Session 17: Trail to Tallaut Report
General Summary
After everyone gains their bearings that morning, the party decides that since they are in a capital city to do some shopping. Eleanor and Ayame, after much searching through the city after finding many a closed sign for an enchanter, manages to come up upon a pair of students, who offers to create their enchantments at cost (normal price) to be able to put to use some techniques they had to study over the last two days, and ensures them their equipment will not be tampered with beyond that. after confirming the price, they promise to have their equipment delivered the next day. Eleanor takes this time to also do some other shopping, and found a smith with a beautiful chain shirt, and purchases it on impulse. Meanwhile, Ayame gets herself a wagon and horse to pull it with.
Ragia, through some unknown means, manages to procure a spellbook without paying for it. It even has a multitude of spells that she wanted anyway. Its up to her to decide how she obtained this trove of information.
It is about mid-day when criers are heard. Detailing the events of the previous day. "The stars are gone." They start their tyrade. "His magesty wishes for the public to remain calm. Though many clerics have lost their connection with the divine, all of the clerics of the secondary pantheon, Animism, have maintained their connection. As such, it is reccomended until the clergy of Vivere have re-gained their connection to the divine. As such, seek out the druids of the city for healing needs until further notice. There is to be an emergency meeting of the king and queen held at dusk tomorrow at Tallaut, in order to decide additional steps to ensure the safety of the kingdom. Finally, Banditry is on the rise, and guardsman are in high demand for travel outside the city, contact your local Aurellion representatives for additional information. Thank you one and all!" He would say before a minute long pause and repeating this information.
Ayame sips herself some tea as she listens to the crier. "Perhaps we could find work guarding some caravan to Tallaut, make some money on the way"
Lacy ponders this as well. "That's not a bad idea Ayame... It would see that there's going to be large shifts of power in the coming weeks. Might as well brush elbows with with the rising elite."
Ayame nods. "Deffinetly, and if on the way we can dispatch some bandits, all the better."
"There's probably a good amount of cash flowin' about to take care of those bandits. Best' do our part to take care of em' anyways before whatever spilled from the sky finds their footing" Eleanor says, holstering her glaive that she was sharpening.
"I'd say we need more answers than gold..." Lacy looks around the urban landscape. "Which means we gotta choose the right mark... Maybe royalty heading to the capital?"
Eleanor turns her attention to Lacy and rubs her head, "I'd rather avoid answers, not like we could do anything with em, we need money first, we can't meet up with the queen right away royalty sounds busy right now. Might as well get ourselves set, right?"
Ayame notices at this point that an elf from across the street has stopped, and is staring at her, unmoving. Noticing this, ayame nudges Eleanor and Lacy before nodding to the elf, standing up and making her way over. "Hello! Can I help you?" She says with a smile. As she does so, the elf suddenly clutches his chest and just falls to the ground, a crowd quickly gathering around him.
Lacy sees this, and eyes Ayame instantly with an accusatory squint.
One of those gathered checks the elf's pulse. "By the gods he's dead!"
After a few moments, Wye herself manages to get called to the body and checks him out. "It looks like... he just died from a heart attack... I haven't seen anything like this from an elf, only humans..."
With Ayame and Lacy quietly watching after a few long moments, a pair of guards with a stretcher come and take the elf away. Wye herself looks puzzled but makes her way back to the chapel without issue. Murmurs of concern arise in those gathered, but everyone goes their separate ways.
Lacy turns away after the corpse leaves their site. "Well. That's a damn shame, never know what kind of things will happen these days."
"You mean like the stars being stolen?" Eleanor says approaching the two now that the crowd has parted.
Ayame nods. "Anything can happen in a time like this I suppose..." She says with a sigh.
Changing the subject, Eleanor looks to Ayame. "Maybe we should take some quests sooner than later so we can get out of the city more if people are noticin ya. Weird though for someone to recognize you considering we only found you by almost drowning."
"Eleanor is right. Let's get a move on." Lacy agrees.
Ayame nods, also in agreement. "Well, we can't leave until tomorrow."
"You know that's not what I meant." Lacy says, parting ways from her companions, making her way to the church to find Naomi.
After searching for a grand total of five minutes, Lacy is directed to Wye. "I heard you were looking for me?"
Lacy quickly realizes her mistake by asking commoners for the 'busty cleric' and being directed to Wye. Staring at the elf's dobonhonkeros with a tinge of contempt. "Actually I was looking for my... healer. The one from the other day."
"Ah, Naomi." Says Wye. "She should be back in just a bit after she finishes some tutelage."
"Ah... well... while i'm here, I'd love to ask a few questions about... you know." Lacy gestures up towards the heavens. "Do you know where I can get some answers?"
Wye thinks for a few long moments before answering. "Anyone can answer your questions, but it is up to you if the answers are the ones you want. I am no cleric, simply a priestess, but I would be glad to help."
Lacy sneers "You must be very sad then, because that answer was of no help." The bounty hunter pulls out 5 gold coins. "Perhaps with the right donation, the church can... divine the one I want?"
Wye rolls her eyes. "That would work in normal situations, but sadly, we don't have a connection to the divine right now... Maybe at all or ever. So right now wisdom is our only answer. Besides, you never asked your question." She says without taking Lacy's money.
"Ugh, You people really are useless without that spark huh? How pitiful." Lacy leaves, tossing the coin into an offering box "Take the coin, as much as I'd love to see you in a brothel, Churches have much more appealing architecture."
Wye just gives Lacy a very confused stare as she leaves.
Eleanor takes her brief respite from the wilderness with a goal to unwind, while also eavesdropping on any potential work she could get the party. Taking Ragia with her while Ragia studies her new spells and copying them down in a book, Eleanor sits at a fairly shabby inn while drinking some mulled wine, while listening in on a pair of merchants chatting with one another, a human and a half elf.
"The roads aren't safe, we need to hire some guards." The human says taking a drink. "Maybe a hireling. Its only to Tallaut, and the place is crawling with wardens, so it shouldn't be that difficult." "Only as we get close to the city. Maybe when we are only a day away but its three days to get there." The half-elf replies.
Drink in hand, Eleanor stands up and approaches the two men. "G'day folks, I couldn't help but overhear yer' dilema. My group might be open to act as guards on yer trip if you've got the coin"
The two men look at one another before shrugging and the half elf replies. "How many in your group?"
Eleanor hums. "Five, including myself."
The human speaks up. "Standard rate for hirelings is three silver a day. We expect to leave day after tomorrow with our cargo for three days. Thats almost a gold for the trip. Is this acceptable?"
Eleanor winces at the price and sighs. Well with all that's going on and how dangerous things are this is beyond standard conditions for hirelings. Bandits are at an all time high in the panic, and who knows what else might turn up."
She looks the men up and down with a bit of a judging look, "Are your lives and product really worth three silver a day to you? You'll need to double it if you want something worth the protection, hire someone else at that price and they'll flat out abandon ya at the sight of bandits."
Storing away her spellbook and scrolls, Ragia slides into the conversation. "Gentlement, I'm sure you wouldn't want to hire cheap protection with the current situation, I'm sure we can... negociate, a better deal here? We're at least worth a gold a day, but that must also include good bedding, food and comfortable travel seats."
"Im afraid miss that we are but humble merchants. Six silver a day dips quite far into my familys mouth." The half elf says. "Perhaps four and five copper?"
"Five, and the travel accomodations and we'll have ourselves a deal." Ragia counters.
"Six and you bring your own bedrolls, but we provide food." The half elf counters back.
Eleanor and Ragia look to each other with an approving look before Ragia holds her hand out to the pair. "Deal."
The parties shake hands with one another. "We will be taking a load of wine out of the city the day after tomorrow. Meet us at dawn outside the gates and we will get started after you show up. If you don't show, we will get contingency adventurers from the guild." The human says, polishing off his drink.
"That's fair, we'll be there." Ragia says with a smile.
Eleanor nods as well. "See you then lads, now if you'll excuse me" she raises her mug and then chugs it down, "I'm gonna enjoy the rest of my day while I'm still off the clock."
Ayame meanwhile sets up a small stall to collect donations for her shrine. Many a passerby see her unique outfit and ponder at its significance, but most simply walk by.
Nearly disheartened by the change in mood from her homeland, Ayame thinks about the kinds of people who would really visit the Shiori shrine. Her question is answered with haste, when a copper coin is given to her by a random elf, who bows in respect to the shrine maiden. "Bless you my lady." He says.
Ayame smiles and bows back to the elf. "The spirits bless you." She says and places the coin in a special pouch she designated for the shrine itself. Just as she pockets it, another comes, and yet another, coin after coin filling her pouch until the last rays of light fade from the sky.
"Ill have to do this again tomorrow." Ayame says with a smile, her coin pouch jingling as she makes her way back to the Wine and Splash.
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DATE: Poviott 28/625
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The next morning, Naomi immediately gets out of bed and starts praying, hoping that Rhamnasia might finally get in contact with her again. Through her prayers however, nothing but silence.
Disheartened, but still faithful, Naomi makes her way back out to tutor some overprivileged elf child about the ways of religion.
Ayame has far better luck than her companions, and sets out to try and collect even more coin for her shrine. Even before it opens, there is a line of elves and a few humans offering her a copper coin for her prayers. She collects and blesses each and every one with a smile.
This goes on for some time, and by the end of it, Ayame has collected in two days more than she sees in an entire month in her tiny shrine in her home in what feels halfway across the world by this point. Nearly at nightfall, Ayame is approached by the student who enchanted sebastians armor for her, of which she graciously pays and accepts the gear, running back outside the city to fit it onto sebastian.
Eleanor meanwhile spends the day drinking alongside lacy, bar hopping from place to place until they settle in at the same shoddy bar they found work at the night before. Also approached by the student who promised to enchant Cassandra, he offers her her weapon, which she mindlessly stores with a 'thwip' as it dissapears from view.
The next few hours are a blur for the barbarian, and completely missing from Lacy, until they wake up the next morning.
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DATE: Vamendour 1/625
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Lacy wakes up to being prodded in the cheek by a pair of elf children arguing between themselves. "I dunno, she should be dead, shes not moving!" the child says continuing to poke Lacy with a stick.
Lacy quickly grabs at the stick, crushing it instantly with her bare hands, scaring the children away. Lacy groggily begins to get up into a kneel.
She rubs her temples, barely opening her eyes and stumbling out of the alley. She reaches into her haversack, grasping a flask and trying to drink from it, only to find it empty. With disgust, she throws it back into her sack, and stumbles her way back to the Wine and Splash to meet up with her friends.
Eleanor wakes up, not screaming for once, but with a ringing in her head and a blurriness in her vision from her hangover. She rubs her head and gets up, confused as to why she wasn't screaming this morning. Blaming the alcohol for her lack of daily adrenaline, she gets dressed and heads out of her room.
The rest of the party, sans lacy, are already eating breakfast when Eleanor sits down at the table. Naomi looks at Eleanors shoulder, and without warning, starts pawing at it, as if trying to grab onto something, and failing.
Noticing the wierdness, Ayame ignores it and starts talking. "Oh uhm, I bought us a wagon and a horse, so we don't have to walk alongside Lacy on our journeys anymore."
"Hnn... Eleanor," Naomi prods at her friend. "There is something on you." She says pointing it out.
Eleanor attempts to look, but can't see the back of her shoulder very well.
After thinking about it for a moment more, Naomi finally realizes that the sparkly lines on Eleanores back are from a brand new tattoo."Oh... You got tattoo'd?"
"I got tattoo'd again?!" Eleanor says trying desperately to see what she got.
"Mmm... I mean... That's what it looks like?" Naomi shrugs. "What were you doing last night?"
"I got shitfaced as usual, nothing unusual..." Eleanor ponders.
"Well this tattoo is all shiny n stuff. Are you sure you were JUST shitfaced?" Naomi says, poking at the small bit of visible tattoo.
Its at that point when Lacy grumbles while walking into the breakfast area. "I mean..." Eleanor continues. "I won a drinking competition against lacy if that helps explain things... though its unclear if she knew i was competing. I won of course."
"Mmm, no that doesn't explain anything other than that you were drinking..." Naomi says while continuing to poke at the tattoo.
Eleanor grumbles and pulls her shirt off to reveal her tattoo to the party.
"Won? I don't see winners get the tattoo that often." Lacy says before looking at Eleanors back.
Eleanor back is emblazoned with a new tattoo that covers the entire left side of her back, with a unicorn rearing up in an attack, with a mane made entirely of flames. Made of magical ink, the unicorn seems to sparkle.
Lacy blinks while looking at the tattoo, surprised. "I take it back, you definitely won something alright."
Naomi flushes bright red looking at eleanor's back. "U-uh... do you like ponies?"
Eleanor hums, "Not really."
"Because you have a flaming unicorn on your back..." Naomi blurts out, stunned by the image.
"Rad flaming unicorn on your back sis." Ragia says, impressed with the unicorn.
"Now you said ponies, not flaming unicorns." Eleanor grumbles.
Ayames eyes practically glow with enthusiasm. "Its so pretty~" she says with a singsong.
Eleanor chuckles and puts her shirt back on. "Well alrighty then, as long as it was not somethin too revealin, I totally forgot tattoos could get magic in em."
"To be quite honest, I'd be interested in studying your tattoo to understand the magics at work here."
Eleanor thinks about this and shrugs, "As long as its just the tattoo thats the study subject i'm fine with that, we'll have plenty times when we sit still for you to do that."
"Well sure, we should hurry up though, I don't want our clients to leave without us." Ragia says before wolfing down the rest of her breakfast.
The rest of the party packs up their things and heads out of the tavern.
Lacy collects her steed and chariot from the stables, which it seems is actually an extradimensional space that the horse was stored in with all her gear, and brought to her. The party meets up with the wine vendors, each of whom are taking up the front seat for their wagon. "Ready to head out?" They call to the party.
With calls of affirmation from the party, they set out for Tallaut.
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DATE: Vamendour 2/625
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it is about noon the next day at the border of the forest of vitium while Eleanor is on shift for watch, when she notices a tripwire. Casually, Eleanor approaches the merchants and whispers to them. "We got a likely bandit trap setup there." She says pointing out the tripwire.
"Trap? Where?" The merchants say, stopping the caravan.
Eleanor points out the tripwire with her hand. "If we back up a bit, we can trigger it from a distance instead."
The merchants spot the tripwire and nod to her. "Seems you are correct. Can you disable it instead?"
Eleanor thinks for a moment and approaches Lacy, the caravan completely stopped now. "Hey you're not good with trips like this at all are ya? Just askin cause ya use a whip and your friends name is twine. thought maybe it was a pattern."
"I... See your logic, and I really should be but..." Lacy shrugs, putting twine back in his cage. "Let's give it a shot."
Ayame raises a hand. "Why doesn't sebastian just trigger it?"
Eleanor blinks, "Well I don't know how Sebby works so I didn't consider sacrificing 'em."
Eleanor and Lacy make their way to the tripwire. Looking it over, Lacy shrugs. "Well, perhaps if we cut it quickly enough, it should prevent the trap from activating."
"Say no more" Eleanor says, taking out her axe and slaming it down on the tripwire.
"DONG DONG!" Rings a loud bell, activated by the trap, just off to the side of the road.
"Aw fuck, y'all protect that thing!" Eleanor says taking out her crossbow.
Ragia jumps off of the wagon, rushing ahead and talking to the clients. "Sorry for the delay, we'll take care of this as quickly as possible."
From fifty feet away in the treeline, the group can hear someone shouting. "Drop your load or there will be consequences travelers!"
After looking carefully at the treeline, Eleanor ends up spotting someone while Lacy coils some rope around her elbow.
Shooting for his face, Eleanors bolt whizzes just past the tree he was hiding behind.
Seeing that combat is inevitable, Ayame holds her hands in front of her and breaths air between them, forming a sphere of billowing air between them before expanding it out to enclose the entire group, creating a thin wall of wind between the party and the trees.
In that moment, praying as much as she could for the support of the gods that Naomi's stave starts to glow with a holy light. She takes aim at the bandit that Eleanor fired at and a javelin of light shoots forth from the tip of her stave where her holy symbol is perched. "Let Rhamnasia's light reveal the uncouth and unlawful... Holy Javelin!" she cries out as the bolt connects and completely vaporizes the bandit. "Stop this while you still have your lives! The Goddess Rhamnasia brings punishment to all who are unjust! Flee!"
"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES THE GODS ARE BACK!" The party hears as three of the bandits run out from behind the trees into the forest, as far away from Naomi as they can get.
Ayame however, was having none of that, and holds her hand out, making a grabbing motion, attempting to grab one of the fleeing men with a rush of air.
One of the men falls to the ground and starts scratching at the ground to run away, but quickly gets pulled back to Ayames feet, screaming the entire way.
Watching the man getting dragged, Eleanor whistles. "Wow Nao, I'm impressed."
Ayame drags the man over to him and floats him up twenty feet in the air.
"U-uh, Ayame we were going to let them run I thought? What are you doing?"
Ayame blinks, looking to Naomi while the man suspended in air screams in terror. "O-oh we were?" She sighs and brings him back to the ground. "Strip" She commands.
"Ayame!!!!" Cries Naomi.
"W-What?!" Ayame whines back.
Naomi covers her eyes with her hands. "N-not in front of our employer, you lecherous fox..."
Not waiting for a moment, the bandit strips off his gear, keeping his clothing only.
"Alright, go on, run off stupid." Ayame sighs as the man runs off frantically. "Be happy my friends gave you leniency!" She calls out after him.
Having been distracted after the bell rang out, Lacy holds up her new aquisition. "Guys check it out!" she says ringing the bell in her hand.
"Yeah thats a pretty nice bell." Naomi says.
Gathering up their aquisitions, the party continues on to Tallaut, lacy sulking into her chariot, toying with her spider the entire way.
Rewards Granted
Eleanor enchanted Cassandra to have the "Keen" Enchantment.
Ayame enchanted Sebastians Armor to have the Deathless Enchantment, and purchased a carriage with a Clydesdale.
Naomi re-gained her connection to the divine, and has 2x the number of spell slots available to her from her levels as a 5th level cleric. These are temporary spell slots, that while more than 1/2 of them are active, she does not have to prepare spells.
Ragia has won a spellbook from gambling and a bunch of scrolls, and is proceeding to copy down every spell she can into her spellbook.
The failed bandit attack has garnered the party some equipment: studded leather armor, buckler, a composite longbow (+1 str) and 20 arrows, a rapier, and a sap.
Character(s) interacted with
Wye: A half wood elf, half high elf priestess of Vivere who is the only remaining member of the clergy in town, as the rest have been imprisoned for high blasphemy.
Notes
Naomi is having strange dreams involving her talking to herself as a tiefling.
Ayame has gained a following of 63 followers for the Shiori Shrine in Praerba
Ayame has caused a heart attack due to her previous connection with the creature from Vitium.
