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Tem

2026-05-09T17:27:09Z

BoojumBot: Automated Claude summary

**Gazelle** is a character who appears in a series of [[Inland Sea]] adventures beginning around the 15th day of the month.

Gazelle was present at a major conference on [[Middlesea]] (starting 15th Gazelle), where representatives from across the colored regions gathered for discussions. The party was caught up in a strange supernatural event on 16th Gazelle that displaced them outside the compound's gates.

During subsequent adventures, Gazelle participated in:
* Travel to temples of [[Rush]] and [[Navere]] to seek aid against a layered battlefield phenomenon
* A ritual on 29th Gazelle involving a hexagon of dominoes to repair a spell affecting the Baron
* Encounters with [[Darstan]] uniforms near [[Middlesea]]
* Sailing and travel toward Rin'yan via Kor

Gazelle demonstrated particular aptitude during the domino repair ritual, where their "plucky adventurousness" proved beneficial to the group's efforts despite lacking special mechanical bonuses like other party members possessed.

Muddle in Middlesea

2026-03-28T21:21:12Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Conclave, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen [[Cara]], her first mage [[Federico]], William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like [[Gale]], and servants like [[Nesh]], showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some [[Saurian]]s)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Marek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.

* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Al'an]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Federico spoke with Managaratha.
*** Managaratha spent two years before the Conclave strongly lobbying for all zones to be represented.
**** Federico expected Managaratha to tell him why.
*** Managaratha is more fragged than Federico has ever seen him.
*** [[Vidan]] was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.
**** Well, something closely akin to fragged, anyway.
** Their Majesty's representatives went to talk to the Pirate Queen's Table ([[Furoosh]]) and Orange ([[Silenalania]]). Silenalania chatted with all the Guild Masters, and the Saurian, and was surreptitiously passed notes from three of them, indicating a location and time: "South Stairs, 10pm", "Stables, 11:30", "Library, 11pm".

===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of [[Tem]]
*Vidan - Priest of [[Navere]]
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady [[Isabella]] Horenth from [[Vani]]
* Guildmaster Lady [[Marianna]] from [[Rin'yan]]
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of [[Jord]] from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from [[Kor]]

==== Priests ====
* [[Stella]] - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of [[Rush]] from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

===The Yellow Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* [[Prince Vishnarani]]
* Lady [[Harana]] (Unreality Mage)
* Lord Basalin (the guard)

====Others====
* Serafina and her centaurs
* Three priests (Verachi, a sylph; Ghadara; Hasalar )
* A bunch of merchants
* Sarasani, head of the Yellow servants

===The Green Dinner===
==== The Forest ====
* Astros Culleen (High Elf, head of the delegation)
* Vrok StoneSkin (Troll, bodyguard)
* Westly (Fox Pooka)
* [[Scout]] (Wild Elf, just this guy)
* Custard (Halfling, Astros' valet) - actually a redcap
* Cream (Halfling, Astros' cook) - actually a redcap

==== The Plains ====
* Furoosh (Sluagh, related to Their Majesty somehow)
* Silenalania (High Elf) - bad guy, stole [[Middlesea]]
* Sunbeam (Sylph, Silenalania's lady maid)

The status relationship between Furoosh and Silenalania is unclear; they could be jointly leading the delegation.

==== The Mountain ====
* [[Flint]] (Dwarf. Very Dwarfy.)

===The Pirate Captain Dinner===
====Principal Captains====
* Cara, Queen of the Pirates (Awesome!)
* Federico (the First Mage)
* Captain Jane (most adventurous of the greater Captains)
* Captain Brightwall, captain of the Silver Gull (worried about military matters)
* Captain [[Drake]] (generally an ass and who made him Captain anyway?)
* Gale, captain of the Kittiwake (most adventurous of the smaller Captains)

=== The Red Dinner ===
==== Rush Delegation ====
* Captain Daniel (rarely uses his rank; more of a diplomat though I'm he can chop it up if necessary)
** Captain Daniel's instructions: Our work is to put together a force to take the fight to the Breaker. You may think of yourselves as soldiers more than diplomats, but look for opportunities among all the delegations.
* [[Sergeant Susie]]
* Sergeant Susie's squad of Paladins (including [[Diomarche]])
* '''Managaratha's voice, weirdly coming from nowhere (as Daniel was briefing on Lord Franklin):''' ''Hello Diomarche, this is Managaratha. Tell me I like carrots when you get this.''
==== [[Darstan]] Delegation ====
* [[Baron Volstak]]
** Daniel's briefing: Him being here means he and [[Zerbina]] sees this as an expansion opportunity. Expects he can be talked into being a solid part of the force, but he'll need a reward.
==== King Richard's Lands Delegation ====
* Lord Franklin
** Daniel's briefing: Advisor to the last 3 kings in King Richard's Land, over 50 years of service. Expect him to see the big picture, and recognize that an army is needed, but he will need reassurance that King Richard's Land won't be weakened. (Most likely to fall in line.)
** Appears to be a mostly-human-presenting half-elf

==== [[Victoria]] Delegation ====
* Lord Karsten
** Daniel's briefing: Sending him is a bit of a provocation by Queen Iona vs Purple, as he has led many successful offensives into the Empire over the last 15 years. He has also run many campaigns against the orcs, probably nobody has more experience against them. Would be a valuable member of a campaign all by himself regardless of what else Queen Iona might send, but the Empire might just refuse to cooperate with him at all.
==== [[Berana]] Delegation ====
* Lady Frigga
** Daniel's briefing: Don't know much about her, she's not one of the more important children. Her being here might mean [[King Olanson]] doesn't much care about the conference, or that she asked for the assignment as a way to raise her profile.
** (From another run: Her mother and brother think she's sensible enough to hide during a Muddle.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that [[Futeau]] is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of [[Orellian]], is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.
* Managaratha remembers warning Lady Harana about the assassin, and the assassination was prevented.
* Vesalen inspired Truth Telling.

More recollections here: [[Visions_of_Middlesea]]

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurian (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmane]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

= Current State =

== From memories and the first merge experiment ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarche)
* A dwarf (Flint, with Federico) is chasing a redcap (Custard) who is running away. A green potted plant is spewing amnesia mist; the sigils on the plant include Silenalania. (Noted by Scout, embellished with Alexa.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by [[Lutenania]], scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An [[Oasis]] miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstak took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with [[Duchess Zerbina]] over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

==From the visit with [[Alexa]]:==

"The Orc" is the Avatar of the Breaker. He gets to take actions while we are visiting. He has so far had four actions - one in our early experiment, three with Alexa.

* There is some sort of cheating effect to make the "army combat" be a large orc unit against a Middlesea unit, without other factions like the Yellow centaurs and the Pirate Defenders being units.
* [[Marek]]'s effect broke the army combat into one battle in which everyone is all in some sense on the same hex.
* Baron Volstak was stabbed as a sacrifice in a four-priest ritual and is currently being healed not very professionally.
* In a different ritual room, now empty except for the dead redcap:
**Scout was unconscious on the floor over there
**Two redcaps (Cream and Custard, the halflings from Green, turned out to be redcaps) doing the ritual with Silenalania
**Flint and Federico and Vidan and Diomarche came in, and there was a fight. Flint and Federico killed one of the redcaps.
**Silenalania ran off with the Spirit of Middlesea.
**Flint and Fedrico chased the redcap
**Vidan and Diomarche dragged Scout in the other direction

Gale's battle diagnostics with Alexa:
*The orcs are winning.
*The <REDACTED> are losing
*The <OTHER REDACTED> are doing fairly well but they aren’t really in the battle.
*The cataurs have mostly lost.
*The goblins have left the field with their win.
*Orange Teams 2 and 3 are losing to <OTHER REDACTED>. (This is a different scoreboard; they are only in this battle because Marek put everyone on the same battlemap)
*Vidan’s allies are about breaking even.

What needs fixing?

* Bringing Middlesea back probably need fixing. The Goddess thinks that Spirits are iffy, but better than Demons.
* Don’t let Volstak die.
* Don’t let Cara die.
* Don’t let the Prince of ‘al Jabar die.
* Marek is not in immediate danger, but if he dies, this will turn back into an Army combat, and the orcs will crush everyone. So don’t let him die, or leave, because his magic effect is keeping us in personal combat.
* The Artifact for Breaking Orange probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave. (That’s fuzzy, something is defending that.)
* Cataurs are unlikely to successfully kidnap Nesh.
* There are slith here.
* There’s a goblin, but it will probably be handled.
* Catching the half-orc assassin would be good. It’s not clear if the assassin is a half-orc or just working for the half-orcs.

Hearts of Magic

2026-03-28T21:21:10Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

The Hearts of Magic are the places that are the sources of power for the Zones. They can be found via [[Gale]]'s map, and usually have other defenses. During the [[Tales of Comets Past|Breakerversary]], Weythran led the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]] to make sure that Gale's Map is created (while the Heroes of the Comet (C-3) were creating [[Middlesea]].)

The '''Heart of Yellow''' is [[Climbing_the_Bird_Gradient#Heart_of_Yellow|located in the mountains of Jabar]], near the head of the Fifth River. It is reached via a fancy door on the side of a cliff, opened by saying "Open Sesame" in Jabaran; it is left by a Gootmu (an Exit door back to Reality). It is guarded by Other Dunyazade, who did not let the party in to the Heart, but gave them three questions as a consolation.

The '''[[Heart of Blue]]''' is Melinda's Tomb.

The '''Heart of Purple''' has to be reached by teleport.

The '''Heart of Green''' is where the three Kingdoms meet.

The '''Heart of Orange''' is centrally located in Orange, [[Heart of Orange|where the desert and hills meet]]. It lies beneath an ever-being-created boulder, and past a flaming Forge.

The '''Heart of Red''' is located west of the Great Valley between King Richard's lands and [[Darstan]], approximately halfway to the coast. We have not yet visited it.

Three Mages

2026-03-28T21:21:08Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide [[Managaratha]] with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from [[Suvatra]], and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. [[Nesh]] takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with [[Berana]] is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the [[Slith]] requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

[[Stella]] spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

[[Diomarche]] inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage [[Memnon]], Mage [[Alexa]] (located near Southport), and Mage [[Nimra]] are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of [[Tem]].

==Next Day [Salamander 27] ==
Diomarche seeks priests of [[Rush]] and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the ([[Saurian]]) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called [[Indaton]]. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day [Salamander 28]==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day [Salamander 29]==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, [[Jerome]], for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day [Salamander 30]==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights [[Gale]] has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day [Dragon 1]==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with [[Middlesea]] interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the battle.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Three Mages

2026-03-28T21:21:07Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide [[Managaratha]] with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from [[Suvatra]], and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. [[Nesh]] takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with [[Berana]] is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the [[Slith]] requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

[[Stella]] spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

[[Diomarche]] inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage [[Memnon]], Mage [[Alexa]] (located near Southport), and Mage [[Nimra]] are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of [[Tem]].

==Next Day [Salamander 27] ==
Diomarche seeks priests of [[Rush]] and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the ([[Saurian]]) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called [[Indaton]]. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day [Salamander 28]==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day [Salamander 29]==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, Jerome, for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day [Salamander 30]==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights [[Gale]] has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day [Dragon 1]==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with [[Middlesea]] interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the battle.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Jerome

2026-03-28T21:21:05Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

'''Jerome''' is a Logistics Guy assigned by Mage [[Memnon]] to coordinate efforts between the Blue Admiralty and Memnon's forces.

Jord

2026-03-28T21:21:04Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

'''Jord''' is the God of Wealth, Luck, and Thieves. Jord has multiple "faces" or aspects, including a Merchant face and a Thief face.

Jord temples are relatively common, particularly in coastal and trading regions. In [[Middlesea]], Jord priests have a significant presence in the Guild, and are considered reliable arbiters of justice within the thieves' community.

==Notable Priests of Jord==
* [[Jabril]], a cloth merchant and traveling priest
* [[Carlo]], uncle of [[Stella]] and priest of Jord
* Dora, who traveled with Princess Friga and noted that "Jord is the god of both Trade and Theft"
* Joseph, based at a [[Tem]]ple of Jord, who serves as a contact for the thieves' guild and who confronted [[Nesh]] over violations of Jord's rules
* Bert, local priest in the region, who attended a meeting of priests at a Tavern that was targeted by a Broken miracle
* [[Marsha]], an ex-pirate who operates out of the Stone Table and offers sanctioned jobs with access to safehouses

==Notable Events==
* When the party sought to steal someone out of [[Middlesea]] on behalf of the [[Maharani]], they were advised to consult a Thief-face priest of Jord, as the task required both diplomatic and criminal expertise. Both [[Jabril]] and [[Carlo]] were identified as potential contacts.
* Joseph confronted [[Nesh]] at midnight over violations of Jord's rules, acknowledging the cause was worthy but warning the party not to make contact with the underworld elsewhere in Red, as their actions were known.
* A fourth priest, expected by balance to be a Priest of Jord, went missing during a ritual event at [[Middlesea]], with evidence of a stabbing and brief combat before everyone froze.
* The Church of [[Rush]] has been accused of encroaching on Jord's domain through priests of logistics that were described as "kind of Jordian."
* There are enough Priests of Jord high in the Guild that they would act against a confirmed servant of the Breaker, though they require clear evidence rather than suspicion.

To Catch A Thief

2026-03-28T21:21:02Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

[[Nesh]] and [[Managaratha]] reappear and [[Scout]] vanishes.

We want to wait to hear about the interrogation and get our promised share of the loot, and then go to Red to catch up with [[Thistle]].

Around breakfast, [Phoenix 2] [[Volda]] shows up, but we say we're waiting at the moment. Managaratha wonders if there are records of who he visited in the past six months. That would be difficult. We lounge about until lunch-ish, when a messenger shows up and delivers a note and a bag to Volda. We go up to one of the rooms.

The information that was recovered from the assassin, to date, is that she was sent after us because her master discovered that we are the best key to getting Slayer out of [[Middlesea]], and her master does not want Slayer released from the trap. (An orc, Slayer). We wonder if this is the same orc who [[Sergeant Susie]] would not want let out.

There is a bag of loot: a small amount of cash, four poisons of unknown poison-ness.

Managaratha yellow-calls Thistle. We will be heading towards Red. She's in [[Darstan]] still.

Volda arranges a teleport for us to Darstan, for the cost of our bag of coins.

We're now in a square in Darstan. [[Gale]] rescued a kidnapped librarian (Rosalind) here from an annoying relative of [[Baron Volstak]].

[[Diomarche]] hails the duty paladin. He needs to see a senior priest, but stay out here, because it's complicated. The priest comes out. Diomarche gives him a reasonably detailed up to date report, and also says he wants to talk to [[Duchess Zerbina]] about the link. The priest thinks that she will probably not be willing to change her strategy - a lot of her forces are there. The Duchess is not doing as well breaking up the forming alliance between [[King Richard]]'s lands and [[Berana]] ([[King Olanson]]). Also, Diomarche should not come into the temple of [[Rush]] himself.

Gale looks up Rosalind and regales her with the story over tea.

Managaratha finds a horse that looks kind of gilled and scaly on the common, and asks if he can sit on it. He sells his fancy rock and does so, noting that it bends oddly, more like a snake than a horse.

Dinner where Thistle is supposed to show up. Some people notice that there's a lady keeping an eye on us from another table, and [[Vidan]] thinks it's Thistle in disguise. Managaratha waves, and she rolls her eyes and leaves. Nesh follows stealthily. She eventually stops. "Nesh, right?" He apologizes for his friends. There's at least one person in town she doesn't want to spot her.

"What do you all want?"
"Uh... that much I wasn't told."

They arrange to meet later on the commons. Can we help? Do we know a good fence? Nesh wonders why she hasn't gone home where she is in the thieves guild. She'd get a better price for it here... she'll go talk to Nesh.

She got teleported here, and tried to make contact with the local guild. Got in an argument with this "bitch named [[Marsha]]" who didn't think she was competent. Stole some of her stuff. In her stuff is what looks like the Duchess's signet ring. Nesh offers to handle returning it for a reward and the reward is hers. We can probably deal with probing in a way that doesn't implicate her, for example.

[Phoenix 3]

Vidan gets us an audience, and gives her a packet. There's something else that might be more sensitive - she takes us to a tower where a red mage takes away the guards' ears. O_o Lots of us have various investigatory abilities - we came upon a lifelink, is she aware of that? Yes. We thought it might be in an unfortunate state. Her husband's absence is day to day inconvenient. The lifebond is not day to day inconvenient...but she is concerned about what will happen when the timestop is ended. Her husband had taken a great deal of damage right before the timestop went into effect. She has recovered from her share of that damage - and is concerned that people get to him quickly.

Vidan also notes that the enemy has been pushing instability, in case there is anything we could help with. Since Middlesea closed and her husband went missing, there have been pressures on Darstan that have increased from neighbors in Red. It seems likely that one of Berana and King [[Richard III|Richard]]'s Lands were responsible for a recent intrusion into the castle. If you were to learn which of them that might have been, that would be appreciated. Berana has an envoy here publicly, Prince Sven. King Richard doesn't have anyone official.

Nesh goes to find the thieves guild. They tell him to go to the [[Tem]]ple of [[Jord]] and talk to Joseph. He slouches in and to the shrine of Jord, Joseph notes that he has a lot of DI resistance, but quizzes him on streetwise and some other skills he doesn't have. Before making plans, he should talk to either Alex at the Dragon's Claw or Marsha at the Stone Table.

Nesh and Gale talk to Marsha. Ex-pirates. Red guard dogs are something we won't be used to. Don't do too large a hit too often. Don't get too ambitious or claim we're Jord's left hand. She thinks there might be some jobs in the next week or so in case we're interested. If we're on a sanctioned job, we can run to a safehouse, but don't run to them on random jobs.

Nobody sneezes, though. Very disappointing.

We also recall that the Duchess actually asked that we figure out which of two people was responsible, not to investigate the theft. So we need to find the people and investigate them.

General gossip: [[Victoria]] is not all that interesting, she's always fighting Purple. Prince Sven is in town from Berana, everyone knows where. (The king of Berana has 25+ kids). Everyone assumes King Richard has someone here but nobody knows who offhand. Everyone is clear that the Duchess is the war leader, and Volstak is the ruler.

We visit Sven and give him a packet. He assures us that's very interesting. But he doesn't care about stuff outside of Red. (He is familiar with the Blue Mage, the most interested in outside Melmayne). Does he know who Richard's guy is? Well, give me two, I can get one to Richard. Vidan thinks that he is in communication with Richard about what to do about Darstan. Nesh thinks that he has moved here for the long term, not just for a bit.

Back to the common to talk to Thistle. Is Marsha a fence? No. So she stole it probably on someone else's behalf. She can show us.

Stella asks "What needs fixing?" (11 successes, 7 DI).

* Get the ring back to the Duchess.
* Clearing Marsha out would be good.
* Stopping the war between Darstan / King Richard's lands / Berana from starting.

Getting the seal back to the Duchess will help with that last one (getting it back to where Marsha was sending it would do best.). Marsha was sending it to [[George]], King Richard's spy. Don't let George get it, that would start the war. Letting Sven get it would start the war more slowly.

We split up - Diomarche, [[Stella]] go up the stairs. Nesh (with Thistle) on the roof, Gale, Vidan, Managaratha, in the Kittiwake lurking in the alley on the second floor.

She goes out the window and we give chase. We fritter her down until she explodes, which Vidan confirms is Broken. (Gale loses her party clothes and Managaratha loses his ingredients).

Thistle and Nesh, tossing her place, finds them. (Nesh gives Thistle all the money).

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Bear and Frog

2026-03-28T21:21:00Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

[Still evening Phoenix 3]

We begin the run standing over the post-exploded (but still identifiable) body of [[Marsha]] (except [[Nesh]] who is still with [[Thistle]] in Marsha's rooms).

Diomarche could inform the [[Rush]] temple. There's less hue and cry than we would expect. He heads that way at a fast canter. A crowd (but not guards) starts to gather. [[Vidan]] tells everyone to move along.

Nesh stays hidden on the roof at Marsha's, and spots Joseph showing up. Nesh goes down to talk to him (not yet knowing she is dead or Broken). "You have anything to say for yourself?" "She stole something she *really* shouldn't have." "That is not an acceptable reason to take advantage of the god's wishes." "I suspect I'm working for a different god...?" Nesh clarifies: she took the Duchess's signet ring. Hmm. He goes off in the direction Nesh says Marsha went.

A guy wanders up and gets briefed by the (intentionally remaining) crowd. (Probably Joseph, but we don't recognize him).

Back at the dead body, the priest of Rush shows up. He says "I'll take care of it" and meets the guy's eyes.

We walk back by the scene of the crime and collect Nesh. Vidan writes a report, clearly blaming Marsha and dropping hints about the unnamed confidential sources who recovered the ring being hopeful of the Duchess's generosity.

Vidan thinks we are being slotted into the "can be usefully hired" category rather than a "friend/ally" category. Vidan tries to slant it into "heroes against the breaker" rather than "mercenaries" but we also aren't [[Darstan]]-in-particular-against-[[King Richard|King-Richard]] allies.

We find Thistle at dinnertime, and hand over the (about two loot) reward.

Joseph starts to steal Nesh, which wakes Vidan (but not [[Managaratha]]).
"Joseph, priest of [[Jord]], meet Vidan, priest of [[Navere]]."
"That explains the midnight meeting."

You have offended Jord's rules in service of a cause I admit was worthy. I am pleased to see that has been revealed and dealt with. I would recommend that you do not attempt to make contact with the underworld in the rest of Red, because they will be aware of the actions you have taken.

Vidan: rather than effective communal expulsion, is there some rite or trial to cleanse the stain?

If he chooses to petition for such a thing, he might be able to. But it would require a commitment that I think he is unwilling to make at this time. He approached us with the posture of one who wished to contract for a time - he would have to follow through on that request. Nesh offers to carry things around, but that isn't sufficient.

If there is a Breaker-related problem with the underworld in Red, should Nesh bring it to his door? Certainly.

Anyway, Nesh apologizes for stepping on the underworld's toes and will try to avoid that in future. No official retribution. (Probably not friends of Marsha planning to retaliate unless they are also Bent).

Vidan puts an ecumenical blessing on him for following his organization's rules.

We otherwise make it to morning.

[Phoenix 4]

Off to the [[Plains of Geddon]]!
We boat northward. There are some weird birds. One starts swooping in - hey, that's not a bird. That's a centaur that's half pegasus instead of half horse. Huh.

"Managaratha, you old rascal! This close and you didn't stop to say hi?" (He also has a tiny horn). He says there was a note left in his house. He introduces himself as Christafenios and invites everyone to tea. We follow him to his house, which is not far from the road between Darstan and the Plains.

He has a nice centaur-flavored house, and a monkey who makes us tea.

Eventually Vidan asks about the note.

<blockquote>
All right. Things should have started by now, and that means that hopefully you saved the queen in Green and you might have met [[Lisetera]] by now. She's exciting. You will have to go with her eventually, but probably not first. If you haven't met her yet, probably soon - middle of Phoenix at the latest. The [[Slith]] are going to start moving shortly. Those are the wars - the Slith and the orcs. Getting some word to the merfolk and trying to coordinate them with at least [[Melmane]] is on the agenda. Might be before Lisetera, maybe after. They're selling the swords - watch that. And if you didn't deal with the ring, go to Darstan.
</blockquote>

"So, I have been farther forward and expected myself to be fragged, but not as fragged as I am. ([[Middlesea]] is super-fraggy). Good good."

"Oh, worse than precog." -Vidan

(Slith are established in the Broken Seas, which stretch to al Jabar. There are probably fewer than four Slith countries underwater, and they've been pushed north, since Original Comet. Also there's a merfolk country underwater.)

He's still looking for a unicorn. (that's an elder race, like dragons). They can probably heal red magic damage.

We stop at an inn for the night.

[Phoenix 5]

Things seem more defensive and less prosperous than traveling across Orange. (Orange is Italian renaissance, and more vulnerable to sacking by Goths; this is medieval Europe.

Another uneventful day of sailing, another inn.

[[Stella]] notices: that wall was just repaired yesterday. The innkeeper reassures her - surely no more bears will be back. There was the flying bear, and the giant bear came through the wall. Something hit the bears in the area and they all got a little weird. Stella goes off to heal people who were hurt in the bear attack. (Kathy got badly mauled).

There are three: the flying bear, the sharp bear, and the giant bear. These are more aggressive than normal bears, too.

Kathy hasn't really heard of the Three-Faced Goddess, but grudgingly says thank you.

We follow the giant bear tracks backwards. We find a cave. No bears in residence, though there are feathers.

We are heading back to the village as the owlbear jumps us.

We chop the owl bear a while - then it gets big and roars and stands up. Navere thinks it might be time to run. Stella puts the giant bear in time-out and [[Gale]] coordinates some attacks, so we're still making progress.

Vidan dubs Nesh "Bearslayer". We drag it back into town. "Bear's Head Inn" gets true named by Vidan. (Marta and Jack are the innkeepers).

[Phoenix 6]

A little more flying, and then the Plains.

[[Diomarche]] briefs the Lord Commander, including that "the kid" is being hunted by cataurs.

After a bit, someone comes to take Nesh away for questions about his past and the sword. (Nesh remembers that a Blue saurian said he probably couldn't take the sword away).

Vidan walks around the camp - the non-Paladin side is more temporary, and there is some dismissiveness towards a priest of Navere, though no hostility,

Gale wanders around the camp. The inner section is strangely non-walled, but clearly aware of Gale scoping things out. Are there sad/disgruntled people who didn't get their petition heard? Those could be adventures! One man says he was looking for help for his missing (17yo) daughter who left home two weeks ago and has not come back. His house is between King Richard's Lands and [[Berana]]. Stella thinks that what needs fixing is that his daughter got hit with a red spell - she is a frog in a stream near her house, and a noble has to kiss her. Hmm.

Diomarche gets a six-day pass. We get there in four without anything. Gale and Diomarche do not successfully kiss the frog, but Nesh turns her back into a girl. He starts to get an existential crisis, but then decides it was his saurian resistance.

[Phoenix 12] Vidan just manages to get us back in time after some boat travel to get closer.

== Loot ==
* 5 EPs
* 5 SPs

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Welcome to Jabar

2026-03-28T21:20:59Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Entirely Without Incident==

We head off towards Jabar!

With the protection of Lissa Tera, we have a smooth (and fairly boring, according to [[Gale]] and [[Scout]]) two weeks across the ocean, until we are a few

We get a briefing on Yellow from Lissa Tera.
There are four [[Varna]]. Nobility Priest Merchant, Farmer (everyone else). Ranked in vaguely that order; there’s some overlap at the edges. All Priests (well all the Priests of the Goddess…) are in the Priest caste, plus mages, scholars, philosophers… things like that. Kids can move between Varna; it’s hard for adults in the three major Varna to move, although Farmer’s can be promoted.

There are 5 Major Rivers. The Queen’s, the Great River, The New River, sometimes called the Fifth River (the Lady made it). The Masahanalta, and the Merani. Major ports where the rivers meet the sea. Three High priests (Love’s Servant, etc.) have three cities near the mountains. [[Diomarche]]’s Herd is in the northeast. There are not many major passes– just one far to the South, though it’s possible to get across elsewhere.

Lots of Illusions, lots of people will pretend to know more than they do. Don’t be rude. People speak Jabaran! She offers to teach some Jabaran.

We’ll want to get to the [[Maharani]]’s city eventually, but she hears it’s under attack by slith, so better to go by land than by boat.

[[Managaratha]] wakes up, and [[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] hear something thump the bottom of the boat.
Lissa Tera thinks probably slith, since she can’t see anything under the boat.

Gale gives everyone water breathing and underwater action.

The slith come over the side.

Vidan and Stella put a lot of them in timeout, but a named slith decloaks and starts waking them up.
It’s a tough fight, since they all have dodge pools, but we end up killing about half the mook slith. The named slith takes several sets of death checks but escapes over the side, and we can’t defeat his stealth rolls. ([[Lisetera]] says there is an invasion going up the Queen's River and they are fighting in the northern waters, so it was a little surprising this far south but not super surprising.)

==In Jabar==

The cataurs go out into the night. Er, day. Diomarche does the Leaving Ritual of their herds with Rashar and the other two.

Scout nudges Gale to look at the Magic Map. The X in Yellow is just north of the source of the Fifth River.

We sail north, and reach Habani by the end of the day. We get rooms at an inn and Lisetera goes to check in.

Vidan needs to put the three Markers from the Empire in Queen’s City, Love’s Citadel, Life’s Palace, Lore’s Towers.

Scout notes that our party battlemap has shrunk to not larger than the boat, probably because we spent so long in an Unreality bubble on the boat. No wandering a neighborhood away now.

The area is kind of savannah-like. Scout does some ecology analysis, and thinks there are some irrigation canals from the river, but the general area is dry. There aren’t any forests or jungles in the area. There is farming of olives and grapes and vines and that sort of thing.

Scout notices that there are more elves here than in most of the other Zones except for Green.

Stella gets a nudge from the Goddess; there is a List of Things to fix:
* The list coming in tomorrow is in about the proper order, least to most.
* Yours is not necessarily something that needs fixing, it is something that you should know about, and should think about whether it needs fixing. There are arguments both ways.
* You suppose Scout’s should be fixed.
* Gale’s is less something that needs fixing, but an Opportunity.
* Managaratha’s is definitely a problem; it’s really in some ways the biggest, except maybe for Vidan’s. But what fixing them means is not necessarily clear. They’re definitely divine resistance to looking into either of those (or yours for that matter). It’s not Defended, per se, but you’re getting less than you should.
* [[Nesh]] is probably getting something, but who knows.
* Diomarche’s should be fixed, but is probably the least major of them. But he should do it.
* The stuff Vidan remembered should be dealt with, but it doesn’t have to be today.

==The Next Morning: Diomarche's Quest==

We are shown to a table set for eight. Hmm, that’s suspicious. The eighth setting is appropriate for a centaur (as is Diomarche’s). Diomarche recognizes her as Ekarna, from his Herd. She is not high status; her job is a… crafter, more or less. This is far away from her usual area, so that’s unusual.

Diomarche goes to talk to her as she is inquiring about getting a room. She seems happy to see him. He tells her a bit about Middlesea, and that he and his companions are spreading the word; she assumes that we must be paladins, which Scout thinks is hilarious. Diomarche introduces her to Stella as a Priest of the Goddess, at which she becomes more polite.

She’s in town to sell some of her leatherwork, because the crops haven’t been doing well. (His mom is still back at the herd, so Diomarche should go see her). The Maharani hasn't been helping because of the drought.

Stella thinks she’s putting a better face on things than is warranted.

==Gale’s Quest==

A gentleman comes in. He spots Gale, and comes to the table. He’s moderately nicely dressed (at least compared to Ekarna…) He looks at Ekarna and says “If I might…” She lets him take her place.

“Would it be Captain Gale?”

“Yes.”

“Yes. I am [[Dubrecht]]; I am looking for assistance in flying through the mountains (not past the mountains, around the mountains) and I hope you would be able to help me on your quest.”

“I think that is doable.”

“Oh good.”

“When are you going?”

“I need some time, but in the next month?”

“What is your quest?”

“I’m looking for the Phoenix’s Nest, so that I can get a few feathers.”

Vidan asks whether finding the Nest is the quest, or if the Feathers are the quest.

Scout asks what he needs them for. “For my quest!” For whom? “For me!” Scout looks at him. Definitely a half-Pooka. Aha. That explains it. Scout becomes much more interested in helping him.

Who did Dubrecht consult with about his Quest? The Mage in the Golden Tower. She’s well-respected for that sort of thing, she’s certainly expensive enough. It’s hard to scry for the Phoenix.

We make arrangements to meet with him in a week.

==Scout’s Quest==
A high elf lady comes in, and glares at him, and he smiles and bows and leaves.

“Scout, yes?”

“Yes.”

“I understand you are a shaman of some skill?”

“Yes.”

“[[Messalani]]. I am one of the more important merchants in town. None of the Rulers in Green are responding to my requests for help. The Tree network is having troubles; it will need some Shamanism, as well as Green magic, which I can provide. With the tree network down (not down, that’s strong) it would have taken some time. ”

“I’m not aware of the Tree Network and what it does, so I’ll need to see it.”

“It’s a transportation network run by elves, that we take advantage of. It’s been here since before the last Comet (which is when I got here), so it’s quite well established. It has mostly functioned well, which it is not working well at present.”

“Is it just in Yellow?”

“There are three to the [[Melmane]] ports, there’s a different network from Melmane to the other continent.”

Managaratha is pretty sure it was established two Comets ago.

“Is it Alchemy, Nature, Essence…?”

“All three, but at root it is Nature. But it has a Divine component, but I’m not familiar with that and it’s difficult to find anyone to deal with it. Priests here are more likely to try to destroy it; that’s happened to trees on occasion.”

Messalina is Merchant Varna, she trades, both inside and overseas to keep the economy of the country running. The Great River is where the merchant Varna is most respected, so she tends to travel there. The Tree Network is throughout the lands, but less so in the Priests’ cities.

As she is finishing describing that…

==Nesh’s Quest==
A man comes in. Messalina looks up and there’s a level of assessment. Possibly he’s low level Priest Varna. Nesh is about to escort Nesh out

“I am Virga.”

He pulls out a Nesh-finding compass, and puts it on the table. It’s spinning, but then he says something and it points at Nesh.

“Can you explain why a group of cataurs, coming through our territory, had a magic item that points at you?”

“Not particularly. I think the [[Oasis]] wants me?”

“The OASIS wants you?”

“I mean, I don’t know why…”

Scout says “sorry, who are you?”

“I am Virga, I am an officer of the law.”

With whom?

“For the city.”

“I don’t suppose we could see the Ruler of the city? We have important missives from the West.”

We give him a [[Tarn Evidence Packet]]; he casts a Yellow spell to translate it and reads it quickly. There are teams of cataurs searching for Nesh, they attacked Middlesea, are they connected?

Well, not that we know of. Nesh says they might be hunting the [[Buccaneer]]? Hmm. He thinks that’s unlikely. The Inspector asks if he’ll drop his defenses to allow some investigative spells. Nesh agrees.

He casts a Yellow spell; Managaratha thinks it’s a Detect Broken of some kind.

As he’s casting a second Yellow spell, someone taps his shoulder…
==Stella’s Quest==
He gets up and bows to the woman who is sitting down, and says he will speak with Nesh later. She appears to be a priest of the Goddess, wearing a Holy symbol. She sits down and says “Good morning, my name is Hama Aliki, I am Lore’s Servant, and I was hoping I could speak with Stella about certain matters.”

“I understand you have connections with Red and Orange merchant Guilds.”

“Some. I am not a member of any Guild. I serve the Goddess, but I know many in the Guilds.”

She considers that a minute or two, and says “[[The Lady]] of Lore is… interested… in developing the Merchant Varna. And hopes to speak with someone who can provide information about how the Priest Varna can assist them in being better organized. Our understanding is that the Guild is quite well organized. It sounds like you perhaps have less understanding of it…?”

“I have knowledge, but I am not a member, of the Guild.”

Ah, then she is happy to discuss further if she has the requisite knowledge.

“I understand priests in your land do not pursue one of the Three Faces specifically.”

“Not generally.”

“That is something you should consider if you are going to be here long; the Lady of Lore would be happy to speak with you about that.”

She is the most aware of any of the people who have come in yet that she is in a mechanic, and that she had intended to speak to YOU, and perhaps had more to say, and is not convinced she wants to say more to the group because of the mechanic.

Talking generally, it seems the Merchant Varna is not organized the way the Guild is organized. The country is organized, but the Merchants are not. The Nobles are in charge; the Church is next, and could potentially… they can hold their own against the Nobles most of the time. Although the fact that they’re divided into three makes it harder. The three Ladies are bigger than any of the Nobles besides the Maharani. It’s almost feudalish in terms of descending down levels of nobles out. The priests are less organized. Love, Lore, Life; under the three Ladies are other priests. They’re not technically hierarchical, but it’s implied. Non-actual-priests of the Priest Varna are less important than most of the priests (according to her). Merchants are flat at the bottom. Then there are the regular people.

==Managaratha’s Quest==
She looks up as someone else comes into the room and heads in her direction, and she says “I believe my time is up”.

“Oh have we met?”

“No.” And

“But I have.”

“Of course you are. Did I not tell you that Purple is dangerous, Did I not tell you that Yellow was safer? Purple might be more accurate, but even so!”

“Vicarana Vesta. Do you remember having met me before?”

“No. It’s a big one. I think I’m about half burned out.”

“Then maybe you are less useful than I had hoped.”

“Nonetheless, I have been monitoring the use of Magics, as you had suggested, and you are correct that Something is Off with Feelings magic. It is not major; I would not have noticed had I not been looking out for it. Spells are not yet going awry more often, but it is enough to notice if you are watching. Which I have been, since you asked me to.

I have found the thing that you asked me to look for, and what should I do about it?”

“Well, we have received a prophecy that we should deal with this, so it’s good that you have come to us.”

“How is your Yellow theory?”

“At the moment I’m pretty good at Yellow.”

“You mean Illusion, you can’t do Feelings, right?”

“Yes.”

“How to put this in Illusion terms, or non-magic terms. Hmm. The best analogy I have at present. Think that you are living in a house, and you know the house, but suddenly at night there are new noises. That is about all I have at present. There are tremors through Feelings magic, which make the Feelings different. Different is not right. Flavor the Feelings perhaps.”

“Is this worldwide, or just in Jabar?”

I have not looked elsewhere; that is an interesting question. I could attempt to investigate that if you think that is a matter that would be useful to know to resolve the problem.

“I’m not sure it’s urgent, but it could tell the difference between a local ritual, or the Breaker trying to change the nature of Magic.”

“It’s everywhere in jabar I have been. It’s not something I would expect anyone to notice without looking. I have mentioned it to a few other Mages that, well, in one case she said she had noticed it but thought it was because she was sick. The others claimed it was not changing.”

I could get to Melmane,
==Vidan’s Quest==
As he is finishing that up, [[Suvatra]] shows up.

“Vikarna, I was not expecting to see you here.”

“My apologies, Lady, I will make way for you of course.”

She sits.

“Vidan, yes. I am pleased you have arrived.” She looks at the line of people, and puts us in a Cone of Silence.

“So. I believe the first pass will be coming to a head shortly.”

“First pass?”

“At attempting to remove the Maharani. The war is going poorly. I believe that is at least in part due to the lack of support that Her Majesty is getting from other sources. She’s getting the brunt. I believe there will be a move within the next month, possibly the next few weeks, to remove her. I expect that will be violent rather than political, and I expect the Church will be heavily involved. There was a time I thought you had better connections in the Church than I did; I’m not convinced of that now, but you are the one I find most plausible to assist me in this matter. Possibly simply because you are not local and therefore are more trustable. Possibly because you are not invested in any particular Maharani.”

“Is there any evidence of the Broken in the Conspiracy?”

“Not that I know of; there could be instigators or associates who are Bent, but I believe it is more an internal fight. I am not willing at this time to point at any one person as definitely in the conspiracy. They are sufficiently well guarded against scrying and other investigations that I do not have proof with which to charge any one of significant political import. The easiest way to get proof would be to find an assassin who survived their attempt, but I do not intend to endanger the Maharani in order to catch such an assassin. We will try to discover what we can if that happens, but I would prefer no attempt will be made.”

“From your message, it sounds like the first attempt will come from Lore?”

“I don’t believe Lore wants to remove the Maharani; Lore wants to weaken the Maharani because Lore wants to weaken the Nobility. And I believe Lore has begun those moves.”

Vidan frowns.

“But the directed attack on the Maharani does not come from Lore.”

“Where then is most likely?”

“I believe it is Life, but do not repeat that; I will disavow any such accusation. She is certainly working with others in the Nobility if she is organizing this; she was Noble of birth, and her family is close in line should the Maharani’s family fall. So given the combination of power involved and possible beneficiaries, she is my most plausible candidate. But whether she is assisting others or the motivator, that I don’t have a good feel for.”

Vidan thinks about whether there’s an obvious heir. (The prince in Middlesea is a nephew.) She has two heirs, a daughter. Passage of rulership is more flexible. KS: Succession Law tells him that the Maharani could name an heir. If an heir has not been named, then the Council of Nobles will discuss what the Maharani’s choice would likely have been. With political shenanigans likely.

==And then...==
A gentleman comes in, and bows to Suvatra.

“I am Captain Loric Assan. I am a member of the Maharani’s personal guard. I understand you are the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]]?”

“We are.”

“The Maharani commands your presence in the capital at once. I will accompany you there. Welcome to Jabar.”

===Loot:===
* +1 Racial Schtick
* +20 SPs

Talinda

2026-03-28T21:20:58Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

'''Talinda''' is a hawk-and-falcon seller who travels with the merchant caravan; though she works in the Merchant [[Varna]] by marriage, she is actually of the Priest Varna and serves the goddess of [[Love]], using Feelings magic to train and influence her birds. She has been observed sneaking invisibly into other merchants' tents (notably [[Dalin]] Jaseer’s and Quartz’s) and into conversations (seen in a [[Lisetera]] diorama having tea with Fasanta), behavior that raised suspicions among party members like [[Nesh]] and [[Stella]] but has not been linked to any assassination plot; the group currently judges her activities more consistent with personal/romantic or Love-related meddling than outright treachery. Talinda performs poorly at mundane merchant tasks (famously getting crushed at [[Gale]]’s card game) and is socially better tied to priestly circles than to merchant trade, making her a quirky, potentially secretive figure at the heart of the caravan’s interpersonal intrigues.

[[Category:NPCs]]

Caravan Part 2

2026-03-28T21:20:56Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

<h2>[[Cara]]van: Day 4</h2>

We have seen [[Talinda]] sneak into two tents, but not what she is doing. ([[Stella]] thinks Hawk Seller is also suspicious).

[[Managaratha]] wanders around looking for magical sigils, especially Talinda's birds. No spells on the birds right now. The merchant tents have different sigils, the military has all the same sigil. He also thinks that we should ask [[Lisetera]] for help because yellow is exactly what we need to watch invisible people.

[[Vidan]]'s thoughts from people-watching: [[Suvatra]] is clearly publicly important. She's not easily approachable in this context, as the Queen's Representative. Lisetera is just Lisetera-ing it up, being mildly eccentric and approachable and doing whatever.

We ask Lisetera for help. She can "do an unreality" to see what happened.

Stella talks to Fasanta - yes, she is aware Talinda snuck into her tent. She appreciates the concern.

At lunch, Lisetera comes over and casts a little mini-diorama of the tent. The flap to Fasanta's tent opens, and Talinda is inside and turns visible. They have tea, and talk about roses. Lisetera waves her hand - they talk about the history of the third queen of the second dynasty of the last comet. She keeps waving her hand and it keeps being random esoteric subjects. Too many defenses.

She tries another tack, with a different sort of spell (precog?) on things we want to know: there are reasonable odds that we catch someone that we think is an assassin - not someone we've met - but reasonable odds that we don't.

Stella wanders around to gather information, and gets 5 karma.
She hears:
<ul>
<li> Centaurs complaining about the drought
<li> "No, really, some time next week I'm going to meet my true love, the seer in the Golden Tower promised me"
<li> Two of the priests of Life in the military unit push her on branches - they mention that Talinda is Love's servant. Vestal is Life's servant. They don't know if there's a Lore's servant around, there might be, they're less obvious.
</ul>

Vestal is a name we haven't heard before. Ahah!

[[Gale]] gets that Vestal is in the merchant caravan somewhere, and Lieutenant Meskana is second in command of the two-leg military unit and Lieutenant Konstantine is in command of the centaur cavalry.

The two-leg unit is Captain Asan's but he is also in charge of the pair, so Meskana is dealing with day-to-day in the two-legs. Captain Asan is also the person who talks to Suvatra the most.

[[Diomarche]] talks to centaurs; one is from the herd next to him. He's heard a rumor that the cousins are spreading the dryness.

We remember to ask Alasfal (our temporary servant who we have forgotten about) about what she has noticed.
<ul>
<li> The military is more on alert than when we started. [[Slith]] are a possibility to be in the neighborhood at this point.
<li> The merchants have not made a ton of progress in making a presentation that will actually change anything (for anyone but them)
<li> She thinks something is up with [[Jabril]] and she can't tell what it is.
<li> She's not sure what Talinda is doing, but has noticed she's doing something. She agrees with Stella that Talinda is not a very good merchant.
<li> She does not think Vestal is up to anything, which is interesting in its own right.
<li> Suvatra and Lisetera are working together more than they appear.
</ul>

We decide that:
<ul>
<li> We are all against assassination unless the [[Maharani]] is actually working with the Breaker
<li> Stella doesn't like inefficient merchanting and Managaratha thinks heroes of the Comet should be rich, and no one is in favor of inefficient merchanting, so we are cautiously on that side.
<li> We are really unclear what is going on in the love plot plots (Talinda?, the Golden Seer true love plot) but that is clearly Gale's problem.
</ul>

We get Alasfal to organize a dinner party tomorrow to invite merchants to.

Vidan goes and sneaks around in his sandy cloak with some DI in witnessing and being supposed to be there. He sees the defenses on Suvatra's tent, which are decent, and maybe a little relevant? And Talinda is going to visit Merindal. That's important but not to the assassination. Vidan thinks she's Stella's opposition, but that's not right.

Managaratha dodders over to near Vestal and nods off.

Gale asks after the Seer in the Golden Tower. Nobody knows where the Golden Tower is, but they are someone to consult when one is on a quest. But people run into the Golden Tower even when they are not on a quest.

<h2>Day 5</h2>

Gale asks [[Dalin]] what Talinda is up to. She is a Feelings mage - that's how she trains her birds up. She uses that to make her birds do things better. She was wondering whether that would work on horses. (But that's clearly not what she talked about with everyone else. And why invisible?)

WAIT WHAT? -Managaratha

He talks to Talinda. She hasn't noticed anything weird with feelings. Has she accomplished what she wants to accomplish sneaking into everyone's tent? Yes.

No current spells on Dalin. Can Lisetera tell if that's what they actually talked about? Or was that just another bounce? She gets an unreal "merfolk gills or tails"?

Gale brings Stella - a large DI hammer to fix him. She thinks something very small was removed. Vidan does a detective conversational interrogation. Now he remembers that she cast some spells on him that he didn't remember before. Not forgotten, just made unimportant.

<h2>Lunch of Merchants</h2>

Stella makes her persuasion roll, with Vidan's assistance, and gets 8 successes.
<ul>
<li> Jabril is the most interested of the not-big-4.
<li> Vidan passes around contact information - Vestal trades in incense.
<li> People notice that Talinda and Jabril are paying more attention to the fact that Stella is the one making the spiel.
</ul>

(Laura now thinks Jabril is a secret Lore cultist of Allan).

Some people look suspiciously at Vestal when she says she's from the capital.

Vidan makes a good pitch for the final four after everyone else has left (Vestal followed by Gale). 8 successes of solid moving things forward.

Then Vidan talks to Suvatra - were this the Empire, here is my list of people who need background checks.

Vestal: merchants based in the city and the other merchants in the city think that is an odd statement. Make sure you do Vestal first.
<4 merchants>

Talinda: probably not involved in the problem we are discussing, but this one is obviously love.

The Captain rides up and says there's a force of slith between us and the capital, and they need to discuss it.

<h2>Loot:</h2>
<ul>
<li> +8 EPs, +10 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Caravan

2026-03-28T21:20:55Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Recap==
To summarize our to-do list, as it's been a while:

* ''[[Diomarche]]'s Quest'': Diomarche encounters Ekarna, a fellow centaur from his Herd, who is in town to sell leatherwork due to poor crop yields caused by a drought. The [[Maharani]] hasn’t been helping with the drought, and Diomarche is advised to visit his mother back at the Herd.
* ''[[Gale]]'s Quest'': Gale is approached by [[Dubrecht]], who seeks assistance in flying through the mountains to find the Phoenix’s Nest to obtain feathers. Dubrecht consulted a Mage in the Golden Tower, known for her scrying abilities, for guidance on this quest.
* ''[[Scout]]'s Quest'': Scout is approached by [[Messalani]], a high elf merchant, who requests his shamanic skills to help fix the Tree Network, a transportation network run by elves that is not functioning properly. The network, which has a divine component, is crucial for maintaining trade and communication.
* ''[[Nesh]]'s Quest'': Nesh is confronted by Virga, an officer of the law, who is investigating why a group of cataurs had a magic item pointing to Nesh. Nesh speculates that the [[Oasis]] might want him. Virga casts investigative spells on Nesh, suggesting there’s more to Nesh’s connection to the Oasis.
* ''[[Stella]]'s Quest'': Stella meets Hama Aliki, a priest of the Goddess, who discusses the organization of the Merchant [[Varna]]. Hama suggests that Stella should consider aligning more closely with the religious practices of the land, as the Lady of Lore is interested in developing the Merchant Varna.
* ''[[Managaratha]]'s Quest'': Managaratha discusses with Vikarna Vesta about disturbances in Feelings magic, indicating something is off with how emotions are being affected by magic. The disturbances are subtle but noticeable, suggesting a potential larger issue.
* ''[[Vidan]]'s Quest'': Vidan is informed by [[Suvatra]] about an imminent attempt to remove the Maharani from power, possibly involving violence. Suvatra suspects the Life faction might be involved, though she lacks definitive proof. Vidan is tasked with investigating and preventing this potential coup.

==A Day in Habani==

Loric Assan introduces Alasfal, who will "help us with packing". We will be leaving (tomorrow morning) at dawn. Alasfal starts packing our stuff.

Nesh checks with Virga - is there anything else he needs to do? Well, he does still want to investigate why the cataurs are hunting him, but he can't bring Nesh in for questioning now that the Maharani has summoned him.

Diomarche checks with Ekarna about details about the drought. It's mostly north of the Queen's River, and mostly in the east. No Blue Mage hired to fix it.

Gale uses her pirate tael to get everyone (including Managaratha and Scout) court clothes, with advice from Alasfal, who seems to be a generally skillful Servant. (Gale thinks she can add one of the Lady Necklaces for her costume.) We also arrange to sell the other spare boat for 1.5 loot.

She also meets up with Dubrecht again to say we won't be here in a week but will come back.

Nobody gets kidnapped before morning.

==Day One==

We join the caravan in the morning. [[Lisetera]] and Suvatra are both in the caravan. (Loric Assan is in charge of it.) It looks like it's two army units - infantry and centaurs. Technically, the army unit is the Maharani's guards, and the merchant caravan has joined up with it to travel, as long as they can keep up.

Hama speaks in Stella's head. That matter she had told Stella about - there are a number of merchants traveling with the group. The four going to make presentations and support to Her Majesty:

* Marindal Lamon - jeweler
* [[Dalin]] Jaseer - horse merchant
* Quartz (a dwarf) - weaponsmith
* Fasanta Dimar - selling papers and ink

If Stella can help and make sure they go well, that would be appreciated.

There are also some other named people, mostly in the merchant group:
* Mingdar is the supply sergeant
* [[Talinda]], a seller of hunting birds (hawks and falcons)
* [[Jabril]], a cloth merchant
* Lisetera
* Suvatra

Stella starts chatting with the merchants, and gets a better sense of the Merchant Varna. There are no guilds here - it's not '''legal''' to have groups of merchants operating together in that way.

Gale also chats with people - there are monsters out here too, not just bandits. The Roc is the scariest of the monsters. Also unreality effects. The random Yellow effects seem more frequent here than in the other countries so far.

Vidan talks to Lisetera and Suvatra.

Stella casts Camp, which is super comfy. Alasfal is a little fretful that she isn't doing her job.

(That night, Nesh spots Talinda sneaking into someone else's tent. (Dalin Jaseer)

==Day Two==

Day two, Stella talks more to the four merchants she should be helping. Quartz is glad to talk to someone who knows about forges. Fasanta is the most interested in the political ramifications of the change that Hama wants. Quartz is on personal business. Dalin just seems too young to be talking to the Maharani. Marindal is taking advantage of the Varna structure and restructuring if need be.

Talinda and Jabril also have things to present - Jabril has cloth, Talinda has birds - hawks, falcons.

Diomarche talks to Mingdar.

Nesh looks for people paying particular attention to him - there don't seem to be any. He thinks there's probably some illusions here and there, but not the way the city was.

Gale puts together a card game - most of the merchants are interested. The game is Gale, Nesh, Marindal, Dalin, Fasanta, Talinda, and Jabril.

Nesh does best. Dalin is close behind. Marindal, Fasanta, and Jabril are even, Gale loses a little, and Talinda gets crushed.

Gale notes that both Dalin and Jabril are up for flirting - Jabril is older and would know it for a pleasant game. She flirts with Dalin, on the theory that he has more of a plot she might learn about, but not enough to learn his secrets.

(Fasanta is Night Two's sneak)

==Day Three==

We are starting to realize that we are missing the plot. Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing, and gets seventeen successes. Good heavens.

Stella was ''asked'' to fix: "Make sure they have solid presentations to give to Her Majesty." With the exception of Marindal, they mostly don't.

* Dalin is just going to get nervous and flub it.
* Quartz will give her good weapons but will not move the agenda.
* Fasanta has the right skills but the Queen doesn't care about stationery. (Needs to spin it in the war-relevant way.)

In addition - it's not that DI is specifically shielding something, but something that Stella would think needs fixing is something another priest of the Goddess is actively working on. So her successes have crushed any actual resistance, but not the general NDA that it's a Goddess priest's plan. The Goddess gives Stella a hint, though:
* Vidan has been presented with a thing that he's supposed to be fixing...

Wait, the assassin is coming with us? Nesh is the only one who's noticed anyone, and reminds us Talinda has been sneaking around.

Vidan asks Alasfal to get him a cloak suitable for sneaking around the desert.

Stella and Diomarche talk to the supply sergeant. He hasn't even heard of a supply chain, so they can see how the ability to order 200 swords at once rather than knowing twenty smiths in different cities would be useful. He thinks durable high quality paper is good, not fancy ink. Stella realizes that "have a supply chain" is the change Hama is talking about and it would actually be helpful in the war against the [[Slith]], not just politically useful for merchants. So now maybe we have an opinion on the plot. (Perhaps we should also figure out the reasons against it to be fully informed.)

Vidan watches Talinda. She invisibly sneaks into Quartz's tent and then back into her own. Oh - the reason Nesh noticed her is because she's invisible, and he didn't realize that.

Perhaps we will give up for the moment and have Scout follow her tomorrow.

===Loot===
* 1.5 loot for selling the other spare ship
* 8 EPS
* 10 Skill Points
* Court Clothes for Everyone

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Three Mages

2026-03-28T21:20:54Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide [[Managaratha]] with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from [[Suvatra]], and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. [[Nesh]] takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with [[Berana]] is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the [[Slith]] requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

[[Stella]] spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

[[Diomarche]] inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage Memnon, Mage [[Alexa]] (located near Southport), and Mage [[Nimra]] are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of [[Tem]].

==Next Day [Salamander 27] ==
Diomarche seeks priests of [[Rush]] and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the ([[Saurian]]) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called [[Indaton]]. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day [Salamander 28]==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day [Salamander 29]==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, Jerome, for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day [Salamander 30]==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights [[Gale]] has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day [Dragon 1]==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with [[Middlesea]] interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the battle.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Pearly Whites

2026-03-28T21:20:53Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==In the Kingdom of the Sharks==
[[Managaratha]] fades out; [[Stella]] and [[Scout]] fade in. We’re still underwater. Fortunately the water breathing is still up.

The water starts getting colder, probably because we were here as companions of Managaratha. [[Nesh]]’s sword turns into the [[Buccaneer]]’s Blade, and he has some reputation, which stops the water from getting colder.

We discuss our current plan, or lack thereof. What can we do for the [[King Lani|King of the Sharks]]? Well, we seem to have lost our Red mage.

Stella tires of our dithering, and brings down the Hammer of 13 successes and 10 DI.
Sharks are not actually anything that needs Fixing, they’re just inconvenient for us at present. Ideas for sending the Sharks elsewhere are decent, but we’re unlikely to have the EPs to pull off at present, so we’d need help. The small problem that could be fixed, potentially, is the dissension between Lani and Tia. There’s not an easy solution, as long as he remains King Shark and she remains Princess Crab; while there are things that might fix that, we don’t have a lot of angles on that. That could be ameliorated if Torsin was discredited, and the Goddess thinks that Torsin’s influence from Goblins is the highest on the list. Also there's the Kraken, but it's probably too big for us.

(Torsin is Lani's nephew, and in line to the throne after Tia).

Also, our Polite Merfolk is about to expire.

We go and talk to Tia - she's heard of goblins, and Torsin is visiting a lot, but he doesn't live here, and she doesn't know who he talks to when he's not here. Also she is surprised the Buccaneer doesn't have a petition. Well, perhaps the Buccaneer can petition to hunt goblins.

Does she know about the Kraken? It's not in the kingdom, but kraken territory is over there.

[[Vidan]] will learn mer overnight if Tia will teach him. That work.
Vidan learns 6 levels of Mer overnight.

[Dragon 13]

We go to petition the King in the morning, accompanied by sharks.. Nesh apologies for his interpreter, and that we are here on a mission from the Gods, and ask for permission to hunt Goblins in and around his lands.

Nesh and Vidan are quite charismatic, but they’re limited by Int/Mer, so they only get 7 successes. The King is happy to grant us 3 days to pursue the alleged intrusion into his lands, and he expects a report. We are escorted out of the throne room by sharks.

Outside the palace, the sharks don’t seem to attack us.

==Goblin Hunting==
We go to Torsin’s house. It’s an actual house with doors; we think that’s probably it.
(The Kingdom is generically magic

Vidan asks his aid in getting the kingdom's aid against our joint enemy, the slith.
He’s willing to talk about that, and we go in. He acknowledges that [[Slith]] are bad, but seems most interested when Vidan calls him the likely Heir.

They discuss the kingdoms and their Heirs. Mab’s heir is Venin, but he’s married. Fahl could marry.

Scout thinks there’s some Green magic in the back room. [[Gale]] can't hear anything, but does a bit of swim-foolery while Scout sneaks out. There's some seaweed next to his bed that has a green sigil on it - it matches one of the sigils on the plant spewing the amnesia-mist in Middlesea. It's some sort of communication spell. One wild spell later - the other end is off near where Middlesea (the spirit) is, in that [[Spiritbreaker Fortress]].

Unclaimed perfect pearls are unclaimed, that's okay. He has suggestions where we might look.

Gale (and Vidan, when she remembers she doesn't speak Mer) eavesdrop. It's some other language that Vidan doesn't know, so he casts a Witnessing miracle and memorizes it perfectly. It's a woman speaking Goblin. It's a siren, Vidan thinks.

People are offering to potentially help him become king if he helps them go after the Slith. The goblin says well, maybe that's a reasonable plan given the failure of the other one to marry Tia off, but tell me more about them. He describes us reasonably well. Hmm. Well, working with them would be interesting, certainly. I'm not sure I recommend it - the last major political plan they were involved in, involved the death of King Olison. Try not to make them any promises. Probably the best thing they could do for you is go kill the Kraken, so see if you can get them to do that. We wonder if that's actually "go get them eaten by the Kraken".

Kraken are known to be in the Broken Seas - Vidan is sure there are broken Kraken and not confident there are unBroken ones. Hard to be sure.

Stella decides to indulge in her pyromania and do some experimentation with lighting fires underwater. Creating a campfire (Creation) makes the campfire appear, but it goes out immediately. Lighting a forge with a fireball spell (Forge) that does both damage and sets things on fire (difficulty 10 for a 7 hex 2x damage per successes plus Burning).

==Talking to the King Again==
Nesh makes a plan for talking to the King, and we see him that afternoon.

Nesh and Vidan team up again to tell the King about Thorsin. The persuasion is not as big as before, but Vidan’s Witnessing is enough to convince him to send us to destroy it with a squad of Sharks.

He sends a squad of sharks to help us destroy the plant. Thorsin doesn’t think he should resist when there’s a squad of sharks. The sharks eat it. No siren sharks are produced in the process.

The party goes up to the surface for reasons I forget.

In the distance there's a boat. It flies the flag of the [[Maharani]]. It has Lisetera on it. She did not get His Highness out - there's too much divine stuff going on, so she's going to get a priest. While we were mucking around in there, she could have some conversations. That was while we were talking to Mage [[Alexa]]. We warn her about the Avatar of the Breaker - the orc in the middle, fighting the paladin of [[Rush]].

She calls [[Suvatra]], the person we have the seagull feather from. Vidan introduces himself and says we have a feather - she does a double take. Vidan is suddenly wearing [[Navere]]'s holy robes (it's a Navere thing), and that clearly convinces her of something.

She agrees that alliance is good, having people go there would be better but if we break the feather she can call, once. She does not speak directly for Her Majesty but can make a call when someone who can is available to discuss things.

Suvatra says she will let Her Majesty know that there will be Ambassadors coming, and will make arrangements. She asks for our names, and we tell her plus that we are known as the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]] (™).

Vidan notes that she takes note of Vidan’s name, particularly. She terminates the call.

==Pearl Hunting==
We ask [[Lisetera]] for help hunting Perfect Pearls. She thinks that underwater is inconvenient, but when Gale offers to deal with that, she says okay. The nearest one is two miles that way, in a chest. The boat sails off. [[Diomarche]] explains there are cataurs. His boyfriend, Lisetera wonders? Gale is totally shipping them now.

Lisetera sends a mer-Lisetera with us to go pearl-hunting. We swim for a while and find a shipwreck. We proceed, and combat begins!

The ship has been sunk for many years, it seems to have stuff growing on it.

Ghosts!

The ghosts appear, attempting to possess the people who walk onto the ship. They need to be hit with magic or enchanted weapons, and they do attacks with no resistance (except for Nesh). Diomarche charges through a bunch of them, and with the power of Rush, they are banished. One of the ghosts tries to possess Gale, but is punted by Stella. The ghosts seem to be 9 hit mooks, so the fighters manage to get rid of a bunch of them. Diomarche heads belowdecks to look for treasure, which causes him to be attacked by another ghost. He breaks through the door, which causes environmental splinters. Nesh and Scout head belowdecks to help, but Nesh sends them away because he can handle the ghosts. Diomarche and Scout go to check out the Captain’s room; Diomarche gets stuck in the debris, but Scout gets in. Scout gets rid of one ghost and loots for three rounds. As this is going on, we notice there is Blood in the Water, so now we’re on the clock before the Sharks arrive.

We clear up the last of the ghosts and loot the treasure chest belowdecks, and escape!

At the very end, Nesh considers the Buccaneer– he remembers that he was one of [[The Lady]]’s seconds in the last Comet.
==Loot==
* +7 EPs
* +9 SPs

===Belowdecks:===
1 Loot worth of random stuff + 1 Perfect Pearl

===Capt. Chamber:===
* 1 Loot of Gold
* 2 necklaces from the Time of the Lord and the Lady. 4 successes of Appraisal says they’re worth more for historical value than for their pure gold/gems value. Might be worth something to one of the Mages that was looking for something ([[Nimra]]).
* Scrolls in Melmani - orders to the ship directing the captain to carry the treasure to somewhere in Orange. Army logistics orders, so this was some kind of military vessel of some kind. The loot is to fund the Lady’s army on the mainland. There is a map to a hidden stash of stuff in Orange somewhere.

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:53Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is [[Darstan]]).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and [[Nesh]] spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of [[Leopold]]; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

[[Bran]] comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

[[Giaconni]] comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, [[Scout]] could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:53Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and [[Nesh]] spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of [[Leopold]]; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

[[Bran]] comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

[[Giaconni]] comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, [[Scout]] could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:52Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and [[Nesh]] spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of [[Leopold]]; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

[[Bran]] comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

[[Giaconni]] comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:51Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of [[Leopold]]; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

[[Bran]] comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

[[Giaconni]] comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:51Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of [[Leopold]]; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

[[Giaconni]] comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:51Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

[[Giaconni]] comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:50Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
[[Vidan]], [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:50Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and [[Managaratha]] go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:49Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and Managaratha go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks [[Viktor]]'s an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:49Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and Managaratha go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks Viktor's an ass; he doesn't know what [[Pyotr]] was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:49Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and Managaratha go to visit Lord Di Angelo. [[Diomarche]] hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks Viktor's an ass; he doesn't know what Pyotr was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:49Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and Managaratha go to visit Lord Di Angelo. Diomarche hangs out with [[Elena]] until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks Viktor's an ass; he doesn't know what Pyotr was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Skill List and Costs

2026-03-28T21:20:48Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

== Overview ==
Previous comet skills were taken from here: [https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/Rules/skill-list.html CometWeb ]

Dragon skill list was taken from here: [https://boojum.scripts.mit.edu/Dragon/index.php?title=Skill_Costs Skill_Costs]

[[Category:Skills]]

== Previous Comet Skill List ==

{| class="wikitable"
|+ People Skills
|-
! Skill Name
! Typical Base Stat
! Cost
! Dragon equivalents
|-
|Scamming || Cha || 5 || none
|-
|Persuade || Cha || 4 || parity
|-
|Fast Talk || Cha || 4 || parity
|-
|Psychology || Cha || 4 || parity
|-
|Storytelling (Performance) || Cha || 1 || storytelling is 2, performing is 1
|-
|Conversation || Cha || 4 || conversation is 5
|-
|Flirting || Cha || 3 || Seduction is 2, pillow talk is 1
|-
|Acting || Cha || 3 || parity
|-
|Etiquette || Int/Cha || 2 || etiquette is 3
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Thief Skills
|-
! Skill Name
! Typical Base Stat
! Cost
! Notes
|-
| Acrobatics (no dodge) || Agl || 3 || parity
|-
| Climbing || Agl || 2 || parity
|-
| Disguise || Mind || 4 || disguise is 3
|-
| Gambling || Fortune || 2 || parity
|-
| Grappling Hook (non-combat)|| Agl || 1 || none
|-
| Hide in Shadows (while moving) || Agl || 4 || Hide and shadowing are both 3, stealth is 4, scuttling is 2
|-
| Holdout || Dex || 3 || holdout is 2
|-
| Lockpick || Dex || 3 || parity
|-
| Pickpocket || Dex || 3 || pick pocket is 2
|-
| Poisons || Int || 3 || parity
|-
| Sleight of Hand || Dex || 2 || Sleight of Hand is 3
|-
| Active Perception (spot hidden) || Per || 2 || parity
|-
| Passive Perception (notice things)|| Per || 4 || parity
|-
| Stealth || Agl || 4 || parity
|-
| Streetwise || Int || 3 || parity, streetwise gossip is 2
|-
| Tracking || Per || 3 || parity
|-
| Traps, outdoors || Per || 2 || n/a
|-
| Traps, all || Per || 4 || disarm traps is 3, traps is 5
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Combat Skills (most weapon classes are 4)
|-
! Skill Name
! Typical Base Stat
! Cost
! Notes
|-
| Sword || Agl || 4 || parity
|-
| Sword, specific type || Agl || 3 || parity
|-
| Dagger, including throwing || Agl/Dex || 4 ||
|-
| Blackjack || Agl || 3 || (specific mace, I guess)
|-
| Hammer || Agl || 3 || (specific mace, I guess)
|-
| Dodge || Agl || 5 || parity
|-
| Brawling || Agl || 4 || brawling is 3, unarmed is 3
|-
| Melee || Agl || 5 || not listed, blades/blunt are both 5, as is close combat
|-
| Archery || Dex || 4 || parity
|-
| Shield || Agl || 3 || none
|-
| Jousting || Agl || 3 || none, combat riding is 4
|-
| Claw Attack || Agl || 3 || parity
|-
| Martial Arts || Agl || 5 || martial arts is 3
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Healing Skills
|-
! Skill Name
! Typical Base Stat
! Cost
! Notes
|-
| First Aid || Int || 2 || First Aid is 3
|-
| Healing Herbs || Int || 3 || none
|-
| Healing || Int || 5 || medicine is 5
|-
| Doctoring || Int || 3 || none
|-
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Other Skills
|-
! Skill Name
! Typical Base Stat
! Cost
! Notes
|-
| Riding (normal) || Agl || 3 || parity
|-
| Riding (combat) || Agl || 4 || parity
|-
| Desert Survival || Int || 1 || Forest Survival is 1
|-
| Survival (generic) || Int || 2 || General Survival is 3, extra broad is 5
|-
| Navigation || Int || 3 || Navigation is 5
|-
| Non-human Anatomy || Int || 1 || none
|-
| Research || Int || 1 || Research is 3
|-
| Appraisal || Int || 2 || parity
|-
| Smith || Int? || 2 || Weapon/Armor/Black are 3, broad smith is 4
|-
| Cook || Int || 1 || parity
|-
| Armorer || Int? || 2 || see above
|-
| Weaponsmith || Int? || 2 || see above
|-
| Art || ? || 3 || KS: Art is 1, Art appreciations, collector, criticism, and history are all also 1
|-
| Astronomy || Int || 1 || parity, astrology is 5
|-
| Environment (Knowledge+Move) || Int/Move || 4 || forage (environment) is 2, scrounging (extra-broad) is 5, outdoorsman is 5
|-
| Hunt Small Animals || Agl || 2 || Hunting is 2
|-
| Mimic Thumbs || Dex || 3 || mimicry is 2, but I'm guessing that doesn't apply here
|-
| Suppress Schitck || ??? || 4 || none
|-
| Detective || Int/Per || 5 || parity, detect lie is 4
|-
| Merchant || Cha || 5 || KS: Merchanting is 3, shopping is 3
|-
| Servant || Int || 2/5 || none
|-
| Herbalism || Per || 2 || parity
|-
| Herbalism + Healing herbs || Per || 4 || none
|-
| Priest || DI || 5 || none
|}

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Knowledge Skills
|-
! Skill Name
! Typical Base Stat
! Cost
! Notes
|-
| Well-Travelled || Int || 2 || Well-travelled is 4, world-walking is 5
|-
| KS: Languages || Int || 1 || parity
|-
| Folklore || Int || 2 || none
|-
| History || Int || 2 || parity
|-
| Ancient History || Int || 1 || none
|-
| Family History || Int || 1 || none
|-
| Merchant Houses || Int || 1 || none
|-
| Commerce/Finance || Int || 1 || KS: Merchanting is 3
|-
| Politics || Int || 1 || Big picture politics is 3, local politics is 3, all politics is 5
|-
| Breaker Lore || Int || 1 || none
|-
| KS: Horses || Int || 1 || animal handling is 2
|-
| KS: Undead || Int || 1 || KS: undead is 2 (not applicable?)
|-
| Law || Int || 1 || local law is 1, 12 kingdoms law is 2
|-
| AK: Specific (Vakels, Orclands) || Int || 2 || I don't know this means
|-
| KS: Orc Tactics || Int || 2 || Tactics is 3, guerilla tactics is 2
|-
| Magic Scholarship || Int || 4 || use magic device is 2, magic item analysis is 3, magic items, magic ritual, and weild magic item are 5
|-
| Dwarven Lore || Int || 2 || none
|-
| KS: Rainbow Magery || Int || 1 || none
|-
| KS: Ritual [[Theo]]ry || Int || 1 || see magic scholarship
|-
| KS: 'Al Jabar || Int || 1 || none
|-
| KS: Mages' College || Int || 1 || none
|-
| Court Life/High Society || Int || 3 || parity
|-
| Magic Theory || Int || 3 || see magic scholarship
|-
|}

Mayor Flynn

2026-03-28T21:20:48Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

[[Mayor Flynn]] is the mayor of [[Indaton]], the central city of [[Blue|Melmane]]. He has held the position for 12 years, winning elections held every three years. The mayoral position appears to be elected, which is unusual for the highest political authority in inland [[Melmane]]. He does not answer to the Admiralty, and answers to the Mages only in the way everyone does.

Flynn also serves as a Priest of the Five, leading services at an old chapel in Indaton. This is considered Weird, as becoming a Priest of the Five requires deliberate effort, yet Flynn treats it casually. He is the only one who performs services at this chapel. The altar is blessed to the Five, which is Not Normal. A separate church in town serves the individual Gods.

Notable details observed about Flynn:

* The chapel he leads is very old — it has been a church longer than the current building has stood
* [[Vidan]] used the Unblinking Eye of [[Navere]] to investigate Flynn's family and lineage - he is descended from the King of the Church of the Five, and will probably be useful in the effort to reconcile the issues between the [[Rush]]ians and the Fourists.
* When informed about a thief supplying slith spies in town, Flynn suggested speaking to someone named [[Theo]]

Hunting Slith Spies

2026-03-28T21:20:48Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Finding a Plan==
[Still Dragon 23]

[[Gale]] fades out; [[Diomarche]] fades in. [[Managaratha]] seems to be asleep.

[[Scout]] brings Diomarche up to speed.

We look at [[Nesh]]’s map of [[Melmane]], to figure out what the plan is. We could go to [[Indaton]], and take the road to EastPort, or we could go south to the coast and find a village and try to get a boat to EastPort. We decide to go to Indaton. (“Indaton? These people are terrible at naming things,” says Scout.)

We think about marching to get to the road or Indaton, but Managaratha thinks he can teleport us there, or at least close. He clairvoys around a bit, to get targeting. We teleport there, which is apparently tiring.

[[Stella]] looks for an inn. Nesh asks around for the Mage, and finds out where he lives, although people think talking to a Mage is kind of crazy.

We split the party! Nesh, Diomarche, and Scout look around for the Mage; Managaratha and [[Vidan]] and Stella find the inn. Nesh knocks on the house with the storm cloud hanging around over it; the butler answers. We convey all the information; the Butler can’t read [[Saurian]], so Nesh thinks he’s probably not the cause of the Terrible Betrayal or anything. We try to give him the background, he takes the notes, etc. The butler doesn’t seem to think 10 anti-magic/DI will be a trouble.

Stella finds us a perfectly competent inn with decent food. We spend the evening quietly, and decide to set watches in case of [[Slith]] assassins.

We sleep. Diomarche, sleeping in the yard, is awoken by a tap on his front haunch. It’s [[Thistle]]!
“I hear the Saurian kid is asking around about a Mage? What the heck are you people doing here?”

Diomarche tells her about the Slith assassin, and asks when she got here. A few days ago. Interesting. She doesn’t seem to want any help with whatever she’s doing here, whatever that is, which she doesn’t seem very interested in telling anyone, which isn’t really surprising, but even so, one would think she might be interested in our help, given that we’ve been helpful before.

[Dragon 24]

We putter a bit, wondering what to do about Thistle. But Stella decides to bring the hammer, figuring out what Thistle is here to fix– 15 successes with 10 DI is enough to tell her that Thistle is here to find the Slith spy (spy for the Slith, not necessarily spy who is a Slith) in the city, and probably blow the spy’s cover, rather than deal with it personally. The assassin is probably on the way to contact the spy; the assassin is probably too big for Thistle to handle.

Managaratha calls Thistle, who is sleeping. He tells her about the slith spy, she mentions that’s probably what Rustic is here for. SHe says let’s talk at lunch.

Scout scouts around for slith (and spirits), but doesn’t see any signs of them. Vidan spends a DI, and heads out for a walk around 10am. He sees a guy talking to a couple of shopkeepers, and he’s definitely an interesting guy that Vidan should be Witnessing. He’s talking to the shopkeepers about the complaints about the rats, and they should keep their places cleaner so there aren’t so many rats. “Yes Mister Mayor, yes Mister Mayor”, they reply. Vidan wonders what kind of clothes he’s wearing; it’s mostly a fancier version of what people in town wear. He does have a badge on one side that’s probably the Mayor’s seal of office; on the other side he has a holy symbol to all Five of the Five, or something like that.

Vidan goes up and says Hey. The Mayor is pleased to meet him. Vidan talks about the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]] and trying to help against the slith; the Mayor seems to think that’s good, although he hadn’t heard a lot about Middlesea. Vidan asks him about the area to the south; the Mayor says don’t go there. He clearly knows more about the Blue Nexus, but doesn’t seem to give away anything about knowing about a slith encampment, say. The Mayor invites him to services that evening; he’s a Priest.

At lunch, Thistle says she thinks she’s most likely to be here to figure out what’s going on with all the random crap that Rustic keeps stealing. He’s one of the Saurians in the Guild. Normally when she shows up somewhere (of the 5-6 times that it’s happened so far), either there’s something she’s supposed to steal, or there’s a problem in the Thieves’ Guild. She hasn’t noticed anything to steal here, but there’s a moderately important thief here that’s been like… hitting grocery stores? It’s a bit weird.

Was he hired to steal from the groceries? asks Scout. Not that she knows of; it’s not like anyone else has really noticed. It’s like every few days he’s been stealing groceries, but why is he doing that rather than doing a big hit and then buying stuff? The Guild hasn’t really noticed. It’s been going on at least a couple of weeks.

Nesh thinks Scout and he should tail Mage Farius. The notes probably covered a week or so, mostly on Gather Information rolls.

==An Unexpected Interruption==
Vidan notes that, just a minute ago, the Vow that the cataurs took not to hunt Nesh has been dispelled. (Not just that they were broken.) Huh. Maybe [[Lisetera]] got bored and told them to find us? Managaratha calls Lisetera. Did she do this? No, she’s in the city, the cataurs are on the boat in the harbor. Hmm. She can go take a look and see what’s happened, and call Managaratha.

Huh. Maybe we should call [[Rashkar]] and see what happens?

Lisetera walks in. Nesh doesn’t notice. Three people came onto the boat, that she noticed. They spoke to the cataurs, in Cataur, so this is a rough translation: “What the hell are you fools doing?” “We’re… we failed. They beat us up and killed everybody, and we’re the only ones left.” “You idiots. Tell us who beat you up so we can go deal with them.” “We really can’t help you with that.” Then they dispelled the Purple spell. Then they turned them into people, not with Yellow, so probably Red, and the cataurs said they should leave the boat first, and then they left. Whatever briefing they got about us happened off the boat, where Lisetera couldn’t follow quite so easily.

The three were a Red mage and a Yellow mage and someone else– a shaman, or an information basher, or something. Probably not just a talker. I can keep working on finding them, but they’ve probably left the city.

==Back to the Slith==
Thistle wanders in around dinner time. Our list appears to be half of Rustic’s list. There are a few things on our list that aren’t on his, but she might have missed a few things. So, yes, he seems to be providing supplies at least one group of slith, and probably to another group of people somewhere.

Has she talked to Rustic? Is it worth sitting down and talking to him? It’s not clear. Maybe he would care about who he’s doing it for? If he’s in on it, talking to him will just tip him off.

Nesh wonders about a more… forceful conversation. Well, we’d have to be willing to deal with the consequences. if he’s a spy, then that’s one thing. If he’s just doing a job, that’s another thing.

We could take it to [[Theo]]; something would probably happen. There are enough Priests of [[Jord]] high in the Guild, that if we showed someone was a servant of the Breaker, they’d take care of it. But they’d have to be pretty clearly a servant of the Breaker, not just a patsy. If he’s just a patsy, the Guild will have problems.

Either he’s the spy, or he’s working for the spy. If we can prove he’s the spy, we don’t have any problems.

He’s been around, so he’s probably not out doing deliveries right now. Thistle suspects he hasn’t actually been out overnight after the thefts on a regular basis, or she’d have heard.

There is some discussion about what the best plan is.

Vidan goes to services– it’s an older chapel, to the Five. [[Mayor Flynn]] leads the services. He is definitely leading them as a Priest of the Five. That… is not a mechanic that is easily supported. Vidan would expect a Priest of the Five had gone out of their way to make this happen, in a way that, he just seems to treat it casually. There’s some political spin, too. He’s the Mayor, which does seem to be an elected position, which is somewhat unusual. He doesn’t seem to have anyone above him– he doesn’t answer to the Admiralty, he doesn’t answer to the Mages (except in how everyone answers to the Mages). But still, that’s odd for the highest political authority in inland Melmane. (The Priest of the Five thing is Weird; the election is Unusual.)

Vidan is super tempted to check if he’s the Rightful King of Melmane. (There is a chorus of “Mayors are always suspect! Remember your history!” from the other players.) Vidan chats with him after the services; there are elections every three years, he’s been mayor for 12 years. Looking around, Vidan thinks this is an Old church. It’s been a church longer than this building has been here, and this building is old.

Vidan chats with him after the parishioners clear out. Vidan mentions the slith we’re tracking are being supplied by a thief in town. “Talked to Theo yet?” “That was our next stop.” Flynn is the only one who performs services here; there’s another church with the individual Gods. Saying that, Vidan notices that the altar is in fact blessed to the Five, which is Not Normal. Vidan uses the Unblinking Eye of [[Navere]] to take a look at Flynn’s family and lineage.

He’s not a king, he’s descended from the King of the Church of the Five. (“Oh! Him!” say Drew and Tom.) Vidan didn’t know that was the thing.

Vidan talks to him about [[Rush]], etc. Is he trying to do anything about that? (Vidan spends his last DI, and knows that it’s your job, but he’ll help.)

==Back to hunting Slith spies==
We go to talk to Theo. We don’t go in, because, Broken miracle.

Nesh uses his role as Party Urchin to summon an urchin to go into the church and get Theo on behalf of the Middlesea Free Rangers.

“Sorry, we’re under a curse, so we didn’t want to go into the Church.” 
“So you want that removed?” 
“NO!” 
That gives him pause. 
“We’re told it’s not yet time for that.”, says Stella.

Theo notices the group of us, and decides it’s not his plot.

We tell him about the slith plot. Nesh is reasonably persuasive. Theo wants to see the notes; he looks them over. “Well,” he nods. “I can certainly look into that.” Nesh goes on about the lists of groceries stolen. He says he will look into it.

We go back to the inn, and set watches. The night passes.

[Dragon 25]

We decide to check in with Thistle.

Someone comes to find Vidan– Cindy of Navere. She says that Theo says the problem in town has been taken care of. The out of town problem, Theo does not know. (Cindy and Theo are both priests with more than 10 DI.)

==Next Day==

Late morning, Lisetera checks in.
They’re north of town, maybe on a boat. They don’t seem to be heading out immediately, they’ve probably mostly debriefed the cataurs on what they can do by now. Their Yellow Mage isn't’ as good as she is, but they’re good enough that they’re running interference, so the info is less reliable than she’d like.

Early afternoon, Vidan has finished his ritual to create a teleport beacon in Indaton.

We call Thistle, we say we hear Rustic has been dealt with? Ah, that’s probably why she’s in [[Rinyan]].
Should we call to check in occasionally? Don’t call very often.

We talk to Theo in the late afternoon. “Yes, thank you for the information, that was helpful. What can I help you with?” We wonder about whether there’s a second camp.

Theo says he asked Xavier to take care of that; he might not be able to find them. They set out in the morning, going down into Blue side, further to the East of the camp we had seen.

After a bit of debate, we decide we’re going to go help; Vidan asks for help from Navere, that we arrive in time to Witness the battle being fought by Xavier against the slith. Managaratha tries to figure out the right coordinates from the map, and then realizes that of course he knows the coordinates, Vidan just told him. We teleport to the slith camp in Blue side.
==Witnessing the Battle==
We arrive as the Paladins are mid-charge. The slith mooks mostly fall, but the two decloaked assassins hit Xavier pretty hard. Diomarche brings Nesh into range, who attacks the assassin that we fought last run! He takes some damage, and then Scout hits him to drop his Agility. He starts to flee and tries to re-cloak, but Diomarche and Nesh keep him visible enough to be targeted. Scout tags him once, and then makes him dodge once, which lets two of the Paladins drop him. Xavier takes care of the other assassin, and glory is heaped upon us (or at least the Paladins).

The slith camp had the remainder of the supplies that had been stolen, and another set of similar notes about Mage Farius.

We teleport back to Indaton

===Loot===
* +9 EPs
* + 7 SPs
* another set of notes on Saurian
* -2 slith assassins and 1 slith spy

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Dalin

2026-03-28T21:20:47Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

'''Dalin Jaseer''' is a young horse merchant, only 19 or 20 years old, who inherited his family business after both parents died within the last year. He was obligated to give a presentation to Her Majesty the [[Maharani]], a duty originally intended for his mother.

During the caravan journey, Dalin proved skilled at cards, coming in a close second to [[Nesh]]. [[Gale]] noted he was open to flirtation. He was also observed as a target of [[Talinda]]'s mysterious tent-sneaking activities, though investigation revealed only that she had cast spells on him that he did not initially remember—spells that made certain information seem unimportant rather than forgotten.

[[Stella]] identified that Dalin needed coaching on his presentation to the Maharani, as he was likely to become nervous and falter without preparation. [[Gale]] sought out a "don't be anxious" Yellow trinket for him, suggesting he may have had anxiety about the formal proceedings ahead.

Category:NPCs

Water Alliance

2026-03-28T21:20:47Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

[[Scout]] vanishes, and [[Managaratha]] reappears. Has he met us? Yes! Has he met [[Lisetera]]? Yes, probably.
[[Nesh]] takes the first perfect pearl so as to keep it out of future divinations.

[Dragon 14]

The next perfect pearl location is the oyster bed, which is in the sleeping king's lands. That kind of makes it his, so [[Gale]] yoinks it and gives it to Nesh.

The next nearest is off to the west, which puts us back in Queen Mab's lands.

[Dragon 15]

Things start getting stormy. The pearl is in some sort of large grotto in a larger coral reef. Nesh, accompanied by Managaratha's glowing light, goes exploring. The light gets lost. [[Stella]] has some ability to make tools and fires, so puts together an ever-burning candle that Nesh can put in a lantern. He goes exploring again, and finally gets to somewhere in the maze where he thinks something else (just around the corner) is moving. It's a giant anglerfish sort of thing! The glowing ball could be the perfect pearl! Nesh decides this isn't where he wants to be adventuring, and squeezes through some more coral, taking some damage. Now he finds some seaweed.

Meanwhile, the storm is getting worse.

Nesh ends up in a fight with the seaweed, and then retreats. We flee the storm, let Managaratha take a nap, and then he can teleport us back. But bringing Lisetera with us is harder. She's happy to let us go .

Back we go to the cave. Managaratha squishes down [[Diomarche]]. Stella has a trail of yarn to go back to the beginning, and Nesh will go first, as he doesn't get lost due to magical lostness. Heading back to the anglerfish (not that real anglerfish have pearls but that seems likely)

We fight the anglerfish, but that bulb was not a perfect pearl. On we go.

Diomarche and Gale get grabbed. The crab starts to submerge in the sand; Gale freaks out (claustrophobia) and casts a wild "water body" spell and dissolves in the ocean. (2 successes 7 awryage).

[[Vidan]] rescues Gale from the water, and Nesh finds the pearl.
Time to go!

(We bring out some crab and anglerfish steaks)

[Dragon 16]

Then we go to the sleeping king's castle. Stella puts the potion together and feeds it to the king. Yay!
Vidan introduces us and convinces him to be on board with the fighting plan.

We head back towards [[Melmane]]. Gale thinks here

[Dragon 17]

Meeting with the captain on behalf of the Admiralty. (People seem to notice Nesh more than they used to, though no one says anything. The Captain is baffled that he didn't notice before.)

We brief him on the mer. We have secured alliance with three out of four - King Lani, we've suggested that [[Berana]] deal with that because they can provide buffs for red sharks. Mag has a contractual marriage contract, Fal we uncursed, and Tabe we dealt with his mephits.

He notes that as the [[Buccaneer]] has returned - what is his plan for working with the Admiralty and the [[Saurian]]s. The Buccaneer has traditionally been an Asset of the Country, not answerable to anyone in specific but they tend to be allied with the Admiralty or the Saurian city or both (both is possible but inconvenient).

We head to the north coast to talk to Philippa, after the captain arranges for a meeting. How did you come by the blade? Nesh says he has always had it. He assumes it was given to him by his parents, but he does not remember his parents. In [[Middlesea]], he spoke with Petrov, who implied he had known his father.

She also asks "Captain Gale" about her plans, which surprises Gale - she says she still serves Middlesea under the Pirate Queen. Philippa asks that she make herself known to the Admiralty while she is here and when she returns.

Philippa duels with Nesh/the Buccaneer to take his measure.

We will be heading to Jabar - she thinks that they are fighting a different slith country and so coordination is not as important, and they are good at communication, so we don't really need to help on that front.

[Dragon 18]

Next - back to Northport to talk to Saurians., Nesh to talk to the librarian about cities. He has learned he is the Buccaneer, and should check in with someone? He also asks about general Saurian culture - they are pretty military, even not during the conflict.

If his goal is to maintain neutrality between the Admiralty and the Saurian forces here, talking to them is good but should make sure he can leave when he wants to leave. He's pretty sure he can just skip a run and be out. :)

Nesh and Diomarche go to check in with the Saurian military. They talk to a major. If we're going to Jabar, they are interested in hiring an illusionist against the Breaker's forces.

[Dragon 19]

Back to [[Alexa]]. She is absolutely not delighted to be introduced to a mage friend of Managaratha's. But they chat. Lisetera is interested in the interaction of magic and DI in defending Middlesea, and how did Alexa get around that - the answer she gets is that we have already punched a hole in those DI defenses, so when we are involved it is easier. She collects a yellow favor from Lisetera in exchange for the consultation, and gets a precog of when the next challenge Alexa is likely to face as a mage is. Lisetera thinks it's a couple of years away.

Lisetera can figure out a bit of what happened with the first ritual that we got amnesia-gassed for, and that we were able to act a few times without the Avatar acting, but then we were near him and he started acting. So it should be possible to sneak in without setting him off. Once he noticed this method, it won't surprise him again. But another method would be better, it might work to try the Alexa thing again in a while. He's resisting the divine part of the timestop more than the purple part. Letting him break the timestop enough times will just let him break it. Unclear what "enough" is. But he is also affected by the purple part, so harder for him to do anything farther than anything away. So safer (not safe) to do things farther away.

It's a permanent miracle probably because it was a death miracle.

Some of it could probably be taken down with big hammers or chipping - Lisetera thinks a warning might be possible for that. (Those of us who make our memory rolls remember that it was a half-orc who killed the person who had the key to unlock it. So the Breaker doesn't want it to go away? The [[Oasis]] could probably make it go away,)

Lisetera's report on the current people hanging out there: and who is trying to break things.

Orange is motivated but doesn't have a lot of ability to dispel purple. Purple isn't paying attention. Bits of Red are paying a little attention but not as a whole.

The other two green countries probably sent investigators too. There's a red force from [[Darstan]] still there.

===Loot===
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs
* +Merfolk Allies

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Three Mages

2026-03-28T21:20:47Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide [[Managaratha]] with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from [[Suvatra]], and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. [[Nesh]] takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with [[Berana]] is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the [[Slith]] requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

[[Stella]] spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

[[Diomarche]] inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage Memnon, Mage [[Alexa]] (located near Southport), and Mage Nimra are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of [[Tem]].

==Next Day [Salamander 27] ==
Diomarche seeks priests of [[Rush]] and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the ([[Saurian]]) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called [[Indaton]]. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day [Salamander 28]==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day [Salamander 29]==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, Jerome, for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day [Salamander 30]==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights [[Gale]] has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day [Dragon 1]==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with [[Middlesea]] interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the battle.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Terrain Type Shark

2026-03-28T21:20:47Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==The King's Daughter==

[[Stella]] and [[Scout]] vanish; [[Vidan]] reappears.

[Still Dragon 10]

Prince Venin takes us to Tia - she explains further that her father is marrying her off to disinherit her because she thinks his shark plan is stupid. She will become Venin's queen because of the contract, and because he is older. Queen Mag wants the dowry. It is a significant dowry - the equivalent of a couple of points of RES (though merfolk have a different mechanic).

[[Managaratha]] can probably talk to [[Quentin]].
Can Quentin shark (with his red mage powers)? Does that help?

[[File:Shark.png|400px]]

He can make a good shark (he is currently a merman).

Killing Tia's dad seems an obvious solution but he doesn't seem to be bad enough to deserve it and we hesitate to go for regicide as a first option.

Managaratha scries the Queen's bedroom to look for the marriage contract.
It's a rolled up scroll in the desk.

When [[Nesh]] puts up his magic resistance, things look less Disney; the merfolk are more aquatic creatures.

[[Gale]] is all for stealing the contract but everyone else thinks that will make the mer rulers cranky. Venin seems to think that we can just make a new contract to have him marry Quentin and then it will all just work. Is everyone but Gale overthinking it?

Nesh grudgingly goes to steal the contract. It is obvious in a way that that makes it hard to sneak, but he gets back anyway.

Vidan thinks the contract is more prescriptive and less descriptive than Truespeak. "Like the Discipline version of TrueSpeak" he thinks. It also has the power of royalty behind it. The two signatures are like a royal seal. The contract is powered by the seals; the language is not magical.

1 DI later: it's in Kingstongue (mer). Merfolk country stats are the stats of the ruler.

Tia rewrites the contract to a marriage between Venin and Quentin, with an alliance.

Gale thinks the signatures are a lot like Loot Runes - moving them is pretty Blue, though on more contemplation there's more to it than that and a ritual with others would be good. (Mer magic does not break down cleanly into colors; Managaratha thinks there is Blue and Purple and a third thing; working with all three colors would be good.

===The plan [Dragon 11]: ===

We go with Venin and Tia to a good nearby Clandestine Wedding Location. Vidan sets up a teleport beacon. Managaratha teleports the Rangers to the cell, and Vidan teleports everyone to the beacon.

Venin leads us to a nice place. Rolling white sand floor, coral spires. Managaratha calls Quentin - is now a good time to get married? We teleport in - Gale notes that we're in combat time - and then Vidan takes us out.

We put together the ritual (yay!) and performing it takes a little longer than we would like, but they are married before Mag shows up. So we all leave towards Sharkland. Venin leaves a note for Mom.

Oh, we should get the cataur boat lest Mag take her vengeance on him. But we can't teleport Nesh. Managaratha calls them, and says in cataurese that [[Diomarche]] says to say for "sail north now now now"

We head for Sharkland after all, staying ahead of Her Majesty's wrath. Wait, we don't want King Shark to get rid of that marriage. Quentin (with their contract) will take Venin back to meet his relatives and arrange things.

Tia goes off and tells her dad that Venin married someone else so she came home. He's sulking and will talk to Managaratha tomorrow.

[Dragon 12]

Things are extra shark-infested the next day when we swim down. This castle doesn't have any of the other fish and sea creatures, just sharks. So many sharks.

So we're here to petition for his (sharky) aid in fighting the slith. He talks a lot about how cool sharks are. He's not really thinking strategically, just super shark-obsessed, and he isn't interested in sending his sharks anywhere else. Though [[Berana]] has red mages who can make sharks even better. Like larger or faster or able to shoot their teeth.

Managaratha doesn't want to fight the shark for blood, so Gale demonstrates lightning teeth. He has the shark fight another shark, which ends up in a whirlpool. Nesh suggests Managaratha reach in for some blood, which results in him being sucked into the whirlpool. The sharks go for him. Diomarche tries to pull him out, but it's a strong whirlpool. Gale waterspouts him out the rest of the way. Managaratha, now covered in blood, gives a shark echolocation.

Well, the King is amused by all this, and tells us to come back tomorrow. But we haven't convinced him to send his sharks elsewhere yet.

We go visit Tia. She thinks this all seems to be going as expected.

In order to send his sharks, he would need to have guaranteed that the other merfolk would not attack, or the slith. (If the other merfolk were sending forces that might count). A trusted communication network with the other allies with shared intelligence would help with that.

And maybe Mage [[Alexa]] is interested in shark units. (She bounces Managaratha's one success at calling her).

==Loot==
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Pearly Whites

2026-03-28T21:20:46Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==In the Kingdom of the Sharks==
[[Managaratha]] fades out; [[Stella]] and [[Scout]] fade in. We’re still underwater. Fortunately the water breathing is still up.

The water starts getting colder, probably because we were here as companions of Managaratha. [[Nesh]]’s sword turns into the [[Buccaneer]]’s Blade, and he has some reputation, which stops the water from getting colder.

We discuss our current plan, or lack thereof. What can we do for the [[King Lani|King of the Sharks]]? Well, we seem to have lost our Red mage.

Stella tires of our dithering, and brings down the Hammer of 13 successes and 10 DI.
Sharks are not actually anything that needs Fixing, they’re just inconvenient for us at present. Ideas for sending the Sharks elsewhere are decent, but we’re unlikely to have the EPs to pull off at present, so we’d need help. The small problem that could be fixed, potentially, is the dissension between Lani and Tia. There’s not an easy solution, as long as he remains King Shark and she remains Princess Crab; while there are things that might fix that, we don’t have a lot of angles on that. That could be ameliorated if Torsin was discredited, and the Goddess thinks that Torsin’s influence from Goblins is the highest on the list. Also there's the Kraken, but it's probably too big for us.

(Torsin is Lani's nephew, and in line to the throne after Tia).

Also, our Polite Merfolk is about to expire.

We go and talk to Tia - she's heard of goblins, and Torsin is visiting a lot, but he doesn't live here, and she doesn't know who he talks to when he's not here. Also she is surprised the Buccaneer doesn't have a petition. Well, perhaps the Buccaneer can petition to hunt goblins.

Does she know about the Kraken? It's not in the kingdom, but kraken territory is over there.

[[Vidan]] will learn mer overnight if Tia will teach him. That work.
Vidan learns 6 levels of Mer overnight.

[Dragon 13]

We go to petition the King in the morning, accompanied by sharks.. Nesh apologies for his interpreter, and that we are here on a mission from the Gods, and ask for permission to hunt Goblins in and around his lands.

Nesh and Vidan are quite charismatic, but they’re limited by Int/Mer, so they only get 7 successes. The King is happy to grant us 3 days to pursue the alleged intrusion into his lands, and he expects a report. We are escorted out of the throne room by sharks.

Outside the palace, the sharks don’t seem to attack us.

==Goblin Hunting==
We go to Torsin’s house. It’s an actual house with doors; we think that’s probably it.
(The Kingdom is generically magic

Vidan asks his aid in getting the kingdom's aid against our joint enemy, the slith.
He’s willing to talk about that, and we go in. He acknowledges that [[Slith]] are bad, but seems most interested when Vidan calls him the likely Heir.

They discuss the kingdoms and their Heirs. Mab’s heir is Venin, but he’s married. Fahl could marry.

Scout thinks there’s some Green magic in the back room. [[Gale]] can't hear anything, but does a bit of swim-foolery while Scout sneaks out. There's some seaweed next to his bed that has a green sigil on it - it matches one of the sigils on the plant spewing the amnesia-mist in Middlesea. It's some sort of communication spell. One wild spell later - the other end is off near where Middlesea (the spirit) is, in that [[Spiritbreaker Fortress]].

Unclaimed perfect pearls are unclaimed, that's okay. He has suggestions where we might look.

Gale (and Vidan, when she remembers she doesn't speak Mer) eavesdrop. It's some other language that Vidan doesn't know, so he casts a Witnessing miracle and memorizes it perfectly. It's a woman speaking Goblin. It's a siren, Vidan thinks.

People are offering to potentially help him become king if he helps them go after the Slith. The goblin says well, maybe that's a reasonable plan given the failure of the other one to marry Tia off, but tell me more about them. He describes us reasonably well. Hmm. Well, working with them would be interesting, certainly. I'm not sure I recommend it - the last major political plan they were involved in, involved the death of King Olison. Try not to make them any promises. Probably the best thing they could do for you is go kill the Kraken, so see if you can get them to do that. We wonder if that's actually "go get them eaten by the Kraken".

Kraken are known to be in the Broken Seas - Vidan is sure there are broken Kraken and not confident there are unBroken ones. Hard to be sure.

Stella decides to indulge in her pyromania and do some experimentation with lighting fires underwater. Creating a campfire (Creation) makes the campfire appear, but it goes out immediately. Lighting a forge with a fireball spell (Forge) that does both damage and sets things on fire (difficulty 10 for a 7 hex 2x damage per successes plus Burning).

==Talking to the King Again==
Nesh makes a plan for talking to the King, and we see him that afternoon.

Nesh and Vidan team up again to tell the King about Thorsin. The persuasion is not as big as before, but Vidan’s Witnessing is enough to convince him to send us to destroy it with a squad of Sharks.

He sends a squad of sharks to help us destroy the plant. Thorsin doesn’t think he should resist when there’s a squad of sharks. The sharks eat it. No siren sharks are produced in the process.

The party goes up to the surface for reasons I forget.

In the distance there's a boat. It flies the flag of the [[Maharani]]. It has Lisetera on it. She did not get His Highness out - there's too much divine stuff going on, so she's going to get a priest. While we were mucking around in there, she could have some conversations. That was while we were talking to Mage [[Alexa]]. We warn her about the Avatar of the Breaker - the orc in the middle, fighting the paladin of [[Rush]].

She calls [[Suvatra]], the person we have the seagull feather from. Vidan introduces himself and says we have a feather - she does a double take. Vidan is suddenly wearing [[Navere]]'s holy robes (it's a Navere thing), and that clearly convinces her of something.

She agrees that alliance is good, having people go there would be better but if we break the feather she can call, once. She does not speak directly for Her Majesty but can make a call when someone who can is available to discuss things.

Suvatra says she will let Her Majesty know that there will be Ambassadors coming, and will make arrangements. She asks for our names, and we tell her plus that we are known as the [[Middlesea Free Rangers]] (™).

Vidan notes that she takes note of Vidan’s name, particularly. She terminates the call.

==Pearl Hunting==
We ask [[Lisetera]] for help hunting Perfect Pearls. She thinks that underwater is inconvenient, but when Gale offers to deal with that, she says okay. The nearest one is two miles that way, in a chest. The boat sails off. [[Diomarche]] explains there are cataurs. His boyfriend, Lisetera wonders? Gale is totally shipping them now.

Lisetera sends a mer-Lisetera with us to go pearl-hunting. We swim for a while and find a shipwreck. We proceed, and combat begins!

The ship has been sunk for many years, it seems to have stuff growing on it.

Ghosts!

The ghosts appear, attempting to possess the people who walk onto the ship. They need to be hit with magic or enchanted weapons, and they do attacks with no resistance (except for Nesh). Diomarche charges through a bunch of them, and with the power of Rush, they are banished. One of the ghosts tries to possess Gale, but is punted by Stella. The ghosts seem to be 9 hit mooks, so the fighters manage to get rid of a bunch of them. Diomarche heads belowdecks to look for treasure, which causes him to be attacked by another ghost. He breaks through the door, which causes environmental splinters. Nesh and Scout head belowdecks to help, but Nesh sends them away because he can handle the ghosts. Diomarche and Scout go to check out the Captain’s room; Diomarche gets stuck in the debris, but Scout gets in. Scout gets rid of one ghost and loots for three rounds. As this is going on, we notice there is Blood in the Water, so now we’re on the clock before the Sharks arrive.

We clear up the last of the ghosts and loot the treasure chest belowdecks, and escape!

At the very end, Nesh considers the Buccaneer– he remembers that he was one of [[The Lady]]’s seconds in the last Comet.
==Loot==
* +7 EPs
* +9 SPs

===Belowdecks:===
1 Loot worth of random stuff + 1 Perfect Pearl

===Capt. Chamber:===
* 1 Loot of Gold
* 2 necklaces from the Time of the Lord and the Lady. 4 successes of Appraisal says they’re worth more for historical value than for their pure gold/gems value. Might be worth something to one of the Mages that was looking for something (Nimra).
* Scrolls in Melmani - orders to the ship directing the captain to carry the treasure to somewhere in Orange. Army logistics orders, so this was some kind of military vessel of some kind. The loot is to fund the Lady’s army on the mainland. There is a map to a hidden stash of stuff in Orange somewhere.

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A ritual and no Pearls

2026-03-28T21:20:46Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Book Two Run Four==

[Dragon 2]

[[Scout]] materializes; [[Vidan]] fades out; [[Managaratha]] is asleep for a bit.

We explain what we have been up to with the three mages, and [[Nesh]] hands off the spider to Scout. Scout tells the spider he is in Blue, has more to report on the enemy’s plans at the conference, but will give details over a secure channel. The spider runs under the bed and vanishes.

We head to Mage [[Alexa]]’s tower. It’s made of ice. Warm ice.
We knock. There is thunder. Nothing happens. We knock again.
“Managaratha. You remembered. How nice.” 
“What did I remember?”

She invites us into her lair tower. She says she has a ritual chamber prepared, and flies us all up through the tower of ice (also furnished with ice). The tower is clearly Blue spells, rather than an Artifact, so it could be dispelled, but it would be quite hard.

==Ritual Take One==

The room is set up as a ritual room. She suggests to Nesh that he drop his defenses, which he does. We all stand in a hexagon around her. “This will probably take… well, a few minutes to start, since it’s a ritual rather than a stupid wild spell the way that [[Marek]] did. Once it starts, it shouldn’t be more than an hour.” Scout wonders if we’ll go to another time and space? No, we’ll be here.

The ritual begins. It’s heavily Battle flavored, so Managaratha is not super tuned in to what’s going on.

Scout notices that there’s a green spell on all of us– oh it’s the Amnesia Mist. Nesh thinks it’s an hour later. Well huh. [[Diomarche]] wonders if using his Focus schtick would help. Well, it might. He remembers that we were being moved around the Battlemap, maybe observing what was happening, and then we were in the space where Sargeant Susie and the Orc (Slayer, in plate and with a large sword) were fighting toe to toe. It was in tableau, but then the orc looked over at us, and said “Nice.” And then the time stop faded some, and we were back in the ritual room.

Okay, she will think about this and we can try again in a bit.

[[Gale]] goes outside to test some theories. She tries to zap the nearest orc. Nothing happens.
She makes all the Broken creatures on the battlemap visible/apparent. There’s lots of Broken creatures on the Battlemap. Huh. Normally rolling for 10s wouldn’t hit that Battlemap, but it’s… closer than it was…

Gale thinks she’s done with experiments, but Managaratha plays with water and the ice of the Tower.

“I do not understand why the Orc can break the time stop. The time stop is Purple and Divine, neither of those are my specialty. Given I do not understand that, while we can try again, I am inclined to avoid the orc and see what we can find out without interacting with it.”

Managartha offers to post-cog the ritual to see what we might have seen, but Alexa thinks it probably wouldn’t help if it weren’t Blue-Yellow. Alexa will give us air bubbles to protect against the amnesia mist.

==Ritual Take Two==
The ritual starts up again. We can see the room we’re in, and also another room. There are several people in it, a couple of whom are dead. Diomarche notices this is a room he broke out of– not through the walls, but the Thing that was trapping us here. The Breakout is notably bigger than Diomarche’s DI would support, however.

On the ground there is a sacrifice in the center of the square of the ritual. There is a Priest of the Nameless who is… tending to the sacrifice? They’re not moving, so it’s hard to say exactly what they’re doing. Managartha and Nesh remember that when they were in Red in [[Darstan]], Managaratha pointed out a picture of Baron Volstack, and that’s definitely Baron Volstack on the floor. [[Stella]] thinks that the Priest of the Nameless is doing medicine.

There is a dead Priest of [[Navere]] on one of the corners of the ritual square. There’s an unconscious Priest of [[Orellian]]. (The battlemap seems to know the difference between dead and unconscious, and Volstack is not yet dead.) There don’t seem to be any priests of other religions

Scout looks around– there were definitely a bunch of people in this room who aren’t here now. Which probably includes us, but probably also includes the fourth priest, which by balance we’d expect to be a Priest of [[Jord]]. It looks like there was a stabbing, a round or two of combat time (maybe not combat here), and then there was a minute or two of non-combat time, before everyone froze.

The dagger is +10 damage, it’s well made, probably Orange craftsmanship.
Alexa says “Where can we go that’s not the Orc?” We think the orc is fighting in a courtyard, so… not outside?

[[Middlesea]] Ritual
We appear in a different ritual room. The ritual in here has been over for longer. There is a dead redcap on the floor, and Scout’s spirit says that this is where Middlesea was captured. It was definitely a big Green / Shamany ritual.

Stella makes a DI roll– the orc knows we’re here, we should NOT stay here long. She decides to throw the Hammer at it, and gets 14 successes with 8 DI on “What needs Fixing Here.”

The thing we should NOT do is let the Avatar of the Breaker out. The orc is not the Breaker, it’s the Avatar of the Breaker. We have a few more rounds before he will get to us. But each round we stay will let him Do a Thing. He will not escape unless he’s with us for more than an action.

What else would be good to fix? Here in particular:
* Bringing Middlesea back probably need fixing, Spirits are iffy, but better than Demons.
* Don’t let Volstack die.
* Don’t let [[Cara]] die.
* Don’t let the Prince of ‘al Jabar die.
* Marek is not in immediate danger, but if he dies, this will turn back into an Army combat, and the orcs will crush everyone. So don’t let him die, or leave, because his magic effect is keeping us in personal combat.
* The Artifact for Breaking Orange probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave. (That’s fuzzy, something is defending that.)
* Cataurs are unlikely to successfully kidnap Nesh.
* There are slith here.
* There’s a goblin, but it will probably be handled.
* Catching the half-orc assassin would be good. It’s not clear if the assassin is a half-orc or just working for the half-orcs.

Scout takes a Really Hard Look at the ritual that happened here, with DI buffed perception. 24 successes gets him:

Scout was unconscious on the floor over there
Two redcaps doing the ritual with Solania
[[Flint]] and [[Federico]] and Vidan and Diomarche came in, and there was a fight. Flint and Federico killed one of the redcaps.
[[Silenalania]] ran off with Middlesea.
F&F chased the redcap
Vidan and Diomarche dragged Scout in the other direction

Gale casts Battle Diagnostics, to get a sense of the scoreboard.
* The orcs are winning.
* The <REDACTED> are losing
* The <OTHER REDACTED> are doing fairly well but they aren’t really in the battle.
* The cataurs have mostly lost.
* The goblins have left the field with their win.
* Orange Teams 2 and 3 are losing to <OTHER REDACTED>. (This is a different scoreboard; the are only in this battle because Marek put everyone on the same battlemap)
* Vidan’s allies are about breaking even.
There are things Gale is missing, but that’s all she gets.

===Embassy Suites===
Alexa suggests we could go to the Breaker’s Avatar for one round, but we think that is a BAD IDEA. So we go elsewhere. We’re in His Majesty’s delegation

Federico and Flint are fighting a redcap; there is a potted plant spreading an Amnesia Mist everywhere. Scout takes a look at the sigil– there are several. It’s not anyone from His Majesty’s embassy. Oh, one of them is Silenalania’s. Okay. The redcap looks outgunned, to Diomarche’s eyes, unless he has another giant thing like the Amnesia Mist to trigger. The Amnesia Mist is mostly Alchemy, with some Essence. An air barrier would be helpful to blocking it.

Scout puts down a hammer– that’s definitely Custard, the other Redcap was probably Cream. Scout didn’t know that Custard was a Green Mage, but had definitely brought some plants with him, so… Scout sighs.

Managaratha gets coordinates for the three places we visited– he’s a little iffy on the first location.

(The Breaker’s Avatar had four actions.)
==Back at the Tower==
Alexa ends the ritual. She sees why Marek needed so much effort– it was breaking an army combat, which is probably extra effort in general, and also it had the side effect of us all being in the same hex. That probably affects the “getting far apart is fuzzy” effect, since how big an army combat hex is is fuzzy. There are interesting implications for the interface between army combat and non-army combat that are probably worth investigating.

It’s not unlikely that an assault on a keep will turn into an army combat. The fact that the different factions didn’t turn into different units is where someone probably cheated. It’s possible the attacker only had one big unit, but Alexa would have thought the Pirates should have had a unit, and the cataurs would have a unit, and… That’s where someone is cheating.

Bringing down the effects in a particular order is important.

It’s interesting to think about whether the army combat knew that the [[Oasis]] effect was going to happen. Because the Named character would have escaped from the keep even if the keep was taken, unless they knew the Oasis effect was happening. So there may have been some coordination there, or the Breaker’s Avatar just knew it was coming…?

The removal of Middlesea’s spirit probably did a lot to disable Middlesea as a defensive military unit.

Named characters are unlikely to instantiate as a military unit, but a Squad of Paladins of [[Rush]] should be an army unit, in the way that they don’t appear to have been. Possibly Marek and Petrov could have been an army unit. But they could have joined an army unit.

If it’s an army combat on a board you can escape from, Named characters in an army combat will get away. The mooks will be on the ground dead or dying, but the Named people will generally escape. Given that there was no escape, then it’s more likely that in an army combat that the named characters go down.

There are two possibilities for that part of the muddle:
The orcs are actually too big for individual squads to generate as a unit, and there was no single Leader to unite the Middlesea defenses (Cara was down).
Someone forced the orcs into a unit big enough to make that effect happen, by Cheating. Possibly because Slayer prevents the orcs from being broken into smaller groups? It wasn’t Blue; it could have been Discipline saying“we are One Unit”.

The time stop is the thing that most prevents a win for the Breaker.

Alexa thinks that none of the Delegations were big enough to be a Decisive Battle for the Comet. It would have been a First Strike, and an effective one. She’s unclear whether Middlesea’s effort would have been successful.

In the short term, we have earned a battle or two of Alexa’s support for the Admiralty. It’s unlikely that further investigation of Marek’s effect would be worth further battle, but she’d be willing to negotiate for more.

Marek’s effect is not smooth; we’re not on a single huge battlemap. It’s several battlemaps hooked together. Marek broke the army combat using Extra Effort by throwing Blue Magic at it without an actual Spell. The thwackback is probably a Berserker Rage, but maybe that wouldn’t be a problem with General Petrov standing right there to take him down if he got out of control.

We report on all our mage negotiations to Captain Latiras via Yellow spell.

The sluagh reappears to talk to Scout. Scout is disappointed that the spider didn't go all the way to Green, but no, it was just to summon the sluagh. Scout reports provides a brief summary to the sluagh and can report more over a secure channel.

"Do you know his Majesty's name?" 
"....no," 
"Interesting." 
"I doubt he knows mine."

==To Sea, To Sea==
[Dragon 3]
Scout gets a call the next day on the boat, and climbs to the Crow’s Nest to take it. He speaks in Elvish. Lady Asanriel, of His Majesty’s Court. He gives her a fairly complete report of both the older stuff and the things we just learned about from our look at Middlesea. We’ll be heading to the merfolk and Yellow, and then returning to the mainland, we expect. She will see if there’s anything His Majesty wants Scout to keep an eye on in those areas.

We sail back up to Northport and pick up the Kittiwake, which now has a Hold of Holding.

Does the Admiralty have any information on nearby merfolk. Not a very good one.

[Dragon 4]

Can we shop for presents for the merfolk? They like tridents more than swords. We pick up some water-resistant tridents and head back into the ocean, to where the closest merfolk communities might be.

[Dragon 6]
Managaratha sends a clairvoy point to look around.

There's a small cave with a couple of merfolk - we go down and talk to them. Their castle is covered in coral and the king is asleep, under a curse, for the past couple of months. This seems like the sort of adventure we could do.

We are giving the merfolk a coral-cutting saw, and head back up to the surface. The cataur boat is still there. We sail towards the coral castle. Stella looks at it.

The king is here, under a curse. It's not an undeserved curse, but it's a bit overboard. Gather three perfect pearls and a gold goblet. Crush the pearls, mix with a drop of blood, and feed it to him. That will wake him up, and he can deal with the coral.

Managaratha determines the distance and direction to the nearest perfect pearl. It’s down there. We hypothesize about what to do with Giant Killer Clams, but then we go to look. It seems to be a clam farm, with nice rows. We discuss whether we should take the pearl, or try to buy it, or…?

Merfolk kings are the leaders of local areas, and are the focus for their magic.

==Loot==
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs
* +0 perfect pearls

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Promises Promises

2026-03-28T21:20:46Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Ministry of War==
[All Gazelle 30]
[[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] vanish, and [[Nesh]] reappears. He still has tons of effects, but happily while the reverse gravity is still in effect, so is [[Gale]]'s fly spell.

The bureaucrat thinks this whole vanishing thing is very annoying.

Zheldat is due south of the tower, in line with the rivers hitting the coasts. It's the capital of the Empire of the Orcslayer (Purple)

We go to the ministry of War. It is set up for centaur, and there are centaur walking through the halls. Fewer other races. (Other buildings have not been set up for centaurs, but this one has.)

[[Managaratha]] remembers– Zheldat was founded when the centaurs came back into the world; this building is not that old.

“I was hoping to speak with Vidan, but apparently I am speaking with you all.” 
“I have read Vidan’s report. It appears that you all are the only ones that can get into this… whatever this [[Oasis]] miracle is. I will have to treat you as… we will not say ‘agents’, but we will have to work together to determine how to undo the time effect. There are some things I will need to share with you, but I will require a promise of secrecy first. (An Oath. It will make it difficult to share the secrets but not impossible, so it won't be accidental, and he will know.) For Vidan and Stella, he'll have to bind them when they return, and by tomorrow will have something to provide for them.

The minister wonders if the kid is one of us?
He says enough of this floating [[Saurian]] nonsense, and Nesh comes to the ground for now. He emphasizes the importance of this secret-keeping, as if Nesh is a child.

He puts together the purple Oath and we all agree.

He thinks the timestop effect is the result of the death of Foran Zakar, Minister of Redaction. He was a priest of the Twins as well as a mage, and was one of the leaders of their delegation; he had an effect of that sort prepared on his death. The key to open the time stop was in the knowledge of Tier Lo (subminister of the second rank), who was assassinated in Zhaldat the night that [[Middlesea]] happened. The fact that they want the effect to stay up and we want the effect to stay up, he finds interesting. But he can't force it open anyway. Who knew the internal affairs of the Ministry of Redactions, he is not sure. The other fifth-level Bureaucrats were probably aware. Other ministers of redaction probably.

The Ministry of Redaction is not under the other fifth-level Bureaucrats; it keeps Secrets.

It’s not clear to the Minister whether the weaponization was intended to be on a smaller degree or not. The general purpose of the effect is to catch the assassin or whoever so that the Ministry of Redaction can put together a team and extract them. Someone is of the opinion that the bubble should not be opened.

Gale wonders if the key can be recovered magically?
It’s unlikely; possibly Yellow could do it. He does not speak of the possibility of what Yellow can do.

A Nameless priest could maybe do it?
That’s a plausible route to follow, if we have a Priest of the Nameless who could talk to a dead priest of the Twins. Probably easier if we tried for Tier Lo.

It’s possible the key could be deduced; Zakar is the sort that uses suspenders and a waistband. The Ministry has not been able to perform a complete search, as they are not acknowledging Zakar’s death.

[[Inspector Vok]] has been assigned to investigate Tier Lo’s death. He likely is already running into issues with the Ministry of Redaction. His reports thus far have not been very enlightening. His post-cog has indicated that it was a single ninja that killed Tier Lo. (Ninja are known to be a thing, but not culturally associated with anywhere specific.)

There is not a new Minister of Redaction; the Ministry is pursuing the matter in some degree, but it has lost both its Minister and the Subminister that would have stepped in. There are discussions going on internally.

Managaratha “That sounds exciting.”
“Exciting. Indeed.”

One assumes a post in a Ministry by proving one’s self, so there are Rules about how the next Minister is chosen.

Ministry of Lions deals with unusual threats and is also in the Middlesea miracle. There is a subminister of war there.

He is [[Tan Kato]], the Minister of War.

Does he have any advice for us? His focus is on the orcs invading - he does not expect us to join that fight.

We are outside the scope of Ministry politics, which should give us some flexibility.
We are welcome to investigate the assassination.

He assigns us [[Volda]] (the bureaucrat we’ve been running into, as it turns out) to point us around and help us with contact.

Fifth Level is the highest rank of Bureaucrats.

Volda gives us the list of the delegates from Purple.
We get a briefing on the orc invasion.
Strong push to get them a foothold in the north of the Empire; they’ve been less coordinated since then, and the Minister and Head Stallion have been holding them at bay.
They didn’t take any obvious strategic locations, but it was definitely an invasion, rather than a raid.

Ministry of Repercussions is responsible for keeping the probabilities of outcomes updated.
Ministry of Fortune is small– probably not more than 5-10 bureaucrats total. The current Minister is the first Minister of Fortune in a few decades. Its role is primarily to take advantage of unusual opportunities.

There are 88 ministries currently active; it changes moderately regularly..
323 Inactive ministries currently. The most recently reactivated ministry is the Ministry of Lilacs, which regulates perfumes and herbal remedies and some Green mages. (Why? Gale is going to have to investigate. That sounds like an adventure). Volda later confirms that they reactivated *on* the Middlesea Day.

==Ministry of Fortune==

Ministry of Fortune
Volda takes out a book, which generates a map.
A small building. This is not designed for centaurs.

[[Seilin]] (she/her) greets us enthusiastically. Welcome to the Ministry of Fortune!
She is a bureaucrat assigned to the Ministry, but not a subminister.
She takes the [[Tarn Evidence Packet]] and goes to read it while we have tea.
(Volda is unimpressed with the tea.)

Managaratha tries to pump her for information, such as he can.
The Minister of Fortune didn’t report since arriving at Middlesea.

The Ministry has pushed forward to see what can be done with the troubles in the country.
Displaced people in the north, for example.

She gives us Tourist suggestions. The Empty Throne can be viewed two days per week; there is a theater that has a new work showing.

She will prepare a report for Opportunities When Taking Down The Bubble.

==Ministry of Lions==

To the Ministry of Lions next.
It's larger than the Ministry of Fortune, located in an upmarket area of town, close to the [[Tem]]ple district; we see people in Twinsish regalia.

They have a large antechamber, big enough for centaur.
“What do you need?” He sees Nesh floating. “Oh.”
He sends a messenger to get Tan Ri.
Gale asks about forms for being a Registered Pirate!
“Registered Pirate, or Privateer, or Unregistered Naval Officer?" The first, but it would be the Ministry of Naval Trade, which is missing its minister also.

Lots of people are interested in talking to us, apparently.
We are about to go back in, but [[Scout]] notes that there’s a big Twins miracle back there.
We advise them that we have a Broken miracle on us, so please don’t get us.
Ah. Let’s go talk in the park.

We go to the park; the bureaucrats spend some time getting Nesh back on the ground, until dusk. They ask us lots of questions about what’s in the packet, expanding and collapsing details. They run Purple diagnostics.

The thing that’s not in the packet, that they think is true. We’re under a Broken miracle; a Blue spell; a [[Navere]] miracle; a [[Rush]]ian miracle; a Twins miracle. There are a lot of miracles on us people, and they’re not interacting perfectly. If it was Magic (and some if it is Magic) it would probably have sorted itself out. There would be an effect on us at this point. It’s mostly miracles, and they continue to fight with each other more, so it’s more fluid effect, that they would not count on staying the same. For instance, we’re missing two people now rather than one. Some other sorts of miracles may have trouble affecting us.

Gale wonders if the miracles are being directed by the Gods, in the “do what you think is best” way– is that happening in real time?
The ministry people disagree with each other, and start to geek out about theology.

The Twins miracle is not actually big enough for the Twins to have a hand in specifically what it was doing when it was creating. But the ongoing fight, some of them think the Twins are paying attention to. It’s a Balance miracle. The Rush and Navere miracles are both quite large, and could have had some “The God is stepping in to make it work this way”, they think. The Oasis is huge, but they’re less familiar with spirits and demons.-- would the Oasis way over there have had to send a specific miracle. They don’t identify anything Goddessy on us at present.

Nesh pays attention to what they’re saying in the background– the ministry people are speaking another language with each other sometimes, and then seem to be translating back. They don’t seem to be concealing anything particularly. We are definitely getting looks from people in the park.

Nesh notices there is a guy watching us from outside the park, and relays that to us.

After an hour they start to move from diagnostic to thinking about Treatments.
Managaratha attempts to distract them with more theoretical questions!

We’re supposed to all be trapped in the broken miracle, but the Rushian miracle was supposed to break us out, but the Blue spell says we’re all in the same place. They expect that if we got too far apart we’d fall back into the Not Here miracle.

Gale says she wants a full report on specific treatments! Producing reports is one of their weaknesses… though there are clearly some experimentalists in the group who would be willing to just Try It Right Now.

Why Lions? There’s an extent to which it’s tied to cataurs, they think. The history geek says the Ministry of Lions is one of the oldest ministries, founded during the first comet during the founding of the Empire. The issues at that point, they could have been Ministry of Fish, if we wanted to deal with the merfolk. No one had a good evocative word for dealing with Orcs. And there were a fair number of cataurs in the area at the time. They’ve mostly retreated to the Oasis by this point. At that time, as best the historian puts it together, there were not many cataurs anywhere, since they were just reappearing. But there was a group causing trouble out of the Broken Lands, that seems to have been mostly dealt with.

There are no cataurs within four miles, as we discover when Managaratha asks “how would we find a cataur?” and someone says “I could just cast summon cataur with purple.” and does so.

Managaratha asks about other things that have happened– they seem to be quiet about the status of the Minister of Lions, which makes us think they do have some information.

The sigil of the Purple stasis is the Hide-my-sigil Sigil, it’s about 150 years old.

The guy who’s watching us has some kind of “In The Shadows” Tem-ish effect.

Nesh springs the trap!
The guy is a follower of the Guiding Star (who is the head Priest of Tem)

What are our dreams? What do we dream of doing? ('All of it!' -Gale)
He'll keep following us.

We interrogate [[Rakta]], the priest who’s following us. He’s mostly here because the Guiding Star knows we’re in town and wants to keep an eye on us. We ask if there were other strange happenings in the capital that they know about on the day of Middlesea; Yes, says Rakta. Can he tell us more? We’d want to ask the Guiding Star. Can we do that? He’ll let the Guiding Star know we want to talk to him. He recommends we do not go in the Temple, where the Guiding Star is likely to be.

==Ministry (sort of) of Foreign Affairs==

There is an invitation to dinner with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We go! Not to the Ministry, to the Minister's house. (Dunang) He has met Managaratha in the past, when he was younger.

He treats us to a lovely dinner, and is a lovely host, and he casually gets lots of details about our backstories without us really noticing. Hmm.

Having chatted a while, Nesh notices that he seems to be disappointed that we actually are as clueless as we look.

Scout lets slip that [[Futeau]] is the traitor - Dunang is surprised to hear that, and Scout asks him to get that to Her Majesty just in case. (Futeau, it turns out, is one of the Queen’s advisors.) He seems to indicate that he can see to that.

The Minister offers us his seats at the theater.
We’re in the diplomatic box; it has room for centaurs and the theater is clearly set up for at least some centaur population.

The play is a reasonably interesting opera-y thing. Not much plot, but the singers are quite talented. The convention is that the audience is at a social event, and people walk in and out. Nesh invites the priest of Tam into the box with us.

About ¾ of the way through, there’s a knock on the door. Nesh answers; there’s a glowing guy that asks if he can come in. Sai Ko Ti, high priest of Tam, the Summer’s Warmth. He asks for an evidence packet, since he has not been provided with a copy yet as he is not in the Ministry. He is curious about what we remember about what happened to people in the Delegation, but it mostly seems to be a social call, rather than an Interrogation.

Scout notes that if we were actively Broken, the Warmth effect would be actively painful, rather than just getting warm.

"Does he do that a lot?"
"*Constantly*."

Gale develops a crush on a singer and sends them a lilac.

==No Evidence for Orcs==

Some people wake when the screaming starts; Nesh wakes up the rest.

Orcs have surrounded the inn. There are about 10 mooks; Scout notices one of them is a priest, but she is using some kind of mojo to look like a mook.

The mooks charge upstairs, looting the rooms for the Tarn Evidence Packets, while half the party cuts them apart and the other half goes after the priest.

The priest spends her DI to bring 4 of the mooks back from the dead, resulting in more chopping. Managaratha notes that the priest invokes Grumuush when doing the miracle to bring back the dead guys.

The orcs (even the dead ones) disappear again at the bottom of 3rd action; luckily, the one orc who had found an evidence packet dropped it when Nesh killed them.

The local forces appear at the top of 4th action, and are confused that there are no orcs. The witnesses and post-cogs tell them that yes, there were orcs. They are dismayed that the priest does not show up in post-cog.

Loot:
+5 EPs
+5 SPs

[[Category:Run Logs]]

On The Assassin's Trail

2026-03-28T21:20:45Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

=Day One: Scoping out the Empire=
[[Nesh]] fades out, and [[Stella]] and [[Vidan]] fade in. Breakfast is being served. It’s all very cheery and tasty.
We update Vidan and [[Gale]]. Vidan decides it’s time to write up a report for the Ministry of Redactions.

[[Scout]] requisitions a set of leather armor. It’s cheerfully colored and has a sigil of Their Majesty on it. Scout frowns a bit at that, and Their Majesty says he could switch teams, which causes him to frown more. Their Majesty says oh well, and puts an X over the insignia. [[Diomarche]] requisitions a sword.

We leave the castle and Vidan preps the teleport to Zheldat, while [[Managaratha]] brews potions..

We teleport to the capital of the Empire. Vidan goes to file his form with the Ministry of Redactions, while the rest of the party goes to the [[Ministry of Lilacs]] (with [[Petal]]). [[Li Za]] is here again, she’s back to being in her 30s (she had been 18 last time we saw her). Gale gets another bottle of Half-Orc allergy potion, and asks if they have anything new and mysterious. The front desk person offers Wisps of Ninja Smoke. Smells like ninja smoke!

We head to the inn, and make Per rolls. There's a patch of strange darkness in the corner, according to Scout. Petal says it's not an assassin.

Managaratha goes and says hello to the corner. Someone sighs and says hello. It’s [[Rakta]], the Priest of [[Tem]] who shadowed us last time!
Scout tries to gather information.

Vidan gets us rooms, including a stable room for Diomarche.

We try to remember what was happening in Zheldat. There was a… murder that the Minister of War wanted us to find out information about? Inspector [[Vok]] was investigating, maybe we should check in with him.

We recall that Stella said (see [[A Lilac Kind Of Purple]]) there were two issues:
<ul>
<li> The half-orc spy network in the Bureaucracy
<li> Finding the key to opening the time-stop.
</ul>

“It’s probably better to avoid fixing the half-orc spy network too fast– the problems are both keeping a third problem in check. Solving either of those two problems will bring a third problem closer.”

Stella thinks the half-orc spy network is actively opposing the third thing.

Vidan remembers that the half-orc assassin The Knife said he served a true heir to the Throne.
He also remembers the following [[Visions of Middlesea]]:
<ul>
<li> Minister of Repercussions Dae, on the Day of [[Middlesea]], said to Vidan: I am disinclined to answer questions, I do not like conveying things like this.
<li> There are three possible candidates for the Throne. The first would be a bad King, who would damage the Empire but it would be survivable. The second would be a Terrible King– it would lead to a civil war, parts of the Empire would go back to the Broken Lands.
<li> The Third would be catastrophic. If you do not find at least one of the first or the second by tomorrow, they will be dead by the day after. And either the Third will take the Throne, or the will be Destroyed.
<li> The Yellow (???)
<li> There’s a strong possibility you’ll find one of the first two by tomorrow. If you find the Second, make sure
<li> One of the seven Ministers is a traitor
</ul>

Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing in Purple, and Brings It: 17 Successes, 12 DI
<ul>
<li> Having an Emperor would be good, although there isn’t a convenient one to hand
<li> The Orc Invasion needs to be pushed back is important; it will get worse when Middlesea opens, so pushing it back as much as possible before then would be good.
<li> The Half-Orcish spy ring should be taken apart, because he’ll be a Terrible Emperor. (Making him Emperor would not fix the first problem.)
<li> Stopping the Pirates would be good.
<li> Keeping Inspector Vok from being assassinated would be good.
<li> Eventually we’ll need the key to Middlesea, so figuring that out wouldn’t be bad.
<li> Making sure no one else gets the Key to Middlesea would be good.
</ul>

Well that’s somewhat enlightening.

[[Volda]] is waiting for us the next day. There’s also a Note from the Ministry of Fortune - Things we could take advantage of when opening Middlesea
If we rescue the goblin [Custard] from being killed by [[Flint]] we can use him to find a way into [[Spiritbreaker Fortress]].
The saurians have not left with their prize yet, so we can intercept them.
And we can acquire evidence for [[Suvatra]] before it is destroyed.
And we can keep a bunch of people from dying.

Minister Kato will see us tomorrow. We tell Volda we want to see Inspector Vok. He takes us to the Inspectorate.

Gale's assertion:
<ul>
<li> Bad Emperor: Orc-Slayer (?)
<li> Terrible Emperor: Orc Slayer (boss of half orc assassins)
<li> Catastrophic Emperor: Orc named Slayer (Breaker's Avatar)
</ul>

We go to the Inspectorate and ask to see Inspector Vok. They say he’s out, they don’t know where he is.
Managaratha calls Inspector Vok, and tells him we’re concerned about assassins; he says he’ll head back to the office.

Vidan thinks:
<ul>
<li> The Emperor is the wielder of the Sword that is Lost. (The converse is also true.)
<li> The Sword will recognize its wielder.
<li> If something wacky has happened, there might be hacks to make the sword recognize them. There’s not more than one Sword that is Lost.
<li> Primogeniture was the general law, but the Emperor could alter that prior to death if they chose.
(The wielder of the sword of the Orcslayer is the Orcslayer.)
<li> The Emperor had a Death Boon, but if there were twins somewhere along the line, or someone copied the schtick, or something along that line.
</ul>

Inspector Vok shows up, and Vidan says we were hoping to get an update, but also we believe he’s going to be assassinated. He brings us to a teahouse, where Vidan thinks it is hard to Witness things. The teahouse is called Chrysanthemum Boughs. He asks how we know he’ll be assassinated; we tell him. We try to get an update on his investigations. The Ministry has not seen fit to let him learn the Secrets hidden in the Minister’s House. However, he is reasonably confident that… he looks at Petal. We ask Petal and Volda to step out. It is likely that the sub-minister’s death is related to a number of deaths over the past two years. Vok has been attempting to trace those back to a central… he has not found a pattern that satisfies him as to who the targets have been, but the means and organization seem similar. That may mean an organization being hired by different people, or an organization whose goals he doesn’t understand.

The ministry of Pearls is likely involved– they regulate Actors! ([[Dame Etni]] would be proud.) The Minister is [[Li Sun]]. She is not a priest, but a fairly skilled Purple Mage, as well as a bureaucrat. Unusually, her sub-minister [[Tan Karu]] is a 2nd rank Bureaucrat, rather than a 1st rank Bureaucrat. Normally subministers are two ranks below. Possibly he’s a Priest and she is not; he’s looking into what that’s about.

He lays out some clues, which Vidan and Scout look at. Vidan is convinced the Ministry of Pearls is involved; Scout isn’t convinced but doesn’t rule it out. Vok had planned to stake them out in the next few days.

Vok thinks whoever these people are they have enough eyes in the Bureaucracy that filing reports is a good way to alert them to what you are doing.

Diomarche thinks that the assassins can probably see through disguises, but shapeshift might be better.

We consult with Petal. He thinks none of us will easily pass for Vok, and, also, most assassins will prefer to strike not in public, so do they know where he lives? Many assassins strike at home. With magic that can beat someone with 10-12 Per’s roll, that would be reasonable. A night attack they may not look very hard, just stab whoever is in the bed. Ninja may do observation as well, so you should be smart about the transfer. You could have him walk home and teleport someone in and the target out. The decoy will need a fair amount of protection in order to survive a reasonably trained assassin’s assault from surprise. They’ll need some way to call us in on that happening. It is possible that Petal would notice an assassin arriving if he was in the area and hidden, but any assassin will have some sort of hide schtick. But Petal’s ability to notice assassins is good enough to get past most first-level Hide schticks. (“This guy is good. I bet he thinks about this a lot,” says Scout.)

Wait, won’t they just try again? Petal thinks they’ll send the person available and most likely to succeed; they are unlikely to send the next

What’s useful for the investigation? Inspector Vok thinks him not getting assassinated is most useful. If Petal thinks he can just walk by the building and tell if it’s full of assassins, that would be helpful, but Vok’s expectation is that it’s not full of assassins. It would be good to verify that.

The assassin has some divine defenses; it looks like it will be 2 nights from tonight.

Gale takes Li Za out to dinner.

=Day Two: War and Opera=
Volda takes us to the Ministry of War. Volda stays outside, and the Minister seals the room against listening.
He asks if we have found a priest of the Nameless who could find the codephrase that was known by the sub-minister.
We give him a briefing on the assassination attempt.
We brief him on the Breaker’s Plan.

We get info on the orc invasion– they were fighting as a coordinated force, but since Middlesea they have been fighting as individual bands, and the failure to coordinate has prevented them from gaining ground. The Head Stallion and he are working on plans to drive them back. Getting [[Victoria]] to leave the eastern borders alone was appreciated, and helpful.

Do they need an adventuring band strike force? That’s more Lions’ responsibility than his. The Ministry of Lions probably has something for which they could use a strike force. Unless they’ve been infiltrated by the assassins, but he doesn’t think so, they’re too disorganized.

He tells us that the Ministry of Canals is the newest Ministry; it’s 3rd rank. They handle (surprisingly) canals. It’s not clear there’s much need for the ministry of canals.

There’s an invitation to the theatre with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

We go. It’s an opera more than a play. It’s a social occasion more than an event you watch; people wander around and chat while the performance happens. The Foreign Minister doesn’t interrogate us; he knows Petal already. He and Petal are watching the audience more than the show.

About two-thirds of the way through, Warmth of Summer shows up. He also recognizes Petal, and says hello. He chats briefly, and asks where we picked up the new Broken miracle that is on us. Vidan tries to look and gets “No information is available at this time.” Scout looks, and his spirit says “We’re not allowed to look at that.” “Huh. Why?” “Because the Breaker set it up so that none of us can look at it.” That seems… unfortunate. We think that having him look at it is probably good, but maybe not right here? In case something bad happens? Hmm. He invites us to the Church the next day; he says it won’t be a problem for us to get into the Church.

Gale uses "Love is a Battlefield" to see what is going on - there are a lot of plots going on in parallel. She notes that the foreign minister is using a very similar shtick, but he's starting with better data. Petal is doing something entirely different. (It's things like promotions and love plots and inter-ministry politics plots; nothing looks like an insurrection plot or a civil war plot.) Nobody here is on Team Catastrophic. There are some people who are maybe on Team Terrible but they aren't pursuing Terrible plots. Nobody on Team Bad here - Gale isn't sure there is a Team for Bad.

Managaratha gets invited to tea at the Ministry of Magic tomorrow.

We go to bed, to prepare for the coming busy day…

=Loot=
<ul>
<li> +8 EPs
<li> +10 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Investigation, Assassination

2026-03-28T21:20:45Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

=Pre-Assassination=
It is morning! [[Nesh]] has appeared, [[Diomarche]] has disappeared. Well, that could be awkward.

We explain. No, is too much– we sum up.

Nesh is discomfited to discover that there’s another Broken miracle on us.

Breakfast is yummy, we are told. [[Petal]] is there. [[Volda]] is there. Nesh notices that the priest of [[Tem]] who’s been following us around is there, and waves. The Priest ignores him.

=Church of Tam=
We head first to the Church of Tam. It’s a large, cathedral-like building with a large sun symbol on the front door. It has its own grounds around it.
We send Volda in to announce our presence, rather than triggering anti-Broken-miracle defenses.

A priest ushers us into a waiting area. “Tai Ko Tee [the Warmth of Summer] will see us shortly.”

“Ah, good good. You made it. Follow me, I have an area set up to look at things.”

We’re taken out of the public area and into a ritual room. Mirrors and candles and all that jazz. A big image of the sun on the floor.

We are told to get onto the Sun image so that he can see what

[[Vidan]] asks Tai Ko Tee if there are any churches of Balance that help people restore Balance.
“All of the Balance priests are Bureaucrats. There’s not a Ministry of Balance at present. There are probably ministries you could look into for that sort of thing, though.”

Thinking about his divination attempt, Vidan thinks that there was an element of “It would be bad for me to answer that question” from [[Navere]].

After ten minutes of miscellaneous chat, we get back onto the image of the Sun. He starts doing a ritual. [[Stella]] thinks he’s doing an interesting scaling thing. A lot of what the ritual is doing is not getting him more information, but letting him spend his DI slowly, so that it calibrates to the right level of DI spent. [Pho Sien had a similar schtick, we recall.]

The things you had on you before are:
<ul>
<li> an unreasonably large miracle of Isolation,
<li> a more reasonably sized (although large) miracle from the Twins that stops time on us for a period, that is being reinforced by a similarly large Purple spell ;
<li> a Blue spell that I’m not sure how it scales, particularly (that’s not my area);
<li> an unreasonably large miracle from Navere,
<li> an unreasonably large miracle from [[Rush]], which are… tied together in a way I don’t quite understand. Together the Navere + Rush miracles might be as Unreasonably large as the Isolation miracle.
</ul>

Now also:
<ul>
<li> a large (but not unreasonably so) Broken miracle which appears to be new, which is attempting to thwart the Navere miracle without actually directly interacting with it.
</ul>

It appears to be strengthening a Green spell that is not on us. This one’s in the realm of a powerful priest. It is integrated into the full effect; it would be delicate to remove it without impacting anything else. (He thinks that a priestess of the Goddess might be better able to disentangle it; he would have trouble not interacting with the Twins miracle - his interaction would risk, for example, freezing more of us in time)

The Warmth of Summer thinks he could remove the miracle (tomorrow), with the caveats above.

Definitions: Powerful Priest: 20-25. Unreasonable: 50?

He scaled up to 15 DI to get the information.

He notes that he only looked at the effects on the Group; we do have other effects on us individually. Broken effects? No.

Anything the Church of Tam is up to? Nothing that particularly calls for Heroes’ interactions at present. They’re more concerned with the orc invasions.

We give him a new version of the [[Tarn Evidence Packet]], with Secret Appendix Panda Bravo, the List of the Breaker's Plans.
He agrees to look into the plot about Orange for us for a bit. It will probably just be a Tamish prophecy, rather than research into Orange. If we come back tomorrow, he might be able to give us some more information.

=Ministry of Magic=

(We don’t have Diomarche with us; that’s convenient. Huh.)
We have an appointment, they were not expecting so many other people for the appointment, they’ll let people know we have brought friends. He writes a note and it vanishes. A few minutes later, a message appears, and we are shown into an office.

The Ministry of Magic has a Tardis effect going on– it’s bigger inside than outside. But it’s not otherwise covered in Magic the way that things in Yellow were. After a few minutes, Nesh notices we have all disappeared. A few moments later the rest of us notice Nesh has gone missing. Hmm. Nesh waits. We consider that we could probably get him here.

We get to our destination. [[Managaratha]] calls Nesh and teleports him in.
Someone else teleports in. The person behind the desk waves him away, saying that was Managaratha, which is covered under section 23 subparagraph 6.

"Sub-minister Kav, in charge of monitoring Frag effects in the Empire. It’s normally expected that you check in when you arrive, but apparently you have forgotten." Managaratha says he should also check out Vidan.

“My.”
“Well, it does not seem to be leaking, so I suppose that’s a good start.”
“Leaking?!”, asks Nesh.
“Frag is the consequence in the world when you travel in time that causes two things to be true. It is often constrained to the caster, but it can have other consequences, that can spread.”
“I try to only frag myself…” – Managaratha
“You do tend to only frag yourself. But you have been sending yourself notes?”
“A version of me is sending me notes.”
“Even worse.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything going on beyond that, just remember to check in– or the rest of you can remind him to check in.”
“Your name is Kav? That will be helpful for checking in.”
“DO NOT CONTACT ME WITH A YELLOW SPELL.”
“But surely this is a safe place to cast Yellow!”
“You summoned the Subminister for the Defense Against the Yellow Arts when you tried to cast a Yellow spell.”

He freezes Vidan and asks what is up with him. We don't really know, and he is apparently unaware.

We are teleported to a Lounge. (Vidan is still frozen) Except Nesh, who resists. “That is quite a bit of Resistance you have, congratulations.”
In a minute, Managaratha calls Nesh, teleports Nesh to us, and the Subminister of Defense Against the Yellow Arts appears. He glares at us as we start trying to defend Managaratha’s actions. “Mages gonna Mage!” “He forgot!” “Hello, have we met?”

We wait for an hour and a half. Tea and snacks appear after a bit. 

We are teleported into a larger conference room, where Subminister Kav is, along with two other people we don’t recognize. Actually, several of us recognize one of them from the Ministry of Lions who we had spoken to as part of a group from that Ministry the last time we were here.. (?) 

Kav says “My investigations have been less… informative” (glaring at the guy we don’t know) “than I had hoped. However, in the case of triggering this particular event, there are protocols previously established, such that, if the Minister of Lions is unavailable to be consulted, the…. Subject [Vidan] is supposed to be sent to speak to Priest [[Ritasi]] in [[Rinyan]], or [[Mother Jess]] in King [[Richard III|Richard]]’s Lands. I anticipate that this will take place within the week, and I will have a report within the week on what actions I do or do not need to take in this matter.” He looks at the other two, who clearly have reactions to this. The tension is palpable. 

“I understand there are limitations on what Vidan can do himself to get this looked into, so I trust the rest of you will deal with it and I will not have to take any steps.”

Ritasi is the head of the Cult of Al’an; Mother Jess is the highest ranking priest of Navere.

Do the others need reports? –[[Gale]]

The one we don’t recognize says no.
The one we know as from Lions grimaces and says “Send a report to the Ministry of Lions, to the attention of the Minister.” Which causes the other to roll his eyes.

Subministers from Lions and Redactions. They do not give names.

With that, the other two teleport out, the Minister opens the door, and the Bureaucrat who showed us in is standing outside, and we follow him; Vidan is floating behind us. We are shown out.

Managaratha asks Vidan about the petition to have Managaratha’s burnout removed. that he had filed yesterday. Huh. Let’s check.
Vidan inquires at the front desk.

Vidan looks around for the gift shop. There isn’t one. He thinks about it, and thinks the Ministry doesn’t generally sell magic, but you could requisition something specific. A scroll for a one-shot casting a spell, so that you can cast a spell without taking burnout, for instance. Managaratha gets taken into a back room. There’s a guy who looks him up and down and then casts a Purple spell that disintegrates his left hand, then casts a Red spell that regrows his left hand, and says “There you go.” And that appears to have been something Managaratha has never done before, so he gets his burnout back.

=Assassination!=
We think about our tactics.
Nesh would prefer not to be stabbed, so maybe we use the homunculus?

How concerned should we be that the assassin will know the target is not really there, magically or divinely?
Probably not terribly, since the target is a Purple Bureaucrat.
A number of assassins will be able to notice if there are extra people in the room.
If they have Detect Trap, we might need someone from the Church of Tem to help.

We think about

Nesh talks to [[Rakta]], the long-suffering Priest of Tem, who can provide us with some protection from half-orc detection.

We meet the Inspector at the Inspectorate; he shows us to his home. Which appears to be an apartment, which is weird. Like a tavern, but with long-term housing? It’s a big housing block for Inspectors, which he has a space. Everything’s in good repair. Not fancy, but functional. There’s a closet someone could hide in.

Petal suggests it would be good if the Inspector weren’t present; he will stay with the Inspector elsewhere. He imagines he’ll be able to detect if an assassin shows up.

Gale gives everyone an action in the surprise round. Managaratha goes in to set up the homunculus, and then teleports out.

[[Scout]] goes in, small and stealthy, and hides in the closet, where he notes (with his excessive perception) that there is a ninja hidden in the closet with him. The ninja hasn't noticed him, though probably did notice all the previous shenanigans with the homunculus. Well, time for a surprise round, in which he shoots the ninja.

Managaratha teleports us in, and Vidan drops a teleport ward. There is no obvious ninja, nor obvious Scout. Gale sets off a lightning ball next to the farthest-away Ranger, which is Scout, and the closet explodes. Stella puts the ninja in time-out, and Scout shoots him through the eye, and he dies. Wait, were we supposed to take prisoners?

Dagger is x4, poison is pretty nasty, but isn’t reusable. He has a poison tooth. He has a necklace that when it’s taken off turns him from human-looking to half-orc looking. Vidan uses Truth to discover it’s a Temish Hide Identity amulet. Lockpicks. Scout tries to find out Where Is He From? and gets “The Emperor’s Spy Network.” That’s interesting.

Vidan does some detective work to find out what he can without disturbing the scene more. He had been in the closet for several hours, and could see that we were casting the homunculus, so he was on to us.

[[Vok]] and Petal return; Vok gets 10 more points of clues, but doesn’t say what he thinks that leads to yet.
Vidan says “We overkilled our assassin and didn’t get to investigate.”
Petal says “It happens.”
“Definitely a member of a group, not all assassins. With a purpose, so they’re not for hire.” He sniffs at the body more. “His orders were relatively recent, within the last few days. He was not based in Zheldat himself, although he had contacts here. He got his orders somewhere else and came in. There were definitely members of the organization here that he spoke with upon arrival

“Is there anything on him that serves as his credentials?” –Vidan

“None of them are a credential, many of them will have a similar dagger/poison combo. Some of the group are not half-orcs, although there are definitely more half-orcs than not.”

“Is there any way to trace him back to his contacts?” –Scout

“I’m not good at tracing teleports, which is probably how he got into the city. I could probably identify other assassins from his group if I ran into them, although it might be trickier if he’s Hidden. If he used Truth magic to hide his identity that would be particularly difficult.”

Vok still thinks there’s still a connection with the Ministry of Pearls (Actors).

=Wrapup=
Vidan thinks about looking for the Bad Candidate. Who would he go to, to start pulling in threads?

The most famous of them currently is a Priest of Tam named Li Zhou. He is an archaeologist-ish, student of history, runs around finding old things. He’s the most reputable finder of old things that you can think of. He probably has no interest in being roped into a quest to find the Sword, because everyone knows it’s Lost. He’s based in a University in the city that used to be the capital of Ashkanor.

Ninjas v. Inspector Vok scoreboard:

"Ninjas" is not the name of that team. That's "Team Terrible". ("The Emperor's Spy Network" is a subteam of Team Terrible.)
There is a scoreboard, but that's not their main scoreboard.
It is Inspector Vok's main scoreboard. So this is more of a running tally for Vok. He is about 45 out of 100 clue points.

We go back to the temple of Tam. Prophecy things he saw having to do with the corruption of Orange (there is bleedthrough from things like the slith invasion also). There was also a lot of interference. 
<ul>
<li> A map with an X
<li> A single orange mage trying to push Orange to do more than it can/should
<li> An orc Rainbow mage who uses the Broken colors and hopes that Orange will expand to include Broken Orange
</ul>

Vidan goes to the Ministry of Naval Trade - he has been tasked to investigate piracy. Are there reports? ("Who is in charge" since the Minister is in [[Middlesea]] is complicated and maybe it is being taken over.)

Since Middlesea sealed, it is significantly trickier to negotiate by paying tribute to the Pirate Queen. There was about a month where people were playing by those rules, but now everyone is an individual pirate. It's much more random - it used to be coordinated if you didn't pay tribute, they'd hit you with a lot of ships or hit your lootiest ships, and now it's random and unplannable, which they hate.

==For Soon:==
Ministry of Lions: put us in, coach!

=Loot=
<ul>
<li> +9 EPs
<li> +9 SPs
<li> necklace of Temish “Hide Me” schtick
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A Lilac Kind Of Purple

2026-03-28T21:20:45Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Shift Change==
[Phoenix 1]
[[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] re-appear. [[Nesh]] and [[Managaratha]] disappear.

We brief Vidan and Stella, at least a bit.

[[Scout]] talks to [[Rakta]]– did he notice the orc attack? He dreamed about them. Did he see them plotting? No, he just saw that they were attacking the people he was watching, and was told to wake up. Scout gives him an evidence packet and says that’s what the orcs are after.

Vidan says he just spent a few hours at the Citadel– wait, what!? The Citadel!? Yes. The Breaker’s Citadel? Oh, no, the keep at [[Middlesea]]. Phew.

[[Volda]] shows up in the morning. He drily notes the re-appearance of Vidan and Stella, and says he should bring them to the Minister of War. He drily inquires as to whether the others are… having breakfast down the street? No, they poofed/castled.

We are brought back to the Ministry of War. The Minister gets Vidan and Stella’s assurance to agree to the Oath, etc. Vidan makes sure there are no Sixth-level bureaucrats who would out-rank the Minister. Also that if Gods request or require the information, it is permissible to tell them.

The Minister briefs Stella and Vidan about the murder of the Minister of Redaction and the time-stop effect that occurred on his death. The Minister is more concerned that the bad guys have internal information on the Ministry of Redactions than on the ninja per se. The fact that there was an orc incursion trying to get the Evidence Packet implies that there are factions which aren’t talking to each other, which is… interesting. Given that one of us is going to have to apply the key to undo the time-stop, he wanted to make sure we know.

Redactions doesn’t work for a Fifth level ministry, though they work with Interior frequently.

==The Ministry of Lilacs==
Volda is waiting for us– have there been any new Ministries activated since yesterday? Not that he is aware of. “See? He’s careful.” –Vidan

[[Gale]] prevails upon the party to journey to the Ministry of Lilacs. Why do we care, Vidan wonders? The timing is suspicious– they were founded when Middlesea was attacked (which Vidan thinks should be called D-Day, but Scout thinks should be Orcs-Invade Day, or OI-Day for short.) Volda takes the party there, they are slightly out of town.

Gale interrogates the Ministry– what is their remit? Creating? Selling?
Not so much selling, but regulating the sale of perfumes. They are doing some selling at the moment, while they are getting the
“How does the Ministry reactivate?”

“A Bureaucrat of sufficient rank decides it is the thing they are meant to do.”
“Is that you?”
“Oh, no. I am flattered, but I am not of the Third Rank.”

The Minister’s name is Xi.

Gale asks for an adventuring perfume! Something, you know, dashing and sexy. 
“Certainly, certainly.” 
Gale is brought to the back room. There is a whole procedure involved. Washing and a robe, and some trial and error. Gale asks if she can buy some for personal use. It is expensive but not unbuyable. Come back in an hour. Gale does some flirty interrogation, but doesn’t find out where the Bureaucrat was before Lilacs was instantiated.

Vidan asks Volda what is happening with the Ministries whose leaders were on Middlesea.
Lions is mostly working as normal, as the Minister often was absent for lengths of time; others are struggling a bit. Fortune is probably doing whatever Fortune does; he doesn’t know. Redactions and Repercussions are having differences of opinion as to who’s in charge; those differences are opaque, and the loss of the Subminister of Redactions isn’t helping.

(In general Subministers are two levels below their Minister.)

While Gale is inside, we are approached!

“Good morning, I am Inspector [[Vok]], I understand you were involved with the unfortunate incident with orcs, and also that you were one of the last people to speak with the Minister of Redactions. Could we speak later today, maybe over lunch?” Vidan admits as to how we would be pleased. He will meet us at our inn.

Scout goes to ask the Ministry of Lilacs about Green magic. A different person answers the door. They regulate some uses of Green magic, though they are not the Ministry of Magic. Many of the preparations of perfumes and scents include a use of plants which overlaps with Green. How about growing reagents? If it's for personal use, that would be the Ministry of Magic. The guy suggests that if he is planning to settle here, he get a license. There are licenses? Of… course…

Volda drily suggests we sit at a tea shop while we wait. He tries to ignore us, but Gale continues to pester him a bit about his past Ministerial experience.

As it turns out, Vidan was not contracted to a specific Ministry, but to the Delegation as a whole.

Vidan asserts that wild magic is illegal in the capital, which seems Mad to Scout.

==Lunch with Inspector Vok==
He has not reviewed the [[Tarn Evidence Packet]], so he does so. The Inspectors are cops and auditors; they work with the Ministry of Interior, but they pride themselves on their independence. There’s some debate about whether they’re technically a Ministry (though Vidan is unclear what it would mean to not be a Ministry…)

Vok appreciates the information, but was interested in talking about the incursion.

How can we help? He’s used post-cog to watch the ninja kill the Sub-minister, but he couldn’t follow him in or out. Human, or maybe a half-elf. Could have been an elf. Not a centaur or a [[Saurian]]. Not a goblin; he probably could have told the difference between

Vok takes us to the scene of the Crime! It’s been about two weeks; it’s a nice house, if dusty.
Vidan detectives– blood on the bed, no signs of a struggle. No signs of any thwackback, which… second level minister might have had some. Hard to know. The room has been pretty thoroughly searched, any other obvious clues have been removed. Whoever broke in and out was better than 6 successes– couldn’t have told that the door was picked or the window had been forced.

It’s hard to tell if there was an attempt to search the space by the ninja. Nothing is obviously missing. Vok knows the weapon was a dagger, seemingly unpoisoned.

Vidan asks [[Navere]] for True Sight of what needs to be seen, 6 DI 5 successes.

The ninja dodges a bunch of Vidan's miracle, but not all of it.

This causes Vok to cast the post-cog again and share it with Vidan. He sees the ninja attack, and is fairly confident that it’s a half-orc.

Stella also looks around, to see what needs fixing.
* There are two problems here, neither of which can be fixed here.
* The half-orc spy network in the Bureaucracy
* Finding the key to opening the time-stop.
* There is potentially information in the room that could be helpful for the second, but it’s being concealed by Twins-y things.

It’s probably better to avoid fixing the half-orc spy network too fast– the problems are both keeping a third problem in check. Solving either of those two problems will bring a third problem closer.

Scout takes a look around to see what the magic/miracular landscape looks like.
The house has some protections, both magical and miracular. It doesn’t look like those have been triggered yet. They’re not physical, they’re informational, and they don’t seem to be protecting the ninja, rather than the Minister. Which is probably what the Goddess meant by saying “I’m not going to tell you the information right now”.

Scout mentions that the house is protecting the Minister’s secrets– “More paperwork”, sighs the Inspector. He mostly leaves us be in the House. The party pokes around a bit more.
Stella asks if the half-orc was male or female– probably male.

Vidan files some paperwork to find out where the Lilac Ministers came from.

The Ministry of Repercussions might be able to tell us if we should expect a half orc ninja visit tonight. Also what might happen if Gale keeps investigating the Ministry of Lilacs. IT HAS A RAINBOW ENDING AT IT.

The door opens as we approach– “come in, you’re late”. Huh. Vidan thinks they often say that. They lead us to a room that is clearly set up for us.

“I am Sub-minister Tran– you would be the Middlesea… emissaries, let’s say.”
“What’s left of them, anyway. Or what’s free of them.” – [[Diomarche]]
“What’s free of them, yes. I don’t suppose you have any information from the Minister?”
“Not yet, no.”
“It is highly likely you will, though you all are hard to predict, due to the Miracles on you– Miracles making predictions harder.

So. What do you need.”

Diomarche asks about the orc attack(s).

“There are odds above 80% of a ninja attack on you all this evening. I cannot see the details, but it seems to be an assault rather than a theft.”

Well that’s disheartening for everyone except Diomarche, who thinks he’s done his job here.

Gale asks about ramifications of investigating the Ministry of Lilacs.

“No ramifications in the next several days, but there is an encounter with a young lady on most of the paths but the details are lost in the noise.”

How about going to Green v. Red next?

The immediate consequences were already triggered in Green yesterday evening. We could learn about that by going to Her Majesty's court, but there is no immediate necessity.

[[Thistle]]'s actions in [[Darstan]] are not completely resolved - if we travel there quickly we could have an impact on that, and we could have an effect on the possible conflicts between Darstan and the other red nations. If we wait until the Saurian returns he might want to go to Blue.

Vidan notes: their advice is not always right, but if you go and get their advice and then ignore it, you will absolutely be fired if they were right.

==Preparing for Ninja==
We go to the Ministry of Lilacs, looking for perfumes that would be good irritants for half-orc assassins who are liable to come and get us.

A young woman comes in and delivers the perfume - it's the same person who opened the door but looks young now. Gale invites her to stay for dinner. She introduces herself as [[Li Za]].

A centaur comes in. Checking which herds Diomarche is with. "I'm with Eschetos. Look at the end." (I'm not with a ministry, I'm with the Head Stallion.)
As it turns out, the centaur’s name is Luc. He asks many questions, and will report to headquarters. He expects we will hear back from him or another centaur, soon. He gallops off.

Li Za is put out by Scout’s doubts about the perfume’s efficacy, and Gale flirts a bit more to try to reassure her. We give her a Tarn Evidence Packet too.

Clomp clomp clomp - there are some centaurs milling around around casual in the middle of the street. Do they have any plans on second-story combat? One of them is a Purple mage who can walk up; they all have bows. The Purple mage could shrink them, although that’s not really subtle per se. Luc and two of the centaurs go to the stables; one of the centaurs goes up.

Rakta gives four of us a miracle of Noticing Things While Asleep– +24 Per.
==The Ninja Strikes!==
Scout notices the ninja coming through the window, and shouts and shoots him in the surprise round. He takes a thrown knife for his pains, and also starts taking poison damage.

Diomarche charges into the fray, bowling over the assassin and keeping him pinned for a round. Stella manages to heal Scout enough that the poison is a slow drip, rather than a torrent.

Gale casts coordinate on the next attack - that clears the deck for the mooks to pincushion the assassin, though he is still standing at the end of round 2, when he drops his ninja smoke and bounces off of Vidam's anti-teleport shield. He runs down the stairs instead. The ninja has a schtick in hard-to-see that caps attacker’s dice at their Per; Scout gives everyone a miracle of extra Per dice.

Scout sends his Per spirit to blind the ninja, which leaves him actually blind– although he still has targeting on where the spirit is, which helps.

The centaurs keep chasing him and Luc manages to knock him down. Scout falls over from poison.

The slow two-legs get rides from the nearby centaurs. Stella keeps everyone (including the ninja) from dying of poison.

Vidan pushes for "Give him to the centaurs, and we get (some of) the loot.”

==Loot==
* +5 EPs
* +5 SPs
* +1 captured half-orc assassin
* +some loot (to be delivered)

==Epilogue==
Gale returns to the Ministry of Lilacs, to flirt with Li Za (and tell her that the perfume worked well)..

[[Category:Run Logs]]

To Catch A Thief

2026-03-28T21:20:44Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

[[Nesh]] and [[Managaratha]] reappear and [[Scout]] vanishes.

We want to wait to hear about the interrogation and get our promised share of the loot, and then go to Red to catch up with [[Thistle]].

Around breakfast, [Phoenix 2] [[Volda]] shows up, but we say we're waiting at the moment. Managaratha wonders if there are records of who he visited in the past six months. That would be difficult. We lounge about until lunch-ish, when a messenger shows up and delivers a note and a bag to Volda. We go up to one of the rooms.

The information that was recovered from the assassin, to date, is that she was sent after us because her master discovered that we are the best key to getting Slayer out of [[Middlesea]], and her master does not want Slayer released from the trap. (An orc, Slayer). We wonder if this is the same orc who [[Sergeant Susie]] would not want let out.

There is a bag of loot: a small amount of cash, four poisons of unknown poison-ness.

Managaratha yellow-calls Thistle. We will be heading towards Red. She's in [[Darstan]] still.

Volda arranges a teleport for us to Darstan, for the cost of our bag of coins.

We're now in a square in Darstan. [[Gale]] rescued a kidnapped librarian (Rosalind) here from an annoying relative of [[Baron Volstak]].

[[Diomarche]] hails the duty paladin. He needs to see a senior priest, but stay out here, because it's complicated. The priest comes out. Diomarche gives him a reasonably detailed up to date report, and also says he wants to talk to [[Duchess Zerbina]] about the link. The priest thinks that she will probably not be willing to change her strategy - a lot of her forces are there. The Duchess is not doing as well breaking up the forming alliance between [[King Richard]]'s lands and [[Berana]] ([[King Olanson]]). Also, Diomarche should not come into the temple of [[Rush]] himself.

Gale looks up Rosalind and regales her with the story over tea.

Managaratha finds a horse that looks kind of gilled and scaly on the common, and asks if he can sit on it. He sells his fancy rock and does so, noting that it bends oddly, more like a snake than a horse.

Dinner where Thistle is supposed to show up. Some people notice that there's a lady keeping an eye on us from another table, and [[Vidan]] thinks it's Thistle in disguise. Managaratha waves, and she rolls her eyes and leaves. Nesh follows stealthily. She eventually stops. "Nesh, right?" He apologizes for his friends. There's at least one person in town she doesn't want to spot her.

"What do you all want?"
"Uh... that much I wasn't told."

They arrange to meet later on the commons. Can we help? Do we know a good fence? Nesh wonders why she hasn't gone home where she is in the thieves guild. She'd get a better price for it here... she'll go talk to Nesh.

She got teleported here, and tried to make contact with the local guild. Got in an argument with this "bitch named Marsha" who didn't think she was competent. Stole some of her stuff. In her stuff is what looks like the Duchess's signet ring. Nesh offers to handle returning it for a reward and the reward is hers. We can probably deal with probing in a way that doesn't implicate her, for example.

[Phoenix 3]

Vidan gets us an audience, and gives her a packet. There's something else that might be more sensitive - she takes us to a tower where a red mage takes away the guards' ears. O_o Lots of us have various investigatory abilities - we came upon a lifelink, is she aware of that? Yes. We thought it might be in an unfortunate state. Her husband's absence is day to day inconvenient. The lifebond is not day to day inconvenient...but she is concerned about what will happen when the timestop is ended. Her husband had taken a great deal of damage right before the timestop went into effect. She has recovered from her share of that damage - and is concerned that people get to him quickly.

Vidan also notes that the enemy has been pushing instability, in case there is anything we could help with. Since Middlesea closed and her husband went missing, there have been pressures on Darstan that have increased from neighbors in Red. It seems likely that one of Berana and King [[Richard III|Richard]]'s Lands were responsible for a recent intrusion into the castle. If you were to learn which of them that might have been, that would be appreciated. Berana has an envoy here publicly, Prince Sven. King Richard doesn't have anyone official.

Nesh goes to find the thieves guild. They tell him to go to the [[Tem]]ple of [[Jord]] and talk to Joseph. He slouches in and to the shrine of Jord, Joseph notes that he has a lot of DI resistance, but quizzes him on streetwise and some other skills he doesn't have. Before making plans, he should talk to either Alex at the Dragon's Claw or Marsha at the Stone Table.

Nesh and Gale talk to Marsha. Ex-pirates. Red guard dogs are something we won't be used to. Don't do too large a hit too often. Don't get too ambitious or claim we're Jord's left hand. She thinks there might be some jobs in the next week or so in case we're interested. If we're on a sanctioned job, we can run to a safehouse, but don't run to them on random jobs.

Nobody sneezes, though. Very disappointing.

We also recall that the Duchess actually asked that we figure out which of two people was responsible, not to investigate the theft. So we need to find the people and investigate them.

General gossip: [[Victoria]] is not all that interesting, she's always fighting Purple. Prince Sven is in town from Berana, everyone knows where. (The king of Berana has 25+ kids). Everyone assumes King Richard has someone here but nobody knows who offhand. Everyone is clear that the Duchess is the war leader, and Volstak is the ruler.

We visit Sven and give him a packet. He assures us that's very interesting. But he doesn't care about stuff outside of Red. (He is familiar with the Blue Mage, the most interested in outside Melmayne). Does he know who Richard's guy is? Well, give me two, I can get one to Richard. Vidan thinks that he is in communication with Richard about what to do about Darstan. Nesh thinks that he has moved here for the long term, not just for a bit.

Back to the common to talk to Thistle. Is Marsha a fence? No. So she stole it probably on someone else's behalf. She can show us.

Stella asks "What needs fixing?" (11 successes, 7 DI).

* Get the ring back to the Duchess.
* Clearing Marsha out would be good.
* Stopping the war between Darstan / King Richard's lands / Berana from starting.

Getting the seal back to the Duchess will help with that last one (getting it back to where Marsha was sending it would do best.). Marsha was sending it to [[George]], King Richard's spy. Don't let George get it, that would start the war. Letting Sven get it would start the war more slowly.

We split up - Diomarche, [[Stella]] go up the stairs. Nesh (with Thistle) on the roof, Gale, Vidan, Managaratha, in the Kittiwake lurking in the alley on the second floor.

She goes out the window and we give chase. We fritter her down until she explodes, which Vidan confirms is Broken. (Gale loses her party clothes and Managaratha loses his ingredients).

Thistle and Nesh, tossing her place, finds them. (Nesh gives Thistle all the money).

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Promises Promises

2026-03-28T21:20:44Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Ministry of War==
[All Gazelle 30]
[[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] vanish, and [[Nesh]] reappears. He still has tons of effects, but happily while the reverse gravity is still in effect, so is [[Gale]]'s fly spell.

The bureaucrat thinks this whole vanishing thing is very annoying.

Zheldat is due south of the tower, in line with the rivers hitting the coasts. It's the capital of the Empire of the Orcslayer (Purple)

We go to the ministry of War. It is set up for centaur, and there are centaur walking through the halls. Fewer other races. (Other buildings have not been set up for centaurs, but this one has.)

[[Managaratha]] remembers– Zheldat was founded when the centaurs came back into the world; this building is not that old.

“I was hoping to speak with Vidan, but apparently I am speaking with you all.” 
“I have read Vidan’s report. It appears that you all are the only ones that can get into this… whatever this [[Oasis]] miracle is. I will have to treat you as… we will not say ‘agents’, but we will have to work together to determine how to undo the time effect. There are some things I will need to share with you, but I will require a promise of secrecy first. (An Oath. It will make it difficult to share the secrets but not impossible, so it won't be accidental, and he will know.) For Vidan and Stella, he'll have to bind them when they return, and by tomorrow will have something to provide for them.

The minister wonders if the kid is one of us?
He says enough of this floating [[Saurian]] nonsense, and Nesh comes to the ground for now. He emphasizes the importance of this secret-keeping, as if Nesh is a child.

He puts together the purple Oath and we all agree.

He thinks the timestop effect is the result of the death of Foran Zakar, Minister of Redaction. He was a priest of the Twins as well as a mage, and was one of the leaders of their delegation; he had an effect of that sort prepared on his death. The key to open the time stop was in the knowledge of Tier Lo (subminister of the second rank), who was assassinated in Zhaldat the night that [[Middlesea]] happened. The fact that they want the effect to stay up and we want the effect to stay up, he finds interesting. But he can't force it open anyway. Who knew the internal affairs of the Ministry of Redactions, he is not sure. The other fifth-level Bureaucrats were probably aware. Other ministers of redaction probably.

The Ministry of Redaction is not under the other fifth-level Bureaucrats; it keeps Secrets.

It’s not clear to the Minister whether the weaponization was intended to be on a smaller degree or not. The general purpose of the effect is to catch the assassin or whoever so that the Ministry of Redaction can put together a team and extract them. Someone is of the opinion that the bubble should not be opened.

Gale wonders if the key can be recovered magically?
It’s unlikely; possibly Yellow could do it. He does not speak of the possibility of what Yellow can do.

A Nameless priest could maybe do it?
That’s a plausible route to follow, if we have a Priest of the Nameless who could talk to a dead priest of the Twins. Probably easier if we tried for Tier Lo.

It’s possible the key could be deduced; Zakar is the sort that uses suspenders and a waistband. The Ministry has not been able to perform a complete search, as they are not acknowledging Zakar’s death.

[[Inspector Vok]] has been assigned to investigate Tier Lo’s death. He likely is already running into issues with the Ministry of Redaction. His reports thus far have not been very enlightening. His post-cog has indicated that it was a single ninja that killed Tier Lo. (Ninja are known to be a thing, but not culturally associated with anywhere specific.)

There is not a new Minister of Redaction; the Ministry is pursuing the matter in some degree, but it has lost both its Minister and the Subminister that would have stepped in. There are discussions going on internally.

Managaratha “That sounds exciting.”
“Exciting. Indeed.”

One assumes a post in a Ministry by proving one’s self, so there are Rules about how the next Minister is chosen.

Ministry of Lions deals with unusual threats and is also in the Middlesea miracle. There is a subminister of war there.

He is [[Tan Kato]], the Minister of War.

Does he have any advice for us? His focus is on the orcs invading - he does not expect us to join that fight.

We are outside the scope of Ministry politics, which should give us some flexibility.
We are welcome to investigate the assassination.

He assigns us [[Volda]] (the bureaucrat we’ve been running into, as it turns out) to point us around and help us with contact.

Fifth Level is the highest rank of Bureaucrats.

Volda gives us the list of the delegates from Purple.
We get a briefing on the orc invasion.
Strong push to get them a foothold in the north of the Empire; they’ve been less coordinated since then, and the Minister and Head Stallion have been holding them at bay.
They didn’t take any obvious strategic locations, but it was definitely an invasion, rather than a raid.

Ministry of Repercussions is responsible for keeping the probabilities of outcomes updated.
Ministry of Fortune is small– probably not more than 5-10 bureaucrats total. The current Minister is the first Minister of Fortune in a few decades. Its role is primarily to take advantage of unusual opportunities.

There are 88 ministries currently active; it changes moderately regularly..
323 Inactive ministries currently. The most recently reactivated ministry is the Ministry of Lilacs, which regulates perfumes and herbal remedies and some Green mages. (Why? Gale is going to have to investigate. That sounds like an adventure). Volda later confirms that they reactivated *on* the Middlesea Day.

==Ministry of Fortune==

Ministry of Fortune
Volda takes out a book, which generates a map.
A small building. This is not designed for centaurs.

[[Seilin]] (she/her) greets us enthusiastically. Welcome to the Ministry of Fortune!
She is a bureaucrat assigned to the Ministry, but not a subminister.
She takes the [[Tarn Evidence Packet]] and goes to read it while we have tea.
(Volda is unimpressed with the tea.)

Managaratha tries to pump her for information, such as he can.
The Minister of Fortune didn’t report since arriving at Middlesea.

The Ministry has pushed forward to see what can be done with the troubles in the country.
Displaced people in the north, for example.

She gives us Tourist suggestions. The Empty Throne can be viewed two days per week; there is a theater that has a new work showing.

She will prepare a report for Opportunities When Taking Down The Bubble.

==Ministry of Lions==

To the Ministry of Lions next.
It's larger than the Ministry of Fortune, located in an upmarket area of town, close to the [[Tem]]ple district; we see people in Twinsish regalia.

They have a large antechamber, big enough for centaur.
“What do you need?” He sees Nesh floating. “Oh.”
He sends a messenger to get Tan Ri.
Gale asks about forms for being a Registered Pirate!
“Registered Pirate, or Privateer, or Unregistered Naval Officer?" The first, but it would be the Ministry of Naval Trade, which is missing its minister also.

Lots of people are interested in talking to us, apparently.
We are about to go back in, but [[Scout]] notes that there’s a big Twins miracle back there.
We advise them that we have a Broken miracle on us, so please don’t get us.
Ah. Let’s go talk in the park.

We go to the park; the bureaucrats spend some time getting Nesh back on the ground, until dusk. They ask us lots of questions about what’s in the packet, expanding and collapsing details. They run Purple diagnostics.

The thing that’s not in the packet, that they think is true. We’re under a Broken miracle; a Blue spell; a [[Navere]] miracle; a [[Rush]]ian miracle; a Twins miracle. There are a lot of miracles on us people, and they’re not interacting perfectly. If it was Magic (and some if it is Magic) it would probably have sorted itself out. There would be an effect on us at this point. It’s mostly miracles, and they continue to fight with each other more, so it’s more fluid effect, that they would not count on staying the same. For instance, we’re missing two people now rather than one. Some other sorts of miracles may have trouble affecting us.

Gale wonders if the miracles are being directed by the Gods, in the “do what you think is best” way– is that happening in real time?
The ministry people disagree with each other, and start to geek out about theology.

The Twins miracle is not actually big enough for the Twins to have a hand in specifically what it was doing when it was creating. But the ongoing fight, some of them think the Twins are paying attention to. It’s a Balance miracle. The Rush and Navere miracles are both quite large, and could have had some “The God is stepping in to make it work this way”, they think. The Oasis is huge, but they’re less familiar with spirits and demons.-- would the Oasis way over there have had to send a specific miracle. They don’t identify anything Goddessy on us at present.

Nesh pays attention to what they’re saying in the background– the ministry people are speaking another language with each other sometimes, and then seem to be translating back. They don’t seem to be concealing anything particularly. We are definitely getting looks from people in the park.

Nesh notices there is a guy watching us from outside the park, and relays that to us.

After an hour they start to move from diagnostic to thinking about Treatments.
Managaratha attempts to distract them with more theoretical questions!

We’re supposed to all be trapped in the broken miracle, but the Rushian miracle was supposed to break us out, but the Blue spell says we’re all in the same place. They expect that if we got too far apart we’d fall back into the Not Here miracle.

Gale says she wants a full report on specific treatments! Producing reports is one of their weaknesses… though there are clearly some experimentalists in the group who would be willing to just Try It Right Now.

Why Lions? There’s an extent to which it’s tied to cataurs, they think. The history geek says the Ministry of Lions is one of the oldest ministries, founded during the first comet during the founding of the Empire. The issues at that point, they could have been Ministry of Fish, if we wanted to deal with the merfolk. No one had a good evocative word for dealing with Orcs. And there were a fair number of cataurs in the area at the time. They’ve mostly retreated to the Oasis by this point. At that time, as best the historian puts it together, there were not many cataurs anywhere, since they were just reappearing. But there was a group causing trouble out of the Broken Lands, that seems to have been mostly dealt with.

There are no cataurs within four miles, as we discover when Managaratha asks “how would we find a cataur?” and someone says “I could just cast summon cataur with purple.” and does so.

Managaratha asks about other things that have happened– they seem to be quiet about the status of the Minister of Lions, which makes us think they do have some information.

The sigil of the Purple stasis is the Hide-my-sigil Sigil, it’s about 150 years old.

The guy who’s watching us has some kind of “In The Shadows” Tem-ish effect.

Nesh springs the trap!
The guy is a follower of the Guiding Star (who is the head Priest of Tem)

What are our dreams? What do we dream of doing? ('All of it!' -Gale)
He'll keep following us.

We interrogate Rakta, the priest who’s following us. He’s mostly here because the Guiding Star knows we’re in town and wants to keep an eye on us. We ask if there were other strange happenings in the capital that they know about on the day of Middlesea; Yes, says Rakta. Can he tell us more? We’d want to ask the Guiding Star. Can we do that? He’ll let the Guiding Star know we want to talk to him. He recommends we do not go in the Temple, where the Guiding Star is likely to be.

==Ministry (sort of) of Foreign Affairs==

There is an invitation to dinner with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. We go! Not to the Ministry, to the Minister's house. (Dunang) He has met Managaratha in the past, when he was younger.

He treats us to a lovely dinner, and is a lovely host, and he casually gets lots of details about our backstories without us really noticing. Hmm.

Having chatted a while, Nesh notices that he seems to be disappointed that we actually are as clueless as we look.

Scout lets slip that [[Futeau]] is the traitor - Dunang is surprised to hear that, and Scout asks him to get that to Her Majesty just in case. (Futeau, it turns out, is one of the Queen’s advisors.) He seems to indicate that he can see to that.

The Minister offers us his seats at the theater.
We’re in the diplomatic box; it has room for centaurs and the theater is clearly set up for at least some centaur population.

The play is a reasonably interesting opera-y thing. Not much plot, but the singers are quite talented. The convention is that the audience is at a social event, and people walk in and out. Nesh invites the priest of Tam into the box with us.

About ¾ of the way through, there’s a knock on the door. Nesh answers; there’s a glowing guy that asks if he can come in. Sai Ko Ti, high priest of Tam, the Summer’s Warmth. He asks for an evidence packet, since he has not been provided with a copy yet as he is not in the Ministry. He is curious about what we remember about what happened to people in the Delegation, but it mostly seems to be a social call, rather than an Interrogation.

Scout notes that if we were actively Broken, the Warmth effect would be actively painful, rather than just getting warm.

"Does he do that a lot?"
"*Constantly*."

Gale develops a crush on a singer and sends them a lilac.

==No Evidence for Orcs==

Some people wake when the screaming starts; Nesh wakes up the rest.

Orcs have surrounded the inn. There are about 10 mooks; Scout notices one of them is a priest, but she is using some kind of mojo to look like a mook.

The mooks charge upstairs, looting the rooms for the Tarn Evidence Packets, while half the party cuts them apart and the other half goes after the priest.

The priest spends her DI to bring 4 of the mooks back from the dead, resulting in more chopping. Managaratha notes that the priest invokes Grumuush when doing the miracle to bring back the dead guys.

The orcs (even the dead ones) disappear again at the bottom of 3rd action; luckily, the one orc who had found an evidence packet dropped it when Nesh killed them.

The local forces appear at the top of 4th action, and are confused that there are no orcs. The witnesses and post-cogs tell them that yes, there were orcs. They are dismayed that the priest does not show up in post-cog.

Loot:
+5 EPs
+5 SPs

[[Category:Run Logs]]

On The Assassin's Trail

2026-03-28T21:20:44Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

=Day One: Scoping out the Empire=
[[Nesh]] fades out, and [[Stella]] and [[Vidan]] fade in. Breakfast is being served. It’s all very cheery and tasty.
We update Vidan and [[Gale]]. Vidan decides it’s time to write up a report for the Ministry of Redactions.

[[Scout]] requisitions a set of leather armor. It’s cheerfully colored and has a sigil of Their Majesty on it. Scout frowns a bit at that, and Their Majesty says he could switch teams, which causes him to frown more. Their Majesty says oh well, and puts an X over the insignia. [[Diomarche]] requisitions a sword.

We leave the castle and Vidan preps the teleport to Zheldat, while [[Managaratha]] brews potions..

We teleport to the capital of the Empire. Vidan goes to file his form with the Ministry of Redactions, while the rest of the party goes to the [[Ministry of Lilacs]] (with [[Petal]]). [[Li Za]] is here again, she’s back to being in her 30s (she had been 18 last time we saw her). Gale gets another bottle of Half-Orc allergy potion, and asks if they have anything new and mysterious. The front desk person offers Wisps of Ninja Smoke. Smells like ninja smoke!

We head to the inn, and make Per rolls. There's a patch of strange darkness in the corner, according to Scout. Petal says it's not an assassin.

Managaratha goes and says hello to the corner. Someone sighs and says hello. It’s Rakta, the Priest of [[Tem]] who shadowed us last time!
Scout tries to gather information.

Vidan gets us rooms, including a stable room for Diomarche.

We try to remember what was happening in Zheldat. There was a… murder that the Minister of War wanted us to find out information about? Inspector [[Vok]] was investigating, maybe we should check in with him.

We recall that Stella said (see [[A Lilac Kind Of Purple]]) there were two issues:
<ul>
<li> The half-orc spy network in the Bureaucracy
<li> Finding the key to opening the time-stop.
</ul>

“It’s probably better to avoid fixing the half-orc spy network too fast– the problems are both keeping a third problem in check. Solving either of those two problems will bring a third problem closer.”

Stella thinks the half-orc spy network is actively opposing the third thing.

Vidan remembers that the half-orc assassin The Knife said he served a true heir to the Throne.
He also remembers the following [[Visions of Middlesea]]:
<ul>
<li> Minister of Repercussions Dae, on the Day of [[Middlesea]], said to Vidan: I am disinclined to answer questions, I do not like conveying things like this.
<li> There are three possible candidates for the Throne. The first would be a bad King, who would damage the Empire but it would be survivable. The second would be a Terrible King– it would lead to a civil war, parts of the Empire would go back to the Broken Lands.
<li> The Third would be catastrophic. If you do not find at least one of the first or the second by tomorrow, they will be dead by the day after. And either the Third will take the Throne, or the will be Destroyed.
<li> The Yellow (???)
<li> There’s a strong possibility you’ll find one of the first two by tomorrow. If you find the Second, make sure
<li> One of the seven Ministers is a traitor
</ul>

Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing in Purple, and Brings It: 17 Successes, 12 DI
<ul>
<li> Having an Emperor would be good, although there isn’t a convenient one to hand
<li> The Orc Invasion needs to be pushed back is important; it will get worse when Middlesea opens, so pushing it back as much as possible before then would be good.
<li> The Half-Orcish spy ring should be taken apart, because he’ll be a Terrible Emperor. (Making him Emperor would not fix the first problem.)
<li> Stopping the Pirates would be good.
<li> Keeping Inspector Vok from being assassinated would be good.
<li> Eventually we’ll need the key to Middlesea, so figuring that out wouldn’t be bad.
<li> Making sure no one else gets the Key to Middlesea would be good.
</ul>

Well that’s somewhat enlightening.

[[Volda]] is waiting for us the next day. There’s also a Note from the Ministry of Fortune - Things we could take advantage of when opening Middlesea
If we rescue the goblin [Custard] from being killed by [[Flint]] we can use him to find a way into [[Spiritbreaker Fortress]].
The saurians have not left with their prize yet, so we can intercept them.
And we can acquire evidence for [[Suvatra]] before it is destroyed.
And we can keep a bunch of people from dying.

Minister Kato will see us tomorrow. We tell Volda we want to see Inspector Vok. He takes us to the Inspectorate.

Gale's assertion:
<ul>
<li> Bad Emperor: Orc-Slayer (?)
<li> Terrible Emperor: Orc Slayer (boss of half orc assassins)
<li> Catastrophic Emperor: Orc named Slayer (Breaker's Avatar)
</ul>

We go to the Inspectorate and ask to see Inspector Vok. They say he’s out, they don’t know where he is.
Managaratha calls Inspector Vok, and tells him we’re concerned about assassins; he says he’ll head back to the office.

Vidan thinks:
<ul>
<li> The Emperor is the wielder of the Sword that is Lost. (The converse is also true.)
<li> The Sword will recognize its wielder.
<li> If something wacky has happened, there might be hacks to make the sword recognize them. There’s not more than one Sword that is Lost.
<li> Primogeniture was the general law, but the Emperor could alter that prior to death if they chose.
(The wielder of the sword of the Orcslayer is the Orcslayer.)
<li> The Emperor had a Death Boon, but if there were twins somewhere along the line, or someone copied the schtick, or something along that line.
</ul>

Inspector Vok shows up, and Vidan says we were hoping to get an update, but also we believe he’s going to be assassinated. He brings us to a teahouse, where Vidan thinks it is hard to Witness things. The teahouse is called Chrysanthemum Boughs. He asks how we know he’ll be assassinated; we tell him. We try to get an update on his investigations. The Ministry has not seen fit to let him learn the Secrets hidden in the Minister’s House. However, he is reasonably confident that… he looks at Petal. We ask Petal and Volda to step out. It is likely that the sub-minister’s death is related to a number of deaths over the past two years. Vok has been attempting to trace those back to a central… he has not found a pattern that satisfies him as to who the targets have been, but the means and organization seem similar. That may mean an organization being hired by different people, or an organization whose goals he doesn’t understand.

The ministry of Pearls is likely involved– they regulate Actors! ([[Dame Etni]] would be proud.) The Minister is [[Li Sun]]. She is not a priest, but a fairly skilled Purple Mage, as well as a bureaucrat. Unusually, her sub-minister [[Tan Karu]] is a 2nd rank Bureaucrat, rather than a 1st rank Bureaucrat. Normally subministers are two ranks below. Possibly he’s a Priest and she is not; he’s looking into what that’s about.

He lays out some clues, which Vidan and Scout look at. Vidan is convinced the Ministry of Pearls is involved; Scout isn’t convinced but doesn’t rule it out. Vok had planned to stake them out in the next few days.

Vok thinks whoever these people are they have enough eyes in the Bureaucracy that filing reports is a good way to alert them to what you are doing.

Diomarche thinks that the assassins can probably see through disguises, but shapeshift might be better.

We consult with Petal. He thinks none of us will easily pass for Vok, and, also, most assassins will prefer to strike not in public, so do they know where he lives? Many assassins strike at home. With magic that can beat someone with 10-12 Per’s roll, that would be reasonable. A night attack they may not look very hard, just stab whoever is in the bed. Ninja may do observation as well, so you should be smart about the transfer. You could have him walk home and teleport someone in and the target out. The decoy will need a fair amount of protection in order to survive a reasonably trained assassin’s assault from surprise. They’ll need some way to call us in on that happening. It is possible that Petal would notice an assassin arriving if he was in the area and hidden, but any assassin will have some sort of hide schtick. But Petal’s ability to notice assassins is good enough to get past most first-level Hide schticks. (“This guy is good. I bet he thinks about this a lot,” says Scout.)

Wait, won’t they just try again? Petal thinks they’ll send the person available and most likely to succeed; they are unlikely to send the next

What’s useful for the investigation? Inspector Vok thinks him not getting assassinated is most useful. If Petal thinks he can just walk by the building and tell if it’s full of assassins, that would be helpful, but Vok’s expectation is that it’s not full of assassins. It would be good to verify that.

The assassin has some divine defenses; it looks like it will be 2 nights from tonight.

Gale takes Li Za out to dinner.

=Day Two: War and Opera=
Volda takes us to the Ministry of War. Volda stays outside, and the Minister seals the room against listening.
He asks if we have found a priest of the Nameless who could find the codephrase that was known by the sub-minister.
We give him a briefing on the assassination attempt.
We brief him on the Breaker’s Plan.

We get info on the orc invasion– they were fighting as a coordinated force, but since Middlesea they have been fighting as individual bands, and the failure to coordinate has prevented them from gaining ground. The Head Stallion and he are working on plans to drive them back. Getting [[Victoria]] to leave the eastern borders alone was appreciated, and helpful.

Do they need an adventuring band strike force? That’s more Lions’ responsibility than his. The Ministry of Lions probably has something for which they could use a strike force. Unless they’ve been infiltrated by the assassins, but he doesn’t think so, they’re too disorganized.

He tells us that the Ministry of Canals is the newest Ministry; it’s 3rd rank. They handle (surprisingly) canals. It’s not clear there’s much need for the ministry of canals.

There’s an invitation to the theatre with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

We go. It’s an opera more than a play. It’s a social occasion more than an event you watch; people wander around and chat while the performance happens. The Foreign Minister doesn’t interrogate us; he knows Petal already. He and Petal are watching the audience more than the show.

About two-thirds of the way through, Warmth of Summer shows up. He also recognizes Petal, and says hello. He chats briefly, and asks where we picked up the new Broken miracle that is on us. Vidan tries to look and gets “No information is available at this time.” Scout looks, and his spirit says “We’re not allowed to look at that.” “Huh. Why?” “Because the Breaker set it up so that none of us can look at it.” That seems… unfortunate. We think that having him look at it is probably good, but maybe not right here? In case something bad happens? Hmm. He invites us to the Church the next day; he says it won’t be a problem for us to get into the Church.

Gale uses "Love is a Battlefield" to see what is going on - there are a lot of plots going on in parallel. She notes that the foreign minister is using a very similar shtick, but he's starting with better data. Petal is doing something entirely different. (It's things like promotions and love plots and inter-ministry politics plots; nothing looks like an insurrection plot or a civil war plot.) Nobody here is on Team Catastrophic. There are some people who are maybe on Team Terrible but they aren't pursuing Terrible plots. Nobody on Team Bad here - Gale isn't sure there is a Team for Bad.

Managaratha gets invited to tea at the Ministry of Magic tomorrow.

We go to bed, to prepare for the coming busy day…

=Loot=
<ul>
<li> +8 EPs
<li> +10 SPs
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Investigation, Assassination

2026-03-28T21:20:44Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

=Pre-Assassination=
It is morning! [[Nesh]] has appeared, [[Diomarche]] has disappeared. Well, that could be awkward.

We explain. No, is too much– we sum up.

Nesh is discomfited to discover that there’s another Broken miracle on us.

Breakfast is yummy, we are told. [[Petal]] is there. [[Volda]] is there. Nesh notices that the priest of [[Tem]] who’s been following us around is there, and waves. The Priest ignores him.

=Church of Tam=
We head first to the Church of Tam. It’s a large, cathedral-like building with a large sun symbol on the front door. It has its own grounds around it.
We send Volda in to announce our presence, rather than triggering anti-Broken-miracle defenses.

A priest ushers us into a waiting area. “Tai Ko Tee [the Warmth of Summer] will see us shortly.”

“Ah, good good. You made it. Follow me, I have an area set up to look at things.”

We’re taken out of the public area and into a ritual room. Mirrors and candles and all that jazz. A big image of the sun on the floor.

We are told to get onto the Sun image so that he can see what

[[Vidan]] asks Tai Ko Tee if there are any churches of Balance that help people restore Balance.
“All of the Balance priests are Bureaucrats. There’s not a Ministry of Balance at present. There are probably ministries you could look into for that sort of thing, though.”

Thinking about his divination attempt, Vidan thinks that there was an element of “It would be bad for me to answer that question” from [[Navere]].

After ten minutes of miscellaneous chat, we get back onto the image of the Sun. He starts doing a ritual. [[Stella]] thinks he’s doing an interesting scaling thing. A lot of what the ritual is doing is not getting him more information, but letting him spend his DI slowly, so that it calibrates to the right level of DI spent. [Pho Sien had a similar schtick, we recall.]

The things you had on you before are:
<ul>
<li> an unreasonably large miracle of Isolation,
<li> a more reasonably sized (although large) miracle from the Twins that stops time on us for a period, that is being reinforced by a similarly large Purple spell ;
<li> a Blue spell that I’m not sure how it scales, particularly (that’s not my area);
<li> an unreasonably large miracle from Navere,
<li> an unreasonably large miracle from [[Rush]], which are… tied together in a way I don’t quite understand. Together the Navere + Rush miracles might be as Unreasonably large as the Isolation miracle.
</ul>

Now also:
<ul>
<li> a large (but not unreasonably so) Broken miracle which appears to be new, which is attempting to thwart the Navere miracle without actually directly interacting with it.
</ul>

It appears to be strengthening a Green spell that is not on us. This one’s in the realm of a powerful priest. It is integrated into the full effect; it would be delicate to remove it without impacting anything else. (He thinks that a priestess of the Goddess might be better able to disentangle it; he would have trouble not interacting with the Twins miracle - his interaction would risk, for example, freezing more of us in time)

The Warmth of Summer thinks he could remove the miracle (tomorrow), with the caveats above.

Definitions: Powerful Priest: 20-25. Unreasonable: 50?

He scaled up to 15 DI to get the information.

He notes that he only looked at the effects on the Group; we do have other effects on us individually. Broken effects? No.

Anything the Church of Tam is up to? Nothing that particularly calls for Heroes’ interactions at present. They’re more concerned with the orc invasions.

We give him a new version of the [[Tarn Evidence Packet]], with Secret Appendix Panda Bravo, the List of the Breaker's Plans.
He agrees to look into the plot about Orange for us for a bit. It will probably just be a Tamish prophecy, rather than research into Orange. If we come back tomorrow, he might be able to give us some more information.

=Ministry of Magic=

(We don’t have Diomarche with us; that’s convenient. Huh.)
We have an appointment, they were not expecting so many other people for the appointment, they’ll let people know we have brought friends. He writes a note and it vanishes. A few minutes later, a message appears, and we are shown into an office.

The Ministry of Magic has a Tardis effect going on– it’s bigger inside than outside. But it’s not otherwise covered in Magic the way that things in Yellow were. After a few minutes, Nesh notices we have all disappeared. A few moments later the rest of us notice Nesh has gone missing. Hmm. Nesh waits. We consider that we could probably get him here.

We get to our destination. [[Managaratha]] calls Nesh and teleports him in.
Someone else teleports in. The person behind the desk waves him away, saying that was Managaratha, which is covered under section 23 subparagraph 6.

"Sub-minister Kav, in charge of monitoring Frag effects in the Empire. It’s normally expected that you check in when you arrive, but apparently you have forgotten." Managaratha says he should also check out Vidan.

“My.”
“Well, it does not seem to be leaking, so I suppose that’s a good start.”
“Leaking?!”, asks Nesh.
“Frag is the consequence in the world when you travel in time that causes two things to be true. It is often constrained to the caster, but it can have other consequences, that can spread.”
“I try to only frag myself…” – Managaratha
“You do tend to only frag yourself. But you have been sending yourself notes?”
“A version of me is sending me notes.”
“Even worse.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything going on beyond that, just remember to check in– or the rest of you can remind him to check in.”
“Your name is Kav? That will be helpful for checking in.”
“DO NOT CONTACT ME WITH A YELLOW SPELL.”
“But surely this is a safe place to cast Yellow!”
“You summoned the Subminister for the Defense Against the Yellow Arts when you tried to cast a Yellow spell.”

He freezes Vidan and asks what is up with him. We don't really know, and he is apparently unaware.

We are teleported to a Lounge. (Vidan is still frozen) Except Nesh, who resists. “That is quite a bit of Resistance you have, congratulations.”
In a minute, Managaratha calls Nesh, teleports Nesh to us, and the Subminister of Defense Against the Yellow Arts appears. He glares at us as we start trying to defend Managaratha’s actions. “Mages gonna Mage!” “He forgot!” “Hello, have we met?”

We wait for an hour and a half. Tea and snacks appear after a bit. 

We are teleported into a larger conference room, where Subminister Kav is, along with two other people we don’t recognize. Actually, several of us recognize one of them from the Ministry of Lions who we had spoken to as part of a group from that Ministry the last time we were here.. (?) 

Kav says “My investigations have been less… informative” (glaring at the guy we don’t know) “than I had hoped. However, in the case of triggering this particular event, there are protocols previously established, such that, if the Minister of Lions is unavailable to be consulted, the…. Subject [Vidan] is supposed to be sent to speak to Priest [[Ritasi]] in [[Rinyan]], or [[Mother Jess]] in King [[Richard III|Richard]]’s Lands. I anticipate that this will take place within the week, and I will have a report within the week on what actions I do or do not need to take in this matter.” He looks at the other two, who clearly have reactions to this. The tension is palpable. 

“I understand there are limitations on what Vidan can do himself to get this looked into, so I trust the rest of you will deal with it and I will not have to take any steps.”

Ritasi is the head of the Cult of Al’an; Mother Jess is the highest ranking priest of Navere.

Do the others need reports? –[[Gale]]

The one we don’t recognize says no.
The one we know as from Lions grimaces and says “Send a report to the Ministry of Lions, to the attention of the Minister.” Which causes the other to roll his eyes.

Subministers from Lions and Redactions. They do not give names.

With that, the other two teleport out, the Minister opens the door, and the Bureaucrat who showed us in is standing outside, and we follow him; Vidan is floating behind us. We are shown out.

Managaratha asks Vidan about the petition to have Managaratha’s burnout removed. that he had filed yesterday. Huh. Let’s check.
Vidan inquires at the front desk.

Vidan looks around for the gift shop. There isn’t one. He thinks about it, and thinks the Ministry doesn’t generally sell magic, but you could requisition something specific. A scroll for a one-shot casting a spell, so that you can cast a spell without taking burnout, for instance. Managaratha gets taken into a back room. There’s a guy who looks him up and down and then casts a Purple spell that disintegrates his left hand, then casts a Red spell that regrows his left hand, and says “There you go.” And that appears to have been something Managaratha has never done before, so he gets his burnout back.

=Assassination!=
We think about our tactics.
Nesh would prefer not to be stabbed, so maybe we use the homunculus?

How concerned should we be that the assassin will know the target is not really there, magically or divinely?
Probably not terribly, since the target is a Purple Bureaucrat.
A number of assassins will be able to notice if there are extra people in the room.
If they have Detect Trap, we might need someone from the Church of Tem to help.

We think about

Nesh talks to Rakta, the long-suffering Priest of Tem, who can provide us with some protection from half-orc detection.

We meet the Inspector at the Inspectorate; he shows us to his home. Which appears to be an apartment, which is weird. Like a tavern, but with long-term housing? It’s a big housing block for Inspectors, which he has a space. Everything’s in good repair. Not fancy, but functional. There’s a closet someone could hide in.

Petal suggests it would be good if the Inspector weren’t present; he will stay with the Inspector elsewhere. He imagines he’ll be able to detect if an assassin shows up.

Gale gives everyone an action in the surprise round. Managaratha goes in to set up the homunculus, and then teleports out.

[[Scout]] goes in, small and stealthy, and hides in the closet, where he notes (with his excessive perception) that there is a ninja hidden in the closet with him. The ninja hasn't noticed him, though probably did notice all the previous shenanigans with the homunculus. Well, time for a surprise round, in which he shoots the ninja.

Managaratha teleports us in, and Vidan drops a teleport ward. There is no obvious ninja, nor obvious Scout. Gale sets off a lightning ball next to the farthest-away Ranger, which is Scout, and the closet explodes. Stella puts the ninja in time-out, and Scout shoots him through the eye, and he dies. Wait, were we supposed to take prisoners?

Dagger is x4, poison is pretty nasty, but isn’t reusable. He has a poison tooth. He has a necklace that when it’s taken off turns him from human-looking to half-orc looking. Vidan uses Truth to discover it’s a Temish Hide Identity amulet. Lockpicks. Scout tries to find out Where Is He From? and gets “The Emperor’s Spy Network.” That’s interesting.

Vidan does some detective work to find out what he can without disturbing the scene more. He had been in the closet for several hours, and could see that we were casting the homunculus, so he was on to us.

[[Vok]] and Petal return; Vok gets 10 more points of clues, but doesn’t say what he thinks that leads to yet.
Vidan says “We overkilled our assassin and didn’t get to investigate.”
Petal says “It happens.”
“Definitely a member of a group, not all assassins. With a purpose, so they’re not for hire.” He sniffs at the body more. “His orders were relatively recent, within the last few days. He was not based in Zheldat himself, although he had contacts here. He got his orders somewhere else and came in. There were definitely members of the organization here that he spoke with upon arrival

“Is there anything on him that serves as his credentials?” –Vidan

“None of them are a credential, many of them will have a similar dagger/poison combo. Some of the group are not half-orcs, although there are definitely more half-orcs than not.”

“Is there any way to trace him back to his contacts?” –Scout

“I’m not good at tracing teleports, which is probably how he got into the city. I could probably identify other assassins from his group if I ran into them, although it might be trickier if he’s Hidden. If he used Truth magic to hide his identity that would be particularly difficult.”

Vok still thinks there’s still a connection with the Ministry of Pearls (Actors).

=Wrapup=
Vidan thinks about looking for the Bad Candidate. Who would he go to, to start pulling in threads?

The most famous of them currently is a Priest of Tam named Li Zhou. He is an archaeologist-ish, student of history, runs around finding old things. He’s the most reputable finder of old things that you can think of. He probably has no interest in being roped into a quest to find the Sword, because everyone knows it’s Lost. He’s based in a University in the city that used to be the capital of Ashkanor.

Ninjas v. Inspector Vok scoreboard:

"Ninjas" is not the name of that team. That's "Team Terrible". ("The Emperor's Spy Network" is a subteam of Team Terrible.)
There is a scoreboard, but that's not their main scoreboard.
It is Inspector Vok's main scoreboard. So this is more of a running tally for Vok. He is about 45 out of 100 clue points.

We go back to the temple of Tam. Prophecy things he saw having to do with the corruption of Orange (there is bleedthrough from things like the slith invasion also). There was also a lot of interference. 
<ul>
<li> A map with an X
<li> A single orange mage trying to push Orange to do more than it can/should
<li> An orc Rainbow mage who uses the Broken colors and hopes that Orange will expand to include Broken Orange
</ul>

Vidan goes to the Ministry of Naval Trade - he has been tasked to investigate piracy. Are there reports? ("Who is in charge" since the Minister is in [[Middlesea]] is complicated and maybe it is being taken over.)

Since Middlesea sealed, it is significantly trickier to negotiate by paying tribute to the Pirate Queen. There was about a month where people were playing by those rules, but now everyone is an individual pirate. It's much more random - it used to be coordinated if you didn't pay tribute, they'd hit you with a lot of ships or hit your lootiest ships, and now it's random and unplannable, which they hate.

==For Soon:==
Ministry of Lions: put us in, coach!

=Loot=
<ul>
<li> +9 EPs
<li> +9 SPs
<li> necklace of Temish “Hide Me” schtick
</ul>

[[Category:Run Logs]]

A Lilac Kind Of Purple

2026-03-28T21:20:44Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Shift Change==
[Phoenix 1]
[[Vidan]] and [[Stella]] re-appear. [[Nesh]] and [[Managaratha]] disappear.

We brief Vidan and Stella, at least a bit.

[[Scout]] talks to Rakta– did he notice the orc attack? He dreamed about them. Did he see them plotting? No, he just saw that they were attacking the people he was watching, and was told to wake up. Scout gives him an evidence packet and says that’s what the orcs are after.

Vidan says he just spent a few hours at the Citadel– wait, what!? The Citadel!? Yes. The Breaker’s Citadel? Oh, no, the keep at [[Middlesea]]. Phew.

[[Volda]] shows up in the morning. He drily notes the re-appearance of Vidan and Stella, and says he should bring them to the Minister of War. He drily inquires as to whether the others are… having breakfast down the street? No, they poofed/castled.

We are brought back to the Ministry of War. The Minister gets Vidan and Stella’s assurance to agree to the Oath, etc. Vidan makes sure there are no Sixth-level bureaucrats who would out-rank the Minister. Also that if Gods request or require the information, it is permissible to tell them.

The Minister briefs Stella and Vidan about the murder of the Minister of Redaction and the time-stop effect that occurred on his death. The Minister is more concerned that the bad guys have internal information on the Ministry of Redactions than on the ninja per se. The fact that there was an orc incursion trying to get the Evidence Packet implies that there are factions which aren’t talking to each other, which is… interesting. Given that one of us is going to have to apply the key to undo the time-stop, he wanted to make sure we know.

Redactions doesn’t work for a Fifth level ministry, though they work with Interior frequently.

==The Ministry of Lilacs==
Volda is waiting for us– have there been any new Ministries activated since yesterday? Not that he is aware of. “See? He’s careful.” –Vidan

[[Gale]] prevails upon the party to journey to the Ministry of Lilacs. Why do we care, Vidan wonders? The timing is suspicious– they were founded when Middlesea was attacked (which Vidan thinks should be called D-Day, but Scout thinks should be Orcs-Invade Day, or OI-Day for short.) Volda takes the party there, they are slightly out of town.

Gale interrogates the Ministry– what is their remit? Creating? Selling?
Not so much selling, but regulating the sale of perfumes. They are doing some selling at the moment, while they are getting the
“How does the Ministry reactivate?”

“A Bureaucrat of sufficient rank decides it is the thing they are meant to do.”
“Is that you?”
“Oh, no. I am flattered, but I am not of the Third Rank.”

The Minister’s name is Xi.

Gale asks for an adventuring perfume! Something, you know, dashing and sexy. 
“Certainly, certainly.” 
Gale is brought to the back room. There is a whole procedure involved. Washing and a robe, and some trial and error. Gale asks if she can buy some for personal use. It is expensive but not unbuyable. Come back in an hour. Gale does some flirty interrogation, but doesn’t find out where the Bureaucrat was before Lilacs was instantiated.

Vidan asks Volda what is happening with the Ministries whose leaders were on Middlesea.
Lions is mostly working as normal, as the Minister often was absent for lengths of time; others are struggling a bit. Fortune is probably doing whatever Fortune does; he doesn’t know. Redactions and Repercussions are having differences of opinion as to who’s in charge; those differences are opaque, and the loss of the Subminister of Redactions isn’t helping.

(In general Subministers are two levels below their Minister.)

While Gale is inside, we are approached!

“Good morning, I am Inspector [[Vok]], I understand you were involved with the unfortunate incident with orcs, and also that you were one of the last people to speak with the Minister of Redactions. Could we speak later today, maybe over lunch?” Vidan admits as to how we would be pleased. He will meet us at our inn.

Scout goes to ask the Ministry of Lilacs about Green magic. A different person answers the door. They regulate some uses of Green magic, though they are not the Ministry of Magic. Many of the preparations of perfumes and scents include a use of plants which overlaps with Green. How about growing reagents? If it's for personal use, that would be the Ministry of Magic. The guy suggests that if he is planning to settle here, he get a license. There are licenses? Of… course…

Volda drily suggests we sit at a tea shop while we wait. He tries to ignore us, but Gale continues to pester him a bit about his past Ministerial experience.

As it turns out, Vidan was not contracted to a specific Ministry, but to the Delegation as a whole.

Vidan asserts that wild magic is illegal in the capital, which seems Mad to Scout.

==Lunch with Inspector Vok==
He has not reviewed the [[Tarn Evidence Packet]], so he does so. The Inspectors are cops and auditors; they work with the Ministry of Interior, but they pride themselves on their independence. There’s some debate about whether they’re technically a Ministry (though Vidan is unclear what it would mean to not be a Ministry…)

Vok appreciates the information, but was interested in talking about the incursion.

How can we help? He’s used post-cog to watch the ninja kill the Sub-minister, but he couldn’t follow him in or out. Human, or maybe a half-elf. Could have been an elf. Not a centaur or a [[Saurian]]. Not a goblin; he probably could have told the difference between

Vok takes us to the scene of the Crime! It’s been about two weeks; it’s a nice house, if dusty.
Vidan detectives– blood on the bed, no signs of a struggle. No signs of any thwackback, which… second level minister might have had some. Hard to know. The room has been pretty thoroughly searched, any other obvious clues have been removed. Whoever broke in and out was better than 6 successes– couldn’t have told that the door was picked or the window had been forced.

It’s hard to tell if there was an attempt to search the space by the ninja. Nothing is obviously missing. Vok knows the weapon was a dagger, seemingly unpoisoned.

Vidan asks [[Navere]] for True Sight of what needs to be seen, 6 DI 5 successes.

The ninja dodges a bunch of Vidan's miracle, but not all of it.

This causes Vok to cast the post-cog again and share it with Vidan. He sees the ninja attack, and is fairly confident that it’s a half-orc.

Stella also looks around, to see what needs fixing.
* There are two problems here, neither of which can be fixed here.
* The half-orc spy network in the Bureaucracy
* Finding the key to opening the time-stop.
* There is potentially information in the room that could be helpful for the second, but it’s being concealed by Twins-y things.

It’s probably better to avoid fixing the half-orc spy network too fast– the problems are both keeping a third problem in check. Solving either of those two problems will bring a third problem closer.

Scout takes a look around to see what the magic/miracular landscape looks like.
The house has some protections, both magical and miracular. It doesn’t look like those have been triggered yet. They’re not physical, they’re informational, and they don’t seem to be protecting the ninja, rather than the Minister. Which is probably what the Goddess meant by saying “I’m not going to tell you the information right now”.

Scout mentions that the house is protecting the Minister’s secrets– “More paperwork”, sighs the Inspector. He mostly leaves us be in the House. The party pokes around a bit more.
Stella asks if the half-orc was male or female– probably male.

Vidan files some paperwork to find out where the Lilac Ministers came from.

The Ministry of Repercussions might be able to tell us if we should expect a half orc ninja visit tonight. Also what might happen if Gale keeps investigating the Ministry of Lilacs. IT HAS A RAINBOW ENDING AT IT.

The door opens as we approach– “come in, you’re late”. Huh. Vidan thinks they often say that. They lead us to a room that is clearly set up for us.

“I am Sub-minister Tran– you would be the Middlesea… emissaries, let’s say.”
“What’s left of them, anyway. Or what’s free of them.” – [[Diomarche]]
“What’s free of them, yes. I don’t suppose you have any information from the Minister?”
“Not yet, no.”
“It is highly likely you will, though you all are hard to predict, due to the Miracles on you– Miracles making predictions harder.

So. What do you need.”

Diomarche asks about the orc attack(s).

“There are odds above 80% of a ninja attack on you all this evening. I cannot see the details, but it seems to be an assault rather than a theft.”

Well that’s disheartening for everyone except Diomarche, who thinks he’s done his job here.

Gale asks about ramifications of investigating the Ministry of Lilacs.

“No ramifications in the next several days, but there is an encounter with a young lady on most of the paths but the details are lost in the noise.”

How about going to Green v. Red next?

The immediate consequences were already triggered in Green yesterday evening. We could learn about that by going to Her Majesty's court, but there is no immediate necessity.

[[Thistle]]'s actions in [[Darstan]] are not completely resolved - if we travel there quickly we could have an impact on that, and we could have an effect on the possible conflicts between Darstan and the other red nations. If we wait until the Saurian returns he might want to go to Blue.

Vidan notes: their advice is not always right, but if you go and get their advice and then ignore it, you will absolutely be fired if they were right.

==Preparing for Ninja==
We go to the Ministry of Lilacs, looking for perfumes that would be good irritants for half-orc assassins who are liable to come and get us.

A young woman comes in and delivers the perfume - it's the same person who opened the door but looks young now. Gale invites her to stay for dinner. She introduces herself as [[Li Za]].

A centaur comes in. Checking which herds Diomarche is with. "I'm with Eschetos. Look at the end." (I'm not with a ministry, I'm with the Head Stallion.)
As it turns out, the centaur’s name is Luc. He asks many questions, and will report to headquarters. He expects we will hear back from him or another centaur, soon. He gallops off.

Li Za is put out by Scout’s doubts about the perfume’s efficacy, and Gale flirts a bit more to try to reassure her. We give her a Tarn Evidence Packet too.

Clomp clomp clomp - there are some centaurs milling around around casual in the middle of the street. Do they have any plans on second-story combat? One of them is a Purple mage who can walk up; they all have bows. The Purple mage could shrink them, although that’s not really subtle per se. Luc and two of the centaurs go to the stables; one of the centaurs goes up.

Rakta gives four of us a miracle of Noticing Things While Asleep– +24 Per.
==The Ninja Strikes!==
Scout notices the ninja coming through the window, and shouts and shoots him in the surprise round. He takes a thrown knife for his pains, and also starts taking poison damage.

Diomarche charges into the fray, bowling over the assassin and keeping him pinned for a round. Stella manages to heal Scout enough that the poison is a slow drip, rather than a torrent.

Gale casts coordinate on the next attack - that clears the deck for the mooks to pincushion the assassin, though he is still standing at the end of round 2, when he drops his ninja smoke and bounces off of Vidam's anti-teleport shield. He runs down the stairs instead. The ninja has a schtick in hard-to-see that caps attacker’s dice at their Per; Scout gives everyone a miracle of extra Per dice.

Scout sends his Per spirit to blind the ninja, which leaves him actually blind– although he still has targeting on where the spirit is, which helps.

The centaurs keep chasing him and Luc manages to knock him down. Scout falls over from poison.

The slow two-legs get rides from the nearby centaurs. Stella keeps everyone (including the ninja) from dying of poison.

Vidan pushes for "Give him to the centaurs, and we get (some of) the loot.”

==Loot==
* +5 EPs
* +5 SPs
* +1 captured half-orc assassin
* +some loot (to be delivered)

==Epilogue==
Gale returns to the Ministry of Lilacs, to flirt with Li Za (and tell her that the perfume worked well)..

[[Category:Run Logs]]

Suspicious Orange Weapons

2026-03-28T21:20:43Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

== Orange Magic Swords of Breaking ==

A recurring concern involves swords imbued with Orange magic. Investigation indicates that they behave like Goblin-crafted weapons from the Broken Lands, and will Break a person if wielded for long enough.

Examples include:

* [[Captain Jones]] at the Plains of Gedden had one - he nearly arrested [[Gale]] for sparring with Lisatera, due to a pre-game run-in.
* A wedding gift sword made in Orange, given to Princess Volga at her betrothal from a man from Orange. Princess Volga dismissed the party's concerns about her sword, agreeing only to look into it.
* Swords referenced in connection with the sale to Queen Iona, noted by [[Stella]] in relation to a name given by [[Mario]]

The magic in these swords is similar to that found in Orange daggers and in goblin Orange magic creations. The wedding gift sword differed from the "Stabby Dagger of Stabbing" in that it lacked active magic. Stella eventually purified one of the strange non-Broken swords with 9 successes, dispelling it entirely. This was passed along to [[Bran]] via a spell set up by [[Diomarche]].

== Particularly Nefarious Daggers ==

===Fatal Dagger===

A magical weapon crafted through Orange magic using specialized Forge techniques that combine creation and destruction principles. The dagger was created by [[Mario]] in his workshop within the [[Centurion Julia|Centurion's]] household.

====Creation and Properties====
The dagger uses all three Orange disciplines in its creation. Its ingredients include:
* Wyvern blood
* Cyanide, arsenic, and hemlock
* Other locally sourced materials

The crafting process links creation and Forge magic together to achieve lethality far exceeding standard bonus multipliers. The dagger is designed to destroy, with each use consuming the weapon itself—it can only be used a few times before destroying itself completely. After [[Vidan]] sanctified the stolen dagger, it became a x15 one-use weapon but lost its Fatal and Broken properties, disappointing [[Mario]].

====Theft and Recovery====
A dagger was stolen from Mario's workshop. The theft appeared to be an inside job, with no signs of forced entry or rifling through the lab. Vivian, a staff member jealous of others in the household, stole the dagger at the suspected instigation of [[Carol]], who is likely Bent. The dagger was discovered hidden in a secret compartment in a waiting room of the Lord's House, planted there by Vivian for later retrieval.

[[Managaratha]]'s postcognition revealed a woman placing the dagger in the compartment within the last 48 hours. [[Julia]] identified this as Vivian. The [[Centurion]] concluded Vivian had stolen the dagger intending to use it over the following days, though it remains unclear whether Carol actively influenced her decisions or merely took advantage of her existing jealousy. The dagger was recovered before it could be used.

===Dagger of Destruction===
A separate Dagger of Destruction identified as made by Lisador was shown to Mario, who confirmed it was not his work. This dagger also demonstrates dangerous Orange craftsmanship and has compelled wielders toward violence. Gale has it now - is she more inclined towards violence? Hard to tell.

== Selling Swords Plot ==
A note warns [[Managaratha]] to watch the sale of swords, suggesting it is part of a larger, ongoing scheme.

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:43Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and [[Gale]] set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and Managaratha go to visit Lord Di Angelo. Diomarche hangs out with Elena until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks Viktor's an ass; he doesn't know what Pyotr was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Suspicious Orange Weapons

2026-03-28T21:20:43Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

== Orange Magic Swords of Breaking ==

A recurring concern involves swords imbued with Orange magic. Investigation indicates that they behave like Goblin-crafted weapons from the Broken Lands, and will Break a person if wielded for long enough.

Examples include:

* [[Captain Jones]] at the Plains of Gedden had one - he nearly arrested Gale for sparring with Lisatera, due to a pre-game run-in.
* A wedding gift sword made in Orange, given to Princess Volga at her betrothal from a man from Orange. Princess Volga dismissed the party's concerns about her sword, agreeing only to look into it.
* Swords referenced in connection with the sale to Queen Iona, noted by [[Stella]] in relation to a name given by [[Mario]]

The magic in these swords is similar to that found in Orange daggers and in goblin Orange magic creations. The wedding gift sword differed from the "Stabby Dagger of Stabbing" in that it lacked active magic. Stella eventually purified one of the strange non-Broken swords with 9 successes, dispelling it entirely. This was passed along to [[Bran]] via a spell set up by [[Diomarche]].

== Particularly Nefarious Daggers ==

===Fatal Dagger===

A magical weapon crafted through Orange magic using specialized Forge techniques that combine creation and destruction principles. The dagger was created by [[Mario]] in his workshop within the [[Centurion Julia|Centurion's]] household.

====Creation and Properties====
The dagger uses all three Orange disciplines in its creation. Its ingredients include:
* Wyvern blood
* Cyanide, arsenic, and hemlock
* Other locally sourced materials

The crafting process links creation and Forge magic together to achieve lethality far exceeding standard bonus multipliers. The dagger is designed to destroy, with each use consuming the weapon itself—it can only be used a few times before destroying itself completely. After [[Vidan]] sanctified the stolen dagger, it became a x15 one-use weapon but lost its Fatal and Broken properties, disappointing [[Mario]].

====Theft and Recovery====
A dagger was stolen from Mario's workshop. The theft appeared to be an inside job, with no signs of forced entry or rifling through the lab. Vivian, a staff member jealous of others in the household, stole the dagger at the suspected instigation of [[Carol]], who is likely Bent. The dagger was discovered hidden in a secret compartment in a waiting room of the Lord's House, planted there by Vivian for later retrieval.

[[Managaratha]]'s postcognition revealed a woman placing the dagger in the compartment within the last 48 hours. [[Julia]] identified this as Vivian. The [[Centurion]] concluded Vivian had stolen the dagger intending to use it over the following days, though it remains unclear whether Carol actively influenced her decisions or merely took advantage of her existing jealousy. The dagger was recovered before it could be used.

===Dagger of Destruction===
A separate Dagger of Destruction identified as made by Lisador was shown to Mario, who confirmed it was not his work. This dagger also demonstrates dangerous Orange craftsmanship and has compelled wielders toward violence. Gale has it now - is she more inclined towards violence? Hard to tell.

== Selling Swords Plot ==
A note warns [[Managaratha]] to watch the sale of swords, suggesting it is part of a larger, ongoing scheme.

Purple or Bust

2026-03-28T21:20:43Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==Party Aftermath==
Vidan, [[Stella]], and Gale set up a meeting with [[Richard IV]]. Stella and Managaratha go to visit Lord Di Angelo. Diomarche hangs out with Elena until lunchtime.

Richard is aware that we helped him at the party, though he credits himself for a lot of his success, perhaps slightly more credit than we think he is due. Vidan emphasizes that we're primarily interested in international relations not turning into division before the Breaker's assault. Richard is willing to listen to our suggestions, but not rule out ever attacking anyone. Also, Vidan notes, we are trying to head off ill-advised rescue missions from [[Middlesea]], because of the whole Avatar of the Breaker thing. (Note that the other most likely candidate for sending rescue missions is Darstan).

As we are leaving, we bump into Anne coming in with Carol. Coldly civil hellos are exchanged. Carol walks Anne to the stairs and then leaves. Gale sends a wind message to the Rangers to summon them, worrying about stabbing, but things seem calm. Vidan notes that Anne had a miracle cast on her earlier today, and Nesh spots red magic - several physical buffs, and some hanging Life spells, with an open connection which will go off when encountering the right person, between 5 and 10 successes worth. Nesh runs up to warn Richard (Anne went to her room), and he says he will take steps to be protected from an unknown medium red spell. (Perhaps Anne is trying to get pregnant?)

''"Carol is the dark mistress of things that look perfectly reasonable". ''

Stella visits Lord Di Angelo - he has a lot of chronic issues. A lot of political history, not so much current goals. He'd be a good information source. What does he know about [[Carol]]? She is from Red, though her father was from around here and moved north. She moved into being an advisor to the [[Centurion]] fairly quickly, about six or seven years ago. He would have been in favor of Leopold; Richard is exciting but [[Julia]] is likely strong enough to not get dragged into Red messes too much. He thinks Viktor's an ass; he doesn't know what Pyotr was doing but seems to be pivoting into doing it with Lilya instead. (Could Carol be Red royalty? Probably not. She could be nobility; there are a lot of nobles.)

In the morning, Richard is selected as consort.

Bran comes in after breakfast to talk to Diomarche - Anne has left, Bran is going to go talk to the Lord Captain about Richard's new position. Diomarche notes that we have learned that Carol is from Red.

Giaconni comes by - how long is Gale around? She says we are likely heading to Purple shortly for at least a little while. Did Giaconni ever figure out who Vivian was going to stab? He says that Vivian is very interested in Leopold, but he isn't clear whether that means she was going to stab Leopold (if I can't have you no one can), or Julia (you can't have him). Tybalt is still thinking about "the stuff he was talking to your friend about" - so he's likely to go to Middlesea soon. Oh, good point - we should check in with him before we go. We agree to meet Tybalt in [[Rinyan]] to take him to Middlesea, lest he hare off there on his own.

Vidan goes to talk to Valentino (the priest of the Nameless) about visiting Purple and speaking to a ghost. [[The dead guy|Tier Lo]] is likely already in the Halls. He was in the Ministry of Redaction, so some preliminary paperwork is probably good to do.

==To Purple==

* A note appears on Managaratha - report to Subminister Kav for frag inspection.
* A note appears on Vidan - your report to Subminister Kav is overdue.

(Subminister Kav is in the Ministry of Magic.)

We go, though this is probably one of those bureaucracy traps. [[Investigation,_Assassination#Ministry_of_Magic|Last time we were here]] we were told by the Ministry of Lions to take Vidan to see [[Ritasi]] or [[Mother Jess]]. We took him to Ritasi and did a ritual but we never sent a report because Vidan is the only one who sends reports and he didn't remember any of it because he had purple-guy-swapped.

Subminister Kav puts Vidan in a time-stop spell and is quite cross at the rest of us that we have forgotten to write the report we promised. We explain we forgot that Vidan wasn't doing it - he handles all our reports. We are given 48 hours.

There is a Minister of Intermediation that deals (some) with churches, especially Balance v Bureaucracy. Vidan goes to visit there to handle the forms for talking to Tier Lo, though realizes he shouldn't traipse in with Broken miracles on him. He talks to them about the forms for the Nameless priest interrogation, eliding over other aspects like "some things have been promised to the Ministry of War to not make public". The form will need to be signed off on by the Chief Inspector or someone of equal rank, and you will need to talk to the Ministry of Redactions because he's one of theirs.

Off to Inspector Vok next. We have a priest - we are told that the number of questions we ask might be limited, so he should provide a prioritized list of questions for the investigation. Also here's this permit that needs to be signed. Vok says he will see what he can do - he succeeds!

==The Trouble With The Purple Guy==

Next is arranging for all the religions / ecumenical. Vidan is dealing with that while Gale calls a meeting of everyone else to discuss what to do about the report we are supposed to submit about Vidan, and the fact that it's all a big secret.

To recap:

* The [[Tan Kato|Minister of War]] wants us to investigate the death of Tier Lo as a national security secret because Tier Lo knows the key to the timestop. (Inspector Vok doesn't know that part, but if he solves his investigation he can probably roll up the half-orc spy network).
* Vidan / Nivad / Divan is handling unifying / fixing all the churches. That was set up by the Ministry of Lions with Mother Jess and Ritasi. Most of his frag is divine, but there's purple too.
* These are different plots and we cannot really use the Minister of War to shut down the Subminister of Frag.

OK, we need to get Vidan with an NDA to help with this. Managaratha calls Vidan to tell him to meet at the inn we stayed at last time. Managaratha puts up some scry protections, and then we carefully dance around the details ("If I wanted to throw a surprise birthday party and needed to fill out forms...") while asking Vidan for help, and fending off his suggestion that we just hire a different bureaucrat. We have a 48 hour deadline.

In essence, the explanation is: Vidan doesn't remember the conversation with Subminister Kav because he was in a timestop. There are also other secrets he doesn't know and we shouldn't tell him. As far as Purple goes, the Keep This A Secret directive comes from the Minister of Lions, who is trapped in Middlesea. The Minister of Lions outranks Subminister Kav, but is unavailable, as he is trapped in Middlesea. The Ministry of Redactions would probably also approve of keeping the secret, but the Minister of Redactions is ''also'' trapped in Middlesea (and is responsible for the purple timestop, as part of the other unrelated plot). So we don't want to file the report with Kav, but all our authority for not doing so is in a timestop. (Could we insist that we have 48 hours of the Minister of Lions's timeline? That's a kind of funny solution...)

There's a knock at the door. Nesh steps out to deal with the interruption. This is [[Subminister Tran]] from the Ministry of Repercussions, and he wants to know how long the conversation he shouldn't overhear will last? Nesh says not more than an hour - he looks annoyed by that, as he has other places to be, but he goes down to the common room.

Come to think of it, maybe Repercussions can help us here. There will be bad repercussions if we send Kav the report he wants. Nesh goes down to get him, noting that he's sitting at a table with [[Rakta]], that priest of [[Tem]] who always follows us around.

"The odds are 96% that you have heard something from the Minister of Repercussions beyond what you knew the last time we spoke." -Tran

Vidan says yes, he definitely has more information. Also, Kav, the Subminister of Frag in the Ministry of Magic is demanding a report from my compatriots that we think would be bad if he got. Can Repercussions help with this? Tran starts working on a paper with a lot of purple math, and concludes that there is a 73% chance that such a report will stall him for several weeks, but that time will get shorter the more time we spend in Purple. There is a 17% chance that such a report will incentivize him to get an answer now, and a 6% chance that he will escalate to the Minister of Magic. (The Minister of Magic is one of the less predictable ministers). Just to be clear, ''is'' it a bad idea for him to know? Tran notes that there is a great deal of divine influence in this issue, which makes probabilities less certain. His best estimate is that the Subminister of Frag knowing specifically only increases the probability of bad things by about 10%. But every person who knows increases the probability, and those increases stack in a way that is unusual. It is not just the sum of that many individuals knowing, and he doesn't understand what that means. "Multiple people know" triggers bad things. He agrees to send a repercussion-report to Subminister Kav.

Vidan briefs Tran about his [[Visions of Middlesea| newer visions]]

There's a fourth-ranked traitor.
The sword will soon be found. There are multiple candidates, all of them bad, but there are some worse than others. If we don't find Bad and Terrible before the timestop goes down and Catastrophic gets out, the Bad and Terrible candidates will be dead in a day.

(Hey, Scout could probably quest for the Bad and/or Terrible candidates.)

Gale goes to visit the Ministry of Lilacs to restock on perfume, and also brings exotic fruits and flowers she picked up from Orange. Their newest perfume is Mood perfume, which shifts depending on the wearer's mood. One variant tries to decrease the intensity; the other tries to bring others into the Mood. She buys some of both, intending to hand off the Decrease variant to someone in case of going berserk.

The next morning, Vidan gets the list of questions from Inspector Vok to ask the shade of Tier Lo (since we don't want Vok to hear us ask about the timestop, as per the Minister of War) and we go to pick up Valentino.

Valentino says he will be channeling the spirit, rather than manifesting it separately. Vidan asks Valentino to not remember the questions; he can do that though it will cost a small part of the miracle. Can we fill Tier Lo in first to explain why we need to know? As a minister of Redactions he will resist answering. Valentino says that it will depend on how deep in the Halls he has gone - if he still is a nearly full personality then yes; but if he is mostly gone and it is just his knowledge that is channeled, then not so much (but then maybe it doesn't matter as much either). It is possible to pre-load that as part of the miracle. Alternately, maybe he didn't go to the Halls at all (such as if the assassin ran off with his spirit) or he is waiting in the Paths or he went to the Dream. In that case, Valentino will not be able to get answers, but will probably know what happened to Tier Lo's spirit instead.

==Everyone Wants These Answers==
We go back to the scene of Tier Lo's death for the ritual, where Valentino uses some of his possessions to make a connection.

Inspector Vok and Rakta are in a nearby room just in case. Valentino's eyes go black and his body language changes, and we all make speed rolls.

Figuring that that means there's someone else in the room with us, Diomarche tramples everything that isn't in the ritual circle or is us, which includes someone who says "Ow". Managaratha casts an illusionary red arrow pointing down at the intruder.

The intruder asks "What's the password for the timestop", and Managaratha casts a lot of noise around the spirit as he says "I can't tell you." Nesh and Gale tag the assassin before he vanishes, and then Vok and Rakta burst in.

Q: "What's going on in here?" 
A: "There was a half-orc assassin that tried to interfere"

Vidan gives them an irritated "Be Quiet" gesture ("Didn't you see that movie?") and shuts the door again.

Stella puts the assassin in time-out, wherever he is. Gale tries to wild-Blue get the assassin to come back and fight once he recovers, but he's not in the Zheldat area.

Next, Managaratha notices a purple sense-tunnel point that appears (with a different sigil than the teleport). Nesh grabs the anti-half-orc perfume and sprays around the room, especially there, and Managaratha puts up a suppress-purple field, shutting it down.

Lore is a Battlefield notes that the spirit was being literal when he said he couldn't tell the password.

Vidan tells the spirit: "You were assassinated to keep the key to the timestop out of the hands of the ministries that need it. I am authorized by the Ministry of War to do so. <What do I need to know about the key? (Not sure what the actual question was) >

A: "Part of the password is in TrueSpeak which is not true unless you are dropping the field."

Q: "I speak TrueSpeak - what do I need to know to generate the password?" 
A: (answering in TrueSpeak) "The password is rabbit horse chartreuse vinegar [Now is the time this spell comes down] in TrueSpeak."

Stella notices that her time-out has been dismissed by someone else big.

Vidan asks a question that generates clue points for Vok, since we have the information we needed. A teleport bounces off Managaratha's success, and we try to burn through the questions as fast as possible.

Q: "What is your favorite color?" 
A: "Purple."

A few rounds pass, and then there's another speed roll. Gale secret-detects bogeys in the nearby room with Vok and Rakta, and some shouting starts.

Managaratha puts up his "mwoh mwoh mwoh" Yellow scryguard. Nesh dashes out to the next room - there are four assassins, plus Vok and Rakta. Two assassins are asleep, one is trying to stab Rakta, and the fourth is standing over a downed Vok. Nesh and Gale double-team that last one, and he goes down.

Vidan, in TrueSpeak: "In Common, what is a good fake password to deceive those who are listening?" 
A: "Tam and Tem we pray the that this miracle of thine be removed" 
Vidan: "I've got it!"

Stella heals Inspector Vok - he's poisoned but that's a medium term issue, and she keeps him from dying from the pile of damage that he took in the backstab.

Does Vidan want to witness something? Yes, but he has no DI. Nesh converts on the spot to Hero of [[Navere]] and loans him some.

The voice of the Emperor comes out of the clairvoy point. 
Q: "Why can't you tell us the password?" 
A: "Because part of it is in TrueSpeak"

Valentino's eyes clear as the spirit is gone. Vidan's witnessing notes the Emperor is a half-orc descendant of the Orcslayer; the master of the Half-Orc we ran into in Elfheim; and he runs the Emperor's Spy Network.

(Managaratha vanishes due to player constraints; the other half-orcs can leave again now that the suppress is down.)

Diomarche tries to call on the power of [[Rush]] and stab through the tunnel - Vidan / Nesh witness that it fails because the place the Emperor is in is sanctified against all miracles (not just the good gods, the Breaker too). There is a priest there, but that's almost certainly what popped Stella's time out on the initial assassin. Vidan and Nesh are only getting information here because they are outside of it.

The Emperor spent a while setting up the anti-divine location because he is scared of Slayer, and: ”The timestop was set up by the Emperor to trap the Slayer.”

Vidan also realizes that the Emperor does not keep tabs on his assassins that closely, but someone knew what we were doing and what we were trying. So somewhere in the bureaucracy that dealt with getting permission to interrogate Tier Lo was a half-orc.

All in all, our questions gave Inspector Vok another 29 points of clues - he is now up to 84 of 100 for cracking open the spy network.

==Loot==

* 12 eps
* 8 skill points

Visions of Middlesea

2026-03-28T21:20:42Z

BoojumBot: Automated linkify

==[[Vidan]]==

===Accidentally unread for a year===
====A message from Minister Dae====

“Father Vidan. You are not in the Bureaucracy. You are not required to take my advice. I am not required to examine actions you propose to undertake.”

She smiles wryly. “But I am in the Bureaucracy, and responsible if I do not follow my own advice, even if I do not see the purpose of it. So I have some things to tell you.

“First, you should know that the outcome of this Conclave is less clear than anything I have previously encountered. In my experience, this lack of clarity implies the exercise of a great deal of Divine power in the immediate future of the Conclave. I expect you have more experience with that than I.

“Second, you have no doubt heard of the increase in the probability that the Sword that was Lost may be found, and the line of the Orcslayer returned to the throne. That is not a good thing.

“There are currently three possible candidates to sit the throne of the Empire. The first would merely be a bad king - damaging, but survivable. The second would be Terrible - there would be civil war and parts of the Empire would fall back into the Broken Lands. The third would be… Catastrophic. If you do not find at least one of the first or the second by tomorrow, they will be dead by the day after, and either the third will take the Throne, or the throne and the empire will be destroyed. Understand that is better than the third taking the Throne.

“I do not understand how, but there is in fact a strong possibility you will find one or both of the first two by tomorrow. Perhaps your Goddess can provide assistance that the Twins have not provided to the Bureaucracy. I believe if you find the second, you will not choose to put him on the throne, but you must know you need to protect him until the third is dealt with. If you find the first… I urge you not to place him on the throne, and simply to ensure that the bloodline continues for another day, but recognize that your Goddess may disagree with that determination.

“Third, you should know there is a traitor among the Ministers here. The fourth ranked ones. If you can identify the traitor before tomorrow, tomorrow will go better than it would otherwise. That is less pressing than the preservation of the line, but not insignificant.”

====A message from Minister Julan====

“Ah, Vidan. I have not spoken to you previously,” [was there an odd strain on the word ‘you’?], “but I believe it is time. I am the Minister of Lions. You are, and will be, a Lion Hunter.” He waives your notes in your general direction. “It doesn’t look like you’ve met any of your companions yet, although I think there are some close encounters here. The Yellow Centaur with Red, the Orange Priestess - Goddess, not [[Rush]] - both seem promising. And you should take [[Luigi]] up on his offer to speak with [[Ritasi]] as soon as possible, although obviously not tonight. You do need to start gathering the rest of the Hunters tonight, though.” He stands up from your desk, dropping your notes, and comes towards you, where you are standing stunned by the door. One arm on your shoulder, he turns you and walks you both back into the hall. Shutting the door behind you, he gestures back down the corridor towards the common area. “Off you go. There’s no time to waste, the Lions will be here soon, if they’re not here already.” He turns and walks up the corridor towards his room.

==[[Gale]]==

===Conversing with [[Cara]] (2023-08-05)===
After her speech, Cara came back and sat with you and the rest of the Captains.

"Well, what did you think?"

[[Federico]] was first to respond, as befits her First Mage - "They were listening and nodding at all the right places. It went as well as could be hoped for."

Captain [[Drake]], that ass, was next. "Well, I for one still don't see how we're going to make a profit off this. Even if they sign on to this 'everyone fights the Breaker' plan, this party alone is costing you months of tribute, if not a full year. You're never going to make that all back. And furthermore"

"ENOUGH, Drake." Cara cut him off. "It's my tribute I'm spending, not yours. You're not losing a pence on this party, and I'm tired of hearing about it."

Brightwall piped up with "Well, I for one will be grateful to have some help from the bigger powers if a squad of Sirens rolls out of the Broken Lands into our waters. That's certainly worth some work to acquire. As long as the price doesn't involve us heading out of the [[Inland Sea]] anywhere. The Silver Gull's not going to be any help to anyone on land."

"Oh, I don't know," Captain Jane added. "I think a trip elsewhere could be fun, and if we're ever going to get a chance at it, this is the time." She waved out over the crowds, a couple hundred delegates from every country. "This room is full of mages, priests, money... more than the whole Rainbow Isles could pull together. If you can't figure out how to make a profit off that, Drake, you're not trying."

Cara smiled. "Thank you Jane. I'm glad someone is open to the possibilities here, not just the problems." Turning to you, she added "And you, Gale? What do you think?"

You looked out over the room. "What do I think? Obviously, I think we have just started on a Grand Adventure." Cara laughed, and someone (Brightwall?) threw a roll at you.

"Of course you do." Federico said, with a grin. "Enough. We're just repeating what we've all said before. Captain's set the course, and we're heading out. Let's eat, before the storms start rolling in."

===Talking to Elves (2025-11-22)===
Dinner was pretty calm, you and the other pirates ate together, and the delegations stayed together as well. The Yellow centaurs took up some "guard" positions near the doors, which annoyed Cara a little, but no one made a big deal of it. As dinner wound down, Cara told William to start clearing a space for dancing, and you all stood as the tables started to be moved.

Federico was the first to excuse himself, saying he saw someone he wanted to talk to, and making a beeline for an older man [you now recognize as Managratha]. Drake headed towards one of the Guildsmen, and Brightwall towards the Red delegation. Jane stalled for a minute, looking at Cara, who eventually smiled and waved her off, and she headed out to mingle generally. You thought about joining her, but three of the Greens were heading towards Cara With Intent, and you decided you didn't want to leave her entirely without backup.

As you watched them approach, you realized they weren't three, they were two and one - a High Elf with a Troll together, and a Sluagh. When they got to Cara, the High Elf and the Sluagh looked at each other for a minute, and the Troll growled, and the Sluagh shrugged and made a "go ahead" gesture. The High Elf bowed towards Cara, and began Declaiming:

"To Cara, Queen of the Pirates of the Inland Sea, I bring greetings from the King of the Forest, rightful Sovereign of all the Elves. His Majesty welcomes your attempts to bring the forces of the world together to oppose the Dread Foe and his foul creatures. The sooner the Countries and Churches can be convinced to stop fighting with each other, the less damage they will take before turning their attention to the true Foe.

"However, as His Majesty is one of the few who remembers when last the Broken One's comet heralded times of woe for the peoples of the world, He calls your attention to the fact that the Wiles of the Broken One are vast, and the actions necessary to oppose him will likely be hidden for some time yet. His Majesty hopes you will urge Careful Deliberation before commiting the world's forces to any plan no matter how initially [[Tem]]pting."

He bows again and stops Declaiming, and adds in a more normal voice, "I am Astros Culleen, trusted advisor to His Majesty, and will be speaking more with you and the others gathered here in the days to come, to see what preparations can be made before the Breaker's plan is revealed."

Cara started to answer him, when the Sluagh coughed slightly, and she turned her attention to him.

"Now that's out of the way... Opposing the Breaker is one of the few things Their Majesty of the Plains agrees with their royal brother about. They suggest that the most useful plan is to try to identify the Heroes and provide assistance, rather than waste time trying to organize plans that will nearly certainly go awry.

"That's all They told me to say, but the Heroes probably aren't any of the people here leading delegations. Heroes usually start smaller than that. Except maybe that Yellow Princeling, he shows some promise, don't you think, Astros? Anyone else you'd want to bet on?

"Oh, I'm [[Furoosh]], by the way."

Cara took a second to look at the Troll to see if he had anything to add, and then said "Thank you both for your support. I'm certainly glad to hear that the rulers who have actually been through a Comet think this is worth doing, and are willing to put aside their differences to come together. Do either of you know how the Queen under the Mountains stands?"

Furoosh and Astros looked at each other, and then Astros said "I would not be comfortable speaking for the leader of the dwarven tunnels on this matter, but His Majesty is confident she stands against the Breaker" at the same time Furoosh said "Their Majesty's Royal Sister's envoy has not been forthcoming about how she thinks the Breaker should be fought this Comet." Furoosh smiles a little and goes on "And as those answers might suggest, it's not clear the Royal Siblings have put aside their differences completely." Astros frowns at him and says "You presume too much." As the two start sniping at each other more directly, Cara looks at you and nods her head towards where the green delegation was, sending you to go talk to the dwarf there.

You're still not completely comfortable leaving her alone, but it seems unlikely any of the elves are going to attack her, and she's the boss, until you're back on your ship. So you headed over and found the Dwarf, finishing a mug of ale.

"Good evening! I'm Gale, one of Queen Cara's Captains. I understand you're here for the Queen of the Mountains?"

"Queen under the Mountains, lass. And aye, she sent me. Name's [[Flint]]."

"Cara was hoping you could say something about her position on the Conclave."

"Oh, she didn't tell me her position. She just said there was sure to be trouble, and I should stop it when it happened. So I'm waiting for the trouble." He looks around the room. "Don't see any yet. Thought that might be something, but it seems to be calming down." You follow his gaze, and see [[Nesh]], of all people, with his sword out facing an older [[Saurian]]. Flint goes on: "First and last nights are the best time for it to start, so I'd be on your guard tonight. Unless you plan to be part of the trouble." He looks you up and down and says "No, I think you're a different sort of trouble, you are."

==[[Diomarche]]==

At Dinner: Captain Daniel's briefing

Your squad of Paladins showed up at [[Middlesea]] a few hours before the opening ceremonies. Long enough to get settled in. Sgt. Susie didn't let you head out to explore or anything, though. Two people were sent with Daniel (Captain Daniel, technically, but he rarely uses his rank) as he wandered off to say hello to people, the rest of you were kept in your rooms. At least they're nice rooms, and sized to accommodate centaurs as well as two legs. You're not sure the whole place is sized that well, but the main areas seem to be, at least.

Susie has you all installed and the place spic and span well before Daniel wanders back, a little before dinner. You all head down to the great hall, where the Pirate Queen gives a (thankfully brief) welcoming speech about the importance of unity in the face of the Breaker's return, and then lets you all eat. The groups are seated by delegation, so your squad is in with the rest of the people from red. It's a crowd, bigger than any of the other groups by a lot. Heck, your squad by itself looks to be bigger than either Blue or Green's whole delegations.

Daniel waves you all in closer. It's a bit of a squeeze (the room is big enough, but the tables aren't really centaur-worthy, you have to kneel to use them), but you all crowd around as you eat.

"Alright. The goal is to put together a force that can take the fight to the Breaker." He looks around and his voice drops a little more. "That won't be everybody. I'll take latrine duty for a month if there aren't active traitors in a group this size, and a lot more who aren't actively working for Him but are focused on other things. But we're the Paladins of the God of War, and this is what we exist for. So. We start with Red."

"I did some scouting who we're up against. [[Baron Volstak]] has the strongest personal agenda." He points at an amiable looking gentleman in his late 40s/early 50s, sitting chatting among another of the red delegations. "He and [[Zerbina]] haven't built a country from nothing in 20 years by being pushovers. If [[Darstan]] sent him, they think they can grow the country here. Doesn't mean he can't be talked into being a solid part of the force, but he'll need a big reward, not just a 'do your duty' sales pitch."

His gaze shifts to someone in one of the other groups. [And then a voice from nowhere says "Hello Diomarche, this is Managaratha. Tell me I like carrots when you get this."] You look at him and it takes you a minute to realize why he looks a little odd - he's a half-elf of some sort, one of the more-human looking ones. "Lord Franklin's been an advisor to the last three kings in King Richard's Land, over fifty years of service. He sees the big picture, and will recognize that an army against the Breaker is needed. He'll need reassurance that Richard won't be weakened by joining, but is the most likely of the Red delegates to just fall in line if things go well."

Moving on, he frowns a little. "Lord Karsten, on the other hand, will be difficult." Karsten is apparently the 50-ish man in plate armor. "Queen Iona's being actively provocative there, he has led several successful offensives into the Empire over the last 15 years or so. On the other hand, he has led about as many successful campaigns against the orcs in the Broken Lands, and has as much experience fighting them as anyone in Red. He would be a valuable member of a campaign against the Breaker by himself, in addition to whatever support the Queen would lend, but Purple might just refuse to cooperate with him at all. We'll have to see how that develops over the next few days."

"And Princess Frigga I don't know much about at all." His gaze has shifted to a forty-ish woman in the final red delegation. "She's not one of Olanson's more important children. No idea if that means she's here as a fob because he's not really interested, or if she made a bid for the role in order to raise her profile. We'll have to figure that out."

He looks around at all of you, and smiles warmly. "I know that you all mostly think of yourselves as soldiers rather than diplomats. But building armies is part of Rush's holy work. And the Lord Captain Commander doesn't send people where they can't be of use. Think about what you might know or be able to do to help with the task here. If not with one of the Red lords," he gestures to the larger room "with one of the other delegations." And with that, he starts eating, and tells you all to do the same.

After Dinner: Chatting with the Prince

As dinner drew to a close, Daniel looked at you all and gestured for you to stand, saying "And now, to work. We have an Army to build."

Well, orders are orders, even if you aren't sure exactly what to do. But if you're here for a reason, it must be to talk to Yellow, right? You couldn't come up with anything else over dinner. So you headed towards their delegation.

Having been looking around during dinner, it was clear that they have the best organized forces of any of the groups. Red probably has more total warriors, but divided into five separate commands, Purple has a few guards but mostly doesn't look like warriors, Orange even less so, and Green and Blue are only about 10 people each. The Pirate Queen definitely had some forces on the grounds, but she didn't bring them into the room with her, so she only had a fairly small gathering of pirate captains. A deliberate choice not to look threatening? An attempt to hide the size (large or small) of her force? A concern about the safety of the conclave? Hard to tell her reasoning, something to think about for later.

As you approached Yellow, one of the guards stepped in your way and said "Does Serephina need something? Your squad is supposed to be watching the doors." Before you could answer, someone in a significantly sharper looking uniform said "He's not one of ours. What can I do for you.. .Paladin?" The guard saluted and stepped back, leaving you to talk with his boss.

"Ah, yes. I am Diomarche, here with the Paladins of Rush in service of the Lord Captain Commander." This talking thing was even harder than you'd thought. "I grew up in Northern Jabar, however, and was hoping to hear some news of home, perhaps share something of my time in Red?" The man frowned a little and started to say something, when a voice from nowhere said "Oh, do let him in Basalin. The whole point of being here is to talk to people, you can't just chase everyone off because they might be a threat."

You weren't used to that sort of casual use of Yellow anymore, and jumped a little, but the man (Basalin?) just frowned, and muttered a spell or two under his breath while he looked you over, lingering on the sword at your side. After a minute, he grunted out "follow me," and took you over to the delegation's head table. He bowed deeply to the boy sitting there (thirteen, maybe? Human colts' ages are a little hard to guess) and said "Your Highness. May I present Paladin Diomarche, of the followers of Rush, previously a resident of Your Royal Aunt's lands."

A nephew of the [[Maharani]]? You were definitely in over your head. You did your best to bow politely and answer his questions while Basalin glowered beside you, which didn't seem to faze the prince at all, but wasn't doing wonders for your concentration. Fortunately the questions weren't hard ones, mostly about where you grew up and what adventures you had traveling from home to Red.

You were fairly quickly joined by an older woman that the prince introduced as "Lady [[Harana]], Second Servant of Her Majesty," who had more pointed questions, however. She moved the conversation on to the Paladins, what they were here for and how they fit in with the rest of the Red delegation. Daniel hadn't said that anything he'd said was secret, so you did your best to sell her on "organizing an Army to fight against the Breaker," and hoping that the Maharani would lend her support. The prince was excited by that possibility, but Lady Harana was a lot more noncommittal. She did allow as that was the purpose of the Conclave, of course, but what resources the Maharani could promise, and who might be at the head of this Army, were questions she was clearly leaving to be answered at a later date. And probably in conversation with Daniel, rather than you.

After she had her answers, she let the prince take the lead again, although now his questions were more about what it was like to be a Paladin, and what sorts of orders and tasks you did regularly. Harana stayed for a few minutes longer before moving on, but the Prince kept talking for another ten or fifteen minutes before Harana came back and suggested that perhaps His Highness should spend some time speaking with other guests as well. He sighed, but agreed, and waved you off after thanking you for your time.

As you left, you noted that the delegation had definitely divided, the Noble [[Varna]] were still largely clustered around the area where they had eaten, with bodyguards around, while the Priest Varna had largely scattered to talk to other delegations elsewhere. If there were many Merchant Varna, you didn't notice them. You also couldn't decide if Harana had been letting you keep the prince busy while she did other things, or if she had actually wanted him to have that conversation with you. Maybe both?

==[[Managaratha]]==

==Nesh==

==[[Scout]]==

===Memory 1 (2023-07-05)===

After the Pirate Queen's welcoming speech, the delegations are seated and dinner is served.

There is way more seating for the Green delegation than is needed, and for a minute you think you're going to get to avoid the other rulers' people, but Middlesea's servants are quite good at casually making sure you're all seated at least reasonably close to each other. Not intermingled, but speaking distance.

In addition to the six of you, Their Majesty of the Plains has three representatives:
* Furoosh, a Sluagh (and a relative of Their Majesty somehow, although it sounds like it's a "returned from hearing their song and are related now" rather than a "born to the same parents" related)
* [[Silenalania]], a High Elf, and
* Sunbeam, a Sylph

Astros has clearly met Furoosh and Silenalania before, and says hello politely. They spend most of the meal fencing about how of course everyone realizes the Breaker's return is the most important thing on the table right now, and other matters are minor considerations, and they're all good enough you're not sure how much they really mean it. You'd guess not a lot, given Their Majesty's overall failure to be reasonable about anything ever, and the number of different "minor considerations" that are raised.

You can't tell which of the two of them is head of their delegation, or if they're doing a joint-representation thing for some unknown Sluagh rationale. Sunbeam is definitely not the head, she's Silenalania's lady's maid, the way Custard and Cream are Astros' valet and cook. So maybe that makes Silenalania the head, since Furoosh doesn't have one? Or maybe that just makes her a high elf instead of a sluagh. The servants are all seated with the delegations for now, anyway.

Her Majesty only sent one person, a dwarf named Flint. He's... very Dwarf. You'd think he was using Essence magic to make himself more Dwarf, except that wouldn't really be a thing a Dwarf would do, now would it, so he's probably not. He does not join the fencing between Astros and Their Majesty's delegation at all. "This is eating time, not talking time."

Westly, of course, picks that up and runs with it. "Is it talking time yet? Oh, it looks like it's drinking time. Do you think there'll be dancing time?" Flint's replies are monosyllabic, but it doesn't seem to dissuade Westly, who keeps up a steady stream of chatter. He occasionally tries to drag you and Vrok into it, but Vrok is nearly as stone faced as Flint, and you're trying to pay attention to the actual politics going on, even if you're not adding much to the conversation.

Custard and Cream mostly content themselves with talking to each other about the service. They apparently judge it satisfactory, although they note it seems to take a lot of humans to do the work one halfling would be doing. After the first couple of courses Sunbeam joins that conversation too, and the three of them seem to have the only actually friendly chat, as opposed to fencing or needling.

===Memory 2 (2023-07-22)===

After dinner, Middlesea's servants start clearing away the tables to make a dance floor, and a reasonably good (for humans) group of musicians starts playing quietly. The delegations don't immediately split up - they definitely stay clumped to start, with a few people moving between them.

From Green, the servants stay put, continuing their chatting, and Flint doesn't seem to be going anywhere, so Westley keeps needling. Furoosh and Silenalania both head out though, Furoosh towards the Pirate Queen's table and Silenalania towards the Orange delegation.
Astros (with Vrok tagging behind him), heads after Furoosh, and nods at you to follow Silenalania.

It's hard to sneak across a mostly empty dance floor, but you did your best. She certainly knew you were there, but possibly she didn't actually think you were following her, just heading to Orange yourself. As you approached the Orange delegation, a woman you now recognize as [[Stella]] headed out, towards the Purple delegation.

Once you hit the Orange delegation proper, you lost track of Silenalania for a while. You just got swarmed with people asking questions about Green's positions on things. Fortunately you didn't really know a lot, so you couldn't give much of anything away, you were just here to be helpful to Astros, not to negotiate. After a bit the swarming stopped as people decided you weren't very useful after all, and you could recover a bit. You realized that one of the "advantages" of having lost your eyes is that people can't really tell what you're looking at very well, so you were able to start tracking Silenalania's movements more easily without it being obvious to whoever was talking to you at the time what you were doing.

She had also been swarmed initially, you're pretty sure, but by the time you spotted her again, she had maneuvered herself into a private conversation with one of the Guild Masters. Who'd have guessed a High Elf Ambassador was better at socializing than you? Anyone paying attention, probably.

Still, once you had your "eyes" on her again this time, you kept focused on her. You realized that not only could the person you were talking to not realize you were watching, neither could she. Which meant you noticed, when probably no one else did, when the Guild Master slipped her a note at the end of their conversation.

She put it in her pocket without reading it and moved on, chatting with the rest of the four Guild Masters in rapid succession. At least one more passed her a note. You couldn't quite tell if the Saurian did, he was harder to see. One didn't. She didn't read any of them when she received them, but you managed to position yourself to "see" her while not looking at her as she headed away from Orange and slipped them out to read. "South Stairs, 10 pm." "Stables, 11:30." "'Library', 11 pm." Well. That's interesting.

===Memory 3 (2023-08-19)===
After seeing Silenalania's notes, you lost track of her in the room when one of the more insistent delegates tried to talk to you about trade arrangements. By the time you'd convinced them you didn't know anything, she wasn't in the room anymore.

Another interesting tidbit - what did she have to do that was more important than talking to the delegations? Isn't that what she was here to do?

Well, you were here, at least for tonight, to figure out what she was up to. So no point in you sticking around either.

You did spend a little time trying to figure out which way she might have gone, but tracking is hard on well-swept stone floors. You might have been able to find her with some actual Shaman tricks from your spirit, but you weren't quite willing to do that in front of all the delegates. Someone was bound to notice, given the number of priests in the room.

Well, if you didn't know where she was, you knew where she might be going. Time to take a look around.

The South Stairs was the easiest to find, and the earliest time, so you headed there first. They were relatively small and narrow, for servants' access rather than guest access, definitely. Nothing obviously to make it a meeting place other than being out of the way. But that didn't sit right, so you looked harder. After some searching, you discovered a trap door under a rug that opened into an unused store room. The stairs down were covered in dust, except for a pair of footsteps that had gone down and come back up again. You looked for a minute, and decided you could plausibly sneak down in those footsteps without leaving new tracks, but they only went to the bottom and turned around. Heading into the actual storeroom without leaving obvious tracks wasn't going to happen. You closed it again and left.

Stables next, since you'd seen them when you arrived. They were outside of the main building, on the grounds, but nearby. Large. There's a couple of elephants being stored there, for Essence's sake. More people around, too, although not a lot of them. Nothing obvious, again, but your 'eyes' were drawn to a little shack just behind it. Opening the door, there was a staircase down. This one wasn't dusty, so you headed in, and discovered yourself in a dank hallway heading off in two directions, and a Feeling. Definitely a larger Spirit down here somewhere. You were considering whether to spend some DI to try and talk to it, or just pick a direction to head off in, when a voice from the top of the stairs yelled "Hello? Is someone down there?"

Break it. Astros wouldn't be happy to have you caught sneaking. After a moment you yelled back "Yes! Can you help me please? I seem to have gotten completely turned around." A man in fairly rough clothes came down stairs with a lantern, and found you. He definitely did a double-take at your missing eyes (really the first person to obviously do that all night - not a diplomat, this one) and then said "Oh, yes. Uhm. Let me help you back upstairs" and took your hand. "This way." As you headed back out, he was shaking his head and muttering to himself "gonna have to put a lock on that door. Second person lost down here tonight." Once you got to the top, you assured him you could find your way back to the main keep by yourself, but he delegated someone else to take you.

As you got close to the keep, you asked for directions to the library. Your guide looked at you, and very clearly decided it wasn't her place to ask, and said she could take you there. In the main keep, Northeast corner. Fairly large, with a servant on duty even at this hour, although they certainly couldn't watch all the rooms at once. He asked if he could help you find anything in particular. After a minute, you asked for a history of Middlesea. He told you to follow him, and took you through a couple of rooms to a stairs down, where there was another warren of shelves. He headed right to a particular one, pulled a book down, and handed it to you. Then he escorted you back up and out of the library again.

So what's underground that Silenalania's looking for, and why are the Orange delegates helping? And why is their help secret, even from each other?

==Stella==