Session 61: Welcome to Veritas Report

General Summary

Given that we had a significant quorum I am going to try to keep the recap brief, both to make it less of a a hassle for me to write and have more of the salient relevant details for you to recall if looking back. 

Venrie the Bronze

The party had a long conversation with Venrie who revealed several important pieces of information: 

• She is one of the ancient heroes - of Bronze and the Witness. 
• The light from the Nightwell presages a coming, a harbinger of their coming. 
• The Fulcrum's resistance has not gone unnoticed.
• The Beasts that pursued the party are not the making of the ancient Vipers
• Kelyne is a mix of the great Tumalyne (The Dune Rider) and the spirit of Kelven (the Brown/Shaman campion). He himself made this pact with the dragon before his body was slain. Both weaker and memories hazy.
• Much of her power is gone with years and age, she herself has little will to fight, they won before, the current land, while she cares for it and its people, is weak and she has little faith in it being able to stand up to this threat.
• She advises caution and an avoidance of the Nightwell as far as possible, to go down there would be to almost literally enter the jaws of death. When they start to emerge, if you wanted to descend, that would be a better time. Armies would need to be gathered though as alone they will crumble in the face of this immense threat.

Upon conclusion of the conversation, she agreed to escort the group to Band Felgag, a hobgoblin warband on their way to Veritas. 

Warband Felgag

Venrie escorted the 5 to Warband Felgag, as promised, and Kul Felgag, their leader, agreed to take them with him to Veritas itself.    As the group travelled a few things happened: 

• Hallaster found out some more news of the Warbands in the city and their respective relationships with each other. 
• Valikos gained an intimate knowledge of Kul Felgag's adopted tiefling daughter, Kyra Rodin, staying in her tent for the duration of the journey. 
• Ludovic encountered one of his fans, a Longhorn, signed an autograph and reminded him to "Stay Longhorny" 
• Blaize spent nights manically making bullets and drinking, neither particularly impacting the other. 
• They saw the Vermor, the large sea on whose shores Veritas and the majority of Veritasi cities sit. Over its azure surface they saw numerous airships and naval ships moving too and fro between the cities carrying trade goods and news. 
• They saw work being carried out on some sort of vast infrastructure project, with kobold and warforged workers (as well as Vedalken overseers) making rapid progress.

Eventually they arrived at a sea of tents in the outskirts of Veritas, where those warband soldiers who could or would not stay in the city resided. 

Arrival in Veritas

Kul and retainers led the party through the Waels, the criminal district of the city, and up to the huge gates which were protected both by robotic warforged peacekeepers and their officers.    With Kul's dispensation the group were allowed to enter the city and escorted to the Peacekeepers' station, a small building on the edge of the government district, Trigolae.    They were all registered, their biometric details taken as well as a sample of their blood (or in Genkas' case bone), before heading to the Grateful Champion in Tramor Estron, the foreigners' district.   They were introduced to Goraprax Thilkud, a white dragonborn and the proprietor of the establishment. He made several questionable jokes before showing them to a suite of rooms at the top of the building.    Once they had made themselves comfortable, there was a knock at the door and Jellia Hallenbok rushed into the room, seizing Hallaster in a huge hug before explaining that there may be some trouble with the authorities as the Hallenboks were all suspects in the case.    Sure enough, shortly after her arrival, Chokosh Norjeon, the simic hybrid commander of the Peacekeepers entered and, with his well armed and armoured troops, escorted Hal away, saying that he was not under arrest, they just needed to ask him a few questions. Not quite the warm welcome home he was expecting.