An Unexpected Promotion

**Story Arcs**

###### **HEADING THE SUNLIGHT CITADEL**

Lawretta heads towards the Sunlight Citadel with Ashes and his still summoned mastiff, and as they enter notice that a few of the pews have been moved outside. The weather shifts back to how it was in the morning, to a grey drizzle. Heading inside, Ashes and the mayor both spot a small table with free to grab vegetables and fruits, as well as a small gathering of tired looking churchgoers and Hope Genovie speaking to a new face, a female half orc.

Ashes spends some time greeting each sitting church attendee with a prayer of their religion, and then heads to speak with Hope. Hope introduces her Beacon, Maurice Sho, and explains how she has been tasked with spreading the word of Lathander towards Aghanim's Domain. Maurice gives her word to Hope that the task will be done, and heads off.

Hope begins to talk about her own duty which she and the mayor have decided upon, telling him that she will take the Wounded Gold Star and bury it somewhere where the sun will never see it again. Ashes tries to get her to give the relic over to him, but she insists. He checks her motives and looks deep into her eyes, but she is telling the truth and is dead set on doing this alone.

She says that she will be gone for 2 weeks, and in that time would appreciate if Ashes would head her flock while they work on building the second floor of the Sunlight Citadel. Ashes takes the job without question and thanks her. Hope says she will leave first thing in the morning, and then heads off just like Maurice Sho earlier.

Lawretta praises Ashes for his promotion and then begins to head out as well. Ashes takes this moment to meet and speak with a few of the church goes and the groundskeeper Bradlione Huck. Bradlione shows Ashes to Hope's room and says that he is more than welcome to sleep here while Hope is away. Ashes takes the offer and after a brief investigation, takes off his armor and goes to sleep. He fidgets with his newly acquired symbol of Lathanader and then picks up his mastiff once it returns to statue form, going to sleep at the Sunlight Citadel.

#### 📅**DAY ELEVEN (JUST ANOTHER DAY IN JASKIR)**

###### **DUTIES BEFITTING A MORNINGLORD**

Ashes gets up and performs his promised routine, sharing his usually private commune with Lathander to his new flock of worshippers. It's a bit strange for Ashes but he gets adjusted to the process rather quickly.

Afterwards he talks with a few more of his fellow worshippers, meeting up with the caretaker Bradlione and also a young elven woman named Rhond Ghilb who is out in the courtyard feeding the congregations chickens. They talk for a few minutes and then Ashes heads out to the Jaskir Trade Hub to do some business and trade.

Approaching the Trade Hub from the North, Ashes meets a few interesting characters during his visit and enjoys a Jaskir Hoagie meal after being recommended one by the Jaskir guards enjoying their breakfasts from the local eatery named "Well? Fed!".

Ashes also enjoys a strong ale from a local dwarf drink peddler named Urin Barrelchin, and then looks around for some new gear at some of the set up shops. He meets the vendors named Htrothgar who sells weapons, Ghogi who sells armor, Pura Strallegio who sells potions, and the cooks Galebre and Serode Galamin.

The weapons vendor Htrothgar tries to sell Ashes a mithral halberd for a price of 250 platinum and offers to buy his damaged one for 1gp. Ashes refuses and continues to shop. He is offered a magical poisioned dagger but ignores the offer and continues shopping. He attempts to by a Potion of Flight from Pura Strallegio, she wonders if he meant the "other" kind of flight, which he declines and means legitimate flight. She offers an outlandish price of 5,000 gold coins, to which Ashes understandably refuses, and leaves the crazed hyperactive woman to her delusions.

Nothing catches his eyes except for a pair of Shoes of Elvenkind being sold by Ghogi the armor vendor, but he lacks the coin for it and decides to head to the bank to exchange his currency. He gets his coins exchanged but its still not enough for his Shoes of Elvenkind. He asks the ladies helping him count his coin where they would recommend one to purchase art, and they both recommend the downtrodden yet handsome man who lives in the Lower Commons named Leonard Vincent, so Ashes decides to go to the Lower Commons and have a chat with them.

As Ashes approaches Leonard, the eager young man shows Ashes his rough yet energetic sketch that he promised to show the other day, Ashes is impressed. Ashes commissions Leonard for a nude fullbody for a naked lady and pays him a gold coin, which is the rate he set himself. He tells Ashes to come back at the end of the day to pick it up.

Ashes looks around a little more after placing his commission and bumps into a child who attempts to pickpocket the massive paladin. Ashes grabs the boy and picks him up, throwing him on the floor. The boy cries, and begins to run away, everyone who looked at this play out just looks away afterwards and continues on their own business.

Ashes looks around a few of the tent shops in the Lower Commons but nothing catches his eye, he huffs at the Amertian Wood Craftsman John Jon who fears his presense, and walks past the ancient fortune teller Dedrede, refusing her divination.

Ashes decides to go to the Ashes Ossuary to give it a once over just to be sure there's nothing strange going on.

As Ashes makes his way there, he remembers the poor prisoner that he had left in the hands of the orcs and immediately course corrected towards the sewer exit he found at the Noble's District. Once he arrives there and makes his way down the ladder, he jumps across but slips on the edge; causing the already weak and damaged stone pier to crumble further losing about 5 feet. Ashes is able to clutch the edge and pull himself up, but getting across this gap will prove to be much more difficult from here on out.

Heading inside the sewers Ashes puts on the Helm of the Third Eye, letting him see a snoozing and sleeping orc, the same one he encountered before and the first of the bunch that he interacted with and paid. As he comes up to a corner and yells out, the orc comes to and in a panick jumps up and shouts for Ashes to get back, pulling out a whistle and blowing it which barely stops a swarm of rats from skittering up Ashes' legs. The rats flee into a nearby grate and hide, the orc tells Ashes to come closer but to be wary of the other rats they've placed around the area.

Ashes comes closer to the orc and enters the base with him, seeing the sight of all the orcs sitting around a table, eating and talking in their language. They all look at Ashes who takes off his helmet and greets them, they all go back to their business and pay Ashes no mind. The Common speaking orc tells Ashes to go ahead and collect his prisoner who is off sleeping in the far end of the room on some of their bedrolls, Ashes goes up to the wounded man and tries to talk to him, but gets no verbal response.

Ashes asks the orcs for some water, and the familiar orc goes and grabs a bucket, collecting water and straining it through some sieve into another bucket, handing it off to Ashes. Ashes thanks him and lets the poor man drink, and eat one of his many stored rations. He eats and after recovering a bit of strength, holds onto Ashes shoulder as he lifts him up and takes him outside to the tiny stone pier outside.

Ashes notices the man limping and takes note that he's going to have an exceptionally hard time getting across the gap, and swimming is probably out of question for him. He yells up to the street above which is about 10-15 feet above the goliath, and after a bit he grasps the attention of two children, a boy and girl. They boy asks Ashes if he needs help and Ashes says he does, the boy runs off for a few minutes and returns with a guard, who sees the situation and brings a ladder after a bit of searching.

Ashes and the man go up the ladder, and Ashes flashes his writ from Lawretta Stowen to him so that he doesn't ask any questions about the matter. The guard shrugs it off after seeing the note from the mayor and then heads back to his post after returning the ladder, Ashes heads towards the Sunlight Citadel with the wounded man.

Ashes arrives at the Sunlight Citadel and takes him into his borrowed room, letting the man rest in a proper bed. He returns with some clean, fresh water and some of the varied produce on offer and lets the man eat and drink some more. After drinking a whole bucket full of clean water and eating a couple of fruits down to their rinds, the man thanks Ashes with a hoarse and tired voice. Ashes looks at his knee properly and sees an arrow embedded in his knee that has slowly begun to heal over. He thinks to himself and comes up with a solution.

Ashes goes up to the podium in the Sunlight Citadel and announces to the people praying and resting their if anyone has a medicine kit on hand, a red scaled dragonborn woman gets up and says she does, coming up to the altar and giving it over to Ashes; as long as he returns it. Ashes agrees and then goes back to his room, getting ready to practice some medicine to help pull the broken arrow out. Ashes does a really good job and is able to pull it out, taking very little time for the procedure.

The wounded man thanks Ashes again for everything, and Ashes lets the man rest while he goes back to his idea to check out the Ashen Ossuary. He begins to heads out but is stopped by the dragonborn woman who goes 'ahem' and pulls his attention. He returns the kit and apologizes, the woman identifes herself as Travvik Scaler.

Ashes heads to the Noble's Cemetery, which has a guard presence. The guards at the gates don't accost Ashes and give him a nod of approval as he enters. Ashes begins to look around but as he noses up to the crypts to the North (Jaskir Family Crypt); locked behind a thin but polished gold seal, and East (Stowen Family Crpyt); sealed behind a weather resistant paper tapestry, a guard comes up and begins to question him, asking why he is looking around those crypts when he is sure that they are secured and its just the Ashen Ossuary that has been opened.

Ashes brings out his writ once more and shows it to the guard, who takes it with him. Ashes tells the guard to give it back, but the guard refuses and says that he's taking it, as allowed and written in the fine print of the note which he aptly shows. The guard says he's going to go away with his friends posted at the front and will overlook him for questioning an authority figure, but will let him poke around. Ashes frustratingly accepts and looks around the Ashen Ossuary once more for a few hours, but finds no signs of hallowing or undead, things seem to have been cleared out already by the guards and by Ashes and Ozai prior.

Ashes goes back to the Sunlight Citadel to confer with the man once more. He enters the room to see the man snoring, the man looks withered and wounded, like a husk of a former man, something similar to the Wight him and Ozai fought a few days ago, and similar to the skin condition Silent Peepo seems to possess. He shakes the man awake softly, who gets up and says hello. Ashes lets the man eat and drink some more and then asks him if he can recollect any sort of information or knowledge about him or his situation.

The man sits upright and slowly looks at his left hand, him and Ashes notice a bird emblem and the man takes a minute to himself in thought looking downwards. He comes to and then looks at Ashes with his sunken and hallowed grey looking eyes saying his name is Ray Venn. Ashes asks if he can recall more, and he says that he used to be an entertainer, or a musician of some sort, and that he was in love; but that love was snuffed out suddenly and without explanation. He says that Jaskir feels familiar yet very distant at the same time.

Ray says that he loved a woman of dark skin who lived in the desert of Laghu'un, who was shy about her scales. Her name was Laura Smoothed-Scale and she was part of a noble family there. They both exchanged books and then slowly fell in love, despite their difference in class and status. As he and her were inside a closet sharing a romantic kiss, his clarity suddenly went black; and when he came to he was in the Ashen Ossuary laying flat on his back on some sort of altar.

As he rose, he begun hearing orders from some bald man (Draven) and then he stormed off. Not wanting to listen to some lunatic in a dungeon and wanting to not only recover from his strange circumstances he fled and ran, escaped into the city and stole a robe. He shortly then after got captured by some orc thugs who then led them back to the possession of Draven. Then the rest is history.

Ashes thanks Ray for sharing so much and lets him go back to sleep. He then goes to the Lower Commons to talk to Leonard about his painting. Ashes arrives and Leonard happily shows him his work inside his tent, a realistic risque nude tiefling woman of blue skin holding a silken sheet in a seductive pose. Ashes thanks him and puts it in his Bag of Holding, then heads to the Ramshackle Smith.

At his old shared home, he walks into the room and sees Bogladin speaking to the three trash vagrants that he had hired prior, this time donned with some basic tools and equipment for the task. Bogladin walks aside a moment to speak to Ashes to greet him but to also talk to him about paying them, he has been dipping into his personal travel funds and does not want to underpay these poor people and thus has been giving them each a platinum coin per day, with a total of 2 days of work and 3 people making that 6 platinum. Ashes pays no mind and pays the fine people each personally, they all thank him and Bogladin for the work and pay, and head off.

Ashes begins to head upstairs but Bogladin stops him halfway, telling him that he is planning to head out to continue his journey towards the West, over to the Fillyia Kingdom. Ashes convinces him to wait a bit longer because he also has a few commitments that suddenly cropped up, and Bogladin accepts; saying that he'll start to pack in a week, and head off a week after that. Ashes says he will come along with him, and Bogladin smiles letting Ashes go up the stairs.

He goes to the second floor and decides not to bother the closed door into Peepo's room, heading into his room and then slumping into his bedroll; looking up at the roughly patched but functional holes in the ceiling, dozing off to sleep.

**Story Arcs**