Session 20220224 Report
General Summary
Mathias Stormcrow took Unseen Ghost Walk
Continuing Jupiterday 5 Resplendent Wood 768, Calendar
Marag-ang spends the rest of the day listening in on the "Command Post" via spider and learns:
- An established operation, not a temporary location.
- No records kept here-its designed to be a cut out that can be abandoned at any time.
- Were surprised to find out the tea house was also a control point, as far as they can tell the targets didn't spot it before it was closed down (obviously wrong)
- Reports and instructions are handled by couriers from whomever their superior is.
- About 25 agents handled from here by a staff of 6.
- Only current operations are the PCs and the Black Rods
- Warned to look out for "magical shenanigans"
Mathias continues his tour of the Black Rods now empty HQ/dojo, and then sneaks back to check out the secret doors he's found. The HQ is a suite of rooms in a commercial building, most of the tenants are surprisingly upmarket for the area, but all the locks (including the dojo) are only what you'd expect for the building. The rooms in the suite are:
- The dojo proper
- A small armoury coming off the dojo, now empty. Contains a secret door that leads into a larger secondary armoury that contains some swords and similiar weapons, spare parts for armour repair, and an expensive zebra-wood stand/mannequin for storing a full body suit or armour, while not in use it shows some minor signs of wear.
- Small sauna between the kitchen and the dojo, from the smell it normally burns seaweed
- Kitchen with small pantry, emptied out
- Two small offices, cleared out even more carefully than the rest of the rooms
- Large "social" room with couches, tables and wooden benches and enough oil lamps to be usable at night. Ventilation seems adequate if not great. Contains a secret door (better hidden than the other) leading through a passage to another secret door in the alley behind the building (recessed to make being seen while using it harder). Requires some sort of key to enter the social room from the passage (only).
Venusday 6 Resplendent Wood 768
Mathias goes to see Hallow while Little Raven goes to investigate the Spy HQ in the Alabaster Precinct.
Mathias decides not to go with Hallow to the Underworld to complete his Necromantic initiation, but does tell him of the door at the Crested Wave Estate so that the latter does not have to walk all the way (with few supplies beyond a stout walking stick) to the City of Dead Flowers. If he is in trouble he will attempt to summon a ghost and dispatch it with a message to Stormcrow.
Gary the Spider cannot enter the suspected spy HQ, apparently due to some warding he is subject to. While he is trying, a group of seven "servants" leave the house in an "ill-disciplined ill-coordinated mob" that makes it very hard to tell if people leave or enter the group. While creating a magical disguise to infiltrate the group Marag-ang realises that they are all wearing a small badge (mostly in an earring or amulet) that was the sigil of a ninja clan operating out of Mt Lapeth, a High Lands group that was destroyed by an alliance of other clans decades ago on the grounds of treason. It would appear the destruction did not take. As they walk through the city a member of the group diverts to the command post, presumably to pickup reports and deliver instructions, and several others drop out or join (around ten have been in the group at some point by the time they return to the house), Marag considers attempting to kill them all but decides there is no real upside.
The PCs reconvene at a small second-hand metalwork shop run by the Copper Scorpion (not in his Old Man Fig disguise), the three decide that leaving town for a while is sensible, and they will attempt to find (and presumably loot) the Foam-Shrouded Palace, a First Age Solar Tomb that Copper Scorpion is sure is in Dragon's Mouth Bay, and which is mentioned in Mathias' book (A Scholar's Aide to Ancient Burials of the Southern Reaches of Creation). Pausing to first hire Snow Melt's recommendation for barge manager and recommend to Little Heron that the Black Rod's now empty HQ would make an excellent dojo for her to rent (with the PCs money) they head up-river on the Golden Mistress, the same galley as their trip to recover Gravesplitter.
Saturnday 7 Resplendent Wood 768
The galley reaches Adorned With Wisdom as a Sapphire at midmorning, Copper Scorpion goes off to look for information about the tomb while the PCs wander the streets. Most of the buildings date to the First Age, and many are at least partially devoted to learning and teaching (classrooms and libraries in the main). While they could purchase alchemical ingredients here they are cheaper and easier to find in Dragon's Jaws. They overhear more than one discussion expressing discontent with the rule of the Realm over the principalities, a large plurality of the inhabitants are young aristocrats here for an education. The crime they observe is more to do with pandering to the students vices than robbing them directly.