Bitnami MediaWiki - User contributions [en]

Recapturing the Cataurs

2026-02-28T17:43:16Z

Charles: /* A Battle Bubble */

==The Empty Ship==

We fly towards Eastport and land in the port.

[Dragon 27]

We check out the other boat. It's still there. A dockworker chases us off. Lissa Tera is staying at the [[Maharani]]'s embassy, which is an interesting Jabaran style.

She says there are a bunch of others with them, including yellow mages.

OK, we're going to go and ambush them first. We get a Lissa Terra copy, and head north for an hour until she can't tell where exactly to go. She makes the flying boat invisible, and we disguise [[Nesh]] in yards of blue fabric as a strange sort of blue mage, and head up. [[Vidan]] says that there's something worth witnessing over there, but Nesh can't see it.

There's something over there that's on the battlemap (the Middlesea one), but Vidan still can't see it after 5x7witnessing.

[[Scout]] appears! Yay! He puts a seeing miracle on us - now we can see a mirage of an oasis with a bunch (maybe 15) cataurs lazing about. Like the [[Oasis]] branch office. The edge is a wall that needs punching through.

Scout goes to scout. He can find the overlap space, and they don't notice him; the footprints go to a tent inside, so that's probably the "door" to break down.

We sneak up to the tent. (some not very sneaky, but they don't seem to care).

==A Battle Bubble==
Diomarche Breaks us in – 9 DI 11 successes.

To the Battlemap! We have broken down the Wall, so the cataurs are all now grumpy.

In 10, Scout shoots two of the Named cataurs in the Reflexes somewhere, annoying them. The Yellow Mage and shaman decide to flee. Nesh can still see the Yellow Mage so chops him, which is enough to give some targeting.

"Oh I must claw him." [[Rashkar]] attacks Diomarche, but “shockingly” misses.

Scout drops the Yellow Mage. Nesh attacks the Red Mage but it bounces, probably/mostly. 
Gayle drops the shaman despite the shaman having gone into a pocket dimension. 
The Red mage is terrible, and takes us many concerted actions to drop, especially since he Drains everyone’s Strength by 6.

In fourth action, the cataurs in time-out come out, and decide they’re still on Team Get ‘Em.

[[Stella]] is captured and the cataurs say “Us for them!”, with claws at her throat.

Vidan invokes his once a book schtick! He’s asked “Twins or Goddess?” He says “Goddess”.
Fortune drops to 1, and those dice go to Magic and DI, and his schticks become Goddess-flavored. His name is something like Nivad.

He whammies them into surrendering. We now have our original three, and the six new ones, all of whom will swear the Purple Vows about not hunting Nesh.

Rashkar says there’s a second cataur boat, so we add it to our armada! We decide to sell one for 2 Loot., and keep the better of the two.

Scout scouts for Loot

* Red mage has a bracelet that you can hang Red spells on, up to 15 successes. (Yoinked by Diomarche.) The spells will last for weeks, but can’t be higher than difficulty 10.
* Yellow mage has a Compass of Detect Nesh, spinning uselessly, and a mirror that looks like the Yellow Mirror, that has some kind of magic in; we’ll want to talk to Lisatera. Turns out it’s a -2 difficulty for Scrying spells, which she thinks is solidly nice.
* The shaman is still in the other space, but when it pops with the dawn, he has a Store DI ring, that can store up to 5 DI that is currently tuned to Demon, but it could be tuned to Shaman fairly easily. Scout thinks it would need a few days to do so; Stella could probably Forge it into being holy to the Goddess.

[Dragon 28]

Valda shows up the next morning, with a message for Vidan? Nivad? from the Ministry of Lions. Vidan should send them a report of why you needed to activate Emergency Plan Beta. While he’s here, he has some things that the Foreign Minister wants him to bring, that will make it easier to teleport out of Yellow. We’re to put them in the capital and the three cities of the Goddess.

===Loot===
* +10 EPs
* +6 SPs
* +2 Loot
* +6 Cataur <s>slaves</s> prisoners
* +1 Red Bracelet of spell-storing (Diomarche)
* +1 Yellow Mirror of -2 Difficulty of Scrying
* +1 Ring of Store 5 DI, Demon-flavored

Recapturing the Cataurs

2026-02-28T17:39:32Z

Charles: /* The Empty Ship */

==The Empty Ship==

We fly towards Eastport and land in the port.

[Dragon 27]

We check out the other boat. It's still there. A dockworker chases us off. Lissa Tera is staying at the [[Maharani]]'s embassy, which is an interesting Jabaran style.

She says there are a bunch of others with them, including yellow mages.

OK, we're going to go and ambush them first. We get a Lissa Terra copy, and head north for an hour until she can't tell where exactly to go. She makes the flying boat invisible, and we disguise [[Nesh]] in yards of blue fabric as a strange sort of blue mage, and head up. [[Vidan]] says that there's something worth witnessing over there, but Nesh can't see it.

There's something over there that's on the battlemap (the Middlesea one), but Vidan still can't see it after 5x7witnessing.

[[Scout]] appears! Yay! He puts a seeing miracle on us - now we can see a mirage of an oasis with a bunch (maybe 15) cataurs lazing about. Like the [[Oasis]] branch office. The edge is a wall that needs punching through.

Scout goes to scout. He can find the overlap space, and they don't notice him; the footprints go to a tent inside, so that's probably the "door" to break down.

We sneak up to the tent. (some not very sneaky, but they don't seem to care).

==A Battle Bubble==
Diomarche Breaks us in – 9 DI 11 successes.

To the Battlemap! We have broken down the Wall, so the cataurs are all now grumpy.

In 10, Scout shoots two of the Named cataurs in the Reflexes somewhere, annoying them. The Yellow Mage and shaman decide to flee. Nesh can still see the Yellow Mage so chops him, which is enough to give some targeting.

"Oh I must claw him." [[Rashkar]] attacks Diomarche, but “shockingly” misses.

Scout drops the Yellow Mage. Nesh attacks the Red Mage but it bounces, probably/mostly. 
Gayle drops the shaman despite the shaman having gone into a pocket dimension. 
The Red mage is terrible, and takes us many concerted actions to drop, especially since he Drains everyone’s Strength by 6.

In fourth action, the cataurs in time-out come out, and decide they’re still on Team Get ‘Em.

[[Stella]] is captured and the cataurs say “Us for them!”, with claws at her throat.

Vidan invokes his once a book schtick! He’s asked “Twins or Goddess?” He says “Goddess”.
Fortune drops to 1, and those dice go to Magic and DI, and his schticks become Goddess-flavored. His name is something like Nivad.

Scout scouts for Loot

* Red mage has a bracelet that you can hang Red spells on, up to 15 successes. (Yoinked by Diomarche.) The spells will last for weeks, but can’t be higher than difficulty 10.
* Yellow mage has a Compass of Detect Nesh, spinning uselessly, and a mirror that looks like the Yellow Mirror, that has some kind of magic in; we’ll want to talk to Lisatera. Turns out it’s a -2 difficulty for Scrying spells, which she thinks is solidly nice.
* The shaman is still in the other space, but when it pops with the dawn, he has a Store DI ring, that can store up to 5 DI that is currently tuned to Demon, but it could be tuned to Shaman fairly easily. Scout thinks it would need a few days to do so; Stella could probably Forge it into being holy to the Goddess.

He whammies them into surrendering. We now have our original three, and the six new ones, all of whom will swear the Purple Vows about not hunting Nesh.

Rashkar says there’s a second cataur boat, so we add it to our armada! We decide to sell one for 2 Loot., and keep the better of the two.

Valda shows up the next morning, with a message for Vidan? Nivad? from the Ministry of Lions. Vidan should send them a report of why you needed to activate Emergency Plan Beta. While he’s here, he has some things that the Foreign Minister wants him to bring, that will make it easier to teleport out of Yellow. We’re to put them in the capital and the three cities of the Goddess.

===Loot===
* +10 EPs
* +6 SPs
* +2 Loot
* +6 Cataur <s>slaves</s> prisoners
* +1 Red Bracelet of spell-storing (Diomarche)
* +1 Yellow Mirror of -2 Difficulty of Scrying
* +1 Ring of Store 5 DI, Demon-flavored

Hunting Slith Spies

2026-02-28T17:36:13Z

Charles: /* Back to hunting Slith spies */

==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 Lisatera got bored and told them to find us? Managaratha calls Lisatera. 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?

Lisatera 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 Lisatera 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, Lisatera 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

Hunting Slith Spies

2026-02-28T17:32:12Z

Charles: /* Finding a Plan */

==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 Lisatera got bored and told them to find us? Managaratha calls Lisatera. 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?

Lisatera 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 Lisatera 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.

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, Lisatera 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

To Catch A Thief

2023-06-17T17:18:45Z

Charles:

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.

Diomarch hails the duty paladin. He needs to see a senior priest, but stay out here, because it's complicated. The priest comes out. Diomarch 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'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 Temple 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 Volstack 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. "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 that back to the Duchess will help with that (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 - Diomarch, Stella go up the stairs. Nesh (with Thistle) on the roof, Gale, Vadim, 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 Vadim 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).

To Catch A Thief

2023-06-17T16:22:37Z

Charles:

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.

Diomarch hails the duty paladin. He needs to see a senior priest, but stay out here, because it's complicated. The priest comes out. Diomarch 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.

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'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 Temple 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 Volstack 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. "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 that back to the Duchess will help with that (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 - Diomarch, Stella go up the stairs. Nesh (with Thistle) on the roof, Gale, Vadim, 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 Vadim 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).

A Lilac Kind Of Purple

2023-06-17T16:21:40Z

Charles: /* Shift Change */

==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 Saurien. 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.

Vadim 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.” – Diomarch
“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.”

Diomarch 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 Diomarch, 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.

Vadim 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 Diomarch 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.

Diomarch 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.

Vadim pushes for "Give him to the centaurs, and we get (some of) the loot.”

A terrible, terrible combat in which we barely eke out a victory.

==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)..