A Lilac Kind Of Purple

Shift Change

[Phoenix 1] Vidan and Stella re-appear. Nesh and Managaratha disappear.

We brief Vidan and Stella, at least a bit.

Scout talks to Rakta– did he notice the orc attack? He dreamed about them. Did he see them plotting? No, he just saw that they were attacking the people he was watching, and was told to wake up. Scout gives him an evidence packet and says that’s what the orcs are after.

Vidan says he just spent a few hours at the Citadel– wait, what!? The Citadel!? Yes. The Breaker’s Citadel? Oh, no, the keep at Middlesea. Phew.

Volda shows up in the morning. He drily notes the re-appearance of Vidan and Stella, and says he should bring them to the Minister of War. He drily inquires as to whether the others are… having breakfast down the street? No, they poofed/castled.

We are brought back to the Ministry of War. The Minister gets Vidan and Stella’s assurance to agree to the Oath, etc. Vidan makes sure there are no Sixth-level bureaucrats who would out-rank the Minister. Also that if Gods request or require the information, it is permissible to tell them.

The Minister briefs Stella and Vidan about the murder of the Minister of Redaction and the time-stop effect that occurred on his death. The Minister is more concerned that the bad guys have internal information on the Ministry of Redactions than on the ninja per se. The fact that there was an orc incursion trying to get the Evidence Packet implies that there are factions which aren’t talking to each other, which is… interesting. Given that one of us is going to have to apply the key to undo the time-stop, he wanted to make sure we know.

Redactions doesn’t work for a Fifth level ministry, though they work with Interior frequently.

The Ministry of Lilacs

Volda is waiting for us– have there been any new Ministries activated since yesterday? Not that he is aware of. “See? He’s careful.” –Vidan

Gale prevails upon the party to journey to the Ministry of Lilacs. Why do we care, Vidan wonders? The timing is suspicious– they were founded when Middlesea was attacked (which Vidan thinks should be called D-Day, but Scout thinks should be Orcs-Invade Day, or OI-Day for short.) Volda takes the party there, they are slightly out of town.

Gale interrogates the Ministry– what is their remit? Creating? Selling? Not so much selling, but regulating the sale of perfumes. They are doing some selling at the moment, while they are getting the “How does the Ministry reactivate?”

“A Bureaucrat of sufficient rank decides it is the thing they are meant to do.” “Is that you?” “Oh, no. I am flattered, but I am not of the Third Rank.”

The Minister’s name is Xi.

Gale asks for an adventuring perfume! Something, you know, dashing and sexy.
“Certainly, certainly.”
Gale is brought to the back room. There is a whole procedure involved. Washing and a robe, and some trial and error. Gale asks if she can buy some for personal use. It is expensive but not unbuyable. Come back in an hour. Gale does some flirty interrogation, but doesn’t find out where the Bureaucrat was before Lilacs was instantiated.

Vidan asks Volda what is happening with the Ministries whose leaders were on Middlesea. Lions is mostly working as normal, as the Minister often was absent for lengths of time; others are struggling a bit. Fortune is probably doing whatever Fortune does; he doesn’t know. Redactions and Repercussions are having differences of opinion as to who’s in charge; those differences are opaque, and the loss of the Subminister of Redactions isn’t helping.

(In general Subministers are two levels below their Minister.)

While Gale is inside, we are approached!

“Good morning, I am Inspector Vok, I understand you were involved with the unfortunate incident with orcs, and also that you were one of the last people to speak with the Minister of Redactions. Could we speak later today, maybe over lunch?” Vidan admits as to how we would be pleased. He will meet us at our inn.

Scout goes to ask the Ministry of Lilacs about Green magic. A different person answers the door. They regulate some uses of Green magic, though they are not the Ministry of Magic. Many of the preparations of perfumes and scents include a use of plants which overlaps with Green. How about growing reagents? If it's for personal use, that would be the Ministry of Magic. The guy suggests that if he is planning to settle here, he get a license. There are licenses? Of… course…

Volda drily suggests we sit at a tea shop while we wait. He tries to ignore us, but Gale continues to pester him a bit about his past Ministerial experience.

As it turns out, Vidan was not contracted to a specific Ministry, but to the Delegation as a whole.

Vidan asserts that wild magic is illegal in the capital, which seems Mad to Scout.

Lunch with Inspector Vok

He has not reviewed the Tarn Evidence packet, so he does so. The Inspectors are cops and auditors; they work with the Ministry of Interior, but they pride themselves on their independence. There’s some debate about whether they’re technically a Ministry (though Vidan is unclear what it would mean to not be a Ministry…)

Vok appreciates the information, but was interested in talking about the incursion.

How can we help? He’s used post-cog to watch the ninja kill the Sub-minister, but he couldn’t follow him in or out. Human, or maybe a half-elf. Could have been an elf. Not a centaur or a Saurien. Not a goblin; he probably could have told the difference between

Vok takes us to the scene of the Crime! It’s been about two weeks; it’s a nice house, if dusty. Vidan detectives– blood on the bed, no signs of a struggle. No signs of any thwackback, which… second level minister might have had some. Hard to know. The room has been pretty thoroughly searched, any other obvious clues have been removed. Whoever broke in and out was better than 6 successes– couldn’t have told that the door was picked or the window had been forced.

It’s hard to tell if there was an attempt to search the space by the ninja. Nothing is obviously missing. Vok knows the weapon was a dagger, seemingly unpoisoned.

Vidan asks Navere for True Sight of what needs to be seen, 6 DI 5 successes.

The ninja dodges a bunch of Vidan's miracle, but not all of it.

This causes Vok to cast the post-cog again and share it with Vidan. He sees the ninja attack, and is fairly confident that it’s a half-orc.

Stella also looks around, to see what needs fixing.

• There are two problems here, neither of which can be fixed here.
• The half-orc spy network in the Bureaucracy
• Finding the key to opening the time-stop.
• There is potentially information in the room that could be helpful for the second, but it’s being concealed by Twins-y things.

It’s probably better to avoid fixing the half-orc spy network too fast– the problems are both keeping a third problem in check. Solving either of those two problems will bring a third problem closer.

Scout takes a look around to see what the magic/miracular landscape looks like. The house has some protections, both magical and miracular. It doesn’t look like those have been triggered yet. They’re not physical, they’re informational, and they don’t seem to be protecting the ninja, rather than the Minister. Which is probably what the Goddess meant by saying “I’m not going to tell you the information right now”.

Scout mentions that the house is protecting the Minister’s secrets– “More paperwork”, sighs the Inspector. He mostly leaves us be in the House. The party pokes around a bit more. Stella asks if the half-orc was male or female– probably male.

Vadim files some paperwork to find out where the Lilac Ministers came from.

The Ministry of Repercussions might be able to tell us if we should expect a half orc ninja visit tonight. Also what might happen if Gale keeps investigating the Ministry of Lilacs. IT HAS A RAINBOW ENDING AT IT.

The door opens as we approach– “come in, you’re late”. Huh. Vidan thinks they often say that. They lead us to a room that is clearly set up for us.

“I am Sub-minister Tran– you would be the Middlesea… emissaries, let’s say.” “What’s left of them, anyway. Or what’s free of them.” – Diomarch “What’s free of them, yes. I don’t suppose you have any information from the Minister?” “Not yet, no.” “It is highly likely you will, though you all are hard to predict, due to the Miracles on you– Miracles making predictions harder.

So. What do you need.”

Diomarch asks about the orc attack(s).

“There are odds above 80% of a ninja attack on you all this evening. I cannot see the details, but it seems to be an assault rather than a theft.”

Well that’s disheartening for everyone except Diomarch, who thinks he’s done his job here.

Gale asks about ramifications of investigating the Ministry of Lilacs.

“No ramifications in the next several days, but there is an encounter with a young lady on most of the paths but the details are lost in the noise.”

How about going to Green v. Red next?

The immediate consequences were already triggered in Green yesterday evening. We could learn about that by going to Her Majesty's court, but there is no immediate necessity.

Thistle's actions in Darstan are not completely resolved - if we travel there quickly we could have an impact on that, and we could have an effect on the possible conflicts between Darstan and the other red nations. If we wait until the Saurian returns he might want to go to Blue.

Vadim notes: their advice is not always right, but if you go and get their advice and then ignore it, you will absolutely be fired if they were right.

Preparing for Ninja

We go to the Ministry of Lilacs, looking for perfumes that would be good irritants for half-orc assassins who are liable to come and get us.

A young woman comes in and delivers the perfume - it's the same person who opened the door but looks young now. Gale invites her to stay for dinner. She introduces herself as Li Za.

A centaur comes in. Checking which herds Diomarch is with. "I'm with Eschetos. Look at the end." (I'm not with a ministry, I'm with the Head Stallion.) As it turns out, the centaur’s name is Luc. He asks many questions, and will report to headquarters. He expects we will hear back from him or another centaur, soon. He gallops off.

Li Za is put out by Scout’s doubts about the perfume’s efficacy, and Gale flirts a bit more to try to reassure her. We give her a Tarn Evidence Packet too.

Clomp clomp clomp - there are some centaurs milling around around casual in the middle of the street. Do they have any plans on second-story combat? One of them is a Purple mage who can walk up; they all have bows. The Purple mage could shrink them, although that’s not really subtle per se. Luc and two of the centaurs go to the stables; one of the centaurs goes up.

Rakta gives four of us a miracle of Noticing Things While Asleep– +24 Per.

The Ninja Strikes!

Scout notices the ninja coming through the window, and shouts and shoots him in the surprise round. He takes a thrown knife for his pains, and also starts taking poison damage.

Diomarch charges into the fray, bowling over the assassin and keeping him pinned for a round. Stella manages to heal Scout enough that the poison is a slow drip, rather than a torrent.

Gale casts coordinate on the next attack - that clears the deck for the mooks to pincushion the assassin, though he is still standing at the end of round 2, when he drops his ninja smoke and bounces off of Vidam's anti-teleport shield. He runs down the stairs instead. The ninja has a schtick in hard-to-see that caps attacker’s dice at their Per; Scout gives everyone a miracle of extra Per dice.

Scout sends his Per spirit to blind the ninja, which leaves him actually blind– although he still has targeting on where the spirit is, which helps.

The centaurs keep chasing him and Luc manages to knock him down. Scout falls over from poison.

The slow two-legs get rides from the nearby centaurs. Stella keeps everyone (including the ninja) from dying of poison.

Vadim pushes for "Give him to the centaurs, and we get (some of) the loot.”

A terrible, terrible combat in which we barely eke out a victory.

Loot

• +5 EPs
• +5 SPs
• +1 captured half-orc assassin
• +some loot (to be delivered)

Epilogue

Gale returns to the Ministry of Lilacs, to flirt with Li Za (and tell her that the perfume worked well)..