In the previous session the constables of the Royal Homeland Constabulary made a deal with the local Mafia don to let go some smugglers they had captured in exchange for help with their investigation. In this session they set the plan into motion to capture the pair of dragonborn arsonists that had eluded them earlier with the help of the Mafia: The don would give the freelancing arsonists a job to burn down a house, and the constables would lay in ambush there.

Earlier in the story the group had decided not to visit the home of the gnome couple that worked as intermediaries between the eco-terrorists and the smugglers. So I had the battlemap of that "missed" encounter available and could recycle it for this ambush. As the gnomes had been captured together with the smugglers and had not been released, using their abandoned house also made sense for the story.

First the constables explored the house, which was in fact houses connected by a second-floor passage. One was the alchemist shop of the female gnome, and the other the gnome magicians shop and stage. The group pocketed some healing potions, but the city police had already confiscated everything else of value and condemned the buildings. However there will still some traps left. The first involved the magician's firework displays, which were rigged to go off when disturbed. As the constables had already organized a fire engine in case they couldn't neutralize the arsonists, they just flooded that trap with water and neutralized it. But on the stage of the magician there were also two big water tanks reaching up to the ceiling, and Artus when exploring the second floor failed his perception check and fell through a trapdoor into one of them. However drowning is a slow process, and outside of combat it was rather easy for the rest of the group to free him by shattering the tank.

After some discussion the group then set up the ambush, distributing themselves over the two houses. James and Merian were upstairs near the passage, planning to rappel down once the arsonists had entered one of the houses in order to cut off their escape. That plan worked, but not flawlessly. In spite of it being an easy acrobatics check, James with his low dexterity and heavy armor failed the check and couldn't much slow down his fall with the rope. That resulted in little damage, but lots of noise, and the combat started.

Unlike the first encounter the two arsonists this time were alone (the group had killed their helpers a few days earlier), and the constables had the advantage of the ambush. Nevertheless the two dragonborn were quite tough and didn't go down easily. The dragonborn pyromancer did good fire damage and then used an encounter power to flee into an adjacent room, where his brother the warrior joined him. That was a better defensible position, but with no other exit the brothers were trapped. After several rounds of combat they were both down to a quarter of their health and surrendered. As it was getting late, we decided to play their interrogation in the next session.