CSIO, Game 3

The third game started with two players coming in through G+ hangout.  The PCs were flush from the victory of discovering the reason for the disappearances of goblins and were looking for the next mystery to solve.  They settled on trying to discover the story behind the frozen beggar found outside the Pig & Whistle.  A preliminary hunt through the Beggars Guild had presented them with the information that the beggar was working on a few different projects.  One of the projects was information gathering for Torvald One-Hand, a minor noble in town. 

Heading over to the Pig & Whistle, the group learned that the place was a real dive.  So, after talking with the owner and the barkeep, they managed to convince the owner to hire the Goblin Quartet to sing and be spitting targets for a 20% cut of the gambling proceeds.  While talking with the owner, the rest of the group began asking the crowd if anyone knew of the frozen beggar event.  One drunk regular passed on the information that a Valonian wearing a crimson cloak had met the beggar that evening.  The beggar had handed over a package and left.  The Valonian opened the package, grew irate, and followed the beggar outside.  There was a scream, cut short, and then everyone found the frozen beggar.  Further questioning revealed the Valonians liked to hang out at the Cup & Dragon, a short walk away. 

Entering the Cup & Dragon, the group saw the place was a halfling establishment with orc female staff which the Valonians enjoyed teasing.  The group then got quite silly with lots of puns about short people which drew raucous laughter from the Valonians but angry glares from the halflings.  Soon, the group found itself ejected from the place without gaining any information from the halflings.  However, the Valonians were quite talkative.  They told the group about the crimson cloaked individual and where to find him.  He was shortly found in the southwestern part of town making plans to sail within a week.  He initially was annoyed by their questions until they implied that they could find the package he was looking for. 

Going back to the sage, the group discovered that the goblin they had delivered to him was supposed to have delivered a package to a certain minor noble.  However, he instead delivered it to a man in a gold mask wearing black robes.  Further investigation uncovered that this man is known to be a Black Lotus operative.

After some discussion, the general consensus appeared to be that the group really needs a dungeon crawl instead of a set of urban mysteries to solve.  So, I think I'll work on the group of crypts I had started on and place them out in the Plain of Cairns for a future adventure.