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End of the Day

2026-07-18T16:45:59Z

Charles: /* Fussing in the City of Lore */

==Fussing in the City of Lore==

Managaratha fades in; Scout fades out. The Lady of Lore is interested in the phenomenon. She sends the Prince to see his mother, and when Vidan asks for permission to set up a purple teleport area, tells him that he can presumably find somewhere in the city.

We contemplate what we can do to help the Prince's mother without Stella having any DI - delusions are like red magic damage and hard to heal, as they are the Price for Unreality.

Managaratha is discussing maps with Gale, and checks his pockets for a napkin: there is a note that says "All plans that involve going west will be harder than you think." Hmm. Managaratha tries teleporting west by a few hexes. That doesn't work.

Gale buys a map of Jabar "with secrets on it", which includes the Lady's Treasures, the Mine of a Thousand Wonders, several Sandworm Breeding Grounds, a Secret Pass through the Mountains, and the Heart of Yellow (not far off).

Nesh looks for libraries - there are multiple city libraries, but no Saurien library. Odd. There are some sauriens around - Nesh asks a guy who runs a butcher shop. It's a somewhat covert library, apparently. He chats with the librarian, Labella, and explains about the Free Rangers and being the Buccaneer and the Last of the Line of the Eldest. Well, then, the librarian has a letter for him, from his grandmother Karenna.

"The Oasis is pushing to take the homelands. It has sent several [army units] of cataurs into the Homelands, searching for the Line of the Eldest to get into Nikolai's cave. She has left the homelands; she and her daughter (Ilyana) are headed for Blue."

It's not just teleport - Blue flight and even "drifting downstream" don't work so well.

Hmm. While we were doing the ritual to get the Prince out, there was interference from both the Goblins and the Oasis. The Oasis part seems to be causing the “going West (or away from the Oasis?) is Hard” effect. If it was done as part of the ritual, it might take a ritual to fix.

A boat sails up to us and passes a message - the Lady of Lore says we are ordered to return the Prince to the capital. Message received. Vidan translates this as, the Lady of Lore knows we're going to Blue and is telling us this in the most desultory way possible.

It is finally sunset! Vidan gets half his DI back, and does witness/sanctify. It's a change to the existing miracle rather than a new miracle, and was definitely done during the extraction ritual, by nearby cataurs. Basically, the Oasis is pulling on our shared battlemap - we're not sure if it's going "towards the Oasis" or "east" but in most cases that's the same.

We head back to the city. Vidan reminds Gale to not spill all our secrets, so Nesh is the one to tell the guard that we're under a new Broken miracle. After a while we get to see the Lady of Lore; we explain the difficulty in leaving.

Stella throws All The Hammer at how to fix the Princess.
There are multiple solutions, depending on which version of her to bring back. No, wait, that's part of her delusion. That gives Stella insight: she was looking into 'My son has karma, what does that mean?' It's a Comet, that means he probably is going to be opposing the Breaker in some fashion. Then she was looking at Middlesea, and things that didn't happen, and she couldn't find a reality in which he didn't go to Middlesea. And that was confusing, because there are no actual fixed points. The reason the Maharani is so overprotective of her nephew is that Morrigan was so overprotective and it broke (almost Broke) her, and in addition to the family dynamics, there was also a Feelings feedback which transferred Morrigan’s care for her son onto the Maharani. The Goddess thinks that getting the Maharani fixed is more important than fixing Morrigan. Sanctification against Broken would help some.

Managaratha thinks about why Unreality caused a Feelings thwackback. Well, partly because magic is chaos and pushing hard enough makes it bleed; partly that the Maharani was the focus of danger to the Prince, and Morrigan was having a lot of feelings, and the Maharani might have had fewer defenses against her sister. Vidan thinks maybe nobody noticed that the Maharani has this effect.

Before we leave the temple, the Lady of Lore asks to talk to Stella. Stella briefs her on our new findings. The Lady also had a request - the local potters are close to forming something like a Guild. That would be beneficial (the Lady thinks) to their Varna. There are three people who would become Guildmasters - now, it is not technically legal to be a Guild per se, but it's under her authority to let them perform this experiment. But to the extent that the goal is to strengthen the Merchant Varna, having the Priest Varna tell them what to do doesn't help with that. Having someone from the outside to help advise would be better. The three people in question are Sahren, Kaiisteron, and Tahrell.

Managaratha calls [[Bikarna Vesta]] (who has been looking into the Trouble with Feelings Magic), and leaves voice mail.

Gale is tavern-hopping when someone waves her over - it looks like [[Dubrecht]] if he was a half-troll. Now he needs a sandworm tooth. "Did you hear your song?" "Something like that."

Managaratha tries to teleport five minutes forward. Vidan and Gale put a bathtub where he appears. He goes twenty minutes. Vidan thinks the actual issue would be if we moved the zone while he was missing.

==Loot==
:+10 EPs
:+12 SPs

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A Crack in the Wall

2026-06-20T00:20:13Z

Charles: /* The Next Day */

[[Gale]] and [[Diomarche]] bamf out; [[Nesh]] bamfs in.

The current expectation is the [[Maharani]] will be returning in 2 days. Why are we seeing the Maharani again? We Have Been Summoned. Oh right. She probably wants to know about her nephew.

What are our plots again? [[Vidan]] was supposed to help stop assassination attempts. Did we do that? No, it was probably the Maharani? Hmm.

We had some goofs to help, did we help them? Well, we helped them a bit. They’re probably not harmful any more.

[[Managaratha]] wants to look into what’s going on with Feelings magic. Nesh is still being hunted.

==Catching Up With [[Suvatra]]==

[Tortoise 22]

With nothing specific on our agenda (and Managaratha still being sleepy) we wait for the plot to descend.
It descends in the form of a note from Suvatra, who wishes to see Vidan at his convenience (which he interprets as Right Now).

We go to the palace! It is more open than a Red castle, it’s more of a working government building. It’s less defensible than Orange areas, even, but there are more guards, so maybe they’re using people rather than walls.

Suvatra gives some files. Background check on Vestal, there’s not much there. She did have a merchant shop, although she hadn’t been there in a while. Vidan thinks about it with Detective– it cuts off abruptly about 4 years ago, which lines up with Mangaratha’s scrying. There are two mysterious deaths that happened where she was at the time. They were both politicians, neither of them are specifically tied to the Maharani. Thinking about it, neither of them are in the Maharani’s House, but they would have been relevant to the new Maharani were the Maharani to fall. One of them died violently. No political ramifications are in the file.

She also has a file on Merindal Laman, the jeweler [[Stella]] was working with. Seems to be basically a jeweler, Merchant [[Varna]] her whole life. She’s moderately ambitious, there are some indications of notable sales, moving up the hierarchy of important people being sold to over the last several years. Nothing looks awry, but there is definitely an attempt to curry political favor. Which is plausibly just being a good merchant. Stella thinks she’s not maximizing for profit, though. She is selling to both Noble and Priest Varna; most of her sales to Priest varna appear to have been to Lore’s servants, rather than Love or Life. That has changed over the last few years.

[Elizabeth interrupts to ask “Why do you all sit in the same places?” “Because we are old.”]

Suvatra is still putting together files on the other four Vidan asked about. (The other three that Stella was working with and [[Talinda]].)

Managaratha shows up. It’s not entirely clear how, maybe he teleported?

There’s nothing else Suvatra wants from us today. Vidan inquires politely whether there is a… retired spy he could talk with to learn something from? She can probably arrange something, though not today.

Suvatra adds that, given the indications in Vestal’s file and the fact that she came after Suvatra, she is somewhat concerned that the people opposed to her Majesty are trying to cut off Her Majesty’s support before going after Her Majesty, so if we could keep an eye out for that, she would appreciate it.

It is traditional for the three Houses of the Goddess to have different goals, but to the extent they are opposing each other, that would be newer. Managaratha thinks it is more common for Churches to fight each other, rather than schism.

Suvatra says we will probably not be meeting with the Maharani in open court, but that will of course be her decision.

Thus ends our meeting with Suvatra.

==Finding the Next Plot: The Walls==
[[Scout]] ponders going to the Tree Network. Vidan thinks maybe wait until after the Maharani meeting, in case it takes five weeks. Scout could maybe think about how to get humans in to see the Tree network, before we actually go. That’s probably a good idea.

With lack of any real target, Stella decides to find out what needs fixing in the capital and BRINGs IT. 15 successes, 10 DI.

The biggest thing that needs fixing that we don’t know about is the City Walls. That was a harder answer to get than expected, so there’s not a ton left over. Other things that potentially need fixing are: stuff going on with Vidan’s plot, stuff going on with Managaratha’s plot, but there is some Church involvement there, so there’s not much more detail. She’s not really concerned about the Tree Network, it’s not so much her plot. (Scout rolls his lack of eyes.) Something interesting would probably happen if Nesh dropped his defenses, but that might not count as Fixing, per se.

On the checklist of 7, there’s not much to be done about Gale’s and Diomarche’s because they’re not here.

We go looking for walls. As it turns out, we didn’t see any Walls on the way in. There have not been walls historically, but we get pointed the right direction. (Nesh, poking around, gets asked if he’s working for [[Mikhailovich]].)

A casual poke around doesn’t reveal too much about how long this has been. Stella thinks if they’re using Orange they could probably wall the city in a month or so; if they’re not, it would take a year. The walls seem to be pretty good, it’s not clear yet if they’ll have gates or anything. The river is going to complicate things a bit. The city is mostly on the north bank, but there are suburbs/settlements south of the river. But the Walls will seriously rearrange how the city works. Stella ponders whether they’re using Orange. They’re using regular construction methods, but we’d have to get closer (past the guards) to know much more.

Stella asks who’s in charge around here. Princess [[Alasta]] is the general overseeing the project; she’s not involved day-to-day, that’s a captain. They have a [[Saurian]] doing a lot of the engineering design work– Mikhailovich. He’s from Orange, and is an Orange mage (and a Yellow mage). They don’t think that’s unusual, but there aren’t many saurians here, so they don’t know much about what’s unusual for them.

Vidan tries to convince the Captain that Stella is an amazing priest of the Goddess from Orange who can help with efficiency, etc. She’s a Miracle Worker!, he says. WIth 13 success of Persuasion, Charming, and Duping, the Captain gives us an escort to let us take a look around and introduce us to Mikhailovich, etc.

Vidan tries to give himself and Stella the ability to see what they need to see, but 4/4 is not big enough. Interesting. Stella looks around. Nothing obviously needs fixing. There is definitely Forge magic being used periodically, probably mostly to speed things up. e.g., “dry all the mortar here”. The Saurian definitely does this at some point.

Scout looks around. There aren’t any miracles on the wall. But with 6 Karma successes, he notices there is an area that he can’t see, in the Foundation, he just doesn’t have enough Per to see it. That is interesting. He points it out to Stella. It’s a little below ground level, but over there. Stella channels Gale, and Wilds up an “Analyze Wall” spell. She only burns out 1, and gets 14 successes on her 20 dice!

This is a reasonable defensive wall, not particularly Orange engineered, no obvious flaws. Construction has been sped up with Orange magic. And there is a place down there that has more than 14 successes of Anti-Magic something. It’s probably a 3’ x 3’ x 3’. So… maybe a bomb. But a slith bomb or a saurian bomb. Hmm.

Stella inquires about the protection on the construction site– they’ve had guards up since the beginning of the project.

Nesh pulls Mikhailovich to the side and speaks to him in Saurian– can he have a word? Are there anti-magic defenses in the wall? Well, there is some plan to add things later, yes. But the box over there? Is he concerned about that? Just between Saurians, Nesh doesn’t care too much, unless maybe it’s a secret slith plot– should he try to deflect investigations into it? Mikhailovich seems to acknowledge it’s there, and, after some conversation/sense motives rolls, he says he doesn’t care if we investigate further.

We leave, and go report to Suvatra. She… is distressed about the fact that it is a 3’x3’x3’ anti-magic field. She gets a message from Princess Alasta– something has happened at the wall, and wants her help. We go with her to the wall, and meet Princess Alasta and a group of soldiers. Something bad has happened, serious damage to several parts of it. Alasta acknowledge that Suvatra’s job is Investigation, in a way that it’s not Alasta’s job. (Suvatra is apparently the spymaster…)

When we get there, there are a number of holes in the wall, including the location we had seen. It’s mostly not a wall any more. Vidan looks around, and is pretty clear that the bombs went off. Suvatra does some investigating, and signs are pretty clear that Mikhailovich was behind this, and he has vanished since. “Better now than later, probably.” “Better now than during a siege, yes.”

Vidan inquires with Suvatra about how the decision to make the Wall was arrived at– Alasta has been interested for a while, it’s not clear how she first got in touch with Mikhailovich. She thinks Alasta is competent, but not an engineer, so they could have slipped past her. Suvatra is concerned about the information-gathering abilities of the slith.

Thinking about it, Stella thinks it’s a bit suspicious that Mikhailovich had that level of skill but wasn’t in the Guild– he didn’t use a title like Journeyman or Master. So… either he’s not from Orange, or was in the Guild once and was kicked out, or… something.

Scout scouts around, since they’ll let us walk. There were three successive explosions– action, action, action. No one appears to have been killed, but there are injuries, which is actually fairly lucky. The workers weren’t on break, but they were further down the wall, then where the bombs were. Scout’s pretty sure they were black powder explosions. How was it detonated? Probably magic– a Saurian orange mage could have “bypass my own defenses” as a schtick. Stella could think of ways to trigger the bomb by, say, turning the rock right above the bomb into lava, triggering the fuse.

We stay with Suvatra for the few hours while she’s at the Wall, but she also has guys summoned who continue to do the work.

==Back at the Palace==
An invitation to Princess Miranel’s ball aways us! It is this evening. She is one of the Queen’s two eligible daughters. The elder is Alasta. There was another daughter who left the Noble Varna to join the Priest varna.

We wear our fancy party clothes, and go to the Ball! Miranel (who is early 20s) is the host, and clearly knows who we are– she greets us each by name, and inquires after Captain Gale and Diomarche. Alasta makes a brief appearance, Suvatra does not. The ball is for the important people of the city– Noble and Priest varna, no Merchant varna. Vidan puts up some Detect Nobility mojo, to not fail to recognize anyone important.

Vidan gathers info on what people are talking about. The explosion of the wall, the war with the slith. Not the assassination of Suvatra (who is a vizier, one of several), interestingly. Maybe she kept it quiet, maybe people didn’t notice? (Alasta on the other hand is a princess and a general, although she’s relatively young.) Miranel does not seem to have a job besides being a princess. Tasca, who is one of Love’s Servants, and who is reported to be a good fighter, is also here.

[[Lisetera]] shows up briefly. There are a few centaur, but only a few. We’re not completely sure if that’s because this is a Ball, or if it’s that they’re not fully integrated into society that much. No one’s rude to them, but there is a level of separateness to them. It’s almost as if there’s in their own varna. People dance with each other, but they gossip in their varna subgroup.

There are a few nobles and a priest among the centaurs. The lone priest centaur wanders back and forth between the centaurs and the human priest group. Miranel also mixes fairly easily. She must cares enough about the varna rules that she didn’t invite any Merchants.

Nesh is the only saurian in the room.

Vidan and Stella seem to be assigned to the Priest varna, in a way. The other three of us are less clearly assigned, and can do more floating back and forth. The room tries to find a place to put Managaratha and Scout among the varnas.

Managaratha tries to be in Mage varna, which isn’t a thing. He talks to people, and notices that the Noble mages tend to be more practical, whereas the Priest mages tend to be more theoretical, as a general trend. He tries to discuss Feelings and Unreality with them; they think it’s interesting he doesn’t know the other flavors of Yellow. They seem to not interact with so many foreigners, possibly because it’s far and nobody here can teleport.

Managaratha gets one out of one Karma, which means he catches the Centaur’s priestess’ ear when he says that Magic can change during Comets. She is curious about that. He explains his theories on change during the time of the Comets.

Vidan also wants to make a Sense Motive roll on Miranel, to see if she’s really a good host or a social butterfly or a pose. She’s definitely enjoying what she’s doing, but she’s also doing an excellent job at gathering information. She doesn’t seem to be fishing for specific things, but she’s certainly learning things in general.

Nesh tries to gather some information, and notices that the varnas are clearly not united. There are three groups in the Priest varna (Love, Life, and Lore)-- they try to one-up each other. The Nobles are more divided, and more active sniping going on. They seem willing to not fight because there’s a war with slith going on, but they’re definitely more aware of who’s in charge of whom, etc. The struggle is more active, although no one is saying they should be Maharani or anything obvious like that. But they’re more opponents than in the Priest varna.

Scout notices there are fewer illusions than you might suspect. The music is all real; the lights are spells. There are charisma buffs, mostly on people who are less important. The decorations are all real. There’s an element of “we’re good enough we don’t need the buffs” going on here that we haven’t seen before. Many people have detections up, but they’re probably not see-through-illusions. There’s not a lot of active DI; it’s all Goddess except for Vidan. It’s not clear what much of it is doing– some kind of healing for one of them etc. The Priest varna is not all priests, by any stretch, but they all identify as one of Life, Lore, or Love.

The elves are mostly high elves, a few trolls and sylph. No pooka, that was probably a conscious choice. No halflings, only a few sluagh in the Priest varna. And a few half-elves. The priests are more aligned with the other Priest varna; the Nobles are more in their own house. Houses seem to ally with houses without concern for the racial dynamics.

==The Next Day==

[Tortoise 23]

Nesh gives us a heads up, and then drops his magic resistance.

Verga? the guy Nesh was talking to back at the inn, appears in a hologram. “Do the names Karina or Ilyana mean anything to you?” Ilyana was Nesh’s mother, as it turns out; he doesn’t remember the name Karina.

Verga has found reports of an attack on a saurian woman named Karina and her daughter Ilyana, by people using a similar compass. “So you do think that is likely related, then?” Nesh nods, and Verga says thank you and ends the call.

A little while later we are summoned to Suvatra’s office again. She has a file on [[Dalin]] Cheser, who was the horse merchant. He’s only 19 or 20, so it’s not a big file. His parents both died in the last year, and he inherited the business likely significantly earlier than he would have otherwise. The presentation to Her Majesty the Maharani had already been arranged when his mother died; she was expected to do the presentation. He has inherited the job and the obligation. As far as Quartz goes, he’s been a dwarf weaponsmith for over 100 years. He has a large file but none of which is particularly interesting.

Nothing particularly interesting on Mikhailovich over the last six month’s he’s been in the city. Arrived on a boat claiming to be from Orange (not from a specific city, which Stella flags is unusual). Suvatra probably won’t be able to get a file quickly on whether anyone in Orange knows him. It looks to her as if he introduced himself into society fairly quickly and easily; a Saurian who is a talented Yellow mage drew attention. It caused quite a stir for a few months. He does not seem to have evacuated anything from the rooms he was staying in. He was both a skilled mage and skilled in the social arts, and a Saurian with a large amount of resistance. There were a few vetting efforts when he was hired as the chief engineer. They did not turn up anything untoward; it’s unclear as of yet whether… it’s currently her suspicion that he used a Yellow spell to make it look like he dropped his defenses and nothing untoward showed up. He was likely not higher than 20 Magic dice. He wasn’t a priest or a combatant at all. Likely also a Green mage, given the supplies recovered from his rooms. He did not have a Yellow disguise, most likely. Unless he had 20 dice, 15 suppress, a schtick in my spell cuts through my suppress, and a spell of my illusion isn’t detectable by yellow, he probably didn't have a yellow illusion up. He could have had a potion of shapeshift, or maybe a Red spell? Hmm.

Scout tries to find him– with 14 successes and 19 DI, he’s clear that Mikhailovich is no longer in the country. That means he didn’t have 15 successes of suppress, which means he didn’t use the personal suppress to hide the bombs.

==Loot==
<ul>
<li> +10 EPs
<li> +6 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A Crack in the Wall

2026-06-20T00:17:19Z

Charles: /* Back at the Palace */

[[Gale]] and [[Diomarche]] bamf out; [[Nesh]] bamfs in.

The current expectation is the [[Maharani]] will be returning in 2 days. Why are we seeing the Maharani again? We Have Been Summoned. Oh right. She probably wants to know about her nephew.

What are our plots again? [[Vidan]] was supposed to help stop assassination attempts. Did we do that? No, it was probably the Maharani? Hmm.

We had some goofs to help, did we help them? Well, we helped them a bit. They’re probably not harmful any more.

[[Managaratha]] wants to look into what’s going on with Feelings magic. Nesh is still being hunted.

==Catching Up With [[Suvatra]]==

[Tortoise 22]

With nothing specific on our agenda (and Managaratha still being sleepy) we wait for the plot to descend.
It descends in the form of a note from Suvatra, who wishes to see Vidan at his convenience (which he interprets as Right Now).

We go to the palace! It is more open than a Red castle, it’s more of a working government building. It’s less defensible than Orange areas, even, but there are more guards, so maybe they’re using people rather than walls.

Suvatra gives some files. Background check on Vestal, there’s not much there. She did have a merchant shop, although she hadn’t been there in a while. Vidan thinks about it with Detective– it cuts off abruptly about 4 years ago, which lines up with Mangaratha’s scrying. There are two mysterious deaths that happened where she was at the time. They were both politicians, neither of them are specifically tied to the Maharani. Thinking about it, neither of them are in the Maharani’s House, but they would have been relevant to the new Maharani were the Maharani to fall. One of them died violently. No political ramifications are in the file.

She also has a file on Merindal Laman, the jeweler [[Stella]] was working with. Seems to be basically a jeweler, Merchant [[Varna]] her whole life. She’s moderately ambitious, there are some indications of notable sales, moving up the hierarchy of important people being sold to over the last several years. Nothing looks awry, but there is definitely an attempt to curry political favor. Which is plausibly just being a good merchant. Stella thinks she’s not maximizing for profit, though. She is selling to both Noble and Priest Varna; most of her sales to Priest varna appear to have been to Lore’s servants, rather than Love or Life. That has changed over the last few years.

[Elizabeth interrupts to ask “Why do you all sit in the same places?” “Because we are old.”]

Suvatra is still putting together files on the other four Vidan asked about. (The other three that Stella was working with and [[Talinda]].)

Managaratha shows up. It’s not entirely clear how, maybe he teleported?

There’s nothing else Suvatra wants from us today. Vidan inquires politely whether there is a… retired spy he could talk with to learn something from? She can probably arrange something, though not today.

Suvatra adds that, given the indications in Vestal’s file and the fact that she came after Suvatra, she is somewhat concerned that the people opposed to her Majesty are trying to cut off Her Majesty’s support before going after Her Majesty, so if we could keep an eye out for that, she would appreciate it.

It is traditional for the three Houses of the Goddess to have different goals, but to the extent they are opposing each other, that would be newer. Managaratha thinks it is more common for Churches to fight each other, rather than schism.

Suvatra says we will probably not be meeting with the Maharani in open court, but that will of course be her decision.

Thus ends our meeting with Suvatra.

==Finding the Next Plot: The Walls==
[[Scout]] ponders going to the Tree Network. Vidan thinks maybe wait until after the Maharani meeting, in case it takes five weeks. Scout could maybe think about how to get humans in to see the Tree network, before we actually go. That’s probably a good idea.

With lack of any real target, Stella decides to find out what needs fixing in the capital and BRINGs IT. 15 successes, 10 DI.

The biggest thing that needs fixing that we don’t know about is the City Walls. That was a harder answer to get than expected, so there’s not a ton left over. Other things that potentially need fixing are: stuff going on with Vidan’s plot, stuff going on with Managaratha’s plot, but there is some Church involvement there, so there’s not much more detail. She’s not really concerned about the Tree Network, it’s not so much her plot. (Scout rolls his lack of eyes.) Something interesting would probably happen if Nesh dropped his defenses, but that might not count as Fixing, per se.

On the checklist of 7, there’s not much to be done about Gale’s and Diomarche’s because they’re not here.

We go looking for walls. As it turns out, we didn’t see any Walls on the way in. There have not been walls historically, but we get pointed the right direction. (Nesh, poking around, gets asked if he’s working for [[Mikhailovich]].)

A casual poke around doesn’t reveal too much about how long this has been. Stella thinks if they’re using Orange they could probably wall the city in a month or so; if they’re not, it would take a year. The walls seem to be pretty good, it’s not clear yet if they’ll have gates or anything. The river is going to complicate things a bit. The city is mostly on the north bank, but there are suburbs/settlements south of the river. But the Walls will seriously rearrange how the city works. Stella ponders whether they’re using Orange. They’re using regular construction methods, but we’d have to get closer (past the guards) to know much more.

Stella asks who’s in charge around here. Princess [[Alasta]] is the general overseeing the project; she’s not involved day-to-day, that’s a captain. They have a [[Saurian]] doing a lot of the engineering design work– Mikhailovich. He’s from Orange, and is an Orange mage (and a Yellow mage). They don’t think that’s unusual, but there aren’t many saurians here, so they don’t know much about what’s unusual for them.

Vidan tries to convince the Captain that Stella is an amazing priest of the Goddess from Orange who can help with efficiency, etc. She’s a Miracle Worker!, he says. WIth 13 success of Persuasion, Charming, and Duping, the Captain gives us an escort to let us take a look around and introduce us to Mikhailovich, etc.

Vidan tries to give himself and Stella the ability to see what they need to see, but 4/4 is not big enough. Interesting. Stella looks around. Nothing obviously needs fixing. There is definitely Forge magic being used periodically, probably mostly to speed things up. e.g., “dry all the mortar here”. The Saurian definitely does this at some point.

Scout looks around. There aren’t any miracles on the wall. But with 6 Karma successes, he notices there is an area that he can’t see, in the Foundation, he just doesn’t have enough Per to see it. That is interesting. He points it out to Stella. It’s a little below ground level, but over there. Stella channels Gale, and Wilds up an “Analyze Wall” spell. She only burns out 1, and gets 14 successes on her 20 dice!

This is a reasonable defensive wall, not particularly Orange engineered, no obvious flaws. Construction has been sped up with Orange magic. And there is a place down there that has more than 14 successes of Anti-Magic something. It’s probably a 3’ x 3’ x 3’. So… maybe a bomb. But a slith bomb or a saurian bomb. Hmm.

Stella inquires about the protection on the construction site– they’ve had guards up since the beginning of the project.

Nesh pulls Mikhailovich to the side and speaks to him in Saurian– can he have a word? Are there anti-magic defenses in the wall? Well, there is some plan to add things later, yes. But the box over there? Is he concerned about that? Just between Saurians, Nesh doesn’t care too much, unless maybe it’s a secret slith plot– should he try to deflect investigations into it? Mikhailovich seems to acknowledge it’s there, and, after some conversation/sense motives rolls, he says he doesn’t care if we investigate further.

We leave, and go report to Suvatra. She… is distressed about the fact that it is a 3’x3’x3’ anti-magic field. She gets a message from Princess Alasta– something has happened at the wall, and wants her help. We go with her to the wall, and meet Princess Alasta and a group of soldiers. Something bad has happened, serious damage to several parts of it. Alasta acknowledge that Suvatra’s job is Investigation, in a way that it’s not Alasta’s job. (Suvatra is apparently the spymaster…)

When we get there, there are a number of holes in the wall, including the location we had seen. It’s mostly not a wall any more. Vidan looks around, and is pretty clear that the bombs went off. Suvatra does some investigating, and signs are pretty clear that Mikhailovich was behind this, and he has vanished since. “Better now than later, probably.” “Better now than during a siege, yes.”

Vidan inquires with Suvatra about how the decision to make the Wall was arrived at– Alasta has been interested for a while, it’s not clear how she first got in touch with Mikhailovich. She thinks Alasta is competent, but not an engineer, so they could have slipped past her. Suvatra is concerned about the information-gathering abilities of the slith.

Thinking about it, Stella thinks it’s a bit suspicious that Mikhailovich had that level of skill but wasn’t in the Guild– he didn’t use a title like Journeyman or Master. So… either he’s not from Orange, or was in the Guild once and was kicked out, or… something.

Scout scouts around, since they’ll let us walk. There were three successive explosions– action, action, action. No one appears to have been killed, but there are injuries, which is actually fairly lucky. The workers weren’t on break, but they were further down the wall, then where the bombs were. Scout’s pretty sure they were black powder explosions. How was it detonated? Probably magic– a Saurian orange mage could have “bypass my own defenses” as a schtick. Stella could think of ways to trigger the bomb by, say, turning the rock right above the bomb into lava, triggering the fuse.

We stay with Suvatra for the few hours while she’s at the Wall, but she also has guys summoned who continue to do the work.

==Back at the Palace==
An invitation to Princess Miranel’s ball aways us! It is this evening. She is one of the Queen’s two eligible daughters. The elder is Alasta. There was another daughter who left the Noble Varna to join the Priest varna.

We wear our fancy party clothes, and go to the Ball! Miranel (who is early 20s) is the host, and clearly knows who we are– she greets us each by name, and inquires after Captain Gale and Diomarche. Alasta makes a brief appearance, Suvatra does not. The ball is for the important people of the city– Noble and Priest varna, no Merchant varna. Vidan puts up some Detect Nobility mojo, to not fail to recognize anyone important.

Vidan gathers info on what people are talking about. The explosion of the wall, the war with the slith. Not the assassination of Suvatra (who is a vizier, one of several), interestingly. Maybe she kept it quiet, maybe people didn’t notice? (Alasta on the other hand is a princess and a general, although she’s relatively young.) Miranel does not seem to have a job besides being a princess. Tasca, who is one of Love’s Servants, and who is reported to be a good fighter, is also here.

[[Lisetera]] shows up briefly. There are a few centaur, but only a few. We’re not completely sure if that’s because this is a Ball, or if it’s that they’re not fully integrated into society that much. No one’s rude to them, but there is a level of separateness to them. It’s almost as if there’s in their own varna. People dance with each other, but they gossip in their varna subgroup.

There are a few nobles and a priest among the centaurs. The lone priest centaur wanders back and forth between the centaurs and the human priest group. Miranel also mixes fairly easily. She must cares enough about the varna rules that she didn’t invite any Merchants.

Nesh is the only saurian in the room.

Vidan and Stella seem to be assigned to the Priest varna, in a way. The other three of us are less clearly assigned, and can do more floating back and forth. The room tries to find a place to put Managaratha and Scout among the varnas.

Managaratha tries to be in Mage varna, which isn’t a thing. He talks to people, and notices that the Noble mages tend to be more practical, whereas the Priest mages tend to be more theoretical, as a general trend. He tries to discuss Feelings and Unreality with them; they think it’s interesting he doesn’t know the other flavors of Yellow. They seem to not interact with so many foreigners, possibly because it’s far and nobody here can teleport.

Managaratha gets one out of one Karma, which means he catches the Centaur’s priestess’ ear when he says that Magic can change during Comets. She is curious about that. He explains his theories on change during the time of the Comets.

Vidan also wants to make a Sense Motive roll on Miranel, to see if she’s really a good host or a social butterfly or a pose. She’s definitely enjoying what she’s doing, but she’s also doing an excellent job at gathering information. She doesn’t seem to be fishing for specific things, but she’s certainly learning things in general.

Nesh tries to gather some information, and notices that the varnas are clearly not united. There are three groups in the Priest varna (Love, Life, and Lore)-- they try to one-up each other. The Nobles are more divided, and more active sniping going on. They seem willing to not fight because there’s a war with slith going on, but they’re definitely more aware of who’s in charge of whom, etc. The struggle is more active, although no one is saying they should be Maharani or anything obvious like that. But they’re more opponents than in the Priest varna.

Scout notices there are fewer illusions than you might suspect. The music is all real; the lights are spells. There are charisma buffs, mostly on people who are less important. The decorations are all real. There’s an element of “we’re good enough we don’t need the buffs” going on here that we haven’t seen before. Many people have detections up, but they’re probably not see-through-illusions. There’s not a lot of active DI; it’s all Goddess except for Vidan. It’s not clear what much of it is doing– some kind of healing for one of them etc. The Priest varna is not all priests, by any stretch, but they all identify as one of Life, Lore, or Love.

The elves are mostly high elves, a few trolls and sylph. No pooka, that was probably a conscious choice. No halflings, only a few sluagh in the Priest varna. And a few half-elves. The priests are more aligned with the other Priest varna; the Nobles are more in their own house. Houses seem to ally with houses without concern for the racial dynamics.

==The Next Day==

Nesh gives us a heads up, and then drops his magic resistance.

Verga? the guy Nesh was talking to back at the inn, appears in a hologram. “Do the names Karina or Ilyana mean anything to you?” Ilyana was Nesh’s mother, as it turns out; he doesn’t remember the name Karina.

Verga has found reports of an attack on a saurian woman named Karina and her daughter Ilyana, by people using a similar compass. “So you do think that is likely related, then?” Nesh nods, and Verga says thank you and ends the call.

A little while later we are summoned to Suvatra’s office again. She has a file on [[Dalin]] Cheser, who was the horse merchant. He’s only 19 or 20, so it’s not a big file. His parents both died in the last year, and he inherited the business likely significantly earlier than he would have otherwise. The presentation to Her Majesty the Maharani had already been arranged when his mother died; she was expected to do the presentation. He has inherited the job and the obligation. As far as Quartz goes, he’s been a dwarf weaponsmith for over 100 years. He has a large file but none of which is particularly interesting.

Nothing particularly interesting on Mikhailovich over the last six month’s he’s been in the city. Arrived on a boat claiming to be from Orange (not from a specific city, which Stella flags is unusual). Suvatra probably won’t be able to get a file quickly on whether anyone in Orange knows him. It looks to her as if he introduced himself into society fairly quickly and easily; a Saurian who is a talented Yellow mage drew attention. It caused quite a stir for a few months. He does not seem to have evacuated anything from the rooms he was staying in. He was both a skilled mage and skilled in the social arts, and a Saurian with a large amount of resistance. There were a few vetting efforts when he was hired as the chief engineer. They did not turn up anything untoward; it’s unclear as of yet whether… it’s currently her suspicion that he used a Yellow spell to make it look like he dropped his defenses and nothing untoward showed up. He was likely not higher than 20 Magic dice. He wasn’t a priest or a combatant at all. Likely also a Green mage, given the supplies recovered from his rooms. He did not have a Yellow disguise, most likely. Unless he had 20 dice, 15 suppress, a schtick in my spell cuts through my suppress, and a spell of my illusion isn’t detectable by yellow, he could possibly had a yellow illusion up. He could have had a potion of shapeshift, or maybe a Red spell? Hmm.

Scout tries to find him– with 14 successes and 19 DI, he’s clear that Mikhailovich is no longer in the country. That means he didn’t have 15 successes of suppress, which means he didn’t use the personal suppress to hide the bombs.

==Loot==
<ul>
<li> +10 EPs
<li> +6 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A Crack in the Wall

2026-06-20T00:07:35Z

Charles: /* Catching Up With Suvatra */

[[Gale]] and [[Diomarche]] bamf out; [[Nesh]] bamfs in.

The current expectation is the [[Maharani]] will be returning in 2 days. Why are we seeing the Maharani again? We Have Been Summoned. Oh right. She probably wants to know about her nephew.

What are our plots again? [[Vidan]] was supposed to help stop assassination attempts. Did we do that? No, it was probably the Maharani? Hmm.

We had some goofs to help, did we help them? Well, we helped them a bit. They’re probably not harmful any more.

[[Managaratha]] wants to look into what’s going on with Feelings magic. Nesh is still being hunted.

==Catching Up With [[Suvatra]]==

[Tortoise 22]

With nothing specific on our agenda (and Managaratha still being sleepy) we wait for the plot to descend.
It descends in the form of a note from Suvatra, who wishes to see Vidan at his convenience (which he interprets as Right Now).

We go to the palace! It is more open than a Red castle, it’s more of a working government building. It’s less defensible than Orange areas, even, but there are more guards, so maybe they’re using people rather than walls.

Suvatra gives some files. Background check on Vestal, there’s not much there. She did have a merchant shop, although she hadn’t been there in a while. Vidan thinks about it with Detective– it cuts off abruptly about 4 years ago, which lines up with Mangaratha’s scrying. There are two mysterious deaths that happened where she was at the time. They were both politicians, neither of them are specifically tied to the Maharani. Thinking about it, neither of them are in the Maharani’s House, but they would have been relevant to the new Maharani were the Maharani to fall. One of them died violently. No political ramifications are in the file.

She also has a file on Merindal Laman, the jeweler [[Stella]] was working with. Seems to be basically a jeweler, Merchant [[Varna]] her whole life. She’s moderately ambitious, there are some indications of notable sales, moving up the hierarchy of important people being sold to over the last several years. Nothing looks awry, but there is definitely an attempt to curry political favor. Which is plausibly just being a good merchant. Stella thinks she’s not maximizing for profit, though. She is selling to both Noble and Priest Varna; most of her sales to Priest varna appear to have been to Lore’s servants, rather than Love or Life. That has changed over the last few years.

[Elizabeth interrupts to ask “Why do you all sit in the same places?” “Because we are old.”]

Suvatra is still putting together files on the other four Vidan asked about. (The other three that Stella was working with and [[Talinda]].)

Managaratha shows up. It’s not entirely clear how, maybe he teleported?

There’s nothing else Suvatra wants from us today. Vidan inquires politely whether there is a… retired spy he could talk with to learn something from? She can probably arrange something, though not today.

Suvatra adds that, given the indications in Vestal’s file and the fact that she came after Suvatra, she is somewhat concerned that the people opposed to her Majesty are trying to cut off Her Majesty’s support before going after Her Majesty, so if we could keep an eye out for that, she would appreciate it.

It is traditional for the three Houses of the Goddess to have different goals, but to the extent they are opposing each other, that would be newer. Managaratha thinks it is more common for Churches to fight each other, rather than schism.

Suvatra says we will probably not be meeting with the Maharani in open court, but that will of course be her decision.

Thus ends our meeting with Suvatra.

==Finding the Next Plot: The Walls==
[[Scout]] ponders going to the Tree Network. Vidan thinks maybe wait until after the Maharani meeting, in case it takes five weeks. Scout could maybe think about how to get humans in to see the Tree network, before we actually go. That’s probably a good idea.

With lack of any real target, Stella decides to find out what needs fixing in the capital and BRINGs IT. 15 successes, 10 DI.

The biggest thing that needs fixing that we don’t know about is the City Walls. That was a harder answer to get than expected, so there’s not a ton left over. Other things that potentially need fixing are: stuff going on with Vidan’s plot, stuff going on with Managaratha’s plot, but there is some Church involvement there, so there’s not much more detail. She’s not really concerned about the Tree Network, it’s not so much her plot. (Scout rolls his lack of eyes.) Something interesting would probably happen if Nesh dropped his defenses, but that might not count as Fixing, per se.

On the checklist of 7, there’s not much to be done about Gale’s and Diomarche’s because they’re not here.

We go looking for walls. As it turns out, we didn’t see any Walls on the way in. There have not been walls historically, but we get pointed the right direction. (Nesh, poking around, gets asked if he’s working for [[Mikhailovich]].)

A casual poke around doesn’t reveal too much about how long this has been. Stella thinks if they’re using Orange they could probably wall the city in a month or so; if they’re not, it would take a year. The walls seem to be pretty good, it’s not clear yet if they’ll have gates or anything. The river is going to complicate things a bit. The city is mostly on the north bank, but there are suburbs/settlements south of the river. But the Walls will seriously rearrange how the city works. Stella ponders whether they’re using Orange. They’re using regular construction methods, but we’d have to get closer (past the guards) to know much more.

Stella asks who’s in charge around here. Princess [[Alasta]] is the general overseeing the project; she’s not involved day-to-day, that’s a captain. They have a [[Saurian]] doing a lot of the engineering design work– Mikhailovich. He’s from Orange, and is an Orange mage (and a Yellow mage). They don’t think that’s unusual, but there aren’t many saurians here, so they don’t know much about what’s unusual for them.

Vidan tries to convince the Captain that Stella is an amazing priest of the Goddess from Orange who can help with efficiency, etc. She’s a Miracle Worker!, he says. WIth 13 success of Persuasion, Charming, and Duping, the Captain gives us an escort to let us take a look around and introduce us to Mikhailovich, etc.

Vidan tries to give himself and Stella the ability to see what they need to see, but 4/4 is not big enough. Interesting. Stella looks around. Nothing obviously needs fixing. There is definitely Forge magic being used periodically, probably mostly to speed things up. e.g., “dry all the mortar here”. The Saurian definitely does this at some point.

Scout looks around. There aren’t any miracles on the wall. But with 6 Karma successes, he notices there is an area that he can’t see, in the Foundation, he just doesn’t have enough Per to see it. That is interesting. He points it out to Stella. It’s a little below ground level, but over there. Stella channels Gale, and Wilds up an “Analyze Wall” spell. She only burns out 1, and gets 14 successes on her 20 dice!

This is a reasonable defensive wall, not particularly Orange engineered, no obvious flaws. Construction has been sped up with Orange magic. And there is a place down there that has more than 14 successes of Anti-Magic something. It’s probably a 3’ x 3’ x 3’. So… maybe a bomb. But a slith bomb or a saurian bomb. Hmm.

Stella inquires about the protection on the construction site– they’ve had guards up since the beginning of the project.

Nesh pulls Mikhailovich to the side and speaks to him in Saurian– can he have a word? Are there anti-magic defenses in the wall? Well, there is some plan to add things later, yes. But the box over there? Is he concerned about that? Just between Saurians, Nesh doesn’t care too much, unless maybe it’s a secret slith plot– should he try to deflect investigations into it? Mikhailovich seems to acknowledge it’s there, and, after some conversation/sense motives rolls, he says he doesn’t care if we investigate further.

We leave, and go report to Suvatra. She… is distressed about the fact that it is a 3’x3’x3’ anti-magic field. She gets a message from Princess Alasta– something has happened at the wall, and wants her help. We go with her to the wall, and meet Princess Alasta and a group of soldiers. Something bad has happened, serious damage to several parts of it. Alasta acknowledge that Suvatra’s job is Investigation, in a way that it’s not Alasta’s job. (Suvatra is apparently the spymaster…)

When we get there, there are a number of holes in the wall, including the location we had seen. It’s mostly not a wall any more. Vidan looks around, and is pretty clear that the bombs went off. Suvatra does some investigating, and signs are pretty clear that Mikhailovich was behind this, and he has vanished since. “Better now than later, probably.” “Better now than during a siege, yes.”

Vidan inquires with Suvatra about how the decision to make the Wall was arrived at– Alasta has been interested for a while, it’s not clear how she first got in touch with Mikhailovich. She thinks Alasta is competent, but not an engineer, so they could have slipped past her. Suvatra is concerned about the information-gathering abilities of the slith.

Thinking about it, Stella thinks it’s a bit suspicious that Mikhailovich had that level of skill but wasn’t in the Guild– he didn’t use a title like Journeyman or Master. So… either he’s not from Orange, or was in the Guild once and was kicked out, or… something.

Scout scouts around, since they’ll let us walk. There were three successive explosions– action, action, action. No one appears to have been killed, but there are injuries, which is actually fairly lucky. The workers weren’t on break, but they were further down the wall, then where the bombs were. Scout’s pretty sure they were black powder explosions. How was it detonated? Probably magic– a Saurian orange mage could have “bypass my own defenses” as a schtick. Stella could think of ways to trigger the bomb by, say, turning the rock right above the bomb into lava, triggering the fuse.

We stay with Suvatra for the few hours while she’s at the Wall, but she also has guys summoned who continue to do the work.

==Back at the Palace==
An invitation to Princess Miranel’s ball aways us! It is this evening. She is one of the Queen’s two eligible daughters. The elder is Alasta. There was another daughter who left the Noble Varna to join the Priest varna.

We wear our fancy party clothes, and go to the Ball! Miranel (who is early 20s) is the host, and clearly knows who we are– she greets us each by name, and inquires after Captain Gale and Diomarche. Alasta makes a brief appearance, Suvatra does not. The ball is for the important people of the city– Noble and Priest varna, no Merchant varna. Vidan puts up some Detect Nobility mojo, to not fail to recognize anyone important.

Vidan gathers info on what people are talking about. The explosion of the wall, the war with the slith. Not the assassination of Suvatra (who is a vizier, one of several), interestingly. Maybe she kept it quiet, maybe people didn’t notice? (Alasta on the other hand is a princess and a general, although she’s relatively young.) Miranel does not seem to have a job besides being a princess. Tasca, who is one of Love’s Servants, and who is reported to be a good fighter, is also here.

[[Lisetera]] shows up briefly. There are a few centaur, but only a few. We’re not completely sure if that’s because this is a Ball, or if it’s that they’re not fully integrated into society that much. No one’s rude to them, but there is a level of separateness to them. It’s almost as if there’s in their own varna. People dance with each other, but they gossip in their varna subgroup.

There are a few nobles and a priest among the centaurs. The lone priest centaur wanders back and forth between the centaurs and the human priest group. Miranel also mixes fairly easily. She must cares enough about the varna rules that she didn’t invite any Merchants.

Nesh is the only saurian in the room.

Vidan and Stella seem to be assigned to the Priest varna, in a way. The other three of us are less clearly assigned, and can do more floating back and forth. The room tries to find a place to put Managaratha and Scout among the varnas.

Managaratha tries to be in Mage varna, which isn’t a thing. He talks to people, and notices that the Noble mages tend to be more practical, whereas the Priest mages tend to be more theoretical, as a general trend. He tries to discuss Feelings and Unreality with them; they think it’s interesting he doesn’t know the other flavors of Yellow. They seem to not interact with so many foreigners, possibly because it’s far and nobody here can teleport.

Managaratha gets one out of one Karma, which means he catches the Centaur’s priestess’ ear when he says that Magic can change during Comets. She is curious about that. He explains his theories on change during the time of the Comets.

Vidan also wants to make a Sense Motive roll on Miranel, to see if she’s really a good host or a social butterfly or a pose. She’s definitely enjoying what she’s doing, but she’s also doing an excellent job at gathering information. She doesn’t seem to be fishing for specific things, but she’s certainly learning things in general.

Nesh tries to gather some information, and notices that the varnas are clearly not united. There are three groups in the Priest varna (Love, Life, and Lore)-- they try to one-up each other. The Nobles are more divided, and more active sniping going on. They seem willing to not fight because there’s a war with slith going on, but they’re definitely more aware of who’s in charge of whom, etc. The struggle is more active, although no one is saying they should be Maharani or anything obvious like that. But they’re more opponents than in the Priest varna.

Scout notices there are fewer illusions than you might suspect. The music is all real; the lights are spells. There are charisma buffs, mostly on people who are less important. The decorations are all real. There’s an element of “we’re good enough we don’t need the buffs” going on here that we haven’t seen before. Many people have detections up, but they’re probably not see-through-illusions. There’s not a lot of active DI; it’s all Goddess except for Vidan. It’s not clear what much of it is doing– some kind of healing for one of them etc. The Priest varna is not all priests, by any stretch, but they all identify as one of Life, Lore, or Love.

The elves are mostly high elves, a few trolls and sylph. No pooka, that was probably a conscious choice. No halflings, only a few sluagh in the Priest varna. And a few half-elves. The priests are more aligned with the other Priest varna; the Nobles are more in their own house. Houses seem to ally with houses without concern for the racial dynamics.

The Next Day
Nesh gives us a heads up, and then drops his magic resistance.

Verga? the guy Nesh was talking to back at the inn, appears in a hologram. “Do the names Karina or Ilyana mean anything to you?” Ilyana was Nesh’s mother, as it turns out; he doesn’t remember the name Karina.

Verga has found reports of an attack on a saurian woman named Karina and her daughter Ilyana, by people using a similar compass. “So you do think that is likely related, then?” Nesh nods, and Verga says thank you and ends the call.

A little while later we are summoned to Suvatra’s office again. She has a file on [[Dalin]] Cheser, who was the horse merchant. He’s only 19 or 20, so it’s not a big file. His parents both died in the last year, and he inherited the business likely significantly earlier than he would have otherwise. The presentation to Her Majesty the Maharani had already been arranged when his mother died; she was expected to do the presentation. He has inherited the job and the obligation. As far as Quartz goes, he’s been a dwarf weaponsmith for over 100 years. He has a large file but none of which is particularly interesting.

Nothing particularly interesting on Mikhailovich over the last six month’s he’s been in the city. Arrived on a boat claiming to be from Orange (not from a specific city, which Stella flags is unusual). Suvatra probably won’t be able to get a file quickly on whether anyone in Orange knows him. It looks to her as if he introduced himself into society fairly quickly and easily; a Saurian who is a talented Yellow mage drew attention. It caused quite a stir for a few months. He does not seem to have evacuated anything from the rooms he was staying in. He was both a skilled mage and skilled in the social arts, and a Saurian with a large amount of resistance. There were a few vetting efforts when he was hired as the chief engineer. They did not turn up anything untoward; it’s unclear as of yet whether… it’s currently her suspicion that he used a Yellow spell to make it look like he dropped his defenses and nothing untoward showed up. He was likely not higher than 20 Magic dice. He wasn’t a priest or a combatant at all. Likely also a Green mage, given the supplies recovered from his rooms. He did not have a Yellow disguise, most likely. Unless he had 20 dice, 15 suppress, a schtick in my spell cuts through my suppress, and a spell of my illusion isn’t detectable by yellow, he could possibly had a yellow illusion up. He could have had a potion of shapeshift, or maybe a Red spell? Hmm.

Scout tries to find him– with 14 successes and 19 DI, he’s clear that Mikhailovich is no longer in the country. That means he didn’t have 15 successes of suppress, which means he didn’t use the personal suppress to hide the bombs.

==Loot==
<ul>
<li> +10 EPs
<li> +6 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A Tree Grows in Jabar

2026-06-20T00:04:32Z

Charles:

<h2> Reconnaissance of the [[Slith]]</h2>

[Still Tortoise 19]

[[Suvatra]] and the Captain contemplate options– take a few extra days and try to go around the slith; try to skirt the slith, which will likely cause them to engage with us with smaller units, but we’ll be more likely to be on their terms; we attack them at a place and time of our choosing, giving us tactical advantage.

[[Scout]] is confused, wait why are we going to go into an army of terrible slith? Hmm. We offer to do some aerial recon, which might help give some more data as to what the best plan is.

<h2>Army Combat!</h2>
We engage in a small army combat. There are two infantry units and two cavalry units, defending the merchant unit. The army combat goes about as well as can be expected, losing one cavalry unit and taking damage to both infantry units, but destroying all six slith forces.

[[Jabril]] and [[Vidan]] notice that there are character actions happening outside of the Army Combat, which is unusual. An assassination attempt is underway! Jabril activates [[Diomarche]], asking what the heck. Vidan activates the PCs, one at a time. Scout decides he is SEEING THE ASSASSIN, DARN IT, and drops all his DI and Fortune. He gets past the assassin’s DI defenses and can see her sneaking into the camp over the wall that [[Managaratha]] has created.

The fight is on. Scout calls out Invader Invading! and shoots the assassin– a single human woman. She decides she was not well-configured for this number of awake people, so tries to flee.

We refuse to give up the chase, going after her through several battle maps.
Eventually she decides to
She uses her Lucky Break schtick, but collectively we beat her, so she runs into Jabril as she goes to the next battlemap. We finish her off.

<h2>Combat Aftermath</h2>
We find a white and black circular thing that is probably loot. Also +1 dagger. Also, she is dead.

Oh hey, look, Jabril is a priest of [[Jord]]. That’s probably why he was activating Diomarche.

We go to search her tent. Vidan gets 14 successes with Detective. There is less Merchant stuff than you’d expect; it was just a cover. There’s a locked, probably trapped chest. Scout takes a look– it’s definitely trapped, more than 6 successes. We enlist Jabril, who is able to open it,

Ninja loot! Several poisons, a few non-magic daggers, a blowgun, a few throwing moons, a strangling cord. Vidan takes the throwing moons; Scout takes the poisons. Some of them are inhaleable things.

Managaratha analyzes her blood. (eww.) A human female corpse who was… last alive five years ago? That’s weird. Ah, maybe she’s been unscryable for 5 years? Hmm.

The Centaurs lost 1 of two units, so quite a few centaurs, the infantry took damage but not as much. For killing six slith units, that’s not bad.

Managaratha looks at the disc– he gets 2 Detect Magic but doesn’t notice anything. Scout can’t see it at all. That’s suspicious. [[Stella]] takes a look– it seems more ceramic than metal.

Eventually we ask Suvatra– it’s an anti-scrying Talisman. Probably divine. It would need to be attuned to make you unscryable, rather than just being unscryable yourself. It’s not un-common.

<h2>In the Capital</h2>

[Tortoise 20-21]

We get into the capital, but the [[Maharani]] is not here. We are put up at the palace. Vidan thinks about whether there’s enough time to do his seed-Purple-teleport-anchors here. It looks like we have a few days.

Vidan enlists a realtor, but decides the Priest district would be more likely to draw attention; he goes to the Servant district instead.

Stella spends a few days healing the wounded soldiers.

Diomarche noodles around in historic areas. Many of them are in the palace.

Managaratha tries to Gather Information about Feelings magic. Are there quantifiable ways of doing feelings? That seems hard. Anger Fear Love Jealousy, but you could also have Suspicion, say. You could have a Feeling about what’s behind the door, which is Clairvoyance-ish. There seem to be a lot of Mages here– people just learn Magic in a way they don’t many other places. (Maybe except in Purple.) Ah, he’s mostly interacting with the top three [[Varna]], that probably concentrates the magical talent more. Servants with Magic dice probably get funneled into another Varna…

Scout goes to the Elf district, and [[Gale]] tags along. Gale is also interested in getting a “don’t be anxious” Yellow trinket for [[Dalin]]. Gale flirts a bit, but decides maybe that’s rude if she already has a date. Wait, what? Scout is confused. Gale finds lots of people who are happy to Adventure. Some elves tell Scout about the Tree Network– there’s a Tree in the district, yeah. They don’t really know how it works.

Scout goes to check it out. There’s a courtyard with columns, open to the sky. A high elf asks if she can be of assistance. Scout hopes so. He wanted to learn about the Trees. They allow a certain amount of travel, but it is not easy. Am I in need of a Tree?

Gale tries to come along, but seems to have gotten distracted.

The area with the tree in it is a different environment– it is grassy, not scrub and desert. It is holy to spirits, not the Goddess. Weirdly, [[Middlesea]] is confident that this is a place that is a Spirit– but it is not just the spirit of this place, it is the Spirit of the Tree places. Scout’s friend is clear that it is/was quite large. It’s been split up? It’s not all here? That’s very weird. It doesn’t feel violent that it is not all here, but it was definitely… yeah. Weird.

“Have their been troubles?”

“[[Messalani]]’s opinions not withstanding, the network is perfectly usable. It is somewhat more difficult than it has been in the past, but it is not Broken or Shattered in any way.”

The ecology of the area is hard to read, as it is poorly defined. It’s not in Yellow; it’s not in Green. Scout could, if he chose to, go to the Tree, and be in the area proper, rather than this part of the tree that is protruding. Scout spends 5 DI and takes a look at the Tree. That is definitely part of a very big spirit. Scout could make it an offering, and travel through the spirit to another Tree, or use Green magic without an offering, but that might be… not quite rude, but. Scout is fairly clear stepping into it without the rest of the group is not a good idea.

This point of contact is shrinking– very slowly. It’s smaller than when it was made, and will probably keep shrinking. By next Comet it may not survive; it needs reinforcing or it will get kicked out. Scout can’t tell clearly whether the shrinking is making it work less well. It’s definitely bigger than 20 DI, but I can’t see it all from here. It’s probably not as big as the [[Oasis]]? But it’s hard to tell from here.

Looking at where the Green goes, it looks like you could use Green Magic to cast passplant even if you don’t know passplant, to go to one of a number of places. It goes out of the country, but maybe not as far as Green? I don’t think so? Not exactly? 3 Analyze Green for 10s– it is mostly Nature rather than Alchemy. There is some… there was some Essence in the original creation, that has changed the Spirit? But the Green that is still active is mostly Nature.

<h2> Loot</h2>
<ul>
<li> +9 EPs
<li> +9 SPs
<li> one talisman of anti-scrying
<li> one +1 Dagger
<li> one chest of ninja gear
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Caravan Part 2

2026-06-20T00:00:49Z

Charles:

<h2>[[Cara]]van: Day 4</h2>

[Tortoise 18]

We have seen [[Talinda]] sneak into two tents, but not what she is doing. ([[Stella]] thinks Hawk Seller is also suspicious).

[[Managaratha]] wanders around looking for magical sigils, especially Talinda's birds. No spells on the birds right now. The merchant tents have different sigils, the military has all the same sigil. He also thinks that we should ask [[Lisetera]] for help because yellow is exactly what we need to watch invisible people.

[[Vidan]]'s thoughts from people-watching: [[Suvatra]] is clearly publicly important. She's not easily approachable in this context, as the Queen's Representative. Lisetera is just Lisetera-ing it up, being mildly eccentric and approachable and doing whatever.

We ask Lisetera for help. She can "do an unreality" to see what happened.

Stella talks to Fasanta - yes, she is aware Talinda snuck into her tent. She appreciates the concern.

At lunch, Lisetera comes over and casts a little mini-diorama of the tent. The flap to Fasanta's tent opens, and Talinda is inside and turns visible. They have tea, and talk about roses. Lisetera waves her hand - they talk about the history of the third queen of the second dynasty of the last comet. She keeps waving her hand and it keeps being random esoteric subjects. Too many defenses.

She tries another tack, with a different sort of spell (precog?) on things we want to know: there are reasonable odds that we catch someone that we think is an assassin - not someone we've met - but reasonable odds that we don't.

Stella wanders around to gather information, and gets 5 karma.
She hears:
<ul>
<li> Centaurs complaining about the drought
<li> "No, really, some time next week I'm going to meet my true love, the seer in the Golden Tower promised me"
<li> Two of the priests of Life in the military unit push her on branches - they mention that Talinda is Love's servant. Vestal is Life's servant. They don't know if there's a Lore's servant around, there might be, they're less obvious.
</ul>

Vestal is a name we haven't heard before. Ahah!

[[Gale]] gets that Vestal is in the merchant caravan somewhere, and Lieutenant Meskana is second in command of the two-leg military unit and Lieutenant Konstantine is in command of the centaur cavalry.

The two-leg unit is Captain Asan's but he is also in charge of the pair, so Meskana is dealing with day-to-day in the two-legs. Captain Asan is also the person who talks to Suvatra the most.

[[Diomarche]] talks to centaurs; one is from the herd next to him. He's heard a rumor that the cousins are spreading the dryness.

We remember to ask Alasfal (our temporary servant who we have forgotten about) about what she has noticed.
<ul>
<li> The military is more on alert than when we started. [[Slith]] are a possibility to be in the neighborhood at this point.
<li> The merchants have not made a ton of progress in making a presentation that will actually change anything (for anyone but them)
<li> She thinks something is up with [[Jabril]] and she can't tell what it is.
<li> She's not sure what Talinda is doing, but has noticed she's doing something. She agrees with Stella that Talinda is not a very good merchant.
<li> She does not think Vestal is up to anything, which is interesting in its own right.
<li> Suvatra and Lisetera are working together more than they appear.
</ul>

We decide that:
<ul>
<li> We are all against assassination unless the [[Maharani]] is actually working with the Breaker
<li> Stella doesn't like inefficient merchanting and Managaratha thinks heroes of the Comet should be rich, and no one is in favor of inefficient merchanting, so we are cautiously on that side.
<li> We are really unclear what is going on in the love plot plots (Talinda?, the Golden Seer true love plot) but that is clearly Gale's problem.
</ul>

We get Alasfal to organize a dinner party tomorrow to invite merchants to.

Vidan goes and sneaks around in his sandy cloak with some DI in witnessing and being supposed to be there. He sees the defenses on Suvatra's tent, which are decent, and maybe a little relevant? And Talinda is going to visit Merindal. That's important but not to the assassination. Vidan thinks she's Stella's opposition, but that's not right.

Managaratha dodders over to near Vestal and nods off.

Gale asks after the Seer in the Golden Tower. Nobody knows where the Golden Tower is, but they are someone to consult when one is on a quest. But people run into the Golden Tower even when they are not on a quest.

<h2>Day 5</h2>

[Tortoise 19]

Gale asks [[Dalin]] what Talinda is up to. She is a Feelings mage - that's how she trains her birds up. She uses that to make her birds do things better. She was wondering whether that would work on horses. (But that's clearly not what she talked about with everyone else. And why invisible?)

WAIT WHAT? -Managaratha

He talks to Talinda. She hasn't noticed anything weird with feelings. Has she accomplished what she wants to accomplish sneaking into everyone's tent? Yes.

No current spells on Dalin. Can Lisetera tell if that's what they actually talked about? Or was that just another bounce? She gets an unreal "merfolk gills or tails"?

Gale brings Stella - a large DI hammer to fix him. She thinks something very small was removed. Vidan does a detective conversational interrogation. Now he remembers that she cast some spells on him that he didn't remember before. Not forgotten, just made unimportant.

<h2>Lunch of Merchants</h2>

Stella makes her persuasion roll, with Vidan's assistance, and gets 8 successes.
<ul>
<li> Jabril is the most interested of the not-big-4.
<li> Vidan passes around contact information - Vestal trades in incense.
<li> People notice that Talinda and Jabril are paying more attention to the fact that Stella is the one making the spiel.
</ul>

(Laura now thinks Jabril is a secret Lore cultist of Allan).

Some people look suspiciously at Vestal when she says she's from the capital.

Vidan makes a good pitch for the final four after everyone else has left (Vestal followed by Gale). 8 successes of solid moving things forward.

Then Vidan talks to Suvatra - were this the Empire, here is my list of people who need background checks.

Vestal: merchants based in the city and the other merchants in the city think that is an odd statement. Make sure you do Vestal first.
<4 merchants>

Talinda: probably not involved in the problem we are discussing, but this one is obviously love.

The Captain rides up and says there's a force of slith between us and the capital, and they need to discuss it.

<h2>Loot:</h2>
<ul>
<li> +8 EPs, +10 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Caravan

2026-06-19T23:58:29Z

Charles: /* Day Three */

==Recap==
To summarize our to-do list, as it's been a while:

* ''[[Diomarche]]'s Quest'': Diomarche encounters Ekarna, a fellow centaur from his Herd, who is in town to sell leatherwork due to poor crop yields caused by a drought. The [[Maharani]] hasn’t been helping with the drought, and Diomarche is advised to visit his mother back at the Herd.
* ''[[Gale]]'s Quest'': Gale is approached by [[Dubrecht]], who seeks assistance in flying through the mountains to find the Phoenix’s Nest to obtain feathers. Dubrecht consulted a Mage in the Golden Tower, known for her scrying abilities, for guidance on this quest.
* ''[[Scout]]'s Quest'': Scout is approached by [[Messalani]], a high elf merchant, who requests his shamanic skills to help fix the Tree Network, a transportation network run by elves that is not functioning properly. The network, which has a divine component, is crucial for maintaining trade and communication.
* ''[[Nesh]]'s Quest'': Nesh is confronted by Virga, an officer of the law, who is investigating why a group of cataurs had a magic item pointing to Nesh. Nesh speculates that the [[Oasis]] might want him. Virga casts investigative spells on Nesh, suggesting there’s more to Nesh’s connection to the Oasis.
* ''[[Stella]]'s Quest'': Stella meets Hama Aliki, a priest of the Goddess, who discusses the organization of the Merchant [[Varna]]. Hama suggests that Stella should consider aligning more closely with the religious practices of the land, as the Lady of Lore is interested in developing the Merchant Varna.
* ''[[Managaratha]]'s Quest'': Managaratha discusses with Vikarna Vesta about disturbances in Feelings magic, indicating something is off with how emotions are being affected by magic. The disturbances are subtle but noticeable, suggesting a potential larger issue.
* ''[[Vidan]]'s Quest'': Vidan is informed by [[Suvatra]] about an imminent attempt to remove the Maharani from power, possibly involving violence. Suvatra suspects the Life faction might be involved, though she lacks definitive proof. Vidan is tasked with investigating and preventing this potential coup.

==A Day in Habani==

Loric Assan introduces Alasfal, who will "help us with packing". We will be leaving (tomorrow morning) at dawn. Alasfal starts packing our stuff.

Nesh checks with Virga - is there anything else he needs to do? Well, he does still want to investigate why the cataurs are hunting him, but he can't bring Nesh in for questioning now that the Maharani has summoned him.

Diomarche checks with Ekarna about details about the drought. It's mostly north of the Queen's River, and mostly in the east. No Blue Mage hired to fix it.

Gale uses her pirate tael to get everyone (including Managaratha and Scout) court clothes, with advice from Alasfal, who seems to be a generally skillful Servant. (Gale thinks she can add one of the Lady Necklaces for her costume.) We also arrange to sell the other spare boat for 1.5 loot.

She also meets up with Dubrecht again to say we won't be here in a week but will come back.

Nobody gets kidnapped before morning.

==Day One==

[Tortoise 15]

We join the caravan in the morning. [[Lisetera]] and Suvatra are both in the caravan. (Loric Assan is in charge of it.) It looks like it's two army units - infantry and centaurs. Technically, the army unit is the Maharani's guards, and the merchant caravan has joined up with it to travel, as long as they can keep up.

Hama speaks in Stella's head. That matter she had told Stella about - there are a number of merchants traveling with the group. The four going to make presentations and support to Her Majesty:

* Marindal Lamon - jeweler
* [[Dalin]] Jaseer - horse merchant
* Quartz (a dwarf) - weaponsmith
* Fasanta Dimar - selling papers and ink

If Stella can help and make sure they go well, that would be appreciated.

There are also some other named people, mostly in the merchant group:
* Mingdar is the supply sergeant
* [[Talinda]], a seller of hunting birds (hawks and falcons)
* [[Jabril]], a cloth merchant
* Lisetera
* Suvatra

Stella starts chatting with the merchants, and gets a better sense of the Merchant Varna. There are no guilds here - it's not '''legal''' to have groups of merchants operating together in that way.

Gale also chats with people - there are monsters out here too, not just bandits. The Roc is the scariest of the monsters. Also unreality effects. The random Yellow effects seem more frequent here than in the other countries so far.

Vidan talks to Lisetera and Suvatra.

Stella casts Camp, which is super comfy. Alasfal is a little fretful that she isn't doing her job.

(That night, Nesh spots Talinda sneaking into someone else's tent. (Dalin Jaseer)

==Day Two==

[Tortoise 16]

Day two, Stella talks more to the four merchants she should be helping. Quartz is glad to talk to someone who knows about forges. Fasanta is the most interested in the political ramifications of the change that Hama wants. Quartz is on personal business. Dalin just seems too young to be talking to the Maharani. Marindal is taking advantage of the Varna structure and restructuring if need be.

Talinda and Jabril also have things to present - Jabril has cloth, Talinda has birds - hawks, falcons.

Diomarche talks to Mingdar.

Nesh looks for people paying particular attention to him - there don't seem to be any. He thinks there's probably some illusions here and there, but not the way the city was.

Gale puts together a card game - most of the merchants are interested. The game is Gale, Nesh, Marindal, Dalin, Fasanta, Talinda, and Jabril.

Nesh does best. Dalin is close behind. Marindal, Fasanta, and Jabril are even, Gale loses a little, and Talinda gets crushed.

Gale notes that both Dalin and Jabril are up for flirting - Jabril is older and would know it for a pleasant game. She flirts with Dalin, on the theory that he has more of a plot she might learn about, but not enough to learn his secrets.

(Fasanta is Night Two's sneak)

==Day Three==

[Tortoise 17]

We are starting to realize that we are missing the plot. Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing, and gets seventeen successes. Good heavens.

Stella was ''asked'' to fix: "Make sure they have solid presentations to give to Her Majesty." With the exception of Marindal, they mostly don't.

* Dalin is just going to get nervous and flub it.
* Quartz will give her good weapons but will not move the agenda.
* Fasanta has the right skills but the Queen doesn't care about stationery. (Needs to spin it in the war-relevant way.)

In addition - it's not that DI is specifically shielding something, but something that Stella would think needs fixing is something another priest of the Goddess is actively working on. So her successes have crushed any actual resistance, but not the general NDA that it's a Goddess priest's plan. The Goddess gives Stella a hint, though:
* Vidan has been presented with a thing that he's supposed to be fixing...

Wait, the assassin is coming with us? Nesh is the only one who's noticed anyone, and reminds us Talinda has been sneaking around.

Vidan asks Alasfal to get him a cloak suitable for sneaking around the desert.

Stella and Diomarche talk to the supply sergeant. He hasn't even heard of a supply chain, so they can see how the ability to order 200 swords at once rather than knowing twenty smiths in different cities would be useful. He thinks durable high quality paper is good, not fancy ink. Stella realizes that "have a supply chain" is the change Hama is talking about and it would actually be helpful in the war against the [[Slith]], not just politically useful for merchants. So now maybe we have an opinion on the plot. (Perhaps we should also figure out the reasons against it to be fully informed.)

Vidan watches Talinda. She invisibly sneaks into Quartz's tent and then back into her own. Oh - the reason Nesh noticed her is because she's invisible, and he didn't realize that.

Perhaps we will give up for the moment and have Scout follow her tomorrow.

===Loot===
* 1.5 loot for selling the other spare ship
* 8 EPS
* 10 Skill Points
* Court Clothes for Everyone

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Caravan

2026-06-19T23:57:56Z

Charles: /* Day Two */

==Recap==
To summarize our to-do list, as it's been a while:

* ''[[Diomarche]]'s Quest'': Diomarche encounters Ekarna, a fellow centaur from his Herd, who is in town to sell leatherwork due to poor crop yields caused by a drought. The [[Maharani]] hasn’t been helping with the drought, and Diomarche is advised to visit his mother back at the Herd.
* ''[[Gale]]'s Quest'': Gale is approached by [[Dubrecht]], who seeks assistance in flying through the mountains to find the Phoenix’s Nest to obtain feathers. Dubrecht consulted a Mage in the Golden Tower, known for her scrying abilities, for guidance on this quest.
* ''[[Scout]]'s Quest'': Scout is approached by [[Messalani]], a high elf merchant, who requests his shamanic skills to help fix the Tree Network, a transportation network run by elves that is not functioning properly. The network, which has a divine component, is crucial for maintaining trade and communication.
* ''[[Nesh]]'s Quest'': Nesh is confronted by Virga, an officer of the law, who is investigating why a group of cataurs had a magic item pointing to Nesh. Nesh speculates that the [[Oasis]] might want him. Virga casts investigative spells on Nesh, suggesting there’s more to Nesh’s connection to the Oasis.
* ''[[Stella]]'s Quest'': Stella meets Hama Aliki, a priest of the Goddess, who discusses the organization of the Merchant [[Varna]]. Hama suggests that Stella should consider aligning more closely with the religious practices of the land, as the Lady of Lore is interested in developing the Merchant Varna.
* ''[[Managaratha]]'s Quest'': Managaratha discusses with Vikarna Vesta about disturbances in Feelings magic, indicating something is off with how emotions are being affected by magic. The disturbances are subtle but noticeable, suggesting a potential larger issue.
* ''[[Vidan]]'s Quest'': Vidan is informed by [[Suvatra]] about an imminent attempt to remove the Maharani from power, possibly involving violence. Suvatra suspects the Life faction might be involved, though she lacks definitive proof. Vidan is tasked with investigating and preventing this potential coup.

==A Day in Habani==

Loric Assan introduces Alasfal, who will "help us with packing". We will be leaving (tomorrow morning) at dawn. Alasfal starts packing our stuff.

Nesh checks with Virga - is there anything else he needs to do? Well, he does still want to investigate why the cataurs are hunting him, but he can't bring Nesh in for questioning now that the Maharani has summoned him.

Diomarche checks with Ekarna about details about the drought. It's mostly north of the Queen's River, and mostly in the east. No Blue Mage hired to fix it.

Gale uses her pirate tael to get everyone (including Managaratha and Scout) court clothes, with advice from Alasfal, who seems to be a generally skillful Servant. (Gale thinks she can add one of the Lady Necklaces for her costume.) We also arrange to sell the other spare boat for 1.5 loot.

She also meets up with Dubrecht again to say we won't be here in a week but will come back.

Nobody gets kidnapped before morning.

==Day One==

[Tortoise 15]

We join the caravan in the morning. [[Lisetera]] and Suvatra are both in the caravan. (Loric Assan is in charge of it.) It looks like it's two army units - infantry and centaurs. Technically, the army unit is the Maharani's guards, and the merchant caravan has joined up with it to travel, as long as they can keep up.

Hama speaks in Stella's head. That matter she had told Stella about - there are a number of merchants traveling with the group. The four going to make presentations and support to Her Majesty:

* Marindal Lamon - jeweler
* [[Dalin]] Jaseer - horse merchant
* Quartz (a dwarf) - weaponsmith
* Fasanta Dimar - selling papers and ink

If Stella can help and make sure they go well, that would be appreciated.

There are also some other named people, mostly in the merchant group:
* Mingdar is the supply sergeant
* [[Talinda]], a seller of hunting birds (hawks and falcons)
* [[Jabril]], a cloth merchant
* Lisetera
* Suvatra

Stella starts chatting with the merchants, and gets a better sense of the Merchant Varna. There are no guilds here - it's not '''legal''' to have groups of merchants operating together in that way.

Gale also chats with people - there are monsters out here too, not just bandits. The Roc is the scariest of the monsters. Also unreality effects. The random Yellow effects seem more frequent here than in the other countries so far.

Vidan talks to Lisetera and Suvatra.

Stella casts Camp, which is super comfy. Alasfal is a little fretful that she isn't doing her job.

(That night, Nesh spots Talinda sneaking into someone else's tent. (Dalin Jaseer)

==Day Two==

[Tortoise 16]

Day two, Stella talks more to the four merchants she should be helping. Quartz is glad to talk to someone who knows about forges. Fasanta is the most interested in the political ramifications of the change that Hama wants. Quartz is on personal business. Dalin just seems too young to be talking to the Maharani. Marindal is taking advantage of the Varna structure and restructuring if need be.

Talinda and Jabril also have things to present - Jabril has cloth, Talinda has birds - hawks, falcons.

Diomarche talks to Mingdar.

Nesh looks for people paying particular attention to him - there don't seem to be any. He thinks there's probably some illusions here and there, but not the way the city was.

Gale puts together a card game - most of the merchants are interested. The game is Gale, Nesh, Marindal, Dalin, Fasanta, Talinda, and Jabril.

Nesh does best. Dalin is close behind. Marindal, Fasanta, and Jabril are even, Gale loses a little, and Talinda gets crushed.

Gale notes that both Dalin and Jabril are up for flirting - Jabril is older and would know it for a pleasant game. She flirts with Dalin, on the theory that he has more of a plot she might learn about, but not enough to learn his secrets.

(Fasanta is Night Two's sneak)

==Day Three==

We are starting to realize that we are missing the plot. Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing, and gets seventeen successes. Good heavens.

Stella was ''asked'' to fix: "Make sure they have solid presentations to give to Her Majesty." With the exception of Marindal, they mostly don't.

* Dalin is just going to get nervous and flub it.
* Quartz will give her good weapons but will not move the agenda.
* Fasanta has the right skills but the Queen doesn't care about stationery. (Needs to spin it in the war-relevant way.)

In addition - it's not that DI is specifically shielding something, but something that Stella would think needs fixing is something another priest of the Goddess is actively working on. So her successes have crushed any actual resistance, but not the general NDA that it's a Goddess priest's plan. The Goddess gives Stella a hint, though:
* Vidan has been presented with a thing that he's supposed to be fixing...

Wait, the assassin is coming with us? Nesh is the only one who's noticed anyone, and reminds us Talinda has been sneaking around.

Vidan asks Alasfal to get him a cloak suitable for sneaking around the desert.

Stella and Diomarche talk to the supply sergeant. He hasn't even heard of a supply chain, so they can see how the ability to order 200 swords at once rather than knowing twenty smiths in different cities would be useful. He thinks durable high quality paper is good, not fancy ink. Stella realizes that "have a supply chain" is the change Hama is talking about and it would actually be helpful in the war against the [[Slith]], not just politically useful for merchants. So now maybe we have an opinion on the plot. (Perhaps we should also figure out the reasons against it to be fully informed.)

Vidan watches Talinda. She invisibly sneaks into Quartz's tent and then back into her own. Oh - the reason Nesh noticed her is because she's invisible, and he didn't realize that.

Perhaps we will give up for the moment and have Scout follow her tomorrow.

===Loot===
* 1.5 loot for selling the other spare ship
* 8 EPS
* 10 Skill Points
* Court Clothes for Everyone

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Caravan

2026-06-19T23:57:33Z

Charles: /* Day One */

==Recap==
To summarize our to-do list, as it's been a while:

* ''[[Diomarche]]'s Quest'': Diomarche encounters Ekarna, a fellow centaur from his Herd, who is in town to sell leatherwork due to poor crop yields caused by a drought. The [[Maharani]] hasn’t been helping with the drought, and Diomarche is advised to visit his mother back at the Herd.
* ''[[Gale]]'s Quest'': Gale is approached by [[Dubrecht]], who seeks assistance in flying through the mountains to find the Phoenix’s Nest to obtain feathers. Dubrecht consulted a Mage in the Golden Tower, known for her scrying abilities, for guidance on this quest.
* ''[[Scout]]'s Quest'': Scout is approached by [[Messalani]], a high elf merchant, who requests his shamanic skills to help fix the Tree Network, a transportation network run by elves that is not functioning properly. The network, which has a divine component, is crucial for maintaining trade and communication.
* ''[[Nesh]]'s Quest'': Nesh is confronted by Virga, an officer of the law, who is investigating why a group of cataurs had a magic item pointing to Nesh. Nesh speculates that the [[Oasis]] might want him. Virga casts investigative spells on Nesh, suggesting there’s more to Nesh’s connection to the Oasis.
* ''[[Stella]]'s Quest'': Stella meets Hama Aliki, a priest of the Goddess, who discusses the organization of the Merchant [[Varna]]. Hama suggests that Stella should consider aligning more closely with the religious practices of the land, as the Lady of Lore is interested in developing the Merchant Varna.
* ''[[Managaratha]]'s Quest'': Managaratha discusses with Vikarna Vesta about disturbances in Feelings magic, indicating something is off with how emotions are being affected by magic. The disturbances are subtle but noticeable, suggesting a potential larger issue.
* ''[[Vidan]]'s Quest'': Vidan is informed by [[Suvatra]] about an imminent attempt to remove the Maharani from power, possibly involving violence. Suvatra suspects the Life faction might be involved, though she lacks definitive proof. Vidan is tasked with investigating and preventing this potential coup.

==A Day in Habani==

Loric Assan introduces Alasfal, who will "help us with packing". We will be leaving (tomorrow morning) at dawn. Alasfal starts packing our stuff.

Nesh checks with Virga - is there anything else he needs to do? Well, he does still want to investigate why the cataurs are hunting him, but he can't bring Nesh in for questioning now that the Maharani has summoned him.

Diomarche checks with Ekarna about details about the drought. It's mostly north of the Queen's River, and mostly in the east. No Blue Mage hired to fix it.

Gale uses her pirate tael to get everyone (including Managaratha and Scout) court clothes, with advice from Alasfal, who seems to be a generally skillful Servant. (Gale thinks she can add one of the Lady Necklaces for her costume.) We also arrange to sell the other spare boat for 1.5 loot.

She also meets up with Dubrecht again to say we won't be here in a week but will come back.

Nobody gets kidnapped before morning.

==Day One==

[Tortoise 15]

We join the caravan in the morning. [[Lisetera]] and Suvatra are both in the caravan. (Loric Assan is in charge of it.) It looks like it's two army units - infantry and centaurs. Technically, the army unit is the Maharani's guards, and the merchant caravan has joined up with it to travel, as long as they can keep up.

Hama speaks in Stella's head. That matter she had told Stella about - there are a number of merchants traveling with the group. The four going to make presentations and support to Her Majesty:

* Marindal Lamon - jeweler
* [[Dalin]] Jaseer - horse merchant
* Quartz (a dwarf) - weaponsmith
* Fasanta Dimar - selling papers and ink

If Stella can help and make sure they go well, that would be appreciated.

There are also some other named people, mostly in the merchant group:
* Mingdar is the supply sergeant
* [[Talinda]], a seller of hunting birds (hawks and falcons)
* [[Jabril]], a cloth merchant
* Lisetera
* Suvatra

Stella starts chatting with the merchants, and gets a better sense of the Merchant Varna. There are no guilds here - it's not '''legal''' to have groups of merchants operating together in that way.

Gale also chats with people - there are monsters out here too, not just bandits. The Roc is the scariest of the monsters. Also unreality effects. The random Yellow effects seem more frequent here than in the other countries so far.

Vidan talks to Lisetera and Suvatra.

Stella casts Camp, which is super comfy. Alasfal is a little fretful that she isn't doing her job.

(That night, Nesh spots Talinda sneaking into someone else's tent. (Dalin Jaseer)

==Day Two==

Day two, Stella talks more to the four merchants she should be helping. Quartz is glad to talk to someone who knows about forges. Fasanta is the most interested in the political ramifications of the change that Hama wants. Quartz is on personal business. Dalin just seems too young to be talking to the Maharani. Marindal is taking advantage of the Varna structure and restructuring if need be.

Talinda and Jabril also have things to present - Jabril has cloth, Talinda has birds - hawks, falcons.

Diomarche talks to Mingdar.

Nesh looks for people paying particular attention to him - there don't seem to be any. He thinks there's probably some illusions here and there, but not the way the city was.

Gale puts together a card game - most of the merchants are interested. The game is Gale, Nesh, Marindal, Dalin, Fasanta, Talinda, and Jabril.

Nesh does best. Dalin is close behind. Marindal, Fasanta, and Jabril are even, Gale loses a little, and Talinda gets crushed.

Gale notes that both Dalin and Jabril are up for flirting - Jabril is older and would know it for a pleasant game. She flirts with Dalin, on the theory that he has more of a plot she might learn about, but not enough to learn his secrets.

(Fasanta is Night Two's sneak)

==Day Three==

We are starting to realize that we are missing the plot. Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing, and gets seventeen successes. Good heavens.

Stella was ''asked'' to fix: "Make sure they have solid presentations to give to Her Majesty." With the exception of Marindal, they mostly don't.

* Dalin is just going to get nervous and flub it.
* Quartz will give her good weapons but will not move the agenda.
* Fasanta has the right skills but the Queen doesn't care about stationery. (Needs to spin it in the war-relevant way.)

In addition - it's not that DI is specifically shielding something, but something that Stella would think needs fixing is something another priest of the Goddess is actively working on. So her successes have crushed any actual resistance, but not the general NDA that it's a Goddess priest's plan. The Goddess gives Stella a hint, though:
* Vidan has been presented with a thing that he's supposed to be fixing...

Wait, the assassin is coming with us? Nesh is the only one who's noticed anyone, and reminds us Talinda has been sneaking around.

Vidan asks Alasfal to get him a cloak suitable for sneaking around the desert.

Stella and Diomarche talk to the supply sergeant. He hasn't even heard of a supply chain, so they can see how the ability to order 200 swords at once rather than knowing twenty smiths in different cities would be useful. He thinks durable high quality paper is good, not fancy ink. Stella realizes that "have a supply chain" is the change Hama is talking about and it would actually be helpful in the war against the [[Slith]], not just politically useful for merchants. So now maybe we have an opinion on the plot. (Perhaps we should also figure out the reasons against it to be fully informed.)

Vidan watches Talinda. She invisibly sneaks into Quartz's tent and then back into her own. Oh - the reason Nesh noticed her is because she's invisible, and he didn't realize that.

Perhaps we will give up for the moment and have Scout follow her tomorrow.

===Loot===
* 1.5 loot for selling the other spare ship
* 8 EPS
* 10 Skill Points
* Court Clothes for Everyone

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Welcome to Jabar

2026-06-19T23:55:26Z

Charles: /* The Next Morning: Diomarche's Quest */

==Entirely Without Incident==

We head off towards Jabar!

With the protection of Lissa Tera, we have a smooth (and fairly boring, according to [[Gale]] and [[Scout]]) two weeks across the ocean, until we are a few

We get a briefing on Yellow from Lissa Tera.
There are four [[Varna]]. Nobility Priest Merchant, Farmer (everyone else). Ranked in vaguely that order; there’s some overlap at the edges. All Priests (well all the Priests of the Goddess…) are in the Priest caste, plus mages, scholars, philosophers… things like that. Kids can move between Varna; it’s hard for adults in the three major Varna to move, although Farmer’s can be promoted.

There are 5 Major Rivers. The Queen’s, the Great River, The New River, sometimes called the Fifth River (the Lady made it). The Masahanalta, and the Merani. Major ports where the rivers meet the sea. Three High priests (Love’s Servant, etc.) have three cities near the mountains. [[Diomarche]]’s Herd is in the northeast. There are not many major passes– just one far to the South, though it’s possible to get across elsewhere.

Lots of Illusions, lots of people will pretend to know more than they do. Don’t be rude. People speak Jabaran! She offers to teach some Jabaran.

We’ll want to get to the [[Maharani]]’s city eventually, but she hears it’s under attack by slith, so better to go by land than by boat.

[Tortoise 13]

[[Managaratha]] wakes up, and [[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] hear something thump the bottom of the boat.
Lissa Tera thinks probably slith, since she can’t see anything under the boat.

Gale gives everyone water breathing and underwater action.

The slith come over the side.

Vidan and Stella put a lot of them in timeout, but a named slith decloaks and starts waking them up.
It’s a tough fight, since they all have dodge pools, but we end up killing about half the mook slith. The named slith takes several sets of death checks but escapes over the side, and we can’t defeat his stealth rolls. ([[Lisetera]] says there is an invasion going up the Queen's River and they are fighting in the northern waters, so it was a little surprising this far south but not super surprising.)

==In Jabar==

The cataurs go out into the night. Er, day. Diomarche does the Leaving Ritual of their herds with Rashar and the other two.

Scout nudges Gale to look at the Magic Map. The X in Yellow is just north of the source of the Fifth River.

We sail north, and reach Habani by the end of the day. We get rooms at an inn and Lisetera goes to check in.

Vidan needs to put the three Markers from the Empire in Queen’s City, Love’s Citadel, Life’s Palace, Lore’s Towers.

Scout notes that our party battlemap has shrunk to not larger than the boat, probably because we spent so long in an Unreality bubble on the boat. No wandering a neighborhood away now.

The area is kind of savannah-like. Scout does some ecology analysis, and thinks there are some irrigation canals from the river, but the general area is dry. There aren’t any forests or jungles in the area. There is farming of olives and grapes and vines and that sort of thing.

Scout notices that there are more elves here than in most of the other Zones except for Green.

Stella gets a nudge from the Goddess; there is a List of Things to fix:
* The list coming in tomorrow is in about the proper order, least to most.
* Yours is not necessarily something that needs fixing, it is something that you should know about, and should think about whether it needs fixing. There are arguments both ways.
* You suppose Scout’s should be fixed.
* Gale’s is less something that needs fixing, but an Opportunity.
* Managaratha’s is definitely a problem; it’s really in some ways the biggest, except maybe for Vidan’s. But what fixing them means is not necessarily clear. They’re definitely divine resistance to looking into either of those (or yours for that matter). It’s not Defended, per se, but you’re getting less than you should.
* [[Nesh]] is probably getting something, but who knows.
* Diomarche’s should be fixed, but is probably the least major of them. But he should do it.
* The stuff Vidan remembered should be dealt with, but it doesn’t have to be today.

==The Next Morning: Diomarche's Quest==

[Tortoise 14]

We are shown to a table set for eight. Hmm, that’s suspicious. The eighth setting is appropriate for a centaur (as is Diomarche’s). Diomarche recognizes her as Ekarna, from his Herd. She is not high status; her job is a… crafter, more or less. This is far away from her usual area, so that’s unusual.

Diomarche goes to talk to her as she is inquiring about getting a room. She seems happy to see him. He tells her a bit about Middlesea, and that he and his companions are spreading the word; she assumes that we must be paladins, which Scout thinks is hilarious. Diomarche introduces her to Stella as a Priest of the Goddess, at which she becomes more polite.

She’s in town to sell some of her leatherwork, because the crops haven’t been doing well. (His mom is still back at the herd, so Diomarche should go see her). The Maharani hasn't been helping because of the drought.

Stella thinks she’s putting a better face on things than is warranted.

==Gale’s Quest==

A gentleman comes in. He spots Gale, and comes to the table. He’s moderately nicely dressed (at least compared to Ekarna…) He looks at Ekarna and says “If I might…” She lets him take her place.

“Would it be Captain Gale?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. I am [[Dubrecht]]; I am looking for assistance in flying through the mountains (not past the mountains, around the mountains) and I hope you would be able to help me on your quest.”

“I think that is doable.”

“Oh good.”

“When are you going?”

“I need some time, but in the next month?”

“What is your quest?”

“I’m looking for the Phoenix’s Nest, so that I can get a few feathers.”

Vidan asks whether finding the Nest is the quest, or if the Feathers are the quest.

Scout asks what he needs them for. “For my quest!” For whom? “For me!” Scout looks at him. Definitely a half-Pooka. Aha. That explains it. Scout becomes much more interested in helping him.

Who did Dubrecht consult with about his Quest? The Mage in the Golden Tower. She’s well-respected for that sort of thing, she’s certainly expensive enough. It’s hard to scry for the Phoenix.

We make arrangements to meet with him in a week.

==Scout’s Quest==
A high elf lady comes in, and glares at him, and he smiles and bows and leaves.

“Scout, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I understand you are a shaman of some skill?”

“Yes.”

“[[Messalani]]. I am one of the more important merchants in town. None of the Rulers in Green are responding to my requests for help. The Tree network is having troubles; it will need some Shamanism, as well as Green magic, which I can provide. With the tree network down (not down, that’s strong) it would have taken some time. ”

“I’m not aware of the Tree Network and what it does, so I’ll need to see it.”

“It’s a transportation network run by elves, that we take advantage of. It’s been here since before the last Comet (which is when I got here), so it’s quite well established. It has mostly functioned well, which it is not working well at present.”

“Is it just in Yellow?”

“There are three to the [[Melmane]] ports, there’s a different network from Melmane to the other continent.”

Managaratha is pretty sure it was established two Comets ago.

“Is it Alchemy, Nature, Essence…?”

“All three, but at root it is Nature. But it has a Divine component, but I’m not familiar with that and it’s difficult to find anyone to deal with it. Priests here are more likely to try to destroy it; that’s happened to trees on occasion.”

Messalina is Merchant Varna, she trades, both inside and overseas to keep the economy of the country running. The Great River is where the merchant Varna is most respected, so she tends to travel there. The Tree Network is throughout the lands, but less so in the Priests’ cities.

As she is finishing describing that…

==Nesh’s Quest==
A man comes in. Messalina looks up and there’s a level of assessment. Possibly he’s low level Priest Varna. Nesh is about to escort Nesh out

“I am Virga.”

He pulls out a Nesh-finding compass, and puts it on the table. It’s spinning, but then he says something and it points at Nesh.

“Can you explain why a group of cataurs, coming through our territory, had a magic item that points at you?”

“Not particularly. I think the [[Oasis]] wants me?”

“The OASIS wants you?”

“I mean, I don’t know why…”

Scout says “sorry, who are you?”

“I am Virga, I am an officer of the law.”

With whom?

“For the city.”

“I don’t suppose we could see the Ruler of the city? We have important missives from the West.”

We give him a [[Tarn Evidence Packet]]; he casts a Yellow spell to translate it and reads it quickly. There are teams of cataurs searching for Nesh, they attacked Middlesea, are they connected?

Well, not that we know of. Nesh says they might be hunting the [[Buccaneer]]? Hmm. He thinks that’s unlikely. The Inspector asks if he’ll drop his defenses to allow some investigative spells. Nesh agrees.

He casts a Yellow spell; Managaratha thinks it’s a Detect Broken of some kind.

As he’s casting a second Yellow spell, someone taps his shoulder…
==Stella’s Quest==
He gets up and bows to the woman who is sitting down, and says he will speak with Nesh later. She appears to be a priest of the Goddess, wearing a Holy symbol. She sits down and says “Good morning, my name is Hama Aliki, I am Lore’s Servant, and I was hoping I could speak with Stella about certain matters.”

“I understand you have connections with Red and Orange merchant Guilds.”

“Some. I am not a member of any Guild. I serve the Goddess, but I know many in the Guilds.”

She considers that a minute or two, and says “[[The Lady]] of Lore is… interested… in developing the Merchant Varna. And hopes to speak with someone who can provide information about how the Priest Varna can assist them in being better organized. Our understanding is that the Guild is quite well organized. It sounds like you perhaps have less understanding of it…?”

“I have knowledge, but I am not a member, of the Guild.”

Ah, then she is happy to discuss further if she has the requisite knowledge.

“I understand priests in your land do not pursue one of the Three Faces specifically.”

“Not generally.”

“That is something you should consider if you are going to be here long; the Lady of Lore would be happy to speak with you about that.”

She is the most aware of any of the people who have come in yet that she is in a mechanic, and that she had intended to speak to YOU, and perhaps had more to say, and is not convinced she wants to say more to the group because of the mechanic.

Talking generally, it seems the Merchant Varna is not organized the way the Guild is organized. The country is organized, but the Merchants are not. The Nobles are in charge; the Church is next, and could potentially… they can hold their own against the Nobles most of the time. Although the fact that they’re divided into three makes it harder. The three Ladies are bigger than any of the Nobles besides the Maharani. It’s almost feudalish in terms of descending down levels of nobles out. The priests are less organized. Love, Lore, Life; under the three Ladies are other priests. They’re not technically hierarchical, but it’s implied. Non-actual-priests of the Priest Varna are less important than most of the priests (according to her). Merchants are flat at the bottom. Then there are the regular people.

==Managaratha’s Quest==
She looks up as someone else comes into the room and heads in her direction, and she says “I believe my time is up”.

“Oh have we met?”

“No.” And

“But I have.”

“Of course you are. Did I not tell you that Purple is dangerous, Did I not tell you that Yellow was safer? Purple might be more accurate, but even so!”

“Vicarana Vesta. Do you remember having met me before?”

“No. It’s a big one. I think I’m about half burned out.”

“Then maybe you are less useful than I had hoped.”

“Nonetheless, I have been monitoring the use of Magics, as you had suggested, and you are correct that Something is Off with Feelings magic. It is not major; I would not have noticed had I not been looking out for it. Spells are not yet going awry more often, but it is enough to notice if you are watching. Which I have been, since you asked me to.

I have found the thing that you asked me to look for, and what should I do about it?”

“Well, we have received a prophecy that we should deal with this, so it’s good that you have come to us.”

“How is your Yellow theory?”

“At the moment I’m pretty good at Yellow.”

“You mean Illusion, you can’t do Feelings, right?”

“Yes.”

“How to put this in Illusion terms, or non-magic terms. Hmm. The best analogy I have at present. Think that you are living in a house, and you know the house, but suddenly at night there are new noises. That is about all I have at present. There are tremors through Feelings magic, which make the Feelings different. Different is not right. Flavor the Feelings perhaps.”

“Is this worldwide, or just in Jabar?”

I have not looked elsewhere; that is an interesting question. I could attempt to investigate that if you think that is a matter that would be useful to know to resolve the problem.

“I’m not sure it’s urgent, but it could tell the difference between a local ritual, or the Breaker trying to change the nature of Magic.”

“It’s everywhere in jabar I have been. It’s not something I would expect anyone to notice without looking. I have mentioned it to a few other Mages that, well, in one case she said she had noticed it but thought it was because she was sick. The others claimed it was not changing.”

I could get to Melmane,
==Vidan’s Quest==
As he is finishing that up, [[Suvatra]] shows up.

“Vikarna, I was not expecting to see you here.”

“My apologies, Lady, I will make way for you of course.”

She sits.

“Vidan, yes. I am pleased you have arrived.” She looks at the line of people, and puts us in a Cone of Silence.

“So. I believe the first pass will be coming to a head shortly.”

“First pass?”

“At attempting to remove the Maharani. The war is going poorly. I believe that is at least in part due to the lack of support that Her Majesty is getting from other sources. She’s getting the brunt. I believe there will be a move within the next month, possibly the next few weeks, to remove her. I expect that will be violent rather than political, and I expect the Church will be heavily involved. There was a time I thought you had better connections in the Church than I did; I’m not convinced of that now, but you are the one I find most plausible to assist me in this matter. Possibly simply because you are not local and therefore are more trustable. Possibly because you are not invested in any particular Maharani.”

“Is there any evidence of the Broken in the Conspiracy?”

“Not that I know of; there could be instigators or associates who are Bent, but I believe it is more an internal fight. I am not willing at this time to point at any one person as definitely in the conspiracy. They are sufficiently well guarded against scrying and other investigations that I do not have proof with which to charge any one of significant political import. The easiest way to get proof would be to find an assassin who survived their attempt, but I do not intend to endanger the Maharani in order to catch such an assassin. We will try to discover what we can if that happens, but I would prefer no attempt will be made.”

“From your message, it sounds like the first attempt will come from Lore?”

“I don’t believe Lore wants to remove the Maharani; Lore wants to weaken the Maharani because Lore wants to weaken the Nobility. And I believe Lore has begun those moves.”

Vidan frowns.

“But the directed attack on the Maharani does not come from Lore.”

“Where then is most likely?”

“I believe it is Life, but do not repeat that; I will disavow any such accusation. She is certainly working with others in the Nobility if she is organizing this; she was Noble of birth, and her family is close in line should the Maharani’s family fall. So given the combination of power involved and possible beneficiaries, she is my most plausible candidate. But whether she is assisting others or the motivator, that I don’t have a good feel for.”

Vidan thinks about whether there’s an obvious heir. (The prince in Middlesea is a nephew.) She has two heirs, a daughter. Passage of rulership is more flexible. KS: Succession Law tells him that the Maharani could name an heir. If an heir has not been named, then the Council of Nobles will discuss what the Maharani’s choice would likely have been. With political shenanigans likely.

==And then...==
A gentleman comes in, and bows to Suvatra.

“I am Captain Loric Assan. I am a member of the Maharani’s personal guard. I understand you are the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]]?”

“We are.”

“The Maharani commands your presence in the capital at once. I will accompany you there. Welcome to Jabar.”

===Loot:===
* +1 Racial Schtick
* +20 SPs

Welcome to Jabar

2026-06-19T22:34:37Z

Charles: /* Entirely Without Incident */

==Entirely Without Incident==

We head off towards Jabar!

With the protection of Lissa Tera, we have a smooth (and fairly boring, according to [[Gale]] and [[Scout]]) two weeks across the ocean, until we are a few

We get a briefing on Yellow from Lissa Tera.
There are four [[Varna]]. Nobility Priest Merchant, Farmer (everyone else). Ranked in vaguely that order; there’s some overlap at the edges. All Priests (well all the Priests of the Goddess…) are in the Priest caste, plus mages, scholars, philosophers… things like that. Kids can move between Varna; it’s hard for adults in the three major Varna to move, although Farmer’s can be promoted.

There are 5 Major Rivers. The Queen’s, the Great River, The New River, sometimes called the Fifth River (the Lady made it). The Masahanalta, and the Merani. Major ports where the rivers meet the sea. Three High priests (Love’s Servant, etc.) have three cities near the mountains. [[Diomarche]]’s Herd is in the northeast. There are not many major passes– just one far to the South, though it’s possible to get across elsewhere.

Lots of Illusions, lots of people will pretend to know more than they do. Don’t be rude. People speak Jabaran! She offers to teach some Jabaran.

We’ll want to get to the [[Maharani]]’s city eventually, but she hears it’s under attack by slith, so better to go by land than by boat.

[Tortoise 13]

[[Managaratha]] wakes up, and [[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] hear something thump the bottom of the boat.
Lissa Tera thinks probably slith, since she can’t see anything under the boat.

Gale gives everyone water breathing and underwater action.

The slith come over the side.

Vidan and Stella put a lot of them in timeout, but a named slith decloaks and starts waking them up.
It’s a tough fight, since they all have dodge pools, but we end up killing about half the mook slith. The named slith takes several sets of death checks but escapes over the side, and we can’t defeat his stealth rolls. ([[Lisetera]] says there is an invasion going up the Queen's River and they are fighting in the northern waters, so it was a little surprising this far south but not super surprising.)

==In Jabar==

The cataurs go out into the night. Er, day. Diomarche does the Leaving Ritual of their herds with Rashar and the other two.

Scout nudges Gale to look at the Magic Map. The X in Yellow is just north of the source of the Fifth River.

We sail north, and reach Habani by the end of the day. We get rooms at an inn and Lisetera goes to check in.

Vidan needs to put the three Markers from the Empire in Queen’s City, Love’s Citadel, Life’s Palace, Lore’s Towers.

Scout notes that our party battlemap has shrunk to not larger than the boat, probably because we spent so long in an Unreality bubble on the boat. No wandering a neighborhood away now.

The area is kind of savannah-like. Scout does some ecology analysis, and thinks there are some irrigation canals from the river, but the general area is dry. There aren’t any forests or jungles in the area. There is farming of olives and grapes and vines and that sort of thing.

Scout notices that there are more elves here than in most of the other Zones except for Green.

Stella gets a nudge from the Goddess; there is a List of Things to fix:
* The list coming in tomorrow is in about the proper order, least to most.
* Yours is not necessarily something that needs fixing, it is something that you should know about, and should think about whether it needs fixing. There are arguments both ways.
* You suppose Scout’s should be fixed.
* Gale’s is less something that needs fixing, but an Opportunity.
* Managaratha’s is definitely a problem; it’s really in some ways the biggest, except maybe for Vidan’s. But what fixing them means is not necessarily clear. They’re definitely divine resistance to looking into either of those (or yours for that matter). It’s not Defended, per se, but you’re getting less than you should.
* [[Nesh]] is probably getting something, but who knows.
* Diomarche’s should be fixed, but is probably the least major of them. But he should do it.
* The stuff Vidan remembered should be dealt with, but it doesn’t have to be today.

==The Next Morning: Diomarche's Quest==

We are shown to a table set for eight. Hmm, that’s suspicious. The eighth setting is appropriate for a centaur (as is Diomarche’s). Diomarche recognizes her as Ekarna, from his Herd. She is not high status; her job is a… crafter, more or less. This is far away from her usual area, so that’s unusual.

Diomarche goes to talk to her as she is inquiring about getting a room. She seems happy to see him. He tells her a bit about Middlesea, and that he and his companions are spreading the word; she assumes that we must be paladins, which Scout thinks is hilarious. Diomarche introduces her to Stella as a Priest of the Goddess, at which she becomes more polite.

She’s in town to sell some of her leatherwork, because the crops haven’t been doing well. (His mom is still back at the herd, so Diomarche should go see her). The Maharani hasn't been helping because of the drought.

Stella thinks she’s putting a better face on things than is warranted.

==Gale’s Quest==

A gentleman comes in. He spots Gale, and comes to the table. He’s moderately nicely dressed (at least compared to Ekarna…) He looks at Ekarna and says “If I might…” She lets him take her place.

“Would it be Captain Gale?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. I am [[Dubrecht]]; I am looking for assistance in flying through the mountains (not past the mountains, around the mountains) and I hope you would be able to help me on your quest.”

“I think that is doable.”

“Oh good.”

“When are you going?”

“I need some time, but in the next month?”

“What is your quest?”

“I’m looking for the Phoenix’s Nest, so that I can get a few feathers.”

Vidan asks whether finding the Nest is the quest, or if the Feathers are the quest.

Scout asks what he needs them for. “For my quest!” For whom? “For me!” Scout looks at him. Definitely a half-Pooka. Aha. That explains it. Scout becomes much more interested in helping him.

Who did Dubrecht consult with about his Quest? The Mage in the Golden Tower. She’s well-respected for that sort of thing, she’s certainly expensive enough. It’s hard to scry for the Phoenix.

We make arrangements to meet with him in a week.

==Scout’s Quest==
A high elf lady comes in, and glares at him, and he smiles and bows and leaves.

“Scout, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I understand you are a shaman of some skill?”

“Yes.”

“[[Messalani]]. I am one of the more important merchants in town. None of the Rulers in Green are responding to my requests for help. The Tree network is having troubles; it will need some Shamanism, as well as Green magic, which I can provide. With the tree network down (not down, that’s strong) it would have taken some time. ”

“I’m not aware of the Tree Network and what it does, so I’ll need to see it.”

“It’s a transportation network run by elves, that we take advantage of. It’s been here since before the last Comet (which is when I got here), so it’s quite well established. It has mostly functioned well, which it is not working well at present.”

“Is it just in Yellow?”

“There are three to the [[Melmane]] ports, there’s a different network from Melmane to the other continent.”

Managaratha is pretty sure it was established two Comets ago.

“Is it Alchemy, Nature, Essence…?”

“All three, but at root it is Nature. But it has a Divine component, but I’m not familiar with that and it’s difficult to find anyone to deal with it. Priests here are more likely to try to destroy it; that’s happened to trees on occasion.”

Messalina is Merchant Varna, she trades, both inside and overseas to keep the economy of the country running. The Great River is where the merchant Varna is most respected, so she tends to travel there. The Tree Network is throughout the lands, but less so in the Priests’ cities.

As she is finishing describing that…

==Nesh’s Quest==
A man comes in. Messalina looks up and there’s a level of assessment. Possibly he’s low level Priest Varna. Nesh is about to escort Nesh out

“I am Virga.”

He pulls out a Nesh-finding compass, and puts it on the table. It’s spinning, but then he says something and it points at Nesh.

“Can you explain why a group of cataurs, coming through our territory, had a magic item that points at you?”

“Not particularly. I think the [[Oasis]] wants me?”

“The OASIS wants you?”

“I mean, I don’t know why…”

Scout says “sorry, who are you?”

“I am Virga, I am an officer of the law.”

With whom?

“For the city.”

“I don’t suppose we could see the Ruler of the city? We have important missives from the West.”

We give him a [[Tarn Evidence Packet]]; he casts a Yellow spell to translate it and reads it quickly. There are teams of cataurs searching for Nesh, they attacked Middlesea, are they connected?

Well, not that we know of. Nesh says they might be hunting the [[Buccaneer]]? Hmm. He thinks that’s unlikely. The Inspector asks if he’ll drop his defenses to allow some investigative spells. Nesh agrees.

He casts a Yellow spell; Managaratha thinks it’s a Detect Broken of some kind.

As he’s casting a second Yellow spell, someone taps his shoulder…
==Stella’s Quest==
He gets up and bows to the woman who is sitting down, and says he will speak with Nesh later. She appears to be a priest of the Goddess, wearing a Holy symbol. She sits down and says “Good morning, my name is Hama Aliki, I am Lore’s Servant, and I was hoping I could speak with Stella about certain matters.”

“I understand you have connections with Red and Orange merchant Guilds.”

“Some. I am not a member of any Guild. I serve the Goddess, but I know many in the Guilds.”

She considers that a minute or two, and says “[[The Lady]] of Lore is… interested… in developing the Merchant Varna. And hopes to speak with someone who can provide information about how the Priest Varna can assist them in being better organized. Our understanding is that the Guild is quite well organized. It sounds like you perhaps have less understanding of it…?”

“I have knowledge, but I am not a member, of the Guild.”

Ah, then she is happy to discuss further if she has the requisite knowledge.

“I understand priests in your land do not pursue one of the Three Faces specifically.”

“Not generally.”

“That is something you should consider if you are going to be here long; the Lady of Lore would be happy to speak with you about that.”

She is the most aware of any of the people who have come in yet that she is in a mechanic, and that she had intended to speak to YOU, and perhaps had more to say, and is not convinced she wants to say more to the group because of the mechanic.

Talking generally, it seems the Merchant Varna is not organized the way the Guild is organized. The country is organized, but the Merchants are not. The Nobles are in charge; the Church is next, and could potentially… they can hold their own against the Nobles most of the time. Although the fact that they’re divided into three makes it harder. The three Ladies are bigger than any of the Nobles besides the Maharani. It’s almost feudalish in terms of descending down levels of nobles out. The priests are less organized. Love, Lore, Life; under the three Ladies are other priests. They’re not technically hierarchical, but it’s implied. Non-actual-priests of the Priest Varna are less important than most of the priests (according to her). Merchants are flat at the bottom. Then there are the regular people.

==Managaratha’s Quest==
She looks up as someone else comes into the room and heads in her direction, and she says “I believe my time is up”.

“Oh have we met?”

“No.” And

“But I have.”

“Of course you are. Did I not tell you that Purple is dangerous, Did I not tell you that Yellow was safer? Purple might be more accurate, but even so!”

“Vicarana Vesta. Do you remember having met me before?”

“No. It’s a big one. I think I’m about half burned out.”

“Then maybe you are less useful than I had hoped.”

“Nonetheless, I have been monitoring the use of Magics, as you had suggested, and you are correct that Something is Off with Feelings magic. It is not major; I would not have noticed had I not been looking out for it. Spells are not yet going awry more often, but it is enough to notice if you are watching. Which I have been, since you asked me to.

I have found the thing that you asked me to look for, and what should I do about it?”

“Well, we have received a prophecy that we should deal with this, so it’s good that you have come to us.”

“How is your Yellow theory?”

“At the moment I’m pretty good at Yellow.”

“You mean Illusion, you can’t do Feelings, right?”

“Yes.”

“How to put this in Illusion terms, or non-magic terms. Hmm. The best analogy I have at present. Think that you are living in a house, and you know the house, but suddenly at night there are new noises. That is about all I have at present. There are tremors through Feelings magic, which make the Feelings different. Different is not right. Flavor the Feelings perhaps.”

“Is this worldwide, or just in Jabar?”

I have not looked elsewhere; that is an interesting question. I could attempt to investigate that if you think that is a matter that would be useful to know to resolve the problem.

“I’m not sure it’s urgent, but it could tell the difference between a local ritual, or the Breaker trying to change the nature of Magic.”

“It’s everywhere in jabar I have been. It’s not something I would expect anyone to notice without looking. I have mentioned it to a few other Mages that, well, in one case she said she had noticed it but thought it was because she was sick. The others claimed it was not changing.”

I could get to Melmane,
==Vidan’s Quest==
As he is finishing that up, [[Suvatra]] shows up.

“Vikarna, I was not expecting to see you here.”

“My apologies, Lady, I will make way for you of course.”

She sits.

“Vidan, yes. I am pleased you have arrived.” She looks at the line of people, and puts us in a Cone of Silence.

“So. I believe the first pass will be coming to a head shortly.”

“First pass?”

“At attempting to remove the Maharani. The war is going poorly. I believe that is at least in part due to the lack of support that Her Majesty is getting from other sources. She’s getting the brunt. I believe there will be a move within the next month, possibly the next few weeks, to remove her. I expect that will be violent rather than political, and I expect the Church will be heavily involved. There was a time I thought you had better connections in the Church than I did; I’m not convinced of that now, but you are the one I find most plausible to assist me in this matter. Possibly simply because you are not local and therefore are more trustable. Possibly because you are not invested in any particular Maharani.”

“Is there any evidence of the Broken in the Conspiracy?”

“Not that I know of; there could be instigators or associates who are Bent, but I believe it is more an internal fight. I am not willing at this time to point at any one person as definitely in the conspiracy. They are sufficiently well guarded against scrying and other investigations that I do not have proof with which to charge any one of significant political import. The easiest way to get proof would be to find an assassin who survived their attempt, but I do not intend to endanger the Maharani in order to catch such an assassin. We will try to discover what we can if that happens, but I would prefer no attempt will be made.”

“From your message, it sounds like the first attempt will come from Lore?”

“I don’t believe Lore wants to remove the Maharani; Lore wants to weaken the Maharani because Lore wants to weaken the Nobility. And I believe Lore has begun those moves.”

Vidan frowns.

“But the directed attack on the Maharani does not come from Lore.”

“Where then is most likely?”

“I believe it is Life, but do not repeat that; I will disavow any such accusation. She is certainly working with others in the Nobility if she is organizing this; she was Noble of birth, and her family is close in line should the Maharani’s family fall. So given the combination of power involved and possible beneficiaries, she is my most plausible candidate. But whether she is assisting others or the motivator, that I don’t have a good feel for.”

Vidan thinks about whether there’s an obvious heir. (The prince in Middlesea is a nephew.) She has two heirs, a daughter. Passage of rulership is more flexible. KS: Succession Law tells him that the Maharani could name an heir. If an heir has not been named, then the Council of Nobles will discuss what the Maharani’s choice would likely have been. With political shenanigans likely.

==And then...==
A gentleman comes in, and bows to Suvatra.

“I am Captain Loric Assan. I am a member of the Maharani’s personal guard. I understand you are the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]]?”

“We are.”

“The Maharani commands your presence in the capital at once. I will accompany you there. Welcome to Jabar.”

===Loot:===
* +1 Racial Schtick
* +20 SPs

Recapturing the Cataurs

2026-02-28T17:43:16Z

Charles: /* A Battle Bubble */

==The Empty Ship==

We fly towards Eastport and land in the port.

[Dragon 27]

We check out the other boat. It's still there. A dockworker chases us off. Lissa Tera is staying at the [[Maharani]]'s embassy, which is an interesting Jabaran style.

She says there are a bunch of others with them, including yellow mages.

OK, we're going to go and ambush them first. We get a Lissa Terra copy, and head north for an hour until she can't tell where exactly to go. She makes the flying boat invisible, and we disguise [[Nesh]] in yards of blue fabric as a strange sort of blue mage, and head up. [[Vidan]] says that there's something worth witnessing over there, but Nesh can't see it.

There's something over there that's on the battlemap (the Middlesea one), but Vidan still can't see it after 5x7witnessing.

[[Scout]] appears! Yay! He puts a seeing miracle on us - now we can see a mirage of an oasis with a bunch (maybe 15) cataurs lazing about. Like the [[Oasis]] branch office. The edge is a wall that needs punching through.

Scout goes to scout. He can find the overlap space, and they don't notice him; the footprints go to a tent inside, so that's probably the "door" to break down.

We sneak up to the tent. (some not very sneaky, but they don't seem to care).

==A Battle Bubble==
Diomarche Breaks us in – 9 DI 11 successes.

To the Battlemap! We have broken down the Wall, so the cataurs are all now grumpy.

In 10, Scout shoots two of the Named cataurs in the Reflexes somewhere, annoying them. The Yellow Mage and shaman decide to flee. Nesh can still see the Yellow Mage so chops him, which is enough to give some targeting.

"Oh I must claw him." [[Rashkar]] attacks Diomarche, but “shockingly” misses.

Scout drops the Yellow Mage. Nesh attacks the Red Mage but it bounces, probably/mostly.<br>
Gayle drops the shaman despite the shaman having gone into a pocket dimension.<br>
The Red mage is terrible, and takes us many concerted actions to drop, especially since he Drains everyone’s Strength by 6.

In fourth action, the cataurs in time-out come out, and decide they’re still on Team Get ‘Em.

[[Stella]] is captured and the cataurs say “Us for them!”, with claws at her throat.

Vidan invokes his once a book schtick! He’s asked “Twins or Goddess?” He says “Goddess”.
Fortune drops to 1, and those dice go to Magic and DI, and his schticks become Goddess-flavored. His name is something like Nivad.

He whammies them into surrendering. We now have our original three, and the six new ones, all of whom will swear the Purple Vows about not hunting Nesh.

Rashkar says there’s a second cataur boat, so we add it to our armada! We decide to sell one for 2 Loot., and keep the better of the two.

Scout scouts for Loot

* Red mage has a bracelet that you can hang Red spells on, up to 15 successes. (Yoinked by Diomarche.) The spells will last for weeks, but can’t be higher than difficulty 10.
* Yellow mage has a Compass of Detect Nesh, spinning uselessly, and a mirror that looks like the Yellow Mirror, that has some kind of magic in; we’ll want to talk to Lisatera. Turns out it’s a -2 difficulty for Scrying spells, which she thinks is solidly nice.
* The shaman is still in the other space, but when it pops with the dawn, he has a Store DI ring, that can store up to 5 DI that is currently tuned to Demon, but it could be tuned to Shaman fairly easily. Scout thinks it would need a few days to do so; Stella could probably Forge it into being holy to the Goddess.

[Dragon 28]

Valda shows up the next morning, with a message for Vidan? Nivad? from the Ministry of Lions. Vidan should send them a report of why you needed to activate Emergency Plan Beta. While he’s here, he has some things that the Foreign Minister wants him to bring, that will make it easier to teleport out of Yellow. We’re to put them in the capital and the three cities of the Goddess.

===Loot===
* +10 EPs
* +6 SPs
* +2 Loot
* +6 Cataur <s>slaves</s> prisoners
* +1 Red Bracelet of spell-storing (Diomarche)
* +1 Yellow Mirror of -2 Difficulty of Scrying
* +1 Ring of Store 5 DI, Demon-flavored

Recapturing the Cataurs

2026-02-28T17:39:32Z

Charles: /* The Empty Ship */

==The Empty Ship==

We fly towards Eastport and land in the port.

[Dragon 27]

We check out the other boat. It's still there. A dockworker chases us off. Lissa Tera is staying at the [[Maharani]]'s embassy, which is an interesting Jabaran style.

She says there are a bunch of others with them, including yellow mages.

OK, we're going to go and ambush them first. We get a Lissa Terra copy, and head north for an hour until she can't tell where exactly to go. She makes the flying boat invisible, and we disguise [[Nesh]] in yards of blue fabric as a strange sort of blue mage, and head up. [[Vidan]] says that there's something worth witnessing over there, but Nesh can't see it.

There's something over there that's on the battlemap (the Middlesea one), but Vidan still can't see it after 5x7witnessing.

[[Scout]] appears! Yay! He puts a seeing miracle on us - now we can see a mirage of an oasis with a bunch (maybe 15) cataurs lazing about. Like the [[Oasis]] branch office. The edge is a wall that needs punching through.

Scout goes to scout. He can find the overlap space, and they don't notice him; the footprints go to a tent inside, so that's probably the "door" to break down.

We sneak up to the tent. (some not very sneaky, but they don't seem to care).

==A Battle Bubble==
Diomarche Breaks us in – 9 DI 11 successes.

To the Battlemap! We have broken down the Wall, so the cataurs are all now grumpy.

In 10, Scout shoots two of the Named cataurs in the Reflexes somewhere, annoying them. The Yellow Mage and shaman decide to flee. Nesh can still see the Yellow Mage so chops him, which is enough to give some targeting.

"Oh I must claw him." [[Rashkar]] attacks Diomarche, but “shockingly” misses.

Scout drops the Yellow Mage. Nesh attacks the Red Mage but it bounces, probably/mostly.<br>
Gayle drops the shaman despite the shaman having gone into a pocket dimension.<br>
The Red mage is terrible, and takes us many concerted actions to drop, especially since he Drains everyone’s Strength by 6.

In fourth action, the cataurs in time-out come out, and decide they’re still on Team Get ‘Em.

[[Stella]] is captured and the cataurs say “Us for them!”, with claws at her throat.

Vidan invokes his once a book schtick! He’s asked “Twins or Goddess?” He says “Goddess”.
Fortune drops to 1, and those dice go to Magic and DI, and his schticks become Goddess-flavored. His name is something like Nivad.

Scout scouts for Loot

* Red mage has a bracelet that you can hang Red spells on, up to 15 successes. (Yoinked by Diomarche.) The spells will last for weeks, but can’t be higher than difficulty 10.
* Yellow mage has a Compass of Detect Nesh, spinning uselessly, and a mirror that looks like the Yellow Mirror, that has some kind of magic in; we’ll want to talk to Lisatera. Turns out it’s a -2 difficulty for Scrying spells, which she thinks is solidly nice.
* The shaman is still in the other space, but when it pops with the dawn, he has a Store DI ring, that can store up to 5 DI that is currently tuned to Demon, but it could be tuned to Shaman fairly easily. Scout thinks it would need a few days to do so; Stella could probably Forge it into being holy to the Goddess.

He whammies them into surrendering. We now have our original three, and the six new ones, all of whom will swear the Purple Vows about not hunting Nesh.

Rashkar says there’s a second cataur boat, so we add it to our armada! We decide to sell one for 2 Loot., and keep the better of the two.

Valda shows up the next morning, with a message for Vidan? Nivad? from the Ministry of Lions. Vidan should send them a report of why you needed to activate Emergency Plan Beta. While he’s here, he has some things that the Foreign Minister wants him to bring, that will make it easier to teleport out of Yellow. We’re to put them in the capital and the three cities of the Goddess.

===Loot===
* +10 EPs
* +6 SPs
* +2 Loot
* +6 Cataur <s>slaves</s> prisoners
* +1 Red Bracelet of spell-storing (Diomarche)
* +1 Yellow Mirror of -2 Difficulty of Scrying
* +1 Ring of Store 5 DI, Demon-flavored

Hunting Slith Spies

2026-02-28T17:36:13Z

Charles: /* Back to hunting Slith spies */

==Finding a Plan==
[Still Dragon 23]

[[Gale]] fades out; Diomarche fades in. [[Managaratha]] seems to be asleep.

[[Scout]] brings Diomarche up to speed.

We look at [[Nesh]]’s map of Melmane, to figure out what the plan is. We could go to [[Indaton]], and take the road to EastPort, or we could go south to the coast and find a village and try to get a boat to EastPort. We decide to go to Indaton. (“Indaton? These people are terrible at naming things,” says Scout.)

We think about marching to get to the road or Indaton, but Managaratha thinks he can teleport us there, or at least close. He clairvoys around a bit, to get targeting. We teleport there, which is apparently tiring.

[[Stella]] looks for an inn. Nesh asks around for the Mage, and finds out where he lives, although people think talking to a Mage is kind of crazy.

We split the party! Nesh, Diomarche, and Scout look around for the Mage; Managaratha and [[Vidan]] and Stella find the inn. Nesh knocks on the house with the storm cloud hanging around over it; the butler answers. We convey all the information; the Butler can’t read Saurian, so Nesh thinks he’s probably not the cause of the Terrible Betrayal or anything. We try to give him the background, he takes the notes, etc. The butler doesn’t seem to think 10 anti-magic/DI will be a trouble.

Stella finds us a perfectly competent inn with decent food. We spend the evening quietly, and decide to set watches in case of Slith assassins.

We sleep. Diomarche, sleeping in the yard, is awoken by a tap on his front haunch. It’s [[Thistle]]!
“I hear the Saurian kid is asking around about a Mage? What the heck are you people doing here?”

Diomarche tells her about the Slith assassin, and asks when she got here. A few days ago. Interesting. She doesn’t seem to want any help with whatever she’s doing here, whatever that is, which she doesn’t seem very interested in telling anyone, which isn’t really surprising, but even so, one would think she might be interested in our help, given that we’ve been helpful before.

[Dragon 24]

We putter a bit, wondering what to do about Thistle. But Stella decides to bring the hammer, figuring out what Thistle is here to fix– 15 successes with 10 DI is enough to tell her that Thistle is here to find the Slith spy (spy for the Slith, not necessarily spy who is a Slith) in the city, and probably blow the spy’s cover, rather than deal with it personally. The assassin is probably on the way to contact the spy; the assassin is probably too big for Thistle to handle.

Managaratha calls Thistle, who is sleeping. He tells her about the slith spy, she mentions that’s probably what Rustic is here for. SHe says let’s talk at lunch.

Scout scouts around for slith (and spirits), but doesn’t see any signs of them. Vidan spends a DI, and heads out for a walk around 10am. He sees a guy talking to a couple of shopkeepers, and he’s definitely an interesting guy that Vidan should be Witnessing. He’s talking to the shopkeepers about the complaints about the rats, and they should keep their places cleaner so there aren’t so many rats. “Yes Mister Mayor, yes Mister Mayor”, they reply. Vidan wonders what kind of clothes he’s wearing; it’s mostly a fancier version of what people in town wear. He does have a badge on one side that’s probably the Mayor’s seal of office; on the other side he has a holy symbol to all Five of the Five, or something like that.

Vidan goes up and says Hey. The Mayor is pleased to meet him. Vidan talks about the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]] and trying to help against the slith; the Mayor seems to think that’s good, although he hadn’t heard a lot about Middlesea. Vidan asks him about the area to the south; the Mayor says don’t go there. He clearly knows more about the Blue Nexus, but doesn’t seem to give away anything about knowing about a slith encampment, say. The Mayor invites him to services that evening; he’s a Priest.

At lunch, Thistle says she thinks she’s most likely to be here to figure out what’s going on with all the random crap that Rustic keeps stealing. He’s one of the Saurians in the Guild. Normally when she shows up somewhere (of the 5-6 times that it’s happened so far), either there’s something she’s supposed to steal, or there’s a problem in the Thieves’ Guild. She hasn’t noticed anything to steal here, but there’s a moderately important thief here that’s been like… hitting grocery stores? It’s a bit weird.

Was he hired to steal from the groceries? asks Scout. Not that she knows of; it’s not like anyone else has really noticed. It’s like every few days he’s been stealing groceries, but why is he doing that rather than doing a big hit and then buying stuff? The Guild hasn’t really noticed. It’s been going on at least a couple of weeks.

Nesh thinks Scout and he should tail Mage Farius. The notes probably covered a week or so, mostly on Gather Information rolls.

==An Unexpected Interruption==
Vidan notes that, just a minute ago, the Vow that the cataurs took not to hunt Nesh has been dispelled. (Not just that they were broken.) Huh. Maybe Lisatera got bored and told them to find us? Managaratha calls Lisatera. Did she do this? No, she’s in the city, the cataurs are on the boat in the harbor. Hmm. She can go take a look and see what’s happened, and call Managaratha.

Huh. Maybe we should call [[Rashkar]] and see what happens?

Lisatera walks in. Nesh doesn’t notice. Three people came onto the boat, that she noticed. They spoke to the cataurs, in Cataur, so this is a rough translation: “What the hell are you fools doing?” “We’re… we failed. They beat us up and killed everybody, and we’re the only ones left.” “You idiots. Tell us who beat you up so we can go deal with them.” “We really can’t help you with that.” Then they dispelled the Purple spell. Then they turned them into people, not with Yellow, so probably Red, and the cataurs said they should leave the boat first, and then they left. Whatever briefing they got about us happened off the boat, where Lisatera couldn’t follow quite so easily.

The three were a Red mage and a Yellow mage and someone else– a shaman, or an information basher, or something. Probably not just a talker. I can keep working on finding them, but they’ve probably left the city.

==Back to the Slith==
Thistle wanders in around dinner time. Our list appears to be half of Rustic’s list. There are a few things on our list that aren’t on his, but she might have missed a few things. So, yes, he seems to be providing supplies at least one group of slith, and probably to another group of people somewhere.

Has she talked to Rustic? Is it worth sitting down and talking to him? It’s not clear. Maybe he would care about who he’s doing it for? If he’s in on it, talking to him will just tip him off.

Nesh wonders about a more… forceful conversation. Well, we’d have to be willing to deal with the consequences. if he’s a spy, then that’s one thing. If he’s just doing a job, that’s another thing.

We could take it to Theo; something would probably happen. There are enough Priests of Jord high in the Guild, that if we showed someone was a servant of the Breaker, they’d take care of it. But they’d have to be pretty clearly a servant of the Breaker, not just a patsy. If he’s just a patsy, the Guild will have problems.

Either he’s the spy, or he’s working for the spy. If we can prove he’s the spy, we don’t have any problems.

He’s been around, so he’s probably not out doing deliveries right now. Thistle suspects he hasn’t actually been out overnight after the thefts on a regular basis, or she’d have heard.

There is some discussion about what the best plan is.

Vidan goes to services– it’s an older chapel, to the Five. [[Mayor Flynn]] leads the services. He is definitely leading them as a Priest of the Five. That… is not a mechanic that is easily supported. Vidan would expect a Priest of the Five had gone out of their way to make this happen, in a way that, he just seems to treat it casually. There’s some political spin, too. He’s the Mayor, which does seem to be an elected position, which is somewhat unusual. He doesn’t seem to have anyone above him– he doesn’t answer to the Admiralty, he doesn’t answer to the Mages (except in how everyone answers to the Mages). But still, that’s odd for the highest political authority in inland Melmane. (The Priest of the Five thing is Weird; the election is Unusual.)

Vidan is super tempted to check if he’s the Rightful King of Melmane. (There is a chorus of “Mayors are always suspect! Remember your history!” from the other players.) Vidan chats with him after the services; there are elections every three years, he’s been mayor for 12 years. Looking around, Vidan thinks this is an Old church. It’s been a church longer than this building has been here, and this building is old.

Vidan chats with him after the parishioners clear out. Vidan mentions the slith we’re tracking are being supplied by a thief in town. “Talked to Theo yet?” “That was our next stop.” Flynn is the only one who performs services here; there’s another church with the individual Gods. Saying that, Vidan notices that the altar is in fact blessed to the Five, which is Not Normal. Vidan uses the Unblinking Eye of Navere to take a look at Flynn’s family and lineage.

He’s not a king, he’s descended from the King of the Church of the Five. (“Oh! Him!” say Drew and Tom.) Vidan didn’t know that was the thing.

Vidan talks to him about Rush, etc. Is he trying to do anything about that? (Vidan spends his last DI, and knows that it’s your job, but he’ll help.)

==Back to hunting Slith spies==
We go to talk to Theo. We don’t go in, because, Broken miracle.

Nesh uses his role as Party Urchin to summon an urchin to go into the church and get Theo on behalf of the Middlesea Free Rangers.

“Sorry, we’re under a curse, so we didn’t want to go into the Church.”<br>
“So you want that removed?”<br>
“NO!”<br>
That gives him pause.<br>
“We’re told it’s not yet time for that.”, says Stella.

Theo notices the group of us, and decides it’s not his plot.

We tell him about the slith plot. Nesh is reasonably persuasive. Theo wants to see the notes; he looks them over. “Well,” he nods. “I can certainly look into that.” Nesh goes on about the lists of groceries stolen. He says he will look into it.

We go back to the inn, and set watches. The night passes.

[Dragon 25]

We decide to check in with Thistle.

Someone comes to find Vidan– Cindy of Navere. She says that Theo says the problem in town has been taken care of. The out of town problem, Theo does not know. (Cindy and Theo are both priests with more than 10 DI.)

==Next Day==

Late morning, Lisatera checks in.
They’re north of town, maybe on a boat. They don’t seem to be heading out immediately, they’ve probably mostly debriefed the cataurs on what they can do by now. Their Yellow Mage isn't’ as good as she is, but they’re good enough that they’re running interference, so the info is less reliable than she’d like.

Early afternoon, Vidan has finished his ritual to create a teleport beacon in Indaton.

We call Thistle, we say we hear Rustic has been dealt with? Ah, that’s probably why she’s in [[Rinyan]].
Should we call to check in occasionally? Don’t call very often.

We talk to Theo in the late afternoon. “Yes, thank you for the information, that was helpful. What can I help you with?” We wonder about whether there’s a second camp.

Theo says he asked Xavier to take care of that; he might not be able to find them. They set out in the morning, going down into Blue side, further to the East of the camp we had seen.

After a bit of debate, we decide we’re going to go help; Vidan asks for help from Navere, that we arrive in time to Witness the battle being fought by Xavier against the slith. Managaratha tries to figure out the right coordinates from the map, and then realizes that of course he knows the coordinates, Vidan just told him. We teleport to the slith camp in Blue side.
==Witnessing the Battle==
We arrive as the Paladins are mid-charge. The slith mooks mostly fall, but the two decloaked assassins hit Xavier pretty hard. Diomarche brings Nesh into range, who attacks the assassin that we fought last run! He takes some damage, and then Scout hits him to drop his Agility. He starts to flee and tries to re-cloak, but Diomarche and Nesh keep him visible enough to be targeted. Scout tags him once, and then makes him dodge once, which lets two of the Paladins drop him. Xavier takes care of the other assassin, and glory is heaped upon us (or at least the Paladins).

The slith camp had the remainder of the supplies that had been stolen, and another set of similar notes about Mage Farius.

We teleport back to Indaton

===Loot===
* +9 EPs
* + 7 SPs
* another set of notes on Saurian
* -2 slith assassins and 1 slith spy

Hunting Slith Spies

2026-02-28T17:32:12Z

Charles: /* Finding a Plan */

==Finding a Plan==
[Still Dragon 23]

[[Gale]] fades out; Diomarche fades in. [[Managaratha]] seems to be asleep.

[[Scout]] brings Diomarche up to speed.

We look at [[Nesh]]’s map of Melmane, to figure out what the plan is. We could go to [[Indaton]], and take the road to EastPort, or we could go south to the coast and find a village and try to get a boat to EastPort. We decide to go to Indaton. (“Indaton? These people are terrible at naming things,” says Scout.)

We think about marching to get to the road or Indaton, but Managaratha thinks he can teleport us there, or at least close. He clairvoys around a bit, to get targeting. We teleport there, which is apparently tiring.

[[Stella]] looks for an inn. Nesh asks around for the Mage, and finds out where he lives, although people think talking to a Mage is kind of crazy.

We split the party! Nesh, Diomarche, and Scout look around for the Mage; Managaratha and [[Vidan]] and Stella find the inn. Nesh knocks on the house with the storm cloud hanging around over it; the butler answers. We convey all the information; the Butler can’t read Saurian, so Nesh thinks he’s probably not the cause of the Terrible Betrayal or anything. We try to give him the background, he takes the notes, etc. The butler doesn’t seem to think 10 anti-magic/DI will be a trouble.

Stella finds us a perfectly competent inn with decent food. We spend the evening quietly, and decide to set watches in case of Slith assassins.

We sleep. Diomarche, sleeping in the yard, is awoken by a tap on his front haunch. It’s [[Thistle]]!
“I hear the Saurian kid is asking around about a Mage? What the heck are you people doing here?”

Diomarche tells her about the Slith assassin, and asks when she got here. A few days ago. Interesting. She doesn’t seem to want any help with whatever she’s doing here, whatever that is, which she doesn’t seem very interested in telling anyone, which isn’t really surprising, but even so, one would think she might be interested in our help, given that we’ve been helpful before.

[Dragon 24]

We putter a bit, wondering what to do about Thistle. But Stella decides to bring the hammer, figuring out what Thistle is here to fix– 15 successes with 10 DI is enough to tell her that Thistle is here to find the Slith spy (spy for the Slith, not necessarily spy who is a Slith) in the city, and probably blow the spy’s cover, rather than deal with it personally. The assassin is probably on the way to contact the spy; the assassin is probably too big for Thistle to handle.

Managaratha calls Thistle, who is sleeping. He tells her about the slith spy, she mentions that’s probably what Rustic is here for. SHe says let’s talk at lunch.

Scout scouts around for slith (and spirits), but doesn’t see any signs of them. Vidan spends a DI, and heads out for a walk around 10am. He sees a guy talking to a couple of shopkeepers, and he’s definitely an interesting guy that Vidan should be Witnessing. He’s talking to the shopkeepers about the complaints about the rats, and they should keep their places cleaner so there aren’t so many rats. “Yes Mister Mayor, yes Mister Mayor”, they reply. Vidan wonders what kind of clothes he’s wearing; it’s mostly a fancier version of what people in town wear. He does have a badge on one side that’s probably the Mayor’s seal of office; on the other side he has a holy symbol to all Five of the Five, or something like that.

Vidan goes up and says Hey. The Mayor is pleased to meet him. Vidan talks about the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]] and trying to help against the slith; the Mayor seems to think that’s good, although he hadn’t heard a lot about Middlesea. Vidan asks him about the area to the south; the Mayor says don’t go there. He clearly knows more about the Blue Nexus, but doesn’t seem to give away anything about knowing about a slith encampment, say. The Mayor invites him to services that evening; he’s a Priest.

At lunch, Thistle says she thinks she’s most likely to be here to figure out what’s going on with all the random crap that Rustic keeps stealing. He’s one of the Saurians in the Guild. Normally when she shows up somewhere (of the 5-6 times that it’s happened so far), either there’s something she’s supposed to steal, or there’s a problem in the Thieves’ Guild. She hasn’t noticed anything to steal here, but there’s a moderately important thief here that’s been like… hitting grocery stores? It’s a bit weird.

Was he hired to steal from the groceries? asks Scout. Not that she knows of; it’s not like anyone else has really noticed. It’s like every few days he’s been stealing groceries, but why is he doing that rather than doing a big hit and then buying stuff? The Guild hasn’t really noticed. It’s been going on at least a couple of weeks.

Nesh thinks Scout and he should tail Mage Farius. The notes probably covered a week or so, mostly on Gather Information rolls.

==An Unexpected Interruption==
Vidan notes that, just a minute ago, the Vow that the cataurs took not to hunt Nesh has been dispelled. (Not just that they were broken.) Huh. Maybe Lisatera got bored and told them to find us? Managaratha calls Lisatera. Did she do this? No, she’s in the city, the cataurs are on the boat in the harbor. Hmm. She can go take a look and see what’s happened, and call Managaratha.

Huh. Maybe we should call [[Rashkar]] and see what happens?

Lisatera walks in. Nesh doesn’t notice. Three people came onto the boat, that she noticed. They spoke to the cataurs, in Cataur, so this is a rough translation: “What the hell are you fools doing?” “We’re… we failed. They beat us up and killed everybody, and we’re the only ones left.” “You idiots. Tell us who beat you up so we can go deal with them.” “We really can’t help you with that.” Then they dispelled the Purple spell. Then they turned them into people, not with Yellow, so probably Red, and the cataurs said they should leave the boat first, and then they left. Whatever briefing they got about us happened off the boat, where Lisatera couldn’t follow quite so easily.

The three were a Red mage and a Yellow mage and someone else– a shaman, or an information basher, or something. Probably not just a talker. I can keep working on finding them, but they’ve probably left the city.

==Back to the Slith==
Thistle wanders in around dinner time. Our list appears to be half of Rustic’s list. There are a few things on our list that aren’t on his, but she might have missed a few things. So, yes, he seems to be providing supplies at least one group of slith, and probably to another group of people somewhere.

Has she talked to Rustic? Is it worth sitting down and talking to him? It’s not clear. Maybe he would care about who he’s doing it for? If he’s in on it, talking to him will just tip him off.

Nesh wonders about a more… forceful conversation. Well, we’d have to be willing to deal with the consequences. if he’s a spy, then that’s one thing. If he’s just doing a job, that’s another thing.

We could take it to Theo; something would probably happen. There are enough Priests of Jord high in the Guild, that if we showed someone was a servant of the Breaker, they’d take care of it. But they’d have to be pretty clearly a servant of the Breaker, not just a patsy. If he’s just a patsy, the Guild will have problems.

Either he’s the spy, or he’s working for the spy. If we can prove he’s the spy, we don’t have any problems.

He’s been around, so he’s probably not out doing deliveries right now. Thistle suspects he hasn’t actually been out overnight after the thefts on a regular basis, or she’d have heard.

There is some discussion about what the best plan is.

Vidan goes to services– it’s an older chapel, to the Five. [[Mayor Flynn]] leads the services. He is definitely leading them as a Priest of the Five. That… is not a mechanic that is easily supported. Vidan would expect a Priest of the Five had gone out of their way to make this happen, in a way that, he just seems to treat it casually. There’s some political spin, too. He’s the Mayor, which does seem to be an elected position, which is somewhat unusual. He doesn’t seem to have anyone above him– he doesn’t answer to the Admiralty, he doesn’t answer to the Mages (except in how everyone answers to the Mages). But still, that’s odd for the highest political authority in inland Melmane. (The Priest of the Five thing is Weird; the election is Unusual.)

Vidan is super tempted to check if he’s the Rightful King of Melmane. (There is a chorus of “Mayors are always suspect! Remember your history!” from the other players.) Vidan chats with him after the services; there are elections every three years, he’s been mayor for 12 years. Looking around, Vidan thinks this is an Old church. It’s been a church longer than this building has been here, and this building is old.

Vidan chats with him after the parishioners clear out. Vidan mentions the slith we’re tracking are being supplied by a thief in town. “Talked to Theo yet?” “That was our next stop.” Flynn is the only one who performs services here; there’s another church with the individual Gods. Saying that, Vidan notices that the altar is in fact blessed to the Five, which is Not Normal. Vidan uses the Unblinking Eye of Navere to take a look at Flynn’s family and lineage.

He’s not a king, he’s descended from the King of the Church of the Five. (“Oh! Him!” say Drew and Tom.) Vidan didn’t know that was the thing.

Vidan talks to him about Rush, etc. Is he trying to do anything about that? (Vidan spends his last DI, and knows that it’s your job, but he’ll help.)

==Back to hunting Slith spies==
We go to talk to Theo. We don’t go in, because, Broken miracle.

Nesh uses his role as Party Urchin to summon an urchin to go into the church and get Theo on behalf of the Middlesea Free Rangers.

“Sorry, we’re under a curse, so we didn’t want to go into the Church.”<br>
“So you want that removed?”<br>
“NO!”<br>
That gives him pause.<br>
“We’re told it’s not yet time for that.”, says Stella.

Theo notices the group of us, and decides it’s not his plot.

We tell him about the slith plot. Nesh is reasonably persuasive. Theo wants to see the notes; he looks them over. “Well,” he nods. “I can certainly look into that.” Nesh goes on about the lists of groceries stolen. He says he will look into it.

We go back to the inn, and set watches. The night passes.

We decide to check in with Thistle.

Someone comes to find Vidan– Cindy of Navere. She says that Theo says the problem in town has been taken care of. The out of town problem, Theo does not know. (Cindy and Theo are both priests with more than 10 DI.)
==Next Day==

Late morning, Lisatera checks in.
They’re north of town, maybe on a boat. They don’t seem to be heading out immediately, they’ve probably mostly debriefed the cataurs on what they can do by now. Their Yellow Mage isn't’ as good as she is, but they’re good enough that they’re running interference, so the info is less reliable than she’d like.

Early afternoon, Vidan has finished his ritual to create a teleport beacon in Indaton.

We call Thistle, we say we hear Rustic has been dealt with? Ah, that’s probably why she’s in [[Rinyan]].
Should we call to check in occasionally? Don’t call very often.

We talk to Theo in the late afternoon. “Yes, thank you for the information, that was helpful. What can I help you with?” We wonder about whether there’s a second camp.

Theo says he asked Xavier to take care of that; he might not be able to find them. They set out in the morning, going down into Blue side, further to the East of the camp we had seen.

After a bit of debate, we decide we’re going to go help; Vidan asks for help from Navere, that we arrive in time to Witness the battle being fought by Xavier against the slith. Managaratha tries to figure out the right coordinates from the map, and then realizes that of course he knows the coordinates, Vidan just told him. We teleport to the slith camp in Blue side.
==Witnessing the Battle==
We arrive as the Paladins are mid-charge. The slith mooks mostly fall, but the two decloaked assassins hit Xavier pretty hard. Diomarche brings Nesh into range, who attacks the assassin that we fought last run! He takes some damage, and then Scout hits him to drop his Agility. He starts to flee and tries to re-cloak, but Diomarche and Nesh keep him visible enough to be targeted. Scout tags him once, and then makes him dodge once, which lets two of the Paladins drop him. Xavier takes care of the other assassin, and glory is heaped upon us (or at least the Paladins).

The slith camp had the remainder of the supplies that had been stolen, and another set of similar notes about Mage Farius.

We teleport back to Indaton

===Loot===
* +9 EPs
* + 7 SPs
* another set of notes on Saurian
* -2 slith assassins and 1 slith spy

To Catch A Thief

2023-06-17T17:18:45Z

Charles:

Nesh and Managaratha reappear and Scout vanishes.

We want to wait to hear about the interrogation and get our promised share of the loot, and then go to Red to catch up with Thistle.

Around breakfast, [Phoenix 2] Volda shows up, but we say we're waiting at the moment. Managaratha wonders if there are records of who he visited in the past six months. That would be difficult. We lounge about until lunch-ish, when a messenger shows up and delivers a note and a bag to Volda. We go up to one of the rooms.

The information that was recovered from the assassin, to date, is that she was sent after us because her master discovered that we are the best key to getting Slayer out of Middlesea, and her master does not want Slayer released from the trap. (An orc, Slayer). We wonder if this is the same orc who Sergeant Susie would not want let out.

There is a bag of loot: a small amount of cash, four poisons of unknown poison-ness.

Managaratha yellow-calls Thistle. We will be heading towards Red. She's in Darstan still.

Volda arranges a teleport for us to Darstan, for the cost of our bag of coins.

We're now in a square in Darstan. Gale rescued a kidnapped librarian (Rosalind) here from an annoying relative of Baron Volstak.

Diomarch hails the duty paladin. He needs to see a senior priest, but stay out here, because it's complicated. The priest comes out. Diomarch gives him a reasonably detailed up to date report, and also says he wants to talk to Duchess Zerbina about the link. The priest thinks that she will probably not be willing to change her strategy - a lot of her forces are there. The Duchess is not doing as well breaking up the forming alliance between King Richard's lands and Berana (King Olanson). Also, Diomarche should not come into the temple of Rush himself.

Gale looks up Rosalind and regales her with the story over tea.

Managaratha finds a horse that looks kind of gilled and scaly on the common, and asks if he can sit on it. He sells his fancy rock and does so, noting that it bends oddly, more like a snake than a horse.

Dinner where Thistle is supposed to show up. Some people notice that there's a lady keeping an eye on us from another table, and Vidan thinks it's Thistle in disguise. Managaratha waves, and she rolls her eyes and leaves. Nesh follows stealthily. She eventually stops. "Nesh, right?" He apologizes for his friends. There's at least one person in town she doesn't want to spot her.

"What do you all want?"
"Uh... that much I wasn't told."

They arrange to meet later on the commons. Can we help? Do we know a good fence? Nesh wonders why she hasn't gone home where she is in the thieves guild. She'd get a better price for it here... she'll go talk to Nesh.

She got teleported here, and tried to make contact with the local guild. Got in an argument with this "bitch named Marsha" who didn't think she was competent. Stole some of her stuff. In her stuff is what looks like the Duchess's signet ring. Nesh offers to handle returning it for a reward and the reward is hers. We can probably deal with probing in a way that doesn't implicate her, for example.

[Phoenix 3]

Vidan gets us an audience, and gives her a packet. There's something else that might be more sensitive - she takes us to a tower where a red mage takes away the guards' ears. O_o Lots of us have various investigatory abilities - we came upon a lifelink, is she aware of that? Yes. We thought it might be in an unfortunate state. Her husband's absence is day to day inconvenient. The lifebond is not day to day inconvenient...but she is concerned about what will happen when the timestop is ended. Her husband had taken a great deal of damage right before the timestop went into effect. She has recovered from her share of that damage - and is concerned that people get to him quickly.

Vidan also notes that the enemy has been pushing instability, in case there is anything we could help with. Since Middlesea closed and her husband went missing, there have been pressures on Darstan that have increased from neighbors in Red. It seems likely that one of Berana and King Richard's Lands were responsible for a recent intrusion into the castle. If you were to learn which of them that might have been, that would be appreciated. Berana has an envoy here publicly, Prince Sven. King Richard doesn't have anyone official.

Nesh goes to find the thieves guild. They tell him to go to the Temple of Jord and talk to Joseph. He slouches in and to the shrine of Jord, Joseph notes that he has a lot of DI resistance, but quizzes him on streetwise and some other skills he doesn't have. Before making plans, he should talk to either Alex at the Dragon's Claw or Marsha at the Stone Table.

Nesh and Gale talk to Marsha. Ex-pirates. Red guard dogs are something we won't be used to. Don't do too large a hit too often. Don't get too ambitious or claim we're Jord's left hand. She thinks there might be some jobs in the next week or so in case we're interested. If we're on a sanctioned job, we can run to a safehouse, but don't run to them on random jobs.

Nobody sneezes, though. Very disappointing.

We also recall that the Duchess actually asked that we figure out which of two people was responsible, not to investigate the theft. So we need to find the people and investigate them.

General gossip: Victoria is not all that interesting, she's always fighting Purple. Prince Sven is in town from Berana, everyone knows where. (The king of Berana has 25+ kids). Everyone assumes King Richard has someone here but nobody knows who offhand. Everyone is clear that the Duchess is the war leader, and Volstack is the ruler.

We visit Sven and give him a packet. He assures us that's very interesting. But he doesn't care about stuff outside of Red. (He is familiar with the Blue Mage, the most interested in outside Melmayne). Does he know who Richard's guy is? Well, give me two, I can get one to Richard. Vidan thinks that he is in communication with Richard about what to do about Darstan. Nesh thinks that he has moved here for the long term, not just for a bit.

Back to the common to talk to Thistle. Is Marsha a fence? No. So she stole it probably on someone else's behalf. She can show us. "What needs fixing?" (11 successes, 7 DI).

Get the ring back to the Duchess,
Clearing Marsha out would be good.
Stopping the war between Darstan / King Richard's lands / Berana from starting. Getting that back to the Duchess will help with that (getting it back to where Marsha was sending it would do best.). Marsha was sending it to George, King Richard's spy. Don't let George get it, that would start the war. Letting Sven get it would start the war more slowly.

We split up - Diomarch, Stella go up the stairs. Nesh (with Thistle) on the roof, Gale, Vadim, Managaratha, in the Kittiwake lurking in the alley on the second floor.

She goes out the window and we give chase. We fritter her down until she explodes, which Vadim confirms is Broken. (Gale loses her party clothes and Managaratha loses his ingredients).

Thistle and Nesh, tossing her place, finds them. (Nesh gives Thistle all the money).

To Catch A Thief

2023-06-17T16:22:37Z

Charles:

Nesh and Managaratha reappear and Scout vanishes.

We want to wait to hear about the interrogation and get our promised share of the loot, and then go to Red to catch up with Thistle.

Around breakfast, [Phoenix 2] Volda shows up, but we say we're waiting at the moment. Managaratha wonders if there are records of who he visited in the past six months. That would be difficult. We lounge about until lunch-ish, when a messenger shows up and delivers a note and a bag to Volda. We go up to one of the rooms.

The information that was recovered from the assassin, to date, is that she was sent after us because her master discovered that we are the best key to getting Slayer out of Middlesea, and her master does not want Slayer released from the trap. (An orc, Slayer). We wonder if this is the same orc who Sergeant Susie would not want let out.

There is a bag of loot: a small amount of cash, four poisons of unknown poison-ness.

Managaratha yellow-calls Thistle. We will be heading towards Red. She's in Darstan still.

Volda arranges a teleport for us to Darstan, for the cost of our bag of coins.

We're now in a square in Darstan. Gale rescued a kidnapped librarian (Rosalind) here from an annoying relative of Baron Volstak.

Diomarch hails the duty paladin. He needs to see a senior priest, but stay out here, because it's complicated. The priest comes out. Diomarch gives him a reasonably detailed up to date report, and also says he wants to talk to Duchess Zerbina about the link. The priest thinks that she will probably not be willing to change her strategy - a lot of her forces are there. The Duchess is not doing as well breaking up the forming alliance between King Richard's lands and Berana (King Olanson). Also, Diomarche should not come into the temple of Rush himself.

Gale looks up Rosalind and regales her with the story over tea.

Managaratha finds a horse that looks kind of gilled and scaly on the common, and asks if he can sit on it. He sells his fancy rock and does so, noting that it bends oddly, more like a snake than a horse.

Dinner where Thistle is supposed to show up. Some people notice that there's a lady keeping an eye on us from another table, and Vidan thinks it's Thistle in disguise. Managaratha waves, and she rolls her eyes and leaves. Nesh follows stealthily. She eventually stops. "Nesh, right?" He apologizes for his friends. There's at least one person in town she doesn't want to spot her.

"What do you all want?"
"Uh... that much I wasn't told."

They arrange to meet later on the commons. Can we help? Do we know a good fence? Nesh wonders why she hasn't gone home where she is in the thieves guild. She'd get a better price for it here... she'll go talk to Nesh.

She got teleported here, and tried to make contact with the local guild. Got in an argument with this "bitch named Marsha" who didn't think she was competent. Stole some of her stuff. In her stuff is what looks like the Duchess's signet ring. Nesh offers to handle returning it for a reward and the reward is hers. We can probably deal with probing in a way that doesn't implicate her, for example.

Vidan gets us an audience, and gives her a packet. There's something else that might be more sensitive - she takes us to a tower where a red mage takes away the guards' ears. O_o Lots of us have various investigatory abilities - we came upon a lifelink, is she aware of that? Yes. We thought it might be in an unfortunate state. Her husband's absence is day to day inconvenient. The lifebond is not day to day inconvenient...but she is concerned about what will happen when the timestop is ended. Her husband had taken a great deal of damage right before the timestop went into effect. She has recovered from her share of that damage - and is concerned that people get to him quickly.

Vidan also notes that the enemy has been pushing instability, in case there is anything we could help with. Since Middlesea closed and her husband went missing, there have been pressures on Darstan that have increased from neighbors in Red. It seems likely that one of Berana and King Richard's Lands were responsible for a recent intrusion into the castle. If you were to learn which of them that might have been, that would be appreciated. Berana has an envoy here publicly, Prince Sven. King Richard doesn't have anyone official.

Nesh goes to find the thieves guild. They tell him to go to the Temple of Jord and talk to Joseph. He slouches in and to the shrine of Jord, Joseph notes that he has a lot of DI resistance, but quizzes him on streetwise and some other skills he doesn't have. Before making plans, he should talk to either Alex at the Dragon's Claw or Marsha at the Stone Table.

Nesh and Gale talk to Marsha. Ex-pirates. Red guard dogs are something we won't be used to. Don't do too large a hit too often. Don't get too ambitious or claim we're Jord's left hand. She thinks there might be some jobs in the next week or so in case we're interested. If we're on a sanctioned job, we can run to a safehouse, but don't run to them on random jobs.

Nobody sneezes, though. Very disappointing.

We also recall that the Duchess actually asked that we figure out which of two people was responsible, not to investigate the theft. So we need to find the people and investigate them.

General gossip: Victoria is not all that interesting, she's always fighting Purple. Prince Sven is in town from Berana, everyone knows where. (The king of Berana has 25+ kids). Everyone assumes King Richard has someone here but nobody knows who offhand. Everyone is clear that the Duchess is the war leader, and Volstack is the ruler.

We visit Sven and give him a packet. He assures us that's very interesting. But he doesn't care about stuff outside of Red. (He is familiar with the Blue Mage, the most interested in outside Melmayne). Does he know who Richard's guy is? Well, give me two, I can get one to Richard. Vidan thinks that he is in communication with Richard about what to do about Darstan. Nesh thinks that he has moved here for the long term, not just for a bit.

Back to the common to talk to Thistle. Is Marsha a fence? No. So she stole it probably on someone else's behalf. She can show us. "What needs fixing?" (11 successes, 7 DI).

Get the ring back to the Duchess,
Clearing Marsha out would be good.
Stopping the war between Darstan / King Richard's lands / Berana from starting. Getting that back to the Duchess will help with that (getting it back to where Marsha was sending it would do best.). Marsha was sending it to George, King Richard's spy. Don't let George get it, that would start the war. Letting Sven get it would start the war more slowly.

We split up - Diomarch, Stella go up the stairs. Nesh (with Thistle) on the roof, Gale, Vadim, Managaratha, in the Kittiwake lurking in the alley on the second floor.

She goes out the window and we give chase. We fritter her down until she explodes, which Vadim confirms is Broken. (Gale loses her party clothes and Managaratha loses his ingredients).

Thistle and Nesh, tossing her place, finds them. (Nesh gives Thistle all the money).

A Lilac Kind Of Purple

2023-06-17T16:21:40Z

Charles: /* Shift Change */

==Shift Change==
[Phoenix 1]
Vidan and Stella re-appear. Nesh and Managaratha disappear.

We brief Vidan and Stella, at least a bit.

Scout talks to Rakta– did he notice the orc attack? He dreamed about them. Did he see them plotting? No, he just saw that they were attacking the people he was watching, and was told to wake up. Scout gives him an evidence packet and says that’s what the orcs are after.

Vidan says he just spent a few hours at the Citadel– wait, what!? The Citadel!? Yes. The Breaker’s Citadel? Oh, no, the keep at Middlesea. Phew.

Volda shows up in the morning. He drily notes the re-appearance of Vidan and Stella, and says he should bring them to the Minister of War. He drily inquires as to whether the others are… having breakfast down the street? No, they poofed/castled.

We are brought back to the Ministry of War. The Minister gets Vidan and Stella’s assurance to agree to the Oath, etc. Vidan makes sure there are no Sixth-level bureaucrats who would out-rank the Minister. Also that if Gods request or require the information, it is permissible to tell them.

The Minister briefs Stella and Vidan about the murder of the Minister of Redaction and the time-stop effect that occurred on his death. The Minister is more concerned that the bad guys have internal information on the Ministry of Redactions than on the ninja per se. The fact that there was an orc incursion trying to get the Evidence Packet implies that there are factions which aren’t talking to each other, which is… interesting. Given that one of us is going to have to apply the key to undo the time-stop, he wanted to make sure we know.

Redactions doesn’t work for a Fifth level ministry, though they work with Interior frequently.

==The Ministry of Lilacs==
Volda is waiting for us– have there been any new Ministries activated since yesterday? Not that he is aware of. “See? He’s careful.” –Vidan

Gale prevails upon the party to journey to the Ministry of Lilacs. Why do we care, Vidan wonders? The timing is suspicious– they were founded when Middlesea was attacked (which Vidan thinks should be called D-Day, but Scout thinks should be Orcs-Invade Day, or OI-Day for short.) Volda takes the party there, they are slightly out of town.

Gale interrogates the Ministry– what is their remit? Creating? Selling?
Not so much selling, but regulating the sale of perfumes. They are doing some selling at the moment, while they are getting the
“How does the Ministry reactivate?”

“A Bureaucrat of sufficient rank decides it is the thing they are meant to do.”
“Is that you?”
“Oh, no. I am flattered, but I am not of the Third Rank.”

The Minister’s name is Xi.

Gale asks for an adventuring perfume! Something, you know, dashing and sexy. <br>
“Certainly, certainly.”<br>
Gale is brought to the back room. There is a whole procedure involved. Washing and a robe, and some trial and error. Gale asks if she can buy some for personal use. It is expensive but not unbuyable. Come back in an hour. Gale does some flirty interrogation, but doesn’t find out where the Bureaucrat was before Lilacs was instantiated.

Vidan asks Volda what is happening with the Ministries whose leaders were on Middlesea.
Lions is mostly working as normal, as the Minister often was absent for lengths of time; others are struggling a bit. Fortune is probably doing whatever Fortune does; he doesn’t know. Redactions and Repercussions are having differences of opinion as to who’s in charge; those differences are opaque, and the loss of the Subminister of Redactions isn’t helping.

(In general Subministers are two levels below their Minister.)

While Gale is inside, we are approached!

“Good morning, I am Inspector Vok, I understand you were involved with the unfortunate incident with orcs, and also that you were one of the last people to speak with the Minister of Redactions. Could we speak later today, maybe over lunch?” Vidan admits as to how we would be pleased. He will meet us at our inn.

Scout goes to ask the Ministry of Lilacs about Green magic. A different person answers the door. They regulate some uses of Green magic, though they are not the Ministry of Magic. Many of the preparations of perfumes and scents include a use of plants which overlaps with Green. How about growing reagents? If it's for personal use, that would be the Ministry of Magic. The guy suggests that if he is planning to settle here, he get a license. There are licenses? Of… course…

Volda drily suggests we sit at a tea shop while we wait. He tries to ignore us, but Gale continues to pester him a bit about his past Ministerial experience.

As it turns out, Vidan was not contracted to a specific Ministry, but to the Delegation as a whole.

Vidan asserts that wild magic is illegal in the capital, which seems Mad to Scout.

==Lunch with Inspector Vok==
He has not reviewed the Tarn Evidence packet, so he does so. The Inspectors are cops and auditors; they work with the Ministry of Interior, but they pride themselves on their independence. There’s some debate about whether they’re technically a Ministry (though Vidan is unclear what it would mean to not be a Ministry…)

Vok appreciates the information, but was interested in talking about the incursion.

How can we help? He’s used post-cog to watch the ninja kill the Sub-minister, but he couldn’t follow him in or out. Human, or maybe a half-elf. Could have been an elf. Not a centaur or a Saurien. Not a goblin; he probably could have told the difference between

Vok takes us to the scene of the Crime! It’s been about two weeks; it’s a nice house, if dusty.
Vidan detectives– blood on the bed, no signs of a struggle. No signs of any thwackback, which… second level minister might have had some. Hard to know. The room has been pretty thoroughly searched, any other obvious clues have been removed. Whoever broke in and out was better than 6 successes– couldn’t have told that the door was picked or the window had been forced.

It’s hard to tell if there was an attempt to search the space by the ninja. Nothing is obviously missing. Vok knows the weapon was a dagger, seemingly unpoisoned.

Vidan asks Navere for True Sight of what needs to be seen, 6 DI 5 successes.

The ninja dodges a bunch of Vidan's miracle, but not all of it.

This causes Vok to cast the post-cog again and share it with Vidan. He sees the ninja attack, and is fairly confident that it’s a half-orc.

Stella also looks around, to see what needs fixing.
* There are two problems here, neither of which can be fixed here.
* The half-orc spy network in the Bureaucracy
* Finding the key to opening the time-stop.
* There is potentially information in the room that could be helpful for the second, but it’s being concealed by Twins-y things.

It’s probably better to avoid fixing the half-orc spy network too fast– the problems are both keeping a third problem in check. Solving either of those two problems will bring a third problem closer.

Scout takes a look around to see what the magic/miracular landscape looks like.
The house has some protections, both magical and miracular. It doesn’t look like those have been triggered yet. They’re not physical, they’re informational, and they don’t seem to be protecting the ninja, rather than the Minister. Which is probably what the Goddess meant by saying “I’m not going to tell you the information right now”.

Scout mentions that the house is protecting the Minister’s secrets– “More paperwork”, sighs the Inspector. He mostly leaves us be in the House. The party pokes around a bit more.
Stella asks if the half-orc was male or female– probably male.

Vadim files some paperwork to find out where the Lilac Ministers came from.

The Ministry of Repercussions might be able to tell us if we should expect a half orc ninja visit tonight. Also what might happen if Gale keeps investigating the Ministry of Lilacs. IT HAS A RAINBOW ENDING AT IT.

The door opens as we approach– “come in, you’re late”. Huh. Vidan thinks they often say that. They lead us to a room that is clearly set up for us.

“I am Sub-minister Tran– you would be the Middlesea… emissaries, let’s say.”
“What’s left of them, anyway. Or what’s free of them.” – Diomarch
“What’s free of them, yes. I don’t suppose you have any information from the Minister?”
“Not yet, no.”
“It is highly likely you will, though you all are hard to predict, due to the Miracles on you– Miracles making predictions harder.

So. What do you need.”

Diomarch asks about the orc attack(s).

“There are odds above 80% of a ninja attack on you all this evening. I cannot see the details, but it seems to be an assault rather than a theft.”

Well that’s disheartening for everyone except Diomarch, who thinks he’s done his job here.

Gale asks about ramifications of investigating the Ministry of Lilacs.

“No ramifications in the next several days, but there is an encounter with a young lady on most of the paths but the details are lost in the noise.”

How about going to Green v. Red next?

The immediate consequences were already triggered in Green yesterday evening. We could learn about that by going to Her Majesty's court, but there is no immediate necessity.

Thistle's actions in Darstan are not completely resolved - if we travel there quickly we could have an impact on that, and we could have an effect on the possible conflicts between Darstan and the other red nations. If we wait until the Saurian returns he might want to go to Blue.

Vadim notes: their advice is not always right, but if you go and get their advice and then ignore it, you will absolutely be fired if they were right.

==Preparing for Ninja==
We go to the Ministry of Lilacs, looking for perfumes that would be good irritants for half-orc assassins who are liable to come and get us.

A young woman comes in and delivers the perfume - it's the same person who opened the door but looks young now. Gale invites her to stay for dinner. She introduces herself as [[Li Za]].

A centaur comes in. Checking which herds Diomarch is with. "I'm with Eschetos. Look at the end." (I'm not with a ministry, I'm with the Head Stallion.)
As it turns out, the centaur’s name is Luc. He asks many questions, and will report to headquarters. He expects we will hear back from him or another centaur, soon. He gallops off.

Li Za is put out by Scout’s doubts about the perfume’s efficacy, and Gale flirts a bit more to try to reassure her. We give her a Tarn Evidence Packet too.

Clomp clomp clomp - there are some centaurs milling around around casual in the middle of the street. Do they have any plans on second-story combat? One of them is a Purple mage who can walk up; they all have bows. The Purple mage could shrink them, although that’s not really subtle per se. Luc and two of the centaurs go to the stables; one of the centaurs goes up.

Rakta gives four of us a miracle of Noticing Things While Asleep– +24 Per.
==The Ninja Strikes!==
Scout notices the ninja coming through the window, and shouts and shoots him in the surprise round. He takes a thrown knife for his pains, and also starts taking poison damage.

Diomarch charges into the fray, bowling over the assassin and keeping him pinned for a round. Stella manages to heal Scout enough that the poison is a slow drip, rather than a torrent.

Gale casts coordinate on the next attack - that clears the deck for the mooks to pincushion the assassin, though he is still standing at the end of round 2, when he drops his ninja smoke and bounces off of Vidam's anti-teleport shield. He runs down the stairs instead. The ninja has a schtick in hard-to-see that caps attacker’s dice at their Per; Scout gives everyone a miracle of extra Per dice.

Scout sends his Per spirit to blind the ninja, which leaves him actually blind– although he still has targeting on where the spirit is, which helps.

The centaurs keep chasing him and Luc manages to knock him down. Scout falls over from poison.

The slow two-legs get rides from the nearby centaurs. Stella keeps everyone (including the ninja) from dying of poison.

Vadim pushes for "Give him to the centaurs, and we get (some of) the loot.”

A terrible, terrible combat in which we barely eke out a victory.

==Loot==
* +5 EPs
* +5 SPs
* +1 captured half-orc assassin
* +some loot (to be delivered)

==Epilogue==
Gale returns to the Ministry of Lilacs, to flirt with Li Za (and tell her that the perfume worked well)..