"My friends, I have been studying some of the items we have encountered on our recent delves, and giving them deep consideration." The paladin has some cloak clasps of illithid manufacture laid before him on the table — the ones you found on a dead drow in one of your forays beyond Shallowtown.
He doesn't handle them, but instead manipulates them with a table fork. "I had a couple of experts at the Seekers chapterhouse in Helix examine these, and they believe the clasps permit some form of long-range communication between those who wear them."
"I wouldn't touch them, were I you," he cautions. "They carry an evil taint. The Seekers found no obvious curse, but such a bane can be hidden oft times." The paladin clears his throat, twitches his whiskers in thought. "Then there are these fishy-smelling purplish potions." He guestures to four vials on the table. "The Seekers identified them as carrying a domination effect, a dweomer that saps the imbiber's willpower, making the drinker pliable, easily suggestable. Clearly, there could be no wholesome purpose for such a concoction."
The mousefolk paladin unrolls the scroll that the Phandalin Four found on the same corpse that was carrying the potions and the cloak clasps. He reads aloud from the scroll: "Use the purple potions to keep the captives docile. And increase the Takings if at all possible. We need a lot more fuel. Continue to source captives from Helix, Phandalin, Slaytonthorpe, Threshhold, and Eastdale. Also, see if they can make the next batch of potions smell and taste better."
Whiteheart allows the scroll to curl up again as he drops it onto the tabletop. "So, we have people getting kidnapped from all the local villages and towns surrounding your farm. And we have all this evidence," — he gestures to the scroll, cloak clasps, and potions — "showing that we're on the trail of whoever is responsible."
"I am ordered my my superior, Prelate Mordicar Justhand, to launch a full-blown investigtion. I am authorized to hire help. It will be very dangerous. Death is possible, perhaps even likely.
I am able to offer five royals daily, backed by the full faith of the Church of Saint Ygg, all material expenses paid, and a five-hundred royal sign-on bonus per individual. Do you know anyone who might be interested?"
+++
The party also has a +2 suit of drow leather armor that they might fetch as much as 5,500 royals for, if they took the trouble to find a buyer in Threshold or Sizemordicus.
Current Fronts:
- Working to make your farm profitable
- purchase additional acreage (completed)
- sell additional lizards and invest in fertilizer (completed)
- purchase sheep, cattle (to be done)
- find sharecroppers to use additional acreage (to be done)
- have ranger forester mark old trees for cutting/export (to be done)
- repair fences (to be done): will cost 500 GP
- Secure the regions' (Phandalin, Helix), safety
- defeat the Redcloaks bandits (completed)
- defeat the young green dragon (completed)
- destroy the band of gnolls plaguing the East Road (to be done)
- kill the old swamp hydra (to be done)
- get to bottom of kidnappings (in progress)
- slay the hill giant (to be done)