The List Beside the Bedroll

CC led the group deeper, but Ash noticed the side camp before the party committed to the rat-clogged entrance. It was small, recent, and too lived-in to ignore. A bedroll looked like someone had slept there the night before, or maybe that morning. Discarded food and ripped pages lay nearby. The camp did not feel like ancient sewer refuse. It felt like a person had been using this place while the party was chasing the stash, the Rat King, and the Graven Scourge through the same tunnels. Ash searched it. Under the torn pages, he found a backpack. Inside were two things that mattered immediately: a red cloak worth good money and a finely made dagger with magic in it. The cloak was notable enough, but the dagger carried a sharper story. It was engraved. To R.V. From A.R. The party pieced the initials together: Redwave Vaughn and Annie Rain. Redwave was a pirate associated with the Thieves Guild, and Annie had history with him. The dagger did not look like anonymous loot. It looked like a gift, the kind of object a person would notice missing. That made the camp uncomfortable. If this was Redwave's camp, then Redwave was somewhere he should not obviously be. If it was not his camp, then someone had taken something personal from him. Blastbelle knew Redwave well enough to be doubtful. He was weird, maybe, but this did not feel like him. She did not think he would sleep there. She did not think hunting people fit him. Then the note made everything worse. It carried a list of names. Four were crossed off. Two remained readable: I.J. and Victor Shaw. A third name had begun to be scribbled but had not been completed. The party connected it to the Graven Scourge assassination-list thread from the masquerade, where Havyk had warned about I.J. being targeted and Rice Hands had already been pulled into the danger. Now the list had changed. Another name appeared to be crossed off, likely Rice Hands after his death at Queef Tower. I.J. remained active. Victor Shaw had been added. That meant the sewer investigation was no longer only about Blastbelle's stash, CC's Scourge entrance, or Podon's missing daughter. The assassination thread had followed them below Gravenhurst, or had already been there waiting. The party kept the dagger, intending to return it if they could. The note was too dangerous to leave cleanly behind. A small camp beside the sewer had just tied Redwave, Annie, I.J., Victor, Rice Hands, and the Graven Scourge list into one ugly knot.