Another story I wrote as a sort of recap for the players in my D&D game. They had broken in to a warehouse. This is the Night-Captain’s viewpoint cleaning up after the fact. Enjoy!
Second bell past midnight
27th of Bluesky 502 AC
Warjos Dos Docks District
Guard-Commander Tullia de Cueto was still pulling on her gloves, awkwardly holding a paper-wrapped sweet nut pastry in one hand, as she walked up to the warehouse in the dead of night. She pardoned her wide-shouldered body past the small crowd of bystanders, some of whom recognized her and bid her a friendly greeting. Tullia walked around the front to the left, to where her night-captain, Savastian Traius stood, taking notes in a small journal.
“Sorry to send for you, Captain,” Savastian said, his blue eyes sincere as he pushed his hair back behind his ears. “This seemed big enough to need your attention.” Oil light spilled out of the building he stood next to, putting his face in sharp contrast, the left side of his face in darkness.
Tullia sighed and hefted the half-eaten sugary treat she held in her leather-gloved hand. “Gidden came over last night. He brought some fresh salmon and we broiled it. Not sure what he used to season it, but it was amazing. And he had these cranberry-nut things for dessert. It was a lovely evening and a lovely morning. Until I saw your face, Sav.” She took a bite, then tucked it into a pouch. “What do I need to know?” She pointed to the metal bindings of a door, hanging from the hinges, with shards of burned wood still smoldering, leaving the entrance fully open. “What happened here?”
“That’s not even the most–” Savastian started to say. He was interrupted by shouts from further inside the warehouse and a wet, raspy growl, accompanied by the sounds of heavy things being knocked over. “Friar Willy found an undead bear here.”
Tullia pinched the bridge of her nose, her wide-cheeked face and forehead blushing with a rush of frustration. “OK, start at the beginning.”
“Near as I can tell,” Sav said, “the Friar and his friends – an elf-blooded nature mage and a couple of light-armor fighters, human woman and halfling man, we didn’t get names – broke in here because they thought there was some necromancy going on.” The sounds of the zombie beast inside the warehouse continued, along with the shouts of people trying to corral it. “He was right.”
“Whose warehouse is this? Do we know? I didn’t see any signage out front.” Tullia stepped over the ashy remains of the door into the lobby. A well-worn carpet was thrashed about and pierced with many small holes; she noted the open single doors to her left and right, and open double doors straight ahead. The room was lit with oil lanterns, which made flickering shadows in the rafters overhead.
“A merchant guild called Better Burrows, headed up by Ser Harmonio Whisperbridge out of Kopno’domas. Deals mostly in fine furniture and woodworking and textiles, typical halfling creature comforts.”
Tullia tsk’ed. “Keep the stereotypes under control, Sav. Lots of folk like nice things. Like that salmon dinner I had last night…” She peered into the door to her left and saw a pair of bunk beds and a desk, and a firepit that appeared to have burned out of control, centered in a black ring of ash and soot. She looked up and saw a flimsy metal chimney that had also been exploded, probably from above. “What happened to the workers here?”
“Uh, bad news, Captain. Some of the former workers seem to have been, well, zombified, also.”
“Torm’s stormy dick!” Tullia cursed. “We’ll have to get names and notify next of kin. Probably this Ser Whisperbridge will know. OK, zombie bear, zombie workers. We got anyone else involved?”
“Oh, I forgot to mention the undead wolf running around…” Sav put up both hands defensively to fend of his superior’s anger. “We’ve had reports of it for at least four or five days now, just haven’t had the time to track it down. Been scaring kids and threatening pets nightly. Once we finish up here I’ll round up a posse and go hunting. But, actually, we do have someone in custody. Guy named Maso. Willy turned him over to us. Guy’s still freaked out, babbling about vines and fire, but once he calms down we’ll get more info from him. He’s chilling out in the cell back at the guardpost.” Sav consulted his notes. “Maso claimed to work for a Grenjolm, been using the warehouse for the last week or two. Guard Selko has confirmed that a ship, the Her Folly, has been in dock recently, run by a Lord Captain Grenjolm de Astorga, also known as Lucon Astorga, Garlless Lucon, Grenjolm the Wild… got a long list of aliases, but Grenjolm is the most common one. Wild sorcerer.”
Tullia, leading Sav, stepped into the warehouse. To her left were the large barn doors, still barred and locked from the inside. In front of her was a crane and under it an open shipping container, conveniently bear-sized. On the other side, three people, two of them wearing the yellow and red tabards of city watch, the other in rough street clothes, were lassoing and pinning down a rotting, angry, brown bear. The people were trying to tie off the rope to leash it in place. Beyond them, four animated corpses were chained in a line underneath a wooden catwalk, agitated and mouthing incoherent groans. Tullia shook her head, disgusted.
“Good work, all,” she said to the people holding the ropes. “So this Maso was shipping the bear somewhere?” She poked a finger at the shipping label. “Lady Marcella Bimalchio in Barangdorn. Another message to send. Why aren’t we killing the bear? You must have a good reason.”
“We can’t afford reparations to Lady Bimalchio. Coffers can’t cover what it looks like she paid for this thing.” Sav pointed at a metal grate on the floor of the warehouse. “Maso’s gang all escaped down there, into the sewers. Probably long gone by now, but I’ll put up posters on the bounty board once we get names from Maso. Oh, and there’s a cell down there with three more workers chained up.”
A woman wearing the red-and-yellow tabard over her studded leather armor approached from the lobby. “Found the keys. They were in the office.” She dangled the keychain and pointed her thumb behind her. “Also, the safe is open and empty. The gang likely grabbed it before they escaped.”
“Thanks, Millicent. Good work.” Sav said. “Head down and see if you can let those workers out.”
Tullia sighed. She counted off on her fingers as she spoke. “OK, we’ve got Maso for squatting, for looting, and fraudulent sales. He’s an accomplice to necromancy. Endangerment by way of uncontrolled monstrosities. Accomplice to theft. We’ve got the Rhobanite priest as a witness, along with his friends. The halfling merchant prince will press charges, along with the next-of-kin for the workers and the still-living workers. See if we can get any more information from the neighborhood; someone must have seen or heard something.”
“Yes, ma’am. And Friar Willy promised to come by the guard post tomorrow to fill us in. Probably afternoon. You know,” and Sav pantomimed taking a long drink from a large mug.
“Sounds like you’ve got it all under control, then, Sav.” Tullia said, stepping back through the lobby and out into the street. “What did you need me for?”
The blonde man furrowed his brow and pointed to the people still wrestling and pulling the bear toward the crate. “Well, we, uh, we could use some help with the bear!” But his captain was gone, her back fading out in the dark of the summer night. Tucking his notepad into a pouch on his belt, he cracked his knuckles and went back inside.