Session 7: Wheelin' and Dealin'

General Summary

Get the results from Professor Tathviel Finethil about the Chaos Orb

• It is powerful but the origin is neither ethereal astral fiend fae -- the magical signatures look closest to celestial but it's not exactly right -- she has experience in recognizing all of the schools of magic that can be taught, and is familiar in reading energy signatures from all of the known planes -- feywilds, the nine hells, the elemental planes you name it. The fact that the orb seems to be made up entirely of some energy that is not definable using existing terminology or taxonomies suggests to her that its power originates from beyond the outer planes, but potentially tangential to the outer plane given the parallels with some aspects of celestial magics... but the signature has other patterns that match more closely to other planes... perhaps not beyond so much as between?
• Left it with her so she can continue to try to research it and how it works, conducting some controlled experiments to try to determine how its effects are transferred (likely to take a couple weeks)
• The were concerned about security -- found out that the University has powerful magical wards against forced entry and magical attacks
• Prof. Finethil offered that, should the orb be taken or lost in some way, she would offer them a similarly valuable magical item from her collection as collateral

• Found out it was mariposite, but that it also "sang" to him in a not entirely rock-like way

• Aleth said that his contacts are not willing to make the connection, as they do not want to be disgraced by the cowards that left their organization. Aleth is deeply sorry and says that if he had heard from his own people he would've helped.

• Bel made his bee hive -- earned Jester's respect/admiration
• Abe made fish jerky on the boat -- some weirdly spiced ones at Tomas' recommendation (he didn't try them, but did isolate them from the others in case they were bad)

• Saw a captain (Alton Goodbarrel) with his head in his hands -- he tried to bring a shipment of fine flour and fruits to Vuhn from Ahrensport but he lost his cargo and most of the mercenaries he hired (from Mitterdens) -- only found out because one mercenary was able to flee and made it back to Halkilde... but then said he didn't need to be paid and just wanted to find love, gave me a peck on the cheek, and wandered away whistling -- and this was a gold-hungry, hardened thug from the Mitterdens! To be fair, not Soma School material, but still from a reputable contracting organization! and now he's going to have to pay a massive deposit on losing all those people and he's got to figure out how to reimburse his customers in Vuhn (The Wild Tea Cup Inn, and The Goat's Beard)... how's he going to be able to do that? it's not like people can get up there right now
• PCs gave Neela his name in the event that she wanted to work with him in bringing those particular goods to Vuhn (Neela tends to bring weaponry and armor from Vuhn/Halkilde but doesn't often make the trip back and thus doesn't have a go-to person)