Hunting Slith Spies

Gale fades out; Diomarche fades in. Managaratha seems to be asleep.

Scout brings Diomarche up to speed.

We look at Nesh’s map of Melmane, to figure out what the plan is. We could go to Indaton, and take the road to EastPort, or we could go south to the coast and find a village and try to get a boat to EastPort. We decide to go to Indaton. (“Indaton? These people are terrible at naming things,” says Scout.)

We think about marching to get to the road or Indaton, but Managaratha thinks he can teleport us there, or at least close. He clairvoys around a bit, to get targeting. We teleport there, which is apparently tiring.

Stella looks for an inn. Nesh asks around for the Mage, and finds out where he lives, although people think talking to a Mage is kind of crazy.

We split the party! Nesh, Diomarche, and Scout look around for the Mage; Managaratha and Vidan and Stella find the inn. Nesh knocks on the house with the storm cloud hanging around over it; the butler answers. We convey all the information; the Butler can’t read Saurien, so Nesh thinks he’s probably not the cause of the Terrible Betrayal or anything. We try to give him the background, he takes the notes, etc. The butler doesn’t seem to think 10 anti-magic/DI will be a trouble.

Stella finds us a perfectly competent inn with decent food. We spend the evening quietly, and decide to set watches in case of Slith assassins.

We sleep. Diomarche, sleeping in the yard, is awoken by a tap on his front haunch. It’s Thistle! “I hear the Saurien kid is asking around about a Mage? What the heck are you people doing here?”

Diomarche tells her about the Slith assassin, and asks when she got here. A few days ago. Interesting. She doesn’t seem to want any help with whatever she’s doing here, whatever that is, which she doesn’t seem very interested in telling anyone, which isn’t really surprising, but even so, one would think she might be interested in our help, given that we’ve been helpful before.

We putter a bit, wondering what to do about Thistle. But Stella decides to bring the hammer, figuring out what Thistle is here to fix– 15 successes with 10 DI is enough to tell her that Thistle is here to find the Slith spy (spy for the Slith, not necessarily spy who is a Slith) in the city, and probably blow the spy’s cover, rather than deal with it personally. The assassin is probably on the way to contact the spy; the assassin is probably too big for Thistle to handle.

Managaratha calls Thistle, who is sleeping. He tells her about the slith spy, she mentions that’s probably what Rustic is here for. SHe says let’s talk at lunch.

Scout scouts around for slith (and spirits), but doesn’t see any signs of them. Vidan spends a DI, and heads out for a walk around 10am. He sees a guy talking to a couple of shopkeepers, and he’s definitely an interesting guy that Vidan should be Witnessing. He’s talking to the shopkeepers about the complaints about the rats, and they should keep their places cleaner so there aren’t so many rats. “Yes Mister Mayor, yes Mister Mayor”, they reply. Vidan wonders what kind of clothes he’s wearing; it’s mostly a fancier version of what people in town wear. He does have a badge on one side that’s probably the Mayor’s seal of office; on the other side he has a holy symbol to all Five of the Five, or something like that.

Vidan goes up and says Hey. The Mayor is pleased to meet him. Vidan talks about the Middlesea Free Rangers and trying to help against the slith; the Mayor seems to think that’s good, although he hadn’t heard a lot about Middlesea. Vidan asks him about the area to the south; the Mayor says don’t go there. He clearly knows more about the Blue Nexus, but doesn’t seem to give away anything about knowing about a slith encampment, say. The Mayor invites him to services that evening; he’s a Priest.

At lunch, Thistle says she thinks she’s most likely to be here to figure out what’s going on with all the random crap that Rustic keeps stealing. He’s one of the Sauriens in the Guild. Normally when she shows up somewhere (of the 5-6 times that it’s happened so far), either there’s something she’s supposed to steal, or there’s a problem in the Thieves’ Guild. She hasn’t noticed anything to steal here, but there’s a moderately important thief here that’s been like… hitting grocery stores? It’s a bit weird.

Was he hired to steal from the groceries? asks Scout. Not that she knows of; it’s not like anyone else has really noticed. It’s like every few days he’s been stealing groceries, but why is he doing that rather than doing a big hit and then buying stuff? The Guild hasn’t really noticed. It’s been going on at least a couple of weeks.

Nesh thinks Scout and he should tail Mage Farius. The notes probably covered a week or so, mostly on Gather Information rolls.

An Unexpected Interruption

Vidan notes that, just a minute ago, the Vow that the cataurs took not to hunt Nesh has been dispelled. (Not just that they were broken.) Huh. Maybe Lisatera got bored and told them to find us? Managaratha calls Lisatera. Did she do this? No, she’s in the city, the cataurs are on the boat in the harbor. Hmm. She can go take a look and see what’s happened, and call Managaratha.

Huh. Maybe we should call Rashkar and see what happens?

Lisatera walks in. Nesh doesn’t notice. Three people came onto the boat, that she noticed. They spoke to the cataurs, in Cataur, so this is a rough translation: “What the hell are you fools doing?” “We’re… we failed. They beat us up and killed everybody, and we’re the only ones left.” “You idiots. Tell us who beat you up so we can go deal with them.” “We really can’t help you with that.” Then they dispelled the Purple spell. Then they turned them into people, not with Yellow, so probably Red, and the cataurs said they should leave the boat first, and then they left. Whatever briefing they got about us happened off the boat, where Lisatera couldn’t follow quite so easily.

The three were a Red mage and a Yellow mage and someone else– a shaman, or an information basher, or something. Probably not just a talker. I can keep working on finding them, but they’ve probably left the city.

Back to the Slith

Thistle wanders in around dinner time. Our list appears to be half of Rustic’s list. There are a few things on our list that aren’t on his, but she might have missed a few things. So, yes, he seems to be providing supplies at least one group of slith, and probably to another group of people somewhere.

Has she talked to Rustic? Is it worth sitting down and talking to him? It’s not clear. Maybe he would care about who he’s doing it for? If he’s in on it, talking to him will just tip him off.

Nesh wonders about a more… forceful conversation. Well, we’d have to be willing to deal with the consequences. if he’s a spy, then that’s one thing. If he’s just doing a job, that’s another thing.

We could take it to Theo; something would probably happen. There are enough Priests of Jord high in the Guild, that if we showed someone was a servant of the Breaker, they’d take care of it. But they’d have to be pretty clearly a servant of the Breaker, not just a patsy. If he’s just a patsy, the Guild will have problems.

Either he’s the spy, or he’s working for the spy. If we can prove he’s the spy, we don’t have any problems.

He’s been around, so he’s probably not out doing deliveries right now. Thistle suspects he hasn’t actually been out overnight after the thefts on a regular basis, or she’d have heard.

There is some discussion about what the best plan is.

Vidan goes to services– it’s an older chapel, to the Five. Mayor Flynn leads the services. He is definitely leading them as a Priest of the Five. That… is not a mechanic that is easily supported. Vidan would expect a Priest of the Five had gone out of their way to make this happen, in a way that, he just seems to treat it casually. There’s some political spin, too. He’s the Mayor, which does seem to be an elected position, which is somewhat unusual. He doesn’t seem to have anyone above him– he doesn’t answer to the Admiralty, he doesn’t answer to the Mages (except in how everyone answers to the Mages). But still, that’s odd for the highest political authority in inland Melmane. (The Priest of the Five thing is Weird; the election is Unusual.)

Vidan is super tempted to check if he’s the Rightful King of Melmane. (There is a chorus of “Mayors are always suspect! Remember your history!” from the other players.) Vidan chats with him after the services; there are elections every three years, he’s been mayor for 12 years. Looking around, Vidan thinks this is an Old church. It’s been a church longer than this building has been here, and this building is old.

Vidan chats with him after the parishioners clear out. Vidan mentions the slith we’re tracking are being supplied by a thief in town. “Talked to Theo yet?” “That was our next stop.” Flynn is the only one who performs services here; there’s another church with the individual Gods. Saying that, Vidan notices that the altar is in fact blessed to the Five, which is Not Normal. Vidan uses the Unblinking Eye of Navere to take a look at Flynn’s family and lineage.

He’s not a king, he’s descended from the King of the Church of the Five. (“Oh! Him!” say Drew and Tom.) Vidan didn’t know that was the thing.

Vidan talks to him about Rush, etc. Is he trying to do anything about that? (Vidan spends his last DI, and knows that it’s your job, but he’ll help.)

Back to hunting Slith spies

We go to talk to Theo. We don’t go in, because, Broken miracle.

Nesh uses his role as Party Urchin to summon an urchin to go into the church and get Theo on behalf of the Middlesea Free Rangers.

“Sorry, we’re under a curse, so we didn’t want to go into the Church.”
“So you want that removed?”
“NO!”
That gives him pause.
“We’re told it’s not yet time for that.”, says Stella.

Theo notices the group of us, and decides it’s not his plot.

We tell him about the slith plot. Nesh is reasonably persuasive. Theo wants to see the notes; he looks them over. “Well,” he nods. “I can certainly look into that.” Nesh goes on about the lists of groceries stolen. He says he will look into it.

We go back to the inn, and set watches. The night passes.

We decide to check in with Thistle.

Someone comes to find Vidan– Cindy of Navere. She says that Theo says the problem in town has been taken care of. The out of town problem, Theo does not know. (Cindy and Theo are both priests with more than 10 DI.)

Next Day

Late morning, Lisatera checks in. They’re north of town, maybe on a boat. They don’t seem to be heading out immediately, they’ve probably mostly debriefed the cataurs on what they can do by now. Their Yellow Mage isn't’ as good as she is, but they’re good enough that they’re running interference, so the info is less reliable than she’d like.

Early afternoon, Vidan has finished his ritual to create a teleport beacon in Indaton.

We call Thistle, we say we hear Rustic has been dealt with? Ah, that’s probably why she’s in Rinyan. Should we call to check in occasionally? Don’t call very often.

We talk to Theo in the late afternoon. “Yes, thank you for the information, that was helpful. What can I help you with?” We wonder about whether there’s a second camp.

Theo says he asked Xavier to take care of that; he might not be able to find them. They set out in the morning, going down into Blue side, further to the East of the camp we had seen.

After a bit of debate, we decide we’re going to go help; Vidan asks for help from Navere, that we arrive in time to Witness the battle being fought by Xavier against the slith. Managaratha tries to figure out the right coordinates from the map, and then realizes that of course he knows the coordinates, Vidan just told him. We teleport to the slith camp in Blue side. Witnessing the Battle We arrive as the Paladins are mid-charge. The slith mooks mostly fall, but the two decloaked assassins hit Xavier pretty hard. Diomarche brings Nesh into range, who attacks the assassin that we fought last run! He takes some damage, and then Scout hits him to drop his Agility. He starts to flee and tries to re-cloak, but Diomarche and Nesh keep him visible enough to be targeted. Scout tags him once, and then makes him dodge once, which lets two of the Paladins drop him. Xavier takes care of the other assassin, and glory is heaped upon us (or at least the Paladins).

The slith camp had the remainder of the supplies that had been stolen, and another set of similar notes about Mage Farius.

We teleport back to Indaton

Loot

• +9 EPs
• + 7 SPs
• another set of notes on Saurien
• -2 slith assassins and 1 slith spy