Rumor Has It

## The Morning After

When Yvanna wakes, she doesn’t have any memory of the day before. She looks around the unfamiliar, ornate room, and at the stranger sleeping on the couch opposite the bed. Scrambling out from under the covers, she wakes the stranger and demands to know who he is.

Aurelius groggily looks up at her and says “Go back to sleep.”

Yvanna looks around the room and sees Black-Out. With that, she begins to remember what had happened up until Levina and Ezzie came back to the dinner. She rouses Aurelius once more, and the two go to see if there’s any breakfast being served.

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Levina wakes at dawn, her body used to both a farm and merchant ship schedule. Ezzie peeks his head in some time later, and the two sit talking about nothing and everything until the sun is firmly in the sky. She kisses Ezzie on the cheek before going down for breakfast. Before she leaves with Yvanna and Aurelius to go to the tavern the party agreed to meet at, she looks in her coin purse and finds a small sachet with a note from Ezzie and some bizarre, black flaky substance. The note reads: “Don’t forget me…soon –Ezzie” with a heart drawn below it.

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Cordala wakes in the coral reef she’d bunked down in the night before. She takes a morning walk around the island and writes her daily letter to her friend, Ruli, making sure to omit any of the situation with “Andrew” until things settle down.

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The party meets back up at a tavern in town to discuss the events of the night before, and what they all plan to do next. Hanging in the air around them is the unspoken desire to remain friends. While the rest of the group chats, Cordala spots a familiar face at the bar. They walk over and greet their old friend, whose name is Sabrine. She’s elated to see Cordala, greeting her with the affectionate nickname “Dala.”

Sabrine is sitting with a goblin, who she introduces to Cordala as her boyfriend, Hoggle. She shares that she and Hoggle have been traveling since the last time she saw Cordala. They’ve come back to help Sabrine’s dad with his festival stall. The pair spend some time catching up. Cordala learns that Sabrine and Ezzie were childhood friends. Sabrine offers to head to the Featherkin estate and deliver a message to Ezzie, letting him know the party wants to meet him at Flora and Fauna’s shop at 3:30.

Elsewhere in the tavern, Zale finds a mysterious Tabaxi man, who shares some basic information about the attendants. When everyone reconvenes to the table, Levina shares what happened during her conversation with Ezzie the night before. She opens the sachet and shows the party the substance inside, though she keeps the note to herself. The group decides to visit an apothecary to see if the substance can be identified.

At the apothecary, they find a purple tiefling named Opportunity, who (along with his famous pirate sister, Glory) is Prudence’s grandson. He identifies the substance as Dreamflake, a hallucinogenic herb. It’s very rare, expensive, and is often used by the very wealthy during private parties. He offers to purchase it from Levina, who declines.

Next, on Zale’s request, the group heads to the docks where The Night Soul is anchored. None of the group up until this point knew Zale was the captain of The Night Soul, but all have heard of his ship in various different rumors.

Levina knows The Night Soul as the pirate ship that attacked the merchant vessel she worked on before landing on Claguroth. Aurelius was told by his grandmother that the crew of The Night Soul are cannibals. Others in the group heard other things, such as that half of the Soul’s crew were pulled from the Underworld and are eternally damned to work on the ship.

When their eyes land on the ship, chaos breaks out within the group. Levina argues with Zale over whether or not he’s a pirate. It escalates until Levina storms back towards the tavern. Aurelius asks if the pirates on the Soul are cannibals. When Zale denies it, Aurelius is upset at the insinuation that his grandmother lied to him, and follows Levina.

## To Save Ezzie

After everyone cools down a bit, they reconvene at Flora and Fauna’s shop to compile the information everyone had individually gathered about the attendants. They meet Ezzie there, who explains that he’s tried literally everything he can think of. Cordala offered to “call” her lover Ruli, who used to be an attendant, and ask how she managed to escape. Ezzie agrees to meet the party again that night at Flora and Fauna’s. They all head to Zale’s ship, where everyone but Cordala starts looking through Zale’s expansive library.

Ruli shares that while there’s a way to break an attendant’s contract with their estate, there’s currently no way to break from Kaisarion, meaning that she and Ezzie can still be bound by anyone who gives them a crest. Cordala also learns that Ruli was an attendant to the Wavechaser family.

While Cordala is “on the conch” with Ruli, Levina and Aurelius work together to find out what kind of metal Ezzie’s signet ring is made of, based on the time period and area. From this, they get a general idea of what temperature they’ll need to melt Ezzie’s ring. Cordala also looks through some books when they’re done talking to Ruli, and learns about a healing tonic they may be able to use.

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The party then makes their way to Sabrine’s family’s house for dinner. They meet her mother and father, Vera and Auciel. Zale spins a lie about a member of his crew wanting access to a forge while Yvanna and Sabrine gossip about Levina and Ezzie. Sabrine’s dad agrees to talk to his neighbors, Meri and Kay, about using their forge.

When they meet Ezzie once more at Flora and Fauna’s, the party explains their loose plan. Flora, Fauna, and Meriweather give them care packages with personalized crystals. Finally, the party makes their way to Meri and Kay’s backyard, where the forge glows bright and hot. Meri is stoking the forge, and when the party explains what they want to do, he reluctantly agrees to let them try to melt the ring off. Levina prepares the healing tonic in a bucket of water.

Shaking, Ezzie dips his hand into the tonic and then pushes it into the forge. His flesh, though red and blistering, is protected from charring. The ring begins to glow red, then orange, all the way to bright white before finally melting off.

He pulls his hand out of the fire and everyone around him gathers him in a group hug while he sobs. The autumn stars above twinkle with the light of success as the party races through Claguroth to The Night Soul, which has been readied for a swift exit. As they sail into the night, Ezzie is taken to the infirmary, and everyone finds bunks prepared for them. They all fall asleep with the thoughts of a new adventure in their heads, wondering what tomorrow will bring.