Session 56 - Becky
General Summary
The Party rested up in the Alder Wand Alehouse. While they did so, Gorgoroth and Lat’num inspected the documents that Guy Peoples carried (whose corpse is still in S’thom’s bag of holding).
The first document was papers of license, certifying that Guy had attained a position in the Imperial Survey Corps. The document was signed by Meindl Hochberg from the ISC office in New Frontier.
The next document, written by Guy, was an accounting of eligible draftees across Verdancia, Golden Savannah, and Crvena Vale. Guy stressed that the numbers were estimates based on the known populations of New Frontier and Txanponetan, as well as average population densities of surrounding villages multiplied by the number of villages in each demesne. (In other words, he was guessing but trying to not get in trouble for being inaccurate.) The letter was addressed to the Quartermaster of Lord Soth, a name the Party had not heard of.
The third document was encoded by a cypher. It was written in common, but the letters were transposed, so that the message was hidden by gibberish. Gorgoroth and Lat’num were able to break the code (using Guy’s ISB recruitment number: N00B13). The decoded message wasn’t addressed to anyone, but its contents were about secret communications between Uanna Dezirinda of Txanponetan and Arnorr Coplin of New Frontier. Guy’s secret message noted that they were both tieflings and wondered if there was some underground tiefling resistance related to the "Confederation".
When the rest of the Party awoke and joined the two sleuths, they discussed their previous encounters with Guy, Uanna, and Arnorr and others.
Recap:
Lord Arnorr Coplin is known to be very pro-dragon. He was released from prison after the Declaration of Expungement by pledging allegiance to the Queen Mother and worked closely with King Gaularyz to administer New Frontier. Coplin gave the Party a letter of transit and sent them to investigate Sephadex.
Uanna was a homeless nobody who accidently got caught up in a proxy battle between Lady Antilia and Qix Fey-Branche in the Feydark. After the confrontation, Uanna became a warlock pledged to Lady Antilia.
Lady Antilia’s peer is Ifrit’s father, Garuda. They both work for the Lord of Cania, Mephisto. Another peer of theirs is Alloces, the Butcher of Nessus.
Ifrit has heard that the Antilia, Garuda and Alloces are hunting down a powerful magical artifact for Mephisto. The artifact is thought to be held by the "Bear" who is hunted by the "Hawk".
Gorgoroth knows the Bear as Kylar Bearcharger and the Hawk as Erthok Huntinghawk. If Kylar has a powerful magical artifact, it may be the Seed of Winter, a Hexabeyance. The Seed was lost by the Heroes of Brindol when they were captured by githyanki in the Feydark.
The “Confederation” mentioned by Guy Peoples could mean Asmodeus' Confederation, a Hexabeyance. The Confederation could also be a legal document signed between Asmodeus and human lords, who bound themselves to the devil, thus creating the tiefling race.
With their personal business concluded, the Party shared in a Heroes Feast ritual with the professors and students of Prismatica Luminaire. The professors couldn’t agree on which location to take the children, so they debated over dinner.
They decided to send Professor Garlic, Hecat and Onai with the Party to investiage and hopefully secure Kaverna Proklet. If everything went well they would use their second Teleportation Circle ritual to call for the children and other professors. If everything went poorly for the scout team, Professor Black and the Ring of Thornes would use the second scroll to go investiate the Platinum Nexus.
In Kaverna Proklet, Lat’num showed Hecat how to use the digital control panel. While doing so they noticed that the cyro chambers were all powered down. There was also a disturbance down the hall.
Inspecting the cryo pods revealed that the two sleeping astral dwarves were missing and their pods had been pried open. The dwarves were not found and the there was no blood or signs of struggle inside the pods.
Down the hall the Party heard someone chanting, “Five, six, seven, eight.”
S’thom snuck a peek. A green slaad impatiently choreographed three dwarves and a strange warforged in a dance routine. When they spotted S’thom, she was invited inside to audition. The slaad introduced himself as Polluck. The dwarves were Alexis, Nicole (a male dwarf) and Deborah. In a deep, electronic voice the warforged said “Becky.” Polluck was frustrated that they were just moving around and not "making art".
During dance practice, Nicole got jealous of S’thom’s dance moves and Becky accidently punctured Alexis’ neck with her iron elbow. Practice devolved into a brutal melee, to which Polluck cried, “Art! Performance art at its finest!” He liked the look of blood splattered across the floor.
The Party rushed into the room to help S’thom battle the motley dancers.
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