine cellar. The heroes decided to investigate.
Sixth Day, Second Ride, Autumn Twilight, 1262
(Silvermoon is waning, Bloodmoon is in low sanction, Darkmoon is waxing)
Céleste’s wine cellar was a heavy, vaulted basement with a mezzanine that ran all the way around it. It was old; clearly once part of the ancient waterways and built with the same materials and in the same style. The shaft of the ox-driven dumbwaiter that lowered the heroes from the surface to the cellar was etched with faded runes, which Emrys and Luca recognised as wards of abjuration, once used to secure the waterways against incursions. Faded and eroded statues of winged warriors stood in archways along the mezzanine, further proof of the cellar’s age.
The cellars themselves were chaos; shelves pushed over, bottles broken, and barrels smashed. There was a sour stench in the air, coming from burgundy puddles of stale wine on stained stones where it had not been washed down the drains which connected the cellar to the waterways.
The enormous shadow of a horned creature with leathery wings was project against one of the walls, originating from behind one of the wine racks, and a booming voice demanded the heroes identify themselves. Most of the heroes were curious rather than intimidated. They had faced adversaries from the outer planes before and felt all the more confident for it. Chakuq melt away into the shadows and started to circle around to the other side of the wine rack, while Quentin called for the creature to show themselves. This was met with threats.
“I will slit you open and splash around inside you like a child playing in a muddy puddle. I’ll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance.”
Luca engaged the creature in its native tongue and quickly managed to identify it as Sadwick, the once familiar to Atilesceon the Artificer, whom the heroes defeated in the realm of Old Llygad. It form was small and slender, with leathery wings and a vicious looking stinger as a tail, and certainly not nearly as intimidating as the big shadow that it cast suggested.
Before its identity was established, Sadwick engaged in a battle of insults with Neamhan, properly rubbing her the wrong way. And while it was being approached by Quentin from one side, and Chakuq from the other, it used a slender rod made of engraved silver to summon a large beast of burden, must like the one that Epidemius rode on steward’s square. Quentin quickly engaged the beast, together with some of the other heroes, and found that the beast’s rider, a woman dressed in shepherd’s clothes and wooden shoes, had also materialised with the beast. She was quickly cut down by Quentin, which revealed her to have radiant, pupilless eyes; something which troubled the young knight.
With a combined effort, spearheaded by Neamhan and her connections to wind and air, the beast was quickly put down. Luca dealt the killing blow, using Blackstar as a conduit for his magic, and predictably a jolt of excruciating pain ran through his body as he absorbed some of the creature’s vital energy, reinvigorating himself through clenched teeth. Neamhan disapproves of what Luca has done, and tells him that “it is better to fade with the leaves, than to steal the root’s breath.”
Chakuq, Luca, and Neamhan worked together to capture Sadwick, who turns out to be a foul-mouthed, cantankerous little prick who constantly belittles Quentin and takes the piss out of Neamhan. In return for a promise to let him leave the cellar unharmed, Sadwick explains that he was brought to the cellar a group of Daerlanian infiltrators. They had been smuggled from the Fields of Strife, through Northshire, and into Kingsport by the Procyon, a group of elven outlaws under the leadership of Cendelius, a notorious bandit that some of the heroes had come in conflict with in Allenham, on their way to Pinefall.
Jeroen, a familiar Kingsport ruffian was among the Daerlanians, as was a Lyrian warlock by the name of Tiberius. It was that warlock who had summoned and bound Sadwick, and it was his intention to leave the imp behind to make it seem as if the perpetrators of the vandalism were devil worshippers, possibly the Cult of the Dark Queen. Tiberius was described as a balding man with a neatly trimmed white beard and icy blue eyes.
After smashing up the wine shop and its cellar, they intended to infiltrate the royal palace. The heroes had already learned that the royal cellars were infested with wood worm, which had laid waste to the royal wine stores.
After some investigation it was clear that not all the wines had been destroyed, but certainly most of it. The wines that survived all happened to be Beauclairois, but since that was the most popular source of high quality, well-regarded wine, that could be a coincidence. Sadwick also shared that the Daerlanians took one bottle from each surviving vintage.
This, coupled with the Sadwick’s claim that while travelling to Kingsport, the Daerlanians were in frequent contact with an employer, told Quentin that Monsieur Beauregard was behind it all. He just could not understand how or why he had set all of that in motion.
Luca, true to his word, repaid Sadwick by letting him leave the cellar unharmed… but not quite in the way that Sadwick had intended to leave. The young warlock had created a powerful arcane circle around Sadwick and banished the imp back to the Nine Hells.
With their work at the wine shop done, the heroes departed for the Careless Wanderer, keen to inform Céleste that they had taken care of the problem.
