Editing Under the Sea

==Escape==

[Still Phoenix 15]<br>
Managaratha vanishes; Gale and Diomarche fade in.  
"Get us out! We have to start the attack" 
Gale wilds up an area-of-effect flight spell to help get us out of the tunnel.

There is some vague attempt at explaining what happened, which is about as muddled as one would expect.  The army forces are in the midst of an army combat.  We are brought back to camp, where the Red mages take a look at us, and help out a bit, but we’re not dying, so we’re not so important.  But we can walk around at least.

There are wounded from the fight, but the fight seems to be going well.

Diomarche decides he needs to go be part of the fight, so he gallops off.  Fortunately, in army combat one does not need to make Survival: Broken Lands rolls.  He arrives in time to join the combat, but doesn’t have a great sense of the strategy, so he joins up with some paladins.

There are five Red units and 3 Orc units, and the Red units are bigger, and the terrain modifiers have been neutralized, so it’s going fairly decisively in the direction of Red.  After several hours, the orcs are defeated and the Keep is taken.

Diomarche makes a Karma check!  He overhears Arik asking when did Ionia get so many Berserkers, but it’s more of an idle question than a real concern.

After the battle, Arik and Bryan tell us Good Work.  We consult with Lisetera about various things.  Diomarche is asking about using Unreality to do Strange things, like, say, break through a wall without actually damaging the wall.  Cartoon physics is fairly basic thing to deal with.  Things like “what could this have been?” is harder.

[Phoenix 16]

The next day, Stella drops 8 DI and heals our terrible broken bones.  Vidan sets up a ritual to sanctify the Broken shrine, and with the Rush and Nameless priests he crushes it.

Lisetera talks about her plans to free the Prince, and wonders if we’re going to join her, or if there’s another plan.  We’re closer to Green than Blue.  And we have a Flying Boat now.

Talking to the merfolk may be quicker, though.   Gale gets Lisetera to generate an unreal version of her, and *that* Gale knows merfolk in the eastern ocean.  (Lisetera points out they might not know her). 

The plan: swing by the Plains of Gedden before going to find the merfolk.  Well, Vidan asks Navere first.   After a terrible roll, Navere thinks that neither Green nor merfolk are the place she would send us, but merfolk is closer to right?  Well, that doesn’t help very much, but at least convinces us that merfolk is probably not a terrible thing.  Off we go!  We stay in the boat, to better evade the terribleness of the Broken Lands, and we escape.

Gale pokes at ChatGalePT, swapping stories.  ChatGalePT doesn’t have a party, but has been to Jabar.

Next morning [Phoenix 17]

We camp for the night in Victoria.  Nesh makes a fortune check for the party, but nothing happens.
After another day of travel, Lisetera is getting bored.  We make another camp again.
Evening of day three [Phoenix 18] we get to the Plains of Geddon.
We do not get attacked.

Diomarche turns in his report, and asks for continued Detached Duty.  Diomarche dodges!
He looks for Bran, and they exchange blood, because that’s what icky Red mages do (thinks Scout).  This will let them communicate for a few weeks (which is weirdly short, due to a terrible roll)-- if Diomarche pricks his finger in the same place, Bran will hear the next minute of speech.  He’s normally based in Red, but he’ll see if he can help.

Gale and Scout spar so that Lisetera could get some data.
Captain Jones comes by and says “What are you doing here?”, glaring at Gale.  
It turns out it’s the person she got drunk so that he wouldn’t win the tournament.  (Pre-game Gale Adventure!)

Vidan seems to think we should be heading more south, although it’s not entirely clear why.  We camp for the night in the Great Valley.   Nothing happens.  After four days, [Phoenix 22] we reach the coast, almost entirely without incident.

==No Kings In Beren==

The castle in the coastal city is flying at half mast, and people are heading into the main square. 
Apparently the king of Berana has recently died, and people are waiting to get in to go to the funeral tomorrow.  It’s not entirely clear why the King died, but he was about 80, so it’s not strange that he might have died.  Vidan notes that the King had absolutely _no_ clear heir, etc.  It’s like the King had deliberately done everything wrong.

Lisetera gets us rooms at a nicer place than we would have.

Vidan and (everyone?) go to the square where the Church of the Five is, where the funeral will be.  The castle is over on the hill, this is a bit away.  Vidan knocks on one of the doors, the keeper recognizes he’s in priest robes.  That changes his tack from “the line is over there” to “Can I help you?”  Vidan offers his services as a traveling priest.

Lady Violet is the head of the Church, she allows Vidan in (after a moment) to have tea and discuss.  She looks tired, if maybe not grieving?  (She’s probably got more DI than Vidan, but not 20 or anything like that.)  She’s not dealing with the funeral, she’s planning the Coronation.  He heard it was “not entirely obvious” who was to be crowned; she says that’s generous.  “Tangled mess” is perhaps more accurate.

There are a number of people with sufficiently good claims that Our Lady has not seen fit to give her a “this is The Heir” ruling.  She is hoping to keep the Church relatively neutral while the heirs sort it out themselves.  His Majesty was the first King of Berana, and the Church’s priority is to make sure that the Kingdom survives, rather than there be one particular Ruler.  Though if Vidan had other guidance…?  He admits his guidance was somewhat oblique.  Well, her plan is to let the Heirs try to sort it out, without letting it devolve into an outright war which tears the Kingdom apart– which is in the realm of possibility.

Oh, by the way, it was definitely an assassination.  The actual assassin has not been identified.  “Oh.”  Is this something she would like help with?  Yes, she would be interested in having it resolved, if that was something he could do?  His group has some skills there. 

Is there someone at the palace to speak to?  The steward is Franklin.  There are few people who don’t have opinions on the fight, but he maintains the veneer of impartiality, at least.  If Vidan comes back in the morning, she will provide a letter of introduction.  He offers to support her in the actual Coronation; she suspects it may be a while though she will push for as soon as possible.

Vidan retreats to the inn, and relays what he has learned.

"Cast dreams if you have them."
Stella will think about what the Goddess thinks needs fixing.  Lisetera will give Gale a dream about the adventures we need to have. 

Stella (8 successes with 8 DI) has a Big Black Hole in her answer, which is alarming. 
That’s kind of like if you tried to hit Nesh with a miracle… Oh, Slith assassin.  That seems plausible.  Around the edges, there’s lots of finger pointing at the Castle, none of which is right.  Fixing the breaks in the Kingdom before it falls apart is better than not.  Even if it’s not really her problem to deal with.

Nesh and Scout go scout the Church.  There are some palace / king’s guard about.  The church has two side entrances that are reasonably small and lockable.  Nobody seems to be waiting at them presently.  No back entrance.  There is a spot in the back that has footsteps leading up to and away from it as if it was a door, but there’s no door there.  The footsteps are recent, in the last day or two.  There’s a miracle on the whole church that’s big, so it’s hard to say if there’s something else there.

Diomarche goes to the Church of Rush to check in. Nobody is officially saying assassination, but also, nobody has said Slith.   What evidence?  A teammate is a priest of the Mother.  Not that they said Slith, but they had a hole in the vision.  

Vidan and Gale go down to the harbor, and then in the harbor, to look for clues.   Something large and snakelike came up here.  Also at a tavern afterwards  - Gale meets a cute guy named Machus, from Blue, who turns out to know some merfolk.  Bonus!   They were near Melmane - there was a disagreement about which sea lanes were available for travel, which had to be negotiated.   (They don't, in general, speak Common, they speak Mer.  Touchy about priorities, and often regard the surface folk as intruders.  A blue apprentice cast a spell that contacted them.)

Gale asks for a dream from Lisetera, about “The adventure we’re supposed to have here”.  She dreams.   A dream about having a fight with a slith: nya nya whatever.   If you were trying really hard, you could have the adventure of fighting the Broken priest - that would be more fun.  

[Phoenix 23:]

Gale relays the dream, and asks Lisetera about what might be going on with the judgy tone of the dream.  Well, it’s an Unreal dream, and you asked about Reality.  It didn’t bounce off the slith, but it wasn’t a 10 success spell.  But you saw the slith.  Maybe it’s not guarded against Unreality?  If it’s guarded to deal with Red in particular?

Nesh offers himself to Lisetera as tribute a test subject for how Unreality works on slith/sauriens.  She tries a few things, which don’t work, and then creates an Unreal version that is kind of s

Vidan goes to get the letter of introduction, and talks to the priest of the Nameless, who is quite busy.  The King was stabbed in the middle of the night with a single blow that was quite powerful; the dagger was probably poisoned but it’s unclear the poison actually mattered.  The fact that it was a single blow means it’s clearly an assassin, someone with schticks in extra damage/multipliers/etc.  The dagger was not recovered.  There must have been some kind of investigation on the body.  “Why does the populace not know, given how obvious it is that it was an assassination?”  “It was felt that announcing an assassination without an assassin in hand would have exacerbated the tensions.”

We ponder next moves.  We decide to go check out the slith… encampment? before the funeral.  Maybe we’ll come back with a slith prisoner in chains!  Or maybe we’ll just be wet.  Stella stashes dry clothes for everyone near to the harbor.  Liseterra sends an unreal copy with us. 
==To Catch a Slith==
We go underwater, with Free Action and Breathe Underwater.  Vidan tracks the slith tracks down under the harbor to a cave.  We’re not really very good at stealth, sadly, but it turns out the slith is asleep.  We gang up on it, with Gale coordinating.  The slith takes a bunch of damage and loses a bunch of speed.  He tries to flee, but with coordination gets pretty badly chopped.  Stella tries to stabilize him. 

Witnessing miracle from Vidan: The dagger at his belt  is probably a clue.  There's a vellum in the corner of the cave.  Scout thinks there are traps.  Turns out yes, the dagger is poisoned, as Scout sticks himself with it.   Stella fixes him as he gasps out his last words.   He thinks of more of them, with asides. 

Nesh finds some pearls (loot, not clues or traps).  Probably about half a loot.  

Out of the harbor, Nesh scavenges a wheelbarrow and a sailcloth.  We head to the temple, but are stopped by guards.   Vidan talks his way past the guards and goes to Lady Violet, telling her all.  She sends an orderly with Vidan, and says she will deal with things.

She shows up in fifteen minutes with ten people, and does the big reveal.  There is some arguing.

Lisetera is convinced to do a translation spell.  “Your job is to remove the King, and then wait until they pick a successor, and kill that successor, and then kill the next successor, and then we’re probably done.”

The funeral happens.  We stay outside the Church, and hear the priest send him to the Nameless.
Loot
Pearls (½ Loot)
+5 EPs
+7 EPs