78. Relentless Fury

* Aerendyl, Pyt, and Wilfred had struck a deal with the Emir Ibn Qahbe, ruler of the Emirate of Spice and secret rakshasa. Not only would he fashion Wilfred a lineage log pin, but he claimed he could source a genie capable of granting wishes for Pyt too. In exchange for these services the party agreed to hand over the iron flask to him and to steal a shield guardian amulet -- one of the Treasures of Rumidia -- from either of the Rumidian archmagi currently in the Southern Margraviate.
* Meanwhile, as the party had been busying themselves getting the lay of the land in the Emirate of Spice, Halcyon Cill and his colleage Lockjaw had been taking steps to try and start a new life there. The pair had found a suitable mark for their purposes: Wasim al-Ghumari, an aged human man and 'shore noble' of the Emirate thought to no longer be in his right mind. They were now taking steps to insert Lockjaw into the position of leader of the al-Ghumari estate, with Cill as a household servant. From there, they'd look into starting up some business, both legitimate and otherwise.
* After their meeting with Ibn Qahbe, the party held a meeting with the crew and associates, Cill and Lockjaw included. The mamluk Tariq was with them as well, but remained silent throughout.
	+ They tell the group about the deal they've made, the task they have to pull off, and the condition of the crew all staying in the Emirate and being monitored by Ibn Qahbe.
	+ Aerendyl gives Poppy and Poe 10 platinum each, the same pay he'd given the others already. After that, the elf gave the crew 200 platinum and also 10000gp's worth of sapphires -- an enormous sum of money that should see the group right should anything happen to the party to prevent them returning.
	+ Pyt picks up on the fact that Poppy has been extra quiet and distant lately. He has a talk with her in the party's other rented room in the Frog in Well kaf house. Poppy seems to have not taken Clwyd's death well. It was weighing heavy on her. She was carrying a lot of guilt about how her brother was only here because she'd had grand and lofty dreams of adventure, and Poppy doesn't think she could live with herself if he ended up dying to protect her. Pyt understands her well and says that when this next job is over and she can leave the island again, if she wants, they can try to take her back, as close to her home as they can get.
	+ Since they're going to be stuck on the island for a bit, the crew agree to help with Cill's goals in the Emirate.
	+ After some discussion on how they might go about stealing from an archmage, Wilfred uses *sending* to talk to Luciana about how much she's charge to lend the group her services. With the added risk of this particular task, she says she'd lend them her help for a month for a sum of 8000gp. The group all agree to it, deciding to pay her in emeralds.
* After this, Aerendyl scries on Sistine Le Marchand, the young representative of the company in the Southern Margraviate. He sees her looking over ledgers in a warehouse, ignoring the piteous complaints from an older gnomish man that is revealed to be the margrave. Apparently his house has been appropriated, much to the margrave's distaste, and he'd like Sistine to use her influence to do something about it. She says that it truly is none of her concern, just as the margrave's strained relationship with his wife is not her duty to address either. From the warehouse, she walks through a shipyard for a time and then eventually talks to a Rumidian knight dressed in plate armour despite the heat, and sweating profusely for it -- though he didn't let it affect his bearing or posture. The pair briefly check in with each other, apparently having quite uneventful mornings each, and then the knight implies the two have a sexual relationship. The scrying ends before they learn much more.
* Next Aerendyl goes to Trance for four hours, so that he can bring Luciana to the Emirate. During that time, Pyt, Wilfred, and Cill go to the small-but-well-stocked book shop the party had visited before. They were searching for anything on Rumidian archmagi or, more specifically, anything on the shield guardian amulets -- what they looked like, how they worked, and so forth. The search proved mostly fruitless, but Wilfred did find a small passage on Shandara Elonrae, the Archmage of Evocation, in a recent-ish book recounting the history of the faith of Al-Qara in the Sultanates. During the last Rumid-Sultanese War, Lady Nightfire was feared for her intelligence, adaptability, and the quality of her leadership. She famously ended a siege that might have lasted months in a single night, making great use of her eponymous fire magic.
	+ Pyt asks Cill if he wants in on their mission to steal from the archmagi. Cill eventually agrees to it, thinking he might be able to get the personal protection from Ibn Qahbe if he does so -- or at the very least, maybe the Emir would agree to turn a blind eye to them impersonating one of the city's nobles from now on.
* When Aerendyl has finished his Trance and Wilfred uses a few more *sending* spells to confirm things with Luciana, the elf casts *transport via plants* on the shaded fig tree in the Grand Bazaar, connecting it with the tree in Tortuga's Old Town, and Luciana steps through into the heat of the Emirate. She's dressed in her combat leathers, knife belt decorated with her exotic weapons, and a sack-like pack slung over her shoulder so that she could last the month if need be.
* They all go back to the room at the Frog in Well, fill Luciana in on the details of the situation -- but leave out that they plan on giving the shield guardian amulet to Ibn Qahbe, since he doesn't want this traced back to him in any way -- and then agree to set out for the Southern Margraviate in the morning, when Aerendyl could transport them again. Once in New Bernesia, they'd gather what information they could and go from there.
* The group go to sleep, leaving nobody on watch -- that's what Clwyd always did for them. And so they aren't ready when the sea fury's spirits attack them in the night.
	+ The wailing spirit began proceedings by rendering Aerendyl, Luciana, and the oni Tariq to 0hp instantly.
	+ After that, the group clawed their way back through healing magics, teleports to escape the tight confines of their room which the spirits were phasing into and out of freely, and an offensive of their own.
	+ When they finally got out onto the nighttime streets of the Grand Bazaar, they found that they were being attacked by five of the six spirits:
		- The Wailing Spirit, its most potent effect already used.
		- The Blighting Spirit, that slowly killed the party and any hapless civilians in the area just by being near them.
		- The Violating Spirit, which threatened to hijack their bodies on several occasions.
		- The Knowing Spirit, which babbled under the insane weight of the truths it had come to know.
		- The Stalking Spirit, always invisible.
	+ The fight took a dire turn when the Knowing Spirit's whispers of madness made Aerendyl plunge his dagger into Luciana's side, killing her.
	+ Soon after, the elf himself was also killed by the awful touch of the Blighting Spirit.
	+ All looked lost for the party, but then, from his position cowering in the corner of the market, Halcyon Cill had his tiny clockwork kingfisher bird fly over to Aerendyl, release a spray of diamond dust, reminiscent of the sea swallows of Oleantis, and Cill cast the *revivify* spell through it, bringing Aerendyl back to life.
	+ They started bringing it back after that. Cill revivified Luciana too, then cast *haste* on Pyt who went wild with his flaming sabre. Wilfred *banished* the Blighting Spirit, the oni Tariq chopped his way through the Violating Spirit then the Knowing Spirit, finishing them off after the others had wounded them severely. Cill's magical gun still refused to cooperate for him, but the upgrade he'd worked into Cormorant's old gun was working wonders. Aerendyl did a great deal of healing for the group, but also set a great many of the market tents ablaze with two *wall of fire* spells.
	+ The group had slayed all but the Blighting Spirit. Wilfred brought it back from its *banishment* and they all had at it, but their assault wasn't enough to vanquish it. The spirit sank into the ground and fled.
	+ Aerendyl cast *locate creature*, looking for the sea fury that they assumed must be close, waiting to strike them now they were weakened. But the spell picked up nothing.
	+ The flames in the market had grown to an inferno now, bells were ringing, and the locals were desperately swarming to put out the fires. The party took their leave in a hurry, finding their crew in the other of their rented rooms.
	+ They agreed that their crew shouldn't stay near them for the time being, since the sea fury wasn't done with them. The crew all packed up their things and headed for the al-Ghumari estate, where Lockjaw was.
* Aerendyl, Pyt, Wilfred, Cill, and Luciana follow the oni Tariq to a bolthole room above a gambling den.
	+ Reflecting on the fact that the sea fury was a nasty piece of work, and that last fight hadn't even featured her there herself, Luciana shows the group her cold iron dagger. It feels light, almost a little flimsy -- definitely not the sort of material one would usually fashion a weapon out of. Thinking it must have been made by someone very skilled, the group asked and learned that Luciana had got it off Clay, the tortle that lives on the smaller zaratan that floats behind Tortuga.
	+ Cill played around with the dagger a little and learned that it was attracted to metals! 'Like a compass!' he exclaimed. 'Remarkable!'
	+ The group retire for the night soon after that, this time taking shifts to keep watch. Pyt, first to sleep, thinks that a creature is trying to invade his mind, much in the way he used to do to other people. He feels the effect, resists it, and then wakes up to tell Wilfred about the attempt. Wilfred grins wickedly at him, says 'maybe the attempt wasn't a failure after all,' and then the nightmare takes hold. 'Cill,' 'Luciana,' and 'Tariq' hold Pyt's limbs down while Wilfred stabs him with casual coldness, again and again, all through the night. Pyt wakes eventually wakes up to the real Wilfred shaking him awake. The bard's mind reels from the experience and he feels worse than if he hadn't slept at all.
	+ Wilfred tries to sleep on the next shift. He too feels the invasive force of the fury trying to steer his dreams to her purposes, but he's able to resist the magic, even with her possessing a token from him in the form of his blood.