San
San
Sheet: San
Bounty hunter from Intai. Has a partner named Rudol Drei.
looking for a pirate named Huville, who captains a riverboat named the Grim Chosen.
Has already captured and sent back 8 bandits to be reprogrammed
Huville may have more information of an entity named The Cramp, that is reprogramming Elan for their own mysterious goals.
Came to Den looking for Huville but was captured and enslaved by the Tusktrader caravan.
A letter to the Keepers of Order.
Arun 20
To the Superior of Seeker Khatri and Seeker Arya
This is Seeker San. In our own quest to hunt down the Pirate Huville and the Cramp of Intai, we have found ourselves graced with the favor of Akek. As it turns out, your seekers were captured in a fight attempting to capture their quarry, Malagan. We have used our favor with Akek to try and better their relationship with Intai, and thus they have agreed to release the seekers and send them back with an Akekian diplomat. Furthermore, we have since learned that your seekers’ quarry, Malagan, is an infamous lich from Sa Owu. If Khatri and Arya struggled neutralizing Malagan’s minions, it would be prudent to use their talents elsewhere. I’m certain Khatri and Arya can fill you in on the details, as well as the diplomat theyre escorting, one Brandon Awar. We are certain he will be a useful assets in the days to come.
Seeker San
PS. There is one last thing that I would like to share, regarding future diplomatic efforts with Akek. The empress does not reside in the throne room.
Arun 21
Arun 21
Arun 21
The party was a complete mess today. They had successfully turned in the gems for their reward, and came out of an alleyway claiming to have met Shattenzan of Akek. They tormented the halfling for in various fashions, then betrayed him to the government of Akek anyway. We have no clue who or what anyone wants anymore. We wash our hands clean of this mess. If this comes back to bite us, we may need to assume more control rather than assume that these northerners know anything about thinking ahead. Tomorrow we sail for Den
Arun 20
Arun 20
Today was an embarassment. Yesterday, while we were speaking with the seekers from Intai, the others had managed to get themselves into enough trouble to warrant medical attention. They sought a small shaman, who had convinced us to retrieve some gems from a goblin tribe. We had offended the shaman and wanted to recompense. But what happened at the goblin camp was a travesty. We had been assigned a new guard, and she was all too willing to steal from the camp. For some time we had trusted in Erwood’s plans, as they seemed to get us closer to our goals, but this was a blatant detour. Nevertheless, we went along with it, and that is our burden to carry. We were foolish to believe this could have been done in a bloodless manner. The bear and the new guard slaughtered four innocents in the name of avarice, while we fended off a serpentine spirit trapped within the gems. After this, we need to evaluate our relationships with the party moving forward. At the very least Erwood managed to inform us of the seeker’s quarry, a lich. This should be good information to send back to Intai. Perhaps two seekers is not quite enough to deal with that level of terror just yet.
Arun 19
Arun 19
Arun 19
As it turns out, Olma’s contact was an Akekian emissary, who managed to grant us an audience with the empress of Akek. Sarva meanwhile managed to embarrass us by not appearing at the ceremony. When we were asked for a sudden boon, it was difficult to come up with something so intangible, and theres no reason to believe the Empress would care about arbitrary criminals. We then settled for asking for diplomacy between our nations. As it turned out there are other Intai seekers of chaos here, imprisoned for some purpose. They are to be released, and sent to Intai with the diplomat. We hope to engage with them to prehaps continue their mission. The prospect of Akek learning of Intai’s ways fills us with hope. We’re certain the dragons understand the importance of order. Tangent aside, it seems that the empress was in disguise, and had us meet a double for the pomp and circumstance. The situation in Akek is dire. It also appears that Erwood is attempting to serve as ambassador between Akek and Sa Owu. Plenty of politicking happening. It may be important to send a message with the seekers heading home.
Arun 18
Arun 18
We have arrived in Akek, and we immediately set in motion our plan to reimburse Olma and retrieve her ally. We have acquired a local ranger to lead us to the location of the individuals reported to last be seen with the quarry. We shall second this person in order to see if he remains competent while inebriated. While searching for Olma’s contact we came into contact with the enemy camp, which seemed to be guarded by a fearsome beast. A Manticore that launched sharp projectiles from its tail. Luckily, Olma had acquired a potent poison from one of the sailors to incapacitate it and allow us to kill it without any risk to ourselves. Continuing forward, we came across the ruin that the contact supposedly knew about, and after a few skirmishes including one with the traitorous ranger, the contradtictory draconian Amonian managed to retrieve Olma’s contact without a fight. While suspicious, we never agreed with Olma to get into conflict with the contact’s captors, though they remain on the list. We now consider our debt to her finished. On the way out of the ruin, we came across a myterious being called the Creatlach, a nature entity who has granted us boons for waking it up, as well as entrusting us with defeating Torbin, the stout man who apparently seeks to destroy the jungle. Torbin, as contactractor of our quarry Huville, is our best bet of finding the Navigator again, if Huville remains in his employ.
Arun 17
Arun 17
We were told by the Navigator to walk in his shoes. He has made it quite clear that he is not going to remain in his hole as he relocates, and he says that we shall come across him again. He seeks to turn us against Intai. Yet we have no choice but to take his bait. We intend to walk in his shoes, and risk the potential curse that may be left in them, but if he truly believes in his cause, then it needs to be something I report on, so that future agents from Intai may extrapolate from my experience should I change for the worse. We arrive in Akek tomorrow. Let us call this day the control day. No adverse side effects as of day one.
Arun 16
Arun 16
It is going to be a long trek to Akek. We are currently heading northbound from Den again on this cramped vessel. To pass the time,we have decided to start committing to memory of the books Sarva has purchased on his research subject, the Tenebrous desert. The rumor of the city in the center, Akhetan, reminds us of Intai’s architecture. These books however, are all theory about the creation of the Tenebrous. There are insights to be made, but we shall be taking this information with a heavy dosage of salt.
Arun 15
Arun 15
We have discovered that neither Huville nor Torbin was at the trading outpost on our way to find Olma’s Akekian contact. We have discovered that he keeps a circle of sorcery in his basement, which we’re told is used for teleportation. More interestingly, he keeps a psurlon locked in his basement. This Torbin fellow has been showing to be more and more concerning each time we interact with something of his. Not only is Huville working with him(whose ship has since disappeared since the encounter with the Cramp, heading towards Amon?) but now this known psionic specimen has shown itself. Something to note in future reports. We now backtrack to Den to reroute to Akek in order to fetch this Informant. We need to reassess the measure of the favor we owe to Olma if depending on what we face ahead.
To be delivered to Keeper Yulian or Higher
Arun 14
This is Seeker San, reporting from Den, Arun 14. We have made contact with both the pirate Huville as well as his “teacher”, the one informally known as the “Cramp of Intai”, and self identified as “The Navigator’. On the back of this message is a memo detailing both Huville’s and the Navigator’s last known coordinates. We have been informed that the Navigator is a leader of an order known as the Pagoda of Devils. He not only destabilized Huville, but also attempted to recruit us into his cause. That said, his method of destabilizing Elan has not truly registered for us. If he has applied psionic treatments on us, we do not sense it. He has confirmed that if we chose to report him to Intai, he would abandon his current residence, though we believe that if you send more veteran Seekers, you may be able to track his psionic residue better than we can.
Huville on the other hand, seems to be in the employ of a much larger organization. His employer is a stout man named Torbin, whose height is in the curious range between halflings and humans. Huville has been kidnapping marks for this man, who has access to sorcery or psionics that allow him to teleport, which is power we have only seen with higher ranked elders. Huville and his company are more than the bandits we mistook them for before. In any case, he has a base that he regularly visits. It will be difficult to extract him for rehabilitation. We shall endeavor to finish our mission, but given his company and the fact that we do not have a dedicated seeker team assisting us, it is more likely that we may kill him.
One important thing. We could not determine the method of Huville’s destabilization from our encounter with the Navigator. In light of this revelation, we have opted then to take on his “tutelage” in an attempt to understand his methods so that we may combat it and protect the Elan Intai has so carefully cultivated. Know that we shall fight his influence at every step, but please, prepare for the worst. We hope that our journal shall document the journey.
Finally, we fear our souls have been marked by chaos by an Amonite General, Zolo Vim. Once Huville is dealt with, we will take a leave of absence from the seekers in order to reclaim the perversion that has been imprinted upon us. For better or for worse, this also halted the process in which the Navigator attempted to turn us against Intai. We hope that we remain the same person when we return to Intai.
Seeker San
Arun 13
Arun 13
A swift update. We are currently back in the hellish city of Den, awaiting the necromancer and the demon/dragon abomination to sell some treasure for funds inside a shady inn. More importantly, we have discovered more insights regarding Huville. Apparently he has deviated from Intai’s rehabilitation through a mentor he refers to as the navigator. As titles go, it sounds better than the Cramp, but I doubt that would stop Drei from using it if we manage to get back in contact with him, or any other Intai agent. Huville has offered to bring us to his master. We fear that if he is powerful enough to break Intai’s rehabilitation process he may enchant us with some vile sorcery. But we must try, and we have promised our companions a boon if they help us in this endeavor. If this goes well, it likely means we cannot return to Intai anytime soon.
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Writing these as fast as possible to have a record. We have finally come across the Cramp of Intai. He was not what we expected at all, yet we remained wary. We found it unwise to pick a fight considering we were brought there on the mercy of Huville, who doesn’t yet know that we hail from Intai specifically to find him. As mentioned before, the Cramp of Intai refers to himself as the Navigator. No doubt an obnoxious title meant to draw men like Huville towards him. But as Rudol Drei so eloquently says: “The cramp appears suddenly and forces the muscles we trained so hard to benefit us to betray us and paralyze us at critical moments” also seemed fitting for him, as he attempted to turn me as well. The Cramp/Navigator seemed simple enough. He had a bald head, with a white pointed beard. He dressed in monk attire, with loose fitting clothing. He immediately saw through our cover, perhaps through subtle mind reading techniques. He then surprisingly offered to treat us the same way he “treated” Huville(more on that later). Though we were wary, he told us that he planned on abandoning his current dwelling if I reported this to Intai. This left us with no choice but to accept his first lesson. We need to give Intai as much information as possible if we are to leave the navigator empty handed. He spoke of cleansing the world of chaos, when we mentioned that this was already Intai’s goal, he countered by saying it was the wrong order. Worse, he claims that our knowledge is derived from perversions of Urzae’s teachings, that it comes from interpretations of interpretations of his teachings. He claims that he walked with Urzae himself, that he knows his teachings better than Nakula Voori and the other leaders of Intai. As outrageous as this sounds, and even if we believed him and he did walk with Urzae, by his admission, people are bound to misinterpret and pervert his intent.
The most betraying example is the one who brought us here. We have confirmed that Huville has kidnapped our companion’s olga’s contact for this Torbin fellow who showed up, which confirms our suspicion that he has returned to a life of crime. Let this Navigator say what he will about Urzae, but he never preached abduction. He has also told her that Den has no place in his vision of the world. Den is a despicable place, but if he claims that Den is incapable of change, then perhaps he is not as benevolent as he thinks. Side note, in accordance with our vow, we have decided to aid Olma in retrieving her contact, as she has helped us find the Cramp of Intai.
On the trip back from the Navigator, we have been thinking a lot about how the party handled the orc chieftain Strom. They had two plans in motion. One to simply utilize the village’s trials and customs in order to oust him from power, or to disguise themselves as him and claim redemption and self exile. By happenstance, Strom ambushed us and our companions and made our decision for us. Sarva, who called himself Varn then, disguised himself as the chieftain, stepping down and exiling himself. The critics of the psionic treatments often say that the resulting Elan is a fate worse than death. But if Strom had been rehabilitated in Intai, he would have done this exact same thing that this idealized fake Strom would have. Strom was denied his forgiveness, his redemption. Instead that honor went to the Amonite while the real chieftain simply died a pathetic death, one that Olma, a critic of Intai, didn't object to.
Anecdote aside, our mark told us to keep his shoes that we may walk in them. He promises that despite his decision to abandon his current residence, he will make himself known to us if we continue to follow his path. We are… fractured on how to proceed, especially given our thoughts on those Huville and Strom. The Collective, as always, is interested in knowledge and pursuing the path the Navigator presents us for knowledge’s sake. The Oracle on the other hand is wary of pursuing this endeavor given to us by the Cramp, especially given our relationship with each other. Most other synads do not give their subminds the same agency we have, and we do not know if this difference will help or hinder us should we decide to take on the Navigator’s challenge. It will be a pain to contact another Intai agent. Until then, we need to determine if these shoes are cursed, and we shall see if we can prove that we have a better understanding of Urzae.
If Intai is wrong, let Urzae himself correct Us.
On Urzae’s name, We swear we shall overcome the challenge set before us. Our convictions may be tested, but so shall the Navigator’s. Let him try and Cramp Us.
This I swear
This I swear
This I swear
Arun 12
Arun 12
Our orc guide Nub has brought us and our party to the trade outpost with only a little bat swarm incident. Varn was against the idea of bringing us to the trading outpost but we managed to outvote him. As it turned out, the outpost was populated with multiple potential enemies. The slavers from before, and the dwarf Torbin who could have found out about our decei owns the outpost. We decided to take a boat in the middle of the night. As it happened, the Grim Chosen was there too. We were hoping to ride a river boat to draw Huville's attention, but perhaps in this situation we can gain some insight on the Cramp of Intai in a more honeyed fashion than we otherwise would. We also did show them that we had recently come into wealth however, so we must remain wary about these pirates. If our new party helps us gain this insight into the cramp, perhaps we shall find ourselves in their debt. Though if theyre willing to let evil people continue to be released into the world, they belong on the Not E list regardless.
The On Ice List
Erwood
Varn
Olma
Parkeh
Marzipan
The Not E(lan) list
The Cramp
Zolo Vim
Huville
Braska
Strom
Drull
Bunch of names from Den
Aran 11
Aran 11
We normally would not write so soon, but there have been plenty of developments in a single day. Our newly formed party has discovered that the chief of the orc tribe has driven away the supposed human members, who have actually been shapeshifting spider folk. We have since ousted the chieftain and taken treasures from an ancient vault. There was a powerful dwarf named Torbin who claimed to want a specific artifact from the vault, a hand mirror he claims is part of a set. The necromancer managed to hide it from him, as his arrival was quite suspicious. He had the aid of a demonic hound, and the ability to teleport. No doubt powerful sorceries. Even more suspicious was the fact that the necromancer, Erwood, seems to have killed one of Chief Strom's orcs(who had already yielded to us) for no real reason. This orc wanted to become chief in his stead and would have had no reason to run like Erwood said he did, especially since becoming chief would have meant trials with other orcs. We remain wary of Erwood.
During the celebration of the new chief, we found a familiar figure, the same one that preceded an undead attack that distracted our would be slavers. No undead attacked us that night, but our expert tracking skills found no trace of her presence in the area we found her. No broken twigs, no altered branches, no footsteps. We can only assume that she's related to our newly formed demonic marks.
In any case, we have earned our guide. The party has agreed to go back to Den, on account of the draconic Amonnite fearing the general. We have been given two options. Our guide is to either take us directly to Den, or to bring us to a trading outpost to take a boat back. Luckily, the party voted in favor of going to the outpost. With luck, the boat we get on will get attacked by Huville and we can get some more answers into his relapse from habilitation.
Aran 10
Aran 10
Our patience has been tested over the past few days. We have not had time to write considering these new developments. While searching for leads on Huville, we have apparently been sold as slaves to a prominent general from Amon. To complicate matters, it appears that we have been marked for damnation in the event of our death. Simple enough to say, this Zolo Vim has earned himself a top spot on our list, though we hesitate to place him above the Cramp. We managed to escape slavery alongside some new companions, but these new companions are mostly questionable in nature. One seems to accept foreign spirits into his body using strange sorceries from Amon, despite being draconic in nature, hinting a possible connection to Akek. Another has necromantic abilities. He is well spoken, but we are wary with his surprising level of comfort in the presence of undead. There is a human woman who seems to share our disdain for slavers and criminals, yet she doesnt seem like she would understand our solutions. Given time, we can sway her beliefs yet. There is also a killuran with an ursine companion. She is the most tolerable of them all, or perhaps the bear is. In any case, they have all been helpful in some way or another. Despite some of their... misgivings, we shall endeavor not to place them on the Not Elan list like Zolo Vim. We shall instead create a new list for those questionable individuals who are On Ice. We have come across an orcish village who seeks our aid in finding their lost human villagers. We have agreed to help them in exchange for a guide through the jungles.
Aran 6
Aran 6
We have landed in Den. No bandits, disappointingly. Instead we are to scour this wretched town for leads. It is a disgusting place, and we are sure by the end of the night we will have written down enough names on our Not E list that We’re certain we could not have the time for. Its good to have suggestions for the council later on who the next targets should be, otherwise we would absolutely bite off more than we could chew. Over the course of the week we should stop alongside the taverns to gain information. We do not relish the thought of staying here longer than necessary.
Aran 1
Aran 1
It is the start of a new month. We have not yet been attacked by Huville or his Grim Chosen. The days grow tedious as they go along. We suppose we understand why Drei chooses to fraternize with the people he brings back to Intai if he gets as bored as we do. There is not an ample amount of mental stimulation going on this ship. On the bright side, that means this group remains safe. The pirate is going to make another attack at some point. With luck it will be our vessel so we can get the information we need. If he doesn't, that means we have to commit to going to Den. It would be much more preferable if that wasn't the case.
Nuan 26
Nuan 26
One week since we headed upriver. We decided to go by boat in order to increase our chances of encountering the pirate Huville. We have heard from locals that he pilots a riverboat called the Grim Chosen. We have made sure to add more people to our Not Elan list. Drei has repeatedly called it a wasteful endeavor, and mocks us for checking on it multiple times. He’d often refer to one of the edges we have over him, our ability to eidetically memorize a page, which is rich of him to criticize since thats a skill he has been slacking in.
Nuan 21
Nuan 21
We sent off Drei alongside the suspect a few days ago, who now tells us that his name is Dashir. Rudol Drei has a habit of fraternizing with those he brings back, which we find rather unnecessary, considering that neither of us are likely to see those we bring back after rehabilitation. Of course we have entertained the thought that Drei was involved with the Cramp, but none of it makes sense logically. None of the elan that the Cramp repurposed were any of the bandits that the two of us sent back, and Drei was personally involved in multiple rehabilitation attempts. This Dashir fellow makes the eighth bandit associate we have sent back together. He has had every opportunity to betray us, yet he never once faltered our duties together. We have determined that its impossible to be him. In any case we shall begin our own journey upriver shortly.
Nuan 16
Nuan 16
We finally managed to grab our lead in Azul. He told us about that the pirate we were after, Huville, was upriver in Den. Its not exactly the best information, but its one step closer to solving the mystery of who we have come to call the Cramp of Intai. We did not choose it, but our assistant, Drei, has managed to popularize the moniker. This Cramp has managed to elude us for the longest time, and his latest work, this river pirate in Den could be our only lead. In the meantime, we have sent Drei back to Intai with our informant for rehabilitation. As someone who helped us, he deserves a second chance. We alone will continue onto Den to fetch this river bandit. He is a simple bandit, easily subdued. We should not need much backup....
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