BellRow Troubleshooters

Leaving the funeral service of Laura Soles the group is accosted by inquisitor Greyvine who asks for a few moments of their time. The group steps into a nearby bar, the Toadstool, and finds a table. Greyvine appologizes for her earlier rudeness and explains she is charged by the Church with investigating and rooting out cults within Five Fingers and is especially interested in the Thamarites. She reveals she was at the funeral tonight looking for a connection between Jules and Kalapuran agents. She gives the group a briefing of a handful of cults within the city and asks for their cooperation should they come across anything she may be interested in. Among the things she tells them…

• Thamarites have a chapel buried somewhere beneath Captain’s Isle.
• Necromancers of the Ebon Flame are firmly established in the Chatterstones on Hospice.
• Kalapuran agents smuggle poisons, slaves, and fleshwerks into the city and are likely working with Velter (High Captain Waernuk)
• She believes Thamarites influence or directly control most of the rest of the cults of the city and intend to make a bid to openly control the city once they have garnered enough power.

During the conversation with Greyvine the gobber Grig is constantly distracted and whispering to himself. When he slips away from the table and out the door noone notices. Not long after he comes bursting back into the tavern and pulls the group out into the street. Grig leads the group running back to the funeral home where they find two body snatchers making off with the corpse of Laura Soles. Shadowing the two down to the waterfront they interupt them readying a rowboat. Opifera gets shot before the two surrender realizing they are hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed. The commotion draws the attention from a local street gang and the group escapes in the rowboat with Laura’s corpse and one of the thugs, Serdan. The group’s mage, Apu goes missing in the commotion and doesn’t make it onto the crowded boat.

From Serdan they learn that he and his partner were hired by Jules Sole to steal away Laura’s corpse and deliver it to something called the Gormju on the isolated Mute Sister Island. Serdan tells them that the gormju grow and sell body parts to replace and boost missing limbs but has no idea what they would do with a dead body. Apu appears out of an alley and rejoins the group. They pick their way across Mute Sister to the gormju den and meet one of the creatures, a scarlet skinned gobber variant dressed in a dirty worn lab smock. Haugin reels with the powerful stench pouring out of the building, finding it uncomfortably familiar. The gormju doorman is expecting the Laura’s corpse but acts indifferent when the group tries to use it as leverage to get some answers. They leave with the corpse instead of completing the delivery despite their Serdan’s pleas and protests. He tells them he is supposed to get paid 70 royals for the job and begs the group to let him make the delivery. He offers them the 50 royals he has on him in exchange. He is a fairly convincing talker, and persistant. The group takes his gold and tells him they’ll think about it. For now they decide to make use of Laura’s corpse and hire a ‘spiritualist’ to summon her spirit to get some answers from the source. Serdan, it happens, knows just where to do that and happily guides them to the Chatterstones on Hospice dodging a well-armed Blackguard patrol. After a brief meeting with a contact of the Ebon Flame an appointment is set up for the next night and the group heads out hoping to find a bed at a friend of Ano’s halfway across Hospice. Enroute a local gang harrasses and then attacks them. The BRT strikes back hard and sends the gang scattering. Licking a few wounds they hurry along to Ano’s friend’s place to get off the streets before more trouble finds them.