Editing A Crack in the Wall (section)

==Back at the Palace==
An invitation to Princess Miranel’s ball aways us!  It is this evening.  She is one of the Queen’s two eligible daughters.  The elder is Alasta.  There was another daughter who left the Noble Varna to join the Priest varna.

We wear our fancy party clothes, and go to the Ball!  Miranel (who is early 20s) is the host, and clearly knows who we are– she greets us each by name, and inquires after Captain Gale and Diomarche.  Alasta makes a brief appearance, Suvatra does not.  The ball is for the important people of the city– Noble and Priest varna, no Merchant varna.  Vidan puts up some Detect Nobility mojo, to not fail to recognize anyone important.

Vidan gathers info on what people are talking about.  The explosion of the wall, the war with the slith.  Not the assassination of Suvatra (who is a vizier, one of several), interestingly.  Maybe she kept it quiet, maybe people didn’t notice?  (Alasta on the other hand is a princess and a general, although she’s relatively young.)  Miranel does not seem to have a job besides being a princess.  Tasca, who is one of Love’s Servants, and who is reported to be a good fighter, is also here.

Lisatera shows up briefly.  There are a few centaur, but only a few.  We’re not completely sure if that’s because this is a Ball, or if it’s that they’re not fully integrated into society that much.  No one’s rude to them, but there is a level of separateness to them.  It’s almost as if there’s in their own varna.   People dance with each other, but they gossip in their varna subgroup.

There are a few nobles and a priest among the centaurs.  The lone priest centaur wanders back and forth between the centaurs and the human priest group.  Miranel also mixes fairly easily.  She must cares enough about the varna rules that she didn’t invite any Merchants.

Nesh is the only saurien in the room.

Vidan and Stella seem to be assigned to the Priest varna, in a way.  The other three of us are less clearly assigned, and can do more floating back and forth.  The room tries to find a place to put Managaratha and Scout among the varnas.

Managaratha tries to be in Mage varna, which isn’t a thing.  He talks to people, and notices that the Noble mages tend to be more practical, whereas the Priest mages tend to be more theoretical, as a general trend.  He tries to discuss Feelings and Unreality with them; they think it’s interesting he doesn’t know the other flavors of Yellow.  They seem to not interact with so many foreigners, possibly because it’s far and nobody here can teleport.

Managaratha gets one out of one Karma, which means he catches the Centaur’s priestess’ ear when he says that Magic can change during Comets.  She is curious about that.  He explains his theories on change during the time of the Comets.

Vidan also wants to make a Sense Motive roll on Miranel, to see if she’s really a good host or a social butterfly or a pose.  She’s definitely enjoying what she’s doing, but she’s also doing an excellent job at gathering information.  She doesn’t seem to be fishing for specific things, but she’s certainly learning things in general.

Nesh tries to gather some information, and notices that the varnas are clearly not united.  There are three groups in the Priest varna (Love, Life, and Lore)-- they try to one-up each other.  The Nobles are more divided, and more active sniping going on.  They seem willing to not fight because there’s a war with slith going on, but they’re definitely more aware of who’s in charge of whom, etc.  The struggle is more active, although no one is saying they should be Maharani or anything obvious like that.  But they’re more opponents than in the Priest varna.

Scout notices there are fewer illusions than you might suspect.  The music is all real; the lights are spells.  There are charisma buffs, mostly on people who are less important.  The decorations are all real.  There’s an element of “we’re good enough we don’t need the buffs” going on here that we haven’t seen before.  Many people have detections up, but they’re probably not see-through-illusions.  There’s not a lot of active DI; it’s all Goddess except for Vidan.  It’s not clear what much of it is doing– some kind of healing for one of them etc.  The Priest varna is not all priests, by any stretch, but they all identify as one of Life, Lore, or Love.

The elves are mostly high elves, a few trolls and sylph.  No pooka, that was probably a conscious choice.  No halflings, only a few sluagh in the Priest varna.  And a few half-elves.  The priests are more aligned with the other Priest varna; the Nobles are more in their own house.  Houses seem to ally with houses without concern for the racial dynamics.  

The Next Day
Nesh gives us a heads up, and then drops his magic resistance.

Verga?  the guy Nesh was talking to back at the inn, appears in a hologram.  “Do the names Karina or Ilyana mean anything to you?”  Ilyana was Nesh’s mother, as it turns out; he doesn’t remember the name Karina.  

Verga has found reports of an attack on a saurien woman named Karina and her daughter Ilyana, by people using a similar compass.  “So you do think that is likely related, then?”  Nesh nods, and Verga says thank you and ends the call.

A little while later we are summoned to Suvatra’s office again.  She has a file on Dalin Cheser, who was the horse merchant.  He’s only 19 or 20, so it’s not a big file.  His parents both died in the last year, and he inherited the business likely significantly earlier than he would have otherwise.  The presentation to Her Majesty the Maharani had already been arranged when his mother died; she was expected to do the presentation.  He has inherited the job and the obligation.  As far as Quartz goes, he’s been a dwarf weaponsmith for over 100 years.  He has a large file but none of which is particularly interesting.

Nothing particularly interesting on Mikhailovich over the last six month’s he’s been in the city.  Arrived on a boat claiming to be from Orange (not from a specific city, which Stella flags is unusual).  Suvatra probably won’t be able to get a file quickly on whether anyone in Orange knows him.  It looks to her as if he introduced himself into society fairly quickly and easily; a Saurien who is a talented Yellow mage drew attention.  It caused quite a stir for a few months.  He does not seem to have evacuated anything from the rooms he was staying in.   He was both a skilled mage and skilled in the social arts, and a Saurien with a large amount of resistance.  There were a few vetting efforts when he was hired as the chief engineer.  They did not turn up anything untoward; it’s unclear as of yet whether… it’s currently her suspicion that he used a Yellow spell to make it look like he dropped his defenses and nothing untoward showed up.  He was likely not higher than 20 Magic dice.  He wasn’t a priest or a combatant at all.  Likely also a Green mage, given the supplies recovered from his rooms.  He did not have a Yellow disguise, most likely.  Unless he had 20 dice, 15 suppress, a schtick in my spell cuts through my suppress, and a spell of my illusion isn’t detectable by yellow, he could possibly had a yellow illusion up.  He could have had a potion of shapeshift, or maybe a Red spell?  Hmm.  

Scout tries to find him– with 14 successes and 19 DI, he’s clear that Mikhailovich is no longer in the country.  That means he didn’t have 15 successes of suppress, which means he didn’t use the personal suppress to hide the bombs.