Session 19: Smells Like Childhood

Fourthmonth 20th – Fourthmonth 28th

That thing I said last week about talking to Taevin’s contact? That conversation also involved Taevin giving Blank a package to deliver to his Uncle Grizby, who lives in Gorzam, his old hometown.

They went back to the Black Angle; Soern asked Cer-Athene for a staff of water and waves, which would arrive in 14 days. Then Sigrid went to talk to Ea-Shamar, and (unsuccessfully) tried to negotiate giving Gannen “prosecutorial immunity” if they could retrieve Iu-Malan.

Then everyone went back to the boat, Soern cast scry on Gannen, and discovered him killing people in the streets of an unfamiliar town. Based on Soern’s extensive knowledge of architecture, he deduced that this was most likely Gorzam, a northern, unsavory sort of place from which Blank turned out to hail.

They did a bit of checking up on K’max’s, and discovered that he was some kind of fighter-type, worked for Mixastomere, and had been seen in town only a few times in the past six months. Soern cast a few protective spells on the ships, and they set sail for Gorzam.

They went down to Blank’s Uncle Grizby’s tavern, the Scurvy Seadog, and hung out there for a while. Blank delivered his package, and Grizby gave them the latest rumors—filled them in on the murders, mostly. There were several separate incidents, involving two people who were probably Gannen and Monala by description, where they killed a lot of people (or, rather, Gannen killed a lot of people, and Monala happened to be there) and then teleported away, taking the bodies.

Then they headed down to the black market, run by Blank’s childhood friend, Don Marko. He and Blank reminisced while Soern sold some things, and bought some things. (Most notably, the oils necessary for animate the dead, lesser.) He also checked up on Gannen (at the Temple of the Hora Quan, talking to a dracha), and Sigrid tried (momentarily) to buy a boat.

Then they visited to Pental and talked to Morek, who assigned Sigrid a henchman/assistant, a greataxe-wielding warmain named Jocelyn, after she (and the rest of the crew) explained their plans—bringing back the Hora Quan.

They sailed back to Ao-Manasa, picked up the items they’d ordered from Cer-Athene, and scried Gannen again. He was somewhere dark, probably underground, and they then made plans to teleport in and rescue him. They decided they would leave Paerk and Jocelyn behind, and the key with Paerk. (Because they didn’t want to have all the items on the list they’d found in the pirate hideout in one place.)

Soern teleported the rest of them, and they found themselves in a dark room with Gannen and Iu-Molan. Iu-Molan was somewhat confused, and Gannen was completely unresponsive. The room was filled with ice mephits, and a giant block of ice. The observant among them spotted a glittering jewel along the lines of what they had recovered from the Island of the Jeweled Trees in the ice. The quickly deduced that this had something to do with the second poem they’d found—and that it was very important not to melt the ice, because that would probably fulfill the requirements for reactivating the Hora Quan, which was exactly what Monala wanted.

Unfortunately, despite their care in battling the mephits, someone still let off a blast of fire. Someone invisible, probably Monala. The aftermath involved everyone fleeing (very dramatically) just inches ahead of the lava.