Session 16: Fair Warning

Wolfsday, 2 Sunfall, 998 Y.K.   The trip to Fairhaven took four days by lightning rail, more than enough time to Milli to acclimate to the throbbing in her forelegs every time the car passed over a conductor stone. Through the wide windows of the Wayfinder Foundation car, the party watched as Sharn's swamps and mountains passed into Eastern Breland's broad scrub, until finally entering the green and rolling hills of Aundair. The towers of the Arcane Congress, and the everpresent magical storm that floated above it, could be seen for leagues on a clear day, beckoning the group to approach.   As the railcar pulled into the station, Relic spotted Ander Reed, the explorer that had found him and brought him back to Khorvaire. The top of the halfling's head came just below the base of Milli's horn, but his tightly-curled ringlets easily added another inch of height. He wore a homespun shirt dyed the faintest yellow, and a pair of fine trousers, leaving his thickly-coiffed feet bare. As Relic knelt to greet his friend, Ander's eyes grew wide at the assemblied crew. When he came to gaze at Milli and her newly-harmonized legs, a wide smile broke out on his face, and he proclaimed her to be "full of tales."   Fairhaven's main streets were wide tree-lined streets, dotted with small shops that sat among the inns and common houses. Ander gestured this way and that as they spoke, highlighting new construction in the city. Most of the party turned turned to look as Ander pointed out various landmarks, but as they walked, Milli found herself increasingly distracted and uncomfortable. As the party turned onto a main thoroughfare leading to the Distant Exchange, Milli was overcome by a singular sense that hammered deep on her pony nature: predator.   The unicorn half-turned and ducked her head as if to bolt, but only by a supreme act of will called out to Medya instead. The gryphon held her partner, but then she too was distracted by a commotion in the distance. As she turned, the rest of the group also felt the weird, ephemeral tug that drew their attention to the intersection. At the far side of the thoroughfare, a towering black woman in half-plate polished to blinding with silver rings at the ends of her dreadlocks iwas running after a pale elf with a golden ponytail and sporting a red velvet jacket and shiny black pants, both decorated with gold brocade, who wasn't running so much as flying, pitched forward at an unnatural angle with his arms out to his sides, one leg raised off the ground.   The air split in a thunderburst, and a woman's voice boomed out, "Raelvan Surimandëlma, in the name of the Silver Flame, I command you to stand down!   The elf -- Raelvan, presumably -- came to a dead stop and spun around, yelling back, "I’m sorry, my dear; we’ll have to dance some other time. I’m late for a date with destiny!" He then turned back to face the party and sped directly at them. Stopping just shy of the group, he spread his arms wide and, as Bell and company gaped, he clapped his hands and squealed. “I'm so sorry to be late, curse it all! The train was early, and this was supposed to be a stately greeting! I haven’t time to stick around, but it's so good to finally meet you!” He then raised his arms, his fingers spread wide to show off a set of glowing red crystals. He swung at the ground and the crystals shattered, followed by a stale fetid wind and a rush of searing heat. The stones tore apart, and a deep agonizing bellow as forms -- massive elementals visibly corrupted by Raelvan's magic -- began to pull themselves out of the ground.   As Relic and Spark charged into action, Ander drew a rapier and leapt into the fray. They were joined moments later by the paladin, and the fight became a full-on brawl. As the party struggled to contain the elementals, Bell managed to land a solid blow on Raelvan, a wild strike that should have broken the elf's jaw as he tried to flee. Instead of falling, however, the elf simply spun in place and shoved his jaw back into place with a hollow grin. He bowed to the forged, then flew away, leaving the party to clean up the mess.   With the help of the newcomers -- and with Morran choosing to hide -- it took little enough effort to put down the pack of broken spirits. By the time they had, however, Raelvan was long gone, leaving only the paladin who approached Bell with her own hammer outstretched. "That hammer. Tell me where you got it. Now." The forged asked her name, and the paladin responded, "My name is Meledri Corus. That hammer belonged to my wife. I want to know how you got it." Bell pulled the ring the party found with the hammer and amulet, and Meledri closed her fist around her wife's wedding band. She held up her other hand, asking for a moment of silence, then said, "Much has just happened, and I'm not handling it well. I'd like a chance to get to know you for the first time again. I'm staying at the Cot and Cask in Whiteroof Ward. If I could ask you to come by later, once I've had a chance to think about all I've just learned, I'd appreciate it." With that, the paladin turned and walked away, leaving the group to marvel at what had just happened.   Once the air had cleared, Morran told the group that he needed to see his cousin Jorlanna, and he was feeling well enough to come find the party. Ander told him to come to the Wayfinders' headquarters near the Distant Exchange, and Morran thanked Milli again for getting him this far before setting out on his own. By royal decree, only goods not available in Aundair came to the Distant Exchange, and a hundred different sights and smells filled the air as the party passed: heavy cheese and dark beer from Karrnath, pearls and rockfish from Q'Barra, and fasteith hides from the Talenta Plains. One scent, however, stood out among the melange: glitterreed.   Following her nose, the unicorn came across an open tent in which a group of orcs and humans sat on thick woven rugs and giggled like foals around a pair of smoking hookahs, while an older orc sat behind a small bench covered in ceramic pots. "Reedpaste from the Tender's own fields in Patrahk'n," she said proudly, as she offered a taste of the wares. Milli took a puff off of one of the hookahs and found the world suddenly much brighter, softer, and more difficult to navigate even with all four hooves nominally on the ground. Medya quickly bought two pots and then moved to help her mate rejoin the others as they made their way to Ander's home.   The foyer of the three-story building was laid out like a museum: a giant suit of armor, almost as tall as the building itself, stood in a glass case just inside. A gargantuan stone slab covered in strange glyphs dominated one corner of the room, while a taxidermied owlbear loomed between a pair of overstuffed chairs. Ander invited the group to get comfortable and look around, then went upstairs to retrieve some notes. In the library, Zer found a map covered in strange writing that Relic identified as dates written in Rokugani, and Zer began eagerly making a copy. Soon after, Ander returned with a book of his own, and he invited the party to listen to his tale:   “About ten years ago," the explorer began, "I happened to be passing through Vedykar on my way back from a dig in the Ashen Spires, and while I was wandering through a street festival there I ran across this group of brightly-dressed monks engaged in an exhibition of swordplay the likes of which I had never seen before. The techniques they were using seemed really unusual, but I couldn’t figure out why. So, I sat and I watched for a while, and when the demonstration was over I approached one of the blademasters and I asked if I could get a look at her weapon. That’s when I realized what had caught my eye: the blades were single-edged, but faintly curved and with a two-handed grip, a design unlike any other I’d ever seen. The fighting techniques were all attuned to that basic design choice, and they were so clearly good at what they were doing that I knew this had to be the result of study and practice, but I’d never heard of any of these weapon techniques. In that moment, I knew there was a fantastic tale in the making, and I asked if they could tell me where they’d come up with the sword design. That’s how I got introduced to Master Kohai.   “He must’ve been in his late fifties or early sixties, still incredibly fit but starting to show his age. I introduced myself and the Wayfinders, and I asked him if he’d mind telling me about himself and however much of his history he could. He said he was happy to share what he could, but he didn’t know all that much himself. He explained that he was the latest mentor at a school that had started some two-hundred-fifty years ago — in 742 — when a knight named Isawa Sakonoko — family name first, like a noble or dragonmarked heir — sailed from a far-off land which he called Rokugan and arrived in Stormreach on the continent of Xen’drik. Sakonoko had brought with him three very important things: a magical dagger, a dead body, and instructions to bury both as far from home as he could get. He also had a walking stick said to be carved from a sacred tree, and his nautical charts, including a map with the route he found himself taking marked out for us. It’s under glass in the library. Finally, he was accompanied by his kohei, or student, a kid by the name of Shiba Sansesuke.”   “Well, Sakonoko and Sansesuke needed a way to get by, and Stormreach was dicey territory even today, so they opened a martial school both as a way of making some money and to make use of their skills. The school attracted a small following, and they ended up growing until they caught the eye of one of the bandit princes that operated in the area. Apparently he sent a raiding party in the middle of the night, because Sakonoko and Sansesuke both survived the assault, but most of their students got killed. After, Sakonoko passed his staff and stewardship of the school to Sansesuke and wandered off into the jungle. Kohai didn’t know what happened to him, but he assumed Sakonoko died of exposure.   “Sansesuke, in his own atonement, renounced the sword and took up art. Apparently another knight from Rokugan showed up at one point, and only the fact that he’d become a pacifist kept him from being killed in a duel. However, he kept on teaching at the school, and he eventually took on a kohai of his own, a woman from Stormreach named Soranda Faldren. When Sansesuke died and Soranda took over the school, she kept the mantle Kohai and eventually passed it on to her student.   “In 902, the Galifar Navy seized control of the waterways around Stormreach and opened up clear passage to Khorvaire. Shortly after that, the school packed up and headed north. The next Kohai was named Fraedus Taggart, and then Dover Sykes after that. Incidentally, Master Kohai did mention his name, but he also said it had been so long since anyone had called him anything but Master Kohai that that might as well have been his name at this point.   It took three years for me to convince the board to dedicate its Fall mission to retracing Sakonoko’s journey, following his map. The voyage took about a month, but we found what had Master Kohai called ‘the island at Empire’s Edge, where the Shrine of Hope’s Dreaming lie.’ There we found an abandoned ceremonial site of some kind. It was too small to be a temple, just two rooms carved into the rocks, with a roof but no front door or windows. We found sigils we think were part of a warding spell around the island, but several of the rocks had been worn smooth with the tides and vegetation had grown into the site. The front room was sparsely appointed with what had probably been personal adornments. There was a tattered silk that still had some color to it, probably a flag of some kind, a couple of folded bits of cloth we think were dress robes, and the like. It looked like a setup for someone lying in state.   In the back room, we found a shortsword in a scabbard and the remains of a lacquered stand, and a book of artificing research that had probably been there since before Sakonoko passed by the island on the way out. None of us could read the text, but the diagrams inside it were unmistakable. And in the center of the room, pinned in place by a livewood tree we had dated to at least before 800YK thanks to a cutting tagged and frozen in a numbered vault in one of our many safehouses, was an almost completely intact forged that clearly predated any claim House Cannith could make to having invented them.   You, Relic, are prior art.   So we loaded what we could on board, then tried to sail on south, but a storm — clearly magical in nature but of a type we couldn’t dispel — drove us back whenever we got more than a mile south of the shrine. As soon as turned around, though, the skies cleared. We didn’t have means to pass whatever veil had stopped us, so we sailed for home. Boroman’s been too sick to try to translate any of the texts, and Giff says he needs a base text from which to work; the writing’s clearly ideographic and faintly magical, like Eldarin or !irek. Magic’s not my strong suit, so until someone cracks the language, our next best move is to sail back to the Shrine and try to pierce the storm with a bit more magic.   Everything we found at the shrine is yours. It all belongs to you, clearly, and I swear on Olladra’s own dice that had I been here when you were ready to leave, I would have given it directly to you. I’d gotten called away on a research assignment, one I’d been pestering Lavalle for months to fund and that he finally said we could afford. He swore to me he’d take care of it, and when I got back the first thing he did was tell me he was terribly sorry but there’d been a break-in at the Foundation, and several valuables had been stolen from the upper vault, including your possessions. Someone took out the hinges on the kitchen door with sage’s water, an expensive alchemical compound that only dissolves metals. They also took out the lock and hinges on the vault door. The Watch has a case number, but so far as I know all their leads have gone cold.   I’d love to be able to tell you we’re heading back there this fall, but that hinges on figuring out how to pierce that storm and selling the trustees on this plan over trying to establish a permanent base camp in the Frostfell. I don’t think we’re anywhere near ready, but Boroman says he’s not going out without setting foot at the heart of every continent, and Argonnessen’s the only other one left for him. I have a copy of the map, at least, if you want to make a go of the voyage yourself. And I’ve got my own notes about Master Kohai’s stories, everything I just told you, I have written down. I’m really glad to see you again. I just wish I had more good things to report."   The room was deathly quiet when Ander cloed his book; the implications of his words hung in the air. Relic said he had much to think about, but that he and Spark should follow up with the Watch. Ander gave them the case number he had for the theft and said dinner would be at seventh hour, and he'd introduce them to the rest of the trustees of the Foundation. The case file turned out to be uncomfortably empty, with only a single witness statement documented. The local constabulary seemed disinterested in further investigation, and Relic found their silence to be tinged with entirely too much condescension. Lacking further leads, they returned to the Wayfinders to talk about what they had learned of themselves and each other.   Zer left Eid to finish tracing the map for him, and he joined Milli, Medya, and Bell in meeting Meledri at the Cot and Cask. The paladin showed much the same quiet resolve, though she spoke with less force in her voice. She told the party that Raelvan was wanted in Thrane for the ritual sacrifice of three Thaliost citizens, and that he had waited at the scene of the crime long enough to be identified before fleeing the city, eluding a half-dozen inquisitors to do so. She asked the party what they knew of her wife's death, and she listened as they told her of Cazha. Meledri told the group that Teles had been sent to Sharn following rumors of fiendish activity, and that if the Bleak Council was involved, it was bad news for everyone.   At dinner, Ander introduced the party to logistics officer Vikan, auctioneer Shensari, curator Imre, and accountant Dorein. The halfling apologized that their president and leader Boroman wasn't feeling well enough to join them, and that his bodyguard Giff was eating with him in Boroman's room. As plates of succulent roast and braised vegetables passed around the table, Imre raised his glass in a toast. As those who needed to eat tucked into dinner, Relic asked Imre -- a dwarf with a cloth skullcap and a salt-and-pepper beard -- if the dwarf could share his own thoughts on what happened to the other artifacts that had been found with him.   As Relic asked the question, Zer subtly cast a zone of truth around the table. When Imre then apologized for not having any more information to share, Zer felt -- and shared -- the skin-crawling sensation putting the lie to the curator's words. As Relic asked more and more leading questions, Imre's answers became more and more rambling until finally, the monk simply asked, "why are you lying to us?"   Imre, unaware of the spell, spat back, "because the Aurum knows best." And with that, a heavy pall fell across the table, punctuated only by Dorein dropping her fork. Ander exploded into motion, leaping across the table to land on the dwarf as Imre scrambled to get away. The point of the halfling's rapier pressed into his back, however, convinced Imre to stop moving. A few questions later, Relic had Imre's confession that he'd paid off the guard and stolen the relics himself. The sword he sold to Hilde Solonak, a weapons collector in Korrn; and Sakonoko's traveling diaries went to a man named Kalphian Riak in Sharn. Finaly, he'd given the book of artificing to d'Cannith Merrix I in Eston, a goodwill gift to ease tensions between the Aurum and the dragonmarked houses.   With Imre's admission of guilt in hand, Relic lifted the dwarf and carried him to the Fairhaven watchtower, to have his confession added to the open case. Dorein had apparently snuck out during the confusion, but now the party had a solid lead on recovering the rest of Relic's history.