06. 04/07/2018 Session Writeup

## Session Writeup

Regrouping at the Tavern, the party discusses what they want to do next.  Taer notices that Britni has peeled away from the rest of the group, where she is talking to a few people.  Britni ends up leaving with the figures, seemingly of her own volition. Veronica questions Ivan Ivanson about his classes and if there’s any artificers at the college, and the group learns that there’s a university-owned shop that sells student’s works.

The group heads up to the cliff level of Kotumi, where they run into another girl wearing a cloak of billowing and a drug dealer.  They learn the name of the professor of enchantment, professor Akaki. Farideh takes the moment to load up with hashish. They then go to the university-owned magical goods shop and talk to the silver dragonborn working there.  It turns out that the person who had the note came through this town a week or two ago, traded their cloak for a cloak of billowing (which they thought was a cloak of many fashions). The dragonborn then gave the cloak to Trina (the party also went shopping, buying such items as a beads of nourishment, a pipe of smoke monsters, and the cloak of many fashions).  They did not find a fanny pack of holding, as those are very popular with the students.

The party then headed up to the college proper, where the apparently shiftiness of some members of the party meant that they had to sign in to be able to enter.  They talk to Professor Zaur, who tells them that her lecture notes on the works the elven alchemist Kel of Myev (working in conjunction with the silver dragon Melikov) have been stolen.  She suspects some anti-gnome, anti-scientific achievement agitators, who are generally known under the name the Divine Right. Taer also notices that she has some documents with an inverted triangle (alchemical symbol of Earth) in a sunrise.  Zaur mentions that they are from the order of Emanation, or the Path of Emanance, and have given her grants. Zaur also comments on Zoia’s appearance - she’s apparently looking younger and better than she had the last time she’d been around.

The party heads to the library, where the head librarian demands that Zoia return her lecture notes.  They have apparently gone missing right after she left town. In their stead, there was only one sheet, an outline for a lecture series that nobody remembers:

1. Can’t go home again:  Gnomish experience through folktales
2. On the mystery and history of the downfall of Elven Anatolia
3. Do Re Mi, A B C, B flats and H’s:  An introduction to various musical nomenclatures, symbols, and scales
4. Tricksters, demons, and the feywild:  What to do when you cannot trust your senses
5. Of the outer planes and those who live within
6. Who is it that you really are, who is it that you are not:  creating senses of identity through foils, mirrors and twins.
7. On the irrevocability of time
8. What can never be revealed:  memory charms, geas, and curses
9. On plots and motivations, when to reveal and what to hide to cause tension
10. Do not follow me, there is danger here:  The importance of establishing risk

None of the former students seem to remember anything about her classes, and when Zoia asks specific questions about other people who might have been around to help teach, the librarian seems unable to answer.  Taer notices the same symbol again, on a plaque talking about the Path of Emanance’s contributions to this library.

Zoia, Farideh, and Lu all decide to stay in the library, while Veronica and Taer decide to look for cheaper lodging elsewhere (Veronica and Taer work on this for about fifteen minutes, give up, and then decide to harass some mimes instead).  Looking through what they can find, they pick up books on:

1. A history of science book that has a description of the experiment Kel of Myev worked on - learning more about the specifics of the experiment, if not the outcome
2. A book on dragons, including Melikov - that his lair was somewhere nearby
3. A book that described the provenance of the paintings Lu got from Old Eteri’s house
4. A book on the history of Kvari Keep - learning the layout
5. A book on the order of emanation - learning that they are a scientific-based whose opinion of extraplanar creatures ranges from derisive to hostile.

They also confer and examine the evidence they have.  Zoia eventually remembers that the germanic scale swaps out the b for an h (with the english b flat as the typical b), changing the notes she’d heard in Lanketi from:

b♭eg’cede’cbace’beed’facade’dead’be’beed’cbace’gab♭’fae’fade’gab♭’deaf’ea#’b♭eg

to

beg’cede’chase’heed’facade’dead’he’heed’chase’gab’fae’fade’gab’deaf’ea#’beg

After continuing their research for a little while longer, Farideh, Zoia and Lu met up with Veronica and Taer and went back to the tavern, where Zoia told the party a little about her history:  she once had a twin sister, who had had died three years previous under mysterious circumstances. Her twin sister was not at all musically inclined, which makes her being a professor even stranger.  Taer reveals that she remembered that the people that Britni disappeared with earlier that day were wearing badges with the symbol for the order of Emanation on them, and shares that information.

Veronica spends part of the night trying to pickpocket people.  She fails.

The next morning, Taer gets up early and goes to her mother’s place to look through her things (Veronica tags along).  She finds within her mother’s things a very fine cloak with an official looking badge on it - one that Lu recognizes as part of the shipmaker’s guild once they meet up.  The party then returned to the cliffside to sell items. Farideh attempted to ask the Silver Dragonborn about the whereabouts of Melikov, but only got a cursory direction before clamming up.