Ep 17: "Unexpected Guests"

GB read the Tome and chose to investigate VKTR. He began his search in Pinbol’s library and expanded to the city library he had access to through his connection to Hobbes. Neither search yielded any reference to VKTR at all. Cyl went to Afra (head of the lightsmith’s guild) to see if she could obtain another spell scroll of sending. Afra told her that the spell scroll is very expensive, but she could try to track something down. Finkoo continued to work on weapon-hiding equipment and his special project from Alfra for the boat-lift.

Mari researched at Pinbol’s library to try to understand where Whatever’s premonitions are coming from. Because there are a lot of ways to get divination magic to work, her results were pretty general. After meeting at the library, GB lectured her a little about where he thinks such magic comes from: the School of Invention.

Oisin checked on Pinbol and found no answer at the tower. They tried to pick their way through the lock and was not able to with their improvised thieves’ tools. Stoax knocked on Seldanna’s door and invited her to speak with Lady Arasys. Jastra waited for Seldanna in Jastra’s office. Seldanna’s mother slowly finished the letter she was writing and cleaned her fantasy office supplies in the most passive aggressive way possible. She finally got out the list of names of eligible suitors that Seldanna had given to her. Jastra was surprised with Seldanna’s list: she deemed a particular suitor unworthy; she questioned the choice to not include any humans; and, she did not understand why Nathaniel Brell’s name was on the list. Seldanna justified the choice, they were getting closer recently and their families were engaged in negotiations that the marriage might help. Jastra crossed out all the names other than Tybalt and Nathan. Jastra pushed her and Seldanna said she’d choose Nathaniel over Tybalt. Jastra seemed a little displeased with this. She said that she will make Seldanna’s choice for her by the end of the day. Seldanna kept her opinions to herself.

Cyl went to the safehouse where First, Might, Wit, and Allure are living to meet Al, if possible. Might let her in quickly, perhaps because he was standing guard. The goa have a beginner’s paint set out. Cyl saw that they had a container of raw eirshale curls from Al’s beard and hair having fallen off during the transformation. Al greeted Cyl warmly and charismatically conversed with her. He seemed to have been formed by First as a Face for their group. First showed Cyl seven vials of daydream, all green without flecks. Al suggested that she take the daydream so that she could join their goa-conclave, as if they were braith. Cyl expressed that she wanted to speak to First and Al told her that she was because of the conclave-like dream connection. She insisted. Cyl voiced her concerns that First might attempt to force transmute fleshies to goa because he felt before that goa are superior to non-goa races. Cyl described the history of the goa: objects to people; slaves to free-individuals. She suggested that forcing the transmutation on someone was against the philosophy of the goa as a people. First contended that he and the others are a new form of goa, not necessarily bound by the traditional goa culture. He suggested that that label was put on them by her and our party; it was not one that they adopted themselves. He said that they are both attempting to create more goa.

He posed a (hypothetical?) situation: if all the raw eirshale that existed were under the control of just one person and his army, what lengths would Cyl and the other goa go to to stop him from wasting it. Cyl deftly distinguished that hypothetical—a person that would do such a thing is not innocent. The people that have been transmuted against their will by tainted daydream aren’t equivalent to that. First asked if she would join them through the use of daydream. Before she answered, Cyl requested assurance that he was not going to force convert people. First said that he would always cast the healing magic on an infected daydream sufferer. Al revealed that Holly believed that none of the tainted daydream takers died without magic. First essentially argued that the individuals that were taking tainted daydream were worth less as they are than they would be as goa. Cyl and First reached an impasse and First put away the daydream. The four new goa stand in unison and begin to leave. Cyl revealed that “she’s sick and she’s scared.” They left without hesitating.

Cyl waited for them to leave and then attempted to force the locked chest of drawers with the daydream in it. She was not able to get in softly, so she used her chisel and hammer to pop the entire top off. She found the seven green daydream bottles, a drawer full of the red daydream, and a full drawer of eirshale infected fungus. She took one green daydream and all of the red. She wrote a note in white paint, saying she was sorry. She left. She did not take the raw eirshale.

Tea Garden

Kurt Bramblewold (world’s tallest halfling at 5’10”) greeted the Seldanna as she entered. He showed her to the back balcony. The party gathered there. Mari gave Finkoo a crown for his help with the zozo juice. Seldanna, Cyl, and Oisin act reserved during tea, as their mornings weigh on them. Oisin revealed that Pinbol and Mo didn’t answer when she went by. The party freaked out and left. On the way out, Mari gave Seldanna a flower. As they left, Tybalt, in a nice blue suit, approached Seldanna and quasi-flirted with her, joking that he has competition. The party jumped in and claimed that we were all competing for her hand. Tybalt kind of ignored them. He said he was scheduled to see her for dinner.

Pinbol’s Tower

As the party passed the Reinard’s House, they saw a host of people sprucing it up, but did not know why.

No one answered our ring of the Pinbol’s tower’s doorbell. Cyl tried to climb the slide to no avail. Finkoo attempted to pick the lock to the door and got it after attempting for a while. Oisin opened the door and triggered a fear-laced magical trap. Everyone but Oisin, who appeared unaffected, and Cyl, who was up the slide, saw their greatest fear and ran away for a full minute.

Guards saw Seldanna running away and tried to escort her home. Finkoo tried to help convince them that that was not necessary. She was not able to fully shake them, but they did agree to escort her to where she’s heading. She decided to lie, having them take her and Finkoo to Nathan’s house. They knocked and speak with Nathan’s uncle Preston. She and Finkoo entered to see if Nathaniel was home. Finkoo, Seldanna, and Preston awkwardly spoke. The uncle inquired about their visit. Seldanna withheld the real reason for this awkward meeting but honestly told him that she didn’t know what her mother would be telling him shortly when they meet. The uncle found that Nathan was not home. Seldanna and Finkoo began leaving and ran into Stoax at the front door.

Stoax and Jastra stood outside the door. Seldanna awkwardly stood in the way until the second time that Jastra asked her to move. She stepped out of the way. Jastra saw Finkoo hiding despite his nearly inhuman effort of sliding into a coat and hanging on the coatrack. Learning that Finkoo is a tinkerer, Jastra hired Finkoo to build something for Seldanna’s wedding on the 17th of next month, to occur at the Reinard House.

Back at the tower, there was no sign of struggle and no answer to the party’s calls. Cyl and Oisin head upstairs but Oisin suffered the effects of some sort of weakness spell. It only affected him while he was on the stairs. Oisin and GB looked around downstairs while Cyl and Mari headed upstairs.

Oisin used detect magic to look around—there’s magic everywhere, including on the stairs, the door, the windows, etc. GB opened the cellar door (despite the transmutation aura on it) and found a new ten-by-ten-foot room with a conjuration aura. GB could see a magical teleportation circle on the ground and copied it into his Hobbes’s Tome of Transcription. The rest of the party could not. There seemed to be something different about GB’s eyes that let him read it. Cyl and Mari find about a third of everything upstairs had gone missing. Finkoo and Seldanna finally got back and the party shared what they learned (except that Seldanna did not share that the wedding was set). Patsy showed up from the cellar as we were standing on the first floor. Patsy said that Pinbol was moving out to a house they built him. GB revealed that they knew about the teleportation circle as evidence that Pinbol trusts them. Finkoo reinforced it by saying we had keys to the tower. Patsy finished packing and headed to activate the circle.

Pinbol’s New Home

Oisin invisibly stepped into the circle as it activated. GB jumped in immediately after Patsy reactivated it. We end up in a black room with one door. GB opened a door to a hallway filled with six doors on either side. The hallway ends in a T. In one direction, there were more doors and an alcove with a suit of armor. In the other, there were just more doors. They don’t hear any response to their calls and tried to open a door. The floor dropped out from under them.

Pinbol’s Tower

The party tried to figure out whether to go through the circle to retrieve GB and Oisin or not. Mari cast augury by cutting her hair and determined that going through teleportation circle after them would be positive. The party asked her about it and she honestly told them that she did not know how it worked, but she knew that it did.

Patsy kind of gave up on the situation a little. He said that he planned on telling Pinbol that the party beat him up and stole the dust. He handed the dust over, along with the rolled-up bag of holding he’d been filling with Pinbol’s stuff. It had a unique property that you can think of chaos or randomness and pull out a random item. Everyone other than Seldanna willingly stepped onto the circle as Patsy activated it. At the last moment, Patsy pushed Seldanna through the circle. Seldanna, Cyl, Mari, and Finkoo looked around the same T shaped hallway and opened the black door at the end of the right hallway. They found a waiting room in which they find Boss whistling. GB and Oisin fell to within 50’ of the ground until an illusion vanished and they found themselves inside a cell. An armored dummy stares at GB and Oisin without reacting to GB’s attempts at conversation.

Cyl and Boss argued about whether it was appropriate for Patsy to force them to mug Patsy. Boss reluctantly escort Seldanna, Cyl, Mari, and Finkoo to speak to Pinbol. Boss led them through an illusory wall using bracelets that Boss handed out. The bracelets were necessary to get through the wall. Oisin explained why the party was so concerned about his disappearance. Pinbol reacted very warmly to their concern—he loved that they cared so much. However, he reacted poorly to hearing that GB and Oisin may have touched a door. Pinbol touched a black surface on the wall with arcane symbols hovering just off of it. A previously imperceptible thrumming ended as he deactivated something. Pinbol lead the party down to the cell.

As the thrumming ended, the dustrags (the dust-filled sackguard in the armor) crumpled to the ground just before it got to GB’s caltrop trap and just before Oisin broke into a rage. Pinbol revealed to the party that his new house floats above the city. He immediately admitted that eirshale was used in the construction and apologized. He said he didn’t know. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t bother to do the research. Cyl told Pinbol that the sending scroll that they tried to use didn’t work. Pinbol comforted her and provided three more sending scrolls. Pinbol gave Oisin a bag of the teleportation dust and a key to the tower. (not written in HOBBES’S TOMES OF TRANSCRIPTION)

Arasys Home:

Seldanna got home to find the dinner table set for only two places, hers and her mother’s. Stoax said this was because Jastra no longer felt it necessary to host the dinner. Jastra and Seldanna share small talk over dinner, ignoring the immense elephant in the room. Upon Seldanna asking, Jastra explained that the Reinar Estate was chosen because it was the most prestigious location in the city. Jastra ended the episode by revealing that her negotiations went better than expected. Seldanna will become the queen.