Sapphire:Sessions:20200222
After a day's journey to the nearest gate, the group returns to Sapphire.
Chalker speaks to the emperor regarding contact with Malprin.
Alastor establishes a residence in Colvin, capital of Malprin with financing from Chalker. The gate in the residence is kept carefully hidden. Alastor uses the gate to move merchandise, giving Trace a cut of the profits.
Shawna meets with Lady Thire. From Belandrie: "their place" is protected by mages, and Belandrie's group is mapping unknown areas. The Thieves Guild fragments are cooperating with one another. A few "dark elves" have been flushed out; there is a "nest" of them in Verdon.
Shawna visits Taybor Cove, home of Tina, the brave girl who walked to Sapphire to save her town from mind control.
Construction on Chalker's Old Town properties is completed by the end of the month of Rain Time.
Charesoon's shrine in Sapphire has moved, and it takes Chalker a week to locate it. The same old woman seated in front flashes him a gap-toothed grin. He apologizes for the "recent disagreement" and her smile widens into a full set of teeth and fangs. Chalker: "Do you make your children out of humans?" "No, they have to do it themselves. I enable them if they are devout enough." "Do you have a race of devotees that started as dwarves or halflings?" "Are you offering some up?" Chalker detects that Charesoon is "pissed" and "twarted [sic]". He asks, "Where is your other son? And should I be afraid?" "He is bound by the First, and yes, very much." "Do you consider yourself evil?" "Of course not." "Me either," Chalker replies, and starts to back away. The old woman stands up, her fangs now resembling saber teeth. Chalker: "Tell Phor he's a lucky god." "Mensep won't always be near." "Next time, will you be in a better mood?" "Will you be dead?" "I'm the son you wish you never had."
Chalker looks around for Mensep, who steps out of an alley and tells him, "You'll be delivering the message around the first of next year." The "dark halflings" are neither Mensep's constructs nor Charesoon's. Mensep: "It's a very delicate situation." He adds that "Shawna and her companions will be called, unless Belandrie falls into it." Chalker refuses to take the next message. Chalker: "Where's Ven?" Mensep: "In his grave, near the bowels of the Troubled Lands." "The dark halflings aren't from around here?" "Yes."
Intrinsius begins regularly leaving offerings at the temple of Santash. The priest there says Santash is pleased with him. Intrinsius: "In spite of my failures, I'm trying to do better."
The new year 2437 begins on Blooming Time 1.
On BT 3, Rory reports that the area where Belandrie is hunting the dark halflings is nearly 3000 miles away, to the west and slightly north. The maps Rory has obtained are over 400 years old and have few details. He has made copies and marked the gate locations.
Trace announces that within the next couple of months he will apply for the designation of Master Mage.
BT4 - Chalker visits Lady Thire. "I'm headed to an unknown land, searching for the dark halflings. Please tell the Illustrious One that I am on my way and would like to speak with him." The city Belandrie is in presently is called Pinehurst. Lady Thire is still investigating the dark elves; "They hate other races because they 'destroy Nature'." Chalker verifies that Belandrie has been alive since before Year 1 of the present age.
Shawna has gone off southward. She quells a bandit gang, killing some and rehabilitating others.
Ahn-Lee and Kimtri have gone to Ordin and expect to be away at least a month.
BT6: At 4:00am Chalker, Intrinsius, and Cal go through a gate and come out 30' below the Smiling Robbers Saloon in Pinehurst. Trace had constructed a tunnel which leads up into an alley. Due to the time difference, here it is 10:00pm on BT5. They hear raucous singing, and there are bards onstage playing a lute and a flute. Most of the patrons are human except for a couple of goblins and a half-orc. The group enters and is seated. Pointing at the half-orc, Chalker orders "ale for my friend over there." Intrinsius gets up and dances with the waitress.
When the ale is delivered, the half-orc raises his mug and salutes Chalker. Chalker beckons him over. The half-orc gives the name Loop and says he's a "roving fighter" currently between jobs. His rate is 3cp per day, or 1cp with room and board. He has seen a lot of elves around lately. Chalker offers him 1cp retainer. "We'll meet some elves tomorrow, and if you survive, I'll hire you." Chalker detects metal on Loop -- two throwing knives, a short sword, several crossbow bolts with iron tips (but no crossbow). Aura: Greedy, brutish, very strong Gauder worship.
Chalker writes a note to Shawna.
Intrinsius returns to the table and sits down, saying, "This isn't my type of place -- they're not nice people." He has detected Magery on several people, mostly low level, but there's a merchant at the bar who is higher level.
Chalker floats a coin across and taps the merchant on the shoulder; the man comes over and slides into Cal's vacated seat. His name is Dar Crippen -- "Mister Crippen" -- and he sells "magic talismans, potions, and art objects." He visits several cities regularly. He is incredulous that Chalker and his group come from the Calventine Empire, saying "Most won't know what 'the Empire' is." Chalker: "You look out of place." DC: "This place is challenging. The duke isn't happy with this place but he doesn't shut it down." (The Duke's full name is Bartholomew Carothers Jorgensen; he stands 6', 200 pounds, muscular.) DC knows that "elves are wandering around looking for something or someplace;" he doesn't like elves "because of Yasseph." He's not a follower of Asseraah, though. Aura: Level 3 mage; strong psionic mind shield; both good and bad; scarred by a demon (mauled, now mostly healed). DC claims his mother named him Dar due to "her sense of humor." He experienced "an unfortunate event" so he avoids Yasseph and elves.
Chalker: "You have a link with demons, so I'm told." DC: "Got caught between demons and elves, wrong place at the right time." "Nice meeting you. Hope you get over your phobia of elves and demons, and remember when to run." "I have a feeling our paths will cross. I will visit the temples of Roo and Cor and Mensep." "Tell Roo I said hi, but don't mention me to Mensep." "Coming to this tavern was a mistake; I have yet to meet --" DC doesn't finish his sentence. He brings out a set of bones, tosses them on the table, then sighs dramatically, "I will see you again." He rises and walks out.
Chalker waves Cal over. "Let's get us a room and see who follows." They get three rooms at the Rush Inn (recommended by their waitress). They're positive they weren't followed. They discover in each room a trapdoor in the floor that leads to a tunnel. Chalker and Cal each drag furniture over their trapdoor. Intrinsius lights a candle and waits.
Around 1:00am the trapdoor slowly rises and a guy emerges. As he starts to turn around Intrinsius grabs him and flips him onto his back. Somehow the guy slips away from Intrinsius, shoves himself feet-first through the trapdoor, and falls flat on his back on the tunnel floor, the wind knocked out of him. Intrinsius throws the trapdoor wide and lands astride the guy. The tunnel is only 5' high, so Intrinsius is obliged to keep his head down. The guy says "shit" as Intrinsius pulls a knife. Intrinsius sees that this "guy" is a teenage boy.
Intrinsius marches the boy to Chalker's room. "He tried to rob me." Chalker: "What's your name, dead kid?" "Denny." "If you lie, I'm gonna cut off something. Is the tavern owner in on this?" "No, sir. One of the bartenders and two serving women." Chalker places the point of the knife between Denny's eyes and asks for information. Denny: "We go after newcomers, take things they won't miss." Chalker sighs, says "Remember this," then kicks Denny down an open trapdoor.
In the morning Loop is waiting for them. They go to the Paladin & Priest Tavern where an elf ranger is guarding the door. Chalker recognizes the elf from the Malprin campaign. The elf says he's met six half-orcs in the past month. Loop says he has four half-siblings.
Shawna reads Chalker's note and pens a reply.
Shawna senses a "spiritual disturbance" four miles south. Something "ripped a hole" and a male (1/4 elf blood) stepped from it, then stood there, disappointed. She has a sense of chaos, and ambivalence regarding good/evil.
She rides to the location and there is still a jagged tear in the air like a weird gate. A few hundred yards away is a farmstead, and the tracks of boots leading toward it. She makes her way over there and peeks in through a window. The man is speaking to a farmer. "Where am I? Am I in the Empire?" He reminds Shawna of a ranger she knew 150 years ago in the Peninsular Kingdoms. He is just under 6' tall, 200#, wearing "fighting leathers," armed with a hand-and-a-half sword and two combat knives; at his waist is a magic belt. A woman and three children are in a trance. The farmer goes to sleep.
Shawna follows from outside as the intruder searches the entire farmhouse. Eventually, in a back room, he raises a trapdoor in the floor and brings out a 12" box. He opens the box and removes a magical figurine of a warrior in chainmail with an upraised sword. He puts the figurine in a pouch and replaces the box under the floor.
Shawna is waiting for him as he steps into her Glue trap. His name is Rodlin, he is from Kell, and he is "reclaiming something stolen" for Jessie Nixa, who is paying him 4gp. Nixa is an archmage from Zondell, about 40 years old, and specializes in movement spells. The "tear" was done by Rodlin. He had attempted to apport the figurine but was blocked. He says it's "a beacon and a locator" but won't give any further information as to why Nixa wants it. Shawna puts Rodlin to sleep. Apporting it but not touching it, she studies the figurine; it looks "foreign" and very old, but there's no heraldry to identify the warrior. She guesses it might allow for an army to be teleported, perhaps even through time.
Shawna ponders for several minutes, then leaves Rodlin asleep and with his feet bound, rides to a town ten miles away, and takes a gate back to Sapphire. She immediately takes the figurine to Branamin's lab, impresses upon him that there are bad people looking for the object and it is essential to keep it hidden, and requests that he find out what it does.
Chalker warns Intrinsius regarding Belandrie: "Don't trust him. He's old and he knows everything."
Sa'tire Belandrie tells them he hasn't found the dark halflings; "They are well-hidden." Belandrie has been in this area several days. Chalker brings out Rory's map and asks, "Are we in the right area?" SB: "I'm sure of it. They might have sailed upriver." "If you can't find their ship, how do you know they made landfall?" "Magic." "You know they docked here." "They hid in plain sight in Colvin. ... There are a few Venettian structures in the coastal cities. ... Seeker/Trace using the coin was blocked by a very powerful mage." "That makes me sad, since we're sitting with a powerful mage." "I will find them. I'm afraid we have walked through their place and not realized it. Earth mages have looked underground."
Chalker asks about the ruins. SB: "Cliff Hollow is the largest, on the coast. It's a ruined castle atop a cliff, about 200 miles from here. ... The dark halflings made landfall on this close, probably at Gu-Win, which is 200 miles in the opposite direction. ... There is a 'suspect area' 25 miles from Pinehurst, a haunted forest."
Chalker: "If you knew the dark halflings were on the coast, why are you so far inland?" Belandrie doesn't answer.
Chalker requests horses for his team, including "Loopy."
Shawna writes to Chalker. He writes back, Please come and signs it Chalker the Desperate.
Shawna takes a portal from Sapphire to Pinehurst. She describes the figurine to Belandrie, who says it is one of a series of mapping icons made by humans to "set the destination of a gate." It has to be a particular kind of gate, all of which have been destroyed. "Dar is upset with the makers of these artifacts."
In the haunted forest, everyone gets a creepy feeling. Chalker feels the spiritual presence of some of the Chosen. Intrinsius senses that this place is not pleasing to Santash; he is warned that something will attack his mind, but he must go a couple of miles in. Shawna knows the area is two miles by three miles, and something malevolent (not the dark halflings) in the exact center is dangerous and must be dealt with. Belandrie says that "people who go in there get lost." One ranger came back "misshapen physically and spiritually" and died soon afterward. Another came out "babbling" and is in the care of healers.
Chalker feels the presences of Vengeance (Aakbarath), Jealousy (Aup), a 'vague' sense of Assaraah, and a "very small" sense of Charesoon. As Chalker speaks, Shawna senses that Aakbarath has appropriated Charesoon's monsters; there is jealousy from a person who has been "channeling Aup for a while."
Belandrie clears out some underbrush. A number of large wolves (two for each person) materialize 30 yards away, running 10 yards per second. Belandrie's two rangers shoot arrows and hit; Shawna and Intrinsius prepare spells.
Intrinsius casts an Explosive Fireball, killing two wolves. Shawna's Tangle spell goes off and she draws her sword. Two more arrows hit. SB throws a Fireball in one hand and Lightning in the other; one wolf is hit but another dodges.
Shawna kills the wolf that dodged SB. Chalker swings Dink-Dink, striking a wolf's neck and killing it. Cal swings and hits. A wolf bites at Chalker, who severely injures it with aggressive parry. Cal fails his parry and a wolf tears armor and skin. Loop gets bitten but is unhurt. With his quarterstaff Intrinsius knocks one wolf into its buddy. Each ranger fires an arrow down a wolf's throat; one wolf dies. Loop swings and hits, and the wolf stumbles.
Chalker hits Cal's wolf, killing it. Shawna swings and mortally wounds a tangled wolf. SB throws spells and kills a wolf attacking Loop. Ranger1 kills another wolf, and Ranger2 kills one of the wolves attacking Intrinsius.
The fight wraps up quickly. Shawna heals Cal's arm.
Shawna sees in a tree, on a branch 20' up, a squirrel with glowing eyes; five yards away in the grass is a bloodied fox (not its own blood). Shawna tells the rangers to kill the squirrel; one of them gets a critical hit. She warns Chalker about the fox; he TKs his dagger and stabs it twice, and the fox is unconscious.
The group senses something approaching underground. It is 30' long, 40 yards away, moving at 5 yards per second. Chalker sees a huge worm with a mouth big enough to swallow a person. He runs past it and turns around. Shawna casts Earth to Stone and the worm rams into it. SB jumps up and over the worm; the worm breaks the surface, twisting itself trying to attack SB. Chalker strikes with both Dink-Dink and Flame On! for major damage. SB lands, fast-draws a sword, stabs it deeply into the worm, then runs backward, ripping the blade lengthwise through the worm.