[18e02] Kind of a Craphole

I’ve never been to Trell before. My first impression: it’s kind of a craphole. Second impression: the residents make up for it. They’re a pretty attractive bunch! Our contact here is Vex, an egregiously charismatic man who operates out of a pretty terrible little room.

Anyway, we’re early and Bec and Vondal slip off to a corner to do some kind of ritual. Maybe this could have been handled before we left headquarters, who’s to say. Oz also slips off to who knows where. The ritual finishes, Oz comes back, and another tiefling arrives all about the same time.

This woman is Serelda Voth and she has the absolute crust to accuse me of swindling her husband. She serves me with lawsuit papers. The nerve! This isn’t ringing a bell, so she explains further.

Her husband – ex, actually – is a businessman who bought a cursed coffeepot from my emporium. From me personally, even. The coffeepot brews stinky coffee that makes the drinker also stinky…but it also confers a magical trustworthiness. Useful for a business man. I warned him that there were side effects, but he didn’t want to hear it. He was about the least charismatic businessman I’ve ever met, so his need for the coffee was probably urgent. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the one who made all the decisions, including continuing to use the pot after seeing the side effects for himself. The lawsuit papers are filled with dense legalese, but I feel like my case is pretty solid!

Serelda is unwilling to explain exactly what about her ex-husband is so bad or why it affects her reputation now that they’re divorced, but she insists that if we see him, we’ll understand. He smells bad and is ugly now, but that’s all she’s willing to say.

Vondal and Freki’s combined anti-steez drives Serelda away. After she leaves, Vondal says he thinks she isn’t working alone, and in fact wouldn’t be doing this at all without some outside influence. Interesting. I wonder what they want. I recall the theme park my parents bought; could that be the object? I don’t know. We need to talk to Kerwin himself, and see what exactly happened to him. He kept on using the coffee pot, apparently, so he must have something to say about it.

I use our sending stone to send a message to my parents: “Getting sued by Serelda Voth over magic artifact sold to Kerwin Ulvas. Suspect others behind it. Vex Morradine facilitated meeting. Any info? Love you bye.”

Bec, our tea-enjoyer, is curious about the tea. “Is it local?” she asks. “Unfortunately, yes,” he says. He’s dour, but on the other hand, I could easily hook him up with some decent beverages.

Oz tries to strike up a conversation with Vex. Vex is his least favorite kind of person, someone who likes to read and pay attention. However, they do agree that this place is a total shithole, which Vex says he’ll be occupied in fixing. “So what was it, like a warehouse for turds or something?” Oz asks. Apparently this place used to belong to Victor Rocksmith. That’s RockSMITH, not RockWELL. Totally different families. It sounds like Mallory might have let this Rocksmith go for performance reasons.

Freki asks Vex whether he wants to leave this place. He said he was born here, but he didn’t say he never left. He doesn’t want to talk about his life history, but still, he’s more patient than most with Freki. He wants to do a good job for the SPI, so he can better his condition and maybe get the hell out of this place.

Bec tries the tea and it’s completely mid. I give it a sniff and start thinking about the interesting leaves that have passed through my shop. She asks Vex some questions about this Kerwin guy. Vex’s opinion is that if he’s successful but also disliked, there are probably all sorts of people who would talk to us. He also mentions that some people are very successful here and they want to stay; the other type of person who lives here are the failures who can’t leave. “It’s a bit of a trap,” he sums up.

My mom gets back to me: “Be careful, Callie! Voth family linked to BlissCo legal. Same company financed Euphoria, contracted Noffindorfs. Disentangle yourself from Trell legal system as soon as possible.”

Ooh. Well then. I think we should all go and let Bec do the talking. I don’t want to get charmed into admitting something. Plus, Vondal is Vondal.

Before we go, Vex adds that he thinks there may be a power struggle going on over this coffee pot. He doesn’t think the two exes are still in contact, but…well…there’s always a possibility. Wow, he almost said that at a normal volume. He doesn’t trust anyone, ever. I’m going to get this guy some tea.

Bec and Vondal guide us to the right location. Apparently memorizing the city map was part of the ritual they did earlier.

Vondal casts True Sight on me and him, so we can observe unimpeded. I can also punch him if he’s about to blurt something out. Bec can also signal Oz with “raspberry” or Freki with “watermelon” if she wants some backup talking.

Kerwin’s office is on the third floor of an office building. There’s a sign pointing up, with a picture of a coffee pot. You know, in case anyone was unclear on what Kerwin’s biggest asset is. I make a note that he’s clearly not ashamed of whatever reputation this has brought him.

Bec casts Detect Magic on the door, when we reach it. Freki also wonders if anything can protect his sensitive nose. He can already pick up what this guy is putting down.

The party arrived in Minauros ahead of schedule, teleporting into the neglected local SPI office where they met Vex Morradine, a dry and guarded tiefling administrator. While Ozborn scouted the harbor district solo — observing faction-controlled taverns and avoiding a lurking thug — Bec and Vondal performed a ritual communion with the city, uncovering deeply unsettling details. The Harbor District was dense with commercial activity and uneasy faction tensions, but more alarming was a slow, structural magical influence eroding the minds of its inhabitants, radiating from the third floor of a building three blocks northeast. Vondal also detected feral imps hiding in an abandoned quay, a contract devil operating nearby, and a malicious, forge-like fire welling up from beneath the island itself.

Their investigation took a sharp turn when Sorelda Voth, a wealthy and imperious woman, arrived to hire the party. She revealed that her ex-husband, Kerwin Ulvas, had purchased a cursed coffee pot from Callie’s family shop two years prior — one that made the drinker charming and trustworthy but caused hideous physical transformation and a permanent foul odor. Ulvas had been drinking from it daily and was now addicted, unable to stop without losing the benefits. Though Sorelda’s distress was largely performative, her anger was genuine, and the party suspected deeper motives. Vex identified her legal representation as Vordache & Solm, a predatory firm tied to Mammon’s people, and Callie’s mother confirmed via sending stone that the Voth family was linked to Blisco Legal — the same company that had financed Euphoria — urging the party to disentangle from Trell’s legal system quickly. With Vondal granting himself and Callie true sight through a powerful divination, and Freki dulling his senses with makeshift nose plugs, the party made their way to Kerwin Transitional Assets, bracing themselves to finally meet Kerwin Ulvas face to face.

The party arrived in Minauros thirty minutes ahead of schedule, teleporting directly into the sparse, minimally maintained office suite that served as the local branch of the SPI. The space was old and neglected, its paint faded and its furnishings barely adequate, standing in stark contrast to the well-dressed man who occupied it. A tiefling with tinted round glasses and a permanent slight frown turned from his tea preparations with an arched eyebrow and a dry observation that they were early, then introduced himself as Vex Morradine. The smell of brine and sulfur had already begun seeping in through the closed windows, offering an unwelcoming first impression of the island city of Minauros — an economic powerhouse ruled by the devil lord Mammon, renowned for its shipping trade, its brutal wealth inequality, and its reputation as a place people endured rather than enjoyed.

While Vex continued preparing his mediocre tea, Bec and Vondal retreated to a corner of the room to perform a ritual that would commune with the city itself, drawing on the spiritual fabric of the surrounding mile to gather knowledge of the land, its people, and its hidden forces. Meanwhile, Ozborn slipped quietly out the door to scout the harbor district on his own, disappearing into the shadowed streets below. The ritual took just over ten minutes, and what it revealed was deeply unsettling. The Harbor District was a natural deepwater inlet sheltered on three sides by the island’s steep, rocky arms, its buildings raised over tidal channels to manage the brutal storms Trell was famous for, and its cold, deep waters teeming with things best left undisturbed.

The district itself was dense with commercial purpose — warehouses, currency exchangers, customs offices, and shady taverns where rival factions operated in uneasy tension. But more troubling than the city’s layout was what Bec sensed moving through its people: a slow, structural magical influence, not a simple charm but something deeper, like ocean waves wearing away at stone over years. The effect was concentrated around a building three blocks northeast of the SPI office, specifically its third floor, and it seemed to radiate outward from there, quietly eroding the minds of the district’s inhabitants. Vondal, for his part, sensed a cluster of feral imps hiding in the abandoned upper floors of Quay 4, invisible and opportunistic, as well as the presence of a contract devil operating in a legally binding capacity nearby — unusual, but not alarming by Trell’s standards. Most strangely, he felt an unnatural presence of fire welling up from the island itself, malicious and forge-like, as though something beneath the earth was being bent toward selfish purposes.

Ozborn’s reconnaissance through the harbor streets was colorful in its own right. He moved through the district with practiced ease, slipping past a thug lurking in an alley who was waiting to prey on lone travelers. He ducked into several taverns, each one dominated by a distinct faction identifiable by their clothing — the Ramshackle Ram, for instance, was filled entirely with patrons wearing red, every head slowly tracking Ozborn as he moved through the room. He quickly determined that worming his way into any of these tight-knit groups would take far more time than he had, and made his way back to the office just as a tiefling woman was striding purposefully through the front door ahead of him.

The woman was Sorelda Voth, and she made her presence felt immediately. She was old money — everything about her spoke of wealth accumulated over generations — and she carried herself with the imperious confidence of someone accustomed to being obeyed. She looked the assembled agents over with barely concealed disdain, announced that she wished to hire them, and placed a stack of legal papers on the table before anyone could object. Her husband, she explained, had acquired a cursed item approximately two years ago from a gnome merchant operating out of an establishment called Rockwell’s Stockwell in Haven. The item had been represented as a charisma-enhancing device. The merchant had warned of side effects but had not explained them. And now, Sorelda declared, her reputation had been destroyed, and she wanted justice.

Callie struggled to place the specific transaction among the many sales her family had made over the years, but as Sorelda continued, the details began to surface. The item in question was a coffee pot — a cursed one. Drinking the coffee it produced made the user instantly trustworthy and charming to everyone around them, but it also caused the drinker to become physically hideous and to exude a permanent, pungent odor. The effects were cumulative, and Sorelda’s ex-husband, a businessman named Kerwin Ulvas, had been drinking from it every single day for two years. He was now addicted, unable to stop, because ceasing use would leave him with only the downsides. Callie remembered the sale now — a rude, abrupt man who had refused to hear about the side effects and had practically thrown his money at her to make her stop talking.

The party pressed Sorelda for details about the physical transformation she kept alluding to but refused to describe, and she remained frustratingly vague, insisting only that they would understand when they saw him for themselves. The more perceptive members of the group noticed that while her distress was largely performative, her anger and frustration were entirely genuine — and that beneath her cold exterior, there might be something closer to actual concern for the man she had divorced. Ozborn cut straight to the heart of it, bluntly asking who was sponsoring her legal action. She deflected, calling it a family matter, but the party was unconvinced. Vex Morradine, who had gone very still during the exchange, identified her legal representation as Vordache & Solm — a predatory corporate entity linked to Mammon’s people, known for buying up debtors and binding them into indefinite servitude. Sorelda swept out of the office shortly after, promising to return the following day for a progress report.

After she left, the party turned to Vex for context. He explained the ruthless mechanics of Trell’s legal and financial systems with the weary familiarity of someone who had spent years operating within them, describing how Vordache & Solm had once sold a man into eleven years of labor over a debt that had started as a few hundred coins. He also mentioned that the previous SPI agent who had opened the Minauros branch — a gnome named Victor Rocksmith — had been let go for unsatisfactory performance, leaving the office in its current state of neglect. Callie used the sending stone to contact her mother, composing a careful message about the lawsuit and the Voth family’s connections. The response came back swift and alarming: the Voth family was linked to BlissCo Legal, the same company that had financed Euphoria, and Callie’s mother urged her to disentangle herself from Trell’s legal system as quickly as possible.

Bec and Vondal put their heads together over what they had learned, and a clearer picture began to emerge. The coffee pot’s influence was not a simple enchantment — it was something structural, something that slowly wore away at the people around Kerwin Ulvas the way water shapes stone. The concentration of that effect around his office building, three blocks northeast, confirmed that the building they had already identified through their ritual was almost certainly his place of business. Vondal also caught something telling in Vex Morradine’s otherwise unreadable demeanor: a flash of genuine excitement when the administrator suggested that the divorced couple might still be in contact, hinting that Vex knew more about the situation than he was letting on. The party filed that away and began preparing to pay Kerwin Ulvas a visit.

The walk through the harbor district was tense and atmospheric. Ozborn passed the same shadowy figure he had avoided earlier and used thieves’ cant to pass along a quiet message — that the SPI was in town on an investigation. The scout signed back a terse and unmistakable expression of contempt for Kerwin Ulvas, confirming that the man had made enemies well beyond his ex-wife. Vondal stepped into an alley before they reached the building and performed a powerful divination on himself and Callie, granting them both the ability to see through illusions and perceive the true nature of things around them. Freki, anticipating the legendary stench, shifted into his human form to dull his heightened senses, and Ozborn handed over a pair of ball bearings that Freki promptly used as makeshift nose plugs.

The building that housed Ulvan Transitional Assets was multi-storied and recently renovated, at least in its stairwell and front entrance. The lower floors were quiet, occupied by various brokerage offices with inscrutable names and no visible signage explaining their purpose — the kind of places that existed to skim profits from transactions without ever touching the actual goods. The third floor was a different matter entirely. A large glass wall revealed a busy office staffed by tiefling employees, and a sign bearing a steaming coffee mug confirmed they had found their destination. Even before the door was opened, a deep, sulfurous, and sickeningly sweet odor was already seeping through the frame. Freki braced himself, ball bearings firmly in place, as the party prepared to step inside and meet the man at the center of it all.

Last we left off, our party arrived in Minauros — the island city of brine, sulfur, and barely concealed misery, ruled by the devil lord Mammon and built on the backs of those who couldn’t afford to leave. They touched down thirty minutes early into the neglected local branch of the SPI, where they were greeted by the dry, unimpressed tiefling administrator Vex Morradine and the unwelcoming smell of a city that had long since stopped trying to make a good first impression.

While Ozborn slipped into the harbor district to scout its shadowy taverns and faction-marked streets, Bec and Vondal performed a ritual communion with the city itself — and what they uncovered was troubling. A slow, structural magical influence was quietly eroding the minds of the district’s inhabitants, radiating outward from a building three blocks northeast of the SPI office. Feral imps lurked in the upper floors of Quay 4, a contract devil operated nearby in a legally binding capacity, and something beneath the island itself burned with a malicious, forge-like heat. Before the party could fully process any of this, a woman named Sorelda Voth swept through the door with a stack of legal papers and a lifetime of imperious confidence, demanding justice for a cursed coffee pot that had left her ex-husband addicted, charming, and apparently unspeakable to look at. Callie recognized the sale — a rude man who had refused to hear about the side effects — and Vex identified Sorelda’s legal representation as Vordache & Solm, a predatory firm with deep ties to Mammon’s people. A message to Callie’s mother confirmed the worst: the Voth family was linked to Blisco Legal, the same company that had financed Euphoria.

Now, with the pieces beginning to fall into place and the stench already seeping through the door frame, our party stands on the threshold of the third floor of Ulvan Transitional Assets — ready to come face to face with Kerwin Ulvas, the man at the center of it all, and whatever two years of cursed coffee have made of him…

They landed in Minauros, early and keen,
In the saddest SPI office they’d seen.
Vex Morradine raised a brow,
Made bad tea with a vow,
While the city smelled foul and obscene.

Bec and Vondal performed a great rite,
And sensed something wrong in the night.
A magic like waves,
That erodes and enslaves,
From a building three blocks to the right.

Then Sorelda swept in, cold and proud,
And slapped down her lawsuit out loud.
Her ex drank the brew,
Now he’s charming — and pew —
Two years of cursed coffee endowed.

Callie recalled the sale with a wince:
A rude man who’d not heard the hints.
He threw coins at her face,
Left without any grace,
And had been drinking coffee ever since.

Now they stand at the door, steeling will,
The stench seeping under the sill.
With ball bearings for nose,
And true sight, Vondal knows —
They’ll meet Kerwin Ulvas, for ill!

The party teleported into what can only be described as the saddest government office in the known world — faded paint, barely functional furniture, and a tiefling bureaucrat making mediocre tea — which is somehow still a step up from the city of Minauros itself, a place that smells like brine and sulfur and the quiet desperation of people who can’t afford to leave. While Bec and Vondal did a ritual to commune with the city’s spiritual fabric like a pair of extremely serious urban planners, Ozborn went bar-hopping and confirmed that every single social group in the harbor district would require more time to infiltrate than they actually have. Great recon, buddy.

Then a rich divorcée named Sorelda Voth blew in, slapped down a lawsuit, and explained that her ex-husband had been drinking cursed coffee every single day for two years and was now addicted, supernaturally charming, and apparently so physically repulsive that she refused to describe it out loud — which means the party is now walking directly toward that smell, that man, and whatever horror show his face has become, all because Callie’s family sold a cursed coffee pot to a guy who literally threw money at them to avoid hearing the warnings. Truly, the chickens have come home to roost, and they smell absolutely terrible.