Beta Hooks

### Béta's Geography

Holwel gets a share of the fun Heath flora that's self seeded around the little township of Béta. Protected by the big wall, Béta gets a nice warm down-draft of relatively dry air, in between drizzly showers off the mountain. In summer the air is rich with the smell of teak flowers (white and fragrant). Kino trees produce little yellow flowers in bunches, and the Fairy Beeches do a large seasonal mast which produces a lot of pollen. Huge flocks of tiny nectar and pollen-eating birds, as well as big iridescent sap-eating wasps, flock to the town in summer. It rains a lot in early Summer and is dry with snow flurries in Winter.

### The township

Béta is relatively small but densely built, with lots of chalets for pilgrims, and large two-storey barns for housing alpaca, horses and mules. Béta is close to the big stables at Augéa and the locals have access to the... not so fancy stock, which they have started to selectively breed for use as pack animals. The mule industry is pretty new but successful. The township has two sources of income, from the pilgrims and from the mounts. Unfortunately, farming's pretty tricky in the lee of the big wall, and in the shade of a huge mountain. So Béta has to import some of its food from the Fertile Swathe. Given the Spring Wars have done damage to nearby farmlands, pickings are a bit leaner than usual and the locals complain about the cost of fruit.

#### The Temple

The Holwel Springs temple is built on a hefty rock outcrop to ensure it avoids avalanches and spring meltwater. It's an elegant building made out of the local granite and marble, in a very simplistic style - almost a smaller version of the Wedge in Piedamonte, a tall triangle with rounded edges. Inside the temple is a large apse containing shrines to various deities, as well as an alcove for each Cartel and human House. There's also a crypt entrance that leads to an ossuary full of carefully cleaned bones, mostly human with a few elven skulls in the mix. Some people like to preserve their ancestors' remains here. A few of the skulls are even gilded or have semi precious stones set into their eye sockets. Exploring the very foundations of the ossuary reveals the skulls and bones of quite a few Desh.

### Inside Holwel Grotto

Holwel Grotto is a large and fairly stable cavern that fills with huge quantities of alpine meltwater in Spring, settles down in Summer and is moderately active in Winter. The rock composition is coarse, pink-grained granite with patches of old marble. Deeper into the cavern there's a high ceiling and some quite lovely stalactites, though Spring floods tend to smooth things out closer to ground level. Bats and the occasional Roper are known to dwell here. People venture inside in high summer to harvest bat guano, so there is a good trail with sections of rope-and-piton, hand-cut steps and brackets for fixing torches along the way. A couple of overhangs have been cut into the cavern wall for people to take short rests.

Pluma de Cuervo is the name of the local guano mining company.

The greater cave system has seen 4-5000 years of intermittent use by sentient kin.

## The Return to Béta

Rachel Guidry has tipped the party off: they know that her father Morom Abel Guidry has laid some kind of ambush for them when they return to Béta.

Abel has quite literally "bought" the town out from under the local priesthood. He's set up the Temple - the best fortified building in town - as the latest branch of the Banco. It's now a citadel bristling with Y'd mercenaries and a host of local low-lifes.

Abel has got hold of something of Yiuri's: a personal effect that he'd lost or thrown away. He's going to use it to try and curse Yiuri.

##### Notable Y'd:

* Amado (M): rooftop sniper with a long-breeched rifle in a similar vein to Yiuri's specialised weapon. Amado is slender for a dwarf, has heterochromic eyes and pale hair. He wears a strange hooded jacket with discreet red and white trim. Amado is devout about Elo and whispers prayers to help him find his targets.
* Bulissa (F): a heavy fighter with a shock of ash-blonde hair under her helmet. Bulissa wears full plate armour and wields a glaive with a white tassel and a nasty little spike at the non-"business" end. Bulissa's demeanour is extremely businesslike, she goes where the money is.
* Mazal-tov (F): clearly a street name. She's chaotic, loud and feisty, with grubby brown hair and a missing front tooth which gives her a bit of a lisp. Mazal-tov hurls homemade incendiaries wherever they'll do the most harm. There is a slight chance one will blow up at random.
* Moyshe (M): cleric of Elo, who can bless and heal his brethren as well as deploy sympathetic magc to afflict Yuri. He has a shaven scalp and a glorious auburn beard, plaited into three thick braids. Moyshe is a little conflicted about setting up shop in a temple - even if it isn't a temple to Elo, it just isn't sitting right with him.
* Khaine (M), Abel's hairless, pox-scarred bodyguard. He's got some of Kyrill's wiles about him, but he's less showmanlike and more brutal. Khaine has lost respect for his boss after cleaning up a few too many of his messes, and he is waiting for an excuse to defect and support Rachel as the next Guidry magnate.

##### Notable local mercs:

* Izotz (M), a burly, very tall human with a dark moustache and a long straight nose, who hurls boulders from the Temple walls down on interlopers. He's laconic rather than berserk.
* Granate (Two), a scrawny half-elf of Albion extraction, wearing a sarong over homemade leather armour. Granate is a wild magic user who imbues sling bullets with chaotic bursts of energy. They have painted a Dwarven runic symbol onto a shaved section of their scalp... the runic symbol is one commonly used to mark an unstable mineshaft.
* Xydi (F), a minor Evoker (casts acid splash spells) with a scratched-out Kubernetes tattoo on her left shoulder. She wears her hair in clumps of thin braids that are tucked into a headcloth.

##### Friends in Need:

The Temple clerics will want help reclaiming their place:

* Elek has already met Fratello Giulio, a human curate. He has dark tonsured hair and is a reserved chap. Fra Giulio specialises in healing rituals.
* Fratello Timotei (M, half elf). He has especially long and lustrous brunette hair and a small Jesus beard. Fra Timotei can cast some simple Divine spells (Alteration)
* Sora Greta (a Vestfalian refugee). She can cast a few basic Illuson spells incuding Light tricks. Her strength is in combat: she's both strong and dextrous with a metal staff. One of her hands is missing its little finger.
* Deacon Ginevra Brunoro (F, half elf). She has a cousin who sings opera in Venere, who's shown her some some bard-type skills. Ginevra has the interesting ability to use Sympathetic magic - a mix of Art and Science. The party's Probability mage, Gemma, will be very interested in Ginevra's tricks.

Rachel herself, or Dona Abril Abundantia, or both may end up riding into town and bailing out the party.