S2E11 Session Report

the party walks back to the hideout silently, obviously in shock from what happened to sylas.
for the first time ever, there is someone in the courtyard by the hideout. halfling dressed in regal, scholarly clothes. long sleeve, vest, and a half cloak over his left shoulder. s&p hair and a curled mustache. he is looking at a some sort of cube. theo sneak attacks him with her claws in the back, demands to know who we are. sir donovan ulysses klaus edinborough IV, prof of arcane archaeology, aka THE DUKE. da'har asks why he is in a place that no one is supposed to know about. donovan shows us a signal that lead him there. says that he's tracking a frequency. dream identifies his tracker, and it looks like something from the simic. the party says that they will get him to the other side of the wall, where the signal is coming from. he agrees to let us bag him, and we walk him in. essan and mizzix say hi before we shush them. da'har walks him around for a while (so that he's confused about directions).
when we take off his hood, dream asks mizzix and essan what they've been working on and why the duke can trace them. they say that they've made some advances in their investigation of the guild signets that we have. then they ask who tf this guy is.
he repeats his name, and then we hear someone repeat his name from his bag. we ask about it, and he pulls out a floating book: arc mage callum - arcane scribe helping the duke to write an autobiography.
says he's a teacher at the prism university. he goes on archeological digs looking for magical artifacts. he found arcmage callum about 30 years ago.
donovan explains his device to mizzit and essan, and then they ask to speak to dream. they say: channeling mizzium through the staff caused a reaction. they could stabilize the energy. they think it might be able to be harnessed. but this energy from the staff emits a frequency that donovan could trace. for donovan to be able to create a device to track the frequency, he must have some experience with pact magic.
theo watches over the duke while he sits and waits for dream to return. she asks him if he's researching something guildpact related. he says during the guild wars, he was a young professor in district 8. he joined the izzit to help look for and use new magical means to find things. he develuped the alure (layline) radio. it tracks magical signatures. trying to turn the tides in the war. they found a signal that was very far away, north of the rubblebelt. the signals points toward the lost city of valtara. ~we know of valtara because that's where the gauntlet was last rumored to be.~ donovan traveled to where the city should be, but there was nothing there. that's the expedition where he found callum, and it took him 3 years to get him to open.
theo pushes the duke to finish investigating for whatever the fuck he's looking for. da'har goes to go get his tracker back from essan and mizzix, but they have it in pieces. so he does some investigating on his own without it. when he goes into essan and mizzix's lab, he's intrigued by the device that is sending mizzium energy through he staff. he casts detect magic, and the magic that's its emitting is different than any he's every seen/felt. even moreso, the energy of the mizzium has less resistence after it passes through the staff. it makes the energy more stable.
da'har threatens the duke if he intends to take the staff. but the duke says that he doesn't want the staff. he's more interested in the shift in mizzium energy. dream asks if anyone knows where he is, but he assures us no. he wants to create a better tracker for the signal.
the party has him take a blood oath for secrecy and loyalty to the guardians of the guild pact.
haku and theo have a talk. she says that they'll be out of his hair soon, since the rakdos are after them. he asks what she's going to do about the freespar contract, and she says that she'll have to talk with da'har about it. she spends her long rest in his bunk as they realize that this borrowed time together is almost at an end.
lore: mizzium is a raw metal. it's conductive and has it's own magic energy. so it can be a battery and a conductor of energy. the energy that runs through mizzium is referred to as magic.
valtara was meant to be a technocratic utopia where the future of tech and science were developed through collaboration between guilds. vortica, one of the three founders, a renowned engineer, had the ability to harness her mizzium in ways that defied scientific explanation. she went missing along with the city of valtara, which is where the origins of this magical frequency is from. the duke thinks that what essan and mizzix have discovered is tied to the disappearance of valtara.
the duke says that he can help us travel, since he knows pilots and people who can push apperwork and such.
the party long rests. dream goes to visit her uncle yavia, with theo traveling behind her to make sure that shes safe. he is relieved to see that dream is okay, and she embraces him in anguish as a child would hug her father. dream asks her uncle advice on what to do with the information about the signets. he's very distraught and warns that during the war, she could've been quieted by bigger powers at be for talking about this kind of thing. dissent about the guild pact has always been kept quiet in the 10th district. he says that the dossiers look like fairytales and propaganda. she ensures him that it's real and fills him in. he says she should go visit her brother to hideout rather than getting involved. he thinks she should turn in the staff and the triskellion. after going back and forth, he offers to find a secure way to hide the artifacts. and then offers his help in the meantime. she asks for a list of items.
we need to head north, cross the 1st district into mercadia (probably via airship) and then travel up the lake in mercadia to the northeastern most point, aka the shortest path through the mountains to get to valtara. if we need paperwork for safe passage, uncle yavia says to send them to his desk.
theo's idea: ask da'har what he knows about the freespar son (jacary) who died, and what his research was. theo can go to madame freespar and say that da'har wants to follow the research, and theo wants to follow him to keep an eye on him as madame freespar has asked. this is out of duty to the madame but also because theo has recently lost a friend who still had hopes and dreams, and her heart aches over all of the things that he left unfinished. theo wants to see the freespar son's research out. she also thinks that there is power to be gained by this research, and it may help the freespar and the family to be the first to come upon this information. 1. da'har is following jacarys' research, and it's my duty to follow up. 2. unfinished business. might get some answers about jacarys. 3. good info for the family, and any valuables found would be split with the family.
go talk to steve, the guard, at the freespar guard station. a few cambians came by the manor asking for theo, and numeror was very upset. he wants to speak with theo.
theo goes into the cocktail party looking for numeror and ophyrus freespar. they're socializing in the middle of the party. theo stands in a visible spot, waiting her turn to speak with them. she tells them that she will wait in her chambers until they're ready to call upon her. overhears about new legislation that will crack down on accidental izzit experiments.
theo goes to talk to madame freespar. she explains why she was gone, and madame freespar believes her. theo requests that she can follow debtow da'har, and madame freespar makes her a deal. if she can collect on da'hars debt in exchange for her own.
follow up on Sarmanor Freespar III - he knew nothing.
theo returns to hq and tells the party that madame freespar has approved for them to leave.