Editing A Maharani Calls

The next morning dawns.  (Tam is sad by the nadir of his power.)

Stella bamfs out.  Vidan is still not here.  Hmm.

There is a letter from the cataur Alex to Nesh, saying that he can meet him this afternoon at the Third Pasture.

==A Maharani Calls==
Court is Now!  The Maharani is returned.  We are allowed to attend, but not yet summoned.  The Court is in open session, whereby guards are deployed but people are allowed in.  There is an audience around the edges.  People are being called forth.  The Maharani sits on a throne, with bodyguards around her, but there is no chancellor calling names or anything.  Diomarche thinks that’s slightly unusual.

The Merchant presentations are made, more or less back-to-back; they’re not working as a group.  The two feuding noble houses make claims on a particular piece of land, the Maharani says she will discuss with them tomorrow. Princess Alastra gives a report on the state of the Wall; the Saurien is blamed, we are not mentioned.  There is murmuring in the crowd, but presumably anyone who cares knows about the explosions.

Managaratha asks someone if the Maharani usually does her own scheduling.  The position of First Servant has been empty for some time now, and the Second Servant went to Middlesea.

There are fewer illusions than expected; there are some well-established protective miracles around.

The Maharani announces the end of Court, and people started leaving.  When we try to leave, one of the Guards tells us to wait.  Kidnapped!  A few people give us looks wondering who we are and why we have been allowed to stay.

Lisatera comes in from a side door.  The Maharani calls us up, and says “You are those of the Middlesea Free Rangers who are currently available?”  “Yes.”  “Tell me how your preparations for releasing my Nephew are going?”  “Well we haven’t figured out a way to deal with the Breaker’s Avatar,” says Nesh.  “Well, what have you tried.”

“I understand there is an orc army; the Avatar of the Breaker leading the army; some Slith assassins; an odd Blue effect; a Green memory charm of some sort; an Oasis miracle of Isolation.  What am I missing?”

Scout notes the Unreality field; Diomarche remembers some people bleeding out.

Diomarche wonders if the Nephew’s defenses include Unreality; Lisatera says that the Unreal area of the Keep is Lady Hirana’s.  

“So you will not be prepared to take down the time-stop and release people any time soon?”

“No, but we’re arranging alliances to act.”

“And what have you done so far?”

(Scout thinks the Maharani is WAY too on this for our level of preparation.)

“Are there forces under your control that could be assigned?”


She can provide yellow+Goddess to take down Purple + Twins. 
How can her nephew be extracted by himself? 

We don’t have a good answer.  We speculate about our connections and assets, the Spirit of Middlesea, etc.

The Maharani mentions that she has considered consulting with a Priest of Jord as to how he could be Stolen out of there.  None of the faces of the Goddess are particularly suited to the task– maybe Lore– but she does not want to involve any of the Ladies.

We recall the merchant Jabril who was a Priest of Jord; maybe we could chat with him.

“Do you have a feel for whether the Red forces arrayed at Middlesea are large enough to deal with the orc army?”

“No, we are gaining more information as we go back and forth,” says Managaratha.

“Let me translate that to Military speak,” says Diomarche.  He discusses how the orcs are an army unit but no other force that big is nearby, but they’re being prevented from going into army combat.  Probably by one of the Blue spells?

“Lisatera is tasked with recovering the Prince.  I know you have spoken on this task some.  I expect you will discuss it with a more Direct and Intentional purpose as to how to effect this, and I look forward to a report Soon.”  Upon which we are Dismissed.  Gulp.

(“We’ve been on a boat for over a month!”)

==Cataurs and Cataurs and Cataurs, Oh My==
Diomarche wants to get someone with Logistics to help deal with the drought.  Maybe the staff sergeant for the army unit that we traveled with?  Diomarche sends a courier.  Gale sends a letter to Stephen trying to recruit him.


On our list of people to talk to soon:
</ul>
<li> Gebra & Drought  (Mage Stephen?)
<li> Alex & Cataurs
<li> Jabril, Priest of Jord
<li> WATCH FOR THE GOLDEN TOWER SEER
</ul>

“Hey Suvatra, We’re going to go meet an Oasis rep in the Third Pasture, just thought we should tell someone in case we get Got.  –Scout.”

Nesh notices some cataurs in the pasture, and some humans who (Diomarche thinks) seem to be watchful in an unexpected way. 

“The Boss doesn’t really talk per se, so… I got some of a briefing, and I can explain some of the briefing, but I can’t say anything it wants you to hear.” 

“Sure, sure.”

“But the short version is there is a Cave to the East of it, that… well, that is protected from people going into it, except probably for you.  And it wants something from there.  That’s all I got.  So if you want to explore the Fancy Cave of Fanciness, we’d be happy to have you there.”

“We can’t just pick up and go.”

“This is a long-term plan.”

“You all attacked my mother, so…”

“Like I said, a long-term plan.”

“If it was up to me, I’d be interested in seeing what’s in that cave.
 It’s in my wish to go there in the next few years.”

“I don’t control what timelines are acceptable.”

“I’d be happy to send a message, because I imagine getting there would be much easier with your boss’ help.”
“It would be hard to get there without the Boss’ permission.”

Scout notices a cluster of humans that are moving into surrounding the Saurien and the Centaur over there.  They don’t seem to have been spotted yet.  He Blends In.

“Hey Nesh!  Ask Alex if those guys are his.” Managaratha calls out, in Bandish.

They decide it’s time to end the conversation, and it’s top of 12.

==Whose Team Are You On?, a.k.a. The Combat==
In the Surprise Round, Green 7 (from last night’s party) says “Halt! You’re under arrest.” to the people they’re surrounding.

Nesh sits down.  Scout Blends In and gets closer.

Scoreboard: it's the fight over Nesh.  7 has some points, 6 doesn't.  Interesting.

Green 7 does something, and the cataur and Green 6’s Team start glowing.  Huh.
Half of Team 7 tries to surround the cataur and Nesh, the other half forms a wall against Team 6.
Green 6 vanishes; 

Alex tries to flee.

Scoreboard says Green 7 is Team Guard, team 6 is Team Centaur ("Cataur"?)
Scout looks at the glowing miracle - team 6 has a DI miracle of  "don't pay attention" and a small illusion that they are centaurs, and a larger Goddessy miracle showing where they are. 

Guards put shackles on Nesh and try to bola Alex.  Alex dodges a fair bit, and then says “sorry, arrest would be bad for me” and tries to flee.  Diomarche, not having heard “Let Alex escape”, pursues!

Gale zaps the row of cataurs that were trying to hold the back
The willow-the-wisps take Alex into a pocket dimension, but Diomarche stomps through the wall and we finish taking them down.   Alex didn’t survive, oops?  Well, okay.

A note arrives at the guard house saying Nesh is free to go, but he waits until Green 7 comes back because he wants to talk to her.   He just wanted to know why they keep wanting to kidnap him - he can open the cave east of the Oasis.   Tisana asks for more details; why him, what’s in the chamber, etc.  He doesn’t know the latter; the former is because he’s descended from his mother, Ilyana.  He doesn’t know more specifically where.  He gets the name of Green 6– Lacrisa.

Nesh leaves.

==Back to Other Plots==
Scout tries for a connection to Middlesea to ask about getting people out without breaking the timestop.  The Oasis miracle of isolation is the thing that we’d need to get past; the time stop doesn’t really affect getting people out.

Dubreck shows up!  He takes Gale out for drinks.  She thinks we’re dealing with the drought first, and then the Mountains?  The drought is mostly north of the Queen’s River.

Suvatra summons Vidan, and we open his message and show up at his 10am meeting.   "Don't have meetings with cataurs, tell the Guard about them".    The Maharani will be expecting updates ASAP if we stay in the palace, once a week if we leave. 

The shaman had an item of storing DI; the mage had an item of anti-scrying, so a city-wide scan would have been complicated.

We send a note to Jabril, saying we’d like to speak to him.

===Gebra===
We go to talk to Gebra, along with the logistics person.  The centaurs do have a Blue mage (Seph), although not from Blue, obviously.  Changing the weather of entire portions of the country is beyond his ability.  He is currently on location, several days’ travel up the river.  She gives us an address; he may not be there on any given day.  He has helped prevent it from being a Disaster, but he hasn’t been able to Fix it.  Has there been any investigation into whether it’s naturally occurring or hostile action of some kind.  The Mages and Mother Priests who have been hired haven’t indicated that it’s either a competing Magic field, or a Curse of any sort.  But mostly they’ve been dealing with symptoms rather than root causes.  The Priests of the Mother are based in a temple a bit further up the river than where Seph is.  They haven’t been working together with Seph, particularly.  (Seph is at the ‘s’ in the “Queen’s River” on the map; the priests are at the ‘v’.  The drought basically comes from the Mountain to around where Seph is.)  The slith have not really been going that far up.  Seph and the Mother Priests are the main ones who are dealing with the drought; Gebra has been dealing with logistics.

The drought started after the Comet; it’s been into severe-drought territory this year.  It’s mostly already damaged the crops this year, but making sure it doesn’t hurt next year’s crops would be very helpful.  It’s not mass-starvation level, but it is bad.

===Trees!===

Scout goes in, everyone else stays out.  The priestess asks if Scout has need of the Tree; he responds that he would like to bring his companions to see the Tree.  She does a miracle and frowns– you are connected to the Oasis.  Er, yes, we are on a battlemap with the Oasis, and are under influence from one of its Miracles.  The Priestess does not think that is a good idea to let me in to talk to the Tree.  Hmm.  Scout explains a bit, and then the Priestess comes and takes a look at all of us.  Scout tries to introduce her, and says he didn’t get her name.  She says no– he did not give his name.  “Scout!” “That is not your name.”  Well, no, okay.  She does a shaman miracle, which no one resists, and goes back inside.  Managaratha wonders– is the Tree the Tree that the Arba-sol was working with?  No, he’s pretty clear that the Tree is now what the Valley was, in Comets gone.  Also, Scout is clearly from the last Comet– with the Lord and the Lady and the Buccaneer, back when people had Jobs, not Names.  Oh.  Er.  Huh.  That surprises Scout, but also seems to make sense…  He’s pretty sure he came back from hearing his Song as Scout.

==Loot==
<ul>
<li>+6 EPs
<li> +10 SPs
</ul>