RPM:14 Elephant in the Room

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Starring: 🏹 Ehsan, 🐺 Ildefons, 🐘 One-Tusk, 💃 Milady Rosalie
Guest Starring: Lemuel, Odilon Paradis, Captain Hernaut, Renoir Olivier, Florint
Challenge: Odilon Paradis; Rhys Samrook, Unnamed Sorcier in Warehouse
Location: Dragon Cave under Lisway, Warehouse in the docks
Date Played: 02 Aug 2017

Duel between Ildefons and Odilon

🐺 Ildefons Seeing that Odilon still had an opportunity to get away, and knowing, even were he captured, his family (and their legal aid) would be time consuming at best, Ildefons challenged him to a duel. During negotiation of the terms, Odilon implicitly admitted guilt. His terms were that, should he win, he would be given a 60-hour head start out of the capital. Should Ildefons win, he would admit guilt, and fully assist with any investigations "higher up" in his chain-of-betrayal, even if it is his mother. The duel is to first blood.

Poster Person for the Purchased Position gets compeled. Someones unknown, but in a sealed sedan like the Senate commutes in, were privy and witness to the duel.

During the duel, there were short flashbacks, giving snippets of Ildefons' previous life, as requested by other players. They can be found here.

Ildefons played a very defensive duel, with Odilon fighting rather aggressively. An early thrust started Ildefons with the favor, but a long series of exchanges occurred with neither man making headway. Eventually, Ildefons was able to maneuver Odilon into disfavorable terrain and strike -- drawing first blood. "The Party" decided to compel, pushing Ildefons to place a small dueling scar on Odilon.

Odilon is "discretely paraded" through town (manacled, but cloaked) to prison at RPM HQ. His cell had a curtain hung for privacy, and he was kept under constant guard. But, no one could find Hernault to wrap up loose ends and begin the investigation.

Split the Party

Ehsan is Kidnapped

🏹 Ehsan: The thought of home was laying heavy on my mind while I traveled to speak with Orion, giving my kidnappers the perfect target. Being distracted they simply snatched me off Sameen and knocked me out, dragging me off to the warehouses by the docks. I come to who later to find myself drawn up in ropes. My captors are speaking and douse me with water to cause a reaction. It seems Rhys is the one behind my capture. One Tusk has spoken of him before and the description is accurate.

I'm able to escape my binds and make a run for it after some taunts. During my escape I run into One Tusk and point him in the direction of where I was being held, and he goes charging off, ready for blood.

Rosalie leaves to find Florint

Florint has been spending a lot of time with Hernaut. Lucky for me, Florint is a bit of a pushover.

I was able to talk to Hernaut's secretary and find that they had a meeting. I stuck around until Florint arrived. After a few half truths and a bit of pushing, I was able to follow along. It took making a few hints that I knew about his condition to get this to happen, but it happened all the same.

Something big is going on. I can feel it.

Ildefons is drawn to the Palace

Ildefons goes to apologize and have a short conversation with Lemuel, which appears to have been received. Upon leaving the shooting grounds, Mystic Connection to the Land is compelled. Ildefons feels an unnerving presence pulling him about the city -- doubly unnerving after the recent quake; it feels familiar/similar. His nose drags him, eventually, to the palace, to the spot (we'll later find out) directly over the imprisoned dragon. He meets Rosalie there, who snaps him out of his trance, and sends him on his way to the docks (after a page from OneTusk brings word).

The detected "power" is described as prying, small, and greasy.

One Tusk talks to the Horse

🐘 One-Tusk: As a child, the tameblood masters would spin stories of Filette, a canid-wild-blood who, despite being "clever" (by the biases of the storytellers) could not speak. She was the caretaker of a young boy, Timothy, who was constantly getting into some sort of mortal peril, and then Filette would trot off to find help, communicating to her masters with head nods and whines, which the masters acted out with great enthusiasm.

To my shame, as a child, I liked the stories, and thought it was nice to hear a story where the wild-blood was the hero. That's all I could think of when Ehsan's mount returned without her rider. "Did Ehsan fall down the well again?" Yes she did, in a manner of speaking.

Warehouse Showdown

File:Unnamed Sorcier.jpg

🐺 Ildefons Ehsan is a prisoner in the docks OneTusk is ahead of us me, I can tell. I follow the noise to a barely-not-on-fire warehouse with an elephant shaped hole in its side. On entering, Ildefons is accosted by tugs at his spirit: vile sorcier magic. He runs into a self-freed Ehsan, who tells him that OneTusk is engaged with Rhys, again. Knowing that it didn't go well before, he rushes to his friend's aid while asking Ehsan to find and take care of the Sorcier.

As expected, the brawl isn't going well. Ildefons takes OneTusk's set-aside powder horn and spends some time sifting through its contents, sorting the charcoal from the rest. We prepared for this moment, having studied up on Rhys and his power as much as we could. His shifting is involuntary. Ehsan has removed the Sorcier from the situation (later to find out, she fled) and can now provide ranged support. With OneTusk ready to go down (and Rhys focusing on that), Ildefons jumps in and smears the charcoal all over Rhys, who struggles to maintain form. There was a gas lamp nearby, which was about to go off and burn Rhys to nothing when... OneTusk shoves his tusk-weapons into Rhys, and Rhys becomes an ivory statue (holding the tusks in); not alive, yet not dead either.

🐘 One-Tusk: Of course it's a trap. We knew that going in. But Rhys, AGAIN. This cannot continue. Rhys uses Sorcier magic to take on the form of what he touches. It's all I can do to keep pace with him, but it frees up Ildefons to come up with the genius plan- exploit Rhys's spell.

Dragon Cave

Rosalie emerges from the depths of the Dorchem Palace, led by two guards that have her restrained in man-catchers. Your eyes are drawn first to the fine mist of blood that slowly condenses into a right arm painted with gore. From her arm, violet arcs of energy, the color reminiscent of the cliche sickly poisons described in trashy five copper fiction books, dance and strike out at anything nearby. It hits a desk nearby with no visible damage, but as the energy travel up the desk to the arm of Lucril, the nearby secretary, you see that it paints a trail of burn and rot upon her.

She is thrown into a cell and a bucket brigade throws gallon upon gallon or water on her, leaving her to stand in a tacky floor of crimson tainted mud and dirt. Despite her cool down period, she is still wide eyed and shaking. What you first may have taken for fear, and joked about being her advanced age, you soon see is rage. A pure, white-hot rage.

"That bastard," she murmurs. "I can't believe Guy had Renoir the entire time right under our noses. He has killed thousands. Tens of thousand of more suffered. He is the reason he lost my son."

She begins to pace in her cell back in forth, her feet barely lifting, causing small puddles of bloody muck to fling in your direction.

"Oh, I got my revenge, though. You get get confronted with a monster, you sometimes have to become one yourself. Well, did he ever bring out the old me," she says through a crooked, toothy grin. Rosalie then thrust her arm through the bars, and at the full extend of her punch a sickening wave of violet erupts from her clenched fist.

"Took Renior's head off in one good punch. Haven't taken out Sorcier scum like that in a long time. Suppose I've gotten soft. Suppose losing everyone you loved can do that to do. But... damn... retribution feels so good..."

"The dragon is another matter." She takes a moment to look at all of you, noticing that you are all looking at her like she is crazy. "Oh yeah, there's a dragon; Yaalon. No reason to keep everything close to the vest anymore. It was working with the Sorcier and we put it down by doing a essence exchange ritual. Pretty brutal stuff, and it is tied to the life essence of all of those in the ritual. It's why Guy got desperate; everyone that was in the ritual is dying, one way or the other. Iosif was one of them, and his death reeks of suspicion. Someone is trying to awaken that dragon. I guess that answers the question if the day can get any worse for any of you."

"I never got confirmation, but it looked like Guy was going to fuel the ritual with the lives of prisoners to try to extend it past our lives end. He was going to use the very thing we fought against. It's sickening."

"The Pride isn't once it once was. Conspiracies run deep, and I feel that I can trust you all. I am going to rally against Hernaut, and turn this organization around. I'll need your help, and I hope... no, expect your help. This is a tire time, and we need to find a real way to stop this dragon from arising again. Once that doesn't use the lives of others."

"If I am still a member of the Pride... hell, if I'm still alive after all of this, I'm going to put my resources and contacts into making a splinter group. Things need done, and I'll be damned if we aren't the ones that are going to do it."

"I have the feeling I'm going to be stuck in here for a while. Look for my letters. We will stop this threat, and we will do it our way."

Epilogue

🎲 DM: Wrap up details

• Odilon was the Pride's turncoat that the party was looking for
  • Was an informer for Rhys
  • Gave information that led to the party being attacked at Old Man Morency's
  • Gave the changed orders to Armel and Lambert
• Captain Hernaut broke Renior Olivier out of prison using his authority as Captain to reinforce the Dragon Locks before another one died.
• Isabeau Paradis was working to get her son out of the city but was unaware of his crime
• Hernaut, per below, is exiled
• The prisoners who were brought in the cave by Hernaut are also quietly exiled, though they are granted a generous relocation stipend.
• Florint has a minor (and vague) reprimand added to his record; he continues to work on the apparatus in the Dragon cave.

🐺 Ildefons:

• What was done with statue-Rhys?
• Some of the toxic seeds were given to Florint to see if they can be grown/harnessed to slay the dragon.
• Worked with Florint to find ways to harness Ildefons' sensitivity to any potency (rationalizing new stunts).

Hernaut

The fallout from what the reports are calling “Hernaut’s Earthquake” continues today, six weeks later, as the Captain himself learns of the results from the special jury for his trial. This special jury was convened shortly after “the incident” when it was discovered that Hernaut, the former Captain of the Royal Pride of Musketeers, had set free and murdered the Sorcier prisoner, Renior Olivier.

Renior Olivier was the disposed leader of the Sorcier and has been kept in confinement in Dorchem Palace for more than 20 years since the Gunpowder Revolution. In an ironic twist of fate, Olivier is the twin brother of Kuthmaer Olivier, missing hero of the revolution. Before he went missing, Kuthmaer argued that his brother should be imprisoned for the rest of his life instead of being put to death so that he could witness the glory of the revolution.

Few details have been made publicly available about Hernaut’s trial and the events surrounding the earthquake. It was only through an anonymous leak to the press that the public has been made aware of the trial at all. Rumors abound, saying that more people than Hernaut were involved. Less reliable sources have said that the Sorcier’s dragon, Yaalon, is not dead but slumbers and Hernaut was using Renoir’s Sorcier magic to kill the dragon.

This last rumor is quite unlikely (and unconfirmed by officials) but none-the-less has caught the imagination of the common man, causing a run of nervousness throughout Lisway (and the greater Arkstone). The results of Hernaut’s trial have been issued—he has been convicted of treason for setting Renior free. The sentence for treason is death, however, given Hernaut’s service to the country and the Revolution, the judge has commuted the sentence and has instead exiled him for the rest of his natural life.

Major Milestone

Ildefons

• Swapped out Dueling aspect, for Caravan back. It served its getting-in-trouble purpose.
• Bumped Survival from +3 to +4.
• Stunts:
  • Stabled the "stable" of animals, keeping just the hawk for the traveling. (Having multiple is an enhancement).
  • Acquired new stunt, Animal Transformation.
  • Thick Skinned swapped back out for Patience of the Tortoise again.
  • Acquired new stunt to try out, Terrain Communing