79. New Bernesian Nightlife

* Aerendyl, Wilfred, Pyt, and Cill, with Luciana in tow, her assistance having been bought for a month, and one of Emir Ibn Qahbe's oni mamluks named Tariq awoke in a bolthole room in the Emirate of Spice. The previous night they'd been attacked by five of the spirits of the sea fury. Following that, Pyt fell victim to a malicious use of the *dream* spell while Wilfred resisted its effects. The day is Fallingleaf 39.
* They put their heads together, pooling what information they have, and then Wilfred uses some abductive reasoning to conclude, with reasonable certainty, the following **about the sea fury**:
	+ She has six spirits total:
		- **Blighting Spirit**: powerful necrotic touch attack and an aura that deals necrotic damage to all life near the spirit, even through walls or other cover.
		- **Wailing Spirit**: once per fight, this spirit has unleashed a mournful wail that hurts those that resist its true effect and drops those that don't resist it to 0hp. After that, the spirit has a weaker necrotic touch attack and a fear effect that creatures become immune to when they resist it - remember that any creature that is suffering from fear is susceptible to the sea fury's Death Glare!
		- **Knowing Spirit**: Howling Babble attack has an unlikely recharge, but stuns those that fail against it as well as dealing psychic damage. Spirit also has a moderate psychic damage touch attack and it can make people attempt melee attacks against creatures next to them - this is why Aerendyl stabbed Luciana to death before Cill revivified her.
		- **Violating Spirit**: appears to be able to possess people with an ability on an unlikely recharge, though it's been unsuccessful against the party each time the spirit has tried it. It also has a weak necrotic touch attack.
		- **Hungry Spirit**: they don't know too much about this spirit because Aerendyl locked it down in the fight at sea with a whirlpool it couldn't escape from and it wasn't present for the fight in Spice Town. It seemed to react violently when it saw creatures being healed.
		- **Stalking Spirit**: permanently invisible and makes use of two weak necrotic touch attacks.
	+ The spirits obviously reform even if they are slain, but this at least doesn't happen over the course of a short rest, since they weren't present for the sea fury's return at sea, when she killed Clwyd.
	+ The sea fury can sacrifice the spirits for potent effects: each can serve as the equivalent of a *death ward* spell or as a legendary resistance (if the sea fury fails a save, she can succeed instead), or she can get some potent magic from them, which, due to its Weird nature, Wilfred found harder to *counterspell* at the time. Through some reasoning, they figure she can cast the following spells with her spirits: *chain lightning, dream, mass suggestion*, and something that allows her to travel quicker than her (already impressive) swim speed.
	+ The sea fury had surprise on her side before, and she used it to acquire Wilfred's blood and then launch an attack with her spirits in the night that almost proved fatal for the group. Now that she's given up surprise, they can expect to be harassed by *dream*-spell induced nightmares each night and attacks from the spirits whenever the sea fury is able to.
	+ She has no reason to leave the ocean while doing the following, since she's at no personal risk and can just continue to wear down the party and their resources. She's shown no interest in entering a fight that is disadvantageous to herself so far.
	+ As it stands, the sea fury is tracking Aerendyl and Wilfred, likely requiring the use of one of her spirits to achieve this.
	+ Of the party's crew and guests, Garret is the only one she's even seen, so that group are probably safer away from the party for the time being.
* The group go back and forth on a few different plans of action.
	+ Luciana asks Aerendyl if he's considered reaching out to Rangrim. The elf says that he was uneasy about doing so since he thought the River King's intentions early on had been to make him less reliant on the old tundra dwarf. Luciana suggests that if Aerendyl were the one to lead the charge, commanding Rangrim rather than the other way around, this would constitute the change and growth the River King wants to inspire in him with this latest 'challenge' of his.
	+ With the word from Aerendyl, Wilfred uses some *sending* spells to talk to Rangrim. He agrees to help them on their fine hunt, his only condition being that the River King gets the corpse. That's definitely not to Wilfred or Pyt's preference, who want to withhold it from the fey at least for spite if nothing else. Still, they agree that Rangrim would be useful and tell him they should be in contact in a few days.
		- Rangrim can *transport via plants* to the tree near Luciana's house no matter where he is, and then Aerendyl should be able to do the same from the party's location to bring Rangrim to the party without any great delay.
	+ The party give Cill the 1700gp of diamonds they have, since he can use the *revivify* spell and more fights should be coming. Cill warns them he can only manage it at most three times a day!
	+ Pyt then persuades the group that they should try and steal from the archmagi before they try and bait the fury into a fight to the death. At least that way he can get a genie, wish himself out of his devil contract, and so not become a wretched, indentured fiend for the whole of his afterlife when the fury and her spirits kill him.
* They grab 5 days' worth of food for the five of them (Tariq assures them he'll be fine without), Aerendyl *transports* them from the secluded fig tree in the Emirate's Grand Bazaar to the foothills of the island of Firenzia, then they spend the day sailing to New Bernesia's ports, following the busy shipping traffic between the islands.
	+ They arrive on New Bernesia around 7pm, get through the busy ports without huge issue since there's just so much traffic at the moment - scores of ships are full of tradespeople relocating their whole lives towards the Sultanese peninsula, where Rumidian interest continues to grow. The group spends an hour finding a suitably sized and secluded warehouse they can break into and spend the night inside Pyt's hut - everyone is conscious of performing too much magic out in the open in a Rumidian metropolitan area with powerful mages aplenty on it.
	+ After finding a place that would work for them to sleep in, they look for a dockside dive bar or pub so they can try and get some info. The best place they can find is called the Goose's Purse - it's small, quiet, and next to the canals. A few patrons are nursing drinks inside in silence. The group shrug their shoulders and go inside.
	+ Pyt ends up talking to 'Jenny,' a young human woman making her way as a lady of the night who butters up visitors with conversation so they'll buy overpriced variants of regular drinks for her. With his purse a few gold lighter, Pyt learns that one of 'Jenny's' friends, 'Sarah,' has a client who knows something about those archmages: apparently they have weird, kinky sex parties in the margrave's house!
	+ After a bit of back and forth with the rest of the party (Tariq staying quiet as per), Pyt agrees to go with 'Jenny' to talk to 'Sarah' in person. The others come too, under the guise of being Pyt-the-author's research and publishing team.
	+ They end up in a long alley of wooden buildings, lit by red lanterns. 'Jenny' knocks on the door and 'Sarah' answers, another human woman, dressed ready for sex. Pyt and Luciana go inside, while the rest wait in the street. Pyt ends up paying 30 gold for 'Sarah's' info, which she's happy to give over for the price and the condition that it doesn't get out that she shared client info with someone else.
	+ From 'Sarah,' they learn that some time between 4 and 8 days ago, one of her regulars, a fancy man who gets his kicks rolling with the dock folk from time to time, was invited to the margrave's house for an evening. The large group of them had a nice meal full of socialising, then moved on to dancing, music, and drinks, and then the best of them were selected to go on and take part in an orgy that the archmage watched - apparently not participating herself. 'Sarah' couldn't tell Pyt which archmage it had been.
* After learning that bit of info from the dock girls 'Jenny' and 'Sarah,' the party went to the innocuous warehouse they'd found, broke in with relative ease, Pyt set up his hut, and then they slept in shifts. Around 6am, the docks were full of loud activity and the party had to escape before anything kicked off. This left Wilfred, Cill, and Luciana having not finished their rest, so the group picked an alley in New Bernesia's Low Ward and Aerendyl, Pyt, and Tariq kept watch while the other tree slept some more.
* Fully rested on the morning of Fallingleaf 40, the group decide it's time for them to hit the city's High Ward, the walled area where the nobles live. For this, they needed to dress fancy! Aerendyl, Pyt, Wilfred, and Luciana all had appropriate attire with them that they changed into. Then the group spent a few hours looking for a place that could get Tariq and Cill suitably dressed and trekked the long way to the border between wards. They walk with confidence and make it through the guarded border without being stopped or questioned! On the other side of the wall, they walk for another hour and a half, travelling through beautiful winding streets flanked by gorgeous, vine-and-flower covered villas. At 4:30 in the afternoon, they arrive at the city's central square, where the church of Saint Billaro the Tenacious dominates. The next step, they decide, is to find some good places to spend their evening rubbing elbows with fancy people, flashing cash a bit, learning what they could.
* While looking for fancy restaurants to start their reconnaissance in (and to enjoy a nice meal for the evening, perhaps), they see a group of six remarkable halflings: they were dressed in beautiful clothes but covered themselves in thin, brightly coloured veils from head to toe; their skin where it showed was maggot white, while their hair grew long, dark, and straight; their eyes had no colour, just the black pinpricks of a pupil in a sea of white; their teeth were subtly pointed; and though they smiled, laughed, and gestured as if they were in the middle of lively conversation, they said not a word between them. Cill is immediately struck with an old fear: pallid halflings! The scourge of Terca Oscura's deepest, darkest places, far from the great caverns and cities of light. He says he grew up knowing them to be wild savages, said to eat the flesh of people - friend and foe alike, to train and husband beasts and monsters, to live their lives as mad, bloodthirsty, silent killers.
* They group finds two promising venues and decide to split up. Aerendyl and Wilfred, they decide, need to stay together since the fury is tracking them both. Luciana goes with them and they follow the colourfully dressed pallid halflings to a secluded, quiet wine bar in a converted villa. Pyt, Cill, and Tariq join a very long queue of very well dressed people waiting to get into a place called 'Giuseppe's.'
	+ At the wine bar:
		- Wilfred, Aerendyl, and Luciana are served drinks while they wait in the terrace. The group of pallid halflings are also waiting in the small area, still silent, but now having moved their veils over their heads so they rest around their shoulders like shawls, allowing them to sip their drinks.
		- Wilfred tries to bribe the staff into letting them in before the halflings, but the apologetic maitre d' says he couldn't possibly rush them in ahead of the Lady Margrave and her guests.
		- At some urging from Luciana and Aerendyl, Wilfred goes and talks to the table of pallid halflings. He has the eerie feeling that within their silence, they're all talking to each other about him the whole time. He learns from the Lady Margrave that her and her husband have a trying marriage - she's all too happy for Wilfred to end up upsetting the man, inadvertently or otherwise, when Wilfred says he wouldn't want such a thing to happen. Wilfred tells her he has some discussion he'd love to bring to the Lord Margrave if possible and the Lady says he'd be hard to find until tonight, but if Wilfred were to return with her to her home, he might catch a glimpse of the Lord Margrave there later that night.
		- Once both parties are inside the venue, Wilfred sends a bottle of expensive sparkling wine to the Lady Margrave's table, playing it cool. She enjoys the drink, a small smile touching her lips, but doesn't spare Wilfred more than a glance. Luciana concludes that she wants to fuck Wilfred - saying they might learn something if he plays along, but that he should be cautious, since they could easily offend the Lord Margrave if he follows through with it, or the Lady herself if he does not.
		- After the delicious meal and a fair amount of wine, the Lady Margrave puts her words directly in Wilfred's mind: 'come along then.' And she and her entourage head to a canal barge, Aerendyl, Luciana, and Wilfred following. A short ride on a long boat later, and they arrive at the beautiful hilltop villa of the Lady Margrave.
	+ At Giuseppe's:
		- Pyt makes friends with a gorgeous couple in front of the group in the line: Bianca, a socialite, and her husband Rodrigo, a spicer whose modest merchant fleet has recently been subsumed by 'the Company.' It quickly becomes apparent that Bianca does all the talking for the duo.
		- Pyt convinces them that he and Cill hail from the Northern Margraviate, having been displaced by the peasant riots there. Using the voice of the silversmith he'd met in Dunvegan Keep, Godfrey Silvers, Pyt tells the couple that he's been a banker all his life, and that Cill is his business partner. He also slips in that Tariq was greatly affected by the harrowing events in the Northern Margraviate, to account for the oni-in-disguise's lack of talking.
		- From Bianca, they learn that the Company has grown to enormous size and influence at this stage, that any merchant of reasonable sense and ambition was looking to be a part of it as Rodrigo was, and even that the pirates that used to work the coasts of the Sultanese peninsula have now been civilised by the Company's efforts, put on their payroll, and work for them; such groups are now referred to as 'corsairs,' 'pirates' no more.
		- When they get to the front of the queue, Bianca and Rodrigo are so enamoured with their new friends (and sympathetic to the plight they'd faced in the Northern Margraviate and subsequent displacement) that they invite them to their table to eat dinner with them - they even pay for it afterwards.
		- Giuseppe's, it turns out, is a really interesting place. The venue was sunken and so maintained a cool temperature. The place was lit by lanterns with coloured glass and soft incense wafted through the air. Tanks and pools filled with vibrant, exotic fish and plant life dotted the place, and well-dressed, wealthy looking noble Rumidians filled it, drinking at the long island bars in the room or enjoying their food at tables in semi-private booths. The food itself came in waves of tiny dishes, each exquisite and paired masterfully by various spirits mixed with fruit juices. All in all, it was an unbelievable dining experience.
		- During the meal, Pyt gets Bianca talking about the socialite scene on New Bernesia. She points out some big names around the room:
			* Lord Gomes, who had recently inherited a great wealth after all his immediate family died tragically at sea. Pyt and Cill turn to see a fat human man in his early 20s, well dressed, hair slicked back, raising a glass and laughing heartily at the head of a table of gorgeous, male and female sycophants. Pyt extends his sympathies for the man's situation.
			* Lady Monica, a stylish, older, human woman with a taste for younger men. Even though she was only a recent arrival from the Compass Isles, she'd shaken up the party scene with the two gatherings she'd hosted so far.
			* Lord Salvador and Lady Gabriela, an attractive, middle-aged, human power couple that everyone wanted at their events.
		- But of course, Bianca goes on to say, the parties everyone is talking about at the moment are those of Madame Prespescone. Bianca and Rodrigo, it turns out, might well be able to attend the nightly events in one of the coming days, if they respond to their invitation declaring their interest. Bianca asks Pyt if he'd like to attend, saying it would be good for him to establish himself in the city's social scene, in order to start his new life.
		- A couple lies later and Bianca is convinced that the pitiable group don't even have anywhere to stay that night, being so new to the city and so out of sorts with all that's happened. She insists they follow back to her and Rodrigo's villa - their maid keeps the guest rooms ready at all times anyway, for just such an occasion.
		- Since the queue took so long and then the meal itself was a lengthy process, they don't get back to the villa until well into the night. Tariq, Cill, and Pyt are each shown to their lovely rooms for the evening. And as she's showing Pyt to his, with Rodrigo looking on eagerly from the door, Bianca leans in and whispers to the half-elf that the couple's door would be open should he feel like joining them - good practice, perhaps, for Madame Prespescone's.