13A:Play/19 Don't Make Qistis Angry

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Starring: 🌲 Qistis, 📚 Annalana, 🐾 Kaelon, Steinar
Guest Starring: Archmage Elf Cop
Challenge: Arguing with Diabolist cultists; Interrogating Moz; Scarecrow body with gerblins, bugbear, and runecaster
Location: Wizard tower home of Moz; Rent by the hour Inn; Creek near the city
Date Played: 2017 Sept 13

The Dust Settles and the Fire Starts

📚 Annalana: Qistis yells, “Who the hell is responsible for this?!”. Mom seems relieved that we aren’t from the Archmage’s order. As we ask about Inigo, there is a loud knock on the door.

Moz recommends not getting involved with Inigo. Qistis finds Diabolists cultists at the door. As we talk further, the cultists bash their way in. They start shouting “We know that you’ve seen Inigo!” Annalana immediately tackles Moz, wrapping him in the carpet and gagging him.

The Diabolist cultists come to the bottom of the stairs. We then start to negotiate with them. They want to find and kill Inigo. Annalana suggests that we all get information out of Moz, however, Qistis and Kaelon refuse to give any ground on working with the diabolists. Annalana recommends that they leave unless they’d like to be dead, and they leave. They do start a fire on the way out.

Qistis tries to put out the fire with ritual magic; Kaelon works to smother the fire using rugs from inside the house, and Steinar helps.

Steinar: I get woken up in a room full of broken things. I can only assume Annalana is to blame. She is holding some guy at knife point, so I am most likely right.

There is some shouting from down below. Qistis says that there are some Diabolist downstairs. She start to make a hasty barricade and they tell me to stall. I'm not sure how, but I guess politely asking them what they would want is the right course of action.

They seem very pleasant, and also want to know where Inigo is. I inform them that they will have to wait their turn as we got here first. They are eventually convinced to leave. I thought it went well, that is, until there was the smell of fire.

Annalana gets the scared man, Moz, out of the building while the rest of us worked on putting out the fire. There were a lot of nice looking books in there, and I can't let them perish! Oh, and it is close to some other builds too, I guess.

I rally the bucket brigades with a story about Basachus of the High Seas, where a bucket brigade kept a sinking ship upright for 3 days to cross a still sea. It seemed to motivate the crowd into action. A job well done!

🌲 Qistis: The animated mess is dealt with but there's loud banging from below. Diabolists have arrived to collect...well something, probably to do with the utter ridiculousness we just managed. I go back to tell the others and not wanting to loose our lead to Inigo we trap and bag the inept magician to question a bit later.

It doesn't take long for the Diabolists to break through my hastily made barriers and being making their way up to us. Luckily they seem fairly non-confrontational and don't immediately blast past Steinar to snatch the other idiot away from us.

When we refuse to release the man to them it seems as if they leave peacefully but as we make our leave they have actually lit the tower to burn. My magics combine with Steinar's (of all people's) rallying capabilities manages to quell the fires, though some books and tapestries in the home are unfortunately lost.

Police Show Up

📚 Annalana: We hear a magical klaxon, and there are a collection of Archmage detectives, shouting that Moz is going to be exiled for too many accidents.

There is an Elf shadowing the officers, while Qistis tries to talk our way out of the scene. The Elf recognizes her as Qistis but she redirects him to her father. The Elf then marks her with a glowing symbol as a “person of interest”.

Steinar: Looks like there is some trouble as those police officers in the wonderful hats come by to look for Moz. Qistis covers our escape in the meantime.

🌲 Qistis: Agents of the archmage are swarming this district after the fire to the tower and I decide to provide distraction. One of the officers, a haughty high elf newcomer, decides to single me out for questioning. I manage to dissuade his interest but still he marks me as a potential suspect, probably so that he can question me further later.

Splitting the Party

Annalana and Kaelon Interrogate Moz

📚 Annalana: Mom tells us that he was threatened by Inigo via note and blackmail to build him a scarecrow body.

Steinar is sent to get salt

📚 Annalana: Steinar runs into someone who knew Steinar from before he entered the host. A man named Dabbin Rhodes. Steinar’s body used to be known by the name Walter, and was Dabbin’s friends. * Table salt, Kosher salt, sea salt, pink salt, fleur de sea, kala namak, and flake salt.

Steinar: Someone says he knows me. I don't recall him, and though eh first called me Steinar, he proceeds to call me Walter. I mean, I have the body of Walter, but that entity doesn't really exist anymore. I think he is back in the book I got pulled from. I'm not entirely sure. The Priestess and the Archmage just threw me into the wild to become a real boy, as it were.

He gets very angry with me at some point and storms off. I'm not sure what that is about, but I'm pretty sure that will be the last I see of him anyway.

I quickly resume my task of getting salt. There are six types I have to get, but the salt vendor talks me into getting some more more exotic varieties. Who knew there were so many types of pickling salt! It's also amazing luck that it costs exactly how many coins Annalana gave me. I'm sure this will be exactly what she needs for whatever ritual she is crafting, five times over!

Qistis seeks to remove the sigil

📚 Annalana: She is seeking out a person who represents the Prince of Shadows, to help remove this mark. Qistis seeks out a house of “lady favors” to get a long hot bath. The folks try to get information or secrets out of her, and she resists but seeds the group with misinformation.

🌲 Qistis: While the others are off to, I'm sure, very politely question our inept captive I make my way to Sweet Whispers, an establishment I've visited before in a more well-to-do area of town that's with convenient enough distance to the Silver Spire. It's tucked into a rather quaint alleyway filled with a variety of these kinds of businesses. They're kept small and intimate and draw a dedicated clientele. I know they would be able to remove this symbol stuck to my back while also being pampered and treated nicely for a change. I also know that if I let some certain information slip here it'll make its way to the right people and will prove for some rather interesting results. Information on the succession politics of the elf queen is rather rare, so I keep the tale brief and fairly non-identifying so as not to make it seem as if this would have happened recently. Rumors are also slipped about father with more detail that the other information I give. This is definitely something I'd like to see come bite him in the ass and if it takes a while for something to bear fruit I don't mind, just as long as it does at some point.

Meetup and Argue

📚 Annalana: We all meet back up again, catching up on what everyone has been up to. We debate the merits of providing the skull with the body, where Annalana is in the minority in wanting to just destroy the body (and the skull).

Annalana mentions that we should get to tracking and Kaelon mentions that he has doses of something that can track spirits. We head back to the tower to pick up the trail there. The Archmage’s authority is still there but we are able to pick up the trail

We find a shantytown of people, cross-legged, staring off into oblivion. Steinar talks to one of them, learning that the thing was responsible for putting them into this state.

The trail leads to a creek bed, and the trail follows the creek bed, trying to avoid being tracked.

Steinar: I know what it's like to be caught in a stupor like this. Evidently that was how I acted in the first few weeks of my existence. I a bit of forced food and water is what they need.

After some assisted mastication and a slow recovery, one of the guys tells us that a scarecrow caused the town to be like this. That kinda weird, but it does fit the description of the body that was made to house Inigo. At least it leaves us with a solid lead.

Find some goblins with the scarecrow

📚 Annalana: The scarecrow stands seven feet tall with a bucket, face painted on and glowing purple eyes. The goblin rune caster is a woman with a chicken leg for a wand.

The battle is later joined by Diabolists, who distract some of the Gerblin archers. Qistis, without knowing it, pulled power from the Diabolist, with swirling red and purple energies that infused her chain lightning, destroying everything.

The Gerblins manage to kill the Elf Queen scouts and the Diabolists (from earlier).

Annalana lands the finishing blow on the scarecrow and as she is celebrating, Kaelon notices a spirit leaving the “body”. He calls Qistis over as he tries to capture it in a small potion bottle.

Steinar worries that the bodies need to be properly buried so that they don’t rise in the service of the Lich King.

There is a note from Elviro, “The Black Prince would like to see you.”

Steinar: Some goblins stole the scarecrow and put a weird bag over its head. I guess so that they don't have to look directly into the eyes of that thing. For some reason, it can suck the essence out of you with a glance.

The battle quickly turns to a free-for-all as some elves (probably looking for Qistis) and some Diabolist (probably looking for the rest of us) creep into the edge of the battle. In the end, we are left standing. I suppose that is all that matters.

In these mass battles, it is important to bury the humanoids that participated. If not, they are very likely to come back as undead. Doubly so, since we were near the battle, they would most likely be drawn to us. I eventually convince the group to help take care of the bodies, which is a weight off of my shoulders.

Off to the Side

📜Elistheren: In the pile of rubble, I notice that one of Moz's books is bound in Gibrak Leather- the Gibrak went extinct sometime between the 7th and 9th age- legends say that they were domesticated by book binders because their regenerative powers allowed a binder to cut leather right from their hide, only to have it grow back in hours. I don't know about that, but I do know that this book is ancient! It's in a language I don't know, but bears some resemblance to Iktoria'al, which I have some notes on.

Moz is so flustered that he just faintly nods and asks if I can borrow it for a few hours. I excuse myself and go to a neighboring park to start translating while the party interrogates Moz. I'm sure that will go smoothly and without interruption. What could go wrong?