Torches Session 29, a bunch of light side quests and then something scary happens
General Summary
Kormatin and company picked up in King's Lake in the immediate aftermath of Lord Stanislaw Palbuc's execution.
This session involved a lot of shopping trips, brief visits and letter exchanges interspersed between downtime. THe order of the events is approximate, not exact.
Duke Vern Palbuc said he wanted a one-day break from being Duke after recent events and Brigid took him about King's Lake with both of them magically disguised as peasants. Then Vern went home.
Kormatin did some shopping and while waiting for the Fumayan Children made Kormatin and company a few scrolls, potions and a pair of Swift Shoes for Ragani.
Kormatin took some down time to relax and hang out with Aleesia, Ragani hung out with her brother Rasdon in between studying alchemy.
I'm retconning that on one of these occasions, the four individuals hung out together and Rasdon heaped flattery upon Aleesia to convince her to let him draw her portrait.
During King's Lake downtime Bendek Deorac likes to practice his jousting so as not to get rusty. In between sessions, we also retconned that Bendek has some minor issues with older knights hazing the new guy and Bendek's lack of understanding of social nuance means he is taking more offense at this than he should.
At some point, Ragani and Bendek flew to Ivanna City to sell the salvaged reagents from their destroyed bag of holding.
A while ago, Kormatin received a mystery letter suggesting that House Selwyth was either quietly creating a liche or had already done so. If the letter was not a hoax, the evidence was probably hidden in the lead mines of Klarica County. Otherwise, House Gorisonad was trying to lure Kormatin into an ambush in the Klarica mines.
Kormatin and Ragani gave Rasdon all their captured letters so he perform handwriting analysis to try to figure out who wrote the letter. After nine day's effort, Rasdon determined the author seemed to be written by Lord Reese, Gorisonad's chief investigator.
Kormatin and company met briefly with the king who said he got some juicy but suspect information from the queen's royal court and wanted them to keep any eye out for even tiny scraps of information so the king could figure out if his information source was legitimate or compromised.
Kormatin met briefly with Queen Janah Wiern to ask her to take Wanda the bastard of Palbuc on as a lady in waiting. The queen agreed, and a few weeks later Kormatin got a letter from his mother that confirmed they arranged the transfer quietly and without raising suspicions.
Kormatin and company flew south to meet with Hallmar Snowview in Duchy of Nerozik to plumb his brain for suggestions on improved their half-formed plan to incite a goblin revolt in the Klarica mine.
While in Nerozik, Bendek touched base with his family (with Kormatin, Ragani, and Brigid in toe) and attended the 16th birthday party of his little sister Nasya. It was clear Nasya had something of a schoolgirl crush on Kormatin.
Kormatin also found a personal messenger waiting for him with a Letter from Duke Palbuc to Kormatin. Kormatin wrote back advising the duke to foster his cousin off to the Wooly Slopes Barony AFTER they fight off an Gorisonad reprisal.
The main event of the session was the eventual arrival of Kormatin's and Brigid's brutal half-sister Inara par Gruffyl.
She was mildly surprised that they were not interested in using House Gruffyl to spy on House Gorisonad. It was not difficult to convince her to help Kormatin and Brigid (and by extension Ragani and Bendek) access to the Gruffyl family shrine so they could contact the spirit of Count Kynan ap Gruffyl.
Inara likes the idea that she can manipulate anyone, but also an oracle with the boy name Evan told her something corroberating that this is good idea. She did not believe that Greymoria herself made Kormatin and Brigid into agents to topple the Gruffyl family scheme.
Kormatin and company with Inara in tow took a long and circuitious route to the County of Gruffyl. There was a lot of awkward moments, but no serious problems.
Inara said Count Rohdri ap Gruffyl instructed the family not to impede Kormatin unless Kormatin became an active aggressive against them, and Kormatin and company saw no evidence suggesting this was untrue.
With Inara vouching for them, they were basically able to walk-in through the front-door.
Kormatin and company briefly got to see but not speak to a couple relatives paying their respects to the ancestors, but not many. I am retconning that this small crowd includes Myrdinn ap Grufflyl, but not any of Rohdri's other legitimate children were present nor was Rohdri. Rohdri spends most of his time in his other county.
Around midnight, Ragani choreographed Kormatin, Brigid, and Inara in a ritual to summon the spirit of their famed great grandfather, Count Kynan ap Gruffyl.
They didn't summon Kynan, not exactly. They summoned something dark and terrifying instead. A monstrous polecat headed spirit torturer for Greymoria's special version of Tartarus. The polecat spirit pulled in a chained and beat version of Kynan and instructed Kynan to answer the questions of his great grand children.
The main message was already conveyed. Kynan was facing a horrific afterlife for trying to usurp Greymoria's role of regulating the "Leaky Bucket".
Kynan communicated that the gist of the plan he hatched and his heirs continued was to apply the scientific method to all the hundreds of Swynaredian superstitions about what increases or decreases the likelihood of having sorcerous babies. They figured if they came up with a guidebook to move the 50% stat to 80% they would have more sorcerers and sorceresses in their own ranks and sell their secrets for leverage over the other houses.
Eventually, they hoped to ditch the Swynfaredian reverence for the four founding dragons and ultimately focus on two questions. Does a person have sorcery, yes or no? Are they powerful sorcerers, yes or no?
This emotionally broke through Inara's tough façade. When cornered she was going to visit the oracle with a boy's name, Evan.
And that's where the session ended. No Gruffyl has bothered Kormatin and company but they are technically behind enemy lines.
Whether they plan to keep messing with Swynfaredians or return straight home remains to be seen. They have roughly 55 days till Fumaya's main festival and roughly 65 days before Gorisonad is set to launch an attack the former Uwcharedian territories and Kormatin is planning to be on hand for both events.
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