Session 37
Fact sheet Mr. Mountainverse, mother Mari-El-le and Ms. Maya
Players present: Ecchima, Meinhart, Tuur and Vinnie. Dins was our GM and Marty was excused.
Date: 31-01-2024
Date in-universe: Wednesday afternoon
Major developments:
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Previously: session 36 this tea brings all the killers to my yard and I'm like... WHAT?!
Up next: session 38 When did Ezra sign up to be the dad to a bunch of teenagers and chaos gremlins?
Notes
Focusing exclusively on the PS-part of Simeon’s rather rude breakup note, we discuss the best way to gather intelligence on Simeon's new plan involving the guild hall. Should Hali and Fyllion team up as Garald Mountainverse and his trusty goat (see images)? Can Ezra shift into a full kitty-cat to sneak in? What should Storm and Aqueel do?
We settle on this idea:
- Fyllion will shift into Garald Mountainverse, it’s a good test run for his new persona anyway
- Storm and Fyllion will disguise El into an old lady, without their mask & using their disguise kits from their entertainers' packs. Storm holds El's head so they don't twitch too much as Fyllion works, while El keeps grunting “make me old”
Aqueel convinces Hali and Ezra to go pet some goats on the nearby market. Hali spots a stall with goats to rent. Completely charmed by an old rundown goat with an ear missing, Ezra purchases the beast with the arguments that a) this way, we’ll stop badgering Hali to change into a goat, b) it’s good for Aqueel’s development, and c) even if he were mad enough to be suspicious of any random animal or singer he meets, Simeon would know that it's not Hali because of the missing body parts. Ezra pays for the goat & names it Deception.
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When we're finally done with El-as-Marielle's make-up, mother Marielle uses a whisker Ezra donated and activates the spell Enhance Ability for Garald. Fyllion has a lot of power for the next hour now.
They agree on a backstory: Garald found Marielle in the streets & discovered she makes great raspberry pie, so he adopted her as his mother.
Ezra and Storm decide to go to the post office to send a reply to Enza. As they're waiting in line, first to meet the directions goblin who's relieved their order is less complicated this time & then to get help, Storm focuses on his memories of Fyllion and Ophelia.
Storm slips the envelope to our intrepid captain Ezra, with the words "Here's what I'd like to send along to Enza in Nawa, thanks for waiting! Shall we split the cost?". Ezra pays 3 silver pieces and Storm provides the last 2, and the direction-giving gnome sees us out.
Hali and Aqueel go swimming in the Alwarid, keeping an eye out so they can avoid Kekoa if necessary.
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Garald and mother Marielle start their infiltration mission. The guild hall’s receptionist tries to stop them from entering with Deception the goat, but mother Marielle caterwauls that De-de is her mental support goat, and she urgently needs to speak to the goat administrator’s office because her darling has been misclassified as an emotional support animal, and this injustice just must! Not! Stand! She’s digging through all her pockets and strewing the debris of weeks of travel onto the reception desk, supposedly searching for the emotional support animal card Deception was erroneously issued….
Defeated, the receptionist implores them to make sure their beast doesn't poo anywhere, doesn't bite anyone and keeps off the furniture. Garald promises they’ll be careful & leads mother Marielle to a seat in the waiting room.
Garald suggests they keep their eyes peeled, and mother Marielle screeches in her adopted accent "what, dear", but eventually they settle some seats near the stairs with a good view of the atrium. It's a bright afternoon, but they're inside, so mother Marielle doesn't suffer from the light.
At first, they don't see anything remarkable, esp. given our suspicion that Simeon must be seriously impaired, and probably missing an arm or a hand. After about 45 minutes though, they hear a very faint scream coming from upstairs, barely noticeable over the hubbub in the guild hall. Garald mounts the goat & urges it up the stairs. Poor De-De is having trouble with the steep steps, so mother Mariella huffs and puffs and pushes the goat up the stairs with her hands on its ass till they reach a higher floor.
In that hallway, they see several bystanders staring at a man lying face-down on the floor. Mother Marielle pushes to the front: “out of the way, you young loutish layabouts, we have an appointment in the goat administration office”! The people, mostly people who actually work in the guild hall, react with surprise: "are you a doctor, what are you doing?".
Mother Marielle and Garald both recognize the odour of the paralytic gas Simeon used when he infiltrated Koh’Shar’s prison to kill Saatia… Just as Garald administers the antidote he still has left over from Koh'Shar, guild master Troyan Rilke and her right hand assistant Feynmann arrive. Garald and mother Marielle steamroll right over them: “danger is afoot, right here in your building”! Garald seems just as sincere as Fyllion and Ophelia, so Rilke and Feynmann don’t protest when Garald and mother Marielle insist they should be the first to enter. They decide to send Deception the goat in first, since it’s not clear if the assailant is gone…
With mother Marielle’s encouragement of “go goat team, go”, Deception bangs open the door with his horns. At a glance, Garald and mother Marielle realize that the tidy office is indeed empty of any people, aggressors or other. Only 2 things are truly remarkable here:
- A golden dagger with blood on the hilt is stabbed deeply into the desk, pinning down a letter!
- A flutter of movement is visible near the window opposite the door
Garald hurries to the window. On the sill, there's more blood. Garald sees a cityscape with many roof tops, winding streets and several of the Alwarid confluences... but the only suspicious thing he can see, is a splash where someone jumped into the river arm next to the guild hall.
Meanwhile, mother Marielle is scolding Feynmann and Rilke that this use of daggers is very unsafe (while waving the dagger around), and all this blood everywhere is very unhygienic, have they ever thought about getting a mental support goat to make smarter choices with their lives? Too bad, only De-De is intelligent enough, and they can’t have him, but if the goat administrator did his job and didn’t just think of goats as livestock… It’s to no avail though, guild master Rilke keeps an eagle-eyed focus on the letter.
Mother Marielle and Garald see something flit over Rilke’s face, but before they can decipher the expressions, Rilke snatches the letter off the table and tries to grab the dagger off a ranting and raving Mariella who’s still slashing the air with the dagger. Garald argues that the letter might be poisoned and he should read it for her, dwarves being resistant to poison and all. Thanks to a DIRTY TWENTY, he can convince her, even though it looks like Rilke already knows what the letter is.
While being devested of the dagger, mother Marielle keeps bleating about goats and permits and trainings, which barely distracts Troyan Rilke... Garald does manage to sneak a peek:
- the handwriting is very elegant, almost calligraphy, nothing like Simeon’s handwriting, even before he had to start writing with his non-dominant hand (like the breakup note)
- at the bottom of the letter there is a seal in the shape of a golden scarab
- the blood is limited to the envelop, suggesting that the messenger bled on it… maybe when he scaled the guild hall up to the third floor, in the middle of the afternoon, somehow without being spotted or at least without raising an alarm
Under guild master Rilke’s scrutiny, Garald has no time to really read the letter, but the general gist seems to be "you owe us : pay up or we will collect in blood". No wonder Rilke looked so perturbed…
Guild master Rilke frowns that it's an incredible coincidence that we showed up, when we did, with the necessary antidote in pocket. Mother Marielle bleats she always travels with her apothecary of tinctures and balms, wanna see? Now where did she put it, and she starts strewing Rilke’s elegant bureau top with more detritus out of every bag and pocket and pouch she can find on her body and her equipment. With mounting horror, Rilke waves her away, just go and give me a moment’s peace to process how close I came to danger…
As Feynmann ushers them out, Garald gruffs “We're off to the goat administration, but please come to my performance tomorrow”. On their way out, they hear Rilke grumble: “How many troubadours are visiting our town, geez”? Undeterred, Garald gives Feynmann bardic inspiration to convince Rilke to install more guards in the guild hall. Feynmann concurs it’s a good idea and asks them to please summon the guards on the way out. Mother Marielle shrills “Summon? Like they're demons and we use magic”?!
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With Garald’s reassurance that his mother is very against magic, and would never ever use it or hide anyone who uses it, they’re back into the hallway. The poisoned guard is mostly revived by now. Most bystanders have left, some of his more friendly coworkers are tending to him. He is still freaked out by the sensation of a presence behind him, and then falling down paralysed and being barely able to breathe in that weird position with his face mashed into the carpet.
Mother Marielle toddles off to the goat office, while Garald keeps promoting his performance tomorrow night. Some people mutter such marketing antics are even more distasteful than Kylie Jenner's coca cola zero advert but Garald promises he’ll prove them wrong.
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As the guards hurry up towards Rilke's office, Marielle scolds Garald that he's attracting too much attention to his show. What if people wonder where his adorable mother is? Is El supposed to be Marielle now till we leave The Vale? And what if people wonder why our crew no longer hangs out with Ophelia? Garald loftily waves away such concerns: people focus on the music and the artist, not on his backup singers/dancers/instrumentalists, and even less on the groupies hanging about backstage. Mother Marielle grumps that she has an oblivious idiot for a son.
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Their missive sent and their mission completed in the post office, Ezra and Storm were loitering outside the guild hall & saw the guards rushing in. Before our young captain can fully panic, we see our friends leave: Garald on top of Deception the goat, Mariella holding the goat's horn because she's blinded by the sunlight.
Storm sends Bella Swan to go pick up Aqueel and Hali & we discreetly and discretely head back to our room in the Iron Oar Inn.
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Despite mother Marielle's loudly-voiced worries that our fake personas overlap, we do put Deception in Madonna's stall.
Fyllion shifts back into Ophelia & she reassures mother Marielle with his typical slogan "I laugh in the face of danger, and so should you". Ezra agrees: "if anyone asks, we'll just say mother Marielle has old people pee-pee-poo-poo problems that prune juice couldn't solve".
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While Storm scrubs the make-up off El's face, the others have a well-deserved drink in the tap room. We see a middle-aged Eladrin woman carrying a basket of herbs, like a delivery. She's a little frazzled because she’s late with her herbs and the rosemary has started wilting a teeny tiny bit. She explains to Wendy that a shady guy came to her shop looking for nightshade and hemlock. She’s no fool, of course she immediately realized that he’s looking for poisons! She sent him away and closed her shop to keep him from coming back. On her way over to the Iron Oar Inn, she stopped by the Ghorann girl, to warn her about weird potential customers, since that poor girl is all on her own now. And wouldn’t you know it? Maya told Lucerne that this creep already came by, looking for cave-crawler slime, another poisonous ingredient!
With a murmured request for Ezra's permission, Ophelia flits to Wendy and Lucerne. With a nod to Wendy and a murmured “I couldn’t help but overhear”, Ophelia starts gossiping: have they heard that a guard was attacked right in front of the guild master's office? They say it was lucky there was a fantastically handsome and intrepid dwarf present to help, with his brave little mother in tow.
Lucerne wails that she warned all her reputable colleagues, but there's always unsavoury figures about, especially now that the blockade in the woods has disappeared again. The city managed to run off those hoodlums who call themselves the Gilded Blade a while ago, and that was a credit to Rilke, convincing the naysayers that she isn’t too young for the job… but now so many sketchy figures are coming back to town, and of course you shouldn’t say it, but doesn’t Rilke also look, you know, kind of like them with that swarthy complexion... When Ophelia tuts over that remark, Lucerne flutters her hands through the air, oh you know what I mean, those human people all are all the same, don’t you know? Just look at those weirdos from the Gilded Blade, they chose a golden scarab as their emblem. What’s the link even between a blade and a scarab? Anyway, do Wendy and Ophelia think Lucerne should have warned the guards too?
When Ophelia encourages her that it’s never too late for an upstanding citizen to pass a warning to the guard, Lucerne calms down a little. Now she recognizes Ophelia from Pandolf's stories of the first evening’s performance. Lucerne was sorry to have missed it, it seems that every decade, or even every year, there are fewer young Eladrin invested in their culture… Ophelia grins that she'll be happy to join them soon for that promised dinner and perform for Lucerne then.
It’ll be a great opportunity to see Mi'Kal again too. Lucerne is so proud that her shy boy is coming out of his shell! Ophelia suggests that Lucerne passes on Ophelia's warmest greetings to Mi’Kal, and can she please remind Mi'Kal of the inside joke Mi’Kal and Ophelia shared about the circle of trust. Lucerne is fit to burst to hear that Mi'Kal has inside jokes with such a pretty girl, and a young Eladrin too, reviving the community!
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Storm doesn't really get the make-up off, but after half an hour of scrubbing Storm and El finally remember we have prestidigitation thanks to the voidstones we received from Lunaire in Damanhour! Then it’s quick work to restore El’s face. They go downstairs and join the others, just when Ophelia returns Ezra, still glowing with pride over Lucerne's compliments. Ezra confirms the compliments and a beaming Ophelia asks for a hug. The combined effect of the compliments and the hug seem to make Ophelia grow 6 cm.
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Since there are still a few hours in the afternoon till dinnertime (ahead of Ophelia’s performance), we feel compelled to look into the Magnus Ghorann situation. After all, we’re the only ones who seem aware that he was working for our former captain John Magpie, using his magic…
When we realize we forgot to ask captain Halloran if she possibly conscripted him, we decide to head to the docks to see if we can find out more about Magnus Ghorann. Do we need new disguises? Should Ophelia shift? Can Hali finally transform into a useful shape? Is it enough to paint El’s face again? What do we do with Aqueel? Will Madonna and Deception help us or hinder us in a quick get-away? El and Storm get worried that there’ll be too much overlap between our different personas and people will get suspicious, while Ezra (surprisingly) trusts everything will work out for the best. Ophelia helps us put an end to the debate with a cheeky “let’s disagree to agree, and just head out”.
When El realizes they no longer have Ezra’s whisker, El gets their camel brush out of their bag: that's enough fur to power a month of spells! Looks like all that unpacking and resorting as mother Marielle was useful after all.
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When we reach the Surya, there are 2 crew members guarding the gangway. Thanks to some fast talking by Ophelia, we are allowed aboard & are lead to the captain's cabin.
As we're crowded in the corridor behind the crew members accompanying us, Storm puts Bella Swan on the floor and asks her to explore discreetly. Meanwhile Ophelia darts into the captain’s cabin and starts her spiel about the local boy being missing. Halloran frowns that she only arrived a few days ago, and doesn't know about local cases. Ophelia whispers it's because the boy is rumoured to have magic...
Halloran starts a shockingly impassioned and extremely patriotic rant that she expects magically inclined people to stand up for king and country, but she's not in the business of arresting random citizens despite the conscription orders! Of course, El can’t resist needling her:
- El: what if you saw someone casting a fireball in the market?
- Halloran: I would arrest them for a frank discussion why they didn't answer the call of the motherland
- Ezra: what if you discovered someone had just a tiny bit of magic, but also Kharkorin roots?
- Halloran: I'd arrest them for sure, and drag them off if they have no good reason to be here, all to keep our country safe, of course. For too long, we have allowed our enemies to fester in their hatred of and evil desires for our beautiful country, even while we were trying to recover ourselves from their baseless and cruel attack in the past. This can no longer be tolerated, we must prepare and work together: strength through unity!
Even while several of us gape at her, speechless by all the implications of the vocabulary she uses & the zeal with which Halloran delivers them, Ophelia thanks her for the information. Seamlessly shifting gears, El asks if Halloran knows where we could hire a postal fish. Nonplussed, Halloran wonders if we mean a mermaid willing to carry a message? Ezra despairs & reminds us that we don't know how to send paper under water. Halloran wonders why the genasi in our company hasn't told us that under water letters are written on stone. We all turn to Hali: didn’t you used to live under water? Why didn’t you tell us? Hali mumbles something & wipes her forehead. In her eyes we read: “it’s moisture, it’s not sweat”, so none of us dare comment.
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On the way off the ship, Ezra remembers that John Magpie was born in The Vale. So we figure we should just start interrogate the locals. Perhaps they’ll remember his deepgnomish family of origin, or perhaps we’ll find out something about his ship?
Blindly navigating the corridors with a hand on Ezra’s shoulder and a hand on Hali’s shoulder, Storm zooms into Bella Swan's eyes. She's waddling through the corridors at a clipped pace: someone is pursuing her, wondering when they got goose for the pantry. Storm panics a little and bellows “Bella, can you lay an egg to distract them” but Bella is too far to hear him, and anyway can swans lay eggs on command? Actually, do familiars even lay eggs to begin with?
Either way, it’s clear Bella Swan didn't find anything and needs to make a hurried retreat through the nearest window.
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On the docks, Ophelia has started asking people on the docks. She quickly uncovers that, yes, there was a ship in the drydocks till just recently… and someone confirms they saw Magnus and Magpie together in the drydock!
Soon we’ve found Lynskey, the owner of the drydock. With her usual charm, Ophelia has him spill everything he knows in no time:
- that deepgnome Magpie arrived here, like, several weeks ago with a severely damaged ship: it was horribly burnt and several parts looked like they were blown to smithereens
- among the many repairs the ship needed were: a new nameplate, commissioned to display the name “The Kraken”… and a new statue as figurehead (Ophelia hides Fyllion’s disappointment well – Ezra has repeatedly warned him that Magpie wasn’t very likely to replace the baby kraken-statue with a depiction of Fyllion)
- yes, the Ghorann boy was here too, working away with John Magpie and his crew
- the ship left in the wake of the panic of the werewolf incident: that moon illusion happened on Thursday, everyone was panicking, the guards couldn’t find anything, it was chaos in the clinic, so Lynskey figures the crew didn’t feel safe hanging around & by Saturday they were all packed up and done with the last tasks & the ship left
- it looks like it was an impulse decision for Magnus to join the ship, but he didn’t seem coerced. Of course leaving was a bit premature, right, because on Sunday, The Surya arrived, with more soldiers to help the guards and with that tiefling cleric who’s been a tremendous help in the clinic
With this information, we figure we have enough information to inform Maya, so we head over to her shop Ghorann's magical sundries.
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As we troop into the shop, we see that an older woman with her grey hair in a bun and dressed like a medic is dressing the bandages on Maya’s leg stump. Maya apologizes for the unconventional welcome: it’s been a hectic day, what with that shifty bastard coming around for dangerous ingredients and then Lucerne's warning that he’s scouting for poison. Then, Maya felt she had talk to the guard herself, but she’s not very mobile yet, so she’s very grateful the medic was willing to come over to care for her at home.
The medic huffs that there's all sorts for people around. She had an unsavoury type in the clinic, that’s why she didn’t want a sweet and vulnerable girl like Maya hobbling around. The medic even felt she had to lock up the medicines, because this one guy with a lot of bloody scrapes was eying them suspiciously. He left without finishing the treatment, and he refused the Rosarian tiefling cleric's help, so he was clearly a criminal. She hopes he’s travelled on by now, with his disreputable horse and his shifty little eyes. Ophelia rolls her eyes.
After the medic leaves, Storm leans closer to hold Maya's hand again. Ophelia explains the information we gathered. Maya is both relieved to know a bit more & worried about her brother leaving without checking on her. He didn't even know she was injured in the werewolf incident. We reassure her that Magpie is a stand-up guy so she can rest easy. She still has several questions and there’s still a worried wrinkle on her forehead.
We promise that we will send her a message whenever we find out more about her brother. Does she have any way we could contact her?
Maya starts explaining Lucerne told Maya that Mi'Kal, her son, is coming home from his magical internship, so maybe Mi'Kal can help with the enchanting: maybe a magical message to Magpie to confirm he'll look after Magnus. She also hopes Mi'Kal can help her out with this new complicated commission for a fancy bag of holding...
When she notices we shuffle a bit uncomfortably at the mention of making a bag of holding, she winks that she's okay talking about magic to us, because she can smell the magic on us: even if the genasi, the marid and the half-elf didn’t have innate magic (which is obvious to everyone who’s ever met anyone or read a book), she easily identifies Ophelia’s crown, our rings, El’s mask, a mysterious little glint around Ezra’s earring of messaging, Storm’s sandals… oh and is Ezra turning a lewk or would Maya be correct if she identified our captain as a shifter from her books…?
Maya wracks her brains to find a way to repay us for the risks we took in confronting Halloran for her brother’s sake. She hasn’t quite figured out how to create interesting inventory now that her enchanter brother is missing… and well, she does have a tame mimic but her little friend works as a cash register in the shop and she doesn’t think she can part with him… during the conversation, she figures out that we might be interested in travelling to the north. That makes her perk up: she might know a way to just completely avoid the mountains. She starts explaining:
There used to be a third group in the mines, next to the dwarves and the deepgnomes: the drow. They were renowned for their edible moss and mushroom farming but most of all for their moth breeding, the basis of their exquisite underground silk cloth. Some have whispered that it’s a tribute to Clíodhna, the lady of the veil who’s worshipped by many in The Vale. They used to have a teleportation circle connected to a wizard’s tower well on the other side of The Spine’s mountains.
Alas, 20 years ago, something must have happened: the drow streamed out of their caves into town, on a mission to kill everyone who wasn’t drow! Maya’s mother was involved with them as a diplomat, and alas, the Ghoranns never saw her again. Compounding this loss was the fact that Ishmael, Maya and Magnus’ father was the wizard to collapse the tunnels to the drow caves, in order to keep the city safe. After this incident, Ishmael left the city and his children.
So, it might be a wild goose chase (Storm caresses Bella Swan’s long and elegant neck), trying to find a way into the drow habitats, and then contacting them and convincing them the issue from 20 years ago is moot by now…
When they see that Maya is spinning out in her thoughts, Ezra reassures her: recently Ezra received a span of drow silk, as a casual gift from, let’s say, an acquaintance, Reva. Reva is well-connected, and pretty ruthless: she wouldn’t give away a stretch of silk so casually if it were impossible to replace… so Ezra figures there must already be a way to contact the drow.
Maya muse that it might be via the deepgnomes… that’s good news, or it would be if the deepgnomes hadn’t suddenly withdrawn from all contact with the city, in the wake of the moon illusion and/or the werewolf incident… did Grewishka ask for their help & did they close their caves to hide him? Or were they afraid of the chaos and did they choose to isolate themselves?
Either way, Maya feels motivated to look into her connections that might lead to the drow! She’ll keep us posted if it works out, and she’ll think of another reward should this option not pan out.
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Satisfied with our day’s work, we amble back towards the Iron Oar Inn, in search of dinner. Soon after it’ll be time to prepare for Ophelia’s performance. When we pass a pet shop, Ezra pops in and buys a goat brush: El’s dedication to and love for Madonna has inspired them to build a similar bond with Deception. Ezra thinks quietly of Shaksam, their pet tiger Jacob told us about…
Storyline
previously: session 36 this tea brings all the killers to my yard and I'm like... WHAT?!
up next: session 38
