20/07/2021 - Holiday High-jinks, Flummoxing Flags and Curious Crates

## Holiday homage

Having been hard at work for many months, the group are given a two-week holiday!

* Narko checks on his weed farm – his plants are thriving, 12 plants have created 48 new seeds, so he plants 12 more. Sends letters to Rocky and his family.

* Blagden visits Magpie, shows her his collection, and gives her a fake copy of a bone knife. He and Magpie then prank Bayul by steal some stew from the kitchen and dropping it on his head. Bayul is cross and throws a book at Blagden, but Blagden just steals the book and runs away.

* Galdor goes on a two-week bender.

* Leo rmembers he had an awakened shrub once. Goes to the blacksmiths to volunteer. Goes to the temple to say hi to Rillifane.

* Elyan goes to the Wretched hive (#sneaky). On the way there he practices his herbalism.

* Tamsin writes letters to her mother and tries to get in Dr T’s good graces.

* Ves catches up with the others and visits her patrons.

* Bayul spends some time paying his respect at Gimbles grave / brooding over recent events. Goes up there a few times over the two weeks. On the last night, Elyan goes with him and uses sending to try and contact Gimble… not expecting it to work, and it seemingly doesn’t work. Bayul also reads the book in Loxodon he got from Myriath (after forcing Blagden to give it back).

* Bayul also encourages everyone to do a weapons training montage. Narko casts a rune on Galdors weapon to make it fire super far.

* Bayul asks Narko about the wastelands and the Orcs who live there. Narko outlines his herds heritage, that they are an ancient race who consider it their duty to protect the surrounding settlements from the raiding orcs, but that this is becoming increasingly challenging as the number of centaurs is decreasing. Also explains that the orcs have always taken slaves, but that selling them to third parties is new. Bayul asks if he can one day meet Narko’s people and learn their battle tactics. Narko says he’s more than welcome!

## A new mission: Echs marks the spot

At the end of the two weeks, Derrick from the ship informs the group that Dr T requests their presence in the guilds conference room.

Inside is Dr T, Dr Page, Kunai and a third guild member we don’t recognise.

The third guid member is an older human male, thin grey hair, smart, smiling. Dr T introduces him as the guild cartographer; Dr Eric Martindale.

Dr T, Dr Page, Dr Martindale and Kunai then outline the groups next mission, with Dr Martindale casting some sort of protective ward on the room before anyone speaks:

* Dr Page and Prof. X are at a dead-end with their investigations into the infernal tablet pieces until they can finish restoring/translating the spell scrolls and notes that accompanied them.

* In the meantime, their only lead is the weird canvas thing the group found in the mountain in the mires alongside the most recently found tablet piece.

* Kunai believes this canvas depicts a gap in reality, some sort of tear or rip between the planes that links all of time and space. If manipulated by a being of sufficient abilities, this thing could allow someone to harness and use an almost unlimited source of power.

* As this canvas also depicts infernal avatars, Dr Page is understandably concerned by this.

* Bayul asks what the avatars are – Dr Page is confused by them. Each avatar looks like a typical depiction of Asmodeus himself. However, the canvas shows 10 avatars, one on each of the planes of hell and one on the material plane. This is impossible, as it Asmodeus cannot sustain any other of his avatars if one is on the material plane. So is this 10th avatar actually Asmodeus himself, or some other devil, or some weird “extra avatar”. Page doesn’t know, but definitely doesn’t like the look of what he sees.

* Kunai’s family call this rip in reality “The Fall”, and are sworn guardians of it. His family’s order are known as “The Tribunal”.

* So, to try and understand if there are any links between “The Fall” and the tablets, the guild want us to go to Kunai’s family and persuade them to explain to us what the heck this thing really is (Kunai can’t tell us because he left his family long ago before he became a full member of the family’s order, and he won’t come with us as he cannot go back – looks sad about this).

* Ves asks why Kunai’s family would tell us strangers about the thing they are protecting if they don’t even tell all of their own people… Dr T agrees this could be a long-shot, but points out that they don’t really have any other way forward.

* The others also add that Kunai’s family should probably be warned about the fact some weird infernal artefacts seem to relate to this thing they are guarding, in case they don’t know.

* Finally, Kunai explains that his family live on an island called Echs. He and Martindale have been trying to make a crude map, but they have very little information about it. The southwest tip of Echs has the port. There are mountains in the centre and northwest. His family are located on the highest NW peak and will be hard to find. The west side of the island is inhabited by people who shouldn’t be openly hostile, but might be suspicious of us. Kunai’s people are hidden from these inhabitants, so it’s important we don’t tell anyone about them. If we can get any more geographical info on the island that would be good.

* So, the overall mission is to travel to Echs, find Kunai’s family without leading anyone else to them, warn them of the infernal shenanigans we’ve been researching, and try to persuade them to tell us more about the weird rip in reality they are guarding. Secondary objectives are to map the island and find out about it more generally, and to make links with other islanders if possible.

* We sail tomorrow, and Trimaeus has been informed. But he is “busy” this evening with “combat practice”. Everyone throws sass at Dr T.

* Dr T will inform the group if they find out anything else about the tablets in the meantime. Gives Ves a magic stone that allows Dr T to send a letter directly to her. Ves is very excited by this.

## Journeying to Echs

After throwing some sass at Trimaeus about Dr T, we set off.

Trimaeus is happy that Wilbur is gone as he can make more money now, has filled the hold with crates of merch.

It is a four-week journey. First week is fast, clear and beautiful.

Second week is choppier, which slows us down a bit. There is much traffic, mostly unknown ships with weird flags, mostly going in the same direction as the Wildmane.

By the third week we have formed an unofficial convoy with some of these other ships. Flags seem familiar, but no one can quite remember where they are from.

Fourth week, seas are calm, winds are fast. Other ships speed up and overtake us. Ves notices that one ship is going in the other direction, and watches as the flag it’s flying is lowered and replaced wit another one. The replacement flag is in two halves, a green one and a white one. Worryingly, the green flag seems to have the pirate sigi in the centre! The white flag has a single “V” on it.

Ves also remembers that most of the other ships going in our direction are flying the flag of Merchendale, and that some of the others are flying the green and white flag of Echs. We wonder if all ships with Echs flags are actually pirates!

Trimaeus doesn’t know what the white flag with a “V” means.

## Jumping ship

We decide to try and speak to one of the Merchendale ships… Elyan dimension doors over with Bayul, with Ves giving him Eagles splendour before they go.

As they arrive, many sailors draw swords, first mate points a pistol at them… Elyan apologises profusely. First mate asks them to kick over their shields and weapons, Bayul refuses, but says he will lie down instead. The first mate asks why they have teleported onto a merchant vessel to talk to them? Elyan explains that they’re incompetent with flags and thought that firing an arrow with a letter would be more violent. First mate is called Steve (but will he survive the session…).

First mate explains that they are a merchant ship from Merchendale. Elyan asks if they know where Echs is… apparently, it’s only a few days out.

The merchants are collecting building supplies from Echs to rebuild Merchendale. Bayul asks about the green/white flag we saw on the other ship… apparently it is one of the Merchendale convoy – a ship that was never issued with a Merchendale flag and so uses their own. First mate says that some of the crates they transport also have V’s on them, they are mostly meats, drinks etc.

Bayul asks if Echs is welcoming, he is told that it is all fine. No specific rules we need to be aware of. The Port town is called Isairne and is easy to land at.

Elyan says they are from Ilbidor, just here to explore and do some trade. Elyan buys a bottle or Rum.

## Tricksy Trimaeus

Elyan dimension doors into the hold of the Wildmane… there are many crates in there, all stamped with a V as well.

Group discuss if the V is Venusto – ask Trimaeus about the V, he is dodgy as!

Trimaeus says he is delivering crates on behalf of someone from Mercendale, as far as he is aware it has nothing to do with Krieg Venusto. A ship came from Merchendale to Ilbidor and asked Trimaeus to deliver the crates for him as he was unable to. So Trimaeus took a cut of this others Captain pay to deliver the crates. The crates are all wine or rocks (mostly wine). Doesn’t know why the other captain went back mid journey.

Ves asks to inspect some of the rocks – appear to be large stone bricks. Top bricks are good, as get lower becomes more rubble. Bayul checks a few others, all similar… just bricks and rubble.

The only thing Trimaeus could remember is that this Captain said that “Vanessa said don’t lose anything” – but he doesn’t know who Vanessa is. Just has to deliver the crates to the port authorities on Echs and get his pay.

Galdor checks out the wine crates --- is it really wine? Takes a bottle and tries it, very basic unoffensive, middle of the road beverage.

Ves does detect magic – one wine crate is magical! Bayul opens it… finds more bottles of wine, these have fancier labels and are better packed. Each bottle has some very faint abjuration magic. Trimaeus says the label is very very fancy – lords and royalty drink it… even Galdor doesn’t know what it is.