Expedition 57: Healer's Day

### Summary

We attend the Healer's Day celebration, schmoozing with council members. Amadeus Arbock is charmed by the fiend, and at the end of the night we find Torr Bottomhill murdered.

### Detailed Writeup

**Goals:**

Bea: Make two friends, or two connections with townsfolk.

Marzipan and Valorie: Get the shipping companies together in one place to start to think about the mousefolk rescue plan.

Clarity: Make 2 high-powered connections for help with the fiend slaying or future council ambitions.

All festival participants of the Ironwood Compact make their way to the center of town, where the festival is set to take place. There are stands for merchants all around, as well as tents for selling flowers, alcohol, and food, as well with one with a wooden statue of Saran'rae, the healer. Bea is stopped at the entrance for having a sling as a belt, and goes off to place it someplace secure. Everyone else enters without issue.

Wellwatch Captain Tomas Waynesbottom is drinking a lot of very expensive wine by himself. Clarity apologizes for her actions at the tournament with a beautiful red pansy, the flower that represents valor and integrity. They have a nice chat about how she kept the Wellwatch safe, and he is happy to make her acquaintance, but he also seems to be hitting on her in a pretty obvious and gross way. She does not introduce Kar, expecting him to introduce himself, but Tomas assumes he is her bodyguard or something and ignores him. All of this is upsetting to everyone.

Bea goes in search of food, and eats a fair amount of chicken. She also orders a steak, as well. She talks to a human man, but does not manage to make good friends with him, as he is not interested in chatting at length.

Mara Klein, the captain, leads a procession of council members and their guards into the town. She thanks everyone for coming today, and wishes everyone well. She especially thanks the council members for funding the festival, all of which come with personal armed guards. Clarity notices that Verrlex and Amadeus Arbok’s guards are most well armed, and Mara’s are the least well armed. We observe that two of the council members are missing from this celebration. The list of the council is below, for reference.

**Port Vrall Town Council**

**Farmers:**

Madeira Waynsebottom – human woman,Vechezian

Bartholemew Trickhand – halfling man, Baltiran.

Ven’Cartwrite – half-elven man, local/Vidharan.

[Missing] Gram Jalil – dwarven man, Silver Valleyan.

**Merchants:**

Verrlex - Bluescaled Dragonborn.

Amadeus Arbock – Human man

Bri’ad – Elven woman

Bartholomew Eld – Human man, Capitolan

**Townies:**

Mara Klein – The Captain – halfling woman.

Vanis Aukbern – The Rescuing Hero – Duallithy human man.

[Missing] Ven’dara – The rescuing hero – elven woman

The Preachers – Mother Dalxar in Summer, Father Menau in winter.

Valorie apologizes to the statue of Saran’rae for not treating the gods with respect in the past.

Fern and his wife look very finely dressed—stunning, even! Clarity makes nice idle chat with Fern, but finds that he is already quite fond of her, so it does not count as a new connection. His wife, Iris, tells Kar that Mara Klein put them in this getup, but she is not quite sure why.

Bea curses the name of Thomas Burbary with a passive aggressive flower at the statue of Saran’rae. She expects he is in hell somewhere, thanks him for making her life better by not being in it anymore, and suggests that he “rest in pieces.” She also squints are Kar’s big gith sword, saying “Hey, they didn’t let me bring in a sling, but you got to bring in that thing?”

Marzipan starts off working on his goal for the evening by finding Bartholomew Eld. He very smoothly converses with Marzipan, giving him a small purple rose to apologize for not having met him earlier. Marzipan hints at his plan and tells Batholomew Eld to expect a larger pitch later.

The Captain asks Clarity to provide a show at the end of the evening. She agrees to do it for free. Kar, overhearing this, later asks Clarity if he should do some weird combat performance where he challenges a guard to a duel to the death, dies, and gets transported magically back to his home. She thinks this is a terrible idea, and tells him that.

Valorie apologizes to Clarity for not believing her or caring about her advice, and for being part of the reason Delphi was banished from Vrall. Clarity accepts her apology, and recruits her to help with the performance at the end of the night. Clarity tells Mara Klein about the updates to this plan, and goes back to get her component pouch so she can cast fireballs.

Mara Klein does not smell like fiend. While Valorie talks to Mara, she seeks to uncover why Mara has dressed Fern and his wife so nicely. (We later learn that Fern is being groomed for a potential council position).

Tay’locer goes to find Marzipan, bearing a blue orchid in her hands. She thanks him for saving her life. They share a touching moment, and then Tay gives him advice about how to recruit the different shipping merchants.

Bea does a festival game, and then makes a friend named Marcuz after spilling his beer during her festival game. He seems greatly overwhelmed to meet both Bea and Clarity.

As far as Marzipan and Valorie’s goals, they continue to work to bring the shipping companies together. Marz goes to speak with Verrlex, while Valorie speaks with Arbock. Marzipan and Verrlex’s conversation starts a little rocky, with Verrlex noting that he is the last merchant to have been approached and hinting that he wants a flower in a rather demanding way. He is worried that he will be cut out of the new land. Verrlex says he has no political opinions, as a merchant, but he is a “supporter of order” (read: pro-imperialist). He is eager to do business with Marzipan, however, and seems open to a future proposition.

Marzipan also approaches Bri’ad, catching her up on Arbock trying to twist his arm into putting Bri’ad in a tough spot (I do not know the context here). Blood and Marzipan converse, and Blood gives Marzipan a flower for not having the time to continue talking with Marzipan. Bri’ad would be happy for the business, and is theoretically interested in the venture. Basically, they have no problem if the other merchants have no problem, and they have no issue with the project. They would direct all their resources to the project if needed. Blood seems to be hiding a reason that they are interested in the project, but Marzipan will look into why later.

Valorie speaks with Bartholomew Eld, and has a polite chat with him about war and politics. Valorie moves on, giving Amadeus Arbock a flower and apologizing, then moving into a less polite chat about war and politics. Valorie notes that he is strongly anti-imperialist and full of anger about this. His guards are soldiers who mutinied when asked to attack Arbock’s ship. Clearly the merchants have different political views, so they work on other strategies.

Amadeus Arbock is suddenly struck by a certain moment of clarity, and seeks to confront Verrlex about his continued shipments of soldiers. Marzipan tells Arbock about his plan to rescue all the mousefolk, and how that would be ruinous to the Duallthi. Amadeus is intrigued by the offer, but says he will never be able to offer his full support, as he has already made promises to help support his side of the war. Amadeus gathers his guards as Marzipan backs off, and challenges Verrlex to a duel by slapping him in the face with a glove. Valorie attempts to interject and call off the duel, as we suspect that this is the fiend’s doing. Valorie tries to persuade Amadeus that this is not in his character, and so he is able to repeat the saving throw (he gets an 18, the DC is 17). Embarrassed and suddenly rational, he rescinds his challenge and quickly runs away with his guard. Valorie speaks with Verrlex to try to figure out what just happened. Verrlex says he will help Marzipan if Marzipan can offer him one of the following:

* One additional platinum (expensive)
* A promise to ruin Amadeus Arbock's reputation (offends Marzipan's sensibilities)
* A promise to loan six senior members of the Ironwood Compact up to do an as-yet unknown expedition for free (seems REALLY dangerous to say yes to something we don't have details on)

Clarity tries to make more connections with council members, but finds that to be relatively difficult. If asked, she will note that both Father Menau and Bri’ad are both rather difficult people to get to know. In the process of fulfilling her goal, she alienates Kar by not introducing him enough and by using her friendship with a bartender to pass him in the liquor line. He chooses to go and sulk about this instead of communicating, and later asks her if she “has anything to say to him.” She finds that entirely unacceptable and leaves him at the party, which furthers the rift between them.

Clarity and Valorie perform the closing event at the request of Mara Klein. It is a fine performance, good even, but not anything incredible—it likely will not be remembered for long.

After the performance, as people start leaving, we all hear a loud scream. We run towards the danger, though some of us also protect the town and help people leave safely. We see that a Dwarven man, Torr Bottomhill (leader of the fisherman’s guild), has been punctured several times with a harpoon and then hung from a noose.