The Water Festival & Other Matters

General Summary

Arrival in Nebalich

Nebalich, with its tall white walls and proud citadels, gleamed in the bright sunlight. The PCs caught their first glimpse of it as they made their way downriver in their stolen vessel. Sih'Teel, Mo, Breaker, and Grazelle had spent over two weeks on the Welbyway and its canals in order to arrive at the city. After being on a boat for a long period of time, the group was happy to dock their barge at the Sunset Docks on the west entrance to Nebalich. It was late morning at this time.
"Ah, Nebalich," Grazelle said as she stepped from the boat onto the firm wooden docks. "This is a great city." She spread arms wide and smiled as a light breeze blew past. But then she grew serious.
"Now highness," Grazelle told Mo, "Nebalich is civilization. You've spent the last years in the woods. But remember now that as you walk into the city, you represent all of Ivannia and not simply yourself. There is etiquette for this culture."
Mo frowned. Breaker, who was listening closely, also grimaced. Grazelle continued.
"Lady Morganna, this is an honor society. Here, if you see a merchant or a noble that is your status or higher, you must nod three times and wave your right hand in a circle. If you do not do so, you will give offense."
"Really? I don't want to do that," Breaker said bluntly. Grazelle grew exasperated.
"Do you care about culture?" She asked Breaker pointedly. The fighter simply shrugged. Grazelle rolled her eyes.
"Also, the king and queen of Nebalich are allies of Ivannia. There is a good chance that you will be called on to visit once you are known in the city."
Mo frowned again. But something in her softened her attitude.
"I'll do as the situation requires," she said slowly. Grazelle nodded her approval.
"They won't know of your presence for at least a day, m'lady. Consider this your day off," Grazelle said softly.
Tidran and Sih'Teel by now had listened to the conversation. Each member of the party reluctantly practiced the strange greeting Grazelle had taught them. After they gathered their belongings, they followed Grazelle through the Sunset Gate. Breaker was thankful that she could wear her bulky armor in the city without restriction due to Grazelle's clearance. Dante and Sirkel caught up with them just before they entered! They had taken a winding, murky path (caves, in Sirkel's case) and somehow ended up in Nebalich around the same time as everyone else.
As the party walked through the tall, stone gate, they walked across a long bridge to the city proper. The PCs had arrived in the middle of the Festival of Water. As Grazelle had explained it, this large festival honored the workers of the Welbyway waterway. Without the waterway, the city's livelihood would vanish. Vendors selling food and performers demonstrating their skills filled the plaza with excitement as the party walked through. Marvelous blue decorations hung on doorways and lamp posts!
The first plan Grazelle had suggested was to hire a ship and then see how long they needed to wait in the city until it left for Astaria, their next stop. So the group continued onto the coastal dock area.
The docks were filled with sailors and deckhands carrying cargo on and off tall, wooden, and majestic ships! Seabirds flew above them. The smell of salt air was strong. But then the first strange event of the day happened. A large, four legged, and spotted creature with horns moaned as it was hoisted from the dock to its transport ship. There appeared to be a problem with the winch used. As the crew rushed to fix the problem, the poor beast mooed in its dangled state. Breaker was fascinated by the sight. Somehow, she knew that the animal was called a "cow." But why did she know this?
Meanwhile, the ship's captain was strolling down the dock. After Grazelle's permission, Mo caught up with the captain and asked her about transport. Breaker joined them a moment later.
"Well, I've got places aboard my ship," the captain said. "'How many people are in your party?"
Farren had arrived in the city and caught up with the group at this point. Dariyana, likewise, silently joined the party. Mo counted everyone.
"Eight people," she told the captain.
"I'll take fifty shins per person," the captain replied. But Mo wasn't done yet.
"Forty shins," she haggled. The captain twitched an eyebrow.
"Forty-three," the captain replied coolly.
"Fifty shins if you bring the cow!" Breaker cut in. "Can we eat it?"
"Agreed on the cow," the captain smiled. "But no, we can't eat it! There's only one like it that we know of! Go buy some meat sticks from the vendors instead. We leave in three days."
Although not everyone in the group had the money to pay their fare, Grazelle flashed a symbol of Ivannia's crest to the captain. The captain nodded, assured of proper payment. With that matter settled, the hungry group visited the vendors and bought skewers of meat for an early lunch.
Grazelle waved over a town crier boy so everyone could learn about the day's announcements. There was a haunted house and a haunted stage apparently. The owners of the establishments both asked for help and were willing to pay handsomely for it. There was also an advertisement for Welbyway Aquatic Tools and Gear in Golden Cliff. Grazelle also gave the PCs a hastily drawn map of the city so they could navigate properly. With all those matters settled, the Ivannian diplomat left the group to look for a hotel and also visit the king and queen.
The next strange thing was just up ahead.

The Haunted House

Before the group investigated the first mystery about the haunted house, Sih'Teel walked to Golden Cliffs to visit the Welbyway Aquatic Tools and Gear. After barely managing to remember the formal greeting for a merchant, he smoothly haggled down the price of a water exploration kit with the Varjellan shopkeeper. He aws followed by a very suspicious Mo, who had vanished and followed him. When she caught him buying an underwater harpoon gun, she questioned his motives. He revealed nothing. After that, they rejoined the group in the docks. Together Sih'Teel, Breaker, Mo, Farren, Dariyana, Tidran, and Sirkel walked through the crowded to the West District. in this part of the city, Varjellans (9th World visitants), Lattimoors, and humans lived and conducted a busy market. After asking for directions for Dreon Hal, the group found him in a side alley. Dreon, a young man with silver hair and dressed in casual Nebalich fashion, sat on a crate creating butterflies of light that flew from his fingers. Small children crowded around him and asked for more! Dreon, noticing the PCs approach, smiled as they came near.
"Are you Dreon?" One of the group members asked. Dreon nodded.
"Oh, are you here about the advertisement? It should read Uncle Gerard. Guess that was a misprint. Anyway, I'm so glad you're here," he said. The small children hung back for a second. Dreon explained that after he had inherited the house from his uncle that weird things started happening. Every night, riddles appeared in the wooden walls of the house. Dreon was so frightened that he had simply left the house that morning with the door open and retreated to the alleyway. Then he had put an ad in for the town criers to spread.
"I can pay you 100 shins each," Dreon told the adventurers. The group agreed to help him. Dante, abashed, asked for a butterfly of light. Dreon quickly molded one and sent it sailing off to fly near Dante's head. After that, the group investigated the house.
Upon entry, it seemed to be a normal house. There were two stories. The first story contained a living room, kitchen, dining area, and coat closet. Upstairs, there were two bedrooms and a bathroom. The walls were wooden and the furniture was simple. But as Farren, who liked this sort of thing very much, investigated, she found three riddles scratched into the wood as if by desperate human fingers. But there was no blood.
Following the riddles, Farren ran about the house and quickly found three items. Once disassembled, the parts and power source combined to make a device of some sort. As Farren activated it, a man in a three piece suit with a bird perched on his shoulder came into phase.
Uncle Gerard, as he told them, had been working on an out-of-phase device and hid the backup parts around his house as a precaution in case the worse happened. Unfortunately, the worse did happen. Gerard stuck himself in another dimension. With his head addled, the most he could do was half-form into normal space and scratch riddles into the walls of the house for his nephew to follow. His plan backfired. However, thanks for Farren's clever thinking, he was restored to his normal dimension. He also warned them of the chronal feeders. The large, purple, and insectoid creatures feed off of time distortion energy and had been chasing Gerard through the alternate dimension. After solving that mistery, the PCs informed a startled Dreon that his uncle was indeed alive. The lad dashed back to the house to check on the situation.
Chronal feeders were on the loose. But another mystery remained.

The Haunted Performance

The next destination, in the same district, found the PCs in front of a wooden, outdoor stage in a clear, small and open area in front of an alleyway. A troubadour, dressed in Nebalich's brightest and flashiest fashion, strummed a tune on a lute and sang a folk ballad. Around the stage, several couples danced. Young men and women standing to the side clapped in time to the music. When they saw potential partners, everyone in the group was asked to dance. While Mo and Dariyana refused their partners, Sih'Teel and the rest gladly joined in. Breaker, feeling awkward, asked Sirkel to dance. Although their dance was not graceful, they made for an entertaining pair. Dante, who was already coordinated and athletic, led his partner very gracefully around the stage. As the dance finished, everyone clapped and nodded their heads to their partners. The man on the stage took a rest and drank some water from a bottle on the chair near him.
The PCs introduced themselves to Craix, the troubadour. Immediately, he recognized Dante. Craix offered Dante thirty percent of a show's ticket sales and the tip money in addition if he would come and perform onstage during his visit to Nebalich. Dante agreed. Following that matter, Craix explained the situation.
"There's a young girl that appears during my performances. She screams something awful! She comes two times a day. She should coming in about ten minutes now. It's bad for business, this stuff. My customers are scared away! I'll pay you all a hundred shins each if you'll get rid of the ghost."
The group agreed. Each person hid in a different place around the area to watch for the ghost to appear. As Craix predicted, a translucent, glowing girl appeared next to the hastily strumming troubadour and started to scream. The crowd that had started to gather for this performance looked frightened and started to back away. Immediately, without missing a beat, Craix started into an epic ballad of an ancient battle. But once Breaker peeked behind the curtain, the ghost floated through the stage's curtain and faced Breaker directly. She seemed to mouth "help me" and then screamed again. Immediately, four chronal feeders, the insectoid creatures that Gerard had warned them about, appeared and started attacking the ghost girl. Farren threw up a lightning wall projector between the ghost girl and the chronal feeders. Then everyone rushed behind the stage to confront the monsters!
Dariyana, with her friend Mykah and her pet shanu, expertly attacked the chronal feeders with her sword. Sih'Teel drew his rapier and struck the beasts! Breaker and Mo piled on melee attacks. Sirkel also joined in. Soon the chronal feeders lay dead at their feet. Meanwhile, the ghost girl had stopped screaming. Farren walked behind the wall towards her. Craix took this moment to finish his epic ballad and hoisted back the curtains. The drapes parted to reveal the heroes standing triumphantly on stage! Breaker took this moment to pick up a chronal feeder head and dance around the stage with it. He operated the head to make it look like the mandibles were biting. The crowd cheered even harder! Coins piled on stage.
Meanwhile the ghost girl just stood there. Then, in just a moment, she became solid. Translucent, blue mist became solid flesh. The teenager, dressed in an old style of Nebalich clothing, dropped to the stage.
"Where am I? What happened?" Asked the girl. Breaker knelt down next to her.
"It's all right. What's your name?" She asked the girl.
"Ryn Bulsa," she replied slowly. As she looked around the stage, her eyes got wide. "I was walking through the streets with my parents when all of a sudden, I was stuck in another place. I ran and ran from those purple monsters. And now I'm here."
"How long ago was that?" Someone in the group asked.
Ryn shook her head. "King Fenstral was the king then," she said.
"Hey Craix," Breaker asked, "when was King Fenstral in power?"
"A hundred years ago," Craix called back. Ryn looked stunned.
"I've been away for a hundred years?" She said questioningly. Breaker nodded. Ryn bit her lip.
"I need to go see my house. It's right around the corner," Ryn said. After Craix paid the PCs, the group followed Ryn to her house. A burnt, torn down structure was all that was left. Ryn sank to her knees and lowered her head.
"You can come with us if you want," Breaker told her hastily. After a few minutes, the girl nodded. She followed them silently.
The group was well paid and gained an extra companion. But since they were to be in the presence of royalty during their visit, they all decided to pay a visit to the local shops to get fashionable clothing.

The Fashions of the Festival

Back in Golden Cliff, both Farren and Breaker purchased harpoons and water exploration kits. Then everyone walked next door to the tailor's shop. The tailor, a little old lady with a measuring tap in her hands, greeted them and swiftly took measurements. Sirkel bought a sparkly, blue bandanna to tie around his arm. Farren and Dariyana bought practical but pretty blue dresses that allowed them to run quickly and fight if needed. Breaker bought a hooded, all-encompassing blue cloak to cover her armor. Even Ryn, who still had old shins in her pocket, bought a new dress to fit in. Meanwhile, Sih'Teel found the most elaborate gold and blue dress jacket the shop had.
Mo considered her options carefully. Craix had told her that the current fashion for nobility was simple cuts of dresses with little adornment except a silver chain. Mo asked the seamstress for a long golden dress and a simple golden tiara with rubies embedded in it. She also asked that the dress's wide sleeves have pockets sewn in so she could hide a dagger and other accessories. The seamstress took all the orders and told them that whatever wasn't available then would be available the next morning.
It was nearly dusk after all this had happened. The group meandered back to the docks to meet up with Grazelle again.
"Oh, your highness," Grazelle said breathlessly. "I've gotten the loveliest hotels for us to stay in. And I have an invitation from the king and queen for you and your companions to attend the royal feast tomorrow!"
"I bought a dress," Mo told her. "But you won't like it."

Rewards Granted

200 Shins to each person for solving mysteries

Missions/Quests Completed

The group hired a ship to Astaria
The group solved mysteries
Breaker found a cow

Character(s) interacted with

Grazelle
Dreon Hal
Gerard Hal
Craix Mar
Varjellan merchant
Nebalich seamstress

Report Date

22 May 2020

Primary Location

Nebalich