The Poisoner's Dilema

So not too long after, I was pulled out of the ooze thing, and I was able to get a breath of fresh air in. Durthen was able to dispatch the ooze soon after, and he went back to face the tentacle faced thing. I was still feeling really tired, but Durthen took an even rougher beating. I managed to cast a Heal spell on him to return him to full strength, but he kept getting hurt faster than I could heal him. Fortunately, he was taking a toll on the monster as well, and just when I thought that I wouldn't be able to keep Durthen on his feet, Durthen finished the creature off with a swift slash from his axe.

We caught our breaths and explored the rest of the cult hideout. We managed to find some valuables as well as a ledger that seems to describe their operation. We hightailed it out of there and took a quick break the next day to buy and sell supplies. I also questioned Annie Basc, but the information merely revealed that her operations were no more than to make money, and that the Basceron, more or less, had been working alone. However, after carefully examining the ledger, I determined that they got most of their poisoned potions from a single source. I was also able to discover that most of the potions that we had found in the hideout were also poisoned. Fortunately, I was able to track down the buyers of the ones we sold, and I neutralized all the poison from them.

The next day, we cased the home of the poisonmaster. He seemed to be doing quite well for himself, perhaps a bit too well for someone who supposedly just sells alchemy goods. I briefly talked with the poisonmaster's wife, and she seemed to be honest enough. Perhaps poisonmaster had been keeping her in the dark. We decided to return in the evening to hopefully confront the poisonmaster without too much trouble, but I guess that it was to be expected that the house would be heavily trapped with poison. We had to retreat after a number of us were hit by debilitating poisons. Obegard even fell unconscious from the attack. We went back to our inn and the next day, I cast spells that restored us to normal. This time, we decided, we'd simply confront him about it.

We went back, and Livy managed to set us a meeting with the poisonmaster. We returned to meet with him an hour and a half later, but in hindsight I suspect that he had used the time to hide the evidence of his illegal operation. Nonetheless, three of us went upstairs to meet with him while Obegard and Borrow waited outside the balcony in case there was trouble.

We confronted the poisonmaster about his foul deeds, and he seemed to be disgustingly unconcerned about the consequences all the people he killed with his tainted potions. He had the temerity to try to blackmail us to ensure his silence. I gave him the laugh off, and even though Livy kept insisting to us that had he gone to the authorities, it would have been our heads on a pike, it looked like he was quite worried about his own hide, too. He tried to threaten me into handing him the ledger that implicated him, and again, I laughed it off.

Durthen stepped between him and myself as I put the ledger securely back in my bag. However, the poisonmaster was quite prepared in his own home. Suddenly, a statue leaped into action and a large carpet behind me animated into life. When Durthen struck the man, his skin also turned as hard as stone. The rug had me tangled up, but Livy helped teleport me outside onto the balcony. At that moment, the poisonmaster created a wall of force that completely cut off the balcony, separating us from Durthen. Fortunately, he hadn't expected that we had backup, and at that moment, Obegard levitated up to the balcony and blasted the wall of force out of existence. A wall of blades and a few hacks from Durthen's axe later, the animated carpet was in tatters.

Obegard cast another spell that turned the poisonmaster into a turtle so that he wouldn't be able to cast any more spells, but I guess that even as a turtle, he had the instinct to walk into an invisible screen that dispelled his transmutation. Fortunately (for us, not him), that also dispelled almost all of his protective magic, and with an angry man wielding an axe in his face, he wisely surrendered. I'm not sure what to do with him at this point. I suppose that getting a written confession of his misdeeds would ensure that we would be out of hot water when turning him into the authorities.