Adventures are Everywhere

In which our heroes discover that a drop of water from the sky may indeed signify rain, and that a party may involve more than wine and cheese.

[Still Gazelle 29]

A Stabbing Averted

Gale goes boldly to the house! She tries to knock the door down. “Who is it?” “No stabbing!” “Why not?” “That would be bad!” “But knives are for stabbing.” Oh dear. Gale opens the door on the second attempt, and eventually lures the woman outside. Stefan: “Is this lady bothering you, Violetta?” “Knives are for stabbing!” “Um…” “I think the knife is cursed.”

Gale wilds up a “closest person is now blown up into the air out of melee range.” 2 successes 2 awryage means the woman is floating up and spinning her around.

Gale warns that she’s going to try to get the knife, and if she starts acting stabby, bystanders should go to Stella’s temple and get her friends. “Okay…”

Gale succeeds in knocking the knife out of the woman’s hand, which makes her decidedly less stabby. Gale asks where she got the knife– Baran (her husband) bought it for her? Probably from Kristof. Gale stands guard over the knife and says go get her friends anyway.

Back at the Ritual

The party brings Vidan up to speed. The party is kind of a mess. Stella is out of DI, so can’t do much. Vidan has DI, but Sanctify probably isn’t helpful for fixing all the effects that are on Diomarch, Scout, and Nesh... wait where did Nesh go? Oh he must have phased out.

Vidan: I apparently have missed a lot.

Dispel Yellow might work on the Yellow effects.

Vidan tries to dispel the blindness on Managaratha, 6 successes is probably only halfway there.

A guy shows up “The pirate lady says you all should come help with the cursed dagger?”

Vidan thinks the knife isn't important but it's part of an important thing. Scout spends some DI, and conveys through charades that it's a Dagger of Destruction and very powerful.

Gale picks up tongs from Violetta's house, and wakes up her husband Baran.

Vidan talks to the Bureaucrat that shows up saying that the Minister of War wants him to come back and report. He says he’d be happy to after he deals with this nonsense. Vidan tells the party that the Minister is probably a powerful Purple mage that could deal with all the Yellow things. He’d need to write a report…

Diomarch starts to get big again.

Vidan says he can report tomorrow, but he’d need there to be a Beacon. He files the Tarn Evidence Packet as a Supplemental Filing to his previous report.

We go looking for Kristof! Diomarch is big enough that alleys could be a problem. In the store, Kristof is persuaded to go and look at his records after being told that it caused someone to want to stab people. Stella thinks the style of the dagger is from House Fandal. They’re probably allied with Cassandra Livoca. x4 damage, will go away after 6 months, made by Lisidor of House Fandal.

Kristof looks at his other records. He sold another knife about a week ago also made by Lisidor. He won’t tell them who he sold it to, but tells us where Lisador’s shop is.

We get to the shop, to discover it burned down. Two days ago, apparently. Stella notes that it was limited to the building, which implies it was a magical fire.

Stella ponders whether Lisidor had any rivals.

Scout scouts. It’s definitely a workshop not a house; a workshop for more than one person. Lisidor may have been a journeyman, but had a few people working for her. The fire seems to have happened Everywhere All at Once. That means it was probably bigger than a random Orange effect. Which means someone was probably doing Orange. Whoever was in the building when it happened probably didn’t survive, but others may have…

Leonardo brings us to a Yellow mage, in a reasonably well-appointed row house. The door is answered by a man in servant-y/butlery clothes. “Hello, I’m Leonardo from the Church of Al’an, I was hoping Karina was available.”

Karina comes down to the sitting room. “I was hoping to impose on you to find the woman I asked you about the other week.” He pays her something. “She’s a good distance; North, probably into Red. I’d want to look at a map, but I think Darstan.” They are taken into a library, well-appointed, where there are lots of maps.

Karina is fascinated by the Yellow effects, like the Unreal Eyes (Managaratha has taken one of Scout’s eyes.) “Yes, capital of Darstan, definitely.”

Karina looks at the eyes without charging, which she thinks will go away at dawn. The “What should I say” is an illusion that’s converting Scout’s words into “What should I say?” Managaratha tries casting “Sotto Voce”, which Scout tries to say. He’s definitely targeted by the spell.

Karina takes a stab at dispelling the Growth effect. (She does charge for that.) She’s unsuccessful; it’s about 10 successes, which is harder than she rates to get in any reasonable amount of time.

Gale asks if she has any Analyze Magic Item, or See What Happens. Gale takes out the dagger with the tongs that she seems to have pirated. It’s a well-made dagger, it cuts well. It’s kind of trying to replicate a Forge effect with Creation? It’s somewhere in the middle of the two.

The song on Diomarch will probably disappear at sunset.

Karina offers to do the post-cog, but once she realizes it’s a Guild place, she wants some Authorization to Meddle before poking into the Guild business.

We return to Stella’s church! Only a few hours later than expected. Meraldi is there, and has taken the “Out to Lunch” sign down.

Stella talks to Meraldi about the fire; she confirms that it was Lisidor who died in the blaze. The word is that she was working late and something went awry and the place burned down. Lisidor was an Orange mage, after all.

Meraldi goes to check out the workshop fire, assuming that Stella will make sure we get ready for the party. (There is a note of skepticism in her voice…)

A Tale of Two Parties

Vidan didn’t realize there were two parties. Master Cassandra Livoca. Master Tivoli Dianori. The two leading members of the Guild in the city given the absence of the Delegate to Middlesea.

Given that Stella is a local with some reputation, she weighs more as far as Party Influence, so Stella will go with one, and the rest to the other.

Vidan tries to get more of a briefing on Thistle. Meraldi realizes he has 8 Charisma, and turns on the charm. Vidan considers party-hopping with Meraldi rather than being assigned a team…

The party divides! After some bickering, Gale throws Scout at Stella to go to the Tivoli party, and goes with Managaratha and Diomarch to the Cassandra party. (She brings Giaconni as the replacement for Nesh.)

There is a brief digression concerning licenses for Piracy from Purple, and the Ministry of Lions, and the True Nature of Purple Magic as opposed to this Vow nonsense, but it is surely not important enough to concern you, gentle reader.

Those at Tivoli's party: Scout speaks only Elvish, as a ploy to get out of talking to lots of people saying “What should I say?” (The Elvish comes out as “What should I say?”)

Master Tivoli speaks with Stella, after quickly writing off Scout as a lost cause, and proceeds to go through what he read in the Tarn Evidence Packet to validate the briefing he received is the same as the briefing she is giving. He inquires as to the status of the delegates, and seems to know in detail the members of the delegation. He does inquire as to whether Stella believes the lack of a priest of the Twins in the party is significant.

The Sauriens are not as stand-offish here as they were in Kor, but still somewhat segregated. There are a few elves, and very few centaurs– who are mostly segregated from the rest of the party as they are out on the patio.

At the Cassandra Party

Meraldi is the epitome of grace and charm, and is well-matched by the stylish Vidan (who opts not to hold forth on the glories of Navere). Diomarch and Gale make do, and Managaratha makes some wary with his waving around of an eye.

Meraldi and Vidan avoid Master Cassandra to speak with others. Some discussion of the Fire happens; it is more “ah, what a tragedy that she was so careless”, as opposed to “that is suspicious.” Meraldi deliberately crosses the Saurian-human divide; Vidan apologizes on behalf of Nesh, who surely would have liked to attend if he had not been called away by unforseen circumstances. This inspires them to push as to what the circumstances are. I’faith, they have not heard of the dire circumstances of the party’s plight– or much at all of the materials the party has been distributing hither and yon. Zounds!

Vidan gives the Saurians a Tarn evidence packet - there is much sage nodding - see what happens when you get mixed up in foolishness like weird shit?

Cassandra has heard of Managaratha and is disappointed that he is less knowledgeable about orange magic than she had heard. Managaratha asks about the magic of Creation vs. Uncreation. She says there was one long ago who could do such a thing– create pits and the like. Gale offers her the knife to look.

“If she starts stabbing us, this is a different party.” – Mike/Vidan

“There are things in this I am not completely clear how this is done. I could probably learn more if you left it a few days, I don’t know what your plans are…”

Managaratha holds forth about the knife and what we’ve learned about it and the workshop and Lisidor. Master Cassandra does not react to any of this, but confirms that it was a spell gone wrong that caused the workshop fire, not just a Surge. She confirms it is Lisidor’s work, and that Lisidor was the only one who perished. She was working on…. something unusual. “Sometimes experiments do not go the way one would hope.”

Managaratha discusses Orange magic with Cassandra; she is interested in knowing how it used to work. Managaratha recalls– after the Surges, the Rainbow River disappeared. When the Rainbow River disappeared, people started building the Zones. People, Orellian… the Zones were deliberate in some sense, in response to the Rainbow River disappearing.

Cassandra speaks with the party for 20-30 minutes before wandering off.

Tivoli

Scout Scouts! Backstage is definitely agitated. Servants and guards are definitely doing things. An anthill has been disturbed. He traces the disturbance upstream, and overhears: Yes, she's recovering. She should be fine, but we don't know exactly what started everything. Get the word to Master Dianori (Tivoli) that there are no long-term issues.

Cassandra

Managaratha finds Diomarch to renew the shrinking spell.

Gale tries to track down leads on Lisidor. This seems to bring out the “Ah, you’re calling out the House, interesting” results. Lisidor was a theorist rather than a practitioner, she’d happily spend all day theorizing rather than creating things. Which is probably how she blew herself up, honestly. There’s been a bunch of interest in “What can Orange do?” recently that she was probably part of / allied with. Obviously that’s less important than making good product, and good product doesn’t get you blown up, so personally I don’t put much priority on that. She was working for a time on whether you can use Creation to do some of the Saurien tricks, in which you need to not have Orange around to make it work. Can you de-Orangeify your black powder creation to make black powder with Creation? How do you separate the Fire from the Creation.

Was she working alone, or as part of a Mad Scientist Cabal? There are other Mad Scientists, not clear they’re actually a Cabal. The consequence of Creation is wanting to Make things. i.e., Yes, I Paint in addition to casting Orange magic. Sometimes that Making turns into a desire to make things that are… more theoretical, or don’t actually exist, so you have to spend a while figuring it out… In the way that Battle runs to wanting to attack people.

Diomarch talks to the centaurs; the Yellow delegation did come through here on the way to Middlesea. It did include a group of centaurs, so they’re interested in how centaurs work in Yellow. Orange and Green don’t have Herds, in the way that Yellow or Red do. (Purple has the One Giant Herd led by the Head Stallion.) Centaurs are kind of a separate social stratum in Yellow, Red and Purple. Yellow they have more ties into the human polity; Yellow herds organize more similarly to the humans, in terms of castes, etc. Red has less of a united polity overall, but a single Herd might ally with a single Kingdom. (The Centaurs here speak Common, even with each other, in a way that the Centaurs in Red or Yellow might talk to each other in Centaur. The Saurians all talk Saurian with each other, but will speak Common when others are around.) The Centaurs here are all in the Guild, and that is in some way taking the place of being in a Herd.

Managaratha takes a nap.

Tivoli

Meraldi and Vidan arrive. Stella says that Scout had found something but it wasn't clear. After a bit of trying to parse Scout's monosyntactical dialogue, Meraldi rolls her eyes and hits him with "Tell me your secrets!" and he can speak normally for a minute, and he explains what he found in the back rooms.

Meraldi thinks that the likely "she" Scout heard about is Tivoli's daughter Ashley, as she is not in evidence at the party, and Stella thinks that an offer of healing should be made. Meraldi smooths bringing this up with Tivoli (who is impressed that Meraldi figured this all out after barely setting foot in the house), and the group is shown to the bedroom where the girl is, with a bloodstained bandage.

Stella gets 9 successes of Medicine, enough to say that it was probably a kitchen knife. Vidan gets her to tell what happened. She was getting ready for bed, Janine came in and was making her dinner bed snack as she always does, and then stabbed her. And then Phillipe knocked Janine out. Ashley does think the stabbing hurt, but also that this is a kind of adventure.

Cassandra

Gale looks for plot hooks. In a conversation where Lord Fandal is being gently taunted - such a pity that he lost a promising journeyman. Yes, they did manage to rescue her final piece, the candelabra, that he gifted to Lady Cassandra. Gale (and Giaconni) head over to Cassandra, and Gale badgers her into looking for the candelabra, which she has not yet taken notice of. Yes, in fact, when Gale holds the candelabra, setting fires seems kind of fun. Giaconni blows the candles out, and the feeling fades. Gale impresses on Cassandra the importance of being cautious about the candelabra, though as she is giggling a little creepily (0 successes on charisma) it is unclear whether Cassandra will take the warning to heart.

Tivoli

They track down Philipe; he has put the knife in the master’s study. Stella confirms it’s the same sigil. Vidan initiates a miracle of Witness– this is a small part of a larger problem. He writes up a formal affidavit - legal anywhere - that the wielder was essentially innocent.

Scout analyzes the dagger with a lot of DI– he thinks the dagger is wrong, but not Unholy. It could be Broken? How would he know? Hmm. Vidan chats up Meraldi, admits that he investigates royal genealogy in his spare time. Vidan mentions his discussion with Luigi, and she has a moment of realization– “If you asked for what you needed to know now, and you came here to do this, why did you need to know now who the traitor is?” He hadn’t considered that…

Aftermath

In the morning [Gazelle 30], Vidan talks to Scout, recalling more of what happened in Middlesea: "Flint looked from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout, and said ‘Federico, with me; the rest of you see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor.’” “What? What should I say…”

(All effects from the ritual have worn off by this time.)

Vidan and Gale go talk to Fandal. He is warned about the stabby stabby items. He seems to have not known about it, and is glad that Cassandra’s house didn’t burn down, say, but seems to think that magic items of extra stabbing aren’t necessarily bad…

The bureaucrat shows up, and we head to the capital of the Empire in Purple!

Loot

• A Stabby stabby x4 Orange knife. (Gale has this)
• +5 EPs
• +5 SPs