13/10/2020 - Free-time frolicking, coral calamity and murder mystery

## TL:DR

* The group had a week off in which many things were bought and many conversations were had.
* Dr T gave them the deetz of their next mission. They were to go and meet a guild representative called Grace in the City of Eastshore, as Krieg Venusto had been spotted there. They were to try and find out what Venusto was up to and where the rest of the guilds missing stuff was.
* On the way to Eastshore, Trimaeus got the Wildmane stuck on some coral, but some friendly fish-people helped free it after being paid with fish and bolts.
* Shortly after arriving in Eastshore, Blagden immediately found a dead body. Kunai saw a figure running from the scene, but the group couldn’t catch up with them.
* After finding Grace and telling her about the body, she told the group that the murdered man was Kyris, her counterpart on the island, and that she suspected Venusto was behind the murder…**Next Session**

## Week off

Having returned safely from Khaldaria, the group had a week of free time before their next mission! Narko started the week by divvying up the gold the group had accumulated on their travels (out of character, each player got 1650 GP to split between their characters).

Flush with cash, Narko, Kunai, Bayul and Galdar sought out Master Quail to get some magical upgrades to their weapons and armour – with Kunai upgrading both his whip-chain and a shiny new crossbow he had acquired from Lieutenant Ilyen. After getting his shield upgraded, Bayul took Gimble’s sword to the highest point on the island and held a private burial service. Bayul didn’t know this, but somewhere, deep in the mire of space-time, Gimble was singing a song of both sadness and hope. Leo, Elyan and Breena also spent some dolla acquiring the various components they needed for their fancy spells.

### Breena

Breena spent most of the week with her head buried deep in potion-making books. Having spent some time in the guild library she bravely attempted to make a truth serum, but sadly all she accomplished was making some grey-gunk. Realising she needed help, she sought out the inspiration of Elyan, who she hadn’t actually met yet but quickly introduced herself to. Elyan suggested getting the help of Scribbulus, who was of course found frolicking around naked with some tortoises on the beach. After solving Scribbulus’s nudity with some minor illusions, the three headed up to Breena’s workshop beneath the guild. In the workshop were some young guild members, who Breena inexplicably decided to give her failed grey-gunk potion too. Scribbulus was concerned that he would be no help, as he was more of an herbalist than an arcanist, but was very excited by the idea of making a potion of slipperiness! This somehow swerved into a conversation about how slipperiness could lead to revealing oneself to a penguin, which Elyan had definitely never done.

As Scribbulus aided Breena with the actual potion making, Elyan motivated them with a truly beautiful limerick about Rocky:

*There once was a bard named Rocky,*

*Who rode Narko as a Jockey,*

*Dancing at the pink pony,*

*He soon became a Brony,*

*Which is why he is incredibly Cocky*

With the help and inspiration of Scribbulus and Elyan, this time Breena successfully brewed both a serum of truth and a potion of slipperiness! However, their excitement was short-lived, for as they were finishing up, dense acrid smoke began pouring out of the cauldron the young-guild members had put Breena’s grey-gunk into. Not wanting to be killed by poisonous gasses, the three quickly left.

### Scribbulus

Scribbulus spent most of his week scavenging for the plants required to brew a healing potion. He found many interesting plants, but sadly did not come across anything medicinal.

### Narko

Narko began his week in a state of exhaustion due to his near-death-induced insomnia. Thankfully, a good heart-to-heart chat with his pal Leo soon got Narko’s head into a more positive and sleep-ready state. Narko used his week off to see if the Ilbidor herbalist had been able to acquire any more Wasteland weed. Sadly, she hadn’t, but she was hopefully that she had a lead that would soon let her get a steadier supply going. Narko then went to the dockmaster to ask him to produce some official papers for the Wildmane. The dockmaster was surprisingly sassy about the request, but eventually did it, with Dr T put down as the owner, for 100 GP. The dockmaster also gave Narko a letter that had arrived for him from is wife and daughter (whose names, Artina and Solena, he definitely remembered!). The letter said many generic nice things, but most excitingly included a small pouch of Wasteland weed seed!

Narko then gave the postmaster a few letters to send: One to his rune-maester mentor, a centaur called Firenze Strongarm. One to Artina, and one to Rocky on Khaldaria.

### Leo

As well as talking to Narko, Leo spent much time talking to his screeching semi-animated toddler plant.

### Blagden

Blagden spent most of his week annoying people, specifically seeking out conversations with both Bayul and Leo.

After knocking loudly at Bayul’s door and almost being ignored due to his height, Blagden demanded that Bayul pay up his debt or give him an ear! Bayul was initially confused by this, but then remembered that he’d promised Blagden something in return for the oats he had taken from the goblin on Cypropa. Bayul then gave Blagden a beautiful stone carving of a rat – though made Blagden promise not to tell anyone, even going so far as to make Blagden prove he wasn’t crossing his fingers. Blagden seemed genuinely amazed by the rat-carving. Though, as he left, he chuckled that Ratty hadn’t had his fingers crossed so could tell everyone.

Blagden then went to see Leo to ask him about the RilIfane book. They covered many topics, including: Why Leo worshiped trees. Why trees are in fact better than dragons (soz Azurial) and that Rilifane is pretty darn powerful, but not able to bring back someone long dead. This made Blagden look sad. Leo told Blagden that he needed to “work with nature” because nature was “organic”. Blagden was not impressed by this, pointing out that his friend did not die organically, in fact, died really brutally. Leo finished by encouraging Blagden to keep reading the book, adding that he was welcome to come by anytime for more chats. Blagden said he’d read the book but held out no promises on coming back for chats.

### Elyan

As well as buying components and helping Breena, Elyan sought out Narko to tell him of a new spell he had learnt, which allowed him to send messages to people far away! Narko was very excited by this, and after describing his wife (who’s name he remembered) to Elyan, Elyan sent her a message saying:

*Artina, do not be alarmed, I am a friend of Narko’s. He received your letter and hopes you and Solena are doing well.*

Elyan quickly got a reply saying that they were doing very well, and that Solena had killed her first prey! Elyan then sent a message to Rocky asking how he was doing. The reply from Rocky was somewhat confused, but could be summarised as: *“yass giants, yass Eddin, yass booze”.*

### Dr Page

During the week, the group visited Dr Page to show him the infernal tablet, spell scrolls and notes that they had found on Khaldaria. On entering his office, they saw the Hellfire sword on his desk surrounded by notes. Very excitedly, Dr Page explained that he now believed that Dispater, the Lord of the second layer of Baator, Dis, had forged the blade, which made sense as he was the most prominent forger and weapons producer of all the Hells. This talk of infernal forging made Leo very excited, and he asked Dr Page if he had ever been to the Hells before. Surprisingly, Dr Page replied that he had. Mostly in the city of Dis, where he had spent some time doing research. However, Dr Page stressed to the group that it was not a place to travel to lightly, particularly if you didn’t speak infernal, as it was a very dangerous place.

After super-strength Azurial got the tablet out of the bag of holding (narrowly avoiding crushing the Hellfire sword beneath its weight), Dr Page gave the group the low-down on his thoughts:

The tablet had remnants of conjuration magic, and the infernal writing on it appeared to reference the 6th – 9th layers of the Hells. Specifically, it seemed to reference the geography, purpose and leader of each layer. However, it was hard to read exactly what was being said due to the missing pieces.

Initially, he didn’t know what the quarter-circle thing on the tablet was. However, after hearing about the Perpetuum ring, he wondered if it could be a reference to the Ouroboros, which would be very strange given that he knew of no lore linking the Hells to the Ouroboros (or Prime Serpent). He said that they needed the other pieces of the tablet to find out more! And that he would ask Dr T if they could use a very expensive custom made scrying spell that the guild had access to, which allowed missing pieces of larger objects to be found, provided they weren’t scattered into too small pieces.

He said that the spell scrolls were definitely conjuration based, and were heavily damaged by arcane energy, suggesting that the spell had malfunctioned when it was used. The damage could be at least partially repaired to allow him to read more, but this need an expert restorationist. The notes appeared to be comments and thoughts by the spell scroll creator. These were damaged by age and decay, and also needed restoration by an expert to read properly.

## New mission, new friend

At the end of their week off, half of the group were called into Dr T’s office. She said that they had received a message from a senior guild operative, Grace, on the Trifecta saying that Krieg Venusto had been spotted in Eastshore. It was unlikely that he was still there, but it was vital they found out as much about what he was doing as possible. So, they were to go and find Grace on Eastshore, at the Laughing Candle tavern, then find out all they could of Venusto. Specifically, who he was meeting there? And whether he’d been trying to drop off or sell any of the still-missing guild items? If they did happen to find Vensuto, they were to try and bring him in alive to question, though if he had to be killed, so be it. Kunai was excited by this, proclaiming that the “hunt was on” and that “dead men can still be questioned”.

Dr T then said that a senior guild operative named Galdor Amathaer-Aranion would be joining them on the mission. Pointing towards the door, the group saw an exquisitely dressed man, wearing a massive white wig, a pompous tunic and high leather boots. From his arms draped two large flaps of skin, whilst two tentacles hung at his sides. His face was elvish, but with several catfish-like whiskers. He was also blue. Most of the group politely held in any surprise they felt at the strangeness of the newcomer. However, Blagden had no filter and no sense of politeness, so immediately set about laughing and generally mocking Galdor for his appearance, claiming that he had *“seen hags prettier than you”.* Thankfully Galdor didn’t seem offended by Blagden’s rudeness, simply proclaiming that the goblin clearly didn’t understand beauty.

Bayul then brought the conversation back on track by asking Dr T if there were any specific guild items that were still missing. She replied that all of the missing items were variants of items able to contact the lower planes (though not the hellish plane). As Dr T spoke, Kunai attempted to sneak-read the reports on her desk, but gleaned nothing new.

Bored of the sensible talk, and still intrigued by Galdor’s appearance, Blagden sneakily summoned his invisible mage hand and slowly poked and then lifted Galdor’s wig. This had quite unexpected consequences, as suddenly a swarm of crabs, octopi and squid swarmed out of Galdor’s wig! As Bayul and Kunai drew their weapons, Galdor hysterically tried to use his tentacles to herd his little minions back into his wig, shouting that he wanted none of the crabs shit this time.

Galdor’s new quirk re-started the conversation about how weird he was. But Ash reminded the group that outward appearances don’t matter, as it is what’s inside that is important. Galdor agreed, saying that Ash was wise but boring. Ash wasn’t bothered about being boring as he was on a higher plane (he’d clearly been having too much of Narko’s weed). Dr T then hurried everyone along to the ship. As they left, Ash tried to use his aura sight on Galdor, but his attempts were deflected.

## S​​​​​​hip shenanigans

On the ship, Trimaeus was pleased that they had proper papers so as not to have a repeat of Cypropa. Kunai requested that the name “Cypropa” not be used in his presence. Trimaeus then told the group what to expect on the journey to Easthore. It was a 5ish day journey along proper trade routes – no more into the wilderness sailing like the journey to Khaldaria, so would be good voyage!

Kunai was sceptical that the journey would be good. Bayul agreed, particularly as they had Blagden with them, who at this point was doing flips and tricks on the ships rigging. Trimaeus asked where Blagden’s “minder” Tamsin was. Blagden cheekily shot back that he was being minded by Ratty. Kunai shouted at him to behave, which made him stop doing flips at least.

Kunai asked why there was an angry French box. Trimaeus explained the Rocky-situation, and told Blagden that Rocky had given him the sapphire. Blagden seemed genuinely emotional that he’d been given a present, particularly one so shiny! It would make a fine addition to his collection. Kunai tried to get Chris the box to open, but it wouldn’t until Trimaeus asked. Chris was full of alcohol, so Kunai took some and passed it out to the ladz. Chris was unhappy at having alcohol taken from him, so Galdor attempted to calm him by asking what a “special day” would be for him. Chris replied that a special day was when something special was put in him.

## Coral calamities

After a few days sailing, the ship suddenly stopped. It transpired that Trimaeus had attempted to take a short cut and got the boat stuck on some coral. This annoyed Bayul, who thought Trimaeus was meant to be above such simple mistakes. Blagden sent Ratty down to assess the damage, whilst the others argued whether Bayul, Kunai or Galdor was naturally best suited to swimming. Ratty couldn’t see much, but Bayul and Kunai spotted humanoid figures moving underwater. Sending Ratty towards the figures, Blagden described that these people looked kind of like Galdor, but with spears. Using his aura sight, Ash learnt that the creatures were not hostile, and that the boat had crashed into their home. They were neutrally aligned, not very healthy, but seemingly peaceable.

Bayul suggested avoiding a fight by paying them to help with fish. This led to a discussion about whether they were likely to actually want fish, and indeed whether the Wildmane actually had any fish onboard (Bayul was adamant that they would want fish and there would be fish on board).

Ash then spoke to them using her sneaky mind-tricks.  He apologised for crashing into their coral house, and asked if they could help get their boat free and on its way towards Eastshore? After confirming that the group didn’t intend them any harm, the fish-people agreed to help in return for supplies. Bayul immediately offered them fish, which they gladly accepted (making Bayul very smug), though they also wanted some weapons. They explained that people often came and stole their coral, so they simply wanted a means to defend themselves and sometime catch fish. Thankfully, the Wildmane had a stock of fish (making Bayul even more smug) and enough spare weapons to give them a few metal bolts. This pleased the fish-people, who with a nod to Ratty quickly got the Wildmane off the coral and on its way.

## Eastshore

The rest of the journey went smoothly, and the group arrived into Eastshore late afternoon on the 5th day since leaving Ilbidor. Eastshore was a bustling metropolis on the east side of the island Taehia. It wasn’t as big as Merchendale, or anywhere near as big as Iysgarth, but bigger than most places. The docks were bustling with people of all races and colours. The cityscape beyond the docks was dominated by three large spires in the centre, one red, one blue, one yellow, and a large green dome. The buildings further from the docks looked more elegant than those near the docks. Inside the docks were many ships, some much larger than the Wildmane, but most similar size or smaller.  To Kunai’s annoyance, most of the ships carried the flag of the ATC. He quickly put up his hood to hide his face.

On the docks, an androgynous human wearing a jacket emblazoned with the blue, red and green flag of Taehia met the group and asked them their business on Eastshore. After Ash explained their reason for being there, the human simply wrote down: tourism. After getting the new ships papers custom stamped, Ash asked where the Laughing Candle tavern was. The dock person seemed surprised that they would want to go there, but explained that it was at the western quarter by the south wall. The dock person then recommended going to the Seagulls Rest instead, which was also in the merchant’s quarter. They also warned the group to stay away from The Seahorse, which apparently was a bad place towards the north of the city. Ash tipped the dock person a silver for their time.

## City chase

Once off the docks, Blagden immediately sprinted off into the back alleys, shouting at the others to follow. Despite his speed and the fact he’d never been to Eastshore before, Blagden somehow found a super quick route to the Laughing Candle, with the others struggling to keep up with his erratic darting. However, just before he reached the candle, Blagden suddenly saw a body fall from a height and smack into the ground right in front of him. The body was male, had pointy ears, and looked posh like Galdor. Ever the opportunist, Blagden immediately picked the bodies pockets, gaining 23 GP, 16 SP, 7 CP and a sapphire ring. He also found a notebook and an empty leather cord that should have had a pendant on it, but he left these as they looked boring. As the others caught up, they collectively groaned at the worrying sight of Blagden next to a dead body. However, Blagden quickly persuaded Elyan of his innocence, and Ash pointed out that the body had clearly fallen from a great height. Ash also picked up the notebook that Blagden had abandoned.

Looking up, Kunai noticed a figure running away along the rooftops, and immediately shouted at Blagden to send Ratty after him. As Ratty scampered off, Kunai grabbed the in-a-trance Blagden and set off on the ground, the others at his heels. Seeing Ratty struggling to keep up, Blagden swapped his consciousness back into himself just as Bayul grabbed him out of Kunai’s arms and threw the Goblin up onto the walls and roofs above. Blagden just about managed to pull himself up, and dashed off after the fleeing figure. However, sadly Blagden couldn’t catch up, and Galdor’s arrow just missed its mark.

## The Laughing Candle

Despite there being a perfectly good set of stairs, Blagden decided to backflip off the wall into Bayul and Kunai. This would have gone terribly, but thankfully Elyan’s feather fall spell prevented any damage. Blagden then led the group back to the Laughing Candle, which, as implied by the dock person, was an absolute dump, with boarded up windows, smashed glass and graffiti. Kunai commented that this was very much his kind of establishment.

There were very few people inside the Laughing Candle, and none responded when Galdor asked for Grace. Elyan entered slightly behind the others in an attempt not to be associated with them. He went straight for the bar and ordered two beers, giving the barkeep much tippage. Elyan then asked the barkeep where Grace was. The barkeep pointed to two people in the corner. Thanking him for his help, Elyan gave one of his pints to Blagden, who being a young’un did not like the taste, so gave it to Kunai, who gave it to Galdor, who gave it back to Elyan.

## Grace

Elyan led the group towards Grace, who was a Tiefling with big horns, and another person with blue gills. Elyan explained that they were from the guild and asked if they could join them. After some initial suspicion, names were exchanged, and the group found out that the blue-gilled person was Grace’s friend, Moira.

Grace asked the group if anyone knew they were here. They replied that they didn’t think so, but that they had just found a dead man and then chased someone through the streets… Grace looked very concerned about this, and after hearing the description of the dead man and looking at the notebook Ash had picked up, stated that things were “worse than I thought”.  She then explained that the dead man had been her counterpart, Kyris, and that Venusto must have killed him. Kunai asked how she knew it was Venusto. Grace replied that it was just obvious, but Kunai was not convinced.

Galdor then asked about Kyris’s pendant. Grace said that he always wore it, that it was a white shiny stone, but that she didn’t know what it was for. Kunai explained that it had been taken, presumably by the murderer, so must have been important. Ash then asked Grace if she could start at the beginning and give them the whole story of what was going on. However, before Grace could begin, Elyan suggested going somewhere safer to talk first. Kunai pointed out that if Venusto had known where to find Kyris, then Grace’s house probably wasn’t safe. He suggested faking a robbery at her house as a ruse for getting her stuff, then setting up a new safehouse somewhere else where they could talk.