Editing Under the Sea (section)

==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.