SESSION 37A: DOMINIC DEPARTS
May 9th, 2009
The 19th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty
At the gates of the Necropolis, Tee stopped and spoke with the Keepers of the Veil. She inquired after records of those buried in the Necropolis, hoping that they might indicate the location of Alchestrin’s ancient tomb. The knights didn’t keep records of that sort, but they suggested that one might inquire at the Administration Building in Oldtown.
When they returned to the Ghostly Minstrel, a figure wearing a dark green cloak with the hood raised high about its features detached itself from the corner of the common room and came to them. The figure pulled back the hood slightly, revealing to them the face of Sera Nara. Pulling her hood back down, Nara accompanied them up to Elestra’s room where they could speak privately.
“Why are you here?” Tee asked.
“I bring bad news,” Nara said. “This afternoon Rehobath appointed Prelate Adlam as the Silver Fatar of the Cathedral and moved his own retinue into Orridar Palace.”
“Orridar Palace?” Tor asked.
Tee answered. “It’s located in the Nobles’ Quarter. It was originally built by Shay Orridar during the founding of the city. Its construction ruined the Orridars. With the Orridars bankrupted, the other merchant houses squabbled over possession of the palace. It was viewed as a preeminent position of power in the city and the infighting for control was fierce. It became known as the Palace Trade Wars. Eventually, the merchant houses agreed that none of them would ever occupy the Palace. Various people have tried to make it their home over the centuries, but it’s been abandoned for decades.”
“That’s right,” Nara said. “But now Rehobath has dubbed it the Holy Palace and named it as the seat of his false novarchy. Unfortunately, that’s not the worst of my news. We have been gathering our loyalist knights to Pythoness House, as we discussed. Earlier this afternoon, however, we discovered that one of them was a doppelganger. An agent sent by Rehobath to impersonate the knight.”
“What happened to the knight?” Tor asked.
“We think he’s dead.” Nara grimaced. “We killed the doppelganger, too. But we don’t know if he had a chance to send word back to Rehobath or not. If he did, then it’s likely that Dominic’s plan to denounce Rehobath may be known.”
“What about the rest of us?”
“We think you’re safe. Your involvement was only known to a few of us. But preparations were being made for Dominic’s denunciation. It was common knowledge among the knights who were arriving.”
“So… what does that mean?” Dominic asked.
“It means you’re in danger,” Nara said, taking a step towards him. “We need to take you to a safe place as soon as possible. Secure you.” She turned to the rest of them. “The rest of you may come to Pythoness House if you want, but Tor should stay away.”
“That was already my plan,” Tor said.
“Good.” Nara nodded. “It’s impossible to know now how widely known Kabel’s presence at Pythoness House is now known. Or who might be watching.”
Dominic gathered up a few of his belongings and they made their tearful and heartfelt farewells at this sudden and unexpected parting.
And then Dominic was gone.
THE SECOND MEETING OF ALL THINGS
The rest of them labored long into the night. Tee and Ranthir produced voluminous papers – lore of the Banewarrens, chaos lorebooks, prophecies, alchemical manuals, stolen correpondences, and the like. They sorted, compared, and studied these until their minds were numbed and their sense of purpose overwhelmed.
They had an almost impossible number of possible courses to pursue. First, there were the Banewarrens: They had been hired by Jevicca to seal them and by Rehobath to retrieve the Sword of Crissa.
“Why does he want it, again?” Agnarr asked.
“It’s a religious relic. He’ll use it to solidify his claim to the novarchy,” said Tor.
“Just like he used Dominic,” Tee said with a slightly wistful tone.
“Then we’re not going to do it, right?” Elestra said. Tee nodded.
In some ways, however, it felt as if they had been stymied in the Banewarrens.
The green-skinned creature that had escaped through the sealed door into the deeper portions of the Banewarrens had not returned and, short of mounting a round-the-clock watch, there didn’t seem to be anything else they could do about that. And their only other solid lead pointed them towards Alchestrin’s Tomb, which they were somewhat wary of approaching without Dominic’s divine strength.
Then, of course, there were the myriad activities of the cultists and the strange prophecies of the Night of Dissolution. Tee couldn’t quite shake the feeling that they were somehow responsible for it. (“Or were we supposed to be stopping it?” Elestra asked. “Is that what we were doing?”)
They knew of at least three active cultist sites: The unexplored depths of the Temple of Deep Chaos in Oldtown (which had almost certainly been reinforced since their assault), the Temple of the Ebon Hand, and the Temple of the Rat God. There was also the matter of the Dwarvenhearth Research and Aknar Ratalla research they had discovered. And where was Wuntad in all of this?
Nor could they afford to ignore the strife within the Order of the Dawn. The entire affair seemed to have swallowed up Dominic, the true Silver Fatar was on his way from Seyrun, Kabel was gathering loyalists at Pythoness House, and there didn’t seem to be anything any of them could do about it.
On top of that, they had the matter of the Iron Mage’s letter (telling them to meet the Freeport’s Sword, a ship due the next day), the opening of their Hammersong Vaults within the week, the missing Idol of Ravvan, and the need to find new housing. (“Everybody knows where we live,” Tee said.)
Ranthir then reminded them of what Ribok had done to the researchers from House Erthuo. He wanted to claim vengeance on the Surgeon in the Shadows. Tee was somewhat skittish of getting involved with someone they knew to have connections with the Balacazars, but she agreed that a debt was owed.
And – above it all – there was always the omnipresent loss of their memories.
But out of the morass of information they also began to draw some conclusions:
Ranthir postulated that the bone-rings identified members of the Brothers of Quaan based on two facts: First, they had found a letter written by Ibulli (who had worn one of the rings) addressed to the Brothers of Quaan. Second, because in the letter she had written, “I think it truly possible that we have gained the key for both subjugating the scum of the natural races.” “And,” Ranthir explained, “We haven’t seen the rings on any human. Lamias, beholders, orcs, spider-things… (Platypuses.) No humans.”
Agnarr raised the possibility of following up on Demassac Tovarian (assuming that Jevicca hadn’t already done so). They knew he was experimenting with chaositech. “He might even be the one who supplied the items that let the bone rings into the Banewarrens,” Ranthir said.
Based on other letters they had found and their interrogation of Uranik, it seemed as if “Illadras” was running the Temple of Deep Chaos. If that was the case, where had she been when they were tearing up the place? How substantial were the parts of that complex they hadn’t explored?
Could the Freedom’s Key from Pythoness House be used to open their bank vault sooner? They also discussed the possibility of using the key to open the sealed door in the Banewarrens or the bluesteel doors in Ghul’s Labyrinth, but were stymied by the fact that those doors lacked keyholes.
And they’d also concocted a rough plan of action.
THE DREAMS OF TEE
While they had worked, Tee’s thoughts had returned to the conversation she had had with the Commissar on the walls of the Dalenguard. She new that he would want to know what Sir Kabel was planning.
So when the others had gone to bed, Tee slipped out of the Ghostly Minstrel and headed to the Dalenguard, intent on meeting with him. Unfortunately, the hour was late. Too late, in fact. The Commissar was abed and his guard would not disturb him for Tee.
Resolving to return in the morning, Tee returned to the Ghostly Minstrel. Settling upon her bed, she turned her thoughts to meditation and cast them into the Dreaming.
She sent her thoughts abroad, using her recent training with Doraedian to reach out for the dreams of Wuntad. She hoped to spy upon them and glean some insight into his plans or thoughts.
She found them – or at least she felt she did. But she found those dreams wrapped in a fog of black fury and blue lightening. They were blocked to her.
Disappointed she returned her thoughts to her own body and awoke.
Running the Campaign: The Adventure Not Taken – Campaign Journal: Session 37B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index
