Terrain Type Shark

The King's Daughter

Stella and Scout vanish; Vidan reappears.

Prince Venin takes us to Tia - she explains further that her father is marrying her off to disinherit her because she thinks his shark plan is stupid. She will become Venin's queen because of the contract, and because he is older. Queen Mag wants the dowry. It is a significant dowry - the equivalent of a couple of points of RES (though merfolk have a different mechanic).

Managaratha can probably talk to Quentin. Can Quentin shark (with his red mage powers)? Does that help?

He can make a good shark (he is currently a merman).

Killing Tia's dad seems an obvious solution but he doesn't seem to be bad enough to deserve it and we hesitate to go for regicide as a first option.

Managaratha scries the Queen's bedroom to look for the marriage contract. It's a rolled up scroll in the desk.

When Nesh puts up his magic resistance, things look less Disney; the merfolk are more aquatic creatures.

Gale is all for stealing the contract but everyone else thinks that will make the mer rulers cranky. Venin seems to think that we can just make a new contract to have him marry Quentin and then it will all just work. Is everyone but Gale overthinking it?

Nesh grudgingly goes to steal the contract. It is obvious in a way that that makes it hard to sneak, but he gets back anyway.

Vidan thinks the contract is more prescriptive and less descriptive than Truespeak. "Like the Discipline version of TrueSpeak" he thinks. It also has the power of royalty behind it. The two signatures are like a royal seal. The contract is powered by the seals; the language is not magical.

1 DI later: it's in Kingstongue (mer). Merfolk country stats are the stats of the ruler.

Tia rewrites the contract to a marriage between Venin and Quentin, with an alliance.

Gale thinks the signatures are a lot like Loot Runes - moving them is pretty Blue, though on more contemplation there's more to it than that and a ritual with others would be good. (Mer magic does not break down cleanly into colors; Managaratha thinks there is Blue and Purple and a third thing; working with all three colors would be good.

The plan:

We go with Venin and Tia to a good nearby Clandestine Wedding Location. Vidan sets up a teleport beacon. Managaratha teleports the Rangers to the cell, and Vidan teleports everyone to the beacon.

Venin leads us to a nice place. Rolling white sand floor, coral spires. Managaratha calls Quentin - is now a good time to get married? We teleport in - Gale notes that we're in combat time - and then Vidan takes us out.

We put together the ritual (yay!) and performing it takes a little longer than we would like, but they are married before Mag shows up. So we all leave towards Sharkland. Venin leaves a note for Mom.

Oh, we should get the cataur boat lest Mag take her vengeance on him. But we can't teleport Nesh. Managaratha calls them, and says in cataurese that Diomarche says to say for "sail north now now now"

We head for Sharkland after all, staying ahead of Her Majesty's wrath. Wait, we don't want King Shark to get rid of that marriage. Quentin (with their contract) will take Venin back to meet his relatives and arrange things,

Tia goes off and tells her dad that Venin married someone else so she came home. He's sulking and will talk to Managaratha tomorrow. Things are extra shark-infested the next day when we swim down. This castle doesn't have any of the other fish and sea creatures, just sharks. So many sharks.

So we're here to petition for his (sharky) aid in fighting the slith. He talks a lot about how cool sharks are. He's not really thinking strategically, just super shark-obsessed, and he isn't interested in sending his sharks anywhere else. Though Berana has red mages who can make sharks even better. Like larger or faster or able to shoot their teeth.

Managaratha doesn't want to fight the shark for blood, so Gale demonstrates lightning teeth. He has the shark fight another shark, which ends up in a whirlpool. Nesh suggests Managaratha reach in for some blood, which results in him being sucked into the whirlpool. The sharks go for him. Diomarche tries to pull him out, but it's a strong whirlpool. Gale waterspouts him out the rest of the way. Managaratha, now covered in blood, gives a shark echolocation.

Well, the King is amused by all this, and tells us to come back tomorrow. But we haven't convinced him to send his sharks elsewhere yet.

We go visit Tia. She thinks this all seems to be going as expected.

In order to send his sharks, he would need to have guaranteed that the other merfolk would not attack, or the slith. (If the other merfolk were sending forces that might count). A trusted communication network with the other allies with shared intelligence would help with that.

And maybe Mage Alexa is interested in shark units. (She bounces Managaratha's one success at calling her).

Loot

• +8 EPs
• +8 SPs