March 29-30, 1425Our campaign began with you arriving in the sprawling city of Florence on March 29, 1425.
Giuseppe had hear a rumor that someone named
Vincenzo, the proprietor of the Fox and Grapes tavern, was someone to talk to if one was looking for “employment” in the city, and thus you found yourselves heading there to make contact with him.
While on your way to the Fox and Grapes, however, you collided in the street with a young woman desperately fleeing a squad of halberdiers, church guards, who seemed intent on capturing her. The woman hastily thrust a scroll case into Giuseppe's hands and urged him (and the rest of you) to meet her on the Ponte Vecchio that night at midnight, claiming that she would pay well for its safe return and urging you to not open it. She then fled and disappeared down the street. Fortunately for her,
Giovanni gave the guards misleading information and sent them in the wrong direction.
Later, after arriving at the Fox and Grapes, you were disappointed when Vincenzo claimed to have no knowledge of being an “arranger,” and told you that you had been misled. Both
Giovanni and
Giuseppi, however, had a strong sense that he was lying and simply did not trust you given that he did not know you.
Significantly, a woman who introduced herself as
Agnola, overheard your conversation with Vincenzo and offered you a possible job. She told you that she is the servant of the wife of a nobleman, the patriarch of
House Barzzini. Apparently her lady,
Donna Serena, has been accused of adultery by her husband and has been imprisoned in their palazzo. Agnola is certain that her mistress is innocent of the crime for which she has been accused, but she fears that her lady will be put to death or tortured.
In essence, she wants you to rescue the Duchessa. Agnola has little in the way of money to offer as reward, but she knows the combination to the vault in her master’s office. The Duchessa, Serena, is the daughter of a minor noble house (
House Dinofre) in the city of Ravenna (one of the Papal States) but she does have a cousin (
Baron Piero DiNofre) who lives in the city who could protect her and perhaps smuggle her from Florence. When asked by
Pia and
Adelesia, Agnola strongly asserted her lady’s innocence; she hardly leaves the house, she said, though the Duke has accused her lady of having intimate relations with
Taddeo, her music tutor who visits the palazzo two days a week to instruct her in the harp. Taddeo currently resides in the Duke’s dungeons beneath the palazzo.
(A Florentine Palazzo)
According to Agnola, the Duke is a cruel man who rules his household with a heavy hand, beating the servants or even having them whipped or branded for the slightest infraction. Serena’s own family , House DiNofre, can’t move to free her because they lack the power, it would seem too obvious, and they have no proof of her innocence. Thus, adventurers or those outside the law and society are perfect for the task.
Serena is currently locked in her chambers on the palazzo’s third floor. Agnola does not really know how you should affect the rescue, should you decide to do so. She can provided information about the dispositions of the guards in the palazzo, and she also revealed that a secret passage connects the cellars to the sewers, though she does not know its location. She also claimed that in four nights, Duke Barzzini would be absent from his palazzo, having been invited to a banquet, and that this might be a good time to strike.
You all carefully considered Agnola’s offer, several of you having grave concerns about antagonizing a noble, but eventually decided to take her up on her offer.
Having arrived at this decision, and despite the entreaty of the fugitive met earlier, you decided to open the scroll case that was thrust upon Giuseppe earlier in the day. Within you found a scrap of parchment apparently torn from some ancient book. The scrap, combined with your subsequent inquiries, revealed that the location of the ancient and long sought tomb of
Count Rodrigo DeFausti lies beneath the abandoned and deconsecrated Church of Santo Spirito.
Apparently, the Count had been a Florentine noble who traveled to the east in 1095, a little more than three centuries ago, to wage war against the heathen Saracens in the holy lands. He returned deeply changed by the experience, and was purported by some to have lost his faith. He did return, however, with powerful relics of magical power, and became a person of great power and influence in Florence. Before his death, he commissioned the construction of a secret tomb somewhere beneath Florence, where the legends say he was buried with his relics. Rumors also had it that he had his wife, his sister, and his two favorite mistresses put to death and entombed with him as well. The tomb has never been found, though many have sought it through the centuries.
(Ponte Vecchio)
Later, at midnight, the mysterious woman from earlier in the day failed to arrive at the Ponte Vecchio, and you presumed that she might be dead. Seeing an opportunity, you decided to investigate the old Church of Santo Spirito yourselves and in fact did find the entrance to what appears to be an ancient tomb hidden beneath the abandoned altar.
Who knows what treasures and what terrors may lie within . . .
